E is for Exceptional

ex·cep·tion·al (k-spsh-nl)

adj.

1. Being an exception; uncommon.2. Well above average; extraordinary

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/exceptional

Every entrepreneur should be exceptional.  If the entrepreneur is going to succeed rather than survive, there needs to be some exceptional qualities present and on display even before he or she clears a profit.  If no such qualities exist within the entrepreneur, then it is like fighting a losing battle. Defeat and destruction are inevitable, leaving no real winner from the venture.

You have to operate somewhere above average as an entrepreneur.  Otherwise, you will run into some major obstacles along the way.  Rejection awaits the hopeful and prayerful consultant or writer.  Betrayal may set in before the ink is dry on a partnership agreement or an LLC.  You need to see the value in being an exceptional entrepreneur.

Order Your Subscription Now

Engraved in Ebony:

Hiram Rhoades (Rhodes?) Revels (1827-1901)

He was the first African American to serve in the U.S. Congress, serving as the senate representative of Mississippi in 1870 and 1871.  He was an ordained A.M.E. minister. Revels served as the first president of Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College alos known as Alcorn State University) and  taught philosophy. In 1873, Revels served as Mississippi's secretary of state ad interim.

 

E is for Expressive

Every single entrepreneur should be expressive.  Each one has to share about his or her wares with others.  Otherwise, who will know that they are even in business?

Entrepreneurs do not have the luxury of living in a vacuum. The entrepreneur may not be a "people person," but he or she surely needs to develop a way to interact and engage people if he or she plans to stay in business long.  An entrepreneur's survival is dependent upon the ability to sell others on what he or she provides as a service or product.

Learning how to network will go a long way.  I don't mean selling to the point where people duck and dodge you at the local chamber of commerce gatherings every time that you come around.  Salespeople are too pushy in my opinion.  You want to learn how to schmooze with smoothness.  You want to make talking about your business flow naturally in every conversation.

I think back of the famous plays like Porgy and Bess and Fiddler on the Roof.  You learned about what those men did for a living in that fishing town as they sang It take a long pull to get there  in "Porgy and Bess."  The same with the matchmaker as the girls sang in hopes of the matchmaker making them a match and finding them a catch.  When I went to a baseball game last season, I heard the concession vendor calling out to fans and rattling off how he hot dogs and peanuts with a melodic-like tone.  That's what the entrepreneur must do.  The entrepreneur must speak up and express how the product or service will benefit others.  The entrepreneur has to express it with heart and feeling, seeking to win others over to believing it just as much as the entrepreneur does himself.

E is for Experimentation

"I have not failed. I've just found 10000 ways that won't work." - Thomas Edison 

Entrepreneurs are masters of experimentation.  Every entrepreneur must go beyond dabbling in it.  The entrepreneur must become an expert at experimentation.

Have you got a new idea? Test it out. Have you exhausted every means of your product or service? Think of new ways to innovate products and services.  Create spin-offs and offshoots.  Expand, extend and exhaust all of your ideas, and then see where else you can go with them.

Do you blog? Write an article based on one of your blog posts, then write an ebook that expands beyond the article.  From there, experiment with tinkering with some of the same ideas to create a training session in MS PowerPoint or develop templates and tools for managers and leaders to effectively implement the training.  That may even lead to a mini-conference or half-day workshop on the topic with sessions by other business leaders on related topics where you can piggyback on their contacts and connections as you work together.

Even as I write this, I am allowing myself to experiment with ideas and see where I can go.  In the words of Norman Vincent Peale, "Do not build up obstacles in your imagination."



You Can if You Think You Can



E is for Enterprising

"An enterprise, when fairly once begun, should not be left till all that ought is won." - William Shakespeare

Entrepreneurs need to see themselves as enterprising.  That's an entirely differently slant than simply as a person in business.  You should seek to build an enterprise.

Anyone with an entrepreneurial spirit can envision multiple layers to their business.  They see various modules and components, divisions and departments, all part of the business itself.  As ideas are generated and developed, the entrepreneur begins to see how each piece if the puzzle fits together in harmony in order to form the big picture for the expanded business.

Let yourself become more enterprising.  Explore new ideas and new ways to generate ideas related to your business.  Enlarge the scope of your vision towards enterprising.