Black Entrepreneur Blueprint 643 - Jay Jones - 3 Tips To Become A Better Entrepreneur

[00:00:12] Welcome to Black Entrepreneur Blueprint, the number one podcast and resource for Black entrepreneurs. I'm your host Jay Jones and Black Entrepreneur Blueprint was created specifically to educate and inspire Black entrepreneurs to launch, build and grow successful, sustainable businesses. Join us as we help build an economic power base in the worldwide Black community by building and supporting Black owned businesses.

[00:00:41] If you're currently an entrepreneur or want to be an entrepreneur, you're invited to join us each and every week here at Black Entrepreneur Blueprint. Welcome to the BEB family and get ready to elevate your entrepreneur IQ. Welcome to the Black Entrepreneur Blueprint, episode number 643.

[00:01:08] I'm your host Jay Jones and today we have another outstanding and informative show in store for you. Today's show topic is titled 3 Tips To Become A Better Entrepreneur. 3 Tips To Become A Better Entrepreneur. Now every entrepreneur wants to grow, make more money and achieve greater success. But many times we hit frustrating roadblocks, experience setbacks or reach a ceiling that we just can't break through.

[00:01:36] And on today's show I'm going to give you 3 tips that are going to make you become a better entrepreneur and increase your chances for success. Now before we get to today's show content, let me just share a few things with the Black Entrepreneur Blueprint family. First and foremost, I want to welcome all first time listeners to Black Entrepreneur Blueprint. Welcome to the BEB family. Please stick around until the end of today's broadcast and I'm going to share all my social

[00:02:03] media contact information and resource links such as the link to the website. Make sure you check out the new BEB website. Go to blackentrepreneurblueprint.com. We have a new website that should be up by the time this drops and we have all types of resources that are going to help you move from point A to point B in your business. We have a new diagnostic assessment that you can take within two minutes that's going to

[00:02:30] show you where your roadblocks are in your business and also what to do to get through them, over them, under them or whatever, but to get through those roadblocks and continue to grow and scale your business. Now let's get ready for today's show topic. So today we're going to talk about three tips to become a better entrepreneur. So here's a question. What separates entrepreneurs who stay stuck from those who continue to grow and thrive? That's a big question.

[00:02:58] And now you have to ask yourself, where do you fall in? Is your business growing and thriving? Are you working at maximum potential or are you at a roadblock? Is your business about to go out of business or are you at a ceiling that you just can't break through? So on today's show, I'm going to give you three powerful and practical tips to help you break through those limitations. All right. Now, what we're going to talk about is tip one, two, and three, why they're important,

[00:03:26] what are the benefits, and how do you do it? We always want to talk about actionable steps. You know, there are a lot of, you know, quote unquote gurus out there. All they talk about is inspiration. They want to inspire you. So you'll go run through a brick wall and then you'll turn around, scratch your head and say, okay, what do I do next? I'm all hyped up. I'm excited. But what are the action steps? And that's what Black Entrepreneur Blueprint is all about.

[00:03:51] It's giving you actionable steps to move your business from point A to point B. So tip number one, identify a needed and valuable product or service. Identify a needed and valuable product or service. So something that is needed and something that is valuable. So number one, you want something that people need, obviously, to create demand. And number two, it has to be valuable.

[00:04:20] It can't be a BS product or service. It has to be something that is needed and valuable. Okay. So I always talk about, if you ever listened to the show before, problem, solution, result. That's the formula. What's the problem? Problem, your product or service is the solution. And then what is the result of using that product or service? And that's how you formulate basically your sales and marketing content. Problem, solution, result.

[00:04:49] So what problems can you help people solve? And the greater the problem, guys, the more money you can make. So what problems do you help people or can you help people solve? And the greater the problem, guys, the more money you can make. Now, let me give you an example. If you're a CPA that specializes in tax liens and you help people get tax liens from their property or from just in general.

[00:05:16] So if somebody has a hundred thousand dollar tax lien and you're able to reduce that down to twenty five thousand dollars, that's super valuable. Right. Or you could be somebody that has a stain removal company and you sell the stain removal product. Now, both of them are needed and both of those are valuable. But in terms of being able to charge more money, the greater the problem, which would be the tax tax lien, the more money you can charge.

