I have had my own business since I was 9 years old. I have started, bought, sold and helped many different types of businesses over the thirty odd years since.
I’ve done everything I ever wanted to do and I’ve had a lot of fun. Some of the highlights: I’ve worked on Wall Street, helped take a company public, and kicked one of the biggest venture capital names in the country out of my office. I have worked with some of the biggest names in the online and offline space, and have seen the inside of many of the largest companies in the US.
I made my first million the old-fashioned way: I worked hard. And I have a lot to show, for which I am humbled and grateful. Understand this: I am a successful businessman and I am proud of it.
Why am I sharing all this with you? I’m coming.
People always ask me if I have any tips for success. They ask me if I could name the things that I think have contributed the most to my success. I would like to share my observations from thirty years of business experience. They are applicable both online and offline.
Here are my top ten tips for success:
1. Always make sure that all your emails and phone calls are returned. I make a lot of contacts and requests via email, phone, or even in person. I am absolutely amazed at how many people don’t bother to apply. It’s rude and disrespectful to ignore someone’s request, and it makes them angry. Angry people tell other people how you have wronged them. The less people talk bad about you, the better.
When I was at Modem Media, I was getting between 1,000 and 3,000 emails a day. He was buried in emails. My assistant went in and deleted the emails where she could, forwarding the ones she knew she or one of my subordinates could handle. But she left the rest to me. I would spend at least an hour a day returning them. Sometimes all she would say was Call so-and-so or Thanks for the tip, but most of them were answered. The priority was the customers, then the managers, and then the normal people. If you are not going to respond to correspondence from clients or colleagues, do not give your email address to anyone. The funny thing about most of us… if you have an email address and you invite us to use it, we expect a response. I have written three emails to Darren Rouse at ProBlogger.net. He has not answered a single one. While I think some of the stuff about him is pretty good, I find his lack of response disappointing and I don’t find him as authoritative as he used to.
I emailed the president of Staples (the office supply chain) on a Saturday afternoon a few years ago. I received a personal response from him the next day (Sunday) and we resolved my issue with the help of one of his EVP. If he can reply to one of my emails, so can Darren Rouse. And you can too.
2. Help anyone who asks. No matter what it is, if someone asks you to help them and you can do it, do it. Whether it’s rolling up your sleeves, writing a check, spending valuable time, or simply answering a question from someone who doesn’t know as much as you do, take the time and do it.
3. Always know more than most people about your industry or business. I’ve always been a technologist, so this has been ingrained in me since I was 16 years old. Read about things in your field every day. Go to a seminar or trade show once in a while. Participate in discussions or forums, online or offline. It will keep you connected with people in your industry and make you a guru. The Internet is an amazing tool for doing this.
4. Treat your employees like gold, because they are. In my own businesses, my employees get away with murder on many occasions. They are well paid, get surprise perks all the time, and can come and go as they please. Some take advantage, but they don’t last long. Being a jerk to your employees will always come back to bite you. It will also mean you get scolded a few times, but you probably would have done it anyway.
Make the workplace fun, comfortable, and as casual as possible. Show your employees by example how you want them to treat customers and co-workers. They will follow your example. If they hate coming to work, it will show in what you produce.
At Modem Media I hosted an annual cookout in the front parking lot. We had pulled pork, Texas BBQ sauce, and lots of other fun stuff. It was a small gesture, but it went a long way.
5. Acknowledge everyone who helps you move forward, especially those who didn’t benefit from it.. This is another thing that surprises me more people haven’t noticed. I said in a previous article that I regularly check my log files for people who have social bookmarks pointing to my blog site and send them a quick email thanking them. I stopped counting the number of people who emailed me back surprised that I would take the time to thank them. Why shouldn’t it? They took time to help promote my blog and got nothing in return. A thank you acknowledges your time and effort and solidifies you as an ally. Trust me… you need all the allies you can get.
6. Befriend your competitors. This is another one that should be second nature. Yes, they are all competing for customers, but they are all frogs in the same pot of boiling water. I own the largest wine store in my hometown. If we don’t have something a customer wants we will call another store and see if the customer can get it there. It was a shock to both customers and competitors that he sent customers to another store. I say it’s good for the customer, so it’s good business.
7. Keep your sense of humor…it’s huge.. My second day at Modem Media I was sent to John Hancock’s Boston headquarters. Modem had been working on Hancock’s online/offline strategy for months. It was not finished and there was a lot of tension. After two days, a yelling middle manager called me and the head of marketing.
She said You’ve been letting me down for two months.! and he continued to caress us. I waited a few seconds and said Excuse me… I’ve only been letting you down for a couple of days.. The color drained from the marketing whistle’s face, but I could tell the customer was trying not to burst out laughing.
8. Overdeliver to your customers, let them know you’re taking care of their business, and treat them like friends. I spent a lot of time on the Compaq campus in Houston. We were competing with Price Waterhouse for Compaq Direct’s technical business, and PW had the attention of Compaq’s CTO or CFO or something similar.
But he had the trust of the person directly under that executive, and he was the one doing the work. My team was on top of everything, and we had his back. He knew he could count on us and he knew we could help him navigate the jungle. We lost count for a while, but we still had a down payment for me to fly in once a month to help out. I would fly there, we would have lunch and I would fly back. Sometimes the conversation was technical, sometimes it was marketing related, and sometimes it was purely personal.
We eventually got the contract back because my man knew we were part of his success and he knew he could count on us.
9. Get yourself a hobby, a hot tub, a motorcycle, a race car, whatever.. You need a transition from business to something else. Make sure you have one. It will give your mind a chance to tune out and allow you to process all the things you are thinking about in the background. Moving things from the conscious mind to the subconscious mind is like exercising using different muscles: it will help get results. I can’t tell you how many times I have solved problems while riding my motorcycle.
10 Be very careful who you choose to advise you, but have a team to go to and always trust someone smarter than you.. People mean well, but it takes a lot less courage to poke holes in someone’s idea than it does to accentuate the positive. Keep some solid advisors around you. I have an all-star team that includes my wife (very hands-on), my lawyer (one of the best business lawyers in the US), my other lawyer (one of my good friends and another hands-on guy), and my accountant. (very serious but very financially adept).
I think I know everything and I will defend my positions viciously. All of my advisors are smarter than me at something and can often talk me into going to their side because I remember.
One last remark: don’t give up.
Regardless of the crap you read about getting rich quick, most of the time it doesn’t happen that way. Some of us make it sound easy, but it’s not. That doesn’t mean you can’t do it.