8 PROVEN Ways To Experience Excellence in Business

What Are The Business Secrets You Most Want to Discover?

Whether you chose to pursue business with a formal education or simply just went for it and learned along the way, you had to start somewhere.  This is what all entrepreneurs have in common, but the details of each one’s story will vary.  People who are truly interested in learning what it means to go into business will ask questions, because they believe the answers to these questions will help set them on a path toward success.

• What first inspired you to go into business?
• What principles do you run your business by?
• What were the first steps you took when deciding to pursue your dream as an entrepreneur?
• What books/seminars did you attend to find the best way?
• What business situation did you remain in too long?
• What was the best risk you decided to take?

Try to remember back when you started out as an entrepreneur, what were the questions you wanted answers to?  Imagine you were given the opportunity to sit down with some of the greatest business minds of our time.  Who would you choose to meet with?  What would your top questions be, now that you have actually experienced the ups and downs of being in business?

“In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best Run Companies,” is a book that gives you the opportunity to be a fly on the wall of the most successful companies in America. You’re able to explore firsthand the 8 common principles and practices that these diverse businesses found to contribute to their success.

1. A bias for action: a preference for doing something - anything - rather than sending a question through cycles and cycles of analyses and committee reports.
2. Staying close to the customer - learning his preferences and catering to them.
3. Autonomy and entrepreneurship - breaking the corporation into small companies and encouraging them to think independently and competitively.
4. Productivity through people - creating in all employees the awareness that their best efforts are essential and that they share in the rewards of the company’s success.
5. Hands-on, value-driven - insisting that executives keep in touch with the firm’s essential business.
6. Stick to the knitting - remaining with the business the company knows best.
7. Simple form, lean staff - few administrative layers, few people at the upper layers.
8. Simultaneous loose-tight properties - fostering a climate where there is dedication to the central values of the company combined with tolerance for all employees who accept those values.

One of the greatest contributions you can make in this industry is to give the gift of your wisdom and experience.  Remember what it was like when you were starting out - you were hungry for direction, wisdom, and tangible advice.

If you could choose just three of these principles to pass along to someone who is just starting out in business, which would you choose and why?  We'd love to hear your pearls of wisdom.