Shark Tank and its international counterparts are made primarily for entertainment. They do, however, provide some genuinely meaningful business lessons. Here are some of the main ones.
Finance matters
You can start a business without any extra outlay. For example, you could use your regular internet connection to offer services online. At the end of the day, however, any business needs to deliver financial value to its owner(s).
If you’re just starting a business, you absolutely must understand how you’re going to earn money from it. You also need to have a realistic idea of how much money you can earn and how long it will take you to maximize your earnings.
Some businesses start “paying their way” fairly early but many require a growth period. You need to think about how you’re going to keep yourself during this period. This doesn’t have to mean getting venture capital. It may simply mean that you need to work a regular job while you’re building your own business.
Obviously, the more hours you’re working on other tasks, the fewer hours you’ll have to spend on your own business. For this reason, you might want to think about generating investment revenue, if so click here.
A lot of business is about attitude
There are two key ways your attitude will influence your chance of succeeding in business. Firstly, you have to believe you can succeed before you actually do. Secondly, you have to put your customers before your own ego.
Your self-belief (or lack of it) will almost inevitably manifest itself in all kinds of ways. One of the most obvious is your ability to sell your business. If you really believe in what you do and what you sell, your confidence will show. Flipping this around, if you show a lack of confidence in yourself then other people will rightly ask why they should have confidence in you.
Similarly, your ability to focus on your customers is often what makes or breaks a business. Quite simply, you need to be able to remember that the customer may not always be right, but they are always the customer. If they are sending you a message then you need to listen to it and respond in some way – even if that message frustrates you.
You need to invest in yourself
In the context of business, investing in yourself generally has two meanings. Firstly, there’s the obvious meaning of investing in your own business. As a rule of thumb, external backers expect to see you doing as much as you reasonably can yourself before you reach out to them.
Keep in mind that there’s often a lot you can do with little to no outlay. For example, it’s still possible to build a social-media following organically. This can really add value to your brand.
Of course, achieving these goals may require developing new skills. That’s why the second meaning of the term is investing in your own development. In the early days, this is often a lot more about making time than finding money. The internet is full of excellent free resources to get you off the ground. Then you can go to the next level with paid options.
- DISCLOSURE – This post has been written by an outside source