[00:05:43] If you have somebody that you drop down from one hundred thousand dollar tax lien to twenty five thousand. Many times what they'll do is they'll charge a percentage of what they save you. So they saved you seventy five thousand dollars and they may charge you twenty percent of that. That's fifteen grand. OK, so identify a needed and valuable product or service. All right. Problem, solution, result. What problem can you help people solve? And remember, the greater the problem, the more money you can charge.

[00:06:11] Now, let's talk about why identifying a needed and valuable product or service is important. The big reason is, guys, you must sell something that people want or need. Many times as entrepreneurs, we create a product or service without even finding out or doing the due diligence to find out if people want it or need it. So and this is one of the biggest mistakes that I see as entrepreneurs.

[00:06:35] We focus so much time on building or creating that product or service that once we build it and create it, we don't even know if people want it. So we're doing it in reverse. So what you want to do is you want to find out if people want it or need it be a survey. Is there proof of concept out there already? And then, you know, it's important. You got to sell something that people want or need. That's why this is important.

[00:07:03] And we're talking about number one, identify a needed and valuable product or service. Now, what are the benefits? It allows you to make money, guys, by solving problems. So you can go one of two ways. And we're going to talk about the second way a little bit later. You can follow your passion or you can solve a problem or you can combine the two. But the easiest way to make money, guys, is solving a problem. People will pay to have their problem solved.

[00:07:32] So the benefits of being able to identify a needed and valuable product or service, it allows you to make money by solving a problem. It's the oldest way in the world to make money. Now, how do you do this? It's pretty simple. You identify a problem that you have or others have and you create a viable solution. So if there's a market out there for a product or service that's a big market, guess what?

[00:08:00] Then you know that that's a viable product or service you can sell. The proof of concept is there. What you have to watch out for is if you create your own product or service and you think people want it. Perfect example. A buddy of mine was real big into electronics. He likes gadgets, right? So one of the things is he wanted to create a company that sells smart homes or converts homes into smart homes. You know, a lot of people have smart homes. They have Alexa.

[00:08:29] They have all types of stuff. But he wanted to take it to the next level. You walk in and you say something when you walk in your foyer, your lights turn or dim to a certain thing. You walk in, the temperature automatically adjusts, the light color, everything. So it was like, you know, a futuristic house. And he was trying to do this right before the crash of 2006, 2007.

[00:08:57] And what I was trying to explain to him, I said, bro, people are just trying to stay in their homes and they're just trying to, you know, live. I said, this isn't a good time. People don't need that product or service right now. Now, there's always a market that isn't going to be affected by the financial downturn. People that are wealthy. But once again, that wasn't your target market. You were looking at middle income and upper income households that you were trying to sell this product or this service to. And it wasn't a good time.

[00:09:26] And guess what? It didn't work. So number one, identify a needed and valuable product or service. And you do that by identifying a problem that you have proof of concept with that people, you know, need to solve this problem. Not something that you think they want. You have to give people what they know that they need. OK, so how do you do it? You identify a problem that you have or others have and you create a viable solution.

[00:09:54] The optimum term here is viable. Something that is a true solution. OK, and today we're talking about three tips to become a better entrepreneur. That was number one. Identify a needed and valuable product or service. Number two, super important. And I mentioned this a minute ago. Align your business with your passions and talents. Align your business with your passions and talents. Now, this is a lot harder, guys, than solving a problem.

[00:10:24] But I'm going to talk about why it's important. What are the benefits and how you do this? So align your business with your passion and talents. Have the alignment for the assignment. All right. Have the alignment for the assignment. So God has given you special gifts and talents that not everybody else has. Right. So if you're able to utilize those those passions and those talents and those gifts and be able to make money, that's a win, win, win situation all the way around.

[00:10:54] Right. So, you know, what energizes you and how do you create that space to do what you're designed to do? And I'll give you a real life example is Black Entrepreneur Blueprint. So I've had over 17, close to 18 different businesses throughout my serial entrepreneur life. Some good, some bad, some great, you know, some horrible. All right. So I've seen the gamut, guys, of the highs and lows in reference to starting a business and being an entrepreneur.

