Most entrepreneurs don’t just want to be entrepreneurs — they have to be entrepreneurs.
As a driven entrepreneur in the life insurance industry, you will encounter both challenges and rewards far beyond that of the average employee. Navigating these ups and downs can be as challenging as steering a ship through a storm on the high seas, but I’ve done both — and lived to tell it can be done.
Related: 9 ways to double your business in one year
The lessons I learned sailing the seas have served me just as well on land. Here are 5 tips about entrepreneurship that sailing has taught me:
1. Know the terminology
In sailing, understanding boating terms like aft, starboard and leeward is vital to working with your crew and operating your vessel. The same is true in business. If you can’t speak the language of your clients and your competition, your next deal may get lost in mistranslation.
Attending conferences and taking courses are both great ways to learn new terms and highlight that there’s a reason why you’re the expert.
2. Use trends like the wind
When sailing, jibing and tacking help you manipulate the winds to steer your vessel in the right direction. In business, trends are your winds and you need to understand which direction they’re heading in. Take a few minutes every day and bring yourself up to speed on the latest global and local trends.
Aggregators like Feedly or SmartNews, along with social media feeds, keep you on the cutting edge and aware of which way the wind is blowing.
Related: The successful entrepreneur’s secret? Delegation
3. Learn when to tighten or ease the sheet
The sheet is a line or rope used to adjust a sail against a force of wind.
In business, you need to think about when to tighten or loosen your budget and your business’s growth in line with your sales cycle and market forces.