Issue link: https://nbm.uberflip.com/i/1451379
8 6 G R A P H I C S P R O A U G U S T 2 0 2 2 G R A P H I C S - P R O. C O M B U S I N E S S S T R A T E G I E S R I S I N G T I D E O F B U S I N E S S | A A R O N M O N T G O M E R Y I 'm incredibly excited about the upcoming Start Here Academy as an opportunity to be around many great peo- ple with a start-up mentality. is event is happening on Sept. 15, 2022, in Charlotte, North Carolina. is event is in conjunction with the GR APHICS PRO EXPO, and I will be there all weekend having amazing conversations. Before Start Here Academy, let's discuss the start-up mentality and why I am so excited about it? is mentality is a must for success whether you are starting up or not. e right mental- ity to launch and then continue to grow is vital. It all starts with our mindset. MINDSET MATTERS As a business owner, I was shocked to realize that 90% of the challenges business owners face have nothing to do with the nuts and bolts of running a business. I knew this deep down, but it never really clicked. Since starting Our Success Group, I have been able to mentor many other business own- ers, and my gut was right. It is not accounting, production, or even marketing. It is the mindset. As entrepreneurs, we need to cultivate a different mindset than we were taught in traditional schools. Being a business owner is about having a mindset and willingness to sacrifice for a few years that most people won't, so you can spend the rest of your life liv- ing like most people can't. Yes, the Facebook groups are littered with the nuts-and- bolts questions. But I cringe because most business owners only use that external resource. ere is no depth, and peo- ple are looking for a quick fix. What they put out there are not real challenges. It all started clicking for me once I had the opportunity to dig down to the core of the OSG com- munity's difficulties and found that it was way more emo- tional and about mindset. As I made these discoveries, they started to make more sense. e nuts and bolts are covered with the information we can all find at our fingertips with these 3-by-5 computers we carry in our pockets. You can discover hundreds of dif- ferent strategies for your accounting, equipment, marketing campaign, and the day-to-day how-tos. Heck, many times, the suggestion you can find can be the opposite of the guru you listened to yesterday on YouTube. e reality is that as business owners, we have all the resources we need to overcome external challenges right at our fingertips. But the challenge is that we are not sure of our core and foundation, so all that information is hard to implement. For example, what if your challenge is growing your busi- ness, and you can't decide if you should go all-in on social media or focus on some other strategy. en one day, you find details about the fantastic success of Dollar Shave Club with social media, and you decide you need to go all-in too. Six months later, you are frustrated and exhausted by trying to keep up with all the tweets, tiks, hearts, and #Blesslife posts. You then happen on details about Lush, who decided to shut down all of their social media channels and avoid it altogether. Ugh, what are you to do? e good news is that you already have the answer. You only need a mindset shift. You need to understand your foundation START-UP MENTALITY IS A MUST THE RIGHT MENTALITY TO LAUNCH AND THEN CONTINUE TO GROW IS VITAL