👨🏻‍🎓 What I Learned in 10 Years as A Business Owner

Today is a big day.

We’re celebrating issue #10 of this little newsletter. 🥳

Thank you for reading and being here with me from the beginning. 🙏🏻

We each have so many ideas that pass through our lives without being given the honor of a shot. They often just die on the vine.

While doing anything ten times isn’t particularly significant or meaningful, oftentimes, simply starting, is monumental.

To celebrate 10 weeks in your inbox, I’m doing it different today and walking through 10 key things I’ve learned in 10 years as a small business owner.

“When you walk through a door, you should make lives better.” —Jennifer Toomer

In no particular order, let’s get into it.

10: Lead with Revenue

A decade before I became a business owner, I was working full-time in retail sales at Best Buy, while attending college full-time. Our store was doing well, however, the general manager was focused heavily on profit, and as a result, a culture of pushing high-profit ancillary items grew and this created poor experiences for customers making larger purchases of computer systems, TVs, and home theater systems.

Within a year or two, corporate made some significant changes to how stores would be run moving forward, focusing more on an “organic growth” strategy, where creating better experiences for customers was paramount, knowing that happy customers and raving fans create repeat customers, and this not only grows revenue, it increases profit as stores see a reduction in new customer acquisition expenses.

I remember when our new GM, a former Famous Footwear executive, said, “Everything starts with revenue.”

He reinforced corporate’s sentiment, instructing salespeople to “take the revenue,” meaning don’t try so hard to sell high-profit items that you lose the sale altogether. He was right, within a few years, our biggest competitor, Circuit City, closed its doors for good.

When I became a business owner, the message, “Lead with revenue” was reinforced once again.

This time, with a different focus. This time, it was about generating revenue for the business before spending money to grow the business. Prospect over marketing. Do the hard work that doesn’t cost money, only your time to grow the business, then leverage the revenue within a budget to scale the business through marketing.

Leading with revenue is imperative because you cannot out-revenue an expense problem. Generate revenue to grow the business, and manage expenses to increase the profits.

9: Reduce, Condense, Eliminate, Consolidate

Ask yourself the following:

1. Where is any inefficiency hindering our growth or effectiveness?

2. What are we doing that frustrates us, takes too much time, or slows our progress?

3. What specifically, will we work on to simplify it immediately?

This could be unnecessary rules, policies, or meetings. Your team knows where the slack is. Eliminate low-value activities and distractions.

8: Your Database is Your Business

The size of your database and the quality of the relationships in it will directly correlate to the size of your business and your bank account.

The 4 Laws of Lead Generation from the “Millionaire Real Estate Agent” by Gary Keller.

1. Build a Database [in a CRM]

2. Feed it every day [meet new people or capture new leads]

3. Communicate with it in a systematic way [automate your follow-up]

4. Service all the leads

The quality of the service you offer is more important than the quantity of sales you’ve had. The quality of service you choose to offer will determine who your clients are, who refers you, and how many sales you have.

7: Trust Triangle = Authenticity > Logic > Empathy

If people don’t trust you they won’t follow you. If people don’t trust you, you can’t influence them. Politics is influence failed and the missing component is trust.

A relationship is a conversation and relationships require trust.


Authenticity is others experiencing the REAL you.

Logic is when you have a logic stream that will make the people you're talking to have better lives.

Empathy is when they truly believe that you care about them. Not you. THEM.

6: No One Succeeds Alone

In the beginning, surround yourself with people who will encourage your growth, support you in your failures, and hold you accountable to your commitments. This could be a spouse, a friend, a mentor, or a colleague.

Then, hire a coach as soon as you’re profitable enough to do so. Professionals have coaches.

5: Let Go to Grow

You are one hire away from changing your life.

Let go and delegate to others without micro-managing.

Let go of how you think things should be done and give yourself a massive lift by letting others do what they do best.

Give others vision, clarity, and space to bring their creativity and freedom to grow.

Be clear on what and why something needs to be done.

4: Reduce The Friction

Consumers want everything to be a simple, seamless, fast, luxury experience at a value, and they want confidence and transparency.

They want things they don’t even realize they need.

Create an experience that provides 👆 and makes it as easy for them to buy as possible.

3: Perfect Your Offer

The value proposition, the reason your business exists, should be very clearly stated in your offer. If people aren’t buying what you’re selling, it’s likely because it isn’t clear what they’re getting as a result.

Logic makes you think, emotion makes you act.

Paint a clear picture of your ideal client’s dream outcome, and clearly connect the dots back to your product or service.

2: Clarity is Power

Clear, concise, communication is everything.

Have clarity in your priorities by asking these three questions.

1. What am I not doing, that if I started doing would dramatically change the way I do business?

2. What am I doing, that if I stopped doing, no one would notice?

3. What am I doing well that I need to be doing more of?

1: Change is inevitable, participation is optional.

Every change provides an opportunity and change is constant. The number of opportunities you have are dependent on your willingness and ability to accept and adopt each change as fast as possible.

Change is growth and you are either growing or you are dying.

Until you are willing to like the journey as much as the destination, you may as well kiss the destination goodbye because you'll never find it anyway.

ONWARD TOGETHER.

• Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here.

• Have a great topic idea to share? Share here.