Do These 21 Things To Be Successful According To Successful People
Everyone wants to be successful in the field of business. The best way to do that is to learn from those who came before you. It’s a great idea to always have a mentor but not everyone can find one so here are 21 things that you can do to become successful.
1. Challenge Yourself.
Multimillionaire, Richard Branson, launched his first successful business venture when he was just a teenager. He was 20 years old when he started a mail-order record business, and by the time he was 22, he was running a chain of record stores. One of his tips on success is to be fearless in trying new things.
“I can honestly say that nothing good in my life has ever happened from the safety of my comfort zone. It’s all those moments where you feel challenged, where you think ‘Oh crap, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea’ and then ponder giving up — if you can get through this stage of doubt and make it out the other side — I promise you, this is where the good stuff happens,” Branson advised.
2. Do Work That You Care About.
Running a business takes up a lot of your time and you constantly need to be involved so your world ends up revolving around it. In order to avoid burnout, find a business opportunity that you are passionate about.
Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple once said, “You’ve got to find what you love, the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”.
3. Take The Risk.
It’s better to try and fail than never try at all. Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon once revealed that he has had “billions of dollars of failure” at Amazon. “None of those things are fun, but they don’t matter,” he says. “What really matters is that companies that don’t continue to experiment — companies that don’t embrace failure — they eventually get in a desperate position, where the only thing they can do is make a ‘Hail Mary’ bet at the very end.”
4. Believe In Yourself.
Henry Ford was already 40 years old when he founded Ford Motor Co. in 1903. He had an idea of providing automatic “horseless carriages” for everyone, not just the wealthy few. In just four decades, his vision of mass production produced not only the first reliable, affordable, automotive for the masses, but it also kick-started the beginning of the modern industrial revolution. He once famously said, “Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right.” Your success lies with you believing you can succeed.
5. Have A Vision.
In early 2007, Tumblr, a blogging platform, was operated by just two people, founder David Karp and lead developer, Marco Arment. Now, Tumblr is owned by media giant, Yahoo, and was recently acquired for $1.1 billion in cash. David Karp would note that an entrepreneur is someone who has a vision for something and a desire to create it. This is something that Marco Arment would confirm about Karp as he once wrote “He’s (Karp) a workaholic — he truly lives and breathes Tumblr”.
6. Find Good People.
Your mindset affects the way you see and do your business. Our biggest influencers of the way we think are the people we surround ourselves with. Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn said that the fastest way to change yourself is to hang out with people who are already the way you want to be.
7. Face Your Fears.
Arianna Huffington once thought that Huffington Post would be her “Last Chapter”. She once said in an interview “I’ve struggled with that voice of self-doubt, which I call “the obnoxious roommate living in our heads.” It’s the one that tells so many women we’re not good enough. But as the 16th-century French essayist, Michel de Montaigne, said, “There were many terrible things in my life, and most of them never happened.”
Arianna Huffington is now worth $100 million and became president and editor-in-chief for Huffington Post after she sold it to AOL for $315 million.
8. Take Action.
Walt Disney, the man behind Walt Disney Pictures, once said that the easiest way to get started is to quit talking and start doing. The world is full of great ideas and the only way to see or experience them is if people started taking action.
9. Do The Time.
Rome wasn’t built in a day. Steve Jobs once noted, “If you look closely, most overnight successes took a long time.”. Time is one of the biggest things that you can invest in your business as it takes patience to see yourself from a small business to a big one.
10. Manage Energy, Not Time.
Time is infinite, your energy is not. The amount of energy you have dictates the amount of work you can do with your time so choose which ones are important and what needs to be focused on in order to avoid burnout.
11. Build A Great Team.
A successful business involves a great team. Having a strong team unites the company together with a single goal: success for each individual member.
12. Hire Character And Values.
As you build your team and company, look for people with great character and values. You can always train people to have the skill that you need but you cannot make their values or character fit into your company. That is why successful entrepreneurs always look at a person’s dedication, perseverance, and loyalty.
13. Plan For Raising Capital.
Venture capitalist, Richard Harroch once said, “It’s almost always harder to raise capital than you thought it would be, and it always takes longer. So plan for that.”
14. Know Your Goals.
Co-founder of iContact, Ryan Allis once said that having the end in mind ensures that you continue to keep working for that goal every single day.
15. Learn From Mistakes.
Big names in the industry point to mistakes and failures as their greatest teacher. Don’t wait until you make the same mistakes as they did, learn from them already so you can plan on ways on how to not end up in that situation.
16. Know Your Customer.
Your customers determine if your business will be a success or not. Wendy’s founder, Dave Thomas noted that knowing your customer better than anyone else and providing solutions that they need is one of the biggest keys to success.
17. Learn From Complaints.
Complaints aren’t made to insult or attack your company, complaints are made to help you become better. Bill Gates once said that customers’ complaints are the biggest learning opportunity for your company.
18. Ask For Customers’ Input.
You can’t assume what customers need all the time, for all you know you could be delivering service without the need for it. Ask your customers what they want or need and work on providing for that. Knowing what you need to provide ensures success.
19. Spend Wisely.
Money is hard to come by and easy to spend. When spending for your business, how sure are you that you are spending on the right things? It’s easy to spend on unnecessary things and then run out of capital so be careful.
20. Understand Your Industry.
Zappos founder, Tony Hsieh once said “Don’t play games you don’t understand, even if you see lots of other people making money from them.”
21. Deliver More Than Expected.
Larry Page, a co-founder of Google, encourages entrepreneurs to deliver more than what is expected as this is a great way to get noticed within the industry and attract more customers.
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