entrepreneur

Blogging is mandatory today.

Mandatory? Yep.

Those who don’t blog, are not hip. Those who don’t blog, are obselete :)

This includes entrepreneurs - Entrepreneurs must blog.

Just think about it for a minute.

Sam, your pal, ask, “Hey, did you read the meme at John’s blog about the Yahoo! acquisition plan? That’s hilarious!”

 

You answer, “Meme? What meme? What IS meme?”

Luckily, Sam is your pal. What if Sam was your potential client? You might lose a chance to schmooze Sam and win his business.

So, here’s why entrepreneurs must blog:

1. Entrepreneurs have to stay ahead of the competition - blogs give them the tool to gain the competitive edge
   How? To create a community, where the real money actually is.
2. Entrepreneurs need a channel for their creativity, or simply a place to note their ideas - blogging is the solution
   Entrepreneurs travel a lot - What journal tool that allow them travel with the peace of mind without the fear of lefting or losing it somewhere? A blog.
3. Blogs shorten the distance between business owners and their customers or clients.
   Blogs make business owners more ‘human’ and down to earth.
4. Blogs might ’sell’ the entrepreneurs’ expertise and experience.
   Expertise and experiece can be translated into more business and more clients.
5. Blogs build entrepreneurs’ reputation.
   You can’t tell your colleagues and customers what you are good at - that’s plain narcissist :) A blog, in the other hand, can indirectly tell the readers about your positive qualities.

And, oh, a meme is a reaction to or a blog post about other blog posts ;)

Ivan Widjaya
Business blogging

Resilience, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.

Resilient entrepreneur is those that own ’super human’ will power to face adversities and challenges.

His/her motto is “If I had to fail 1000 times to get 1 successful business that exceed the loss caused by the 1000 failures, it’s a happy day.”

In today’s business world where back stabbers and unethical competitors are breathing behind your neck - not mentioning the recession - resilience is key to be a successful entrepreneur.

Sure, entrepreneurs had their bad days and low morale - but being resilient means overcoming those negatives and get back on track ASAP.

Resilient entrepreneur neither whine nor feel sorry for him/herself.

Resilient entrepreneur kick @ss - Resilient entrepreneur rocks.

Here’s an example of a resilient entrepreneur would do:

In today’s recession, US real estate market sees record breaking foreclosures. An entrepreneur, whose retail business is being hit hard by the recession, quickly gathering himself and see an opportunity to break up the deadlock (and the dying business), sell his business, and start buying foreclosure properties.

 

In time, his assets will recover their value - happy day.

How to become a resilient entrepreneur

Being one is not that difficult - as long as you have a positive mental picture of yourself. Here’s the how to:

1. You have to conquer yourself - being depressed and sad is okay, but recovering from them is paramount.
2. Capitalise your ‘asset’ in you. You are not finished yet - as long as there’s creativity and the experience you have, you will survive, whatever path of recovery you choose.
3. Start micro businesses, and see what you can learn from them. The good place to start, in my opinion, is online business.
4. See the balance in every situation in your life - in every bad thing, there always a good thing in it.
5. Learn from a serial entrepreneur - he/she that start and flip his/her business a lot. A serial entrepreneur is a resilient entrepreneur, indeed.

Cheers!

Ivan Widjaya
Resilient entrepreneur

I respect what Pablo Picasso said, that he always do something he can’t do, so he can learn how to do it. That’s what also the essence of noobpreneurship (See what noobpreneur.com is all about.)

The best way to succeed as an entrepreneur

If you want to be able to ride a bicycle, you have to learn on the road, riding it! You can’t learn riding a bicycle by reading a text book, a manual, a periodical, or a journal. You can learn all about bicycle; But riding it, is a totally different issue. You fall with your bicycle on top of you - you get up, and try again. Better yet, install 2 supporting wheels so that you can get used to pedaling and balancing your bike - when the time comes, uninstall the supporting wheels, and off you go exploring the world!

Just like bicycling, entrepreneurship adopt the same learning pattern. You study hard at your college, learning the ins and outs of business and entrepreneurship. Or, you didn’t attend college, but you learn through seminars, and read lots of books about entrepreneurship. All is useful, but not paramount.

