- What was the biggest challenge when I was starting out
as an entrepreneur?
(upbeat music)
- There were many, many challenges.
There's not one big one.
All of them seem pretty big back then.
I would say, number one, I'll give you a couple.
Number one, I would say, I didn't know what I was doing.
I didn't know what I didn't know.
So I was very naive.
I was getting into all these businesses
and trying to kinda get rich quick,
trying to make money quickly.
How can I make some fast money?
And I was always looking for external factors.
There is this opportunity, is that business
or it's that relationship that is going
to make me successful that is gonna help me
to build success for business and when I was looking
for external factor to help me become successful,
I was never successful.
I believe to become successful
to build a good business, you always need to look within.
You need to think of, you always have
to be a part of that equation that you have
to take responsibility and at the time
just like most people, I was pointing fingers,
I was blaming everybody else for my failures.
It's the economy, it's the customers, it's my competition,
it's this and it's always somebody else's fault
except mine.
Until I made that switch, once I figure out that business
is actually about a few things, a few key things
such as selling a product, selling a service
in exchange of money.
It's what commerce is all about.
It's you offer something to the marketplace
in exchange of money.
Maybe you are solving a problem and I say
many times, entrepreneurs, we are nothing more
than a problem solver, right?
As an entrepreneur, we solve people's problems at a profit.
That's what we do as an entrepreneur.
And once I recognize that, then things became more clear
for me that: okay, in order to do that
I need to have more capabilities,
I need to have more skill sets, I need to be better,
I need to develop some fundamental business skills
because most people, they get into business
without actually knowing business.
They don't know how business works,
they have no business acumen.
That have no help from anyway,
they have no idea what it takes
and they actually don't even know a whole lot
about the industry they're getting into most of the time.
Of course, you've heard of the statistics
that most businesses, some say 95%, some say 90%
of small businesses fail in the first five years.
Of course, when you don't know what you're doing
then chances of you failing is very, very high.
So I would say that's the biggest challenge.
Not knowing what I was doing
and also not having those skillsets.
Now once I have the skillsets,
once I've developed some of those capabilities,
it's like driving a car, when you don't know
how to drive a car, it's driving dangerous.
Of course, it's very dangerous, right?
You don't know what you're doing,
you don't know: are you pressing the gas,
are you pressing the break?
Of course, it's very dangerous
'cause you are very dangerous.
The car itself, the vehicle, the business
is not dangerous but, as a driver,
you're dangerous 'cause you don't know what you're doing
but once you know, kinda know how to drive a car,
you can drive this car, you can drive a SUV,
you can drive a sport car.
It doesn't really matter because now you know
how to drive a car.
So business, I believe is the same thing.
Once you know how a business works,
once you know how to build a team,
once you know how to do sales, how to do marketing,
once you know how to put resources together,
once you know how to raise capital,
once you know how to maybe do your social media,
online marketing, it doesn't matter a whole lot
what business you get into, the chances
of you succeeding is way high.
And I always believe the number one skill,
the number one skill that you need as an entrepreneur
it is the ability to close.
It is the ability to communicate your idea,
your people skill, your communication skill
because that's what you do all day.
When you're talking to customers, you are closing
you are selling, right?
When you're talking to a vendor,
you're communicating the idea, you are closing.
When you are talking to your employees,
you are closing, you're selling them your vision.
You're closing 24, seven.
So having that skillset, I believe is very, very critical.
And that's one of the things I train,
so many entrepreneurs around the world on
this particular skillset on, how do you close?
How do you communicate your ideas?
How do you take what's in here and communicate
in such a way that people will understand,
that you can simplify your message?
It doesn't matter what business you wanna get into,
I believe that is the number one skill.
- Boom!
Big boom and not just one, actually two booms.
It wouldn't have been possible, of course,
without a huge community for HTC for Dan Lock.
- Okay, I'm kinda crying here.
I just got my first boom.
I joined HTC one week ago.
Actually, it hasn't even been fully one week ago
'cause it was Thursday night at seven o'clock.
It's two in the afternoon, right now.
Last week's class was so good.
The advice on taking notes and everything
Sehu, thank you so much.
And so I have the call with him today
and I earned 25,000 dollars for myself
for my own consulting service
and immediately paid off all of my debt
in one day, in one Zoom call.
Thanks for listening everybody.
This is a big day, this is, wow.
- If you wanna know more about that,
I have a four part training series
that teach people, teach entrepreneurs like yourself
how do you develop this skill?
The ability to communicate, the ability to influence,
the ability to persuade.
So click the link below and see
and get access to my four part training.