October 2019 - Rafferty Pendery

Essential Tips for Entrepreneurs

Oct 17, 2019

Being a new or aspiring entrepreneur can be simultaneously exciting and nerve-wracking. On the one hand, you’re taking enormous risks by being in business for yourself. On the other, you’re opening up yourself to incredible possibilities the majority of the population only dreams about.

To help you navigate the startup landscape successfully, here are some important tips for entrepreneurs.

Look for Wide Market Opportunity

You’re probably starting a business because you’re either very passionate or very knowledgeable about something. And that’s a great place to start! If you aren’t doing something you feel motivated to do, chances are good that you’ll give up too early. It’s been said that if you start a business doing something you love you’ll never have to work another day in your life (and it’s almost true).

But it’s not quite enough that you’re interested in what you do. You’ve also got to choose a business that the existing market wants to support.

To that end, you’ll want to research carefully before committing to a business idea. Investors typically only invest in an idea if they foresee a big market opportunity and it can be very difficult to promote something that doesn’t fit into an existing category. Make sure the business you start is one that has the potential to grow into something extraordinary.

Constantly Watch Your Finances

When you’re building a business, money is both your best friend and your worst enemy. You’ve got to have enough of it to do the things you’re there to do, but if you run out or have too little, nothing works right. Inadequate funding and improper use of resources are two of the most common entrepreneur mistakes.

To avoid money problems as much as possible, it’s imperative that you stay on top of your expenses, income, and balance sheet. Maintain a low overhead and spend as little as you can get away with. Live on a shoestring budget until you have significant revenue flowing in.

Develop an Elevator Pitch

This is undoubtedly one of the most important tips for entrepreneurs. Whether you’re pitching your company to investors or pitching your services to the public, you’ve got to have a pitch.

On this note, research indicates that what you say to an audience — whether an audience of one or one thousand — matters far less than how you say it. In fact, only about 7% of a message’s effectiveness comes from its content. The other 93% comes from your voice and body language.

With that in mind, you should write different elevator pitches for the different scenarios you find yourself using them in. Come up with a succinct and engaging story about what your startup does and how it came to be. Focus on the problem it’s there to solve. Suggest and articulate your mission, goals, and reason for being. Try to keep the whole pitch under 30 seconds, with a longer presentation ready at all times to share with prospective investors and clients.

Learn to be a Public Speaker

Being able to communicate effectively can mean the difference between your success and your failure as a startup entrepreneur.

Communication is at the heart of all business, making this one of the most critical tips for entrepreneurs. Whether you’re rousing your employees for a challenge, convincing investors to give you a chance, or selling your product directly to consumers, you don’t have to be a paid international speaker to benefit from public speaking.

Learn Marketing (and Never Stop Doing It)

Entrepreneurs tend to be creative people and often they feel like marketing themselves is about “selling out” or tarnishing their integrity in some way.

First of all, that isn’t true. Marketing and sales are both very respectable fields that have been given an unfortunate reputation by a few “sleazy salesmen.”

Second, if you aren’t marketing, you aren’t in business. It’s that simple.

As an entrepreneur, you have to be constantly attracting, building, and educating your audience. Granted, not all marketing tactics are necessary all the time. Depending on your business and the market you’re in, the style of marketing you’ll need to do will vary greatly.

Starting your own business is both one of the scariest and one of the most wonderful experiences you will ever have. To make sure it’s less scary and more wonderful, keep these tips for entrepreneurs in mind as you go forward.

How to Craft an Entrepreneur Blog That Will Make a Difference

Oct 14, 2019

People with a fear of public speaking, on average, end up earning 10% less than those who don’t fear public speaking. Thus, any avenue allowing you to flex your public speaking muscle is an opportunity for career advancement.

In today’s world, blogging is a means to become a digital public speaker. If you are thinking of developing an entrepreneur blog, here are a few tips to help you fortify it.

1. Are You Ready to Sustain an Entrepreneur Blog?

Starting an entrepreneur blog is an easy thing in today’s world. With the impact other entrepreneurs have had on the world with their content, it can be easy to get into a frenzy over developing your blog. But are you able to sustain it once it’s up?

At the end of the day, the fire to drive your entrepreneurship blog must be primarily intrinsic. If you only rely on external motivation to keep you going, you will run out of steam. Therefore, you need to ask yourself how much time you can spare for blogging. Will it be a daily, weekly, biweekly, monthly, or a once in a while affair?

In addition, you have to create ways to learn and grow your business skills to keep giving your users helpful content. Consistency in output and quality are the two pillars for a blog that will inspire others along their entrepreneurship journey.

