Blog 30: Future

Always plan for the future. Strategise how you want to shape your brand in the long run, how you want to scale your company, and what legacy you want to leave behind. This is the job of business owners, aside from everyday duties, have.

The only way to impact the future is by working in the present. Showing up each and every day is the only way to ensure the control of your future. Of course, there are external forces that affect your situations, but at the end of the day, the way that you react and respond to them is what molds them. If you let a temporary situation keep you down, then you won’t attain the future you had set forth for. It’s important to be self-aware when you’re in this state. You want to be able to recognize and adjust accordingly.

Take your entrepreneurial journey one day at a time, but with your eye on the future. Think macro, and act micro.

Blog 29: Choices

Life is what you make of it, and in business this is certainly true. You make choices. Choices have consequences. The choices that you make directly affect the success of your business.

You have the choice to get better at your craft. Whether it’s selling, public speaking, design, film, etc., you decide how much you want to get better at it. If you decide to go off talent, then you will only get as far as your talent gets you. But if you choose to get up everyday and work hard to master your skills, then your hard work will take you to places that talent just can’t take you in business.

You also have the choice to be authentic. If you choose to be generic with your customers, they will not feel a personal connection with your brand. It will make your business replaceable when a new company shows up and attracts your customers with their authentic and sincere brand. Each day you should choose to strive to make your customers care about your business and care for what you stand for. Don’t just make them like what you sell. Business is so much more than selling. Business is all about relationships. Choose to be authentic.

Blog 28: Caring

As an entrepreneur you have to be caring for people. You have to care for your employees and you have to care about your customers. Nobody wants to do business with somebody that is unkind and does not care about the interest of the other person.

With your customers you have to be caring the moment they first come into your store, when they ask for help, and after any transaction has been made. The second your customer feels like you don’t care about them, they will go look for someone else to care for them. Be consistent with your caring.

You also have to care for your employees. Employees need to feel safe in their working environment. Nobody wants to show up to work feeling like their boss is out to get them. Make them excited to show up every day. Give them the opportunities that they need to succeed. Make sure that your brand is synonymous with caring.

Blog 27: Long-term game

Many entrepreneurs are playing a game where most, if not all, of their decisions are focused on short-term earnings. When you do this, you lose focus of the big picture. You lose sight of the legacy that you want to leave behind. When you look for short term ROI, you make decisions that compromise the reason you started your entrepreneurial journey.

Of course bringing in revenue and profits is important in day-to-day business. But when you make a decision that will make you big profits now, but at the expense of the customer or your employees, you lose the long-term game. Stay consistent. Be weary of temptations. People will try to sweeten your ear with “exclusives” and “deals that you can’t miss out on”. You have to be self-aware of these manipulations. Stick to your brand, keep playing the long game.

Blog 26: Speed

You have to know how to manage your speed in business. The speed at which you move to gain new clients is different than the speed needed to correct an issue. Finding the rate at which you move and react is critical to your brand’s success.

Being in the B2B industry, I have to move quickly in finding new clients. But when it comes to interacting with them, I have to slow down and take my time with each and everyone of them. They’re real people that need to be listened to. Clients have to feel appreciated and have to see the value in me. If I speed quickly through the meetings, they won’t see that I care about their business’ success and will feel like just another sale. Ask questions, more questions, and finally, even more questions.

By asking questions, you do two things:

• First, it allows you to slow yourself down.
• Secondly, it allows you to connect with the client by learning more about them.

Once you gain new clients, you will be receiving constant feedback from them. Clients will want to get a better product and a better experience overall. When you receive this feedback, or issues that might come up, you have to move swiftly. There’s no time to make them wait. Get to your client, fix the issue, and let them know that you’re happy to help anytime. By moving quick and doing it sincerely, you keep a happy client and they will have nothing but great experiences to share with their peers.

Blog 25: Listening

Listening has become a strength for me when it comes to doing business. You have to be a better listener than a you are a better speaker in these meetings. You have to listen and pay attention to what the other person is saying and then think about what you’re going to bring to the table. If all you do is talk and you don’t hear what the other person is trying to get out of the deal, then the deals that you make will be unsuccessful. It’s that simple, but very important.

Listening to your employees is also huge. Discipline yourself to listen when your employees are giving you feedback. This will help you understand what the feeling around your company is. If there is low employee morale, your productivity will suffer because of it. When your employees know that their boss is a good listener, they are more willing to be open with you and honest with you on how to improve the company. The only way to build a culture is by being honest, sharing opinions and developing strategies to achieve the same objective.

Last but not least, listen to your customers. Your customers are what keeps your company going. Listen to their feedback and read their reviews. Know what they want next. Know what they want different. Know what they like about your brand. These are all things you can do just by listening and paying attention.

Blog 24: Productivity

Want to get things done? Help your team be productive.

Eliminate fear from your environment. Using intimidation tactics on your team won’t increase productivity. This is a false narrative, that in order to have a successful team your employees need to be afraid of you. Not only does this not increase productivity, but it also creates a culture where people won’t want to work with you. Fear will never nurture loyalty or growth.

Treat your team with respect. Show them that you trust them to do the job that they were hired to do. This is how you motivate them to help the brand succeed. It takes a team to win, not just one player.

Entrepreneurs are leaders, they have a unique seat to inspire others with their level of influence. Use this influence to help your team improve their productivity. Why can’t you be kind, why can’t you be empathetic? You can, and you should.

Blog 23: Learn to fail

Learn to fail, and do it fast. Don’t dwell on your failures. Learn from them. Find value in them. When you spend time on these problems, it’s time and energy that could be used on finding the solution.

When I ran an early launch, I quickly learned that the business at the time was failing. Not because the business model was defective, but because of the user experience. Being rejected by my peers and business owners, put me in a low energy state of mind. I spent some time questioning my talent, questioning my skills. In retrospect this was time that could have been spent in figuring out a different strategy.

If I had been able to come home, realize that it was a failed launch, and figure out how to improve the user experience, then I would’ve been able to jumpstart the next launch.

I do this now whenever I get rejected in any aspect of my life. I look at the failure, acknowledge it, and start planning a second run. Failure is not a bad thing. Failure is the market giving you a second, third, fourth, and fifth opportunity at providing a better product.

Blog 22: Weakness

Throughout my four years of work, I have learned that my greatest weakness, the thing that has held me back from making the greatest impact, has been fear. The fear of not knowing if people are going to take me serious because of my age, the fear of not being knowledgeable enough to make deals, and the fear of being judged by people close to me.

To this day I’m still fearful of all of these things, but I’m not letting them hold me back anymore. Every time I step into a meeting I use this fear, this weakness, as fuel to get things done and to get my points across. When I don’t know something, or I don’t understand something, I ask for help or I look it up that second. My phone has been my go to resource. When I meet with people that I care about, I humble myself and I do not let what I’m doing get to my head.

Everybody has their own battles, but there’s a difference between letting weaknesses hold you down, and making that weakness catapult you to the next level. Be self-aware of what makes you second guess yourself, and address it as soon as possible.

Blog 21: Own your mistakes

When to own your company’s mistakes?

ALWAYS

Every mistake that occurs in my company happens because of me. It is up to me to fix these mistakes. My team members help me achieve the company’s goals, but at the end of the day, all mistakes happen because of me. No one else.

This mentality helps my relationships with my team members. They are here to help, and I am here to execute. Passing the blame to others does absolutely nothing but create more problems. Owning the brand’s setbacks and failures helps me avoid this. It also helps me get directly to the solution.