As an entrepreneur, what’s one thing you wish you had done sooner to grow your business?
That’s the question we asked the below experts that built businesses worth millions!
Drew Sanocki, Nerd Marketing
The one thing I wish I had done sooner was adopt an 80/20 mindset.
20% of my efforts drove 80% of the business results.
20% of our customers drove 80% of our revenue.
Similarly, only a small number of our marketing campaigns, products, partnerships actually mattered. The sooner you are able to realize that, the sooner you can free yourself up from spending time and money on things that just don’t matter. It’s the quickest way to grow a business and liberate time.
Allen Burt, Blue Stout
I wish I had learned how to delegate sooner. Especially the day-to-day tasks that have a way of eating up 90% of your day if you let them. Hiring an assistant and learning how to systematically delegate pieces of the business or responsibilities to other people is critical. As an entrepreneur, you should be focusing on the critical tasks that will move the business forward. Delegate everything else.
Billy Murphy, ForeverJobless
The two things I focus on are making sure the product I’m offering is better than what’s currently on the market for the need I’m trying to solve, and that I know how to reach my audience. Those are the only two things I’m concerned with. Any time I don’t solve one of those two things, it doesn’t go well. Anytime I make sure I have those two things solved, I can pretty much predict it’s going to go well.
Dave Huckabay, Grabapple
If I could go back and change anything, it would be to start collecting email addresses and running email campaigns. I feel like I left a lot of money on the table there.
Another thing is setting up sales funnels. DEFINITELY left some $ $ $ on the table there.
Adii Pienaar, Receiptful
As co-founder of WooThemes – which was my first “real” rodeo – I wish I had hired specialists sooner to take care of the things in the business that I was just not very good at (or sometimes just didn’t want to do). And this is something which I definitely took on board when I founded Receiptful; I focused on building a great team – and trusted them to do great work – from the very beginning. This has definitely helped me focus on the things that I’m good at and the things that I love doing, which means that I can align my personal momentum to that of the company, whilst also reducing the overall friction in our ability to execute on ideas and make progress.
Stacey Herbert, Brazen Profit Lab
Stop overthinking everything, that’s just fear masquerading itself as research.
Set yourself a limited period of time to do your due diligence in the key areas of your business, then just get started. You’ll get things wrong and make crappy choices, but all of these mistakes make you a smarter, wiser business owner. Stop wasting time. Just get started.”
Dennis Moons, Store Growers
My one thing is delegating. For way too long I’ve tried to do everything myself.
And it’s something that is an ongoing struggle: “It will be way faster if I quickly do this myself”
But it’s not about the 5 minutes you save. Thinking in processes forces you to be more precise and consistent, and allows improvements to the system vs improvising every time.
Books like ‘The E-Myth’ or ‘Work The System’ were a big inspiration into this type of thinking. They’ve helped me to create processes around recurring tasks. This makes delegating or outsourcing a lot easier and allows me to spend my time working on higher value things.
Justin Winter, I am Justin Winter
Proactively acquired more emails and built the list from day one.
Richard Lazazzera, A Better Lemonade Stand
I really wish I setup automated emails based on signups and user actions much earlier. I only really started diving deep into this in the later part of last year. In that short period of time, I was able to sent out nearly 50,000 full-automated emails. Not only did they contain a ton of value for my readers and customers, but they also drove a ton of traffic and sales back to my businesses. My goal for 2016 is to really accelerate this and send out 500,000 contextual, value-packed, fully automated emails.
To summarize their tips, if you have a good product and there’s a need in the market for your products, then stop overthinking it. Start moving your business forward to the next level! Delegate, focus on what you are good at, and let others do the rest. Start collecting emails from day one, this is one of the most important assets you can build.
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