How to start an online store is taught in thousands of online courses. But do you really have what it takes to run your own business and make money? Check out the real world with us.
To be an entrepreneur, you need a certain kind of personality and certain skills. Think about all the people who tried to work for themselves, failed, and then never tried again. Around the world, there are a lot of people who want to quit their jobs but don’t know how to start. They don’t have the skills they need to be successful, so they don’t even try, which is fine. Not everyone should work on their own. But people who want to do well with an online store or any other kind of online business will need above-average skills. Let’s dive in!
Persistence
Most people think that if they open a Shopify store, they’ll be rich in a few weeks. They want to live the story of “from rags to riches,” but they will soon be let down. In real life, this is not how online sales work. You can read here about why most people who open Shopify stores fail. Now, I’d like to get you ready for the truth. This trip is going to be hard. You will work harder on your own business than you did at your 9-to-5 job. The road can be hard at times, and you will face many problems that you will have to solve on your own or with little help. Also, now that your own budget and job are at risk, you can’t mess around with another company’s budget anymore. Persistence is very important because you can’t always just give up when things get hard. If you really want to get ahead. You’ll have to keep going, and you shouldn’t give in to sadness when things don’t go as planned. If you keep your eyes on your goals, you will get there, even if the road is sometimes a little bumpy.
Resourcefulness
As you learn more about e-commerce and market analysis, you will realize that you have more competitors than you thought. Many of them will sell the same things and look the same. So, what are you going to do? Are you going to ignore it and keep doing what you were going to do? If you said “yes,” that’s not the right answer. This is how you will stay one in a million. We have already written another article about the recent lie that drop shipping is dead. We really don’t think this is at all true. There is still a lot of room for creative people who are brave enough to go further than others and don’t give up the first time they hit a problem. It is very important to be creative and resourceful. There are going to be problems along the way that need to be solved in different ways.
Originality
Stop doing what everyone else does and act on your own ideas. If you always follow the leaders of the market, you will always be behind them. Originality is much more than just coming up with new ideas. All that matters is that they work. You can’t just come up with great ideas for solutions and new ways of doing things. You also have to figure out how to get them to the buyers. Don’t copy the theme and content of other websites, and don’t listen to “advice” from “gurus” and “coaches” that isn’t as good as it sounds. Have you ever wondered why most of them no longer have their own store? Because it’s easy to say but hard to do. Anyone can sell you an idea. It’s hard to make the idea work.
Bravery
Being brave and being your own person are two sides of the same coin. You have to have the guts to put your new plans into action and take risks. If you always do what everyone else does because you’re afraid of failing, you’ll never make anything unique. Everyday tasks have never led to big discoveries or “hockey stick” financial reports.
Dedication
Is that online store really what you want? Are you ready to do everything it takes for it to be a big success? Before you start, you should think about what you want to do. Give all of your time to your new business. You will lose your focus if you keep going back to your old habits, your negative friends who said it wasn’t possible, or your old job where you worked as an employee. Keep your goals in mind and figure out which habits, pieces of advice, practices, and ideas will really help you move forward. Work every day to improve your store and give your customers the best products or services you can.
Leadership
To be an owner, you need to be able to lead. First, you need to be responsible for what you’ve done. You are in charge, so you need to act like you are. When it comes to making hard decisions, you need to be sure of what you want and not hesitate. You also need to act, talk, and act like a leader. Entrepreneurs should have a good effect on the people who are close to them. If you have employees because your store is big enough to need more people, you will need to lead them and give them jobs. You are now in charge of not only the whole business but also the people who work there. When you run your own store, you have to be able to lead people. Or think about a time when you need to make a new deal with another business or when you hire a virtual assistant. You can’t just let them show you the way; you have to take part in the activity and do it well.
Responsibility
As was said above, if you want to be an entrepreneur, you need to take responsibility for your actions and choices. Did you make a bad choice that hurts the statistics? Just own up to it and move on. This whole journey is not only about how your store grows, but also about how you grow as a person. This is what makes it so fun. You grow along with the service you give. Also, if you have employees, you are responsible for their way of life as well. There is a lot more to running a business than just opening a store. People don’t realize it, though, because they hear and read false statements from gurus and marketing messages. It’s time to clear up the confusion and see clearly what it means to own a Shopify store. You will have a lot more to do than you thought you would at first.
Thinks in detail
In addition to all the soft skills listed above, you really need to be data-driven if you want to do well. It’s not as easy as it seems to come up with the statistics you want to focus on and make business decisions based on them. If it’s easy for you to get lost or sidetracked in the jungle of numbers, you should practice, take an online course, or ask a professional to help you. Shopify is a great tool for this. Every Shopify store has its own statistics board, which is updated daily. But you need to figure out your profit, your marketing costs, your return on investment (ROI), and a lot of other costs that aren’t shown in the Shopify Admin platform.
Negotiation qualities
There will be many times when a Shopify store owner will need to negotiate. Whether it’s with business partners, employees about their pay, or other service providers. In these situations, you’ll need to talk to people in a professional way, but with enough confidence to not scare them off or hurt them in any way. It’s important to think about your own goals and objectives, but you shouldn’t be too aggressive or try to force your ideas and expectations on other people. If you push them too hard to do what you want without listening to what they have to say, they will back out of the deal.
Self-confidence
Being sure of yourself is key. When a leader doesn’t know what they want, it’s just disheartening. If you approach people shyly and give them the “lame-duck” handshake, your first impression will be bad forever. Everyone knows that you only get one chance to make a good first impression. Don’t ever let this chance pass you by. You should be sure enough of yourself and what you do to convince your partners of your role and authority. In the end, you are now a leader, so let people know.
A lot of emotional smarts
Studies show that the average CEO’s emotional intelligence is much lower than that of other employees or middle managers. From my own experience, this is a trait that makes it impossible to work with other people. It has been found that people with high EQ, which has nothing to do with IQ, make the best business leaders and entrepreneurs. If you want your company or business to do well, you need to be able to read people’s words and body language. The sad thing is that most people think we all have it, but we don’t. We ended up being a generation of people who talk to talk and don’t listen to hear, which is a big problem. Observe others if you really want to be successful. To their small signs, gestures, and postures, because that’s how a real leader figures out what’s going on. If you don’t do a good job of judging your partners, your serious deals could fail.
If you follow these ideas and start to develop yourself so that you have as many of these qualities as possible, I am sure you will be a strong and successful business leader. As was said at the beginning, being an entrepreneur takes a certain kind of person, and you’ve already taken the first step by reading this article.