As an entrepreneur making money should not be your primary motivation in running your own business. Sure more entrepreneurs become millionaires than people in the corporate world, but that is not reason enough to start your own business.
The best advice I have received while I was starting out is to focus on your passion. Once you decide what type of business you would run even if you made no money, then your focus should be on delivering the best products to your customers and continually improving your service and execution. If you are the best at providing for your customers then the money will come, but if money is your primary focus then chances are that you will not be providing well for your customers and your business will ultimately fail because of this.
Entrepreneurship has its ups and downs over being in the corporate world. There are some things that I absolutely love and others that I don’t like, but I would not trade it for the world. That is because I love what I do. It doesn’t seem like work because I love my businesses and the products we sell. It is this fact that helps me to get through both the good times and also the not so good times.
While we all hear about the 1 in a million stories about someone who strikes it rich quickly in business, the key is to building value in the market place in the long term. Don’t get hooked into this get rich quick mindset because it is as detrimental to you as the lottery mindset. Just focus on delivering for your customers at 110% performance. Don’t worry about the money, it will come. This is the only way to create a sustainable business with a solid foundation that will stand the test of time.
Tags: focus on the customers not the profit, get rich slowly, making money, pursue your passion, succeed in business, tips for entrepreneurs, Young Entrepreneurs
February 19, 2009 at 3:06 am |
This is a very good blog. I’ve been thinking about this a lot too. I wrote about this on my blog (thebloggery.weebly.com). I do not yet own a business, but I have already realized that to have the heart to go through with the struggles that come with building a business, you have to have passion; the money is not enough.