How To Succeed in Business. 8 Ways We Did It.

There are many different paths to success and many different definitions of how to succeed in business.

For some, success means spending more time with their families.

For others, it’s making a billion-dollar exit of their business.

No matter what your definition of success is, some of the ingredients of success will be the same.

Guy Raz’s book “How I Did It” unpacks the journey of so many entrepreneurs.

My friend Loren Feldman, interviewed 3 business owners, in his podcast, 21 Hats check out the particular episode, “How Did You Succeed”, here.

They share their best tips on how to succeed in business.

In this episode, a wood furniture maker, a Church leadership recruitment firm executive, and a design agency founder talk about how they’ve been a success.

Narrow Focus. Go Niche.

So many times we want to sell everything to everyone, it’s NOT a good idea.

Some of the best companies, especially smaller companies get very focused on a specific customer.

They seek to solve a specific problem. If you’re trying to be the Amazon or Wal-Mart of your industry, you’ll need Amazon or Wal-Mart money.

The more focused you are, the more you can focus on creating a great customer experience.

Have a Partner. Don’t Go It Alone.

A partner can be the path to your success or the path to your demise.

A great partner can bring skills that you don’t have.

They can help you grow the business in ways that it’s harder to do alone.

You don’t have to grow your business alone. Because we’re leaders of our business does not mean we’re lone wolves.

A partner can be a great sounding board as well.

Not a mentor, not a paid consultant but a sounding board who’s directly invested into the growth of YOUR (and their) business.

However, be careful

If you’re not careful, your partner can drag you and the business down.

Are they stealing from you?

Do they have the same vision as you?

Do they have the same cultural fit as you?

Do you trust them?

Content Marketing – Blogging

Most of you reading this know the value of content marketing, blogging and using video.

Yes, this can help build your personal brand .

Content marketing can also be a powerful way to generate leads and brand awareness for your business.

Yes, you can do advertising and yes you must know the art of selling.

But the value of using CONTENT in your marketing should not be ignored.

Talk To Your Life Partner

It can be VERY hard to speak with our spouses about our businesses, sometimes.

Many times they’re not really interested in our business, not interested in business overall.

However, having the support, or at least understanding of your spouse can really help.

Especially in tough times.

Your spouse might also be a great sounding board for you in some key business decisions.

Ensuring your family understands your business can help you avoid entrepreneurial depression.

Mentorship. Learn from Others Mistakes.

Mentorship has been so important to me in building SmartHustle.

A mentor is one who has more experience than you, cares about you and can guide you. A mentor is that person who will tell you the truth. Who you can lean on for guidance about tough decisions.

Kat Cole mentioned her mentorship guidance in a recent interview with Dave Kerpen.

A mentor is not necessarily someone you call every week – that’s probably more like a business coach.

However, a mentor’s that trusted person who you know you can call upon when needed.

Women need mentors, men need mentors.

Scaling Your Business

In my Small Business Workshop with Akimbo we talk about small business owners have the CHOICE to decide how to scale. This is essential.

In the 21 Hats podcast one of the panelists, William Vanderbloemen shares some insights from Tony Robbins.*

There are three types of CEOs.

There’s the CEO artist, and that’s the person who just loves the thing the company does. And they really like doing it—like the founder of a law firm who really still likes going in the courtroom and winning a case.”

“There’s also the CEO operator who founded the company and loves running a big organization.

Then, “There’s the CEO owner where everything they think about is: How do I make this place run without my involvement? And you’ve just got to figure out which one you are and live into that,” and I’m trying to be that last one.

So the question is how do you want to scale your business?

Also the question of freelancer vs entrepreneur vs small business owner or a mix thereof!

Looking Legitimate

A powerful point was brought up in this discussion.

When you go out to the market and sell your product or services to customers, they want to feel safe.

The safety they seek is to ensure you can deliver the services you promise to customers.

To ensure you can support what you sell.

To ensure you can also create the product or service with the necessary quality.

Does everyone need an office, a fancy car or a fancy phone system. No.

However, you need to look professional enough so that your clients can trust you.

Hiring a CFO and Other Experts

As we’re first starting out, we’re tempted to do everything ourselves.

We shouldn’t.

Most of us are only really good at one or two things. The rest we should delegate to others.

A CFO, or other financial experts, can help us focus on other areas of our business, like marketing and sales.

Does this mean we should ignore finances, of course not?

But there’s an entire community of experts who can help us manage our cash flow and beyond.

But it a CFO, hiring manager, outsourced CMO or etc. We should HIRE experts who can do what we don’t do well or what we don’t have to do.

Even further, hiring for everything in our business, so the only thing we’re doing is leading a great team and visioning the future.

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