As an entrepreneur, most of us are aware that when we put in the effort to improve by forcing ourselves to grow and learn in new and different ways, you will certainly see the benefits.
There’s actually nothing very mystical about it because the more you work to change & grow, the better equipped you will be to handle the various challenges presented in life and work. Therefore the more able you will be to have success in your pursuits.
As an entrepreneur, self-improvement can benefit you even more than others because constantly learning new skills and innovating for your business is part of the job description. If you’re one who is somewhat resistant to change or who doesn’t have a particularly strong thirst for knowledge, then this article is for you, too.
Consider these reasons why continually improving yourself gives you a unique advantage for building a better business, while making you stronger and more successful in all your other pursuits, as well.
You Have to Change with Your Industry
Whatever business you’re in, things inevitably change as time goes on. You can easily get blindsided and left behind by shifting markets, new technology, or other changes if you don’t stay on top of them and change along with them. These things happen all the time, as the world seems to be careening towards an unseen future through technological advancement and an increasing attraction to making everything simpler and faster.
It can be difficult to stay on top of the trends that develop within your industry because it happens so fast now, that you as an entrepreneur or small business owner, need to become faster & smarter to be able to contend with the pace. Even beyond barely being able to contend with it, you can begin to actually get ahead of the curve through constantly learning and improving yourself.
As your customers demand that you give them what they need from your business, exactly when they need it, you have to do your best to meet those needs. It’s just the nature of the game. Don’t resist the advances in technology just because you’re stubborn or set in your ways, as that will only hold you back.
One of the greatest mistakes that business owners make is resisting or failing to notice that all of their competitors are using certain new technologies that are streamlining their businesses, while you’re left eating their dust. Embracing & utilizing innovation in technology for your industry will only increase your ability to be more productive and provide more for your customers.
Improve Yourself to Improve Your Business
There is a direct connection between the success of your business and your personal state-of-mind, well-being, experience, and skill. Everything you do, including how you run your business, is an extension of who you are and what you know. Which means that as you step up your game as an individual, your business will benefit from it because everything you learn and improve will translate to greater success in your business.
You should always be searching for ways to accelerate your personal growth because all of that will carry over into the business and also everyone else who works for you. One perfect example of this transference effect is that increasing your skill level with the tasks associated with creating & managing whatever product or service you sell will help you to come up with new ways to make your product better and more marketable.
You can also take the example of how becoming more physically and emotionally healthy benefits your business, too. Let’s say that, right now, you are generally pretty inactive physically, you don’t exercise & you eat just about anything that’s put in front of you.
Then, let’s say that you decide to start exercising regularly, start meditating every day, and get on a healthier diet. Once you start doing those things and become a generally healthier person, what will happen to your work?
You will have more energy to get more accomplished for the business, you’ll have increased motivation, and you’ll even have a clearer head. All of that will infuse your business with the same energy & cause it to run better, while encouraging your whole staff to improve themselves, too.
It may not be easy to see at first, but there is absolutely a positive transference to your business when you make positive changes in your own life as an individual. Good energy brings more good energy, and it makes good things happen even for your business.
Gain an Edge Over the Competition
When you discover and start to use self-improvement to your advantage, it’s like you’ve uncovered a secret. Not every business owner focuses on consistently improving themselves and how they do business. In fact, many owners ignore that aspect entirely, which you may have done before you read this article.
Our goal in writing this is to inspire you to start making the changes that will not only help you to give yourself a more rewarding life, but will also equip you to grow, streamline, and scale up your business to enable it to achieve the success that it deserves. Don’t get comfortable just because you have positive revenue coming in.
When entrepreneurs get complacent, that’s a recipe for trouble because if a business isn’t growing, it’s probably on its way towards decline. A business can only be in a state of motion; it is, at all times, either on its way up or on its way down.
The only scenario in which a business can run level on a plateau and stay alive is something like an established business that’s been running for a long time and has carved out a loyal customer base, like a local restaurant that has been around for decades.
Even then, it’s in danger of dying out if it doesn’t stay in touch with what its customers want. For any other business, you have to continually be innovating, learning about your market, and improving how the business is run to stay ahead of competitors and keep from going under.
So, again, one of the best ways to do that is to be ever striving to become a more knowledgeable, efficient entrepreneur. When you’re always innovating & working on your product to make it better, you will be able to stay ahead of the competition.. who may not be doing the same.
Set a Tone of Excellence in Your Company
As the owner, you’re the leader of your business (or businesses). So when it’s clear to others that you are constantly improving yourself in your personal and professional life, then you are setting an example for your entire team. This is a point where a lot of business owners fall short.
This may be due in part to the fact that not all owners are natural leaders, have any leadership skills, or even want to be a leader. Aside from stepping into the leadership role, you might not even have a whole lot of traits that are worth imparting to your team. That’s why it’s so important to improve yourself to the point when all of your employees can themselves become better and more productive by following your example.
Not only are people paying attention to how you conduct yourself but those habits which you transfer to your team will naturally translate to better practices within your business. You’ll find that your employees will follow your example if they see that you have a lot of positive traits that they would like to have, themselves.
That’s always going to benefit your business, and you should encourage it. There are owners who embrace the influence they can have with their staff, who take any opportunity to teach people what they know every chance they get, and then there are owners who want no part of that.
The latter would much rather just go into work, run the business, and have as little contact with their staff as possible. If you’re not so much of a people person, then that’s fine. It’s not that you have to always be giving a motivational speech to your employees; your quiet example that others can see as you go about your business in a very positive way is enough.
Life Is Short
Later on in life when you look back, you may wish that you did more & tried harder, possibly depending on how driven you are. The last thing we want is to have a lot of regrets when we recall our lives, or to be frustrated with ourselves that we didn’t take the roads that we could have taken.
Change is difficult for all of us but if you really want to grow as a person & make yourself stronger in the places that are broken, you can make the decision to change yourself and finally achieve that growth.
There is plenty that you can do right now to improve yourself and how you do business—it just requires that you make the choice to open yourself up to new opportunities. Such as new ways of thinking or more healthy ways to work and live. Are you wondering how to bring in new sales for the business, or which direction you should even start heading in?
Maybe you’ll want to do some research on new and more effective marketing methods. You can even start here with our blog, where you’ll find a wealth of information about content marketing, among other subjects related to effective marketing and advertising.
Talk to veteran business owners or take an online course at a university to gain some more conventional knowledge. These are just a few suggestions for places you can start, if you want to gain more skills and increase your knowledge to fuel your current business or other pursuits.
Being a professional, an entrepreneur, a small business owner, or whatever you identify most strongly with, who is perpetually striving to live better and be more successful in all your endeavors makes your life richer & more rewarding.
Self-improvement is a vital pursuit for all of us, whether you’re an entrepreneur or not, but entrepreneurs have a special and uniquely challenging job that requires a lot of understanding, insight, knowledge, and skill, among other things. So, it’s kind of a no-brainer that you should always be improving yourself to equip yourself to do that job well.
It’s not like you have to turn your whole life around overnight. You can start with a few small steps towards improving your personal physical and mental health, for example, and that’s actually a really productive first step because as you become healthier, it will make you stronger and more motivated to take further steps to improve yourself. And everything you do for yourself will end up greatly benefiting your business in the end.
Stephanie
Stephanie is the Marketing Director at Talkroute and has been featured in Forbes, Inc, and Entrepreneur as a leading authority on business and telecommunications.
Stephanie is also the chief editor and contributing author for the Talkroute blog helping more than 100k entrepreneurs to start, run, and grow their businesses.