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ENGLISH ON LIFE PRESENTS

HIGH FIVE REASONS FOR YOU TO TAKE

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

SERIOUSLY IN 2018

FIVE TIPS TO BE A SUCCESSFUL ENTREPRENEUR

As an entrepreneur, your ultimate goal is to take a business from zero to hero. For most of us, this doesn’t happen overnight. Typically, there will be trial and error as you wade through what will make your business successful.

However, there are certain characteristics that can help you navigate your way to the top.

1. Position yourself as a leader. Entrepreneurs lead the way. But positioning yourself as a leader is not just about having the right answers – odds are you won't have the right ones in every situation. It’s more about knowing where to find the answers. You’ll have to make a lot of tough decisions in your new line of duty, so you need to have confidence in the decisions you make on a day-to-day basis.

2. Deliver value — not just quick profit. Ensure your company delivers real value to clients. Successful entrepreneurs are in it for the long haul. They are not after a get-rich-quick scheme. Ensure your business provides services and sell products that actually deliver a substantially better result for your customers.

3. Seek new ideas — especially beyond your industry. Don’t focus solely on your industry as a source of novel ideas. Think outside the box, venture in uncharted territory and expand your intellectual scope. For example, the drive-through concept commonly found in fast food was an idea borrowed from bankers..

4. Know what your clients really want. The purpose of business is to bring your clients a greater benefit, a greater advantage and a greater result. But if you don't know

what their ultimate endpoint should be, than how can you help them? Don't assume you know the answer. Study their actions and talk with them to find out how you can become their hero.

5. Innovate, innovate and (ALWAYS) innovate! Make sure your company wins the innovation game. Introduce fresh products, ideas, services, new ways of doing — not for the sake of just coming up with something "new," but to anticipate what else you can do to help your customers achieve a greater result.

FIVE REASONS WHY SOMEONE SHOULD TAKE AN ENTREPRENEURSHIP COURSE

Ideas. They spark arbitrarily out of the barrage of everyday tasks. Aspiring entrepreneurs log each new idea in the back of their minds, waiting to be inspected, turned on its side, and shaken to find its true worth. Could this be the one—the idea that spawns a thriving new business?

Answering that question takes work. The idea must be molded beyond its infancy until it proves to be strong enough to carry a successful new venture. A course on

entrepreneurship can help you find out what potential lies within the idea in the back of your mind.

These are the top 5 benefits of exploring your idea in an entrepreneurship course.

1. You can explore before you commit.

Entrepreneurship courses are like sandboxes for a great idea. You can experiment and try things out without the risk of real-world consequences. Your idea doesn’t have to be business ready yet. Use an entrepreneurship course to assess your idea’s feasibility and learn what the opportunities are for growth.

2. You will learn the basics.

In an entrepreneurship course, you will walk through the building blocks of running a business, from researching the marketplace, developing a business plan, budgeting, marketing, operations, and hiring and maintaining employees. With an overview of all the pieces that make up the whole, you’ll gain greater insight into what you’ll need to transform your idea into a successful independent business.

3. Beginners are welcome.

If you’ve ever thought “there’s got to be a better way to do this,” then you probably belong in an entrepreneurship course. Successful entrepreneurs aren’t always seasoned veterans in business or in the industry in which they start a company. Your history as a consumer has given you valuable insight that people on the other side of the desk don’t always have. Newcomers in an industry are often the ones that have the fresh perspective to create the next new innovation. Go on. Break the mold and see where it takes you!

4. You will take the lead.

As a business owner, everything is up to you. You can choose where you work—like your living room couch or even a beach in Hawaii! You won’t have to placate supervisors, and you can do what you know what is best for your company. But you’ll also need a good team to work with and be able to share your vision. In an entrepreneurship course, you’ll learn how to find, hire, and train employees and key leadership techniques to steer your company in the best direction.

5. You’ll know you’re ready.

Being in charge of it all is a huge up side to owning your own business, but it can also be daunting. An entrepreneurship course will prepare you for all the facets a small business owner needs to achieve a profitable outcome. You will emerge armed with the tools and knowledge you need to give your own business your best effort. By training

yourself with tried-and-true tools, you will enhance your confidence to be the ultimate decision maker and lead your concept into a successful reality.

