I want to share with you a simple practice on how to “be” an entrepreneur.  There are several books that teach you how to become an entrepreneur that can be very helpful and I’m sure they include how to apply the practice.  You may have even heard of it.  An entrepreneur solves others problems.  They create solutions.  It’s that simple.  An entrepreneur always keeps an open mind and has a keen sense of awareness.  For instance, have you ever bought a new car that you haven’t seen a lot on the road thinking you may have one of a kind?  What happens when you start driving it around town?  You start seeing them all over the place and thinking to yourself, where did all these come from.  An entrepreneur is always aware of their surroundings and listening to others.  Just today a good friend of mine was talking to me and as I was listening I could hear that her family was in quite a dilemma.  As she and I talked, I thought of a solution for her families need which in turn could help other families with the same problem.

This is where enlightened versus un-enlightened are key.  The un-enlightened entrepreneur looks for ways to take money from others without looking out for others best interest.  They sucker people out of their money and are usually scams, creating a win-lose situation instead of a win-win solution.  An enlightened entrepreneur looks for win-win solutions.  They create a solution that people pay them for and the customer gets something of value.   A real estate agent sells houses to customers looking for a solution.  Their problem, they need a home.  Automobile manufactures provide vehicles to people.  Their problem, they need or want a new one.  The television industry provides entertainment to people in need for entertainment, which solves their problem.  In the network marketing industry people get started because they are trying to solve their problem and there are others out there that can provide a solution.  Their problems may be getting out of debt, spend more time with their family, taking control of their lives or just not living paycheck to paycheck.  Do you understand where I’m coming from?  People pay for solutions.

Many entrepreneur’s solve others problems by simply solving their own problems.  I’ve seen this many times on The Big Idea TV show with Donny Deutsch.  He has many programs that focus around this idea.  People making millions by solving their own problems.  Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, stated this about the Ipod.  “We did iTunes because we all love music. We made what we thought was the best jukebox in iTunes. Then we all wanted to carry our whole music libraries around with us. The team worked really hard. And the reason that they worked so hard is because we all wanted one. You know? I mean, the first few hundred customers were us.  “It’s not about pop culture, and it’s not about fooling people, and it’s not about convincing people that they want something they don’t. We figure out what we want. And I think we’re pretty good at having the right discipline to think through whether a lot of other people are going to want it, too. That’s what we get paid to do.  “So you can’t go out and ask people, you know, what the next big [thing.] There’s a great quote by Henry Ford, right? He said, ‘If I’d have asked my customers what they wanted, they would have told me “A faster horse.”

Another piece of advice about the value of your solution is that the money you attract is equal to the value you provide.  If others don’t see that you provide something of value, you are not going to attract the money.

To your success,

Largent

Ok my friends I hear this all the time.  “I’ll start going to the gym when……, “I’ll start my business when….., “I’m waiting for……….  People are always waiting for just the right circumstances before starting something new.  The cold hard truth is, it’s NEVER going to happen.  In fact it will almost inevitably happen that something will always stand in your way just when you think you’re ready to get started.  I speak from experience.  I’ve heard this one before, my new years resolution was to get in shape and start going to the gym starting January 1, but it snowed and just couldn’t get to the gym.  After the snow melted it was just bitter cold so I went home to wait for the weather to get better.  Do you see what’s happening, procrastination.  These are just excuses and your someday I’ll will never come unless you just do it no matter what the circumstances are.

So when you make the decision to start your business, get started and don’t hesitate due to what’s happening around you.  Again, it doesn’t mean get everything done in a day, take small steps.  When I made the decision, I just started doing some research in the evenings and then started making some calls to different opportunities collecting information.  Don’t get me wrong, events will come up in the process that you must take care of that will prevent you from working on your business, but I’m talking about getting started.  Once you get started, it is the best feeling and you won’t regret it.

P.S.  I found a TV program a while back called The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch.  It airs week nights on CNBC at 9:00 pm CST.  His show is an entrepreneur’s goldmine.  It will get you motivated and pumped up.  He talks to entrepreneurs from all walks of life with different types of success stories.  Check it out and enjoy. 

To your success,

Largent

Just as your car gets you from point A to point B, your business vehicle does the same thing.  Look at your business vehicle as a means to get to your result.  First ask yourself, “How can I get…..”  This could be anything.  Get out of debt, be your own boss, spending more time with your family, not live paycheck to paycheck, taking control of your life, etc.  After you outline what you want, you will need to choose a vehicle.  I talked in an earlier post about your own ideas and thoughts.  This is just one of many vehicles to choose from.  While moving your ideas to and end result may take a lot of time and money, you can tap into other resources or systems that are already set up.  These may include real estate or buying your own franchise.  The vehicle I chose was network marketing, which is essentially buying your own franchise, but with a fraction of the costs.  It could costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to start up a traditional franchise like a McDonald’s or Subway.  Plus for certain franchise’s you must have a certain net worth (assets) before buying, which is generally way above what the average person has. 

My reasoning for getting into network marketing was I knew I had to find a way out of the rat-race and stop living paycheck to paycheck.  I wanted to take control of my life.  I did a lot of research and found that in order to get my results I needed to create residual income and leverage my time.  A perfect match for network marketing.

There are two types of income, residual and linear.  The most common is a linear income, which comes from the employee side or a job.  You work one hour, you get paid for one hour.  If you don’t work, you don’t get paid.  Residual income is income that you receive many times for your efforts.  For example, if you write and publish a book, your effort to write the book will pay you for years after you put the book into circulation.  A singer gets paid residual income from the albums they produce and sell, an individual who rents property gets paid each month for the rent they collect.  This is the type of income entrepreneur’s strive for because they get paid when they are not working.

To leverage your time you must create a network or team in which works towards a common goal and you get paid for their effort.  If you are an employee you can only get paid for 100% of your own efforts.  You only have so many hours in day to get your job done.  When you leverage your time with a team you get the same 100%, but everyone contributes the time.  May be a little complicated, but I’ll explain.  I’ll use the forty-hour work week.  Let’s say you have a team of four people which includes you.  If each person works ten hours a week, you get the same forty hours while only working a forth of the time.  Now let’s say you have five on your team including you.  Using the same scenario, this would produce fifty hours per week. So if you were to take a week vacation, your team would still produce a forty hour work week, while you are getting paid on vacation.  This is true leverage.  This is just using an example of a small team.  Use your imagination on what could happen if you had a massive team.

To your success,

Largent