Achieving your way to entrepreneurial success
Date: March 6, 2016
Name: Achieving your way to entrepreneurial success
Presenter: Desmond Soon
A distinct trait from all successful entrepreneurs is whenever they face fear, they never give up. Moreover, successful entrepreneurs will continue no matter what happens. Vancouver Social Entrepreneurs meetup invites Desmond Soon, a Pan Asian Serial Entrepreneur, to share his entrepreneur journey experience. In this presentation, Desmond Soon will provide his valuable lessons from his path to success and the common mistakes from entrepreneurs today. Moreover, Desmond Soon will explain the proper way to keep a right mentor and the action steps for entrepreneurs to take their success to another level.
Many entrepreneurs called Desmond Soon “the Pan Asian Serial Entrepreneur”. Soon helps many entrepreneurs develop profitable and sustainable businesses. Soon is also a qualified commercial pilot before his path of entrepreneurship. With over many years of experience working in major Fortune 500 firms, he is able to gain trust and support from major business players. Moreover, Soon appears in many social media platform, which influences many new entrepreneurs in this generation.
How to be successful as an entrepreneur
Soon believes to be qualified as entrepreneur, people need to have a business. Soon was born in Singapore. He spend 12 years there and immigrated to Vancouver after. He completed the qualification to become a commercial pilot, but the ambition of becoming an entrepreneur remains in his heart. Soon was the middle of 3 children in his family, and he considered himself as the black sheep and the entrepreneur of the family.
In his early age, Soon involved in many illegal activities. In the age of 14, he thought it was cleaver to sell drugs through wholesale system for business, but he never thought it was illegal. He got himself into trouble with the law. Soon broke into school to steal computers and got caught by the police.
When he watched his father cry with disappointment, it was a wakeup call for Soon. He started to realize the importance of getting a proper mentor and be successful. In his teenage years, he surrounded himself with mentors. He joined Amway and learned the value of reading business and motivation books. He used business knowledge for something more productive, such as picking up girls.
Soon believes it is important for entrepreneurs to find the edge. The edge is what makes the difference between any entrepreneurs.
After gained some small success, Soon decided to travel to Japan because he felt in love with Japanese culture and the business city of Tokyo. In his 12 years in Japan, he worked from corporate world to startup own companies. He managed to raise 1/2 million dollars of investors’ money at the age of 28 by sell Jewelry brand to elite and celebrities. He started to socialize and party; eventually, he ran out of the money.
He got bailed out by a Korean girl and eventually got married. Both of them worked in high end Fortune 500 corporate jobs while opening a restaurant. Soon shares he made a biggest mistake of not paying attention to cash flow and did not understand the restaurant’s break-even point.
“If you are not making money, you are not an entrepreneur”
While the restaurant was in survival mode, he had 2 babies and spend over 1/2 million dollars on restaurant. He launched a talent booking agency business to gain more cash flow, but the stress from the restaurant almost ended him marriage.
Soon emphasizes during that moment, he looked fancy from the outside, but he was living in poverty. He was far away from happiness. He was stressed, lack of money, and lying to his spouse. With endless fighting with his wife, he was exhausted and stressed.
He declared bankruptcy due to a Ponzi scheme. He borrowed from Yakuza in order to maintain his life style and pride. Furthermore, he had to steal diapers from the supermarket because he was so far in debt.
That moment Soon felt such a loser. He needed to sort things out to become a hero for his family once again.
“Take 100% responsibility everything happened in your life”
Soon called his mentor and his mentor said something he will never forget.
“Desmond, I am not going to give you a fish, but I am going to teach you how to fish”
His mentor gave him hope. He swallowed the pride and asked his network for help. People lend him the money to pay back to Yakuza, but at the end, he got evicted.
Soon moved back to Vancouver as a single father. He took his mentor’s suggestion to start internet marketing. He became humble and rebuild his career. He shared his story on video to inspire others. Now, he is earning 6 figure income and willing to help people to find ways to get back on their feet.
“Turning setbacks into comebacks”
Common mistakes from entrepreneurs
Soon believes many entrepreneurs have the problem of analysis paralysis. When they are lacking capital, they are trying to do things the wrong way. Pride and ego can make entrepreneurs think they know it all.
Mentors can be in different forms. Books and audios count as a form of mentors. Many entrepreneurs fail because they are trying to be perfect. In addition, many entrepreneurs are not willing to invest in themselves or their businesses. The amount of investment entrepreneurs invest in their businesses equals the amount of value created in their businesses.
“It is not what you know, but who you know; most importantly who knows you”
Soon reveals the top 4 evils that will screw up entrepreneurs.
- Health
- Emotional
- Financial
- Time
When entrepreneurs have poor health, they will stop pursuing their success. Instead, entrepreneurs must keep in balance with health and work because it will motivate them to get their message out. When entrepreneurs have emotional issues, their decisions will be interfered. Soon suggests all entrepreneurs when any decision is made, they must stick with it all the way. Business can fail with financial problem; therefore, entrepreneurs need to keep seeking opportunities to gain stable cash flow. Many entrepreneurs think they do not have time. In fact, time is based on the priority. When entrepreneurs do not have time, it usually means they do not have the priority to be successful.
Business starts like a baby, and it takes time to feed the baby to growth. When entrepreneurs make money from business, it is advised to reinvest back into business.
How to find and keep a right mentor
Soon believes mentors must be someone who has been where entrepreneurs are and where they want to be. Mentors must have financial interest in entrepreneurs. When working with mentors, entrepreneurs should be in joy. Mentors like entrepreneurs who take massive action. They must integrate everything mentors are teaching, training or doing. Most importantly, entrepreneurs must be coachable.
Soon wants entrepreneurs to know that mentorship is earned. When entrepreneurs find the mentors who has what they want and where they been, they need to follow these mentors, both virtually and the real world. Entrepreneurs must pay attention and implement their teaching. When entrepreneurs generate enough results, mentors will contact them personally.
Soon creates a 5 main action steps for entrepreneurs to accelerate their success. First, entrepreneurs must know their “why”. Second, entrepreneurs need to be clear on what they really want. Third, they must commit on willing to make mistakes. Fourth, entrepreneurs need to find the right associations, inner circle, mentors, books and other personal development materials. Fifth, entrepreneurs need to plan their actions, understand their numbers and start take actions.
