10 Business Success Tips You Can't Ignore!

hi folks welcome back to the chip break series on machining entrepreneurship and shop operation topics thought it would be great to kick this series pack off with this list that I've not only found really inspirational but I like this list because it actually gives some really specific direction both for operating your business in your shop and thinking about new products and new ventures if you want to weigh in on other chip break topics that you'd like to see click here for the card over to the NYC CNC page we want your input on everything from shop operations to business basics like counting and entrepreneurship so this list looks kind of discovered and warm because it has been behind my desk since I first read it about 10 years ago it was written by a fella named Jay Gould's for a New York Times entrepreneurship column and it was written as a response to what do I need to know to succeed now I really don't like most of these sort of inspirational lists this one though is the exception let's walk through these 10 reasons and think about how they can help you and how they've helped us number one look for opportunities to do something better than just about everyone else so there's some subtle nuances in this sentence but the number one thing is you've got to be good at what you do you've got to be passionate about it and you've got to have the ability to deliver that product with a knowledge base or a passion it's better than just about everyone else you don't have to necessarily be the best you've got to make sure that if you take a step back and take off those entrepreneurial blinders what do people think about the product or service that you're delivering don't ask your family your wife or your friends about what they think of your new idea or your new product cuz you're not gonna get the feedback you want to see not the feedback you're gonna get when you actually launch a product or you deal with real customers number two accept risk as a necessary evil it makes for much less competition risk exists you cannot isolate it you cannot completely remove it business has risk stack the deck in your favor it's one reason why we're a big fan of either no debt or absolutely minimal debt because it completely shifts the risk in your favor you're not worried about the bank you don't work for the bank you're not letting the bank profit off of your work you're building your business and your control nevertheless there is risk there's risk in the form of competition there's risk in the form of executors in your product except that if something is going to happen and plan for it one of the second products I ever brought to market was a GoPro camera mount 4 picatinny rails we basically knew that we were going to get knocked off we knew domestic and overseas folks we're gonna start ripping these off either blatantly or variants of it and in fact the more successful you are the more likely that's going to happen now you can try to pursue things like patents and trademarks but generally speaking is better to out execute but regardless you have to accept that number 3 act responsibly to employees customers and vendors now this is an easy thing to say it's a harder thing to do if no one's looking if no one knows what you're doing are you still happy with the decision you've made and I really mean it this is a difficult thing to do if you've machined a part in as beautiful and there's no problem with it except that one little spot what do you do do you ship it do you call the customer do you ship it and not tell the customer do you remake it from scratch do you call the customer and communicate with them and figure out if it's an acceptable thing that can either be fixed or reworked or left as is minkum how how you want to handle those situations before they occur that way when you're caught up in the heat of the moment you're more likely gonna fall back on the decision and you feel good about in the long term it stinks to remake a part but a day later a week later a month later if you look back on it I bet you youth you will feel good about it similarly with your employees and your vendors I've always believed it's a two-way street yes sometimes it's a negotiation but a lot of times you've got to realize a rising tide raises all ships you're working with your vendors to help them make money so you can make money do they expect good pricing yes but you don't need to browbeat them up when you have a problem with a service like anodizing try to dig into what that problem is rather than just say what so many folks seem to say which is we can't find any good anodized errs some of the most successful entrepreneurs and the folks that I look up to have come up with creative solutions like in the anodizing example let's come up with our own packaging our own processes our own setup sheets for internal and for our third-party vendors to help this become a win-win number for it I've gotten many favors on this list this is one of them goals aren't enough you need a plan you need to execute the plan I hate goals goals are actually the byproduct of long term planned deliberate success focus less on the goal you can think about the goal and you can write it out there and as the long reach thing it's between today and that goal that is what matters that's the execution part give you an example we're thinking about implementing an ERP system right here that's a pretty lofty thing there's a lot of work behind it saying that's the goal doesn't really help me what helps me is to break that down into steps so the first step today in the next hour or by lunch finish your list of the ten software packages that you're considering make the notes of who you knows using them what you heard reputation wise what may be a good fit and just finish that list that's a mini goal that you can then say is done and I've done it really well that way when you come back later to think more about it you've got that grunt work done and you can put on your critical thinking hat and make a better decision it's also tying in to the e-myth revisited where talks about a solopreneur if you're just getting started out you're gonna wear a lot of hats you're gonna be the kind of grunt work person you're gonna be kind of the shop manager and you're gonna be the visionary entrepreneur you've got to balance all of those things and it helps me a lot of times to do that grunt work take a break do do something else then you can come back and review your own work with a different hat on regardless when you think about laying out your goals focus more on the steps that you're going to do to get there and less on the end goal number five you need to fix the plan as you go learn from your mistakes most people don't that's what I love about this list is there so many subtleties in the language of it I assure you they are deliberate part of succeeding in business is doing what others aren't willing to do many people are stubborn or they let their egos get in the way I have come into this crun myself recognize the plans going to change it can be as drastic as recognizing you're in the wrong business when we were first launching strike mark if we were building a other reset rifle target that was all that I wanted was my identity I loved it ends up we were really in the camera mount business because it was the camera mounts that we were using to film our targets those were in demand those were successful that's what we could deliver and a much better volume better margins to really build the business we as humans number one fall in love with our ideas and number two are often unwilling to cut bait or shut down a project because of the time you've invested into it that's called a sunk cost it does not matter how much time you have put into it it matters whether that product remains a viable good product or service to the customer if it's not working change your plan or be willing to shut it down number six do not reinvent the wheel learn from others join a