A Joyful Lesson In Entrepreneurship
What is the best way for an entrepreneur to find financing for their business?
In ‘Hybrid Entrepreneur”, I talked about the concept of builders versus Samaritans. Builders are those who want to build the business and samaritans are those who want to make an income on their savings as an alternative to putting in it a bank that doesn’t offer a great rate of return. I recommend finding samaritians, who are people in their community or in their family with money and make a compelling case on why they should invest in their business. It’s no longer about large companies but more about smaller companies in communities getting off the ground with help of those communities. When communities help local entrepreneurs it produces local employment, so it’s a win-win. I would also recommend people rethinking the cost to start their business. So I advocate for people to find ways to start smaller, smarter and leaner and growth the company with the resources they already have.
What advice would you give to the entrepreneur who has dreamed up their business and planned it but is running into challenges in the execution phase?
If your challenge is that you are not generating any revenue, the market is telling you that your product or service is not something [consumers ] want and you have to tweak your service. If your challenge is revenue [coming at a slow rate] or you’re getting picked off by competition, then you have to look at your business and have metrics in place to identify the problem. Talk to people-one of the worse things an entrepreneur can do is stay isolated. There are so many resources out there to help you troubleshoot your business.
How would one go about aligning their passion and starting a business to produce profit?
Passion is a good thing but not in the way it is often talked about. People oftentimes talk about starting a business based on their passion specifically; I say do it if your passion is something consumers will pay for and spend their money on. One might say ‘I love to cook, I’ll start a restaurant’, but if there is a glutton of restaurants in your area or you don’t have a solid business model to make that restaurant profitable, that’s not the route to go.
I think another way to fuel your business with passion is not always making your passion the core of your business but being passionate about another part the business. For instance, you may not be head over heels about business insurance but you may be passionate about customer service .
There are so many forms of marketing available to entrepreneurs. Which ones have worked best for you?
Internet marketing. The Ms. CEO radio show has been a great marketing tool for me. I would encourage other to use online radio as a platform for marketing. BlogTalk Radio allows you to do it for free. American trust has been miserably obliterated and what online radio allows one to do is build trust. Week after week, people can determine if you know what you’re talking about and overtime you build trust with listeners
What would the Felicia Joy of today tell the Felicia Joy of three years ago?
I would tell myself to have a life. I have always been ambitious and always felt like I have to work all the time. I felt that if I worked more hours out of the day, I would get to my goal faster. That is not always true because there are so many other components that go into successful business building. I could work twenty four hours a day but I can’t control people, the markets or things going on the world. So what I can do is work efficiently and execute my plan consistently everyday and let time take its course. Additionally, I have learned that if I am so burnt out from working that I can’t have quality relationships with friends and family, then I am not best even when I am at work.
What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given that has assisted you in your mission as an entrepreneur?
“Life by the inch is a cinch, life by the yard is hard”. I take that from the book “The Richest Man In Town” by Randall Jones. It profiles entrepreneurs who are the richest in their town. What the quote speaks to, is trying to do too much at one time. You can write the most eloquent business plan but that doesn’t mean that the business is going to go according to your plan. However, if you get up every day, commit to building a successful business and take it day by day then you will ultimately reach your goal. Overwhelming yourself or trying to do too much at one time results in you not being successful. I liken the quote to when I worked at Hartfield-Jackson airport. When I started, there was a runway construction project. I saw it go from a pile of dirt to what is considered one of the most important runways in the world. I watched them build that everyday into what it is now. That is how you have to approach business and live life, inch by inch.
