Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, was a simple man and he believed that in order to run a successful business it required only ten simple rules. He used these very same rules to build Wal-Mart up into the huge global leader that it has become today. With Sam’s vision of success they continue to apply the same rules to every aspect of the business still today. Below are the ten rules for building a business.
1. You need to really commit yourself to your business.
When you set out to start a business, you are usually the only person who believes in it at first. You need to be totally committed to it from the start and learn to love what you are doing. When you are working on something that you love, then you will spend every day trying to do the very best job you can do. What ends up happening is that the passion that you show toward your business will spread to your employees and those around you.
2. Share the profits with your hired associates and look at them as partners.
If you treat people as though they are important, they in turn will treat their jobs as important. By working together you all win when you exceed your goals by working together.
3. Motivate your associates and partners.
Though money and being considered a partner can be motivational, they are not enough of a motivating factor. You need to learn to set high goals for your associates and stimulate healthy competition. Keep track of how well they do and never get to a point where things are too predictable.
4. Communication is key for associates.
It is important to let associates know what is going on so that they have an understanding of it. Once they understand then they will care enough to become unstoppable.
5. Appreciate what the associates do.
It is so very important for associates to know when you appreciate their efforts. By giving them praise when it is well deserved they will come to respect their position and the business.
6. Celebrate successes.
You need to learn early on not to take yourself too seriously. If you try to loosen up and have fun than those around you will do the same. Learn to have fun and show how enthusiastic you are at all times. When you are able to do these key things it can really throw the competition off.
7. Listen to your all of your employees.
In order to get your employees to tell you what they think about things, you can give them responsibilities and wait to see what they say. By taking the time to listen to their voices, you can get great ideas that bubble up within them.
8. Always exceed expectations.
It is important to give customers what it is they want, but then go over and above to give them even more than they expect. Be sure to correct any and all mistakes and never try to make excuses. Be sure to apologize to them and be willing to stand behind everything that you do.
9. Run your business for less than the competition.
This is where you can really create a true competitive advantage for yourself. Once you have set yourself up to run a tight ship and save money, you can make mistakes and still be on top. Alternately, you can be brilliant but inefficient and lose your shirt.
10. Paddle upstream.
When all of your competition are doing things one way, you need to double down and head the opposite direction. Don’t follow the majority, strike out on your own path.
Though they seem kind of simple, you would be surprised how many businesses don’t even try to emulate these basic principles. If you make use of these ten guidelines for your business, you should start to see positive changes fairly quickly. Many of these techniques are simple common sense, you just have to apply them in order to reap the benefits.
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