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not only does lack of cash flow eventually doom any enterprise, it just as surely prizes control of any entity from its owner or majority shareholder.
it is control and ownership of a business entity which brings with it the promise of future wealth.
Lord knows, there are enough qualified bean-counters in the world and forecasting cash flow is hardly rocket science.
Facing up to cash-flow demands and refusing to succumb to the “ostrich syndrome” is a paramount concern in any start-up. You can delegate many tasks when creating a new business, but monitoring and forecasting cash flow is not one of them. It’s your responsibility and your task. Nobody else’s.
Cash flow is the lifeblood of any business. But just as presidents and prime ministers learn to plan for war and hope for peace, you must plan for the worst and hope for the best in all matters relating to the cash flowing in and out of your start-up company.
Regular, even obsessive, monitoring is the key. I hated every minute of doing it in those early days, but if a bean-counting klutz like me could do it, then you can too.
What has all this to do with reinforcing failure? It is this possibility , the chance that we are onto a slow-burn winner, rather than being stuck with an out-and-out loser, that persuades so many of us (who should know better) to hang in there with a product or service in financial trouble.
I had forgotten to “dive below.” I was in awe at the pretty patterns the straw made on the surface. And because I would not give in, my stubbornness turned into a jujitsu master and slammed me to the mat again and again.
Thinking big. That’s the secret.
But the corollary of thinking big is to act small. Just because you have a success or two under your belt doesn’t mean you have it made. “Success is never permanent; failure is never fatal. The only thing that really counts is to never, never, never give up.”
By acting small, I mean remaining in touch. Remaining flexible. Constantly examining how your company could do better. Keeping a sense of proportion and humility.
Think big, act small. It’s a recipe that never goes out of style.
You need the talent to identify, hire and nurture others with talent. “There is no substitute for talent. Industry and all the virtues are of no avail,”
prosper. Talent is the key to sustained growth, and growth is the key to early wealth.
When you come across real talent, it is sometimes worth allowing them to create the structure in which they choose to labor. In nine cases out of ten, by inviting them to take responsibility and control for a new venture, you will motivate them to do great things.
You must identify talent. Then you must move heaven and earth to hire it. You must nurture it, reward it properly and protect it from being poached. If necessary, dream up a new project. Better still, get the talent to dream it up.
Young talent can be found and underpaid for a short while, providing the work is challenging enough. Then it will be paid at the market rate.
Anybody wishing to become rich cannot do so without talent. Either their own, or far more likely, on the back of the talent of others. Talent is indispensable, although it is always replaceable. Just remember the simple rules concerning talent: identify it, hire it, nurture it, reward it, protect it. And, when the time comes, fire it.
They can only be “improved,” if that is the word, by their own actions.
persistence is important, no doubt about it, and requires a concerted effort of will and stamina to maintain. But it is not an end in itself.
Stubbornness is not persistence. Stubbornness implies you intend to persist despite plentiful evidence that you should not.
But never give in easily. If you can, attempt one step farther along the road than appears sensible before giving in.
As is the ability to acknowledge that one has made a mistake and that a new plan of action must now be made. Any such acknowledgement is not a weakness, it is a sign of clear thinking. In its way, it is a kind of persistence in itself. Try, try, try again, does not mean doing what has already failed, over and over again.
Self-belief is a priceless asset. As Eleanor Roosevelt once remarked: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
If you will not believe in yourself, then why should anyone else? Without self-belief nothing can be accomplished. With it, nothing is impossible.
Without self-belief nothing can be accomplished. With it, nothing is impossible. It is as brutal and as black and white as that.
There is nothing wrong with doubt, or with fear. They are immensely useful tools. But you either learn to incorporate them into your thinking and your life, or you will be ruled by them. There is no “middle way.”
With liberation comes the knowledge that nothing is really very important in the lives of men; nothing is as terrifying as the fear itself. And from that, paradoxically, comes self-belief—a belief that anything is possible.
If you want to be rich you must work for it. But you must believe in it, too.
You can’t get rich painting by numbers. You can only do it by becoming a predator, by waiting patiently, by remaining alert and constantly sniffing the air and by bringing massive, murderous force to bear upon your prey when you pounce.
This is called the “Barbarians at the Gate” principle.
Learning to evolve or die is a cardinal virtue.
After all, what the record companies were faced with was nothing new. It was merely a kind of forced diversification.
Today, as a result of commercial pressure, that is exactly their strategy.
Either you learn to go with the flow and change as rapidly as you are able, or you will be left stranded, like the last dinosaur, by the last warm lake, on the last continent the ice age has yet to reach.
Let’s take another example of building more baskets just as quickly as you can.
How many baskets should you go for? As many as make sense.
Just remember that this advice is not designed for your start-up phase. During the start-up, you concentrate on that one basket as if your life (and the life of your firstborn) depends upon it. But once you have something that’s working and making some money, start looking around quickly for another opportunity. The more baskets the better.
Diversifying not only ensured that I had more chances to lay more eggs and somewhere to incubate them, it also gave me the confidence to concentrate on any one egg at any one time.
Listening is the most powerful weapon after self-belief and persistence you can bring into play as an entrepreneur.
Talking to your own executives and senior managers is necessary, of course. But talking to people you do not know, or who work in some obscure corner of your industry (or even in your own company) , is just as necessary.
Courtesy is not a cardinal virtue in getting rich, I admit. But it helps. It works. It greases wheels where force will not prevail.
But the courtesy of listening is not an excuse for inaction. Unfortunately, this is often the very use to which it is put.
It relies on decisions, often hard decisions, being made in as short a time as makes sense.
If you do need time to mull over a suggestion, then make it clear that it will be you getting back to them.
Ideas, by the way, cannot be “owned” by anyone. You cannot trademark or patent or copyright any idea. You can only protect the execution of the idea and trademark the name.
You can only protect the execution of the idea, which must be unique.
Ownership is all.
riches aren’t particularly worthwhile in themselves in any case. They don’t make anyone a better person, at least as far as I have seen.
But listening continuously, listening and learning, is one of the vital components for those of you who wish to be rich. What you choose to do with your loot is up to you. But listen and learn if you want to be rich!
