The Entrepreneur’s Trifecta: Part II

Feb. 4, 2010 - PRLog -- When we’re talking about identifying a marketable service or product, what we’re really talking about is how to decide what type of business you should be starting for your first venture as an entrepreneur.

If you’ve searched the web about starting a business, then you’ve undoubtedly found a variety of information and definitions of what it means to be an entrepreneur.

Let me share my definition with you, to help you understand this more.  An entrepreneur is a master at leveraging their resources into marketable products or services that add value for others.  

Identifying marketable products or services is the easy part, and adding value is something we’ll talk about in the next article.  The real key to starting your first successful venture is having a clear understanding of what your resources are and how to use them efficiently to reach your goals, as an entrepreneur.

In order to do that, lets first understand the concept of resources and barriers to entry a little more, and lets refer to them as “competitive advantages.”  These competitive advantages, while seemingly polar opposites, are actually one in the same.  The only difference is whether you, as an entrepreneur, possess them or not.

In other words, resources are competitive advantages that you possess or have access too, and barriers to entry are competitive advantages that you don’t have access to for one reason or another…. yet.  

Every entrepreneur’s resources and barriers to entry are different, no matter what the business or industry is.  This is one reason why entrepreneurs often form partnerships - to share resources.  Likewise, the resources required and barriers to entry posed to newcomers in every type business and industry are different as well.

The key to creating a successful venture is matching your resources to the right business.  The better you are at doing this, the more successful you’ll be as an entrepreneur.

As you might have guessed by now, doing this requires a healthy does of reality and maybe some self- examination, but the point is not to discourage you.  You simply need to know where you’re starting to be able to realistically create a plan to reach your goals.

Here are a few examples of some common competitive advantages: financial resources, professional education or credentials, business experience or education, relationships and networks, government licensing, and intellectual property.

Again, as an entrepreneur, these items can either work in you favor, or be obstacles that you have to overcome.


Let me give you an example of how this worked for me when I started my first venture as an entrepreneur, in the commercial real estate brokerage business.

As we talked about in the first article, I had already become passionate about being an entrepreneur, so the next step for me was to determine what competitive advantages I possessed.  

Since I didn’t have much money (less than $800 to my name), or a network of relationships within the business community, I knew I would most likely need to start a service-based business rather than producing a product for my first venture.  Also at this point, I didn’t own any intellectual property, have any licenses, or any experience in the business world either.

After understanding that my resources were very limited, I knew I would have to choose the industry and business I wanted to enter very wisely.  To help me do this I decided on five criteria that the business would have to meet, in order for me to pursuer it with all the passion and resources I could muster.

The first and most important criteria for my new venture was this; I was looking for a business opportunity that would allow me to earn a good living, but also grow into a better entrepreneur with more resources available to me - from financial resources and experience in business, to relationships and networks, licenses and intellectual property.

Second, I knew that the $800 I did have to invest would be best spent on education and licensing, to change those barriers to entry into resources that would ultimately further my business and offer a substantial return on investment.

Third, I wanted to find a business that would allow me to keep my overhead and expenses at an absolute minimum.  I immediately overlooked any businesses that required upfront fees, investments on equipment and inventory, real estate costs, or having employees.

You should understand the reasoning behind this decision.  Although I was confident in my abilities, and criteria, there is always the chance that a market will unexpectedly changed for some reason.  Because my financial resources were so limited, I didn’t want to be obligated to financially perform in any way, in the event something like that happened.

Fourth, I wanted to enter a field with relatively low barriers to entry.  Although I knew that meant having a large number of competitors to deal with, I was confident that my work ethic and intelligence would prevail and act as a resource to be able to distinguish my service from my competitors.

Finally, I was looking for a business with a clearly defined market that potential customers already understood.  Because of my limited resources, I didn’t have time to experiment in different businesses, or with new product, and so on.  I needed to find a business with a proven “value add”, that allowed me to directly work with customers to do so.

As you can see, identifying a marketable product or service was the last, and least complicated decision I had to make when I started my first venture.

The key to being successful as an entrepreneur is not necessarily having the most resources, or doing something no one else is doing.  Rather, my experience has been that you can find success by understanding what your resources are, and how to use them to their fullest potential.

If starting a business as a commercial real estate broker seems like it might fit your resources and criteria, check out Six-Figure Success: A Community for Commercial Real Estate Innovators ™ at www.sixfigsuccess.com.  

We offer more free content for entrepreneurs, a downloadable executive coaching program for would be commercial real estate brokers, and one on one coaching sessions as well.

Cheers,
-Syd

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Six-Figure Success| A Community for Commercial Real Estate Innovators ™ is committed to becoming the online source for newcomers to the commercial real estate industry. Visit us at www.sixfigsuccess.com