I’ve had my own business since I was nine years old. I’ve started, purchased, sold and helped in numerous different types of firms over the thirty odd years since then.
I’ve tried everything I’ve always needed to do, and I’ve had a lot of excitement. A few of the highlights : I worked on Wall St, I helped take a company public and I ejected one of the most important VC names in the country right out of my office. I have worked on planning a quality management system for a leading dairy company. I’ve worked with some of the largest names in the online and offline space, and I’ve seen the insides of a lot of the most important corporations in the US.
I made my first million the traditional way. I worked my butt off. And I’ve got a lot to show for it, for which I am both humble and thankful. Understand this, I am probably a successful entrpreneur and I am happy with it.
Why am I sharing all this with you? I’m getting there.
Folk always ask me if I have any recommendation for being successful. They ask if I could name the things I believe have contributed the most to my success. Id like to share my observations from thirty years of business experience. They’re applicable both online and offline.
Here are my top 5 tips for success :
1. Always make sure all your e-mails and phone calls get returned. I’m making a lot of contacts and requests through e-mail, telephone or even in the flesh. I’m fully shocked at the amount of people who do not bother to return the request. It is classless and disrespectful to pay no heed to someones request, and it makes them indignant. Angry people tell other people how you have maltreated them. The less people out there speaking unwell about you the better.
When I was an iso 9001 consultant at Modem Media I got between one thousand – 3000 mails a day. I was buried in mails. My helper went in and cleared out e-mails when she could, forwarding the ones she realized she or one of my underlings could handle. But she left the rest for me. I’d spend at least an hour a day returning them. Sometimes all I said was Call so-and-so or Thanks for the warning, but a lot of them got answered. The concern was clients, then chiefs then ordinary people. If youre not going to answer correspondence from clients or peers, do not give any person your email. Funny thing about almost all of usif you’ve an email and invite us to use it, we predict a solution. I’ve written 3 e-mails to Darren at ProBlogger.net. He has not answered a single one. While I believe some of his stuff is good, I find his unresponsiveness disheartening and I do not find him as authoritative as I used to.
I sent an email to the President of Staples on a Sat. afternoon a few years ago. I got a personal reply from him the following day (Sunday), and we resolved my problem with assistance from one of his EVPs. If he will be able to respond to one of my e-mails, so can Darren.
2. Help anyone that asks. It does not matter what it is if someone asks if you can help them and you can do it, do it. Whether it entails rolling up your sleeves, writing a check, giving some valuable time or simply answering a question from someone that does not know as much as you, suck it up and do it.
3. Always know more than most of the people about your industry or business. I’ve always been a technologist, so this has been engrained in me since I was sixteen. Read about things in your field each day. Go to a convention or trade show every now and then. Participate in discussions or forums, on or off-line. It will keep you hooked up to the people in your industry and make you a guru. The web is an extraordinary tool for getting this done.
4. Treat your workers like gold, because they are. In my personal companies my staff get away with a lot. They are well paid, get surprise advantages all of the time and can come and go as they please. Some take advantage, but they dont last long. Being a jerk to your workers will always come back to bite you. It will also mean that you’ll get hosed a couple of times, but you probably would have anyhow.
Make the office fun, cushty and as casual as you can. Show your employees by example how you want them to treat shoppers and co-workers. They are going to follow your lead. If they abhor coming to work it will show in what you produce, this was a major feature that I noticed while planning the quality management system I mentioned earlier.
At Modem Media I organized a yearly barbeque in the front parking lot. We had pork, BBQ sauce from Texas and plenty of other stuff Im not going to get into here. It was a little gesture nevertheless it went a long way.
5. Recognize everyone who helps you advance, particularly people who did not gain from it. This is another thing that I am shocked more people haven’t caught on to. I said in an earlier post that I constantly comb my log files for people who have social bookmarks pointing to this blog site and send them a fast e-mail thanking them. I stopped counting the quantity of people who e-mail me back surprised that I’d bother to thank them. Why shouldn’t I? They took time out to help promote my blog, and got nothing in exchange. A thank you acknowledges their effort and time and firms up them as an ally. Trust me, you need all of the allies you can get.
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Tags: iso 9001, iso 9001 consultant, quality management system
