Transcription
Perhaps you have asked yourself what main qualities a successful entrepreneur leader in IT should possess when you make people move in a certain direction. Entrepreneurs, business owners think, should define these rules. Should I define these instructions? Of course, you should. You should be the architect of the business because in your head are the dreams.
5 Main Qualities of a Successful Business Owner/Manager. This video is about what main qualities a successful entrepreneur should possess in order to create a company, develop it, go through all the difficulties. Also, in this video, I will talk about what, from my point of view, has no relation to success, even if it is fashionable, popular, and all that.
Perhaps you have asked yourself: is this mine or not mine? They say that an entrepreneur should be like this, he should be interested in all the latest trends, and I'm not very much in relation to this. Or an entrepreneur should be very friendly and sensitive, and I don't feel that. Or, on the contrary, he should not see obstacles, and he should have such a powerful intention that sweeps away everything in its path, and so on. Am I like that or not? I think you have asked yourself this question: should I act this way or that way, and all that.
After watching this video, I can say that you will definitely understand what your strong traits are, what your weak traits are, and I hope, at least, I will try to make it so that you understand what is actually important and what is actually not very important. And most likely, you will understand through what you are successful and be able to strengthen it, and you will also see, perhaps, your weak sides and be able to fix them in some way.
In general, 5 main traits, from my point of view, that an entrepreneur should possess. The first trait is that an entrepreneur must be a visionary and a strategist. What am I talking about now? That an entrepreneur must be a dreamer. If you read books about great entrepreneurs, you will find that each of them was or is a dreamer. Some of them were accused of this. Steve Jobs was accused of living in some field of distorted reality, and he completely did not see real life, what was happening around, he did not notice the real difficulties. They accused him of being an unbearable person, he demanded the impossible from people, a terrible, terrible person, he demands the impossible from people. This is sarcasm, because from my point of view, a good, successful business owner and leader is a person who always demands the impossible from people. And by the way, thanks to this, people become stronger. And by the way, thanks to this, they eventually love this person and support him, because thanks to him, they overcame some internal barriers, overcame something that seemed impossible, and became stronger.
I remember a story, you know, when I started using Apple computers about 30 years ago. Nightmare, it sounds terrible. I had a Macintosh computer, such a small, beautiful, elegant box, on which a monitor stood beautifully. Here was such a keyboard, all this was such a light gray plastic, and on this small box, on this powerful computer, there was only one power button and a slot for a three-inch floppy disk. And at that time, what we called an IBM-compatible computer were these terrible, humming coffins. Only later did I read in a book about Steve Jobs how he demanded that engineers cram this computer into this small plastic box. The engineer said, "No, it's impossible. We don't have power supplies that can be fitted into this small box." And Steve Jobs said, "I don't care, it needs to be crammed, and you must do it." And only thanks to the fact that he was a visionary, that is, the thing of a visionary, look, I'll reveal a secret: a person who highly values his dreams, who is very careful in relation to his ideas, in relation to his dreams that do not actually exist in reality, but only in his imagination. And a visionary is a person for whom his dreams, his standards, his ideas are sacred. For him, from my point of view, this is the first trait that an entrepreneur should possess to create something truly good, not to deviate from his own dreams and standards. And for this, you need to have them. Well, of course, this also applies to this first quality of being a visionary. Of course, we must be marketers. If we are entrepreneurs, we must be marketers. We must anticipate or understand what this market, these clients require, create these beautiful, amazing products in our imagination, and then to be able to achieve from people that these products appear, these services appear. This is another task. That is, in other words, point number one: you must be a strategist, a visionary, a dreamer, and of course, in some sense, a marketer to understand what the market needs in these dreams. This is the first point.
