September 3, 2010
Most Helpful Five Tips For Business Achievements
I've had my very own business since I was 9 years old. I've started, purchased, sold and helped out in numerous different types of firms over the thirty odd years since that time.
I've done everything I've always needed to do, and I've had a lot of excitement. A few of the highlights : I worked on Wall St, I assisted in taking a company public and I ejected one of the biggest VC names in the country right out of my office. I've worked on designing a quality management system for a leading dairy company. I've worked with many of the most important names in the offline and online space, and I've seen the guts of lots of the biggest corporations in the US.
I made my first million the old fashioned way. I worked my butt off. And I've got a lot to show for it, for which I am both humble and thankful. Understand this, I am probably a successful entrpreneur and I am proud of it.
Why am I sharing all this with you? I'm getting there.
Folks always ask me if I have any advice for being successful. They ask if I could name the things I suspect have donated the most to my success. Id like to share my discoveries from thirty years of business experience. They are applicable both offline and online.
Here are my top 5 pointers for success :
1. Always confirm all of your emails and phone calls get returned. I'm making a lot of contacts and requests via email, telephone or even in the flesh. I am totally startled at the amount of folk who do not trouble to return the request. It is classless and disrespectful to disregard someones request, and it makes them indignant. Angry folks tell folks how you have maltreated them. The less people out there chatting ill about you the better.
When I was an iso 9001 consultant at Modem Media I got between 1000 - 3000 mails a day. I was buried in mails. My aid went in and cleared out emails when she could, forwarding the ones she knew she or one of my underlings could handle. But she left the rest for me. I'd spend at least an hour a day returning them. Sometimes all I claimed was Call so-and-so or Thanks for the alert, but a lot of them got answered. The priority was clients, then chiefs then ordinary folks. If youre not going to answer correspondence from clients or peers, do not give anyone your email address. Funny thing about the majority of usif you've an email address and invite us to use it, we think an answer . I've written 3 emails to Darren at ProBlogger.net. He hasn't answered a single one. While I suspect some of his stuff is good, I find his unresponsiveness disheartening and I do not find him as authoritative as I used to.
I sent an email to the President of Staples on a Saturday afternoon a few years ago. I got an individual response from him the following day (Sunday), and we resolved my difficulty with assistance from one of his EVPs. If he can make a response to one of my mails, so can Darren.
2. Help anyone that asks. It doesnt matter what it is if someone asks if you can help them and you can do it, do it. Whether it entails rolling up your sleeves, writing a check, giving some time or merely responding to a question from someone that doesn't know as much as you, suck it up and do it.
3. Always know more than the majority about your industry or business. I've always been a technologist, so this has been engrained in me since I was sixteen. Read about things in your field each day. Go to a convention or trade show every now and then. Participate in dialogues or forums, on or off-line. It will keep you hooked up to the people in your industry and make you a guru. The Net is a dazzling tool for getting this done.
4. Treat your employees like gold, because they are. In my private companies my staff get away with a lot. They are well paid, get surprise advantages all of the time and can pop up and vanish as they please. Some take advantage, but they dont last long. Being a jerk to your employees will always come back to bite you. It will also mean that you'll get hosed a number of times, but you would have anyhow.
Make the office fun, comfortable and as casual as you can. Show your people by example how you need them to treat buyers and co-workers. They are going to follow your lead. If they hate coming to work it will show in what you produce, this was a major feature that I spotted while designing the quality management system I discussed earlier.
At Modem Media I arranged a yearly barbeque in the front parking lot. We had pork, BBQ sauce from Texas and lots of other stuff Im not going to get into here. It was a little gesture nevertheless it went a long way.
5. Recognize everyone who helps you advance, especially those that didn't gain from it. This is another thing that I am startled more people haven't caught on to. I revealed in an earlier post that I continually brush my log files for folks who've social bookmarks pointing to this blog site and send them a quick email thanking them. I stopped counting the amount of folk who email me back startled that I might bother to thank them. Why shouldn't I? They took time out to help in promoting my blog, and got nothing in turn. A thank you acknowledges their effort and time and solidifies them as an ally. Trust me, you need all of the allies you can get.
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