Ep 249: Strategies for Successful Entrepreneurship with Jan Cavelle

In this episode, Elzie interviews Jan Cavelle, an UK-based author who enjoys helping out other entrepreneurs, through writing, speaking, and mentoring. Jan believes that a healthy economy comes from supporting start-ups and scale-ups. She has written a book called Scale For Success and is releasing another one called Start for Success: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Start-ups.

They talk about the importance of resilience and empathy for salespeople and how being self-motivated and doing research are key to success. It is also important to build relationships with clients and understand their needs to provide them with what they want or need. They discuss personal mastery and how Jan is able to take the concept of perseverance and turn it into action.

When asked about the mental challenges faced by entrepreneurs, Jan says that it is incredibly hard and that salespeople often fall into the trap of becoming addicted to sales results. Listen to learn about the importance of investing in training quality people as a business grows and why leaders should do what is best for businesses, even if it means making tough decisions.

Episode Highlights

03:50 – You have to make yourself do lots of research and really get the data on your client, and get to know them, so you don’t waste your pitching. But also I think these days, you’re not talking about the sort of selling that used to go on of, “Hey, look at my product. I’m wonderful.” You’re looking at actually communicating with people, having empathy with the pain points or their desires, whichever it is, but relation to their emotions and that takes empathy.

12:55 – When you’re on your own, I think just having that discipline in the numbers game is probably enough, but you have to also look at the result’s side. It’s no use making ten large calls every single day and never getting a sale. You have to check the metrics of the quality of results you’re getting. If it’s not working, you’ve got to work out why and reassess but keeping going will get you there.

21:09 – I think I didn’t invest in the right quality people. There comes a time when you grow that you need some people who ideally are better than you, who are going to drive the business forward. I had people who’d been working for me and I thought, “They’re lovely people. They’ve been here since the beginning.”

28:15 – One of the biggest and most important things for any entrepreneur is self-development. If you don’t actually prioritize yourself and develop your skills, protect your mental health, become more and more of a leader everyday. Founder is not a leader, or very rarely, and certainly a first time founder has an awful long way to go to turn themselves into a visionary leader.

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Connect with Jan Cavelle

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Start for Success: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Start-ups

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