Lessons Learned from Starting & Running a Business

Summary

In this video, Brian Tracy shares key insights on starting and running a successful business. He emphasizes the importance of having a clear vision, adaptability, building a strong team, financial management, and focusing on customer needs. Tracy discusses risk management, effective marketing, and the value of persistence and continuous learning. He shares examples from his own journey, highlighting the significance of asking for help, learning from failures, and constantly improving. Tracy encourages aspiring entrepreneurs to focus on their goals and take action towards long-term success.

Takeaways

• 📈 Having a clear vision and mission for your business is essential to guide your decisions and stay focused on your goals.
• 🔄 Adaptability is crucial in the fast-changing business world; you must be willing to pivot, embrace new technologies, and find creative solutions.
• 💡 Focus on the results your customers want and need, providing value that meets their expectations quickly.
• 👥 Building a strong team that shares your vision and complements each other's strengths is key to overcoming obstacles and growing your business.
• 💰 Financial management and careful cash flow planning are vital for business sustainability, especially in challenging times.
• 🙋‍♂️ Customer focus is essential; ask for feedback and work on delivering what your customers want most to build loyalty.
• 🔒 Reduce customer risk with strategies like unconditional guarantees, ensuring trust and satisfaction in your products or services.
• 🎯 Effective marketing and sales strategies involve understanding your target audience, crafting compelling messages, and asking the right questions.
• 📚 Continuous learning and skill development are crucial to staying ahead in the evolving business landscape; always seek new knowledge.
• 🏋️‍♂️ Perseverance and resilience in the face of failure are key to long-term success, as failures often provide valuable lessons.

Q & A

What is the key to success when starting and running a business, according to Brian Tracy?

The key to success is having a clear vision and mission for your business. Knowing what you want to achieve and why you're doing it helps guide your decisions and keeps you focused on your goals.

Why is adaptability crucial for long-term business success?

Adaptability is essential because the business landscape is constantly changing. Businesses must pivot, embrace new technologies, and find creative solutions to unexpected challenges to meet evolving customer needs and market demands.

What is the importance of having a strong team in business, as explained in the script?

A strong team helps overcome obstacles, innovate, and grow the business. It's important to surround yourself with talented and dedicated people who share your vision and values. Having a balanced team, with individuals excelling in both internal and external business functions, is critical for success.

What role does financial management play in business sustainability?

Financial management is crucial to business sustainability. Businesses must manage their cash flow carefully, budget wisely, keep expenses under control, and make smart investments. Cash is the lifeblood of the business, sustaining it through challenging times.

How does Brian Tracy suggest dealing with customer objections, specifically regarding risk?

Brian Tracy recommends removing all risk from the customer through 'risk reversal.' This involves offering unconditional guarantees, such as a long-term or lifetime guarantee, to make customers feel safe in their purchase decision and reduce the likelihood of returns.

What is the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) concept, and why is it important?

The MVP concept refers to creating the simplest version of a product that satisfies customers' core needs. It is important because it allows businesses to test the market, gather feedback, and quickly adapt to customer demands without investing too many resources upfront.

How can businesses improve their marketing and sales strategies?

Businesses should understand their target market, craft compelling messages, and use the right channels to reach their audience. It's also important to ask for feedback from customers and prospects to fine-tune marketing efforts and improve lead generation.

What does Brian Tracy mean by 'there are no customers in the office'?

This means that business owners need to engage directly with their customers, get out of the office, and connect with their market. Sales and marketing efforts should be focused on understanding customer needs rather than spending time inside the business away from them.

Why does continuous learning play such an important role in business success?

Continuous learning allows business owners to stay ahead of industry trends, refine their skills, and adapt to changes. It ensures that they are constantly improving their business strategies and staying competitive in a rapidly evolving market.

What is the 'magic wand' theory mentioned by Brian Tracy?

The 'magic wand' theory encourages business owners to envision their ideal future for their business as if they had a magic wand and could make it perfect in every way. This clear vision then guides their decisions and actions toward achieving that ideal.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 Starting a Business: Vision and Adaptability

In this section, Brian Tracy emphasizes the importance of having a clear vision and mission when starting and running a business. He explains how knowing exactly what you want to achieve and why will guide decisions and keep you focused. He shares his personal experience, where his initial focus on helping people improve their sales was the key to success. Tracy also highlights the need for adaptability in a rapidly changing business landscape, sharing examples from the software industry and stressing the importance of continuously aligning your business to customer needs through the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) approach.

