Build a profitable business- the baby steps part 19

Deal with it immediately. Running your own business means you are going to be exposed to unpleasant situations from time to time. While we understand that many of these situations are terrifying for most new entrepreneurs how you deal with them is going to be one key determining factor to how well you do as an entrepreneur. There are a number of possible situations that can be included here. Dealing with an unhappy customer, handling a negotiation that has turned bad, responding to lies, dealing with theft, taking care of a law suit, or simply handling a disgruntled or capricious employee. There are simply too many possible situations that may arise in order to be able to deal with them all. We have encountered all of the situations above, and then some. It just comes with the territory of being an entrepreneur. Shit happens. And it´s how you respond to it that determines if your enterprise is going to be able to take off or if you are in for a crash and burn.

The bad news is that these types of situations can be very tough to handle, both mentally and emotionally. The good news is that you will improve immensely over time, and if you can just hang around long enough you should be able to excel in handling these kind of problems. There are some basic rules that we always try to apply and that we know will improve your chances of success dramatically. Always deal with problems as soon as they arise. Or as soon as you become aware of them. Be sure to gather the neccessary background information and make sure you are not in an emotional state (one of us usually turns red and has a really cool vein pop out on his forehead, which indicates he might want to cool off before dealing with the situation) before you attempt to handle the situation. But try to deal with it as soon as you possibly can. By dealing with it swiftly you will very often be able to nip it in the butt and prevent a bad situation from turning into a terrible one. Apart from dealing with the situation instantly it is important to be frank and direct in your dealings with people. “Tell it like it is”, is the approach that we have found works best for us. Obviously do this in a tactful and somewhat diplomatic manner if the situation calls for it. But, in general, you should tell it like it is. There is no better way to deal with stuff than to bring them out in the open and discuss them.

If you are dealing with a delicate matter it is very important that you stay cool the whole time. Actually it is paramount in some instances that you can keep a level head. Even if you get pissed off. In most situations it is impoortant to leave feelings such as prestige, hatred, anger and fear behind you before you even enter the room where the dealings will take place. We have seen a lot of situations explode when intense emotions were brougt along by one of the parties. That is uneccessary and bad business in most cases. You want to be tough as nails, but you want to remain in a cool detached state. You want to be emotionally and mentally untouchable. Let the other person be the emotional volcano, if they must. But you must remain level-headed at all times. The neccessary skills that are needed to deal with situations like these can be learned, but the skills will come more naturally to some type of personalities than others. In general, if you are a highly emotional individual, you are going to have to spend a lot more time learning to deal with these kind of situations. Also, if you tend to get emotional easily, it is important that you prepare yourself mentally ahead of every meeting of this type. Prepare to stay cool, calm and collected and make sure you act proffessional at all times. Anf if you are one of those people with a vein popping out on your forehead from time to time, you might want to let your colleague deal with complicated situations like these. In fact, if you have a vein popping out on your forehead regularly, it is probably better to let your partner deal with matters like these. In your state, you are probably not going to be able to deal with it in a constructive matter. Stay away. Go do some physical activity to blow off some steam.

What strikes us as interesting is that many new entrepreneurs tend to procrastinate when it comes to tricky situations like these. Don´t do it. We understand that it can be tough to deal with some of these discussions. But we promise you that it´s going to get a whole lot tougher if you let them slide in the first place and instead end up dealing with a much bigger and accute problem. Nip it in the butt. Be decisive. Take control of the situation. Find the strength within so that you can be proud of yourself afterwards. If you do this every time you encounter a problem you are going to grow immensely as a person.

Be your best you. Being an entrepreneur can be both challenging and fun. There will be sunny days when evrythings going according to schedule. And there will be times when you will be battered a thousand times. Those are the days when it´s important that you are your best you. The journey of the entrepreneur is also a personal journey. It is a journey of self-growth and a deeper understanding regarding what you are all about. Each time that you are tested and step up to the plate to face the music, you grow as a person. And entrepreneurs are tested a lot. We were anyway. But there are more ways to improve than you might think. It is important that you always try to become the best you that you can possibly be. This is a fact regardless of whether you have chosen to become an entrepreneur or not. Successful people keep growing. Successful people try to improve a little each day.

kurser, self-help books, do the exercises, speking, negotiating, leadership, charitable work

Exercise regularly. Athletes, officers, bp,

 

Most successsful entrepreneurs we know work out. A lot. Many of you will ask yourself why we have included this one in our list. It´s because it´s bloody important. We have seen so many successful persons in our life who were almost religious about getting some intense exercise on a regular basis that we hardly believe this is a coincidence. We believe that in order to be able to work extremely hard and be your  best self during that work you need to be in top physical shape. We know many entrepreneurs who cut their exercise routines out of their busy schedules in order to save some time. Without exception they eventually returned to their exercise routines. The time they supposedly did save was not nearly as beneficial as the health, well-being and incredible stamina that exercise brings. All of us work out. Some of us work out 6 or 7 days a week. some of us work out 2-4 times a week. But we all work out. And when we do, we leave it all in the gym. You see not only is exercise the best stress-reducing treatment there is, but you also get to clear your head during that precious hour or hour and a half. You clean up your slate. If you do truly intense work-outs you are virtually forced to leave all those troubles once you walk inside that gym.

Personal trainer we tride very good results

Keep learning. Get an education. We´re not talking about going to university here (although that is beneficial as well). We are talking about seeing life as a learning experience, trying to add to our knowledge base all the time. All the successful people we know have an extensive library. Well, maybe not all, but definitely most. We believe that there is a strong correlation between success and the willingness and courage to try to learn and adopt new things and ideas. We love to read. We all have extensive libraries. We read books about, business, investing, economy, personal growth, biographies and technology all the time. We never go on a journey or a trip without at least one book (or a kindle) with us. And every time we fly we look at the new releases in the airport´s pocket book store. We also read newspapers, magazines, and a lot of internet sites via an RSS feed. We don´t consider this to be work since we enjoy doing it. There are of course some reading engagements that we consider to be less mesmerizing (like going over our taxea, reading reports or manuals and such). But in general we enjoy reading and we figure we learn a lot of important stuff that way. We often get new business ideas by reading, and we often end up recommending books to our fellow entrepreneurs that we believe would be helpful to them.