In the words of a successful entrepreneur “entrepreneurship is the best personal program in the World,” this is because it teaches you how to handle a lot of issues at recorded time. You learn how to use time, how to handle stress, the list is endless.
There are only a limited number of offers in life that will give an individual the chance to conquer their fears, limitations and attain their full potentials. The biggest issues entrepreneurs are faced with occur within themselves and until these psychological threats are mastered, success in the business is not guaranteed.
This article will be outlining four major psychological issues African (Nigerian) entrepreneurs’ encounters and tips to overcome it.
- The god Complex Effect
Equipped with an excellent idea and a fascinating vision, entrepreneurs who embark on their business venture alone do not have any minute to spare in building the business of their dreams. While being in control and running every part of the business by themselves, the entrepreneurs are used to shuffling lots of responsibilities and with time they are used to it.
However, when the business is well-established, partners, investors or employees may be needed. No matter the energy and potentials embedded in a person, he/she cannot single-handedly run a fully established business. The God complex is a part of the countless reasons why businesses do not attain their full potential as it is likely to remain a “one-man business” for a long period of time.
Keep in mind that “a business is only truly a business when it grows into a system that can run even in your absence”. The only way to make this happen is for an entrepreneur to trust, build and lead a team of people that will be capable of running the business over time. To let go of the God complex, an entrepreneur will need to halt laboring and take up leading.
- The Glittering Effect
Another extreme difficulty that plagues entrepreneurs is distraction. These distractions occur in the style of superb opportunities that should be chased with immediate effect. Chasing after these glittering opportunities makes entrepreneurs lose focus of the business instead of paying attention to the things that would yield profit. If an entrepreneur is not focused especially in times when the business is not moving according to plans, when a fresh opportunity comes along, the entrepreneur is enticed to abandon ship and chase after the opportunity.
This only leads to incomplete projects as the entrepreneur finally realizes that if he/she had stayed focus on a particular project success would have been achieved. To avoid this effect, an entrepreneur must first prioritize his/her projects and stay focused as ideas are expected to come along the way. Before moving to a glittering idea, you have to finish the existing project or pass it on to people that are capable of handling it without errors.
- Falsehood of Perfection Effect
Some entrepreneurs exhaust their time and resources working on their product before it make its official release. They expect it to make lots of waves from the time it is launched so they spend a lot of time in the pre-production stage. There is a strong possibility of the product failing no matter how perfect the products seem to appear. This is because-
- While the entrepreneur may be concerned with things that mean nothing to the target consumer such as design, functionality and beauty, the target consumers only care about their needs being satisfied and not design.
- An entrepreneur may have created a product as a result of assumption. Some entrepreneurs assume the role of their target consumers and think they know how best to satisfy them.
To avoid this falsehood of perfection, an entrepreneur should be open to the fact that he/she can make mistakes. This will reduce the temptation to create a perfect product before its launch. An entrepreneur should create a sample version instead to evaluate the target consumer’s reaction. This saves an entrepreneur from sweat and tears down the entrepreneurial road.
- The Singular Vision Effect
This is a situation in which an entrepreneur focuses on a single objective. Entrepreneurs who tow this line already have a version of their business reality in mind and so changing their views will be difficult if not nearly impossible. They have a mindset of “we believe we are right and there is no way we can be wrong”.
Singular vision occurs in many forms such as ignoring customers’ feedback, disregarding suggestions and inputs of staff and over riding important advice from partners, experts and advisers in general. For an entrepreneur with the singular vision mindset, they can only change when they are open minded towards opinions and criticisms.
MUST READ– 7 Business Success Tips For Young African Entrepreneurs (Nigeria)
If you as an African entrepreneur can overcome all these effects, you will be able to handle all psychological stress that are bound to come during the course of your budding business.
You can check out this 10 Reasons Why You Should Start Your Own Small Business Now
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