FIVE REASONS WHY IT IS IMPORTANT FOR AN ASPIRING ENTREPRENEUR TO BE BILINGUAL

To become a successful entrepreneur, you need lots of initiative and you must be ready to take risks. No entrepreneur can expect to achieve his or her goals without risks and initiative, even in a country like the U.S. where entrepreneurs and small businesses are become more and more common every year.

Considering the importance of small businesses and entrepreneurs in the world., it’s about time more attention was paid to the benefits of language learning. The world is becoming smaller by the day. International communications are easier than ever before. All entrepreneurs must learn at least one other language preferably ENGLISH to remain successful in any industry throughout the years to come.

1. Globalization places heavy emphasis on language learning

Incredible advancements in technology have made international business very, very easy. The majority of entrepreneurs don’t even need an office from which to work these days. A laptop, a quiet corner in the house and a PayPal account are the bare minimum basics that anyone needs to launch a new business idea in any country in the world without having to physically be in that country.

However, if you plan to outsource company needs to other countries, if you plan to make deals with business partners in other countries and if you intend to market your product to consumers in other countries, learning a foreign language will be incredibly useful. In fact, sometimes entrepreneurs find that they want to sell their products within their native countries but that even then they need to be able to communicate with consumers who speak foreign languages.

Globalization has made entrepreneurship a viable and attractive option for many people with small business ideas, but it has also placed a heavy demand on our bilingual skills.

2. Entrepreneurs need social skills, not just business know-how

Being a successful entrepreneur is not just about being experienced in business and knowing a lot about your business’ industry. Successful entrepreneurs must also possess incredibly effective social skills. Being bilingual opens the doors to prospective clients, deals and opportunities because it enables us to be more sociable with the business partners/consumers/employers we have in mind to work with.

The benefits of being fluent, or even just being able to converse, in more than one language are numerous. Being bilingual doesn’t just help entrepreneurs to get ahead via professional opportunities. Being bilingual helps entrepreneurs achieve success by understanding foreign cultures, foreign markets and foreign workforces on a much more personal and social level.

3. Bilingual entrepreneurs can be more creative

Entrepreneurs with bilingual skills can also gain the upper-hand in business because they are able to be doubly-creative with their ideas. As globalization continues to strengthen, more people travel, more people live and work abroad or work for foreign companies from home. Cultures mix, more children are born in bilingual households and the need to develop bilingual products and to provide bilingual services steadily increases.

The world needs bilingual products, bilingual services, bilingual materials and bilingual advice. Entrepreneurs with language skills can better tap in to the needs of this growing, globalized community that entrepreneurs who can only speak their native language. Take a look at the plans of this bilingual entrepreneur who is hoping to develop a

sophisticated language learning iPad app for young children born into bilingual households.

As another prime example of bilingual creativity, pupils from Cynffig Comprehensive School in Kenfig Hill, near Bridgend in Wales, have developed a bilingual board game for Welsh Baccalaureate learners studying economic and technological change. The board game isn’t considered to be innovative just because it’s a board game. The innovation comes from the bilingual nature of the game and how its bilingual status appeals to the needs of students studying at present in today’s multilingual world.

4. Eligibility for bilingual grant schemes

There are a number of grant schemes only available to bilingual entrepreneurs. These schemes help small businesses finance their ideas in the first few years and it appears that lots of additional help is being awarded to bilingual entrepreneurs. The Multicultural Entrepreneurial Institute is one of those organizations in the U.S. willing to offer US$3000 grants to the most innovative bilingual entrepreneurs out there.

Almost all small business ideas need financial backing, particularly in the early stages. Becoming a bilingual entrepreneur can only broaden the possibilities you have at your fingertips.

5. Foreign entrepreneurs making a success of things in the U.S.

Geoffrey Wescott and David Griffith published an interesting report on the effect of language acquisition on income among Latino entrepreneurs in the U.S. The report highlights the relationship between language skills and annual income within the Latino community and reveals how Latin American entrepreneurs based in the U.S. who are “bilingual in Spanish and English with strong English skills, earn more on average as entrepreneurs than as employees.”