2. Deliver a Compelling Message

Whenever you are speaking with the public, you have to craft a message that will resonate with them. After all, isn’t your aim as a public speaker to add value to the lives of others?

With this in mind, you need to have a granular understanding of who your readers will be. Creating a reader persona will help you answer critical questions that drive the needs, aspirations, and desires of those who will be following your blog. Some of the elements a reader persona will help you identify include:

The kind of information your target audience will be looking for online
The challenges your target readers face in their daily business operations and lives
What unique insight, skill or experience you have that can meet your target audience’s needs

The more thorough your understanding of the people you are targeting with your entrepreneur blog, the more valuable your content will be.

3. Niche It Up

A compelling business blog is one that speaks to a particular set of people engaged in a specific area of operations. For example, if you desire to get a tech entrepreneurship blog going, you have to stick to that sphere of activities. A rule of thumb when picking a niche for your blog is to look at what you can confidently speak on.

Remember that a blog essentially turns you into a digital international public speaker. Your entrepreneurial followers will be looking for solutions they can execute in their operations for tangible results. Thus, you need to select a niche where you possess actionable domain expertise you can transfer to your audience.

If you are having trouble thinking about the best niche, ask yourself what areas of business you are passionate about. Blogging on a section of the business world close to your heart will help you be consistent in sharing about something that matters to you. Your audience will invariably pick up on this and respect your authenticity.

Another way to identify a niche you can target is to think of what others regularly ask you about. For example, do you have friends and colleagues peppering you with questions about the business end of technology? That is tangible feedback that you can deliver valuable tech entrepreneur advice to others.

Whatever niche you settle on, let your gauge for success be whether you are solving your readers’ problems and adding value to their lives.

Build a Lasting Business Blog

The fear of public speaking can hurt your career prospects. To overcome it, you should develop an entrepreneur blog. A blog will assist you in influencing the business world while helping you groom your public speaking skills.

What Career Paths Are Available for the Digital Entrepreneur?

Oct 9, 2019

What is a “digital entrepreneur?” Entrepreneurship has existed since the free market system evolved in the late 1700s. Entrepreneurship allowed individuals to build businesses where goods and services were distributed based on supply and demand rather than monopolistic practices, feudal systems, protectionist laws, and exclusionary guilds.

Similarly, digital computers have existed for nearly 80 years; programmable computers were invented during World War II to crack encryption codes and calculate ballistic trajectories for artillery.

Given this history, what do we mean by a digital entrepreneur? For purposes of this article, a digital entrepreneur requires something more than a free market and a digital programmable computer. The digital entrepreneur requires the Internet. Thus, the digital entrepreneur is someone who uses computer networks as a communication medium to deliver, solicit, or promote the digital entrepreneur’s goods or services. Using this definition, here are five career paths for the digital entrepreneur to consider:

Produce Content

Although 75% of people suffer from speech anxiety, it seems like the other 25% have YouTube channels. A large segment of digital entrepreneurs are in the content business. However, this statement should not be limited to makeup videos and toy unboxings. Digital content can cover a wide variety of topics, ranging from “how to start a business” and “how to become a public speaker” to “how to change your oil.” Also, digital content is not limited to YouTube and Facebook videos. Online content also includes:

E-books, blogs, and articles
Music
Podcasts
Educational materials
Games
Movies and video series

Of course, there are two challenges for the digital entrepreneur who creates content. First, you must develop a distribution model. Second, you must create a business model to monetize the content.

Produce Technological Solutions

This discussion separates content, which is primarily non-functional, from technological solutions, which are functional. In this context, technological solutions include:

Desktop and enterprise software
Mobile apps
Databases
Web-based and cloud applications

Essentially, if you create something that someone can use to solve a problem, whether that problem is mapping out a travel route or completing a tax return, then you are a tech entrepreneur.

Sell Physical Goods

In the mid- to late-1990s, the world experienced the Dotcom Boom as the World Wide Web brought e-commerce into people’s homes. This was followed in 2000 by the Dotcom Bust. How did this happen?

The Dotcom Boom was fueled by “tech companies” that were not actually tech companies. Rather, they were retail companies that were given the valuation of a tech company. This overvaluation of plain vanilla retail companies inflated a valuation bubble that had to eventually burst.

With the benefit of hindsight, it becomes apparent that online retailers are not so different from brick and mortar retailers. Clearly, online retailers can reach a broader audience. However, online retailers are still susceptible to the same entrepreneur mistakes as brick and mortar retailers. Specifically, online retailers must have a way to distinguish themselves in the online marketplace just as brick and mortar retailers must have a way to distinguish themselves in the brick and mortar marketplace. Without this competitive advantage, your dream of being an online retail entrepreneur may be doomed from the start.