[00:11:23] Almost lost it all twice. Was blessed to be able to come back and rebuild my business. So these are the things, guys, that you have to think about when you want to align your business with your passions and talents. OK. So, for example, Black Entrepreneur Blueprint that energizes me when I talk about entrepreneurship. Right. When I go help people, when I teach my classes, when I'm out doing live workshops and seminars

[00:11:51] and training that energizes me. All right. My passion. I enjoy entrepreneurship. I enjoy teaching. So I'm aligning my passion and my talents. I'm a great teacher. So when I get up and I do my workshops, live workshops, so I teach my mortgage continuing education courses, which I do all over the country. I usually get a five out of five stars because I'm in my element.

[00:12:18] I'm doing what I'm designed to do. I'm teaching and I enjoy teaching. And when I teach, even though it's mortgage continuing education, I always throw in marketing and business building stuff. I can't talk about how to market your business all the time, but I do intersperse that in to make everything come together. So number two, align your business with your passions and talents. Why is this important?

[00:12:45] So you're going to work in alignment with your natural abilities. You'll work in alignment with your natural abilities. You don't want to fit a square peg into a round hole or round peg into a square hole, whatever, however they say it. You want to be aligned. That's why it's important. Okay. What are the benefits of this? You'll be more invested doing something, guys, that you have a real interest in and you won't quit when things get hard. Well, you won't quit as easily.

[00:13:14] So I talked about this on several podcast episodes before. When you're chasing paper versus chasing purpose, chasing paper means what was hot right now? What's going on? How can I make some money real quick? So if that's what your mindset is, as soon as things get too hard, what are you going to do? You're going to quit, right? Because you don't really care about it. You're chasing the paper. But if you're chasing purpose, there's something deeper than just making money.

[00:13:44] It's about something that's aligned within you, something that's important to you, something that's aligned with your passions or talents. So the benefits are basically you're going to be more invested in doing what you're doing and you're not going to quit as easily. And this is number two, align your business with your passion and talents. And how do you do this? You find a problem you can solve that's at the intersection of your passion and your talents.

[00:14:12] You find a problem that you can solve that's at the intersection of your passion and your talents. What are you passionate about? So for me, I'm passionate about helping my people. I'm passionate about entrepreneurship. What are some of my talents? I can write well. I can speak well. I am a great teacher. So Black Entrepreneur Blueprint is actually an intersection of my passion and my talent.

[00:14:37] I like to teach and especially when I do live classes and workshops. And I'm going to be doing a lot more of them coming up because that's really where I need to be. I feel alive when I'm in front of people teaching people. I get energized. I was talking to the athletic director of my alma mater yesterday at Temple University. And he was like, man, we got to get you connected with the Fox Business School. He said, you need to be in there.

[00:15:06] You need to be talking to these kids and teaching kids. And I just get super excited when I'm able to share my experiences, my know-how, you know, from 25 plus years as being a serial entrepreneur. And so you how do you do this? You find a problem you can solve that is at the intersection of your passion and your talent. So that's something that you really need to think about. And today, guys, we're talking about three tips to become a better entrepreneur.

[00:15:33] Tip number one, identify a needed and valuable product or service to sell. Tip number two, align your business with your passions and talents. And tip number three, this is big, guys. Design your business around your lifestyle, not your lifestyle around your business. Design your business around your lifestyle and not your lifestyle around your business. So you're probably saying, Jay, what does that mean? Right.

[00:16:02] So you want to determine how you want your business to assist you in creating the lifestyle you want. You want to determine how you want your business to assist you in creating the lifestyle that you want. Now, I've done an episode and I've lived this before about the Frankenstein business. It's a business that you create that turns on you or you can't stand. So I created a business years ago. I was an ADT alarm dealer.

[00:16:31] I had two offices, one in Philly, one in South Jersey. And the culture, I didn't know how to create culture within my business. So my employees were running roughshod. It was just crazy. It wasn't the culture I wanted. I didn't hire the right people. And I used to dread going into that business every day. I was working like crazy. I had two offices. My office manager in Jersey started stealing the leads and opened up his own company.

[00:17:01] It was crazy. I would leave super early in the morning. I wouldn't get home till late. You know, we had our second daughter at the time. And my wife was like, you know, Erica's not even going to know who you are because you're gone so much. And it was not what I designed. I built my business. So I thought I was building my business to support my lifestyle. But what actually happened was my business was overtaking my lifestyle.

