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Happily, or sadly, depending upon how you look at it, entrepreneurs just don’t give up! Why? Well there are two answers to this question one negative, one positive. I’ll give you the negative first. Always the bad news first, right? Right… Entrepreneurs play in a game of high stakes poker. Everything being relative, whatever the amount of money they have, they are usually putting it all on the line. We are extremists. The bad part of this is, just like blackjack, when we lose our chips, we just pick ourselves up, look for a new game, find new resources (chips) and try the slots… and God forbid we lose at the slots, we try Roulette or any other game that will make us the quick dollar. Now what I’m telling you is not a good thing. People lose their shirt playing these games, and to fix it, they re-finance their homes, collateralize the cars, scoop up a bunch more money and hit the tables again to start yet another business!

WARNING: IF THIS REMINDS YOU OF YOU, THEN STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND KEEP READING THIS ARTICLE UNTIL YOU FINISH IT.

Entrepreneurs, re-directed in the right direction, can and should start as many businesses as they want, but you need to know there is only one thing that puts them in the right direction, it’s called purpose. If the purpose of starting your business is to re-pay your parents and friends the money you lost, well, then, the purpose of your business will lead you to yet another failure and you will keep starting new businesses for all the wrong reasons. After that business fails, now, the next business you’ve started you’re not only doing it to pay back your friends and family, but also you are trying to PROVE to everyone that you can in fact make it, and you want to especially prove it to those people that never thought you could make it in the first place. Now this is where it gets dangerous. Your motives start becoming similar to that of a desperado. Now you’ve completely lost the purpose that entrepreneurship is supposed to give you. You’re in a dark place. You don’t care about WHAT your business is, only that it needs to serve the purpose of blanketing all of your mishaps.

Now here’s the good news… You ever heard the saying, “If you love your work then you’re not working?” Well if you haven’t learned it, it’s time you did. Especially if you are in one of those dark places. To get the right purpose back, let’s look back to when you started your first business. If you are like most entrepreneurs, when you start your first business, you are bright-eyed, ambitious, confident, excited, and most importantly, PASSIONATE about what you are getting into. Sound like the person you used to know? Well that’s where you need to go back to. Me personally, I always am always driven when customers call to say they are very pleased with the product or service I provided. Even in these blogs, I feel great when I receive positive comments people make on how my articles help them, and am equally as attentive to hearing about ways I could have helped them more. I am excited about camaraderie. Motivating people. Learning how to be better… and yes, my bills are being paid while this is happening!

Why are they being paid? Because this time, I planned in advance what I needed for the business to sustain itself during its growth period, thus I had the cash on hand to survive the initial bumps and bruises along the way. If you do this, you know the investment that it’s going to take to get your business running, and you are not going to start until you have the start-up capital you need. You don’t want to be bleeding money when you start! And if you are telling me, NO! YOU MUST START NOW! I OWE THIS PERSON, AND THAT PERSON… believe me, these “people” you owe will be much better served if you take the time to plan this next venture with clarity and not haste. Your chances of paying them back will increase exponentially.

It all comes down to purpose. Without a meaningful purpose and excitement in what you are doing, you will never have the focus you need to get things done properly. I lost my focus for a long period of time. I lost the house, the car, and many other things to boot! Luckily I caught myself just in time. I understand the ventures I am in and am certainly aware they can lose their luster at any time, but I choose to accept that possibility and make the necessary changes to prevent them from happening. And if things happen to be faltering in one area, I can leverage myself by capitalizing where I am profiting in other areas. That’s another thing that a clear mind gives you. Foresight. Seeing the mistakes before they come, but that’s for the next lesson! If you have the focus and clarity, I am confident that you will be surprised how quickly you achieve your level of success that you have been trying for so long! And remember, given what we know now, having a sense of purpose, we can now be proud to say, “Entrepreneurs never give up!”

!Good luck

When starting any company you need to be able to tackle all the obstacles you will be running into BEFORE you start your business. A business plan helps you understand your business and is actually more important for your own knowledge, than any business you may be presenting it to. But you need to ask the right questions about your business in order to answer all the relevant questions. Here are some of the key questions you must ask AND ANSWER before you even begin to search for a company to help you executed a business plan.

A) Is your product or service marketable?
B) Are you a commodity (product)-based brand or marketing driven brand? That is to say, do retailers or consumers by the product because of the product, whether it is superior to the competition, or because the price is less (product driven), or, do they buy your product because you have created an inherent value through marketing the product through advertising and promotions, such that the consumers gain a feeling of value even before they buy it?
C) Who are your competitors and why are they succeeding?
D) How are you going to make your value more significant to your consumers such that you can gain competitive marketing share?
E) What are your selling tactics?
F) What is your marketing strategy?
G) How much money do you need from a capital standpoint to get your product off the ground.
H) What is your planned return-on-investment (ROI)?
I) Is your product patented, unique or proprietary?

These are just a few of the questions you need to ask yourself when you are in the strategic planning phase of your product launch. Get yourself small start-up capital in order to get the consulting you need up front so you can eliminate the majority of your mistakes before your business starts. Don’t wait until you are too late and already in the game when the dollars are high and the stakes are high. Again, remember, your business plan is first and foremost important to help you understand your business better. When you fill in all the areas that are required in a business plan, you will be forced into answering these questions. Remember, this is a good thing. To find out the appropriate format, Google “Business Plans” or, “Business plan format” on the web and it will be easy enough to find.

I hope the above article provided you with some insight into what it takes BEFORE you take the leap into the world of the entrepreneur. Again, good luck!