The second point is that to be a successful entrepreneur, you need to be a leader. Being a leader is a simple thing, you know. Like when you are a child, you go out into the yard, and there's a whole bunch of scruffy kids hanging around, someone is kicking a ball, someone is just bored, someone is digging a hole, someone is setting fire to a neighbor's fence. And you look at all this and say, "Guys, let's go to the forest and jump into the lake, there's a Tarzan swing there." And everyone says, "Oh yeah, cool idea, let's go to the forest." That's leadership. Look, leadership is a pretty simple thing. Leadership is when you tell people, "Our next goal is to sell 10 widgets." You understand? It's such a simple thing that smart people just freeze when I talk about it. They think, "Is the goal of going to the forest and jumping off the Tarzan swing correct? Is the thing of selling 10 widgets or something else correct?" It doesn't matter. Leadership is when you make people move in a certain direction. You set this direction. Over time, they get used to the fact that you are the one who sets the direction. That's basically what leadership is. That is, when you move people in a certain direction for some time, they get used to it, and they consider you a leader. That's basically it. I don't expect you to continue to move them in some direction. And now we need to develop a new service. And now we need to do a new webinar. And now we need to launch a new advertisement. And now we need to do a subbotnik in the office and clean everything. And now we need to call new clients. And that's all. What is leadership? It's a simple thing. You definitely possess it, you just don't hold it back with some stupid ideas like, "Do I have the right?" "Who am I?" You understand? The kid who went out into the yard and said, "Well, let's go to the forest and jump into the lake." No one gave him any right, he had no official authority, no one elected him, no one voted for him. It doesn't matter. Leadership is something that lies on the ground underfoot, no one actually wants to bend down.
So, the second point. Remember the first one: dreams. The second point is leadership. It's your leadership when you just direct people somewhere.
The third, in my opinion, is a very important quality for a successful entrepreneur. A successful entrepreneur must be an architect of the business. What is an architect? An architect is a person who can imagine, using paper or something else, how something will work. Well, you understand, an architect is a person who creates a building on paper, and then people, when it is brought to life, when many people have worked on it, this building is built, they look at it and say, "Amazing." But remember, this amazingness was created by the architect when he planned all this, thought it through. When we talk about business, being an architect of the business means setting a certain system of relationships, certain rules, approving these rules, establishing these rules. That's a simple thing, and you do it to some extent. You create instructions. It's just that often entrepreneurs, business owners, managers think, "Is this mine? Should I write these, define these policies? Should I define these rules? Should I define these instructions?" Of course, you should. You should be the architect of the business because in your head are the dreams, and the architecture that you set should somehow contribute to the realization of these dreams. Therefore, I'm not saying that a business owner should write all the instructions, set all the standards. No, of course. But as the main architect, you must lay down the dimensions of this building, the color, how it will look, and so on. You must be the architect. This is the third quality. I know there are business owners who don't have this and don't develop it in themselves, and as a result, their business looks, you know, like an Indian village, where everything is somehow built on a balcony, an attic. It all somehow organically resembles a tumor rather than something truly interesting and built-in. That is, the third is that you must be an architect.
The fourth is a very interesting thing. It is present in almost all entrepreneurs. I have rarely met entrepreneurs for whom this was not close at all, not close at all. It is mentorship. If we want to be leaders in business, if we want to be very successful entrepreneurs, we should not be strangers to mentorship. We should be capable of mentorship, because at least an entrepreneur is a person who attracts top talent, who grows top talent, who guides top talent. And for this, you understand, you cannot manage capable people simply by giving them individual orders or throwing instructions in their faces. No, because you cannot foresee everything. And the larger your business becomes, the less you can foresee. But you can teach these people, pass on your approaches, your values, how you see the world, how you make decisions. And for this, mentorship is needed. That is, for this, you should not be strangers to mentorship. And I constantly spend time on mentorship every week. How does it happen? Well, when my top people and I analyze a situation. But it's not like I, you know, like a bird brings us worms in its beak. No, they have a problem, and I say, "Okay, what are the questions? What are the problems? And how do you think this should be solved? And how do you take into account when developing this decision?" For example, they say, "Okay, we need to give this discount, pay these commissions to these partners, integrate this into our product." I say, "Okay, good. And how will you take into account this factor, for example? And this factor? And this?" I make them think. And then I tell them, "Okay, and I see it like this. Look, let's look at it from this point of view." That's what mentorship or mentoring is called, or it's called being a coach. That is, passing on, forming a certain point of view. So, I believe that a successful entrepreneur should be able to do this, at least in relation to his closest partners, top people, those who surround us. This is the fourth point. I am sure that you have now discovered some degree of this in yourself, not purely. Most likely, you have done this successfully to some extent at some point.