Sell Services

Think back to all the things that were either impossible or had to be done manually before the Internet. Now, streaming movies and TV are on track to supplant physical media. Digital marketplaces have eliminated the need for classified ads. Dating websites have irreversibly altered how we meet the people we may eventually marry. Real estate listing websites not only give us information about homes for sale, but minute details about everything you would want to know about the area including comps, schools, climate, and traffic.

Again, the challenge to the digital entrepreneur is to find a way to monetize these digital services. Specifically, you have to identify the value you provide that encourages people to pay for the services.

Support Digital Entrepreneurs

Digital entrepreneurs need support to make their businesses successful. Those who provide services to digital entrepreneurs are, themselves, digital entrepreneurs. For example, PR agencies specializing in online reputation management and accountants specializing in sales tax compliance for online retailers play essential roles in the digital economy.

Digital entrepreneurs, like all entrepreneurs, must identify opportunities, then execute a well-thought-out plan to take advantage of them.

Do you want to become a digital entrepreneur? Think about these career paths when you want your skills to shine.

5 Reasons Women Should Try Entrepreneurship

Oct 7, 2019

Female entrepreneurship and female-owned businesses are among the fastest-growing segments of the economy. According to data from Kauffman, women make up 40% of new entrepreneurs in the U.S. and the number of new businesses owned by women is increasing at twice the rate of those owned by men. There are many reasons for this.

Some of this reflects a general shift in the economy with large companies hiring contractors rather than employees. In fact, as many as 20% of workers are now contractors rather than employees. Moreover, businesses have recognized the efficiencies of outsourcing some functions, such as payroll, that were formerly handled in-house.

However, there are other, more personal reasons for women to try entrepreneurship. Here are five of them:

Address Inequities

It is an unfortunate fact that women are paid less than men for the same work. There are many social and economic reasons for this inequity but women are paid less even when pay is normalized according to hours worked, education, and experience. Similarly, women tend to be hampered in their advancement. The CEOs of the largest companies are disproportionately male.

One way women can address these inequities is starting their own businesses. This allows market forces, rather than a supervisor, to decide the entrepreneur’s value. Moreover, advancement and growth will be determined by the merits of the business instead of the gender of the entrepreneur.

Maintain Life Balance

Over 60% of caregivers are women and over half of these caregivers are employed. Whether they are caring for elderly relatives or young children, these women have to balance their work life and home responsibilities. Although one of the most common entrepreneur mistakes is to assume that you will work less when you are your own boss, it is true that most entrepreneurs have more control and flexibility in their work life.

Technology plays a large part in this level of control and flexibility. Common entrepreneur tips include using mobile devices and wireless Internet access to make yourself available to your employees, customers, and business partners when you are unable to be present in person. However, many make themselves available on a set schedule. A set schedule allows you to meet your personal responsibilities as a caretaker for others and yourself. The flexibility of being an entrepreneur allows you to take care of yourself both physically and mentally so that you are at your best when running your business.

Work Collaboratively

Women overwhelmingly choose to work collaboratively rather than working solo. Again, there are likely many social and psychological reasons for this.

Women entrepreneurs can satisfy this tendency in two ways.

A business’s culture flows from the top down. A boss who is more collaborative and encourages collaboration creates a corporate culture of collaboration rather than competition among her employees. A collaborative environment is more creative, less stressful, and more productive. Tech entrepreneurs have recognized this for decades, incorporating collaborative tools into their product development process.
A business that can work with other businesses and customers is more likely to find or invent creative solutions to problems than a business that has a “my way or the highway” attitude. Tech entrepreneurs, in particular, benefit from employees’ ability to find creative solutions to customers’ problems.

Creativity

Entrepreneurship encourages and rewards creativity. Very few, if any, entrepreneurs start a business to do things exactly the same way as their competitors. One could go so far as to say that step one of “how to start a business” is to figure out what your competitive advantages are. If you are a tech entrepreneur, maybe it is new technology, better personnel, or less expensive products.

Established businesses and their legacy approaches can stifle the creativity of their employees. By becoming an entrepreneur, women can work with the people they choose and approach the business the way they want.

Encourage Other Women

Whether it is through hiring women or by providing entrepreneur tips to budding women entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship provides a pathway for encouraging other women. Tech entrepreneurs, in particular, are largely male. Women tech entrepreneurs can provide a role model for other women to emulate.

Women entrepreneurship is growing by leaps and bounds for many reasons including overcoming inequities, working creatively and collaboratively, and encouraging other women.