Success Advice
3 Ways to Know if You’re Working Hard to Fail or Succeed
We know how important hard work is to achieve success, but we also know the road to success is filled with obstacles and failures. Many people have great ideas and don’t put the work in to make them succeed and go to the next level. We also see many people work hard on a terrible idea and succeed due to sheer hard work and determination. Then there is that third group, no matter how hard you work, you just may have a bad idea, bad product or missed your window and all the hard work in the world won’t get you to where you need to be. So how do you know when you’re working hard to fail or succeed?
Here are 3 ways you know you’re working hard to succeed:
1. A steady flow of new customers and employees
The first major sign you’re working hard toward success no matter how much you fail or stumble is you are growing as a business. How do you know you’re growing? You have more customers consistently coming in, both new and repeated ones.
The old saying is true, sales cures all. A great idea that is not selling is not succeeding so don’t kid yourself. That being said, you’re probably also hiring new contractors and employees as well to help carry the load.
2. You feel overwhelmed and have too much work to do
Customers and/or clients come to you regularly and you finally have a team helping carry the load, so you must be relaxing, right? Definitely not! The next sign you’re working hard to succeed is you feel overwhelmed and believe you have too much work to do.
Now you are seeing if you have the right systems and processes in place that people can follow to help your business run like a well-oiled machine. More customers means more demand, and more than likely, you are still figuring it out. As long as the clients keep paying and customers keep coming in, you are on the right track.
3. The Market is paying attention to you, and you are aware of your competition
For a while, you may have been the new kid on the block. Now that you are making waves, your competition is not only paying attention to you, they are contacting you, copying you and if you are really doing well, they may even threaten or sue you.
You are also aware of who your competition is in the marketplace, and how to compete and take market share from them if necessary. These things sound crazy but these are all good things.
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” – Thomas Edison
Now that you know how you are working to succeed, let’s take a look at how you know you’re working hard to fail:
1. You are not growing, and it’s ‘hard’ to find customers
Many products and services hit the market with the best of intentions. You may have even tested, done focused groups and had your friends and family give you the green light. That being said, once your product or service hits the market, it’s important for people to buy your product or service.
You can blame this on whatever you want, such as geography, not having enough money to market or whatever great story you want to tell. At the end of the day, if you are not making money, you don’t have a business, you have a hobby. If you’re still a one man show, and only making a few sales, you many need to look at expanding the team, or shut it down.
2. You feel overwhelmed and like you have too much work to do
Yes, failure can feel overwhelming, especially if you’re working really hard and not experiencing results. Many entrepreneurs have worked hard on several projects that fail before finding the ones that succeed. This is very often due to the fact that you are constantly putting out fires.
The few customers you have are not happy, your software is not working and you don’t have enough money. This is usually the most difficult thing because you have been told that you will hit hurdles and make mistakes, but you have to know when to call it quits and move on to the next thing.
“There is more to life than increasing its speed.” – Mahatma Gandhi
3. The market is NOT paying attention to you, and you are NOT aware of your competition
Haters are going to hate, and if they are not, you should be worried. Yes, even the most successful businesses today at one point were underestimated. If no one knows who you are, or they know you and are not worried, you have to ask why? With no sales and no one knowing you, that is not a good sign.
Many businesses that are working hard to fail are consistently saying, “There is no one that does what we do!”. Even if one does exactly what you do, there is competition for peoples’ time and attention, and you need to know how to grab it. As original as you are, it’s important to know your competition and make sure they know you!
The most important thing is to remember it’s ok to fail. Most people don’t hit a home run their first at bat, and that is ok. Sometimes it is best to walk away from a failing business and look for the next thing with the lessons learned. Remember to be honest with yourself and look at the signs around you, they won’t lie.
What’s one goal you’re trying to accomplish before the end of the year? Share your thoughts and ideas on how you’ll achieve it below!
Success Advice
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Success Advice
How to Alter Your Business Approach With Technological Advancements
Keeping up with technological trends has become a challenge for almost every business owner.
Technology’s evolution has impacted everything, and business is no exception. Keeping up with technological trends has become a challenge for almost every business owner. Entrepreneurs unable to do so are being wiped out of the market.
There is no doubt that AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning) have taken over the business world. These technological advancements are impacting decision-making, success percentages, and other entrepreneurial aspects.
Adapting to these developments is integral to business success. Let’s explore how you can accomplish these milestones.
Embed the strength of AI and ML.
AI has modified business operations in major ways. For instance, companies have employed bots for customer support. These bots go through an effective learning process via Machine Learning before being able to answer like humans.