05:01

💡 Financial Management and Customer Focus

Brian Tracy discusses the critical role of financial management and maintaining a customer-focused approach. He stresses the need for strong cash flow management, advising businesses to avoid unnecessary spending and focus on profitability. Tracy explains how understanding customer needs and providing exceptional value can create loyal customers. He emphasizes the importance of risk reversal through offering guarantees, noting that businesses should take on the risk to encourage customer trust. His own experience with offering long-term and lifetime guarantees serves as an example of how businesses can build stronger relationships with their clients.

10:02

💪 Persistence and Continuous Learning

This section focuses on the importance of persistence, learning from failure, and continuous adaptation for business success. Tracy shares insights from studying successful people like Jeff Bezos, explaining that there is no such thing as failure, only feedback. He introduces a three-question framework for learning from mistakes: what happened, what did I learn, and what will I do differently? Tracy also stresses the need for continuous learning, recommending business owners read industry-specific books, listen to podcasts, attend seminars, and participate in workshops to stay ahead in a fast-paced market.

15:03

🎯 The Power of Vision, Teamwork, and Marketing

Tracy reinforces the importance of having a clear vision for the business, using the 'magic wand' theory to imagine a perfect future business. He explains how adaptability, a strong team, and financial acumen are crucial for executing this vision. Tracy emphasizes customer focus as one of the most critical aspects of success, urging business owners to spend time with customers rather than staying in the office. He also discusses the importance of marketing and selling, encouraging entrepreneurs to actively promote their products and continuously learn from customer interactions.

Keywords

💡Vision

Vision refers to the clear idea of what you want your business to achieve in the long term. In the video, Brian Tracy emphasizes the importance of having a well-defined vision to guide decision-making and stay focused on business goals. He explains how having a clear vision helped him focus on improving sales for others, which ultimately led to his success.

💡Adaptability

Adaptability means being able to adjust to changing circumstances, which is crucial for long-term business success. In the video, Tracy highlights how businesses must pivot when necessary, adopt new technologies, and respond to evolving customer needs. He mentions how software companies must sometimes change direction quickly as problems get solved before their products even reach the market.

💡Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

The MVP is the simplest version of a product that can be released to customers to gather feedback. Tracy mentions it as essential for testing new ideas with customers and adapting based on their responses, ensuring businesses meet real customer needs before fully developing a product.

💡Results

Results refer to the tangible outcomes that customers want and are willing to pay for. Tracy stresses that business success depends on understanding what results people expect and ensuring your products and services deliver these results faster and better than competitors. He also highlights the importance of continually linking back business efforts to the results customers seek.

💡Team Building

Team building is the process of assembling a group of talented people who share the vision and values of your business. Tracy explains that a strong team is vital for overcoming challenges, driving innovation, and accelerating growth. He emphasizes balancing internal roles like finance with external roles like sales to avoid business difficulties.

💡Financial Management

Financial management involves closely monitoring cash flow, budgeting wisely, and making strategic investments to sustain the business. Tracy notes that profitability and cash flow are key for startups, urging businesses to spend cautiously and only on necessary expenses until profitability is secured.

💡Customer Focus

Customer focus is the practice of understanding and meeting customer needs by providing exceptional value. Tracy explains that businesses should gather feedback, listen to their customers, and continually improve their offerings based on the expressed desires of their customers to build loyalty and long-term success.

💡Risk Reversal

Risk reversal involves minimizing the risk for customers by offering guarantees that make it easier for them to buy with confidence. Tracy shares how offering unconditional, longer guarantees can significantly reduce the likelihood of returns while increasing customer trust and satisfaction.

💡Marketing Strategy

A marketing strategy is a plan for promoting your business and attracting the right customers. Tracy stresses the importance of understanding your target audience, creating compelling messages, and using effective channels to get your message out. He shares his early experience in software sales, where learning to ask the right questions helped him shape an effective marketing approach.

