One unconventional strategies I adopted as an entrepreneur was integrating mental health techniques, specifically for my work-life balance and productivity. I incorporated mindful meditation and deep breathing exercises in between high-pressure tasks to ground myself. Instead of the usual coffee breaks, I sometimes opted for short nature walks, allowing the serenity and fresh air to clear my mind and sharpen my intuition. Additionally, spending a few minutes visualizing positive outcomes before diving into challenging tasks helped me stay focused and attentive.
Take a Break and Smell the Roses! One of the biggest challenges all entrepreneurs face is the downturns when attracting new clients or business comes to a standstill. Every business has peaks and valleys, but it's the valleys that frighten us the most. This is the time when we must hold steady on our course and not divert from our mission. When I have faced a long stretch of time without landing any new clients, I find it extremely helpful to stop and pause before the frustration and fear overwhelms me. I will take a day off, or even several days, and simply do something that I love like travel or fishing. I need to reset my mind and spirit by doing something I love or enjoy. Then I can return to the task of climbing out of the valley, refreshed and infused with new enthusiasm. It works every time.
Once, in my business, I needed to hire a specialist for a specific job. I tried to find this person in regular job sites, but it wasn't working. So, I decided to do something different. I looked up companies that had the specialist I needed and found out how to contact them. Then, I made a video. In this video, I explained the exciting project I was working on and why I thought they should join me to make it happen. This unusual method really stood out to the potential employees. In the end, I hired the specialist I was looking for. This showed me that sometimes, you need to think outside the box to solve tough problems.
One unconventional strategy I employed to overcome a major challenge in my entrepreneurship journey was organizing a "reverse brainstorming" session with my team. Instead of trying to come up with solutions directly, we intentionally identified ways to exacerbate the problem or make it worse. This approach allowed us to uncover hidden assumptions, reframe the issue, and gain fresh perspectives on potential solutions. By understanding the problem's root causes more deeply, we were able to devise innovative and effective strategies to address it, ultimately leading to a successful resolution and valuable learning experience for our team.
One unconventional approach that has been instrumental in overcoming challenges on my entrepreneurial journey is the strategy of diversification, coupled with consistency. It might seem counterintuitive, but this combination has served as a compass guiding me through the rough seas of entrepreneurship. Diversification involves trying different solutions to a problem. This process of exploration often highlights the path to an effective solution, even if it means wading through a few that don't work. It's like an iterative process, where each attempt, successful or not, brings us one step closer to the ultimate solution. But diversification alone isn't enough. It's the consistency in this process that breeds success. By continuously learning from our past experiences and applying those insights to future decisions, we foster a culture of resilience and adaptability.
Until just a couple years ago, I could never fathom quitting anything in my life. No matter what the obstacle was, I would just fight and fight until I overcame it – often at great personal expense. Then one day, I watched a Ted Talk on the power of quitting. In short, the thesis is this: sometimes it makes sense to quit. No matter how much pride we have, it just isn't efficient to fight against major obstacles. Since then, I view quitting very differently. You need to remove hubris from the decision process. Your time can often be spent more productively in other areas. You have to think about where you are going to get the greatest return on your inputs (namely, your time). Will it be from fighting tooth and nail for months to overcome an obstacle? Or from pivoting, identifying another ripe opportunity, and capitalizing on that? I think the latter. So that’s why I say if you come across a significant challenge in your entrepreneurship journey, don’t be afraid to just quit.
When I was first starting CultureAlly, I read everything I could about entrepreneurship. Over and over again, the same advice was given; that the key to success was to network, network, network. However, I did the absolute opposite. I didn’t tell anyone. For the first year that I was self employed, my own family thought I still had my old 9-5 job. The reason that I didn’t share the story of my fledgling company is because I was tired of the stereotypes I received as a female entrepreneur. Fielding questions like “Do you even have revenue?” got tiring. It was like there was some unwritten expectation that I couldn’t hack it. So I kept my mission to myself. And I went out and built my company. A tech company. And now that I’m growing and working with incredible people, I am happy to share my story. And hopefully future female entrepreneurs will get typecast a little less!
In our entrepreneurial voyage, "Reverse Mentoring" was an unconventional approach we utilized to overcome a significant obstacle. Instead of the conventional top-down approach to mentoring, we decided to encourage our intermediate team members to act as mentors to senior executives, including myself. By doing so, we tapped into the innovative ideas, fresh perspectives, and technological savvy of our youthful talent. They provided insights that challenged our conventional ways of thinking and introduced a contemporary perspective to problem-solving. This approach not only nurtured a culture of collaboration, but also empowered and motivated our junior employees. The end result was a dynamic and adaptable organization that adopted innovation and responded swiftly to market shifts. Adopting Reverse Mentoring not only resolved the initial problem, but it also became a lasting practice, enriching our team's diversity of thought and paving the way for perpetual development and success.
As an entrepreneur you don’t need to track your working time, but I’ve found it a helpful tool to manage it wisely. I record every minute spent on tasks like email, admin, projects, business planning, and more so I can review it all and break down my days. With everything recorded, I can see which tasks are eating up more of my time than they’re worth and focus my efforts to find alternative solutions. Sometimes I use delegation to manage extra tasks, while others I might find automated solutions or simply restructure my schedule for more effective workflows. Time tracking gives you the data you need to make smarter decisions about the resource that sometimes seems the most limited - your time.
When I started our podcast production agency, I faced the challenge of standing out in a saturated market. So, instead of chasing big clients right away, we decided to focus on niche communities and bring our A-game to them. By doing this, we tapped into passionate audiences with specific interests, which helped us gain momentum and credibility. As we grew, word-of-mouth referrals played a significant role and we’re now working with big names like Pepsico and Booking.com. So, my recommendation would be to find your niche, deliver exceptional value from day 1, and let your satisfied customers become your brand ambassadors. It's an unconventional approach, but it worked wonders for us, and we continue to thrive by staying true to our unique podcasting formula!
