How to Build Purpose-Driven Entrepreneurship

Interview with Anna Kupisz, Business Owner, Business Strategist, and Mentor

What inspired you to start your own business and begin a career as a business strategist and mentor?

The truth is that my first business ideas had nothing to do with being a business strategist or a mentor. What motivated me to become an entrepreneur was the desire to create the life I wanted and the desire to work with people. I have always wanted to serve clients with solutions that would change the quality of their life. The industry was not relevant here.

In 2012, I decided to build a coaching business. I realized that with my background in economics and psychology, I could help other entrepreneurs even more by helping them to grow and overcome their limiting beliefs. However, within two years, my clients realized that creating and then executing business strategies was not a problem for me and that my business was thriving. So they asked me to organize a workshop on which I would share my approach toward building a profitable business strategy. And that is how I started my career as a business strategist and later as a business mentor. My clients inspired and encouraged me to become one.

What were the biggest challenges you faced at the beginning of your career and how did you overcome them?

The first business I co-created in 2006 was a start-up in which we wanted to develop software for law firms in Poland. All three of us were really young. We were in our mid twenties. So the main challenge that I had was to overcome the feeling of intimidation by owners of those well established law firms. This later made me realize that, extremely often, my challenges were my own creation. What stops us, or makes it more difficult to accomplish our goals are our beliefs that may have protected us and served us in the past, but now prevent us from doing what we really want to do.

How does your approach to business differ from other strategies available on the market?

There are two key points in my business strategies that I don’t see anyone else doing and that I believe are the most important for my clients success.

First, my business strategies are always based on numbers. I have found that knowing how to properly calculate your business combined with intuition creates unbelievable results. That is why I will always start with the numbers. I want to be sure that when I enter the market with a strategy it will generate money for the lifestyle I want and profit for the business. Prices are determined based on those numbers and that determines the right client segment (those who can afford my prices). Then I can create a service or product that will deliver the value worth the money.

The second key factor in my business strategy is that the process of acquiring a client is about solving problems and building trust. When a person trusts you, you don’t have to close them in a sales process. The clients will close themselves. This makes running the business so much easier and enjoyable.

What key skills should someone develop to successfully run their own business?

Patience! Business is not a sprint. If you are interested in getting results overnight, you will not get them. You cannot build a solid, lasting business under pressure of getting results quickly. But if you are ready to invest some of your time and energy, if you let go of the need for immediate results and execute your business strategy step by step, you will be surprised how quickly the results will come.

In your opinion, what is the most common mistake entrepreneurs make in the early stages of their business development?

They do not calculate their prices properly! They don’t know how to do it, so they set their prices by checking the prices of their competition. However, their competition either also did not know how to calculate their prices, or they calculated them taking into account their business costs, the client segment they want to target and the value their solutions bring to the market. Each entrepreneur will have different business costs and offer different solutions (even if they solve the same problem as other businesses), therefore their prices need to be different so the business can thrive.

How does your experience in mentoring help entrepreneurs achieve their business goals?

It is not my experience in mentoring that helps my clients but my approach to mentoring and my experience in running my own businesses that helps my clients to achieve their goals.

I was successful in helping my clients achieve their goals before I had any experience as a mentor because of how I approach running a business. It is possible to be successful in business without having much experience, if you have the proper strategy (as I explained in a previous question).

What is also extremely valuable for my clients are the insights I have from running companies in various countries (Poland, UK and Canada); my experience in various industries (Education, wellness, beauty and IT); and working with clients who operate businesses in different countries around the world. I have a thorough understanding of what is going on in different markets and the knowledge of what is needed in different industries to create a successful business strategy with my clients.

Are there any universal principles you apply when working with different clients, regardless of the industry they operate in?

We are all playing the same game, so we all need to understand its rules to be successful. When I think about all strategies that I have created, they are subject to the same business mechanisms. The rules may differ by country, especially when it comes to taxes or certain legal obligations, but the business and marketing mechanisms are exactly the same. We may have different tools, we may have different technology, but the ground rules of marketing mechanisms remain unchanged.

How important is building relationships in business to you, and how does it impact a company’s long-term success?

Building relationships with your clients and business partners is extremely important. In my workshops, I say that a business needs relationships but not emotions. Emotions, especially fear, anxiety or stress make it impossible for us to make decisions that would be in alignment with our intuition and numbers. But the relationships that we have with clients and business partners will support us, allow us to recharge our batteries and make running the business an amazing and interesting journey.

The stronger relationships you have with your clients, employees or business partners, the stronger the business. Many years ago, my mentor told me: “The more meaningful and nurturing relations you have in the business the bigger and stable your business growth will be!

So from my perspective, if you are serious about building a business that will last, it needs to be based on strong relationships.

What are your predictions for the future of small and medium-sized enterprises in the face of rapidly changing market conditions?

I believe that if we build stable and strong businesses we can have a great advantage in the rapidly changing economy. The size of our businesses is our strength here. Small and medium-sized businesses are more agile and easily adaptable to fluctuating market conditions. Larger businesses need more time and effort to introduce changes. Smaller businesses can completely reorganize themselves in 3 – 6 months- something almost impossible to achieve for bigger companies. They have larger infrastructure, more employees, and more complicated decision-making processes that slow them down. In smaller companies the decision making process can be fast and the execution even faster!

What inspires you the most in working with entrepreneurs, and what challenges keep you motivated to grow as a mentor?

Entrepreneurs are change-makers. Their desire to improve people’s lives is what inspires me because in helping my clients to create a successful business, I become a part of the change they make.

My own growth is inspired by the desire to continue to support my clients in different ways as the market changes.