Want to Be a Successful Entrepreneur?

By Mr. Free Spirit (Posted June 12, 2017)

How old do you have to be to be a successful entrepreneur?
Want to Be a Successful Entrepreneur?

Learn to reinvent Yourself if your first attempt fails.

Some entrepreneurs told me how incredibly stressful it is to pitch ideas in front of would-be investors. It was described like “Shark Tank,” but instead of watching it on TV, you’re right there under the lights, in the action. For an entrepreneur, who maybe shy, introverted, and modest by nature, it could be terrifying. Speaking of terrifying, some entrepreneurs recently told me about how difficult it is to deliver bad news.

The point is that few entrepreneurs, especially first-time entrepreneurs, are ready for what comes at them from a people perspective when building a business. To succeed, you need to be able to step outside of your comfort zone and reinvent yourself – finding the courage to do things they never thought they’d have to do, or that they’d can do.
So how can entrepreneurs get out of this box and learn to reinvent themselves while at the same time reinventing their current business thoughts?

Let’s break this up into steps:

The first step is two-fold: recognizing that reinventing yourself is just as important a task as reinventing your business.
Then, once you’ve convinced yourself of the imperative, doing an inventory of your challenges. No one likes to admit weaknesses, but just as you look for the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in a business deal, use that same thought pattern on yourself. Where are your blind spots? What do you struggle with? Be honest with yourself and stay dedicated to reality.
The second step is to assess your own personal motivation.
You’ve done your personal analysis and find that you struggle with sales, or networking or at delivering bad news. The next step is making sure that this is something you care about improving. What’s in it for you to get better at this? Will it help your company grow and thrive? We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone. Will it help you become a more effective businessperson? Will it help you achieve your goals and ambitions? Definitely. Embracing your internal motivation is an essential step for making anything happen, especially personal transformation. Give light and the darkness will disappear of itself.
Finally, the last step is to test your newly reinvented self.
Try out the new behavior. Look at how others do it, and ask friends for help. Maybe even enlist the help of a coach. If test number one doesn’t work, try again. Change your behavior, or try it in a different setting. Remind yourself of your motivation to go out there and do it, and just like you’d test and improve a product/service, do the same with this new version of yourself.
In the end, personal reinvention isn’t easy, but it is essential. Don’t let the most critical task of an entrepreneurial career fall by the wayside. Step outside of your comfort zone, embrace change, and you’ll be well on your way to achieving your goals.

A Marketing Funnel
A marketing funnel is a system of enticing your target market to your business and then leading them through a process that allows them to learn about you and, hopefully, to buy.
Through each stage of the funnel, the prospect engages a little bit more with you. At each stage, the number of prospects gets smaller, but their interest is growing.

There are several stages of the funnel, but in general, the funnel moves a lead from their initial awareness of you to making a purchase.

The stages of the funnel are:
1. Awareness: This is the widest part of the funnel where leads first discover you.
2. Interest: Once you’ve made yourself known, your job is to capture the leads’ interest and have them learn more about you and the value you provide.
3. Desire/Consideration: You’ve piqued your prospects’ interests to the point they want what you’re offering, but they’re still working to determine if they really want to invest in the product or service, and if so, if they want to buy from you.
4. Action/Purchase: If you’ve satisfied the prospect’s questions and concerns, he’ll move into the lowest, narrowest part of the funnel and become your customer or client.

One of the nice things about a marketing funnel is that some aspects can be automated. However, it’s important to remember that the goal is to build trust, credibility and rapport so that prospects feel good about hiring or buying from you. This means through each stage you’re providing more value and developing a stronger relationship with your leads.

How to Set Up a Marketing Funnel
The widest part at the top has the most prospects. It’s where everyone who first encounters your businesses enters. One you have their attention, you want to offer a variety of resources that pique their interest further, deliver value, and builds trust and rapport. These resources are used by the consumer in their evaluation of your business. If you’re successful, the prospect moves through the funnel to the end and hires or buys from you.

