Taking the Entrepreneurial Path

The following is a guest blog by Renee Martin…

If you have a great idea for a new product or service — and you’re someone with drive and a resilient spirit — now is the time to finally launch your own company. There is no better way to recession-proof your career than to run your own business.

As an entrepreneur, you’re betting your career on the strength of your own creative ideas and judgment, your own level of commitment, your own ability to bounce back after getting knocked down. But as someone else’s employee, you’re so reliant on the competencies and loyalty of others. In both scenarios, there are no guarantees. But you are infinitely more qualified to look out for your own best interests and to make decisions that truly showcase your individual talents than anybody else. So why not take that great idea out of your mental storage locker, dust it off and shine it up, and finally pursue your entrepreneurial dream?

Do you have any personal interests or areas of expertise that you can parlay into a business enterprise? Florine Mark is an example of this path to entrepreneurialism. Today, she is the biggest Weight Watchers franchisee in the United States. She has retained that distinction despite the fact that in 2003, she sold 75 percent of her franchises at the time back to Weight Watchers International for $181.5 million.

Surprisingly, Mark as a young adult showed no signs of being a self-assured entrepreneur in the making. That’s because she first had to overcome her longstanding pattern of turning to food to cope with stress and feelings of inadequacy. Her relationship with Weight Watchers started when she enrolled in the program to lose weight. At the time, she was a 40-something Detroit-area housewife raising five kids. Ultimately, she used her own weight-loss experience as a springboard to launch her own hugely successful company, the WW Group. As someone who had long battled a weight problem, she knew all about her clients’ struggles and needs.

On the other hand, Robert Stephens was still a college student at the University of Minnesota when he launched Geek Squad. The computer science major parlayed his computer expertise into a computer-repair business that he ultimately sold to Best Buy for millions.

Mark and Stephens are just two of the high-achieving entrepreneurs profiled in our new book, The Risk Takers: 16 Women and Men Share Their Entrepreneurial Strategies for Success. The book highlights 10 broad strategies that entrepreneurs can use to gain a competitive edge and ensure their company’s longevity. Nearly all of the entrepreneurs profiled had $10,000 or less to invest in their start-up, but they all became multimillionaires.

Here are three of those strategies of particular interest to first-time entrepreneurs:

Go on a Treasure Hunt and Find an Underserved Niche
There’s nothing more exciting than finding an underserved niche that represents a lucrative market that everyone else has failed to spot and target. That’s what happened to Gary and Diane Heavin, founders of the Curves International fitness franchise system. When the company launched, the Heavins had just $10,000 in savings to invest in their company. Today, Curves is the world’s largest fitness franchise system, with 10,000 franchise locations in 65 countries.

Instead of competing head-to-head with fitness giants like 24 Hour Fitness or Bally Total Fitness, the Heavins opted to serve the fitness needs of middle-age and older women who are eager to get in shape but might feel intimidated by large gyms teeming with young, hard bodies. Early on, Curves clearly distinguished itself from the pack of gym competitors; its services and clientele were different.

Buck the Conventional Wisdom
Bucking the conventional wisdom means ignoring those who say “It won’t work” or “It’s never been done that way.” When entrepreneurs overly rely on conventional formulas for success, they’re left with a business that’s, well, conventional. The most successful entrepreneurs are willing to veer away from established formulas and ways of thinking.

When you’re running your own business, don’t just blindly accept the so-called best practices of your industry. Look at them with a hyper-critical eye. Dissect them, slice and dice them, contemplate different “what if” scenarios in your mind.

Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx, bucked conventional wisdom when she approached hosiery mills with the idea of manufacturing footless pantyhose. The product she envisioned was a body-shaping undergarment that would hide panty lines and firm up a woman’s backside so she could wear her favorite slacks and open-toe sandals with confidence. Blakely knew there was a market for such a product. But time and again, she was told footless pantyhose was simply a bad idea. The mills were accustomed to making hosiery designed to improve the appearance of a woman’s legs. But Blakely was trying to convince them to manufacture a product that was completely hidden under clothes. She got rejection after rejection. It’s a good thing she persevered, though, until she finally found a willing mill in North Carolina. Today, Spanx’s estimated retail sales are in the neighborhood of $350 million.

Spot a New Trend and Pounce
Often, a shift in cultural or economic trends will create new entrepreneurial opportunities. Andy and Rachel Berliner launched the Amy’s Kitchen brand of organic vegetarian frozen meals because they realized that more and more Americans were trying to eat healthier diets, eschewing processed foods in favor of organic vegetables. Vegetarians themselves, the Berliners were also keenly aware that they’d have no formidable competition. They had personally sampled the frozen vegetarian meals already on the market and they were terrible. The Berliners knew if they used quality ingredients and recipes, their business would thrive. Today, Amy’s Kitchen generates annual revenues of $270 million.

Like these entrepreneurs, you too can use your imagination to identify and take advantage of market opportunities that others have overlooked. You can create a career that’s truly fulfilling if you believe in the power of your own ideas and are willing to determine your own destiny.

Renee Martin is coauthor of The Risk Takers: 16 Women and Men Share Their Entrepreneurial Strategies for Success (www.RiskTakersBook.com). This article is adapted from information in the book.