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5 Traits of Successful Women in Business

There was a time not so long ago when it was considered rare to find women in business. Today, more and more women are empowering themselves, starting businesses, and leveling the playing field with the men of the business world. Most women in business share common traits that help them become and remain successful. Below are a few of those traits.

Setting and Achieving Goals

Almost all successful women in business share the common trait of setting goals and then achieving those goals. Goals consist of anything you intend on doing and that you will strive to meet. By setting clear goals for yourself, you will give yourself a vote of confidence that helps to improve your overall business sense and drive.

Keeping Priorities Straight

It’s all too easy to get excited about something that leads you off the track of your goals. By keeping your priorities in order, you will keep your path leading to your ultimate goals. If you start to sway or stray from the path you are on, then you could run the risk of losing focus and eventually missing out on opportunities.

Time Management Skills

Smart women in business have great skills when it comes to managing their time. If you dedicate too much time to any one thing, other things get neglected. Dividing your time between the goals of your business will help you meet your goals more efficiently and within a reasonable amount of time. Great time management skills go a long way to help you work on the tasks that need you the most.

Overcome Challenges

Women who decide to become part of the business world need to overcome unique challenges. As a woman, the world is still biased and will not treat you fairly in a lot of instances. You are often forced to prove yourself where a man may not need to. You need to remain strong and capable, while also staying emotionally in line with yourself. By making yourself aware of challenges before they take place, you put yourself at an advantage over other businessmen and women. Every challenge you pass is another step closer to making your mark.

Take Time to Relax

Every once in a while, it’s good for a woman to take time out to pamper herself. Go to a spa, have a bubble bath, or simply take time off to spend with family or take a vacation if you need to. A little rest and relaxation can go a long way to recharging your batteries to take on new work challenges.

Women in business have many unique challenges that they must overcome in order to be successful. The traits above are some things that almost every successful business woman possesses. By knowing what these traits are, you can work toward making them part of your daily routine, and you will quickly notice some big things happening on your horizons as a business professional. When you’re ready to take on the world, do not hesitate, and move forward with the confidence you know is within you.

5 Ingredients of Successful Entrepreneurship

Read the quintessential qualities required to become a consistently successful and growing entrepreneur.

No business can grow without the growth of the entrepreneur who runs it. It is the entrepreneur who becomes the central line of the growth of the business. If the owner isn’t upgrading himself or herself, their business isn’t going anywhere. That’s a given! Here I share with you the basic fundamentals that an entrepreneur must focus on at any given point of time irrespective of the stage or the scale.

Ideas

Entrepreneurship is developed, it is a skill. There are no born entrepreneurs, they build themselves. Entrepreneurship lies dormant in all of us. We all have that inherent desire and wish to do that one dream business or project one summer day. The fact is if we ask all the people we know to write down their dream business on a piece of paper you will get a huge pool of resourceful Business ideas to work on. The tragedy is very limited people can visualize it as a profitable venture. No business is a bad idea. Every business is a growth business. Successful entrepreneurship is about taking a crazy idea to its logical plan and then utilizing the available resources to commercialize the idea into a long term profitable venture. An entrepreneur must always have ideas at the drop of a hat to solve problems, address demands or to innovate new products. Working on creative thinking is imperative to be a continuous resource provider of ideas. The key is in continuous creation of new, better and different ideas without falling in love with the old ones. Creation is possible only when the entrepreneur is continuously learning.

Plan

Once the idea is in place, the next step would be to create a clearly written down execution plan with step by step precision of what is to be done to make the idea convert into a business venture. Writing down the magic questions and their answers is the key. Magic questions include the what, where, when, how, who and why. A plan is nothing but a detailed execution methodology shared and supported by all the members concerned in a venture. Most entrepreneurs fall short of penning down their ideas simply because of lack of will or laziness. It is said that when you write your plans down, they help you remain motivated and on track when you are most knocked down in business. A plan consists of series of short, medium and long term goals. A goal is nothing but a dream with a deadline. Having a well thought of PLAN A and a contingency PLAN B are crucial in any entrepreneurial voyage.

