Quotable Business: Taking That Risk

Written on Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 | Quotable Business | 3 Comments

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect - Mark Twain

Bootstrapping involves risk and risk involves taking a road less traveled. The above quote sums up a lot of the most successful business owners feelings when talking about how they got where they are. Lets face it; following the majority will only let you become as successful as they have been - if you’re lucky. More times then most though, you’ll end up with a fraction of the success as the ones before you because the public has already seen it and is tired of it.

Taking That Risk

Some solid risk assessment skills are no doubt needed in order to become a successful risk taker. This article does not mean that quitting your job with no savings and nowhere to live is the way to go. But just be sure to know that there is no such thing, in my opinion, as a calculated risk. If it’s been over calculated, it’s no longer a risk, but just another run at a business.

Why Bootstrappers LOVE Risk

Bootstrappers love risk (or at least you better get to that point) for many reasons. For most of us, it’s embedded in our DNA when we are born; natural risk takers. For others, it is a skill that is built over time. Either way, risk is a big factor in someone coasting through life or living life to its fullest.

Bootstrappers who take the risks to get to the next level in their business find one of two things:

1. They fail and learn a big lesson that they will apply to their next risk
2. They succeed and gain tons of profit that they would have never saw without the risk taking

If you fail when you take your risks, do not look at it as a failure, but a learning process. Thomas Edison failed 10,000 times before he succeeded, so why can’t you? By failing, you’re gaining not only the knowledge to grow in a positive direction, but you’re also getting the ‘tough skin’ needed to succeed in business and move forward when everything is trying to stop you.

When you succeed in your bootstrapped business because of a risk you took, you feel like a champion. Nothing works better for increased energy levels at work then succeeding and feeling on top of the world. The positive feelings in knowing that your risk (you know, the thing everyone advised you against doing) paid off is infinite. I personally get a great feeling, not only in knowing that I succeeded, but in knowing that I proved everyone wrong. So go ahead, take that risk, you’ll be surprised at whats on the other side.

 

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Quotable Business: The Simple Explanation

Written on Friday, April 11th, 2008 | Quotable Business | 7 Comments

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.
Albert Einstein

This post will show you exactly why being simple in explaining your business can be the difference in sales or no sales.

See how easy that was? In one sentence I gave you the entire overview of this article. No fluff, no overdone explanation, no rambling. That is the perfect example of why being simple, to the point and straight forward in any conversational material can mean the difference in someone skipping it, skimming it or remembering it. Bootstrappers know that time is of the essence and saving any amount of time you can is always great for business. So, why do we always seem to get into a constant ramble session when someone asks us what we do for a living? Why do we not have out elevator speech prepared and memorized (or at least the basis of it, I mean, after all we don’t want to sound like robots)? Continue reading

 

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Quotable Business: Success VS Value

Written on Monday, January 14th, 2008 | Quotable Business | 5 Comments

The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive. Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.

- Albert Einstein

If you’ve never hear this phrase before, I hope that seeing it now will ignite a fire inside your mind to really think about what is most important in life and also in business. If you have read this quote before, follow along with me as I break down both Success and Value because I’m sure there’s something I’ll talk about that you might not have thought about before.

For those of you just joining us for the first time, thank you for reading my blog and I do invite you to leave comments on anything you find interesting or if you have questions for me at all. Also, just a quick note to everyone reading, the Quotable Business category will now feature articles that are written around a famous quote and shown how any quote can be turned into a quote about business.

Success VS Value

There are many people who will lump both of these categories together when talking about their life and the things they’ve done, but as the genius Albert Einstein has shown us in this quote, they are definitely two totally different things and should be viewed on as such. No matter if you discuss your life and talk about the success you have gained, or if you discuss the value you’ve added to the world, you are free to do as you please, but I do believe that Albert Einstein is right when he tells us to become a “man of value”. Value lasts forever, while Success can run out very quick depending on how good you are with finances.

MAN OF SUCCESS

There are a few things that measure a man’s success. They are as follows:

1. Money
2. Assets

Now, you can break each of these categories down into smaller, more targeted categories like cars, houses and jewelry for assets. For the sake of keeping the article to the point, I will just keep the list at two items; Money and Assets.

Now, money can buy you lots of things, but as the saying goes, money doesn’t buy happiness. Think about how many rich people in the world have committed suicide. Why would they do something like this if the money they had truly made them happy?

Your assets can be left behind to your loved ones, or given away to charity (this also holds true to your money) so I do believe that these things do have a purpose and are valuable. However, I do not think that they hold a candle to the amount of respect you can gain when you are a man of value.

MAN OF VALUE

When you are a man of value, you can break this down into a couple of simple categories as well;

1. Respect
2. Honor

The above two things can also be broken down into smaller categories, but again, for the sake of keeping this article to the point, I’ll leave those out. After all, you’ve got to have room to think after you read the article, so you can break out the pad and pencil and jot down a few ideas that come to mind when you think about Respect and Honor.

I believe that Respect is the ultimate form of currency. If you’ve got respect, you can get just about anything you want out of a person. On the other hand, if you’re rich, but everyone hates you and no one respects you, you’ll surely not get a tenth of what you would with their respect.

Honor is another big thing with me. You can cal it a macho male ego if you want, that’s fine. Regardless, you have to look at honor for what it truly is. When you have honor, you have morals and values that exceed anything money can do for you. Yes, you can give your child money if you feel bad for yelling at them, and yes, you can buy an expensive gift after the argument you have with your significant other, but what about not yelling or arguing in the first place? Wouldn’t that make more sense?

What I believe Albert Einstein was saying in the quote is that in order to really make an impact with your life, the money will only place you in a group of thousands of other rich people. It’s the selfless good deeds you do that will set you apart from the rest and etch your name into history. This goes for business as well.

Value with business

This could be many things but the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about Value and business is the quality of the work or product you are supplying. If you’re in the service industry, you must make it a point to give the highest quality service in the world. Your business can gain vast amounts of money, but without a positive reply to the question “How was our service when you hired us?” your business will surely sink, and fast.

Albert Einstein was a genius and I believe any quote you can find of his or anyone elses for that matter can be applied to business. So, take a bit of time and think about what you’re aiming for with your business; Success or Value?

Leave a comment and let me know which you would choose and why. I’m interested to see what you strive for with your businesses and think it would make a great discussion.

Editors Note: This is the first of many articles to come in 2008 that take famous quotes and turn them into business topics. If you’ve got a quote that you live by, let me know and I’ll try to write up an article on it. Also I want to apologize for those who are wondering why the first article of the year is coming halfway through the month. We’re now back on track and will be posting quality content regularly now.

 

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