Let’s talk about real entrepreneurs that have either started and are successful or a new entrepreneur that I mentor.

I will start with Mr. Gary Johnson:

Most people are afraid to: STOP! AND TAKE A SERIOUS ASSESSMENT OF THEIR LIFE!

At one time Gary Johnson was like most of the people described above. After years of personal frustration, Gary conducted an honest self-assessment of his abilities and decided that he was not living up to his potential. He learned how to develop goals and achieve personal success and fulfillment. A successful senior officer, Gary shocked his colleagues by announcing that he was leaving his “good government job” to spend more time with his children.

With the support of his family, Gary exercised his faith and courage to live his dreams and do what he wanted to do with his life.
Gary is a dreamer, a thinker and a winner in life! He had a plan. A plan where he defined his success!

Gary Johnson has inspired and entertained thousands of people with his powerful story telling ability. At the age of 23, Gary was assigned to The White House where he worked for three Assistants to the President for National Security Affairs. Throughout his 40-year career, including 18-years with the federal government, Gary worked as a Mail Clerk, Intelligence Watch Analyst, Security Officer, Special Agent/Investigator, Supervisor, Manager and Training Consultant, Strategist and Talent Acquisition Expert.

Growing up Gary was unwilling to let others evaluate his potential based on test scores and other subjective criteria. He was determined to define his own success. Eleven years later, Gary graduated with a BS degree in Organizational Management from Columbia Union College and had attended the Antioch University School of Law, where he studied in the Masters of Legal Science program.

Gary learned how to set goals. He also learned how to network, be mentored and be strategic within an organization. In the end, Gary used his personal power to define his success. The same personal power that we all have, but don’t always know how to use.

As a certified management trainer, facilitator and consultant, Gary either independently or in collaboration with other HR firms, provided training, consulting and facilitation services to numerous Fortune 500 companies in almost every industry, Wall St. firms and government organizations. Among these organizations are John Deere, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Abbott Labs, American Honda Motor Company, The World Bank, the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to name a few.
Gary is the Founder and Publisher of Black Men In America.com, an online news and magazine and Homework Help Page, a comprehensive compendium of web links designed to help parents and children with homework and research projects.

What is the online Black Men in America.com all about?

Black Men in America.com is a popular website with a focus on black men. Approximately 45% of our site visitors are women. According to Alexa Internet and Ranking.com, Black Men in America.com is consistently ranked as one of the Top 10 most popular web sites (online community) on the Internet in the Ethnic/African/African-American category. Although our focus is on black men, we welcome all people, points of views and perspectives.

Let’s move on to Ms. Joia Bullock (https://twitter.com/artbyjoia)

Joia Bullock is a young, female artist from Prince George’s County Maryland. As a child, she began drawing and painting small pictures for personal recreation and for family members. At the age of 15, she began to take art more seriously and started to create paintings on canvas. Throughout her adolescent years, her talent as an artist and love for art grew and she decided to pursue art as a career. In 2015, she ventured to San Francisco, California to study at the Academy of Art University to hone her skills. After a year of studying at the Academy of Art University, she started a business and branded herself as “artbyjoia” designing hats and other merchandise based on her own art. She is currently continuing her studies at Frostburg State University working towards a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Art. “To live is to experience and through experience I create” is her own personal motto and is how she finds inspiration for her art. Her artwork is based from dreams she’s had and places she’s gone. Through experience, her love for art grows every day.
Keep in mind Joia is both young and a college student, therefore I spoke with Joia and her family and gave them a proposal. My proposal was if Joia continued her studies and her grades warranted, Mr. Free Spirit, Black men in America and The JLB Group will open a gallery in 2018 and feature Joia’s works. Of course, Joia and her family accepted the offer. The name of the new art gallery will be “The Art Inferno” and will open in 2018.