[00:17:27] So number three, design your business around your lifestyle, not your lifestyle around your business. So determine how you want your business to assist you in creating the lifestyle you want. If your business isn't giving you the lifestyle you want, you have a problem. And I get it when you start off, you may have to work, you know, 16 hour days for a couple of years or whatever until you get it to the point that you wanted to be at.

[00:17:54] But remember, you have to understand why you created the business. You created that business to have a specific lifestyle. So let's talk about why this is important. So you never want to create a business that you can't stand and also consumes you. You don't want to create. It's not healthy to create a business that you can't stand and also consumes you. Just think about this.

[00:18:20] If you go to work for somebody at a job that you can't stand, at least you know that you didn't create the job. You're just there to get a paycheck. But think about what happens is when you build a business and you can't stand going into the business. So why it's important, you never want to create a business you can't stand that actually consumes you. Now, what are the benefits of designing your business around your lifestyle and not your lifestyle around your business?

[00:18:48] You're healthier because your business supports your lifestyle. So at this stage of the game right now for me, I'm in the slow it down phase. I'm only going to work on things and do things that I have an interest in, things that fulfill me. I'm not going to chase the paper. I'm not going to do stuff, you know, just because. So I'm very intentional right now of what I do.

[00:19:12] And I'll be talking about this as we move forward to 2027, the end of this quarter and also 2027. So I mentioned before, you know, I'm at my height when when I'm out in front of people, when I'm teaching, when I'm be it live and in person or online. So I'm going to be doing a lot more workshops because I enjoy teaching. And also I enjoy helping you guys get the results. So why it's important. You never create a business.

[00:19:42] You can't stand that consumes you. And what are the benefits? You're healthier because your business supports your lifestyle. So somebody asked me about starting this other business or partnering with them in another business. And I'm like, nah, man. I said right now I'm not trying to do more work, you know, and if I am going to do more work, it's going to be work that that fulfills me. And so I turned it down. It was a great offer, but I'm like, nah, I'm not interested.

[00:20:10] OK, so I want to be healthier because my business supports my lifestyle in the summertime. I don't work on Fridays. I have a four day work week. You know, I'll be honest. A lot of times I want to set it up where I'm only working four or five hours a day max. That's what I'm trying to get to right now. So that entails, you know, a whole bunch of things, having systems and kind of paring down some of the things that I'm doing right now.

[00:20:37] But number three, design your business around your lifestyle, not your lifestyle around your business. Now, how do you do this? And this is the key. How do you create this this this system or this atmosphere where you can do this? So you determine what your lifestyle looks like, guys, and you reverse engineer your business to produce that outcome. How do you do it? You determine what your lifestyle looks like.

[00:21:02] So let's say, hey, I only want to work four days a week, Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. All right. How much income do I need? What products or services do I need to sell? What does it entail for me to create this space to do this? And you reverse engineer that. How much money am I going to need? What do I need to make per month, per week, per day to accomplish this? And you reverse engineer and you work it backwards.

[00:21:31] OK, so if you like freedom and flexibility, you may want to create a business that gives you passive, quote unquote, or semi passive income where you're not tied down, where you're doing. You can't make money unless you're on a sales call. So I always talk about systems and automation. So that's big when it comes to creating the lifestyle that you want and having your business provide that lifestyle.

[00:21:56] All right. So these are certain things, guys, that you need to think about, not even while you're in your business, even before you start your business. Now, if you've already started, it's too late. But these are three tips, guys, to help you become a better entrepreneur. Now, before we get to the last segment, let me just share a few things with the Black Entrepreneur Blueprint family. I mentioned at the top of the show the resources. The number one resource you can go to, guys, is the website.

[00:22:26] BlackEntrepreneurBlueprint.com. Make sure you go there. We have a new site. Hopefully it'll be up by the time you guys hear this. We have all types of free resources and we have an assessment on there. And the assessment actually takes you about two to three minutes. And it actually shows you where your business is blocked and how you can unblock your business. So go to BlackEntrepreneurBlueprint.com. Now, if you want to connect with me, guys, anything long, hit me on my email.