The report also confirms that Latin Americans who emigrate to the U.S. have “shown a propensity to become self-employed and hold skills that often lead to success in the entrepreneurial market,” but that their “income as entrepreneurs is lower than other ethnic groups,” when they’re not bilingual in English.

Whatever way you look at it, bilingual entrepreneurs in the U.S., both natives and foreign immigrants, need to take a strong interest in language learning and make being

bilingual high on their list of priorities. Being bilingual is vital to all entrepreneurs who want to remain in a competitive position within their respective industries.

FIVE REASONS WHY ENTREPRENEURSHIP IS IMPORTANT TO THE ECONOMY

The following are six reasons why entrepreneurship capital is important to the economy:

1. Entrepreneurs Create New Businesses

Path-breaking offerings by entrepreneurs, in the form of new goods and services, result in new employment, which can produce a cascading effect or virtuous circle in the economy. The stimulation of related businesses or sectors that support the new venture add to further economic development.

For example, a few IT companies founded the Indian IT industry in the 1990s as a backend programmers' hub. Soon the industry gathered pace in its own programmers’ domain. But more importantly, millions from other sectors benefitted from it.

Businesses in associated industries, like call centre operations, network maintenance companies and hardware providers, flourished. Education and training institutes nurtured a new class of IT workers offering better, high-paying jobs. Infrastructure development organizations and even real estate companies capitalized on this growth as workers migrated to employment hubs seeking new improved lives.

Similarly, future development efforts in underdeveloped countries will require robust logistics support, capital investment from buildings to paper clips and a qualified workforce. From the highly qualified programmer to the construction worker, the entrepreneur enables benefits across a broad spectrum of the economy.

2. Entrepreneurs Add to National Income

Entrepreneurial ventures literally generate new wealth. Existing businesses may remain confined to the scope of existing markets and may hit the glass ceiling in terms of income. New and improved offerings, products or technologies from entrepreneurs enable new markets to be developed and new wealth created.

Additionally, the cascading effect of increased employment and higher earnings contribute to better national income in form of higher tax revenue and higher government spending. This revenue can be used by the government to invest in other, struggling sectors and human capital.

Although it may make a few existing players redundant, the government can soften the blow by redirecting surplus wealth to retrain workers.

3. Entrepreneurs Also Create Social Change

Through their unique offerings of new goods and services, entrepreneurs break away from tradition and indirectly support freedom by reducing dependence on obsolete systems and technologies. Overall, this results in an improved quality of life, greater morale and economic freedom.

For example, the water supply in a water-scarce region will, at times, force people to stop working to collect water. This will impact their business, productivity and income. Imagine an innovative, automatic, low-cost, flow-based pump that can fill in people's home water containers automatically.

Such an installation will ensure people are able to focus on their core jobs without worrying about a basic necessity like carrying water. More time to devote to work means economic growth.

For a more contemporary example, smartphones and their smart apps have revolutionised work and play across the globe. Smartphones are not exclusive to rich countries or rich people either. As the growth of China's smartphone market and its smartphone industry show, technological entrepreneurship will have profound, long lasting impacts on the entire human race.

Moreover, the globalization of tech means entrepreneurs in lesser-developed countries have access to the same tools as their counterparts in richer countries. They also have the advantage of a lower cost of living, so a young individual entrepreneur from an

underdeveloped country can take on the might of the multi-million-dollar existing product from a developed country.

4. Community Development

Entrepreneurs regularly nurture entrepreneurial ventures by other like-minded individuals. They also invest in community projects and provide financial support to local charities. This enables further development beyond their own ventures.

Some famous entrepreneurs, like Bill Gates, have used their money to finance good causes, from education to public health. The qualities that make one an entrepreneur are the same qualities that motivate entrepreneurs to take it forward.

5. The Other Side of Entrepreneurs

Are there any drawbacks to cultivating entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship? Is there an “upper limit” for the number of entrepreneurs a society can hold?

Italy may provide an example of a place where high levels of self-employment have proved to be inefficient for economic development. Research reveals that Italy has in the past experienced large negative impacts on the growth of its economy because of self-employment. There may be truth in the old saying, "too many chefs and not enough cooks spoil the soup."

