Almost exactly 17 years ago, I set up my marketing business. In the months leading up to the launch, I took the 10 most successful businesspeople I knew out to lunch, to ask their advice.
The following 7 pieces of advice were the most useful to me, so I wanted to share them with you. They are as true and valuable today, as they were back in 1995, maybe even more so.
- Keep it human. Business is all about people.
- Do all the work. Most business owners claim to give their business 100%. What they really mean, is they do 100% of the comfortable stuff and neglect the rest. Every business owner with this mindset will slowly go broke. You can’t neglect the important stuff and hope to succeed.
- Keep your word. People need to know they can trust you and rely on you. Integrity in business is essential.
- Demonstrate through doing. Words alone are not enough. Anyone can say anything. Earn people’s trust, respect and custom by showing you deserve it.
- Become known as a person of action. Once you have examined an idea in detail, get the idea into action. Great ideas only become truly great, when you use them. Learn how to motivate yourself to get things done.
- Provide leadership. Leadership in business is in extremely short supply, mainly because most business owners wrongly think they are leading, when they are following like sheep.
- Refuse to gossip. Even gossips dislike people who gossip.
What was the best business advice you were ever given?
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I’m not totally sure to be able to comment in a single line, but the best advice I gave yesterday to an entrepreneur was: “you’d better focus on the missing point you bring to the world instead of trying to bring the world to your point”. If you do it clearly, and straight with purpose and with the aim of fulfillment, you’ll surely succeed. The way to do it is fully described here, thanks again Jim to show us the way to do it.
Jim, these are some real gems.
The best advice I’ve received is, “You get paid what you are worth”. If you lack self worth, honesty and hard work you will never earn what you deserve.
There are two pieces of advice that stick out in my mind:
The first is to keep your focus on helping people, as opposed to selling to people. If you lead your business from that mindset you will be surrounded by people who want to work with you, and want what you have got. No selling required.
The second is about focus: keep focused on the goal – don’t let minor distractions move you in another direction (or as Jim Rohn put it – don’t major in minor things).
Hi Jim,
A sales director years ago taught me:
Never complain, critisise or condemn.
It’s a state of mind as well as a behaviour.
Mark.
Best advise I have been given: “Use your brain!” Today, with all I now know about the brain I gave a similar advise in my blog: Use your whole brain!
The points you make are a perfect example of the need to use our whole brains.
Thanks again for helping us think!
Great information Jim.
One of the best business advice that I received was to leverage your time and understand how much your worth so you understand what tasks you should be focusing on more.
That has helped me out a lot with my business with figuring out which goals I should focus on and the specific work I should be doing compared to outsourcing it out.
Thanks to everyone for all the suggestions and advice you’ve shared!!
A cleaner version of something my brother said, “you can’t stop people from being jerks, so just go around them.”
I try to remember that
Jim, another solid post. The best advice I ever got was to remember this:
“The harder you are on yourself, the easier the world will be. The easier you are on yourself, the harder the world will be.”
I’ve lived this and experienced it first hand for 20+ years.
Dave
Thank you for sharing these tips. I would also like to add another tip I received from a very successful person and that is to have a direct Focus on what it is you want to achieve.
Thank you for the post. Building a reputation of a person who deliver is one of my great lesson recently.
Some business owners over-promise but under deliver. They will find it hard to sustain the business. I disagree with under-promise and over-deliver too. This is just a trick.
I would say, promise only what you can deliver, but deliver more than what you are paid. Because of this, one of my ex-clients past me a project which is 3x more than what I do for them 2 years ago.