The Digital Entrepreneur
This Short Guide Discusses the Essential Skills and Habits You Need to Thrive as a Digital Entrepreneur! Being a Digital Entrepreneur has ups and downs just like any other career or vocation. So, before you read this guide, clear your head of sugar plum fairy dreams of instant riches.
Limitless Freedom
On the one hand, every digital entrepreneur has access to the kinds of tools and technology not otherwise previously available. All of the old walls and barriers to building a global business - gone! We open up a world of opportunity that never existed before. The freedom is limitless.
On the flip-side, because it is so easy for any digital entrepreneur to get up and running these days. There’s a flood of businesses pouring into every market around the world. Some of them of very low quality or value offering.
The 21st Century Business Environment
We live in the middle of the most competitive business environment that has ever existed. To succeed, be laser focused, limit distractions, build your skillsets. These habits drastically improve your chances of success.
Focus on the details we highlight below and you’ll be sure to hit the ground running. Build a solid success foundation.
Fall in love with Change
Even though the psychology of consumers isn’t going to change anytime soon – and has remained the same ever since the first cave person sold something to another – the tactics, the tools, the strategies, in the formulas you use to build and grow your business as a digital entrepreneur are going to change faster than ever before.
The most successful businesses today remain incredibly flexible. Keep flexibility in your operations and you’ll be able to improve your odds of success considerably. Be prepared to change things up frequently.
Be Prepared to Fail - But Stand Up Again!
The internet feels comfortable for many, but digital entrepreneurs are relatively new– and that means a lot of mistakes.
Sadly, too terribly many people are frozen by failure, terrified of making a mistake, and absolutely hate when they work really hard to produce a success and it falls flat on its face.
In the world of business, however, failure is something that’s going to happen quite regularly. You should never be okay with flopping, but you should recognize that it is an important part of the process and a key piece of the puzzle. Learn from failure and recognize that it’s going to happen from time to time and you’ll find you’re a lot more resilient in the business decisions you move in the future.
Move with Lightning like Speed
The concept of a Minimally Viable Product is something that you are really going to want to embrace as a digital entrepreneur.
You should be shipping something as quickly as possible, getting products that are wrong and new into the hands of your customers and your market to learn what needs to be improved, what needs to be abandoned, and what needs to be your focus moving forward.
Too terribly many people try and tinker around with products and services until they are “perfect” – or at least what they think are perfect. Make sure you research your product and service before launch.
The very first iPhone was a perfect example of a MVP style product. Apple new that they wanted to change the landscape of phones forever, but the first iPhone shipped without mobile application capabilities, without all kinds of storage, and without the bells and whistles that would later define it in the future of Apple for years to come.
This is the kind of approach you want to take as a digital entrepreneur.
The Power of Leverage
Appreciate and leverage all of your assets
Digital entrepreneurs need to cozy up to the idea that they may not be creating physical assets all the time, but the digital assets that they create – their digital products, their email lists, their web traffic, their social networks, etc. – are assets all the same and can provide a tremendous amount of value to a growing business even if it isn’t immediately apparent.
Your customers are one of your most important assets!
Convincing complete and total strangers to give you cold, hard cash for anything at all is next to impossible and will always be the most expensive endeavor your business undertakes. Treat each customer like gold. Market only if you have a value offering.
Other assets include any intellectual property you’ve developed, any digital programs that you can combine or sell through affiliates, traffic generation secrets or sources you can share (for a fee) with others, etc.
The odds are pretty good that you have a pile of money you’re sitting on that you aren’t coming close to leveraging completely, simply because you’re overlooking the assets you built as an entrepreneur.
Open up your prospecting pool
A lot of digital entrepreneurs dive headfirst into this kind of business with ideas of building a global business, but then take a different approach and really pigeonhole themselves by selling to folks in their local area or just beyond.
It would be a major mistake to build an online business and really not start to play around with global markets, opening up your prospect pool so that instead of having hundreds of millions of people that could look at your marketing or advertising you’re starting to advertise in for potentially billions of people.
Scalability is the name of the game when it comes to success online today, and that’s only going to be possible if you are opening up the amount of people that you put your pitches, your products, and your services in front of.
Do absolutely everything you can to get out in front of more people and you’ll be able to skyrocket your income in a way that just wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.
You need to start thinking about global opportunities, offers, and a global sales machine that runs 24/7 every single day of the year. Those are the kinds of capabilities that you have access to as an entrepreneur in the Age of the Internet, and those of capabilities that will help make your financial dreams a reality.
Conclusion
Focus on the key details that we highlighted above you'll have sound principals as a foundation. Remember that Internet Entrepreneurship is a wonderful journey. Forget get rich quick schemes. Focus on what matters. Provide value, and you'll never look back! Through perseverance, self-discipline, and hard work; you'll live a life you never dreamed of!
Welcome Aboard the Digital Entrepreneurship Train!
