Tracy Hazzard Gives Her Best Advice To Budding Entrepreneurs from the On the Shelf Podcast with Timothy Bush

To be a successful entrepreneur is a dream. Plus, it also looks good on paper. But just like with anything worthwhile, entrepreneurship takes a lot of work. What does it really mean to become an entrepreneur? How tough is the path towards it? Tracy Hazzard sits down alongside a panel for Timothy Bush’s On the Shelf Podcast to share her thoughts on entrepreneurship, giving some of her best advice for budding entrepreneurs out there. The catch, not everything needs to be done by only you. You need mentors other people as well.

Listen to the podcast here

It’s interesting that you say to be humble because humility can tag onto almost everything everybody has said. Entrepreneurs have to be aggressive and they have to be confident and they have to be sure of themselves. Humility is a big part of being able to enlist people’s help. Humility is a big part of learning. Humility is a big part of understanding that you don’t know everything. Humility is a big part of being uncomfortable. I don’t think that you can do a lot of these other things without humility.

We’ll assign Jamie’s plan to Tom even though he couldn’t be here. His big motto and the thing he tells everyone is hope is not a plan. It’s our little motto here. Hope is not a plan. He says that it’s not that your plan is going to work out as you plan it. It never does. “The best-laid plans,” you hear that again and again. When you have that plan, when you’ve thought these things through, you have the preparation and you’re much more able to be flexible. You’re much more able to shift and you know when things are right and when they’re not. That planning process is important. I know he would say, “Amen,” to that one, Jamie.

Best Advice To Entrepreneurs: Hope is not a plan.

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Tracy, what do you think? You got this person in front of you and they’re wanting to know what your one thing is.

I’m tossing around too that’s why I’ve been a little quiet here. I wish I could just take them and go, “Please don’t spend your money yet.” Stop them and that is that you need market proof first. It is the number one reason why my client’s products and products are more successful than others. It’s the number one thing that we do. We make sure that it’s not that people like our products, but they will buy our product, our idea, our thing, or whatever it might be. We’re checking whether or not someone is going to plunk down money for that. We don’t always go all out in an invention and do it. We check it in small ways and we’re continually saying, “If we added this, would this be a value to you? If we added that, would this be a value to you?” We give images and 3D printings and do whatever we can to not spend that money and go all in until we’re sure that there’s value in it.

Best Advice To Entrepreneurs: When you have the plan, when you’ve thought things through, you’re much more able to be flexible.

We so often get into this world where you go, “My mom and everyone else loves my product. They love my idea,” but that doesn’t matter in the scope of commerce. If you’re going to risk everything and a lot of people do, I want you to make sure you have market proof first. It’s the thing I lectured the most on. It’s my number one piece of advice. A close second to that is to stop trying to do it all yourself. Get some real expert help. Because you’re creative, because you’re adventurous and because you have the mindset of being able to develop something, you think that everything is negotiable.

Everything is inventible, everything should be able to be done by you and the reality is there’s a lot of landmines. There’s a lot of insider information. Get some experts in your corner and listening to them and being curious about what they can do, all of those things that everyone just suggested here, that’s the most critical items I see. Those being successful are getting input from outside of themselves.

Watch the episode here:

On The Shelf
Timothy Bush