For a long time while developing and growing my business, I was pretty much working on my own. That unconsciously enforced in me a habit of doing everything related to leadership on my own, be it recruitment and employee management, marketing, client engagement--even dealing with clients personally. All of this did get too much, and it was only when I looked at the business growth that I realized I'm going about it the wrong way. No leader can do it on their own, and in fact they shouldn't do it on their own. Instead of trying to be an expert for everything, it's better to rope in the experts and let them guide you or take over some aspects of management themselves. It's also better to recognize the strengths of your team and harness them to play a bigger role in business development.
Collaborating with competitors to overcome significant challenges can be an unconventional but effective approach. By forming strategic alliances or partnerships, businesses can pool resources, knowledge, and expertise. For example, in the food delivery industry, two competing companies can join forces to optimize logistics, reduce costs, and expand their reach. This cooperative strategy allows them to overcome challenges that would be difficult to tackle individually. By setting aside rivalry and focusing on mutual success, entrepreneurs can find innovative solutions and create win-win situations.
In times where our company was growing very fast, we often hired anyone available who could do the job. That was fine during boom times. However, when challenges (like a worldwide pandemic) occurred, we had to find a way to protect our most valuable team members. Our executives gathered in a conference room, and I had them give a high school letter grade to each of their team members based on each of our corporate values. We measured the team in two ways. First we measured them in where they were right now. Then we measured their potential in the future. The results were eye-opening. The team members who created the most value for the company had unbelievably high marks in each of our corporate values. The mediocre team members scored lower. So, when we rebuilt after the pandemic, we hired and promoted based on entirely on corporate value scores. And we have been in a huge growth rate ever since.
So many entrepreneurs start their business with a passion for the solution. And while I think it’s a must to be passionate, as that will help motivate you through the difficult times, it’s really important not to let you solution trump the need it’s filling. I talked to as many prospective customers as possible. I listened to their stories and heard out how their pain points affected them without giving into the temptation to offer a solution. You need to hear them out fully before you can understand how the solution will best suit the challenge, uncovering the subtleties and intricacies that can make a big difference in the big picture. When you’re offering that solution too early, you may miss the mark and design the solution you think is best, not what the customer tells you is best.
Hello, My name is Rob Reeves, and I'm the CEO of Redfish Technology, a recruiting firm working in the tech sector. In the early days of launching my firm, it was common for me to work ten hours days, seven days a week. I truly believed that the more time I put into my company, the better off I'd be. And while that is broadly true, there are limits to what the human body and mind are capable of. One night I recall staying up until the wee hours trying to come up with a solution to a budgetary issue. I must have looked like a maniac at my whiteboard. Sometime in the early morning I fell asleep on the couch in my office, and lo and behold, the minute I roused, the answer was staring me in the face. It was a wake-up call (pun intended!) about the value of sleep. Now, when I'm facing a challenge I can't beat, I'm not afraid to rest on it. Sometimes, a mental reset is all you need. Rob Reeves CEO & President, Redfish Technology https://www.redfishtech.com/fintech-recruiting/
One unconventional strategy that I've used to overcome a significant challenge in my entrepreneurship journey is to take the long view. When I first started my company, it was difficult to get customers and investors to take me seriously. It seemed like everyone thought of me as a kid trying to make a quick buck, or worse, an entitled brat who didn't deserve success because he was born into privilege. But I knew that wasn't true! So I kept working hard and taking the long view, focusing on building credibility and trust with clients and investors—and eventually they came around.
Seek help and advice from unexpected sources, such as industries unrelated to your own. This can bring fresh perspectives and innovative solutions to your challenges. Stay open-minded and be willing to think outside the box. This can also help you stay relevant in the eyes of your target demographic, while also widening your net to include other audiences.
My entrepreneurial journey began when I created a recruiting platform specifically tailored towards employees seeking a better work/life balance and the companies offering such jobs. My entrepreneurial challenge, just so it happens, turned out to be client perception. I observed a lot of push back and many companies perceived the 4-day work week model as counter productive. So the challenge was changing their mind set, which is one of the most daunting tasks I've yet faced. How did I over come it? With a productivity Marathon! I would use my company and portfolio of clients as a bench mark and we would compete against those companies that show interest but are hesitant. The objective was simple, create achievable milestones and see who can reach those first. It was a race to measure employee productivity. This strategy, not only helped us stand out but we were also able to showcase the capabilities of those companies operating under a 4-day work week.
In the early stages of my entrepreneurial journey, I prioritized networking as a primary strategy to overcome hurdles. Instead of heavy investment in marketing or paid promotions, I used my resources to attend industry events, engage in relevant forums, and actively participate in community discussions. This approach, though unconventional, was instrumental in building meaningful relationships. These connections not only helped in attracting new clients but also opened avenues for collaborative opportunities. Additionally, I was able to gain invaluable insights and advice from mentors and peers which directly contributed to our growth and success.
When I started my first business, it got off to a slow start. A few months later, sales were low, and we were almost running out of working capital. We tried to cut expenses by reducing supply costs, laying off a few workers, and cutting production, but it was enough to keep us in business for the long term. One day I bumped into a friend who was running a successful business, and he asked how my business was doing. I didn’t expect him to help as he was in a completely different industry. However, after telling him about my challenges, he was ready and willing to offer advice and guidance. He referred me to a venture capital firm, which turned out to be the best thing that happened to my business. Sometimes, all you need is a helping hand to navigate a challenging situation as an entrepreneur.