business group we live in the absolute best time ever in the history of mankind to start a business there are so many awesome resources and folks that are willing to help you've got to take that step and I view this very much as a natural filter to entrepreneurship because someone is not willing to hustle to dig into research to learn isn't gonna make it that being said there are so many resources out there it can be as simple as reading books on your own if you're in the United States we've got programs like score many two year and four years colleges we'll have business advisory groups professors who may be in the know on this stuff likewise many chambers of commerce will be a good place to start calling any one of those places will likely lead you down the path to finding opportunities to meet with other business owners or join a business group absolutely do it entrepreneurship can be a really lonely thing and it's a trait about leadership that I think is often under emphasized which is that when you're when you're leading no one tells you what to do so you've got to figure that out and that is not always easy again don't reinvent the wheel we've even got a forum on the NYC C&C site where folks chime in both sharing their stories lessons learned and asking advice I love that I never want to be too proud than to say I could use some help or I could just use an outside perspective on this issue number seven another one of my favorites make sure the math works I know plenty of people who work hard and follow their passion but the math doesn't work the math doesn't work and neither does the business luckily this one is simple but probably is the biggest downfall of most business startups they simply don't have the ability to earn a profit if you don't have the ability to earn a profit you don't have a business you have that best a hobby at worst something that's going to really be a bad outcome if you start pouring money into it or worse going to debt likewise building a competing product based solely on a better price is generally not a sound business plan what you're really saying is if you have the skillsets and ability to out execute and out deliver somebody who's already an established market player and do so solely on lower margins that's not what successful entrepreneurs do former mentor of mine said something that will always resonate with me which is that when you're doing financial projections there's one thing that's true about those projections they're gonna be wrong and I like that because it kind of takes the pressure off financial projections are just that they're not going to be perfect they're projections but you need to think about revenue ranges and you need to think about expenses and the average person thinks they aren't meaning most people overestimate revenue and they underestimate expenses now you have a little bit more wiggle room the less fixed costs and the west's overhead you have another reason why little earlier you are in the business the more emphatic I am that you avoid fix obligations things like debt number eight make sure that every employee understands and works towards the mission this is more relevant as your company grows but I think it's an important point to tie back even if you're a one or two man job shot machine shop which is what are you selling most of the time when we do work as a job shop what we're selling isn't just the part that gets machined and put in a box and delivered to a customer it's the overall experience it's how responsive were we on quoting how was it just working with this period did we communicate well did we package the product well do we anticipate any problems with the parts or get them feedback if they needed feedback on how the part was designed or the print or the drawing these are very much depending on the type of job chopper work you're doing but just keep that in mind that often the best way to differentiate yourself in the manufacturing world it's not always cheaper it's not always better precision or better service finishes it's the full experience of working with a shop in the best way to think about this turn it think about the vendors and the folks that you enjoy working with versus the ones that you don't think about that vendor where you pick up the phone or shoot an email and you know it's going to go well you know they're gonna help you you know the results gonna go well versus the one who is always late always complaining poor communication don't be that person and make sure that culture is part of your shot as you grow number nine there are going to be difficult times and you need to be resilient whining is a waste of time again an easy bullet point to read harder at one to embrace there's gonna be stress there's gonna be times where it's lonely there's gonna be difficult decisions to make whining does no good there's no room for pity parties the question that I struggle with is how do you handle it when you get into that mindset or when you really are struggling the way I deal with it is I have a list of people and the list changes but it's the people that I look up to the people who are positive the people who have managed to figure things out the people who seem to always have the answers once in a while I'll actually pick up the phone and call them some of them I don't even know what I usually am able to do is I take a deep breath and then I start to think how would Joe or John or Steve handle this problem what would they say if I called them up in my opinion tools of processes like that as an entrepreneur are incredibly important one of the things I like about my the podcast that I do with John grim snow we try to give an accurate representation of what it's like as an entrepeneur meaning it's not all successes it's not always there's really struggles there's really difficult decisions you can talk about them you can ask about how you've promised all those but don't complain number 10 which is my favorite there will be sacrifices work to find a balance so that you don't become a financially successful loser it's not about the income it's about the outcome I'm incredibly grateful for what the trades have done I found this passion 10 years ago we build this into a business ride the chance to do something I truly love to me part of the American Dream is that opportunity to build something to work really hard the way I was raised in my background there just is no substitute for working hard on the flip side some of the people that I look up to and are successful have had that balance I'm also working smart and also recognizing it's okay to not work late every night it's okay to not work every weekend it's okay to go on vacation and I think that's really important I feel really grateful that I actually legitimately love what I do and I'm happy to work whenever because I love it but life's about more than that and almost everyone will still eventually get burned out at some point there's more to life even even for somebody like me there's more to life than hitting cycle start or programming a can part keep that in mind as your long-term goal what are you doing this all for folks I hope you learned something I hope you found this again not just inspirational but the ability to give you some direction as you're moving forward in any sort of a business or entrepreneurial endeavor take care see you soon [Music]

Channel: NYC CNC

Views: 25,298

Rating: 4.9385114 out of 5

Keywords: cnc, machine shop, nyc cnc, machining, milling, cnc machining, cnc milling, business success tips, how to have a successful business, how to start a business, business culture, entrepreneurship examples, entrepreneurship success factors, entreprenurship success and failure, solopreneurship, successful entrepreneurs, company culture, how to start a manufacturing business, manufacturing business example, manufacturing business plan, business planning, business model

Id: SkWGGIqxwGg

Length: 14min 15sec (855 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 25 2019