Success is a habit. (So is failure.) Once established, the habit of success is a good one to have. Do you want to be more successful in your small business? Then try adding one or even all of these habits to your routine. Once they’re part of you, you may find that success is a difficult habit to break.
7 habits successful small business owners adopt
1. Understand your brand – and be consistent
If you want to be successful as an entrepreneur, you must know the value proposition you offer your customers and consistently provide them with that value. What word or phrase describes your business? What kind of experience do your customers want and need? What are you doing to provide that every time they engage with you (even if they’re not making a purchase). Take Disney for example. Their brand is all about creating magical experiences. So when you visit a theme park, everything from the people they hire to the design of the rides to the myriad characters signing autographs is designed to feel magical. And they are very consistent—go back a year later and the experience will be just as magical.
2. Take risks – and fail
If you’re not willing to fail, you won’t take the risks necessary to succeed. Just ask James Dyson who spent 15 years creating 5,126 prototypes that all failed before he made a vacuum that worked. Or ask Thomas Edison. He reportedly tested more than 1,000 filaments before he finally found one that would work. And while Edison is famous for successfully creating the light bulb, he also tried his hand at creating cement cabinets and piano cases, motion pictures with sound, and a better way to product iron ore—all failures. What big idea are you working on that will probably fail, but might be an incredible success?
3. Saying “no” is ok
As a small business owner, you may be will do anything to get a customer. And you know there are hundreds of tasks that constantly need your attention. Not to mention the dozens of awesome ideas that could help your business grow. You can’t do it all. So you need to say no. Even to ideas, tasks, and customers that may be great opportunities that don’t fit with your strategy and the direction you want to take your company. This means you may miss out of some opportunities. But that’s okay. If you understand which opportunities have the most long-term growth potential and fit with your business strategy, you can say “yes” to those.
4. Know your strengths and weaknesses – trust your gut
If you know what your good at and what you know, as well as where you are weak and what you might not understand, you are in a better position to trust your gut. Let’s face it. Small business owners have to make decisions every day without all the facts or data. By better understanding what you know (and what you don’t), you are in a better position to make the decision—or delegate it to someone who has the information to make the right choice.
5. Drill down and focus intensely
As a small business owner, you not only need to take care of the strategy and overall business decisions, you also have to be able to have laser-like focus on the details. Can you be managing inventory in a different way? How do you increase timely collections? What can you be doing for your customers to make their experience better? As you get into the details of your business, you better understand how each part works and affects the rest. You ability to focus intensely and solve problems is critical to your success as an entrepreneur.
6. Continue learning
You have to be curious to come up with new ideas. And the best way to do that is to engage with the world around you. Read great books. Monitor what experts are saying on blogs, newsletters, and Twitter. Go to conferences. The more you get to know about the world, the more you learn, the more you explore new interests, the better able you are to come up with ideas and strategies that will help you grow and succeed in your business.
7. Help others
This last habit may be the most important. As an entrepreneur, you likely rely on the help, ideas, connections, counsel, and advice from the people around you. Most of it will be offered for free. Make sure you pay it forward, even if you don’t see a way to profit from it. Make referrals. Give advice. Share your experience. The surest way to success is to help others succeed.
