17 Successful Habits of Online Entrepreneurs
Being an online entrepreneur is a whole set of challenges, but can reap many successes. With online shopping occurring 24/7 from all over the world, one can find it hard to manage business and regular life. Here’s a compilation of successful habits of online entrepreneurs. See how you stack up and work to try and add some of these to your routine. The payoff in the end will be worth trying some of these changes.
17 successful habits of online entrepreneurs
1.Committed: Show up daily to work, lead by example, focus on tasks that need to be tackled by priority. Be committed during good times and bad times to keep moving forward. Sometimes you’ll have to pay the price of long hours. Staying focused and removing some distractions for a bit may be required. Building a business takes a lot of hard work. Yet, don’t work too hard that you don’t have enough time for you. Successful entrepreneurs know to take breaks to mentally recharge in order to stay focused and not burn out.
2. Plan ahead: Have an idea of the strategies and goals you want to focus on, think big and work towards that. Keep setting new goals to accomplish once you’ve crushed some. While achieving those goals, make sure to take the time to celebrate that accomplishment. Somethings online entrepreneurs should plan for include succession planning, stages of growth, the types of investments to use and an exit plan. Planning ahead also means scheduling time. Schedule time for breaks, talking to staff and customers, analyzing and building plans to name a few. Often work life gets busy and then there is no time to focus on what you need to do, which is why successful online entrepreneurs plan their schedule. While we all know fires happen and they need to be dealt with, being able to manage through change and get back to make adjustments will help you stay on track.
3. Take risks: Be open to try something different. Sometimes failure happens. Many online entrepreneurs failed a few times until something stuck. It takes a little bit of work to get the right customers lined up to your products. Be open to experimenting with marketing, different ways of operating, different investors or even different products to try to sell. It’s about finding what resonates with a target market and potential customers. Sometimes what you think may not be what the customer thinks. Successful habits come out of taking a risk and learning from it.
4. Get support: Build a network of support that can include family, friends, other online entrepreneurs, influencers and business leaders. They can give you great advice as you hit hurdles in your business. Sometimes you may have an employee issue that you don’t know how to resolve, or a customer case that you could use some advice on. Don’t be afraid to reach out. People have experiences they are willing to share.
5. Gratitude: Being thankful has been scientifically proven to unleash all sorts of benefits such as opening doors to new relationship, improving health, reducing aggression, getting better sleep and increasing mental strength. Learn more here at this article in Forbes from a leading psychotherapist.
6. Hire the right people: Get others to do jobs that you can’t do, or can do better. There’s nothing wrong in not being able to do it all. You can’t do it all. Successful entrepreneurs know that their success comes from building a strong team that supports them. They know what their strengths and weaknesses are. Hire those that are strong in your weakness or for roles you don’t have enough time for.
7. Self confidence: Have a firm belief in what it is you’re doing and how you’re doing it. Trust yourself. This key trait comes down to how you feel about your abilities to execute and that being told “no” isn’t going to slow you down. Being highly self-assured also helps keep a positive attitude. This makes successful online entrepreneurs push fear and doubt away. Self-confidence can help you lead and inspire your staff too.
8. Read: Things change so rapidly these days. Reading will help you stay informed with what is going on now, or the direction of change. Reading can teach you new opportunities, give you insights you may not have thought of, learn from other people and learn about industry changes. It’s about constant learning and growth to be able to manage and grow business. In cases, where you feel you’re not strong, reading can help you fill in gaps in your abilities.When you feel that you may not have time to get through books, follow influencers and business leaders and read what they are sharing. Follow some blogs and subscribe to some publications. It’s one thing that they come to your inbox, you need to also set time aside to sit and read daily.
9. Learn from mistakes: Mistakes happen. Successful online entrepreneurs were open to trying something and quickly learned from mistakes. Corrective measures are created to ensure mistakes don’t happen again. There’s nothing wrong with admitting when a mistake was made and not being afraid to fail or be wrong. Think of some of the most successful companies and entrepreneurs out there, they all failed somewhere at some point. What matters is they learned and didn’t quit.
10. Build relationships: It’s more than just networking (which scares some), it’s about the relationships you build. It can take time to build them but there are some key relationships that will help your online entrepreneurial success. Staff, Online buyers (your customers), Suppliers and Influencers for example are important networks to have. Transactions occur between people and that is why they are important relationships to establish and cultivate. It’s a 2 way street too. It’s not just about what they can do for you, but what you can do for them
11. Exercise: You need your physical health to run a business, manage staff, satisfy customers. It feeds oxygen to your body and reduces stress and anxiety. The little boost of energy can help you tackle all you have to do in a day. Taking a break to get your workout in can also increase creativity. This is one area you have 100% control in. Taking at least 20 minutes a day to exercise will improve your health. Successful entrepreneurs makes sure that they schedule an hour to work out everyday. Find the time that will work best for you: early mornings, on your lunch break or in the evenings. Whatever the case, you have 24 hours in a day, 1 hour of exercise is a small portion with huge benefits.
12. Review numbers: Use data to help make decisions based. Look to see where you can make efficiencies, what’s trending, what’s declining and try to find out the whys. The field of data and analytics is growing because of how much technology can capture and the insights it gives entrepreneurs and their teams to make decisions. Study the data, but successful online entrepreneurs also follow their gut. With the data, you’ll be arming yourself with an informed decision.
13. Seek feedback: You can learn a lot from employees, your customers, suppliers and other people in your network. Be open to hear feedback and make any adjustments necessary. There’s nothing wrong with surveying existing customers or leads to learn more about why they bought from you. Remember that customers help define your business.
14. Mentor: Successful entrepreneurs and business leaders use a mentor. This person is someone they meet with regularly to discuss business advice, as well go to for support and encouragement. Take the time to find the right person who can be available to meet monthly. If you’re a small online seller and don’t know where to start, you can try this free MicroMentor database and find someone that you can begin a mentor relationship with. This is one of the successful habits that should continue even when you have reached success.
15. Track competitors: Successful entrepreneurs track what their competition is doing: product development, pricing, product features, what they are doing for marketing, how they sell and distribute, customer service, what software they may be using as well as other insights. Your competitors will have conducted research that has lead them on the path they are on. If you’re strapped for time or resources, competitive reviews will give you an idea of what direction the industry you are in is heading.
16. Take time for yourself: Even though online selling is a 24/7 business, you can’t work that much. Successful business leaders take time for their personal life after work for themselves and those they love. A part of this includes getting enough sleep, taking breaks, taking your vacations and spending time with family and friends. Do activities you love, keep your interests and hobbies going. Life is about the right balance and successful habits need time to develop.
17. Have a to do list: You do have a lot to do in a day, week and month. You may not get to it all, but you know what you need to work on. Whether you keep a to do list handwritten on paper or set up as tasks on your computer, many successful online entrepreneurs use this habit to stay on track. Sometimes at night your mind may wander. Have a pad and pen by your bed to toss down some thoughts so you can get back to trying to get some sleep.
Successful habits take time to form. Change is possible and with practise these things become part of your standard routine. Experts recommend trying something for 21 days for it to begin to form into a habit. Take a few of these successful habits of online entrepreneurs and see what you can accomplish.