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I hope this has value to you.
What I have learned about business…
1. Honesty, integrity, and hard work is the glue that holds it all together.
2. Take ownership.
3. Having strategic partners (associates, mentors, connections, etc.) are more valuable than money.
4. Unless you have goals, you really have no idea where you are or where you’re going.
5. Always look for new ideas.
6. The product &/or service has to be great, but the packaging has to be even better. Packaging: appearance, cleanliness, what you are driving, what you are wearing, presentation (speaking in general), follow through, etc.
7. Learn of your mistakes small. (Learn at a small level before spending a lot or before taking it big.)
8. Continually take inventory of self and business. What are your true assets, and true liabilities? What needs work?
9. Until you have paying customers, you don’t know what you really have or how good you have it.
10. A winning business has to have value and uniqueness to survive the test of time.
11. Forward motion helps. Lean into it.
12. Enjoyment maters. Find some Joy even in necessary unpleasant tasks.What would you to add to the list?
13. Become the expert in whatever you do. If you have down time and are’t out doing sales, educate yourself either via industry mags, internet research, picking brain of others in the field, etc etc. If you aren’t an “expert” in cleaning yet, you need to become one. In my opinion, the quickest way to become a better cleaner is to add kids, pets, or large amounts of alcohol into your lives (although I really don’t recommend the later). All 3 of these will have you walking into rooms and saying “what the hell happened in here”, and you will often not have an answer to that question (much like your customer’s homes) but will still have to try and clean it.
14. You bought a business, not a job. Job’s are 40 hrs a week and are 9-5 (in theory). Businesses (as it pertains to the owner) are not usually 9-5, 40 hrs a week, but they can be. Early on you must work your butt off to get to that point. It doesn’t come easy and you better have a written plan to get to it.
15. There will ALWAYS be another “hurdle”. You will often find yourself saying “if only XYZ happens, then I am good” (or something to that extent). XYZ can be winning a new large commercial contract, it can be adding another full or p/t employee, it can be getting a new sprayer, it can be getting enough money to buy new pads, it can be getting off the van, or any other scenario you want to add. You will think this will be the last hurdle you will need to be “successful” (or fiscally sound, or headache free, or something else). From talking to other business owners and from my experience, there is ALWAYS another hurdle (big, small or otherwise). The sooner you can accept that, the better you will sleep.
16. Amazing customer service will make up for potential deficiencies in cleaning results in many cases. Whether you don’t know how to clean it, or maybe you just had a bad day, but a customer happy with you or your technicians and that aspect of the cleaning experience will be more likely to reuse you if the results weren’t what they were expecting/hoping for. Now, none of us have bad days so this shouldn’t apply to any of us (cough cough)I’m sure I have more, but those always stick in my head.
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