The Most Valuable Things I know…

Here’s a motley collection of concepts that have proved quite valuable to me in my career so far.

For a small company, every decision seems critical. This can lead to
endless procrastination while you wait for “more information” or “until
the time seems right”. Most of the time, no decision is worse than a bad decision.

Here’s why: if you make a bad decision, you have the opportunity to
learn from it and fix your mistake. While the end result might not be
pretty, you have at least gained some relevant knowledge.

If you make no decision, you haven’t learned anything that will help you the next time a similar decision comes around.

A company that isn’t moving is standing still. At best, this means you
are being overtaken by your competitors. At worst, you run the risk of
being run over.

Continuing the previous theme, decisions are an every day fact of
life when running a business. You often have to make decisions faster
than you’d like and with less information than you are comfortable
with.

Bad decisions are going to happen, so get over it.

But, you will find that every bad decision you make can be traced to one or more of the following factors clouding your judgment: Time, Money and Emotion.

Identifying the driving factor(s) behind your decision and
revisiting your assumptions is a good way to minimize your risk of
making a bad decision.

Business happens between people, not companies.  Fundamentally it is all about person to person communication.

I know this is an insult for many people, but whether you like it or
not, as an entrepreneur you are in sales. Whether selling your company
to potential partners or new hires, selling your ideas to investors, or
selling products to customers, sales will always be a big part of your
day. Anyone who interacts with anyone on behalf of your company is, to some extent, a salesperson.

You are nothing without your team. Unless it really is just you, it’s
not just you. Small business owners are terrible at realizing that
other people help drive their business too. Yes, it may fall apart if
you’re not there, but it wouldn’t move forward without the other folks
either.

My personal favorite: Don’t believe your own hype.
All companies use a little hype. You’ll spend a lot of time in your
business working to create interest and “sizzle”. You should never lie
to a client, but the fact is that most salespeople spend time in the
shadowy land between whole truth and partial truth. Just be clear in
your own mind as to what is real and what isn’t.

Businesses take time, money and effort to build. Nothing is an
overnight success, not even the overnight successes. Be careful with
your spending, conservative with your revenue projections and cautious
with your hiring. Caution, caution caution. And above all, don’t become
such a “good” salesperson that you believe your own BS.

Or to put it another way: if you build a castle in the sky, don’t
then try and move your furniture in. And if you do, don’t be shocked
when it all comes crashing down to the ground.

Two points under this heading:

1)  Do I remember to
use all of the great info in my head all the time? NO! No one is perfect. Mistakes are a fact
of life. The point is to learn and keep moving forward. 

2)  It’s also critical to actually keep moving forward…  Perfect is great, but in 99% of all situations, perfect is NOT going to happen.  Baby steps — get things done a piece at a time and move on.