It’s clear that for most economies across the Caribbean, entrepreneurship is going to be a key success factor.
With growing interest in the road less travelled, what should we look out for so that budding entrepreprenurs can have the best shot possible?
Working with the wrong people
Most businesses succeed or fail because of the team. It somes has nothing to do with the service, product or market.
If the team doesn’t gel, then the rest is history.
Make sure that you work with people who have similar motivations and work as hard as you do!
Too much chat
Island people have the gift of the gab and so do their cousins in the disaspora.
Now as much as this is a positive to entreprenurship, there will come a time when you have to back it up.
As soon as you can, prove your business model. Demonstrate that your idea has some viability and can generate come cash!
Lack of focus
Most entrepreneurs come up with new ideas all the time.
But they also tend to hop from one venture to another without commiting the right amount of focus to make any of them a success.
So decide which idea you’re really passionate about and can add the most value to and go for it!
A bad rep
For a small business, reputation is everything. Google has made it easy for a bad rep to travel and it’s common for your name to be ‘Googled’ before a meeting.
The easiest way to build a good solid reputation is to do what you say you’re going to and do it well.
People fail – Systems don’t
Many entrepreneurs struggle to grow their businesses because it usually starts out being all about them. In order to scale your operation you have to put systems in place that will allow you to delegate, track, measure and optimise what’s happening in your business.
If you don’t, then inevitably, given you’re only human, things will slip and it only takes a few of those before your business falls flat on its face
Small minded
Unless you’re born with a natural confidence it’s quite likely that your mindset will limit how far your business will go.
You should always be pushing the comfort zones of both yourself and your business – punch above your weight!
If you don’t then you’ll never get that big contract or be able to increase your prices and therefore your revenues.
One hit wonder
True success can be repeated.
If you’re happy with being a one hit wonder then that’s great, but it’s not entreprise.
Any good business has a formula they have developed so that they can create profits based on a system and not luck.
