The Best Business Advice That I Have Received

I have been blessed by having several outstanding mentors in my career. They all were very gracious with their time and advice, and I am a better person because of their generosity and experience. I have tried to emulate them over the years by informally adopting several future business leaders. I learned that while mentoring, I was learning and growing from their experiences and willingness to ask “why” and challenge my beliefs. The students schooled the professor. From where I sit, that is a heck of a motivator for me to mentor even more.

As I was brainstorming about the best business advice I received, I ended up with a list of killer random ideas that really don’t fit into a neat little package. I still think you will benefit from these nuggets of advice. Perhaps one or two will resonate with you.

To achieve great results, you have to do the little things well.
All of us want to throw the Hail Mary pass instead of repetitious blocking and tackling. It’s certainly more fun to create glamorous, high-profile strategies than boring details. However, better execution always trumps strategy. I have seen this hundreds of times, and the best way to leverage results is to work on repeatable, high-quality processes. Don’t expect what you don’t inspect.
President Reagan taught us to “trust but verify” with the Soviets; the concept is genuine in business. All too often, we assume our teammates did what we asked without checking on them. This doesn’t mean that we should hover. Instead, put checkpoints in your calendar to ensure they are on task and you will get what you expect. Take care of your team, and they will care for your customers.
Small business people are frequently thrust into time-eating customer contact. The antidote for this disorder is to train, nurture, and develop your people to act as you would with your clients. Then, you can decide how involved you need to be with relationships.If you want to learn what is wrong with your business, listen carefully to the people closest to the customer.
This philosophy emerged from Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart. He firmly believed that pumping information up the food chain in a business was exceptionally difficult. Your direct reports will insulate you from hearing about problems, so you need to get out and talk to your customers, specifically the salespeople on the frontline. You will be amazed at what you learn about internal improvements and solutions.

You own your development.
Most people in the workforce believe their company and boss will be fully invested in their development. We need to identify what we need to learn and encourage our boss to help us develop a specific written plan that we can implement. We all need to Invest in ourselves by reading, attending conferences, taking classes, etc.

If you want to improve your results, find a way to measure it.
I propose that you develop a dozen measurements for your business dashboard and review your progress at least monthly. Clarity on your results and plans makes it much easier to drive improvements.

The best way to ruin an excellent idea is to appoint a committee to study it.
I have learned that most ideas get sent to committees because we want support for the initiative, and most ideas are complex. Most people don’t like change, and really dysfunctional behavior evolves when the boss isn’t around. Shape and simplify the idea and set goals and expectations before you consider releasing it to a committee.

My creative juices are flowing about developing another list of the best business advice I have received. Watch my future blog posts for more of my “ a-ha” moments.

Until then, check my website at daveschoenbeck.com and read my other blog posts. I am confident that you will get some new ideas for your business.

Thanks,

Coach Dave