Well, and the fifth point is not so popular, but I must talk about it, and it is also important because all the previous four points are meaningless without this. The fifth point is that you must be a demanding manager, like a bulldog. If you decided that this fence should be painted, if you decided that the conference should be held in September, if you decided that some new CRM should be implemented in your company, you must be able to achieve this, achieve it at any cost. By the way, I do not recommend you to concentrate on some trifles. I am talking about big things now. If you achieve, then you continue to dream, because you know that your dreams will come true over time. But if you cannot achieve, then you yourself stop dreaming. What's the point of dreaming if these dreams never come true? If you cannot be a demanding manager, then, consequently, your leadership falls apart. You know, you lit a fire somewhere, you led them, but then you cannot achieve that they move in the right direction, follow your instructions, regulations, orders, and in the end, everything falls apart, you understand? Therefore, you must also be a demanding leader. That is, if you have decided something and taken control, you must ensure that it is done. Being a demanding leader is very simple. There are only a few components. First, a demanding leader never demands foolishness. He always demands only what is truly important. This is the first. Second, a demanding leader never forgets what he demands. How many times have you forgotten about an order or a regulation that you introduced, or an order that you gave, and then remembered, "Oh, damn, I forgot about it, I forgot to control, to check." Thus, we train people to disobedience. A demanding leader writes things down, he doesn't forget, he records his tasks, projects. A demanding leader reminds. Because when you regularly remind, say, "5 days left, 3 days left, 2 days left. How are things going? Tell me what's happening." Look what happens over time. Your subordinates, your top people, they realize this simple idea: he won't forget, he won't let go. Strictly speaking, if he demanded something, it's better to do it, because you will have to do it anyway, there's nowhere to go.
So, the five points that a very successful entrepreneur, manager, business owner should possess. First, a visionary strategist, a person who dreams and loves his dreams and values his dreams. Second, a leader, that is, a person who sets the direction. Third, an architect who is capable of planning and designing. Fourth, a mentor who is capable of passing on his point of view, his concepts of good and evil, his concepts of what is right and what is wrong, his concepts of why certain decisions are made. And fifth, demanding management. If, as they say, I have decided something, I will achieve that it is done.
Note that it is quite interesting that in this list, nothing is said about the fact that a truly cool entrepreneur is a good salesperson and negotiator, or a salesperson and negotiator, or a negotiator and salesperson. It's quite close. So, I don't think so. That is, if you are a great salesperson, congratulations, you are lucky, you have a bonus, one bonus in your piggy bank. But it is absolutely not necessary. You can be a salesperson, or you can not be. For example, I have never been a good salesperson. I know many very successful entrepreneurs who have never been successful salespeople.
Next, there is an opinion that to be a successful entrepreneur, you must be a super engineer, an expert in your business. I don't know, look at Elon Musk. What does he really know about how to create tunnels, hyperloops, all sorts of things? And he is a specialist in electric cars, very narrow, and in how to fly into space. No, absolutely not. You can hire very cool, talented experts. If you fulfill these five points, then these experts will work great for you and do the job. That is, if you are an expert in your business, I can say that often this is a trap. Often this creates more problems for you than it provides solutions, because you move away from managing the business, developing it, and rush in that direction, spending time on what you are an expert in. Therefore, I can tell you, yes, I simply consult medical offices where the business owner is a doctor. Because, you understand, he hides behind the work of a doctor, he hides from the work of an entrepreneur. As a result, he has great results as a doctor, patients are happy and satisfied, but he usually has terrible results as an entrepreneur. That is, his business does not grow. Everything is simple and logical. Life is harmonious, and it is fair. You don't necessarily have to be a super-trained master athlete and all that, an Ironman, and marathons, to be a successful entrepreneur. I'm not against it, it's cool. But it has nothing to do with business. Just look at very successful entrepreneurs, billionaires, and so on. How many of them are people who run marathons in the morning? Very many, in fact. It's great to exercise and maintain your body, but let's be honest, it has nothing to do with business. Or with us being great artists, or travelers, or people who understand music, and so on. This is your personal thing, it has nothing to do with business. And believe me, your team, by and large, doesn't care if you are an aesthete, a traveler, a great athlete. Your team expects you to give them goals and inspiration. Your team expects you to give this team, or your team expects you to give at least a general blueprint of what we are building in this business, so that when necessary, you act as a mentor and demand that they take the next step, because people stop under the influence of circumstances and so on. This is my point of view.
Well, look at what you have strong, look at what you need to strengthen. If you understand this, if you are capable of realizing this, you are definitely capable of dealing with it. Well, if you liked this video, give it a like, share it with your friends, and so on. And of course, watch other videos. I try to make them useful for you. [Music]