Everyone has a dream to be their own boss and work for themselves. An entrepreneur's journey is subjective depending on the person. Two people could have the same idea but only one ends up being successful and it's not just about working hard there's so much more that goes into creating a successful business. Working hard and having a great idea are great starts to beginning a business of your own but there are a lot of elements you will have to focus on.
Nehal Khan has footprints across over 40 countries and has delivered on over 2700 projects across the globe. At the same time, he has successfully started 6 online magazines and his own business Digital Milestone Media. However, all these didn't come easy. It took time, effort, and continual learning for him to get to where he is today and he's sharing how to become a successful entrepreneur with his five tips to success.
• Reading More Books means Success?
We've all heard that the most successful people read books. Bill Gates reads 50 books a year, Elon Musk grew up reading two books a day, and Mark Zuckerberg read at least one book every two weeks. All three of these people are wildly successful. Does reading more mean you're more likely to be successful? Yes and no. They don't read for entertainment however they believe reading is a way to access more knowledge i.e. they are striving to learn every day.
Nehal khan follows in each of their footsteps and reads every day believing if he didn't read or research every day that he'd be kicked out by the competition. This is just one thing you can do to set yourself up from others.
• Learn from your mistakes
Oprah was fired at 23 years old before starting a billion-dollar company, Walt Disney was fired for lack of imagination before starting Disney, Vera Wang was 40 years old before designing her first dress now she's worth over a billion dollars. Are you seeing a pattern here? They have made mistakes, but they didn't give up. Everyone successful person has failed but what sets them apart is learning from their failure and not dwelling on them. Nehal is no different from them.
He started freelancing in 2012 but due to his lack of knowledge he failed, after getting a lot of bad ratings which prevented him from getting more clients. That's when he decided to stop to work on himself and make sure that when he went back that he was ready and now he has over 2 thousand positive reviews and even more completed projects.
However, learning from your failure isn't a one-time thing it's a continuous process. He decided that he should get into the magazine business. Even that failed. The reason for the failure was not associated with the idea but with the experience. That's because he had no experience in running a magazine business and didn't know how he can pull it off.
That's when he decided I don't just need a great idea I need a great idea in something I have expertise in and now he shares original and engaging content for people across the world. Whenever you fail at something take time to reflect but never to dwell. Move on and learn from it and that'll help you not only become an entrepreneur but also successful in general.
• Experience Speaks a lot
It's not just about ideas and hard work as Nehal proves it's also about the experience. In the two years that he took off from freelancing, he didn't just wait until he was older to start again. He used this time to gain experience not just from learning but by practicing. Work on himself helped Nehal in thousand different ways.Some of them includea way of quality, being more professional, and making sure that he could deliver his product on time.
This is one of the most crucial things that entrepreneurs must learn. That you're always going to be better tomorrow than you are today. You can ignore your competition for once but you shouldn't neglect yesterday's you as your competitor. Make sure you are progressing. Even a slight difference positively will help you a lot.
• Create Opportunity
Creating Opportunity is neglected by many people or treated as a common word. "Opportunities" word is common but if you practice a lot in it and try to explore your career life from a different perceptive, you will find many opportunities around you. It's a huge component where your mindset is the key to success, a mindset that blossoms positive thoughts instead of hating your work tell yourself "This is the best I've done in a while" this will create more opportunity in your life and help you avoid negative thoughts that can prevent you from taking a chance that'll help you grow.
Stop relying on others to help build your business or show you an opportunity the only person that'll let you create every opportunity is yourself. Make sure that you understand and plan for your growth and don't rely on someone else for that growth to happen.
• Competitors are not Always Bad
Do you believe that McDonald's doesn't know exactly what Burger King is doing, that Samsung isn't learning from Apple, Pepsi isn't actively trying to figure out what makes Coca-Cola so tasty? Well, you should. All these multibillion-dollar companies know who they are competing with even if they might even be that shop next door to you that's owned by a sweet old couple.
That just doesn't know about them they're watching and learning from them as well. If you want to be successful yourself, you need to know the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors and you need to replicate their strengths and exploit their weaknesses so that you can outdo them. You can read thousands of books but you don't learn things from your competitors, there are good chances you will fail.
