Successful entrepreneur Paula Welsh, CEO and President of 7 Charming Sisters, a popular online jewelry boutique, believes that there are six key tips for any women looking to begin an entrepreneurial venture. She provides her wisdom on the subject below.
1. Get Comfortable With Making Mistakes
I believe the most important thing an entrepreneur can do is to get comfortable with making mistakes. Truly. Don’t be afraid of them. No one likes to make mistakes or fail, but you can’t have success without them. Behind every success, there are a string of failures or mistakes. Some people will say “what if I make a mistake?” So what? You learn from it and you find a way to move on. People who are afraid to try or can’t recover are the ones that are never going to be as successful as they can be. So go become friendly with mistakes. Embrace the idea.
2. No Matter The Type of Business, You Must Spend Time Creating Processes
Many people love the excitement and energy that defines a start-up. If you’re lucky (or a good leader!), everyone is in a very creative mindset. Ideas are bouncing back and forth. The founders and initial employees are usually super committed to the brand and to say that they are personally involved with their work is an understatement. Work is fun and inspiring.
The company then experiences growth and there are a lot of organizational issues that begin to effect business. Employees start making mistakes. Some people feel that structure and rules are not conducive to the process of being creative and developing fresh innovated ideas. But nothing can be further from the truth. Every business needs procedures, process and structure in place to be successful. Businesses that address these issues from the beginning, rather than as situations come up, are free to focus on the core development ideas of the business. The core issues that generate income. If you are going to start a business, you should have not just a policy and procedure manual, as well as an employee handbook in place, but most importantly, consider the processes that are needed to get things done. You’ll never regret it.
3.Start as You Mean To Go On
When starting a business, you should have a pretty clear plan on where you are headed for the first few years. Yes, things will always change, and you will evolve with them. But your goals should be pretty well thought out. If your goal is to grow your business to a $10 million business, then start as you mean to go on. In other words, have the mindset that you are running a $10 million business from the very beginning. Behave and plan as if you were running a big business. You can’t run your business like a mom and pop and expect to reach your goal of a $10 million business unless you are really lucky.
4.Don’t Get Bogged Down By The Details
Don’t get bogged down by the details. Running a successful business involves an incredible number of moving parts and details. If you are attending to every detail, you will never grow. You will also burn out and become exhausted. Starting a business, you should plan on obtaining help sooner rather than later or outsource some of your work. Time is more valuable than money when starting or growing a business.
5.Produce Relentlessly
Don’t open a business and expect to work 9am-5pm. It will never happen. If it does, you will not succeed. Business owners are never off. They are producing relentlessly. If they aren’t working, they are researching, experimenting on new ideas, networking, etc. The other part of that is that a good entrepreneur is ALWAYS looking to improve things. It’s not that you shouldn’t pat yourself on the back when you achieve a goal. By all means, party it up. But no matter how great something is, a good entrepreneur is always going to be looking for ways to make it better, bigger, etc.
6.Lead with a Servant Heart
I have been an authoritarian leader, and I don’t recommend it. My mindset has always been one of a mentor and a coach. Does that mean I don’t make hard decisions? All of the time! Or that I don’t call people out when they aren’t doing their job? Absolutely. But I approach leadership by providing a vision and identifying the ways I can help my employees find ways to get there. I’m more interested in motivating and coaching my employees to get where I need them to be. When you approach it in this manner, you’ll find that you will have to address a lot less poor performance because your employees will want to be the best they can be.
About 7 Charming Sisters
Paula Welsh cofounded 7 Charming Sisters in 2015. Headquartered in Dumfries, Virginia, the e-commerce site offers seven distinctive collections of jewelry consisting of necklaces, bracelets, earrings and rings. Founded on the principle of fun, diversity and girly-girl vibe, the company is also dedicated to employing people with disabilities, as well as providing customers with insights into daily life at 7 Charming Sisters.