10 Traits of Successful Entrepreneurs by Kevin Sudbury - HTML preview

Trait 10: Entrepreneurs Willingly Work With Others

There are very few successful people in this world who’ve created their success completely on their own. Most of the time, you need a team of people.

Sometimes people look for exceptions to this rule. Perhaps they exist, but these exceptions are fewer and farther between than you think.

Take the example of a successful author: they did it all themselves, right? Especially an indie author who didn’t even use a publishing house – they must be lone wolfs, right?

Not quite.

Chances are, even the successful indie author had a team of sorts in place to help. This author may have had:

• Support from loved ones who encouraged her to finish the book.
• Beta readers.
• One or more editors.
• Someone to create the cover graphics.
• Someone to create the back cover blurb and book listing.
• Someone to help with marketing.

So even in the example of an independent author, he or she still needs a team.

Your business is no different. Depending on your needs and your business model, you may need the following people:

• Employees to help with customer service, content creation and similar activities.
• Freelancers to fill in the gaps (especially if you don’t have employees) for activities such as web design, copywriting, graphics, programming and similar items.
• Affiliates and joint venture partners to help with your marketing.
• Mentors, mastermind groups and similar, to help you with whatever you need when you feel stuck in any aspect of your business.
• Business partners, which could be silent partners (investors), or active partners who help you with the day to day tasks required to run your business.

So as you can see, it’s very unlikely that you can be a lone wolf in your business. Some business owners try to go that route, but they find it exceedingly frustrating, and at some point business growth will come to a screeching halt.

If you consider yourself a lone wolf, then follow these two tips:

• Get more comfortable giving up control. For example, start by outsourcing small tasks until you become more comfortable with the idea, or hire part-time employees. As your comfort grows, you can then hire a bigger team (which in turn will lead to faster business growth if you direct your team wisely).
• Start networking. You can do this online, offline or (ideally) both online and offline. Join local organizations with other business owners, check of local groups on MeetUp.com, join business-related Facebook groups, and look for forums and other business related or industry-specific communities. Then build relationships with individuals, as these other business owners could become business partners, mentors or marketing partners.

Now let’s wrap things up…