💡Continuous Learning

Continuous learning involves regularly updating your skills and knowledge to stay competitive in a fast-changing business environment. Tracy encourages business owners to invest in their education through books, seminars, and industry events, noting that those who don’t continuously learn will be outpaced by those who do.

Highlights

Having a clear vision and mission is crucial for business success; it guides decisions and maintains focus on goals.

Adaptability is essential for long-term success, especially in a constantly changing business landscape.

The MVP (minimum viable product) concept allows businesses to adapt to customer needs by delivering essential features and gathering feedback.

Speed of results is highly valued by customers, emphasizing the importance of providing quicker and more effective solutions.

Building a strong team with both external (sales, marketing) and internal (administration, finance) capabilities is critical for business growth.

Effective financial management, including cash flow management, budgeting, and smart investments, is key to business sustainability.

Customer focus is essential—understanding and fulfilling customer needs helps build loyalty and long-term success.

Risk reversal through guarantees can alleviate customer hesitation, making it easier for them to buy with confidence.

Effective marketing and sales strategy involves understanding the target audience, crafting compelling messages, and using the right channels.

Persistence and perseverance are key to overcoming challenges and achieving long-term success.

There is no such thing as failure—only feedback. Learning from mistakes helps accelerate growth and learning.

Continuous learning and skill improvement are crucial to stay ahead in the evolving business environment.

Effective leadership requires a clear vision of the ideal future state of the business and working towards achieving it.

Asking the right questions and seeking help is vital for gaining insights, understanding customer needs, and improving business strategies.

Successful business owners must work hard in the short term to achieve long-term rewards, focusing on goal setting and continuous improvement.

