The 7 Most Valuable Things I Know

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

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.

There’s lots of useful information on this site. Do I remember to use all of it all the time? NO! No one is perfect. Mistakes are a fact of life. The point is to learn and keep moving forward.