Developing Your Entrepreneurship Profile

The Entrepreneur Bootcamp is tailored for passionate and determined individuals who want to see their ambition turned into measurable goals. There is no such thing as a bad idea and we welcome anyone with the drive to see their creativity bloom into a profitable business.

Step one explores your vision, goals and reasons for getting into business in the first place. By delving into what motivates you as an entrepreneur and why you want to create a certain product/service, we gain the opportunity to create a unique profile that will help feed into the curation of your unique brand and selling point!

Success assumes many forms and will look different to you than it will to others. This section of Enterprise Planner Bootcamp will see you focus on the important questions that will help you to understand the reasons for going into business and what sort of career you want to lead.

A SWOT analysis is a tool used by businesses to determine the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that surround a company. By exploring these elements, business owners are in a better position to adapt their strategies and tactics to compensate for their weaknesses, while also being able to take advantage of new opportunities and ward off issues that may arise down the road.

Everyone has a reason for going into business. For some, it’s all about changing their life and generating wealth, and for others it is the pursuit of a remedy for an issue that is affecting parts of the world. This section of the Planner allows you to explore your motivations and what inspired you to go into business and become an entrepreneur, so dig deep and be honest!

A business cannot operate without a directive; a mission and overarching goal that governs their every step towards a desired result. Whether it’s changing the world through the revolution of outdated transactional systems or simply providing a better quality of graphics for small businesses, this part of the Planner allows you to define who you are and what your customers can expect from your company.

This section of the Planner allows you to explore where you see your business and career going and what direction you want it to take as it begins to grow and expand. A vision is like a dream, one that inspires you to undertake certain actions or work towards a certain goal with your business. This is where you must look to the future and imagine where you will be in 5, 10, 15, 20 and so months from this exact point.

Inspiration comes in many forms and from a multitude of sources, most of which are the leaders of our industry who pave the way for smaller businesses with their success and affluence. They needn't be the biggest brands, but they are certainly your favourite, and this section of the Planner will see you explore what makes them successful and how your brand can follow their example.

Step Two is also about providing yourself with honest feedback and self-assessment. We will be drawing on both practical and academic sources for analysing the traits of your business, with models such as Clifton’s Strength Finder, The 5 Languages of Love, your associative colours and what they mean, followed by a personality assessment to discover what kind of entrepreneur you really are!

This section of the Planner is designed to test your ability to be objectively self-critical and create an honest profile of who you are, how you operate, and how well you get along with others. By determining your business personality, you will be in a better position to adapt your approach to others and build better leadership skills for when you reach the point of hiring your first employee.

This section of the Planner is all about the popular Colour Energy test where you find which colours are associated with your personality type. For instance, red is the colour of passion, strength, vigor, assertiveness, dominance and aggression, whereas blue reflects contemplation, calm, tranquility, logic and reasoning.

The Five Languages of Love is a system adapted from The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate, a book by Gary Chapman. Business analysts use the Five Languages to help leaders become better at working with their team. The ‘Five Languages’ are as follows: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service and physical touch. In a professional environment, physical touch governs handshakes, handling material goods, preferring the analogue to digital and enjoying socialising outside of work.

Clifton Strengths Finder is a tool used by business owners to measure your specific talent DNA by explaining the unique ways in which you accomplish your goals by building relationships, thinking strategically, executing plans and influencing others. Similar to a SWOT analysis, this model focuses on turning weaknesses into strengths and working with others.

This section of the Planner will pose a number of alternative assessments you can conduct in order to discover more about yourself and how you operate in a professional environment. Moreso, this section will equip you with the ability to assess others on your team in the future, once you’ve hired employees or found partners to work alongside as you build up your business.

This section of the Planner provides you with time to really think about the scope of your business and what industries you wish to operate it. Be it purely online, a mix of digital and analogue, or just a local store, now is the time to decide how and where your products will be delivered to by answering the important questions seen below.

A product is a solution to a problem; a pain remedy that can be something as simple as a magazine that cures someone’s problem of not knowing what to wear this winter. This page is designed to have you think about what problem your product is solving and ways in which you can understand your customer’s issues by interviewing them and reading reviews of similar products.

Now that you understand the problem your customers want resolved, it is time to consider the remedy you are going to be selling them. This page will require you to consider what makes your product different from the competition and its unique selling point (USP).

The growth of a business can often rely on solid partnerships and collaborations in order to break into new markets, and this page will have you consider your potential relationships with other businesses, entrepreneurs and shareholders. Partners can have considerable sway over a business if their investment is big enough, so use this space to strategize and deliberate on the opportunities and threats they bring.

Every day, your business will be involved in various activities no matter its size or scope. Using this page, consider what you will do on a day-to-day basis in order to keep the cogs of your company turning smoothly and to avoid a backlog or build-up of essential tasks.

A unique value proposition, or ‘USP’, is what makes your business different from the rest. Using this section of the Planner, you can determine the benefits your company offers to customers and why they should come to you over your rivals by coming up with a value proposition that will entice new buyers.

This page is designed to have you consider the professional relationships with your customers and employees; a vital bond that must be maintained with regular nurturing across multiple channels and modes of communication. You will have the opportunity to consider additional factors such as how to empower your employees and engage customers on a deeper level than just selling to them.

Maintaining a strong relationship with your stakeholders (customers, employees, shareholders, followers) requires you to think about the communication channels you will be utilising to send your message and build those bonds. This page allows you to consider the various digital modes of communication such as social media and email.

This page has been designed for you to consider the various markets and areas in which you can sell your product, be it local, national, international or purely through word of mouth. Additionally, you will be able to determine whether your product is designed for a mass audience or a more niche market.