10 Things to do daily for entrepreneurs

1. Make a list of people to call up/ follow up with

Every day is an experience for an entrepreneur – specially the start ups. There will be thousands of people to talk to including your customers, suppliers, government agencies, investors and advisers. Start the day with a list of important calls that you have to make for that day – which may be a telephone call (for low priority or non-urgent) to personal meetings where it matters the most. Try to postpone/remove people who are nice to talk to but mean nothing to your business or add no value.

2. Send a sales proposal to a prospective customer

A start up journey is like bicycling – you fall down if you stop peddling. And that peddle is called sales – I personally try to send at least 1 sales proposal (by email, post, etc.) to my prospective customers everyday – irrespective of volume of business expected or possibility of getting business. You can be lucky if your competitor is not doing this daily – who knows you could be the only person approaching the customer!

3. Follow up for any pending payments

If sales is what drives a venture, it is cash that keeps it alive – and any pending payments at an early stage of a company are like cancer – keep following up for your payments diligently. This is more important than making business plans and approaching investors.

4. Speak to your employees

I have always realized that the role of an entrepreneur is to find people smarter than herself, and motivate them to achieve their goals. One of the most important aspects of this is to constantly communicate with your employees, sometimes talking about their professional issues, and other times about general or personal ones. Make it a point to talk to your people daily. I learned this during my stint at Asian Paints, when through daily team-building, dialogues and discussions, we could take up our performance 200% in 1 month.

5. Analyze your performance against your target metrics

As an entrepreneur, we need to balance thinking with action. If we keep running, then no matter how fast we are, if we do not analyze which direction we are headed to, we will not go anywhere. I have seen a very highly successful entrepreneur, who raised his 3^rd round of venture capital funding recently, measuring and analyzing his company performance almost on a daily basis. The key metrics could be product development (number of modules ready, lines of code written etc.), page visits to websites, revenue, expenses, customer inquiries etc.

6. Check your bank account

I do not know how many start ups do this, but I get some internal motivation by checking my company accounts daily – it can as well de-motivate you if you are not acting upon how to get the cash in or control the cash out!

7. Remain updated with Google Alerts

In current scenario, there is no time to read newspaper, listen to radio or watch TV but it is always important to stay updated – with what is happening around the world as well as in your business domain. Google alerts is a good way to stay updated, as it gives a summary of news/blogs etc. on your relevant keyword and sends you a mail on the same.

8. Give some time to family/friends

Being an entrepreneur is a rewarding though stressful situation. It is always good to give some time to your family and friends, so that you are refreshed for another day at work. Have a nice time, go out for dinner, watch a movie, or just talk about your lives. You would want someone to share your success with! These are the people who will be the happiest when you come live on TV someday to collect the “Highly successful Entrepreneur” award!

9. Introspect, but do not procrastinate

For 5-10 minutes daily, spend some time thinking about yourself – where did you start, where are you now, where do you want to be – think big! If you introspect, and start thinking that you have grown, that’s the first step towards growth. I have found people being happy with their current status, and never introspected about why they started as an entrepreneur.

10. Make a “To do list”

This is obvious – you cannot do things unless you write them down. Personally, I use my mobile’s task app or memo pad to keep track of things. And then I keep ticking or deleting the task as it is completed.

I am sure that there are lots more to the list, depending on your stage and priorities, and I will be happy to listen and learn from your experiences. I am sure there will be lot of distractions to your work, and some of them very valid that you will have to immediately address, but a disciplined approach will help you take out time for that too.

The 3 Principles To Success

1. The first principle that you need to adopt is to be visionary. Do you know what kind of life you want to live? Do you know how much you want to earn? Do you know what you want to accomplish in the future? Knowing what you want is the first step to achieving it. If you do not know what you want to accomplish, how can you tell when you have achieved it? This is exactly what is happening to most people out there. They do not know what they want; as a result, they are living in mediocrity. Do not let this happen to you; be absolutely clear with your dreams and your goals.

2. Next, adopt the habit of focusing in your dreams and your goals. Always think about what you want and do something to achieve them. Always remember this, you are what you think you are. The more you think about your goals, the more likely that you are going to take action to achieve them. The main key here is to program and condition what you want into your subconscious mind. So think and focus on your goals all the time.

3. Finally, believe that you can accomplish it and take action right away. Do you seriously believe that you can become a millionaire? If you do not believe that it is possible for you, you will never go full out and put in 100% commitment. When you truly believe in something, you will tap into your full potential and make things happen. And remember to take action everyday. Make sure you do something that will move you toward your goals each day. This will ensure that you are creating the results you want and are moving in the right direction.

8 things to think about if you’re considering self-employment

Is self employment for you?  Perhaps you’ve lost your job or you’re facing redundancy and think self-employment is the answer.  Or maybe you just woke up on a grey, cold Monday morning and thought “why don’t I give it all up and work for myself?”


Here is the 8 things to think about if you're considering self - employment.

Is there enough of a push to move you from your current situation?People who move successfully into self employment have a degree of restlessness with their current situation.  In other words, you’re likely to be frustrated with how things are right now, enough to motivate you to want to change and set up your business.

Do you have a passion, not only for the work you do but for turning it into a business? If you’re passionate about what you do you’ll find it easier to ride the waves of change and keep going when starting out.  You’ll also find that others will be attracted to your passion and will be more likely to help you make your business a success.

Do you have a clear vision for what you want to achieve both commercially and personally? In answering this question you need to think through the commercial aspects of your business proposition i.e. what the business is going to offer, to which customer groups and to which geographical markets.  But you also need to think about what success look like for you as an individual.  Is it about earning a certain amount of revenue, having independence and autonomy, working certain hours or days of the week, all of the above or something completely different?

How well do you know yourself and how to manage your energy levels and emotions? You need to know yourself well enough to know what you can do to stay motivated and energised.  For example, do you like working on your own or do you prefer to have lots of people around.  If you’re an extraverted gregarious type you may find days of working alone at home sap your energy and motivation so you may need to develop strategies (such as meeting a friend for lunch) to keep your energy and motivation high so that you are set up for success.

Do you believe in yourself?  Are you confident in your own abilities? To move successfully into self-employment you need to believe in yourself, your capability and your ability to make things happen.  In essence, you need to know you can make it a success whatever happens.

How much personal drive do you have to keep going even when things get tough? Research shows that people who move successfully into self-employment are focused on continually improving what they do and learning how things could be better; resilient when the going gets tough and personally driven to keep going at all times

What about your financial buoyancy?  Do you have plans in place to guarantee some form of a positive cash flow or income stream during your transition? This could be achieved through a range of means e.g. savings, redundancy payment, financial support from a partner, part-time job etc.  A general rule of thumb is that people feel that they need a financial lump sum that covered six months of living expenses.

How good is your support network? To make a success of self-employment you need a well-established network of contacts that can provide different types of support at different times.  People typically need three types of support – (1) Practical support such as child-care, help with household chores etc (2) Technical support in areas outside of your expertise such as IT, finance or some other discipline that is an absolute necessity but a complete mystery to you and (3) Emotional support from people close to you who can help you through the tough times.