Transcripts

hello I'm Brian Tracy and today I want

to talk to you about starting and

running a business the surest way to

financial Independence in our society

today whether you're just starting out

or looking to grow your existing

business these insights can help you to

navigate the challenges and Achieve

success starting and running a business

is a journey filled with ups and downs

the first key lesson is the importance

of having a clear vision and mission for

your business knowing exactly what you

want to achieve and why you're doing it

will guide your decisions and keep you

focused on your

goals for example when I started my

business my focus was on helping people

to be better in their sales work helping

them to make more sales better easier

and faster and that's all I focused on

for 5 years

and it worked I ended up giving seminars

all over the world to eventually

millions of people to help them to be

better in sales in every language and

culture that you can imagine that's the

key to success is having a clear idea of

where you want to end up if you are

extremely

successful next adaptability is crucial

the business landscape is constantly

changing and being able to adapt to a

new circumstance is essential for long

long-term success this might mean

pivoting your business model embracing

new technologies or finding Creative

Solutions to unexpected challenges I

know in the software space you can

create a business to try to solve a

problem and the problem gets solved

before you can even get to Market

sometimes you have to adapt to your

customer needs in real time that means

going out and surveying exactly what

features or functions they want and

actually making sure that they were

willing to purchase those features and

functions and then once you do deliver

it to them you have to ask them what

what else do you want uh this is called

the MVP concept or the minimum viable

product and it's absolutely essential

things have never changed as fast as

they're changing now so adaptability is

one of the keys to entrepreneurial and

business success now in addition to what

Michael said what I have found in

speaking to thousands of people every

month last week I spoke to people in 105

countries in one one hour Tes seminar

what I find is that what they all want

is more and better faster results they

want to get results quicker and that

speed of results is worth a lot to

people especially if they're not getting

those results now so always think in

terms of results results what results do

people want and need and are willing to

pay for and make sure that everything

that you do keeps linking back and

emphasizing that if they follow your

advice and use your programs or ideas

they will achieve the most important

Financial results faster than they ever

would without your help building a

strong team is another critical aspect

of running a successful business

surround yourself with talented

dedicated people who share your vision

and values a great team can help you to

overcome obstacles innovate and grow

your business

faster I'll give you an example when you

start a business there are two major

functions the external functions of

marketing selling producing and

delivering products and services and the

internal functions which are handling

telephone paperwork accounting Finance

business and so on and so forth and some

people specialize in one area and some

people specialize in another for example

for a business to be successful it has

to have at least one person who is very

good at selling the product product or

service as your business grows you have

to have more and more people who are

very good at selling and the key is to

choose them carefully based on their

experience and then train them on a

regular and consistent basis internally

you want people who and really enjoy

processes and getting things organized

and completing work and so on and those

two have two totally sets of strengths

and weaknesses if you are missing either

one internal and ex or external it can

cause all kinds of problems and

difficulties Michael financial

management is key to business

sustainability as well keep a close eye

on your cash finances manage your cash

flow carefully and plan for the long

term this means budgeting wisely keeping

expenses under control and making smart

investments in your business startups

I've been involved with the one I was

involved with and one I co-founded I

know that we never spent any money that

we didn't absolutely have to uh we built

Our Own Furniture we had a shotty

offices profitability was key finding

customers that were willing to pay for

our products and services at the profit

was absolutely mandatory before we could

spend anything on any extraneous expense

we would have to find a customer that

was profitable cash is what sustains the

business it's the lifeblood of your

business so making it and accumulating

it is what keeps your business and help

sustain it during the hard

times customer focus is also so

essential understanding your customers

needs and providing exceptional value is

what sets successful businesses apart

from their competitors listen to your

customers gather feedback and ask your

customers if we could only do one thing

for you what is the most important

contribution that we can make to your

business and you know something they'll

tell you and if you then do it and show

them that you are doing it they will

become loyal to you and they'll use more

and more of your services and both of

you will benefit more and more you want

to continually improve your products and

services to meet their expectations and

their especially their expressed

desires I'll give you an example I uh

went out to sell my product or service

at the very beginning and what I found

is the biggest single objection was risk

they were afraid that if they bought my

product or service that they would take

a risk now in every single transaction

there is a risk there's 100% of risk and

the question is how do you divide it up

well I learned very early that you need

to take all the risk we call this risk

reversal so that your customers have no

risk how do you do that with

unconditional

guarantees now I learned something very

interesting in going through the

research is if you give a short

guarantee a large number of people will

ask for their money back before the

guarantee is up if you give a longer

guarantee fewer if you give a one-year

guarantee almost nobody and then if you

have the courage give a lifetime

guarantee of satisfaction and when you

do that you'll never have a return

however you now have to deliver on your

guarantee and make sure that your

customers are so happy that they don't

ask for their money back but that's the

key how can you take the risk away from

your customers so they can buy from you

with no risk at

all another important aspect of running

a business is having an effective

marketing and sales strategy you need to

get your message out there and attract

the right customers this means

understanding your target market

crafting compelling messages and using

the right channels to reach your

audience remember when I was starting

out an Enterprise software sales uh I

would make 100 phone calls a day and I

was kept on falling on my face I kept on

not being able to get in front of the

right people I kept on saying you know

I'm not interested uh this I'm not the

right person this isn't the right

industry for you and I eventually

started asking for help I started asking

for guidance I said how does your

business go about buying products or

services like this what person in your

business is responsible for evaluating

these opportunities and eventually some

of them actually started to educate me

on how their businesses buy their

products what sort of person buys that

product in their business how to go

