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10 Best Pieces of Business Advice From 10 Business Leaders
What is the best piece of business advice you've ever received?
To help professionals thrive, we asked business leaders this question for their best business advice. From being your authentic self to building trust, there are several tips that may help you flourish in your career and life for years to come.
Here are 10 tips to help you grow as a business professional:
Be Authentic to the Core
Excel at What You Are Doing Right Now
Continue Expanding Skill Sets
Make Your First Impression Count
Be Comfortable with the Uncomfortable
Never Think You Can Do Everything Yourself
Don’t Wait for Perfect Timing
Show Customers Your Appreciation
Know How to Overcome Your Weakness
Continually Build Trust
Be Authentic to the Core
One of my mentors told me that if I pretended to be someone I’m not, people would recognize it, and the relationship would be unlikely to develop. But if you do what you love and are passionate about it, people will recognize your genuineness and want to work with you.
Robert S. Reder, Blythe Grace PLLC
Excel at What You are Doing Right Now
Find a way to excel at whatever you are doing now or what you have the opportunity to do. If you excel at what you do, then people take notice, and more opportunities come your way. That advice has helped guide me through working at an internet startup, working at a consulting firm, and starting my own consulting business.
Debra Hildebrand, Hildebrand Solutions, LLC
Continuing Expanding Skill Sets
The best piece of business advice I’ve received is always to keep sharpening my saw. Jim Rohn would say, “if you’re not growing, you’re dying.” I use that as a personal mantra and consistently seek ways to grow and develop my skill set. Whether it’s personal or professional growth, it’s important for me to continue learning. This has helped me become a better leader and pass on the same mantra to others.
Jenn Christie, Markitors
Make Your First Impression Count
The best piece of advice I’ve ever received is that a first impression is a lasting impression. This piece of advice has proven to be true over and over again throughout my life. A statement that I hear a lot in the business world is to launch quickly and pivot accordingly. I do not fully agree with that statement.
As a marketer, I suggest for your first impression on the market to be one you will be proud of over the lifespan of your business. I recommend diving deep into your industry, testing, researching, and ultimately coming up with a product or service that offers a solution to a customer's problem. Launching too quickly is risky because customers' trust is so essential, and once it is lost, it is extremely difficult to earn back.
Kelli Lane, Genexa
Be Comfortable with the Uncomfortable
One super important thing to succeeding in business is becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable. There will be many times where you must take a risk, learn a new skill, or simply not know what will happen next. It’s during those times that you will need to be comfortable in the uncomfortable.
Tri Nguyen, Network Capital
Never Think You Can Do Everything Yourself
The best advice I have ever been given is to “never think that you can do everything yourself because that’s a myth.” At some point, you will need help from others. There is no point in acting like you know everything. It’s always better to admit when you need help accomplishing a certain task because there is no shame in it.
This is ever more so important since most of us are now working remotely with others. Always work in tandem with your coworkers and teammates and stay loyal to them because they were with you at the beginning, so you know they will stay through the good and the bad.
Caroline Lee, CocoSign
Don’t Wait for Perfect Timing
I think the best business advice that I've ever received is simply just to do it. I think so many times we get caught up in waiting for the perfect time to start a business or when might be the best opportunity to have your first hire. But I think you should get in the space of taking action, and understand that the action will not always work out. You can always course-correct and change things. I think it puts you in a place where you start to feel as if things don't have to be perfect, but you can work to try to perfect them. I think that's phenomenal advice because it's just allowed me the opportunity to kind of be action-focused rather than waiting on that perfect moment.
Gresham Harkless Jr., Blue 16 Media
Show Customers Your Appreciation
One of the best pieces of business advice I've heard is to value your customers. It's important for business owners to remember that they would not have a business without their customers and to continue to be grateful for them. Letting customers know that they are appreciated gives business owners a healthy perspective, and it also strengthens the loyalty between the customers and the business.
Abraham Rahmanizadeh, Leafwell Botanicals
Know How to Overcome Your Weakness
One of the major obstacles I had to manage from day one was being a female, 20-something first-time founder. Unfortunately, these attributes can sometimes deter investors, making it more difficult to receive funding pre-launch. The challenges and obstacles of being a business owner didn’t stop there, but the best advice I’ve received as an entrepreneur is to identify the parts of your business others may see as “weaknesses” — regardless of those views being founded or unfounded, take your ego out of this one — and gather data proving otherwise. A person’s gender bias, for example, can’t argue with clear, compelling data proving there is demand in the marketplace for the product or service you have created.
Rachel Geicke, Snow Monkey
Continually Build Trust
Trust can always be built. Trust is the foundation that good business relationships are built on, so work hard to earn that trust. Build trust with clients, coworkers or bosses, because once trust has been built, new opportunities open up.
Ajay Mehta, Birthdate Co.
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