KEEP GOING AS AN ENTREPRENEUR IN THE MIDST OF CRISES
By. Ama Lawson
An Entrepreneur is a business leader and not just the owner of an organization or capital. Entrepreneurs are visionaries in communities, who identify opportunities and promptly seize them.
Entrepreneurship is a strategy of community development. An entrepreneur creates a new business in the face of risk and uncertainty to achieve profit and growth by identifying opportunities and assembling the necessary resources to capitalize on them.
Read: Set Your Goals, By Ama Lawson
Entrepreneurship is creative and forward-thinking. Although businesses run on money, entrepreneurs are often focused on a great deal more than their bottom line. They contribute to the community (society) by leading the way and finding innovative solutions to practical financial issues.
How Entrepreneurs contribute to the Community
INNOVATION
Entrepreneurs use businesses to create products and services that solve problems in innovative ways. This is because businesses must earn a profit to survive. Entrepreneurs do not have the luxury of being impractical. Their products and services must be functional, and they must be designed to be cost-effective and appeal to enough people to make it viable to produce the products.
LOCAL FOCUS
Entrepreneurs create jobs that contribute to widespread prosperity. These jobs pay neighborhood workers who in turn reinvest their paychecks in local economies. This re-investment creates a positive feedback loop in the community. Elon Musk advised entrepreneurs to be focused and not to be lazy.
FREE THINKING
Entrepreneurs think outside the box. I have realized that corporate jobs tend to reward workers who put in long hours and do not question company policies while small businesses especially thrive on ongoing learning, which requires fresh thinking, new ideas, and unusual approaches to problem-solving. This is why even the smallest business owner being immersed in the day in day out operations and hearing the needs and concerns of workers is more likely than a corporate executive to set up a work environment that balances quality of life with the need to get the job done. In fact, the entrepreneur is more likely to understand that workers may have trouble getting the job done well without a quality of life.
Due to the global novel pandemic, deep economic changes have occurred and most businesses might not be the same for a long while. Entrepreneurs especially, whether unemployed striking out their own or a seasonal veteran trying to get the mojo back again must do things differently now to survive. Everyone must change especially small business owners.
Related: Developing a Successful Mindset, By Ama
Luckily, the business fundamentals have not changed – those management traits that entrepreneurs possess, tenacity, commitment, vision, and basic business skills. New strategies, however, are required and so must be designed to work in a changing business climate. We can say the darkest days are getting over and businesses are gradually booming back. And while customers are loosening up their wallets a little bit, it is so clear that purchasing habits have changed.
Some points to note as you keep going as an entrepreneur
- Have a written plan and do well to execute it
- Keep your ego in check and listen to others
- Keep track of everything, and manage by the numbers
- Be kind to yourself. Accept that you are suffering if it is so and link others up for help (ideas etc)
- Get some perspective on life. Walk-in nature
- Reconnect with your vision. Remember you started this for a reason(don’t give up)
- Change your beliefs about obstacles ( obstacles are bound to come)
- Change your beliefs about failure( failure is inevitable)
- Fall in love with the process again
- Listen to your heart
- Delegate to employees and avoid micromanaging them
- Use the internet
- Reinvent your business as an entrepreneur
Above all, have fun. Being an entrepreneur is your choice, so make it work. It can be done. You can survive, emerge and succeed in this downsized economy if you follow the right path.
Keep Going As An Entrepreneur In The Mist Of Crises
(Paper delivered at the Official Launch of Ghana’s Development Forum by GED Hub Organization, Accra)
Ama Lawson
Telchel Consult
Email: [email protected]
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