There’s always something crazy going on in this industry. At any moment, there’s a maniac in a weight room taking a dangerous lift and a shady businessman in an office finding a way to turn dirty profits. The posts you find here in my log are the musings of a mashed-up meathead — the reactions I have as I spend my whole life watching this industry. I will share my thoughts with you here, unedited, uncensored, unfiltered, and Under The Bar. If you are offended by profanity - do not read this.
Sorry, the video embed is smashed but the audio works fine.
Link to video is HERE
This morning I watched the above of from Barbara Corcoran from Shark Tank via Business Insider. It was a really short video but was probably one of the best business, entrepreneur, sales videos I've ever seen, so I wanted to take some time to comment on some of the points that she made in the video because I felt they needed to be elaborated on a little bit for those that may not have been in business for very long, those that are just starting a business, those who are working for a business, or those who are thinking about starting a business.
She did a amazing job of taking all these great learning lessons and sticking it in two minutes, which that in itself is the mark of a great business person and a amazing leader. It is a great video.
I wanted to share it and my thoughts on it, so I hope you enjoy.
People not Products
At the very start of the video you'll hear her say, "I'm people, not products." The interviewer was asking her a question and I think the video started mid-question. The question that he asked, "Do you use sport products?" She immediately stopped him and said, "I'm people and not products."
While having the greatest products and the greatest service is important, it is a big factor in doing business, more importantly are the people who are going to represent those products and services. Those are going to be the distinguishing factors that are going to separate and make you different from the competition and to execute the plan when it's developed and execute the plan when it falls apart, execute the plan when it's going well.
She noted was that she was very good at spotting talent, spotting people, hiring great people, bringing great people in, and firing the bad ones fast. Many years ago, the way this was explained to me was to act like you're playing a hand of poker. You're looking at what you have in your hand and your competitors will have their hands, but you always have to look to see what's on the table. You may not have the greatest hand when you start because you can't afford the wages or the salaries or the people to have the greatest hand when you start, or the best people when you start, but that best person may end up being on the table that you can trade in your worst person to bring in that other person.
The moral of the story when that was explained to me was you've got to always play with the hand that your dealt but you always have to look for the opportunities that are out there. Train the people that you do have but don't be so blinded to not always be looking to see what else is out there because you know damn well if you've been in business for a long enough period of time, with most of your staff, they're going to be looking for their opportunities that are going to be better than you can present as well. That's just a part of business.
You can't get stuck not looking for and spotting those better people, while at the same time if you do have a rotten egg or a virus or somebody that just doesn't want to be there anymore or somebody that's bringing everything else down and throwing the vision of the company off, you have to get rid of them immediately, the old saying of hire slow, fire fast. The problem with this is most of the people that I've known in my time period of being in business over the past close to 18 years now and working since I was younger than working age, very, very few people do this. That's why what she said was so impactful because it's a reminder that we all need to be looking at this. We all need to be thinking about these things because we're all guilty of not doing it.
Being Able to Take the Hits
Barbra realized when she was taking classes, I don't know if this was in college but I would assume so, that she was a lousy student but she still survived. She wasn't the greatest student in the world but she was still able to survive and make it in business. That taught her that she was able to take a hit, keep moving forward and ... At first you want to kind of sit there and think, "Oh, this is just like the Rocky speech." The Rocky speech was great. It's motivational but it's kind of bullshit.
You do have to get hit and keep moving forward but sometimes you get hit, then when you're on the ground people are kicking you and you can't ... There's a lot more to it than just getting hit and moving forward. Sometimes you get hit ... You can't get back up. You need help getting back up. Sometimes you get hit and you just don't get knocked down, you get knocked way the fuck back. Sometimes you get hit and it's not that bad but you think it's a lot worse than what it really is.
The key thing to understand is that the hits are going to come. They come with everybody and I'm not going to keep going on and on about this because I've written several times about how adversity is important in business. What she did was to reaffirm that but also took it a step further by saying that the best people are the ones that can take the hit and take knock down and not feel sorry for themselves that long. The ones that end up paying the price and suffering and going out of business and not being successful are the ones that feel sorry for themselves the longest. Everybody feels the hits, she noted that as well. Everybody feels the hits. Everybody's going to feel sorry for themselves when they get knocked down but it's the person who doesn't feel sorry for themselves that long and keeps going is the one that she's saying is going to be more successful. That's totally true.
The other part that I would like to add to that is while you're being punched, hit, and dealing with adversity you cannot let that impact your creativity or impact other things that have to be moving forward in the business. You can't have your business come to a complete standstill because of the adversity that you're dealing with or somebody else is dealing with in the company or if you work for a company, that you're dealing with. You can't let your job or your responsibilities just stop. It has to keep going. You can't let it impact the creativity.
Another conversation I had many years ago when dealing with big adversity with the company was about what could potentially happen to the company. If the situation kept escalating that was being dealt with at the time, we could be out of business in six months. The person to whom I was speaking said, "If you keep worrying about it and letting it consume everything that you're doing and not getting the work done that you're supposed to get done and letting it impact the creativity and the strategy of the business, you're going to be out of business way sooner than six months." That's why you can't let it slow you down. You have to keep going forward and not let it impact creativity and strategy.
Feel the Hits
Barbara also noted that the more passionate the person is, the harder they feel the hit. That's another thing that's 100% true and something that resonated with the video is the ... People will think that some are immune to adversity, that they don't feel it, they don't care. Just because they're not showing it and bitching about it and whining about it and making social media posts about how bad their life sucks and all this other kind of crap doesn't mean that it doesn't impact them and that they're not feeling anything. Everybody does. If the adversity is big enough, everybody does. The more passionate somebody is in regards to what they're working for and what the business is, the harder it hurts. The harder that hit is.
The good thing about this that resonated very strongly is when she said after they shake it off, these are the ones that come back harder because they have something to prove. They're not going to come back just because they're coming back because that's what they have to do and that's what they have to do it for ... because that's their responsibility. They're going to come back because they have something to prove about it. Those are the ones that are the most successful. These are the ones I have found that do not strive to win but hate to lose. While this seems like the same thing it isn't.