Let’s face it, entrepreneurs want success as soon as possible. We don’t want to wait too long to enjoy our incomes. We want big deals, big offers and maximum profits pronto. After all, success in business today seems to happen overnight.
Have you ever thought about building a business as big and successful as Zambeef or the Facebook company? Or do you ever stop to imagine how big the Coca-Cola company is today?
In many instances, start-up entrepreneurs are inspired by many successful business owners that include Bill Gates, Mark Zukerberg, the late Steve Jobs, or the world’s richest man – Jeff Bezos. When we think of these entrepreneurs, all we see, often, is their success. We do not know how hard they had to work to get to where they are today.
Let’s take the richest man in the world for instance. Did you know that Amazon Inc was established in 1995 and had a revenue stream of up to 148 million dollars, 2 years in operation (Mark Hall, 2020). Given the amount of money generated, it is easy to see why people would expect to get rich faster but prior to the establishment of this booming business, Jeff Bezos had to exercise two very important qualities in entrepreneurship. He had to exercise patience when building his company from a garage in Seattle, Washington and he had to exercise persistence in convincing the world of the practicality of a business model that was somewhat unheard of at the time. Though established in 1995, Amazon was a work in progress that began even before Jeff Bezos worked for the New York investment bank D.E. Shaw & Co. in 1990. It took patience and persistence for the company to be at its current state of glory.
Allot of entrepreneurs don’t calculate or look at the amount of patience and persistence successful entrepreneurs dedicated to their craft, as a result most business ventures lead to failure.
PATIENCE
Contrary to what seems like a norm in today’s fast paced world, success in business is often slow and it demands continuous long-term commitment.
As we all know, there are many keys to business success. Among other factors to success in business, entrepreneurs must have great products and great services. Entrepreneurs must also build great teams if they want to grow their businesses successfully. This is achieved by understanding the individuals that make up the team (Oliver Isaacs, 2020).
In the fewest instances, when entrepreneurs start out, they have a little bit of luck – their businesses start out quite well. They then learn to grow and maintain their business from there. However, often when entrepreneurs start out, they face challenges from the onset. Many give up on their first challenge, others give up after a few challenges. The ones who succeed and remain successful are entrepreneurs who understand that true success builds with every challenge.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau asserted, “patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet” and he was exactly right. In business, although we intend to make things happen there and then, things rarely go as planned. We discover sooner or later that success is often about creating short-term and long-term goals and being patient enough while we work to achieve those goals.
Patience in business becomes easier when one breaks his or her bigger picture into smaller weekly, monthly and even annual goals. An entrepreneur must continuously create big goals and small goals periodically and exercise a bit of patience while they work towards achieving those goals.
When you’re setting up a business your first goal is execution and implementation. Thereafter, your next goal is, well…, doing business. People get into business with predetermined steps and guidelines they intend to follow for their business to take off successfully. However, many entrepreneurs lose sight of what they are doing in business within the first six months after launching their business. This is mainly because no one tells them that they must keep planning and developing more goals to succeed and stay successful even after they have launched their business. In fact, what is more important than the launch of the business, is its survival. Invest most of your time in planning on how you intend to remain in business rather than depleting all resources launching the business. And therein lies one of the biggest problems among would-be entrepreneurs – they only plan halfway.
It is easy to have a great idea; it is harder to implement it and even harder to stay motivated when you are faced with challenges in your implementation. An entrepreneur often must practice for years to fully master his niche. That man who seeks to learn more of his craft shall be richly rewarded (George Clason, 1926). With constant development of goals – every entrepreneur can define his or her success long before they fully master their niche. With goals entrepreneurs can track their own success.
When you start a business, always think long-term. How long do you want to be in business? What industry do you want to conquer? Who are your potential customers? Do you want your business to keep thriving long after you’re gone? Consider these questions when you intend to do business.
When you determine how long you want to be in business, being patient will be easier.
About the Author
Bob William Nkonjela (ICT Consultant – KPMG).
The views expressed in this article are his own and not necessarily those of KPMG.
References
- Clason, S, G (1926). The richest Man in Babylon. London: Penguin Books
- Greiner, N. (2020) “How to Stay Motivated When Things Get Tough and Stressful” Follow your passion https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/337858 [Accessed on 28 July 2020]
- Hall, M. (2020) “Amazon.com” American company https://www.britannica.com/topic/Amazoncom [Accessed on 06 June 2020]
- Isaacs, O. (2020) “8 Tips for Running a Startup Like a True Leader” Understand your team https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/346876 [Accessed on 09 May 2020]
Napoleon Hill (1938). Think and Grow Rich. Meriden: The Ralston Society