[00:22:54] Jay Jones at BlackEntrepreneurBlueprint.com. J-A-Y-J-O-N-E-S at BlackEntrepreneurBlueprint.com. Facebook, BlackEntrepreneurBlueprint. Instagram, I have two IG accounts. The first one is Jay Jones for real. J-A-Y-J-O-N-E-S, the number four, R-E-A-L. Second one is BlackEntrepreneurBlueprint. LinkedIn, go to LinkedIn, type in Jay Jones, SaaS Entrepreneur or BlackEntrepreneurBlueprint. And you'll find me on LinkedIn.

[00:23:24] Then on Twitter or X, Jay Jones 001. J-A-Y-J-O-N-E-S 001. Also YouTube, make sure you guys subscribe to the YouTube channel. We have additional content on YouTube that is not on the show. Go to YouTube, type in Black Entrepreneur Blueprint. Also, guys, if you are a first time listener or watcher, please, wherever you are watching this or listening to this, hit that subscribe button.

[00:23:50] We have new content and new episodes drop every Monday morning, 5 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on all your major podcast platforms and YouTube. So make sure you hit that subscribe button so you'll be alerted when the episodes drop. Now, let's get back to the last segment of the show. So today we talked about three tips to become a better entrepreneur. And I want you guys to know our objective is to continue to get better.

[00:24:16] It's be a better entrepreneur, be more successful, scale your business, grow your business, make more money. And I want you to know, guys, there is no such thing as standing still as an entrepreneur. You're either going forwards or you're going backwards. So it's akin to being in a boat in a lake and the current is coming. And if you don't paddle, you're going to go backwards. But if you paddle and work hard, you can go against the stream, against the flow and move forward.

[00:24:44] So you always have to be moving forward. So here are the three tips to become a better entrepreneur. I'm going to rehash it. Number one, identify a needed and valuable product or service. If you don't have a needed and valuable product or service, guess what? You're not going to be successful. If your product isn't needed and if your product is garbage or your service is garbage, guess what? You may get a few sales at first, but once people find out that your product and services aren't needed or they're garbage, guess what?

[00:25:14] You're going to be out of business. Number two, align your business with your passions and talents. Now, that's totally converse to, you know, solving a problem. So you can do both. That's the ideal thing. If you can combine solving a problem with combining that with aligning with your passions and talents, you got it made. That's what I call pinpoint and monetize your genius. Your genius is the intersection between your passion and your talent.

[00:25:42] The problem is most people don't know how to monetize that. So align your business with your passions and talents. And number three, design your business around your lifestyle, not your lifestyle around your business. So if you start a business and you're working, you know, 14, 16 hours a day, you probably didn't design your business that way. And you probably didn't have your want your lifestyle to be that way. So you reverse engineer it.

[00:26:10] What do you want your lifestyle to look like? And then you build your business to support that lifestyle. So if you like freedom and flexibility, you want passive or semi-passive income. So I did an episode years ago called the freedom equation. You can search it. And freedom is the equation is cash flow plus passive income equals freedom. Cash flow plus passive income equals freedom.

[00:26:37] And if you truly want freedom, that's the equation that you need because that equation is going to allow you to free up your time, still make money and be able to work on and focus on things that are meaningful to you that fulfill you. And to me, that's the holy grail of it. If you're being able to build a business that supports your lifestyle, that allows you to do things and work on things that that fulfill you. And I tell my girls this all the time.

[00:27:07] You know, my oldest daughter is an amazing writer. She's a creator. And but she's not able to do that full time because she hasn't used that freedom equation yet. She's still young. She's still learning. But if you have the time to focus on things that you're passionate about, things that fulfill you, things that you love, think about how your life would be versus going to a job that you can't stand with people you probably don't like or would hang out with if you didn't have a job with them.

[00:27:35] And just think about how to build your lifestyle. So design your business, guys, around your lifestyle, not your lifestyle around your business. So that's today's show, guys. And I say this each and every week because it's true. We get more and more downloads because of you, the BEB family. I appreciate you guys so much. Please continue to spread the word about the podcast, the new website. Utilize that website, guys. All types of free education and learning materials on there.

[00:28:05] Take the assessment to find out where you're getting bottlenecked in your business and make sure that you utilize it. So once again, please spread the word about the podcast, the resources, the books, the online courses, everything designed to help you elevate your entrepreneur IQ. Remember, it's not about me. It's not about you. It's about us. It's about building an economic power base in the worldwide black community by building and supporting black owned businesses. Love you guys. See you same time next week. Peace.