What is paramount in entrepreneurship? Learning by doing. Like the ol’ riding a bike stuff I mentioned above.

Here’s five facts of life you might want to experience in order to success as an entrepreneur:

1. You can’t ace your way through wealth and riches without actually doing it - start a business NOW.
2. You HAVE TO fail, to succeed - just like learning to ride a bike the first time.
3. You can have your own ’supporting wheels’ - mentors, advisers, trainers, and other experts in the area of entrepreneurship you like - to help you avoid failing too often. When the time comes, you can do it on your own (although usually mentors are in a lifetime relationship with entrepreneurs) - but, you get my point.
4. You HAVE to experience rejection - a great marketer never be one if he/she never experience constant rejections; Even great marketers are born because of rejections; Rejections make you stronger and smarter in facing prospects.
5. You don’t have anything on a silver platter, even if you want it - unless you are of Yahoo!’s Semel clan; You have to bust your @ss off to build a business and become one, successful, entrepreneur.

Learning by doing make you becoming a man.

Ivan Widjaya
Bustin’ my @ss off

Related posts other people has read:

What Entrepreneurs Should Want in Their Life

Resilient Entrepreneur - How to Become One

Business or Busy-ness?

Trying to Prove Something is the Best Motivator for Entrepreneur

Help! I’m a Narcissistic Entrepreneur

As an entrepreneur, I THOUGHT I work for nobody but me - wrong!

For many of us calling ourselves an ‘entrepreneur’, we often ‘work’ for other higher entities to run our business smoothly.

Franchisees work for their franchisor

As a franchisee, you work for your franchisor - You follow guidelines; You pay your franchisor a royalty; You market your store and your franchisor’s brand. Wait, wait, wait! How? why? Well, it IS, technically, their brand! You just lease the brand name… you pay for the lease in term of franchise fee, remember? You don’t own the brand. Period.

Viral marketers work for the company they affiliated with

Affiliate marketings, MLMs, and other related viral marketing activities promote the company that own the affiliate system. Yes, you can be wealthy through viral marketing, but you actually make the company you affiliated with even wealthier.

Search engine marketers and online business owner work for Google!

No matter how hard you try to deny, face it. You work for Google! You bust your gut days in and days out market your websites and blogs and use SEO (search engine optimisation) techniques and services available to get a better Google PageRank, because the higher the PR, the higher the traffic, which means, more $$$ to you - And, oh, remember AdSense? There! you work for Google.

Other business activities that actually need somebody else to make your business works

You have created better shaving blade, but you need shaving device to put our blade in. You own good products, but you make your living entirely as an eBay Seller. You grow crops, but you need a marketplace to sell them. So many examples, with one conclusion - most of us doesn’t really enjoy the perk of doing business and dictate the market - we NEED others to survive; We ‘work’ for them.

I don’t want to work for anybody! I want to work for myself!

Well, again, face it. The reality is, not many among us is a pure, hardcore, entrepreneur. Put those guys - including authority names such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett - and the likes out of the equation, then you can find you and me there - working hard to put our business afloat, and hopefully, on autopilot (on passive income) - with the help of other, greater, entities (a.k.a. marketplaces, other companies, etc.)

How to work for ourselves

I have some obvious pointers on how to work for the sake of ourselves, but hey! It’s half dream, half reality - just try shooting for the stars!

• Own the system - own the affiliate system, own the franchising system, create automated business system - just… create it, own it, and let others work hard for you!
• Create a widget or an invention that hacks society lifestyle pattern - create a breakthrough that change people live their life - like the Internet. Like the Apple iPod. Like the Microsoft Windows. Like LED. Like flexible display that can be rolled up as small as a pencil. Like nuclear weapon (If Einstein lived today, what would he do to the bombs?).
• Be a Venture Capitalist - Those businesses NEED you and your money badly.
• Be a good-doer, philantrophic businessman or social entrepreneur - A lot of you is needed in this ill world.

There’s there. Who do you work for today?

Ivan Widjaya
Work for social bookmarkers and directories :)

Related posts other people has read:

Work at Home Wonders

Work at Home - A More Feasible Business Solution Today

Being an Entrepreneur is a Work of Faith

How to Run a Business Like a Real Entrepreneur

The Benefits of Having Your Business on Autopilot