Тhis is the third article of this series of articles about factors that make an entrepreneur become a successful entrepreneur. First, I have analyzed the factors that make a successful entrepreneur, and later we present the results of the analysis in a pyramidal structure of most important factors – Entrepreneurial Success Factors.
In one of the previous posts, I have covered the first layer of the entrepreneurial success factors pyramidal structure – Willingness to take action. If you’re willing to take actions, it is necessary to upgrade your willingness with the second layer on the road to success, and that is knowledge and creativity.
What is Knowledge for an Entrepreneur?
I know about this. I know about that. They know something else. Everywhere around us is some kind of knowledge. Each person has a specific knowledge. I think that there is not a person without some knowledge. Our knowledge starts from our birth. Each new day of our lives is the acquisition of specific knowledge. We acquire knowledge, home from our parents, from a kinder garden, and later in school, university, everyday work, and life.
So knowledge is composed of two major elements:
- Experience. Everything that you experience in your everyday life becomes your knowledge. It is your asset or a personal asset to you as an entrepreneur.
- Education. Everything that you acquire through a compulsory educational system is poured off in your knowledge. Besides the educational system as school, faculty, and courses, also reading a book, acquiring information from the Internet and anything that will educate you as an entrepreneur will increase your current knowledge about something.
What is a Creativity for an Entrepreneur?
About creativity in Wikipedia, we can find that:
Creativity is a mental and social process involving the discovery of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the creative mind between existing ideas or concepts.
So creativity is directly related to the discovery of new ideas or concepts or modification of existing ideas and concepts.
Being creative is not easy. To acquire knowledge is much more comfortable than to be creative. Creativity cannot be taught, but it simply shows up and is performed by entrepreneur himself.
Combination of Knowledge and Creativity
Therefore, the second layer of the entrepreneurial path to success is a simple mix of knowledge and creativity.
First, you must have knowledge in large amounts, but without the creative the application of that knowledge into everyday practice, there is no guarantee that you will be a successful entrepreneur.
On the other hand, I think that knowledge is the only factor that can increase the creativity of an entrepreneur. Is it possible for an entrepreneur to be creative without knowledge? Probably, not unless you expect an inborn gift to be original.
Precisely here lies the concept of a mix of knowledge and creativity that will only increase the likelihood of success of entrepreneurs. As you enlarge the knowledge about a specific subject, you will increase the potential of your creativity.
A second factor that affects increasing creativity is you as an entrepreneur. This refers to what you call something innate in a person. It is believed that the most creative persons are artists because they have talent in some branches of art and because they just create their own art with an open mind. I already wrote about six tips to increase creativity.
Having in mind all these stated above, I can express creativity as a mathematical function of knowledge and entrepreneurs:
How Can You Become a Better Entrepreneur Through Knowledge and Creativity?
And finally, the most crucial question is: How can you become a better entrepreneur through knowledge and creativity?
I’ll give you few tips for your own personal improvement as an entrepreneur, which certainly will have a direct impact on the better performance of your business:
1. Start With Increasing Your Knowledge
Because I previously explained why knowledge without creativity and vice versa is not complete, you should start with the increase of your entrepreneurial knowledge. This can be achieved in two ways:
- Always learn new skills. Today there is a tremendous opportunity for learning. It is necessary only to establish a system that will continually increase your knowledge as an entrepreneur. Begin with the areas where you are weakest from one side, and where your business need these areas from another side. Read professional literature, magazines, and newspapers from those areas and implement what you have learned in everyday work.
- Learn from mistakes – experiential learning. By learning new skills and their application in everyday work constantly improve those skills through your own experience. Even mistakes will help you to increase your own knowledge and will make you a better entrepreneur.
2. Act as an Entrepreneur
Yes, entrepreneur means to be creative, so use the original methods and techniques that will come to your mind to increase your own creativity and knowledge. I will stress one more time 6 tips of entrepreneurial creativity:
1. Always use a notebook with you (e.g. It can be pocket notebook)
2. Change the routines in your life.
3. Look around You, observe.
4. Use social media.
5. Reinvent things around you.
6. Use locations that increase creativity.