Brazil: a Country of Young Entrepreneurs

The young entrepreneur in Brazil: the search to achieve something or an escape from exclusion?

In 2008, for the first time in nine years, the participation of entrepreneurs between 18 and 24 years of age in Brazil exceeded that of other age bands, according to data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM). A quarter of young Brazilians in this age band call themselves entrepreneurs, which represents the highest rate in countries in Latin America and the BRIS (Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa). Of the 42 countries that participated in the GEM survey in 2008, Brazil held third place (25%), behind only Iran and Jamaica (28%).

This high rate of entrepreneurship among young people does not reflect an economic, social or cultural advance of this section of the Brazilian population, however, according to a study by Sergio Bulgacov, a professor from FGV-EAESP. The study was carried out jointly with Yára Lúcia M. Bulgacov, Sieglinde Kindl da Cunha, Denise de Camargo and Maria Lucia Meza. “On the contrary, this particular brand of entrepreneurship is associated with precarious working conditions,” the study’s authors explain. Their paper entitled “The young entrepreneur in Brazil: the search to achieve something or an escape from exclusion?” was published in the Revista de Administração Pública in 2011.

There are signs that young people are finding it increasingly difficult to enter the labor market, and that consequently, they have no alternative but to become entrepreneurs. According to data from COPAL/Pun/Obit, the rate of unemployment among young people in Brazil was 3.2 times greater than that among adults, considering changes in the labor market between 1992 and 2006. Moreover, in the same period, 59% of professionals between 16 and 24 years of age did not have an employment contract, compared with 51% of adults. According to the researchers, “This reality shows that work opportunities for this age band are restricted, and this is one of the factors that explains the increase in the position of young people in the panorama of entrepreneurship in Brazil.”

Most young entrepreneurs are poorly educated and have low incomes. During the period between 2002 and 2008, only 17% of young entrepreneurs had more than 11 years of formal education and 80% earned less than six minimum salaries. In the authors’ analysis, the low level of education is reflected in the reduced possibility of success for the young entrepreneurs’ undertakings. More than 50% of these young people are involved in consumer-oriented service undertakings, which are considered to be low in productivity and to demand little in terms of qualifications and experience. Included in this activity classification are personal services, street vending and cleaning and conservation services.

These young entrepreneurs are mainly “entrepreneurs by necessity”: they drop out of formal schooling before completing junior high school and establish a business because they lack other options. The survey shows that 73% of the young entrepreneurs earn less than three minimum salaries, which calls into question both their capacity to survive and their possibility of training and developing to become autonomous and successful

entrepreneurs. Young people from this group have a greater likelihood of failing in their undertaking; thus, it is difficult for them to break from the cycle of problems of the homes from which they come. In 2008, this group represented 28% of all Brazilian entrepreneurs, an increase from the average of 20.6% in the period between 2001 and 2008. Such findings suggest that the proportion of young people among Brazilian entrepreneurs is growing.

There is a positive finding among the GEM data. In 2008, the so-called “entrepreneurs by opportunity”, or those young people who had completed higher education courses and established a company to gain greater independence or an increase in income, also represented 28% of all Brazilian entrepreneurs, i.e., the same proportion as “entrepreneurs by necessity.” The “entrepreneurs by opportunity” are differentiated from “entrepreneurs by necessity” in that they have higher incomes and more schooling and usually establish businesses that require more specialized activities. These businesses include company-oriented services, such as consulting companies; technology-based businesses; and specific services, such as accounting, legal support and IT.

Although not particularly representative, the proportion of company-oriented services doubled between 2001 and 2008. “This increase may show a trend of young people moving towards more activities requiring better qualifications because of an improvement in education over the last few years,” the study’s authors note. However, the researchers emphasize that even though the young “entrepreneurs by opportunity” are at a relative advantage, a lack of experience and funds for use in the undertaking also lead to a high percentage of failures, which occur in the first few months of the operation.

Author:

Sergio Bulgacov, Yára Lúcia M. Bulgacov, Sieglinde Kindl da Cunha, Denise de Camargo and Maria Lucia Meza

Sérgio Bulgacov

Year:

2011

Institution:

FGV-EAESP