6 Entrepreneurs share Advice from $M Mentoring

“Highly successful entrepreneurs share the wisdom – that took them from Startups to highly successful businesses” – Wiz4.biz

Successful Topics: Vision, Integrity, Company Culture, Sacrifice, Impressionable.

Failure Topics: Conclusion: Take care of your Life (or else)

Great Mentors offer some of the most valuable advice on the planet. A single idea, concept or approach can be worth millions of dollars. These 6 highly successful entrepreneurs share their wisdom that propelled them to incredibly successful.

Vision: “plan” your expected Outcome.

The best advice a mentor ever gave me was to understand the “true meaning” of leadership. 90% of effective leadership is determining your expected outcome. This enables simpler, more effective decision making, irrespective of circumstances or emotion.

Reduces the “stress” of arising problems. You can better detach when evaluating how a significant decision will impact you and others. Problems still happen; you just get better at dealing with them – by knowing where you want to be.

a Clear Vision about the outcome has impacted my business and life in multiple ways. I operate at levels aligned with my personal values. This gives a priceless feeling of “living in freedom” while striving for optimum results. —Roy McDonald, Founder & CEO of OneLife

2. Act with Integrity.

I’ve always tried to take bits & pieces from all my mentors that were the best for me. I’d take it all in, then use what I could. But if I had to pick one that has served me well in business and life, it has to be: “Always be honest & act with integrity”. No matter what happens on the battlefield of business, if you’re honest & authentic, you can never lose, no matter what. You might lose the sale or not make as much as intended, but you acted with integrity and can always hold your head up. Never take favors either. If a vendor or supplier offers so-called “free” goods or services to help gain your business, never accept. You don’t owe them anything in return. — Steve Griggs, Founder & CEO of Steve Griggs Design.

3. Go all-in on Company Culture.

At a conference, I heard over & over again that “culture trumps strategy”. Soon after, I asked the CEO of Zappos, Tony Hsieh, about the biggest thing he wished he’d done sooner. “Created a strong culture first,” he said. So, my company decided to go all-in on culture. We worked with Janet & Chris Attwood—who wrote “The Passion Test”—to create Core Values & a Vision that we could all live out every day.

Using our Core Values. From there, we created metrics to prove that we were living our these values. We started hiring & firing based on values. Slowly, we attracted the right type of people while quickly eliminating out those who weren’t a fit. Today, our turnover is under 5%, which is extremely low for a Call center. Our DreamTrust program—inspired by Jon Butcher’s “Lifebook program” & Matthew Kelly’s book, “Dream Manager”—trains our people to live their “best lives” possible. This devotion to culture has taken our annual revenue from under $10 million to over $20 million, and will take us — and our people—much, much further. — Craig Handley, co-Founder & CEO of ListenTrust

4. Be ready to Sacrifice.

I was so independent when it came to starting a business. But I have two pieces of advice I’ve picked up over the years:

Be practical. How much money do you have to stay alive and for how long? Do you have enough money to cover your rent, expenses (anticipated & unexpected), & overhead for a year? You should, so you could survive until you break even and have a (+) cash flow.
Be prepared to sacrifice. The minute you decide to launch a new business, most entrepreneurs focus on nothing else. If you start a business in the next few years, every minute of every 18 hour day will probably be dedicated to this endeavor.
What do you sacrifice? Your business success will come at the expense of family & friend, time, vacations, + any other hobbies or activities you once enjoyed. This business has to be your entire life, or it will die.
Under-estimated. I think a lot of people who go into business, under-estimate how hard it really is, to make your dreams come true. It takes constant hustle, hard work, & a lot of sacrifice. To be successful, you need to set yourself up practically to be able to do all of those things. —Gary Vaynerchuk, Founder & CEO of VaynerMedia (700+ employees with over $100 M in annual revenue) and the NY Times-bestselling author of “#AskGaryVee”

5. The world is highly Impressionable.

I recently finished working on the BVI Art Reef project, which was featured in The New York Times and Richard Branson’s Blog. I was part of the team that built an enormous Sculpture on a derelict World War II Navy ship—one of five remaining boats that survived the Pearl Harbor attack. The ship will be sunk to create a wonder-of-the-world dive site and cutting-edge marine research environment. Working on a project that merges art, science, business, & govt to create meaningful impact, became a tribute to my mentor, Al Smith. He taught me 3 lessons that have been critical to my success:

The world around us is accepting, If you can imagine it & break it down, so they understand it, you can create & mold it.
Ultimate beauty combines form & function. Things should be finely crafted to elegantly accomplish something meaningful.
Ego does not achieve anything alone. Often, we need to find our role within our team, then we can all use our best talents to accomplish great goals.

—Chris Plough, author, speaker, advisor, & founding partner of ExponentialU; He equips Entrepreneurs for the future.

Conclusion: Take care of your Life.

The best piece of advice a Mentor ever gave me was: “My business is a reflection of my personal life”. Meaning that if my personal life was chaotic, stressful, failing, or unfulfilling, it would be nearly impossible for my business to be doing well. For a lot of my life, I spent my energy & time thinking: “Once I make this much money or move to this cool location or get this many clients, then I have earned the right to be happy.” That type of endless cycle has never proven successful.

Financial Freedom should not be your primary goal. Instead, it should be a by-product of using your talent to the max and sharing your “value” with the world. It will never work the other way: this has proven true time & time again in my life and the lives of nearly all of my mentors.

Taking care of . . . your spiritual, mental, & physical health is just as important as taking care of your business. In fact, they must precede it. Once I started taking care of these, everything in my business turns around. —AJ Rivera, $M Marketing expert, Business advisor & CEO of PT Freedom;

Comments: How has your Mentor helped you become Successful?

from Entrepreneur.com 16 May 17 enhanced by Peter/CXO Wiz4.biz

For more Info, click on Successful, Advisors, Mentoring.