Risk

This is what separates the men from the boys. Starting a venture requires the rare quality to challenge our comfort zones. Doing things that make us uncomfortable and destroying the status quo remains the fundamental essential quality of successful entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is doing things that are contrary to everything that has to do with the words security and comfort. It’s about choosing the short term pains to actualize and materialize the long term gains. Risk taking involves an emotional and mental decision first which translates into a financial or logical decision later to do something that has the probability to fail as much as to succeed. Risk taking becomes easy when the entrepreneur develops the ability to remain confident about the strengths and talent especially in times of crises.

Time

Entrepreneurship is about being ahead of time by planning your priorities. Entrepreneurs wear multiple hats and hence it is imperative that they wisely choose to do the most crucial and important activities in their business which only they have the expertise of doing. Entrepreneur’s must focus only on key success driving activities in their business and delegate the rest to people who are better at doing those things than the entrepreneur. Initially entrepreneurship takes a toll on the personal time and space of the individual, however, at later stages, the individual develops the habit of ignoring personal time and this leads to an unbalanced life. Spending quality time on crucial revenue generating and business growth related activities coupled with taking time out for family, fitness and hobbies is mandatory for a successful entrepreneurial life. Developing the discipline to follow learnable routines and at the same time having the flexibility to adjust as per changing demands is very important sign in entrepreneurship.

Team

Can you imagine the pyramids in Egypt built with a single rock? Can nations be built by the effort of a single person alone? Difficult to imagine, isn’t it? The sum of the parts makes the whole and the whole is incomplete without its parts. You cannot build a fantastic business unless you have fantastic people working with you. It’s easier to attract and nurture talent when you have a strong vision and purpose for your business. Business building and entrepreneurship thrives on collective efforts of like minded people moving together towards a common goal. Entrepreneurs tend to be self involved to the extent of not sharing their ideas, frustrations and dreams with others. Their initial experience of solitude makes them closed emotionally and as business grows the entrepreneur doesn’t realize the benefits of sharing. Leadership is about helping others bring out their strengths towards the achievement of a strong purpose. Entrepreneurs must learn to instill other people’s confidence and other people’s capabilities. It is only when you build a team, can you build a great business.

The above ingredients, if mixed passionately with solid persistence can help anyone build a fantastic entrepreneurial venture. Here’s wishing you all the best for your Businesses journey.

Steps to Successful Exporting

We all want to expand our business to new heights. By overcoming or conquering the local or domestic market the focus shifts to the international market. Almost every businessman at some or other point dream of expanding the venture to international market but only a few of them actually work on it. Most of them are scared of the loss or the charges and expenditure required for an easy export. A successful businessman is not afraid of the outcome but he focuses more on the quality of the product which will eventually lead him to success. Here are some tips for you to successful exporting:

1. Find connections:

This is the foremost thing to do. Good connections and relations help you to build a good ground for overseas business. Some people even choose to tie up with foreign based entrepreneurs as they have more knowledge about the local buyers and their mindset. Yes, this includes few possible risks but a good research will help you through.

2. Travel:

In order to learn about the market, people and culture you will need to travel the country once. Relations cannot be superficially built over the phone. You will need to research, find contacts and discuss your ideas with them in a formal business meeting. Attend trade shows or any such symposium which can help you with your venture.

3. Advertise:

Advertising is the prime factor behind every successful venture. Advertise in a way which connects to the mass audience. Find out the loopholes, the mindset of people, culture and weave them together to yield a promising advertising and marketing strategy. Half of the battle is won by convincing the customers by proper advertisements. With the internet and social media the things are more promising today. You can create websites, helpline, mail support and advertise your venture on social media platforms for an affordable fees. Your main aim should be to target the right audience.

