Bill Allen spent some time with Grant Cardone last week at an event for 7+ figure entrepreneurs. Grant talked about how he built his company and where he’s taking it in the future, but he ALSO talked about the 10 biggest mistakes he made on the road to success. One of the best things you can do, especially in the early days of starting your business, is learn from the mistakes of highly successful people. You know what they say about hindsight!
Grant’s 10 Big Mistakes:
1. Thinking Too Small
Grant Cardone definitely doesn’t think too small these days, but when he was getting started, he struggled with this common issue like many entrepreneurs. Surround yourself early on with successful people who think BIG. This will help you expand your idea of what you yourself are capable of.
2. Staying Liquid
Don’t stockpile cash. People will go after that number sitting in the bank far more easily than they will pursue hard assets. If you put your money in hard assets, it becomes significantly easier to protect. Also when the economy fluctuates your money is not vastly changing value with inflation.
3. Making Too Few Offers
Offers are what move your business. We’re not just talking about making offers on properties, make offers to your employees and your clients. Ask yourself what offer can I make today that will move my business forward?
4. Not Partnering with People
It’s common for entrepreneurs to go at it alone in the early days and there is a limit to what you can do on your own. So find people to collaborate with, but make sure they think as BIG as you do. Partnerships should exponentially expand the gains for all involved.
5. Saving Money and Not Spending Money
Money is useless if it's not being used. Money invested moves you forward, money saved is stagnant. So invest in yourself, invest in your business. This includes spending money so you actually enjoy your life. If you are making money and not enjoying your life, what is the point? Spend your money on experiences and assets.
6. Hire People Faster
You cannot scale your company until you hire people. You hire good people by hiring a lot of people and letting the cream rise to the top. Your first and second hires may not work out but the more you refine your hiring process, the more you will begin to get incredible assets on your team. Bottom line: You need to hire more people to find the good ones.
7. Don’t Hold On to People Too Long
It’s hard not to make decisions emotionally, but business is business. For every employee ask yourself, are they an asset or a liability? If you can’t immediately answer ‘asset’ they are a liability. Letting the liabilities go will save you time and money in the long run.
8. Don’t Try to Please Everyone
When you try to please everyone you run the risk of getting stuck in your own mediocrity. There is no way you can please everyone, it will quite simply slow you down and remove you from an accurate perspective of how far you can grow.
9. Being the ‘Only One’ Who Knows Everything
If you focus on being the ‘star’ of your company, the one who knows more than anyone in the room, you will hit a plateau. When you start hiring experts in their own right, people that can teach you what you don’t know, your company will benefit exponentially. Don’t let your ego block your progress.
10. Don’t Have Only One Vertical and One Product Line
When there is a crisis, you use every lane available. So this idea of ‘Staying in your lane’ is not the best advice. How do you create opportunities for all the different people coming into your world? Let your business be a consistent innovative response to the evolving stimuli of the world in real time. That is how you pivot and stay profitable.
We hope you get as much out of these 10 ‘mistakes’ as we did. Remember to learn from those who turned failures into wild successes! They have the genius to identify exactly what went wrong and hand you the winning formula. We attribute a great deal of our success to our commitment to learn from those who think BIG. And of course, we always, always pass our knowledge directly on to you!