Bots can also perform detailed data analytics and make business moves with high success percentages.
ML is used more for the analysis of data chunks and generating successful predictions. This simply means that business owners do not have to worry about large-scale financial losses.
In terms of deployment and usage, a reputed company like Netflix employs machine learning for decision-making.
Blockchain is increasing the count of business opportunities
Tampering of financial transactions is quite common and causes severe monetary damage to customers. With the rise of digital payments, this risk has increased.
Blockchain is used to elevate your experience for monetary transfers. It combats penetrating events to extract confidential customer information.
Most business sectors are using block chain but finance and supply chain management sections have a higher count. These two corporate sections have several monetary deposits and withdrawals taking place.
In terms of percentage, approximately 72% and 5% of finance and supply chain firms have implemented block chain successfully.
Dedicate Yourself to Continuous Learning and Individual Development
You invest in learning some of the very important skills, including digital marketing, financial management, and how to gain customers as an entrepreneur.
You need to set up your knowledge base about doing business on Coursera and Udemy with the basics that are necessary for the business, building further by networking with experts through webinars.
Besides, Agile methodology will introduce elasticity to your company: this review and feedback system with further correction regularly will allow for enhancing efficiency and promptly reacting to the market.
Developing key skills to achieve goals
Running a business successfully is not only about having niche/domain knowledge. Business owners need to have communication / soft skills as well in addition to niche information.
Here are some key technical/domain-related areas that business owners should have a strong grip on.
Data Storage on Cloud: These days, companies do not store their data on physical servers. Therefore business owners should know how data is stored/edited/removed/updated via AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and other platforms.
Data Analysis/Interpretation Qualities: These days, data is as precious as gold. Business owners with data analysis abilities make correct predictions. As a result, their ventures grow in volume.
Development/Coding Knowledge
Programming knowledge gives business owners an edge whether the application is developed in-house or outsourced. It assists in getting updates deployed and handling application underperformance without getting professional support every time.
Hacking proof framework
There is no benefit of having an advanced automated system if can be penetrated. Successful business owners have above-average knowledge of cyber security and hacking attempts. They are able to choose top-notch anti-hacking software without much of an ambiguity.
Communication Abilities/Soft Skills
Here are some key communication qualities that business owners should have:
Communication/Conversation: Business owners should use to-the-point sentences in both written and oral communication.
Issue Resolution Abilities: Business owners should be able to drill down to problems and solve them. This is done successfully only if an entrepreneur has in-depth business domain knowledge.
Agile Implementations
It is mandatory for business owners to have knowledge of iterative/agile models. With such a competitive environment, it is impossible for business owners to succeed without adopting an agile framework.
Create a productive well-crafted Business Strategy
A productive business venture starts with a clear vision. The first factor making a business successful is the idea behind it. It helps with endless growth and combating competition successfully. Katherine Philips once mentioned that business goals are inevitable if goals are set concretely.
- Goals should be based on smart achievements instead of complexity. Focus on the value that each one of them adds.
- Business objectives should not be vague. Key indicators should be constructed to measure the success/failure of each milestone.
- Be realistic when setting goals. Do not aim at impossible milestones since they can be demotivating.
- Milestones/goals need to be time-bound. Set a completion deadline for each one of them.
- Business goals should not be alien. Owners can think out of the box but not be obsolete / unrelated.
Create a productive well-crafted Business Strategy
Business owners cannot succeed without having a network. Some tips help in this case. Attend conferences and professional gatherings to connect with other entrepreneurs.
Here are some other related points business owners should pay attention to.
- Attend meetings and conferences to stay updated with trends and meet business owners who already have well-set ventures. This helps in enhancing the learning curve of new / growing entrepreneurs.
- Being a part of business communities/groups is very productive. When one shares opinions and discusses decision-making tactics, it helps in preventing errors and enhancing success rate.
- Even the most experienced business owners have mentors as learning never stops. Take part in mentorship programs so there is an assurance that you are following the correct roadmap.
Conclusion
There is absolutely no doubt that business dimensions have evolved with technological advancements. Successful entrepreneurs have grabbed these changes in due course of time and continue to evolve. On the other hand, people following old paths and conventional steps fade out of competition. In a nutshell, keep an eye on the processes and practices you follow as these factors decide success rate.
Success Advice
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These words have a significant impact on how our success unfolds
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From Couch Potato to Go-Getter: A Step-by-Step Motivation Plan for Everyone
By understanding what motivates you, you can turn your dreams into reality
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