The four types of leverage every entrepreneur should know about…
By: Henry Ikoh
Tags: Leverage, Creative, Bussiness, Entrepreneurship, Startup

Photo by Adrian Trinkaus on Unsplash

“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world. ” ― Archimedes

Leverage is simply the ability to use external resources to achieve your goals and objective in a non-destructive way. I think this is the most important skill for all entrepreneurs to learn and master, as this would be the single biggest factor in whether or not you would be successful. So let's talk about the 4 times of leverage…

Money

Well, it goes without saying, you “need” some form of money to build and grow a business. This could be money you saved up from your 9–5, money from family and friends, money from investors, or even a loan from the bank. Regardless of where the money comes learning and understanding how to raise and use money to make more money is a form of leverage. Having money available can allow you to capitalize on opportunities that others simply cannot.

People

Getting people to help you do any activity is a very powerful form of leverage. The whole idea of a company is to get a bunch of really smart people working towards the same goal. As an entrepreneur it's important you learn how to delegate and manage people if you want to build a big and impactful company, the sooner you learn this skill the better. People leverage allows you to multiple yourself and the time you have available to you. If you hire 2 full-time staff that work 40 hours a week. that's 80 more hours a week you just added to your time. Learn how to build and nurture great teams and support systems.

Technology

The biggest companies in the world are technology companies for a reason, technology has the ability to scaled to a billion people with just one codebase. A problem just has to be solved once and implemented into code and has the potential to be a billion-dollar company. Are you using technology in your business? Every entrepreneur needs to think about technology and how it can be used in their business. It could be as simple as using a sass product like Mailchimp or Shopify to make more sales to customers all over the world. find creative ways to leverage technology.

Media

They say content is king and I couldn't agree less. Media leverage is one of my favorites forms of leverage because it allows you to multiply your time. Let me explain, you can record a video going through a process/lesson and you can share that video with anyone and everyone in the world. They get that piece of time you created into a digital asset and can access it at any time and at any place even while you sleep. in short, start that youtube channel. — check out mines

Brand (bonus)

I have a bonus for you to thank you for reading this article to the end and it is brand, yes brand is the ultimate form of leverage and is stronger than all these combined. this is the reason Apple can release a $500+ headphone and not care if it's two times higher than the competition because they are leveraging their brand. Brand leverage is not tangible like the rest mentioned above, it lives in the hearts and the minds of those affected by a brand. You can use media to build a brand but you have to be intentional about it. building a brand takes time, building a great brand takes even more time but you have to be patient and remember the best way to build a brand it to tell emotionally compelling stories about your product/service and why other humans should care about it, what do you stand for, what do you believe in? what are your values? ( l love building brand and you can reach out for more information )