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Key business advice for success

Key business advice for success

by Joe · 82 things on Twos

Tell Your Story Better
Story is the source code of the human experience.
It's how we make sense of the universe and give meaning to the things in our life.
Without story:
Your wife is just a stranger
Your childhood home is just a pile of bricks
Your wedding ring is just a hunk of metal
And it's the same for your business.
Story is the vehicle through which your customers connect with your company.
Learning to tell your story in a compelling, impactful, and influential way is an easy way to double your business, fast.
What's the True Cost?
Opportunity Cost is hard to quantify on a spreadsheet, which is why we tend to overvalue the "hard" cost of dollars leaving our pocket.
Missed opportunity is almost ALWAYS more expensive in the long run than the cost of capital in the short-term.
Concrete example: Hiring.
There are only ever two times to hire:
Too soon
Too late
The cost of hiring too soon is capital.
The cost of hiring too late is missed opportunities.
The cost of the second is almost always greater than the cost of the first.
Execute the Fundamentals Daily
Forget massive action...
Success is often simply the result of tiny daily decisions compounded over decades.
Fundamentals executed with excellence wins championships.
What are the fundamentals that:
Generate and Convert Leads
Deliver exceptional experience to my customers
Decrease churn and increase lifetime value
Literally all the growth you could ever want is on the backside of these three questions.
Belief Precedes Excellence (and failure)
Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.
Most business initiatives fail before they even get out of committee because the group doesn't BELIEVE it'll work.
If there's any doubt... you will fail.
Now, that doesn't mean you go through life with a delusional self-belief that everything is always going to work out perfectly.
But it does mean that most any belief held with sufficient conviction can be made true.
People show up differently when they show up with absolute certainty that what they're doing will work.
The converse of the above is also true.
Your job as the leader is to be a reality distortion field that infuses your team with belief at every step of their journey.
Never Assume You Know The Answer
There's magic in the follow-up.
But only if you NEVER assume the answer is NO.
As a larger rule for business:
The person who thinks they already have the right answer stops asking the right questions.
This has been my downfall more often than not.
Sales is Service
If your product/service can GENUINELY help people, then don't you have a moral obligation to tell as many people as possible?
When viewed through that lens:
Sales isn't sleazy... it's service.
Now get out of your own way and go serve somebody.
Clearly Defining the Problem is Half the Solution
"I just don't have enough time."
Wrong. You don't lack time...
You lack Clarity, Focus, and Discipline.
Most people just solve whatever problem pops up and screams at them the loudest in any given moment.
And they do this because they don't know what is the ACTUAL priority in any given moment.
They lack Clarity.
This is why a problem well defined is half solved.
Remember: Speed is the result of clarity.
Optimize Your Resource Allocation
Business is nothing more than the allocation of scarce resources.
Here are your most important resources as an entrepreneur:
Energy
Skills
People
Capital
Technology
You can never ask yourself too often:
"Am I allocating my resources as effectively as possible?"
Start at the End
Most people are mindlessly following a path laid out for them by society.
But still... charting your own course is difficult.
And we often find ourselves walking in the easily visible steps left by those who came before.
"I want to build a billion dollar company."
"I want to run a team of 100 people."
"I want to disrupt this industry."
But do you really?
Maybe yes.
Maybe no.
Only YOU can answer that question, but it is perhaps the most important question of all...
Otherwise you might look up one day and realize you spent your life climbing the wrong mountain.
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Source (@AnthonyVicino)