No Silver Bullets for Entrepreneurs
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I am a serial entrepreneur. I have worked all of my life. I had a little wagon when I was five years old in Washington, DC, and I would go down to the Safeway grocery store and take the little old ladies’ groceries from the Safeway store to their houses. That was back in 1945, and they would give me a nickel or a dime. I had a paper route when I was seven years old. I delivered newspapers every afternoon during the week and at six o’clock in the morning on Saturdays and Sundays.
I have built businesses all my life. I have built 15 different companies. I believe the greatest business people in the world are entrepreneurs, because entrepreneurs get it done now. They don’t put off until tomorrow what they can do today. They’ve got energy, they’ve got a belief system, and they’ve got a passion for what they are doing. I used to think in my younger life that the big business people, the guys who run these big companies, were “the bomb!” But now I know that “the bombs” are the ones that build their own companies. People like Bill Gates, the college dropout. Michael Dell from Dell Business Systems with one quarter of college under his belt.
Then there is Sam Walton. Sam Walton is to me the greatest business person that has ever lived. Think of what he did. High school graduate from Bentonville, Arkansas. He had an idea about going out into the world of retail, and providing greater value at lower prices. He had to compete with the big guys – Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward. In fact he went to Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward. He told them about his idea, and they threw him out! He’s in the capital-intensive business of retail, and he goes and starts Wal-Mart in the 1950s and builds it into the biggest company in the world. His company employs more people than anybody in the world. When they list the richest families in the world, his wife and 2 sons are always on that list.
Mr. Sam died in 1992. He built a business on a solid foundation which was VALUE. He created value for the consumer, value for the customer. He did not do it with smoke and mirrors, or silver bullets. He did it by caring about the customer and giving them value, and because of that all he had to do was build stores and spread the gospel. He didn’t have to sell them anything. And that is something for all of us to understand – you people listening to this message or reading this blog – you want to make more money. You’ve tried eight zillion different businesses, you’ve drank every juice there is to drink. You’ve chased every silver bullet there is to chase, and you’ve forgot the fundamental thing that is most important – if you’re going to make it in business at any level, you’ve got to make sure that your products or your services have great value. You’ve got to make sure that the people you partner with are the right kind of people. People of ethics. People who care about you, that care about the consumer. People that care about the customer.
In my 15 businesses - businesses that have generated hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in revenue - I have never sold anything to anybody. I’ve never told anybody what they should do. We’ve built businesses on products and services that had great value, and we built it on partnerships with people who really did care about us, and we cared about them. We cared about our prospects and our customers. And as you look around out there, you are not going to make money or build a business by just wanting to make money and get a commission. You are not going to be successful in anything – sports or business – if you don’t have a passion for what you are doing, and you cannot have a passion for what you are doing if you don’t believe in what you are doing. If you don’t have products and services that you understand and that you can believe in, that are really going to deliver value, then you are not going to have that passion. Are those businesses out there? Are those products out there? Are those services out there? Yes, but they are not the loudest people out there. You’ve got to go and search for those companies. You have to go look. And you cannot change directions every other day or every other hour, and wonder why it is working for other people but not working for you. There are no silver bullets out there. There are no smoke and mirror solutions. There are no get-rich-quick schemes that work. You’ve got to understand the value of your products and services, and then you’ve got to build a business on fundamentals. Because if your products and services are good enough, you don’t have to sell them! What do you have to do then? You have got to expose them to more people. Isn’t that great? You don’t have to sell. You don’t have to twist people’s arms with a closing technique. You just have to find ways to communicate your message in more formats, and today there is more opportunity to do that than ever before. You can leverage technology to be able to do that. So you say, what kind of company are you talking about? There are a lot of companies and a lot of products that you can believe in. Let me tell you about one.
About 12 years ago I wanted to go out and help small business people, and provide some valuable products and services for them. One of the things I realized is that all small business people needed access to lawyers, and I found out about a company called Pre-Paid Legal. Yep, a network marketing company. There are a lot of those out there, aren’t there? You ever been pitched by a network marketing company? I’m sure you have. But this one was uniquely different, and still is. They had products that really worked. They had products with great value. They built the company on making the legal system affordable for all Americans! Think of this – somebody can go and spend $16 a month, $20 a month, and get unlimited access to top rated lawyers. My goodness, is that a value statement? I think so. They built this company on a legal concern. But then they added Group benefits where groups could go and tap into that legal service. They added Identity Theft protection. They added a Small Business plan with me where we give small business people unlimited access to lawyers and unlimited access to small business consultants for $39 a month or $49 a month…depending on the size of the business and where it is located. These are products that stand the test of time. They withstand the scrutiny of value. This is a great company that has been in business for 35 years, doing it right, providing business opportunities for people who really want to build a business properly, and that means understanding the product, believing in the product, and believing in helping people. That’s what it is about. Does everybody make money? No. Why? Maybe their belief system is not right. Maybe their belief in the product or their understanding of the product or the value is not quite right. But this is a company that provides the opportunity to build your own business the right way.
There are others, but I just want to strongly suggest to you that if you really want to build businesses at whatever stage of life you are in, and to have success and to do better than you are doing today, make sure that you have products that you can believe in. Because if you can believe in them, you are going to have enthusiasm and passion about them. The whole notion of business is the same as life. You’ve got to care about the people that you are working with. You’ve got to care about the customers you have acquired. And you’ve got to want to make sure that you are doing the right thing by them.


