10 Top Tips For Successful Entrepreneurs

Successful entrepreneurs depend on their creative thinking abilities in order to create external income and wealth opportunities. The ability to draw on internal skills and positive strengths are vital to achieving success.

Lateral thinking involves thinking about the same subject from a different perspective, rather than changing the subject you’re thinking about.

To become more successful you can start using lateral and creative thinking here are some useful tips to get started.

1. Collaboration

It is difficult to succeed if you are working alone. Successful entrepreneurs usually surround themselves with talented and creative people.

Collaboration is very important for success as you need to liaise with partners, clients and significant players in your network.

Usually, your network will include people you don’t meet face to face but might be based all over the world. With technology and business requirements becoming more specialized, the quality of work can be improved by tapping into your global network for specialized skills that you might required for your business.

This can also be very useful if you use outsourcing or off-shoring in your business model.

2. Creativity

The modern business environment requires individuals who can come up with new ideas, evaluate them effectively and turn them into successful products and services.

Apart from the usual conventional thinking, some lateral thinking is vital if you want to create a service or product that changes something already done or is totally innovative.

These are 5 of the  most important questions you should be asking yourself and be able to answer in your creative thinking process when starting your business or idea:

•  What is the problem
• What’s my solution
• What are the benefits
• What is the market
• How do I monetize it

Lateral thinking generally involves analyzing the same ideas in different perspectives.

While a conventional thinker may not see any connection between say art and business, a lateral thinker would be open to having several perspectives and make the connections.

Many artists have turned their art into successful businesses.

Without strong entrepreneurship skills, it would be difficult to identify opportunities in your marketplace.

Similar skills would be necessary to turn your ideas into products which in turn would be translated into profits. Just as there are many definitions of success, there are also many characteristics and skills that can propel you to success.

3. Choose something you enjoy doing

The road to success may be long and bumpy, so if you choose to do something that you don’t like doing, your chances of giving up will be very high.

4. Believe everything you do

If you’re not committed to the services or goods that you offer, it’ll be easy for anyone to shift your attention to something else. Naysayers will also easily dampen your morale.

5. Make sure you have a plan

Planning various aspects of your business enables you to create habits that enable you to develop, implement and stick to your objectives. Planning your business gives you the opportunity to assess various business situations, research and compile relevant data before making conclusions.

Planning involves writing down your goals and how you intend to achieve them.

6. Manage your money well

You need money to pay for services, buy inventory, promote and market your business, prepare and replace your equipment and to pay yourself.

Effective management requires that your income should exceed your expenses.

7. Ask for sales

Regardless of how well you advertise, promote and market your goods, if you can’t make a sale then it’s all for nothing.

Even though you might possess all the relevant skills, you need to ask people to buy whatever you selling.

8. Keep the customer first

Instead of focusing on your products, prices or competition, you need to concentrate on your clients or customers.

All your operations should be customer oriented. Whether it’s about your payment options, warranties, promotional campaigns, advertising, presentations or policies, always have your customers in mind.

9. Project a positive image 

There is usually a very small window to make a memorable impression on your prospective clients. Successful entrepreneurs make a conscious effort to ensure that the image they project is professional.

Creating and maintaining your professional image calls for creativity, imagination and attention to detail.

10. Build your knowledge

Make sure you become an expert in your field, products service or industry. Really know your stuff and be prepared to answer everything. Read up on the latest trends and competition in your space, sign up to blogs and news services to keep informed.

You could also sign up to forums and comment or post on your specialist area to show others your expertise and subject authority.

Feel free to share your comments and ideas below.