If you’re an introvert, there might be some aspects of being a business owner that you’re worried about, and that might even be off-putting for you. Although you’ll be able to enjoy your own company some of the time, part of the process of being a business owner is getting out there and meeting new people, whether they’re customers, employees, partners, investors, or anyone else, and that can be tricky when you’re an introvert.
However, the good news is that introverts can be fantastic business owners when they’ve got the right strategies in place, so with that in mind, here are some tips to help you if you’re an introvert who wants to run their own successful business; read on to find out more.
Focus On Your Strengths
Introverts have some brilliant strengths that can really help to build a business up and make it into a big success – these strengths include deep thinking, good listening skills, and the ability to work independently, among others. When you’ve got a business to run, these kinds of traits can be absolutely invaluable, so it’s a good idea to focus on them and make sure you use them to their full advantage to make informed decisions and understand your customers’ needs as well as possible.
Although you might initially think of the things you’re lacking, like confident social skills and so on, that’s not helpful, and it’s when you work on your strengths and put them to good use that you can really shine, so that’s definitely what you’ll need to do.
Network Using Technology
Networking is a massively important part of running a business, but that’s something that can be really hard for introverts to do comfortably – in fact, it might be the hardest thing of all in a long list of tricky things.
It won’t be quite so hard if you network using technology rather than doing it face to face, however. There are plenty of social media platforms like LinkedIn, X, and other professional forums where you’ll be able to network with other people from the comfort of your own home and office, making it much easier to make connections – or you could join in with a virtual networking event full of like-minded people.
Get Business Cards
We’ve said that networking is important, and it really is something you’ll need to take seriously when you’re a business owner, whether you like it or not. If you are going to network face to face, having some ‘props’ is a good idea, and something that’s going to be a great benefit is business cards.
Business cards can be an incredibly useful tool for introverts, and if you can make sure you’ve got a great, eye-catching design and you’ve got all your important contact information included on the card, handing these out can help hugely. Not only will giving someone a business card break the ice when you’re meeting them for the first time and give you something to talk about, but it’s also a good way of discussing your business without coming across as too strong (ideal for introverts who won’t want to do that in the first place).