4. Get help:

Apart from building up contacts, focus on building up an efficient staff. It is not a one way but a collective game. Success is dependent on a lot of factors with unity being the utmost. Group activities fetch more benefits than alone. Ask your staff about their ideas, suggestions in making this fruitful, appreciate them and take their suggestions into account. Often great ideas or suggestions come from the staff members which we avoid listening to.

Moreover, work on the quality of the product. These things come second to the integrity of your venture and the product. Do not compromise with it. With good quality comes impeccable confidence and with confidence everything is possible. Focus and work smartly.

First Step to Successful Entrepreneurship: 12 Ways to Cut Off High Business Startup Loans

When it comes to startups, the common problem that most entrepreneurs face today is the money to start a business. Being an entrepreneur is not easy, you have to take risks and move forward with optimism psychology. You need to think of ways by which you can obtain maximum output with minimum input. Well, that’s the basic rule of the business and widely followed by entrepreneurs all over the world. You need to be creative in what you do and innovative in your decisions. Few opt for business start up loans while few look for different alternatives. Bright ideas make a better future and some good initiatives can lead a foundation for you to become a successful entrepreneur. If money is scarce, that does not mean that you put your dream on hold, you always have better options to look forward. So, here are some creative ways to finance your business.

Steps to a Better future

• Sell your product to raise money – Well if you resale your product and find a suitable buyer, then you can raise funds for your business in an effective manner. No doubt there are many successful entrepreneurs all around the globes who started this way and once they complete their target, they expand their business with funds they collect.

• Support from family and friends – It is the traditional way and the most effective way in this contemporary world. You can convince your friends and family to invest or provide small business startup loan which may help you to implement your ideas better without any pressure. This way is much better than taking loans from any other alternative.

• Double Dipping – You can always start a side business to raise funds for your business startup. In this way you will not be under any kind of debt and burden and thus it is the safest way to start the business.

• Selling stuff – Well, sometimes it’s hard to sell out your stuff, but as Jarod Kintz said “Instead of burning the midnight oil, you should try to sell it”. Sometimes you have to compromise to achieve success. You can make good money out of it.

• Credit card – You can use a credit card to finance your money. This is an easy way, but it involves risk. If something goes wrong, then the interest rate goes up at a very high rate.

• Angel investors – It is one of the recommended methods and many leading companies like Google and Yahoo have used it. Angel investors give you the required amount to start up the business. You get a friendly environment and moreover a better and quicker way to deal with business.

• Microloans – You can lookout for various firms providing small loans for the young entrepreneurs. These firms are generally better than taking business startup loan from a bank.

• Get new order and deliver – There are a number of entrepreneurs who receive the order from the customer, but they are not able to supply due to lack of money for the production. There are some companies who provide loan in this scenario. With this you will be able to raise funds for your startup in a better way.

• Real estate – This is one investment which provides greater output if done after a research. Before investing your money, always do a little work to find out the current rates etc and do the right thing. With this you can raise money successfully without complications.

• Cut out liabilities – Well, it’s another creative way to earn good money. For example, you can rent your home for some time and raise a good amount of money by doing that. Many entrepreneurs have employed this way and were successful to earn enough money to start their business.

• Crowdfunding – It is a very popular way among entrepreneurs. In this you can make a good use of internet by finding people having similar thoughts on investing with small amounts. Collectively, these small amounts on adding up will provide you with a better alternative to startup your business.

• Financing by vendors – This is very helpful to obtain the material to sell your product. The manufacturers do not take any payment from you till your product is sold. In this way you get a better extension to sell your goods much efficiently.

After reading these 12 ideas, you must be very confident about your startup. But remember that things aren’t that easy as they seems. You need to work harder to achieve the best out of it. Moreover, just by visualizing ideas in your mind you won’t be able to implement them practically. You must be able to adapt according to the situations and work practically to achieve the requisite aim. Risk is always involved for young entrepreneurs, but that does not mean that you can’t do it. Overcome your fear and be creative and innovative and always ask yourself that do I have what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur?