If you are an entrepreneur, money is but a by-product of who you are

Every business has endless opportunity to make money, provided the entrepreneur builds his/her capability by constantly learning. The only way to making money in business is to not be focused on the money itself, but rather, to focus on growing your capabilities as an entrepreneur.

Success is not simply about making huge sums of money; it is about making the person who will, in turn, make the money. An entrepreneur is responsible for the success, failure, or stagnation of his business. If the company is not producing the desired results, he will need to introspect and see what needs to change from his own side, so that the shift can occur.

Business is a great equaliser: it rewards the deserving and punishes the undeserving. Your educational qualifications, your financial background, your family connections – all of these amount to nothing in business if you are not a capable entrepreneur.

The mistake most entrepreneurs make when they are unable to get the desired results in their business is that they justify their own failures with blame and excuses. Or at best get pushed by failure to set aggressive goals in the desperation to prove to themselves. This results in others having to end up working hard, without escaping the trap of failure.

The key to making money as an entrepreneur is to work on your own capabilities. Money is like your shadow. The more you run after your shadow, the more your shadow moves away from you. The only way to get your shadow to follow you is to move forward. In a similar manner, the only way of making money in business is to not be focused on the money itself, but rather, to focus on growing your capabilities as an entrepreneur. This will enable you to add massive value to your customers and then, scale the reach of the value you can add. Once this process is complete, only then will you be able to make money.

Here are three must-have capabilities for an entrepreneur to be able to build a successful business:

Ability to learn

The ability to learn allows you to observe, listen, and identify the needs of your customers. It keeps you humble and grounded, keeps you connected to the requirements of the market and helps you stay relevant in business. It’s proven historically that the moment brands stop learning, they stop listening to the market and become complacent and arrogant - which, in most cases, is the primary reason for their downfall. The key is to constantly reinvent and never get stuck in your comfort zone because as they say “if you want to earn, you got to learn”.

Ability To Teach

Great entrepreneurs become great not just on the virtue of innovating a useful product or service, but on their ability to replicate their brilliance by building leaders in their business. If you want to grow your business, you need to build a second-line team of leaders who will translate your vision into reality with rigorous execution. Leaders are not mass produced. You can build leaders only by hand-crafting them, which is possible only if you are an effective teacher.

Ability to sell

Successful entrepreneurs are amazing storytellers. They have the ability to inspire people to buy their products or services. These entrepreneurs have conviction in their ability to make a difference. They have conviction in the quality of their products and services. They have conviction in the price they are charging for their products and services. This conviction is what makes them great salespeople. They say, “The most difficult sale to make, is the one you make to yourself.” Successful entrepreneurs are sold on the value they can provide and therefore sell fearlessly and skillfully.

The source of any great success is human capability. The difference between what makes one business successful and another business in the same segment a failure is the ability of the entrepreneur behind the business. While struggling entrepreneurs focus on how they can make more money, successful entrepreneurs understand that money is a by-product of who they are and, therefore, they focus on learning and improving their capabilities even in times of distress.

Struggling entrepreneurs often carry the mindset of “I know it all”, which is the highest form of ignorance, whereas successful entrepreneurs operate from the mindset of “I don’t know, I need to learn”, which is a sign of intelligence. To conclude, all I would say is “There is no small business, there is only a small business owner”. Every business has endless opportunity to make money, provided the entrepreneur builds his/her capability by constantly learning, perfecting their business model, offering relevant solutions to customers, and teaching effectively to build a team and selling their solutions with conviction.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)