through that process the right words to

use to attract that customer and having

these conversations helped reorient our

entire marketing Department's Focus

allowing us to get more and better

highquality leads and Prospects which

are then able to close and grow that

business exponentially over two years so

don't be afraid to ask for guidance if

you're not making the progress that you

want yeah that's a a great point in the

years and years of research they found

that most important single word for for

success in business is the word ask ask

politely ask in an informed way ask

regularly ask charmingly ask

persistently but always ask for what you

want before you ask the answer is no if

after you ask the answer is still no you

haven't lost a thing but it's amazing

how many people as Michael just said

will say yes this is the answer to your

question one of the great questions in

business is

remember there are many people in a

business who can say no but there's only

one who can say yes so one of the

questions you ask is who is the one

person who makes the final decision in

this area and they'll say oh oh that

would be so and so and could you set up

a meeting with me and this person so

rather than talking to all the little

people who sometimes want to express how

important they are speak to the person

who can say yes running a business is

not always easy and there will always be

times when You Face significant

challenges so persistence and

perseverance are absolutely essential

for Success staying persistent

maintaining a positive mindset and

learning from failure are crucial to

overcoming obstacles and achieving

long-term

success now I've studied success in

business for now almost 50 years

and the most important thing that I have

found looking at the success most

successful and richest people in the

world like Jeff Bezos of Amazon is that

there's no such thing as failure there's

only feedback is that what you do is

whenever you make a mistake of any kind

you stop the clock like a timeout in a

game and you say all right what exactly

happened here be clear about what happen

so that you're not trying to solve a

non-existent problem the second question

is um what did I learn from this

experience what did I learn from this

experience and the third question is

what will I do differently next time

what happened what did I learn what will

I do next time and by asking those three

questions you put your foot on the

accelerator of your learning curve you

get smarter and smarter faster and

faster but always remember there's no

such thing as mistakes every successful

business is built on a foundation of

countless little mistakes that they use

as learning

experiences the business world is always

evolving and staying ahead means

continually learning and adapting invest

in your own education stay informed

about industry Trends and always look

for ways to improve your

business now I can tell you that in

business if you're not learning a new

skill a new technique a new marketing

method u a new way to engage and find

customers you're basically going to lose

to somebody who is uh one of the best

interview questions that I've ever heard

and I've asked it frequently is what

books are you reading if you're about to

hire somebody and they're not reading

any books don't hire them you have to

constantly be refining your skills and

forging them in the fireplace of the

market right the market is dictating

things faster now than at any time in

human history so read industry specific

books uh listen to podcasts there's a

bunch of wonderful podcasts very smart

people talking about exactly what

they're doing in their business

yesterday so you can actually take that

information and apply it to your

business today um and then go to

Industry events go to seminars take

online and virtual workshops uh

constantly be refining your skills and

what's wonderful about doing this is

when you go to these workshops when you

go to seminars when you go to events

with other people who are also

continuously learning and focusing on

personal and professional development

you meet some of the best people in the

whole entire world world only great

people focus on helping build their

skill sets um helping themselves get

better uh learning more about their

Craft um and helping to improve their

business starting and running a

successful business requires a Clear

Vision it you've heard the word Vision

over and over again what does it mean no

nobody knows I'll tell you what it is

imagine what I call the magic wand

Theory where you have a magic wand and

you could wave this magic wand and make

your future business perfect in every

way what would it look like that's your

vision then adaptability what do you

need to change to in your behaviors and

in your business to be more like your

vision of what a great business would

look like for you and remember your

vision will be different than any other

business vision and you need a strong

team people who are also committed to

the vision and you need financial Acumen

and the ability to analyze your numbers

remember the numbers are everything you

need customer focus and this is perhaps

the most important of all is successful

people think about their customers all

the time because customers are every by

the way one of my favorite observations

from Peter Ducker is there are no

customers in the

office there are no customers in the

office so if you're in the office during

the business day you're not working

because there's no customers there

you've got to get out and start get as

we say get out and get among them all

right effective marketing is where

you you project your message and you get

people to say I want that I'm interested

in that I want more information on that

that's what marketing does selling

follows up and closes the sale and

finally you need perseverance and a

commitment to continuous learning

nothing is more important than that I've

been in business for 60 years now and I

still read 3 hours a day 3 hours a day I

have thousands of books all over my

house and my basements and in the garage

and everything and I still buy probably

two books a week I don't read them all

but I read a lot of them so you must

Implement these key strategies to

achieve your greatest success as a

business owner now here's what's most

important is it's going to take a while

for for you to be successful working

hard upgrading your skills committing

yourself to good time management and so

on but the time is going to pass anyway

the time is going to pass 5 years from

now 5 years will have passed the

question is are you going to be

successful and highly paid and living in

a beautiful house and providing a

wonderful life for yourself and your

family or are you going to still be

struggling and the answer is you are

going to achieve these goals but you

have to work very very hard in the short

term to enjoy great rewards in the long

term if you need help getting clear on

your goals as you start or continue to

run your business then download my

14-step goal setting guide it's packed

with steps to help you succeed in your

entrepreneurial journey and it's free

now I love to hear from you so my

question today is simply this what's one

lesson you've learned learned from your

business Journey one bit of feedback

that you twisted around and turned into

a lesson and how has it impacted your

success when you talk to successful

people they will always remember a

critical failure that they had small or

large that was the reason for their

success later on leave a comment below

and I'll be sure to follow up with

you thanks for watching and remember if

you want to change your future take

action and take action

now if you enjoyed this video and feel

it was valuable in teaching you about

starting and running a business

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