Starting with You
You are your business…so you need to be aware of your strengths and weaknesses. Do a SWOT analysis on yourself. You need to develop your self-awareness; identify your good and your bad points so you can make the most of the good, and develop coping strategies for the bad. You need to be brutally honest with yourself; be brave and find out what others’ perceptions of you are…your partner, your family, your friends, your work colleagues, your fellow sports club members.
How do you see yourself? What is your personality really like? The views you have of yourself may be wildly different from how others see you. If you want to be successful in life and in business, it’s important to get to know yourself intimately and why you behave in particular ways in particular situations and with particular people!
Only then can you make any changes that you need to succeed. You may be blissfully unaware that people see you as scatty and disorganised, when perhaps you just have so much going on that you don’t take time with people or you’re always late for meeting friends or you show up on the wrong day. Perhaps you can’t say no to requests from friends and then when the time comes you have to invent an excuse not to do something.
Take a close look at some of your behaviours and especially recurring patterns of behaviour. If you do not organise your time well and are always late for meetings then you’ll find that business people won’t give you the second or third chances that your friends and family might. You will have to learn to plan your time better. Perhaps you always underestimate the time that it takes you to travel somewhere, and never allow any time for train or road delays. In the business world you need to be very careful. Or perhaps you perceive yourself as more important and that your time is more valuable than theirs, so it doesn’t matter if you keep other people waiting…this is a really bad habit to have acquired, and you need to get rid of it!
Your personality will come through into your business. Try a self-discovery test with your partner or a close friend; if you both do it, then you’ll be less embarrassed and more honest! Take just 10 minutes each, don’t make too much of big deal, otherwise you’ll dictate the results. Structure it around a number of features, such as ‘first impressions’; ‘assertiveness’, ‘confidence’; ‘sensitivity’, ‘flexibility’, ‘independence’, ‘organisation’, ‘general outlook on life’….
Try a practice personality questionnaire such as that given in Appendix 2 that uses five dimensions to get a broad view of your personality; it may give you different insights into who and what you are, and perhaps highlight areas that you need to change. The interpretations of this will show how you are likely to behave in certain situations. Some aspects of your personality cannot be measured by this questionnaire and to get a more accurate picture of your personality you would have to complete a number of questionnaires under controlled conditions. There are a number available in the UK but they are controlled by the British Psychological Society, you can find out more by contacting them or reading some of the titles listed in the bibliography. Create your own personal profile and look at changing certain behaviours that stem from your personality. You won’t be changing your personality, but modifying the behaviour. You can choose to change yourself and to adapt to new situations.
Think about what you would most like to change; perhaps you’d like to be more confident with new people and able to talk easily. You are a shy person and this will be a real drawback if you want to run your own business. So how can you learn ways of appearing and of being more confident or extrovert? Try being more assertive by starting more sentences with I think, I want, rather than be self-effacing and apologetic. Don’t use qualifying statements; such as I wonder if, or I’m sorry to bother you…try ‘Can you!’ Actively ask what other people thing…what do you think? And suggest responses such as ‘We could’…Extroverts read the signs from other people and respond accordingly. A shy, introverted person needs to learn how to do this…focus on the other person, not on whether you are feeling uncomfortable or not and you will actually start to feel more comfortable. And new behaviours are like anything you do, you have to practise to get better. Try a situation where the success rate will be high and your fear of failure low in a safe environment of friends and colleagues or maybe a new social acquaintance, rather than a new business meeting! Be more assertive in meetings, more decisive in family situations, firmer when dealing with sales people. All successful change depends on feedback, so you need to watch for the effect you have had.
If you start to act with confidence and you will start to be more confident…and people will treat you as such, reinforcing your behaviour. Look and sound as though you know what you are doing. Your immediate impact to others is made up of 55% appearance and body language, 38% tone, pitch, pace of voice, and only 7% words. So look the part!!
As you become more self-aware and build confidence you can develop your own personal branding which then becomes your business. Build your own brand and vision into your business brand and vision with the same views, approaches and ethical and moral codes of behaviour for yourself, your staff and your suppliers.
Who do you need to be to run your own business? The entrepreneurial profile that is important to you and also to people who might lend you money such as banks and venture capitalist is perseverance; moderate risk-taking; need to achieve; self-control and independence. We can break this down further into a whole range of different attributes: persistent; stamina; aware; positive; optimistic; enthusiastic; tenacious; hard-working; logical; organised; responsible; realistic; patient; willing; outgoing; confident; open-minded; able to take criticism and advice; flexible; adaptable; good communicator; opportunist; self-motivated; sociable; self-belief; determined; assertive; and ability to cope with change and uncertainty. These are not just attributes of entrepreneurs but successful sports people, mountain climbers and many others!! You don’t need to be all of these things and some you can take action to help your approach…but the basic YOU matters. And this YOU needs to be unconstrained by other’s perceptions and expectations…so you should get out of bad behaviour and unhelpful habits, just because that’s how other people expect you to be, or you expect yourself to be, that’s no reason to continue.
Individuality, creativity, using your own ideas and hard work to achieve success and recognition, in control, determination, self-belief, these are all features of a successful entrepreneur. Do you have what it takes? Let’s start with the easy bits.
Perhaps you worry about some of the business competencies that you have. But remember lots of skills are transferable. You already have lots of skills that you may not be aware of. Think about all those skills and competencies that you use to get through the day. You organise your time, your money, your studies, your work, your family; you plan your finances, your holidays and trips, parties, sport or gym events; you look after your car; you do your studies; you do your work; you communicate with your colleagues, friends and family.
Be positive and start with what you are good at. Make the most of the skills and abilities you already have; and by putting yourself in new situations and experiencing new circumstances, always pushing yourself to do or learn something new then you can unlock hidden potential that you never knew you had. Recognise what you’re not very good at and ask for help. Asking for help is not failure; it is a very smart move! And there’s plenty of help available for developing business skills and competencies, personal development, financial planning; whatever you see the problem as you can get help from our support programmes, from your mentor, and from many other sources of help and advice that we can direct you to. Don’t be afraid to ask!
What do you want from life? What do you want from your work life? What do you want from running your own business? Only you can answer these questions. You will have your own views that will be different, perhaps very different, from someone else. You are a unique person; get in touch with your own uniqueness and value the differences from others around you. You may need to adopt a different self-image if you REALLY want to be successful. You need to look at and question your underlying assumptions and values about yourself and others. You will have a variety of roles that respond to other’s expectations of yourself. You can take responsibility for your life; it’s not up to others what you do or don’t do; or what you achieve or don’t achieve in life. It’s not your mother or father, or your partner, or your best friend, or your child that determines what you can or can’t achieve. But you can allow their expectations and perceptions of you to limit what you do.
Share your goals with others. Find some allies, people that support you and want you to succeed; these are not mentors but fellow travellers…
Focus on what you want in life. What are your priorities? What compromises are you prepared to make in your lifestyle if your business is not successful in the early days? Are you prepared to make sacrifices for later gains? Are you prepared to work hard and forego, holidays, say for the first few years? Make your vision of your future as clear as you can. Aim high. Adapt as you get older and aspirations change. There is inherent uncertainty in life; nothing is 100% certain. And right now doesn’t necessarily mean right for all time, be prepared to change and adapt. Prepare for the unexpected and embrace the unknown. Reconfiguring goals is ‘life’ with a capital L.