Daven Michaels: Entrepreneurs Stay on Track With These 7 Survival Skills

I think we’d all agree that in many ways, these are crazy times. About 5 years into this new millennium all kinds of changes took flight and as entrepreneurs we’ve been challenged to keep up.

As human beings our lives and lifestyles are changing dramatically with technological advancement. As business people and entrepreneurs we’re experiencing challenges we may not have expected. The world continues to change! Things are different than they’ve ever been and we’re learning how to position our businesses for survival.

Brian Tracy, a well-known motivational speaker and author once said, “You are the architect of your own destiny; you are the master of your own fate; you are behind the steering wheel of your life. There are no limitations to what you can do, have or be—except the limitations you place on yourself by your own thinking.”

These words, when taken to heart, can and will shift our futures. Everybody’s looking for the BIG Secret—the key to freedom. What’s going to save us? Whatever it is, it had better save us from ourselves, because we hold that key and some of us don’t even know it.

Somewhere deep inside—you as an entrepreneur already harbor this understanding. This belief springboards your successes the moment you decide to take that great idea and turn it into something wonderful.

Whether your brand represents a product, a service or an invention, your belief in limitless possibility is the essence of what allowed your dream to take flight from the very beginning. This belief moves you forward as your business grows, and carries you through the rough spots on every leg of your entrepreneurial journey.

Here are a few survival skills that if you cultivate will help smooth out the jagged edges of economic shifts and help you keep your business afloat in trying times:

• Always have a plan—a business plan, a marketing plan and a budget.
• Be willing to change your plan if you learn something new.
• Learn the difference between making conservative decisions and acting from a place of fear.
• Keep getting educated. Learn the tools that will help you stay current in our new economy and global marketplace.
• Know which tasks are necessary for income generation and which can be delegated or outsourced.
• Stay positive and optimistic and avoid negative people and conversations.
• Be willing to stop throwing good money after bad.

Each of these survival skills contribute to your growth or stagnation. The last item on that list is probably the most challenging. I’ll talk more about each of these in future blogs. For now, if you haven’t already done so, start thinking about your plan. It’s the foundation of your success—or failure.