My Most Useful Hints For Making Money In An Industry

I’ve had my own business since I was nine years old. I’ve started, bought, sold and helped out in several different sorts of companies over the thirty odd years since that time.

I’ve tried everything I’ve always wished to do, and I’ve had plenty of fun. Some of the highlights : I worked on Wall St, I helped take a company public and I threw one of the biggest VC names in the country right out of my office. I have worked on designing a quality management system for a leading dairy company. I’ve worked with many of the biggest names in the online and offline space, and I’ve seen the insides of a large amount of the biggest firms in America.

I made my first million the old fashioned 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 a successful entrpreneur and I am happy about it.

Why am I sharing all this with you? I’m getting there.

People always ask me if I have any recommendation for being successful. They ask if I could name the things I believe have gave the most to my success. Id like to share my findings from thirty years of business experience. They’re applicable both online and offline.

Here are my top five tips for success :

1. Always make sure all your mails and calls get returned. I make a lot of contacts and requests through e-mail, phone or maybe in person. I’m totally startled at the quantity of folk who dont trouble to return the request. It is classless and disrespectful to pay no heed to someones request, and it makes them indignant. Angry people tell folks how you have wronged them. The less folks out there speaking sick about you the better.

When I was an iso 9001 consultant at Modem Media I got between one thousand – three thousand emails a day. I was buried in emails. My aid went in and cleared out mails when she could, forwarding the ones she knew she or one of my underlings could handle. But she left the rest for me. I might spend at least an hour a day returning them. Often 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 standard people. If youre not going to answer correspondence from clients or peers, dont give anyone your email. Funny thing about the majority of usif you have an email and invite us to use it, we predict a solution. I’ve written three mails to Darren at ProBlogger.net. He has not answered a single one. While I believe some of his stuff is pretty good, I find his unresponsiveness displeasing and I dont find him as authoritative as I used to.

I sent an email to the President of Staples on a Saturday afternoon a few years ago. I got a private reply from him the following day (Sun.), and we resolved my difficulty with assistance from one of his EVPs. If he’ll make a response to one of my 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 precious time or just responding to a question from someone that doesnt know as much as you, suck it up and do it.

3. Always know more than the majority about your industry or business. I’ve always been a technologist, so this has been engrained in me since I was 16. Read about things in your field every day. Go to a convention or trade show every now and then. Participate in dialogues or forums, on or off-line. It will keep you connected 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 private businesses my employees get away with a lot. They are well paid, get surprise advantages all the time and can pop up and vanish as they please. Some take advantage, but they do not 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 people by example how you want them to treat buyers and work mates. 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 designing the quality management system I discussed earlier.

At Modem Media I arranged a yearly barbeque in the front carpark. We had pork, BBQ sauce from Texas and plenty of other stuff Im not going to get into here. It was a small gesture nevertheless it went a long way.

5. Recognize everyone who helps you advance, especially people who did not gain from it. This is another thing that I am startled more folks haven’t caught on to. I announced in an earlier post that I regularly comb my log files for folks who have social bookmarks pointing to this blog site and send them a fast e-mail thanking them. I stopped counting the quantity of folk who e-mail me back startled that I’d make the effort to thank them. Why shouldn’t I? They took time out to help in promoting my blog, and got nothing in turn. A thank you acknowledges their effort and time and solidifies them as an ally. Trust me, you need all of the allies you can get.

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