If you've ever had the privilege of being on a sports team, you've heard your coach tell you to hustle. It's about upping your game in all the right ways. It's about doing the kinds of things most other people aren't willing to do. Hustle requires sweat and sacrifice.
Today's post will cover the art of hustling in business. We'll also get Gary Vaynerchuck's thoughts on the hustle and look at 10 different ways you can start hustling in your business. Before we do all of that though, let me start off with a quick story.
I spoke with an entrepreneur yesterday that's one of the hardest workers I know. This guy would burn the candle at 3 ends if he could. To him, the path to success is working long hours while doing the manual labor in his business. He prides himself on being the best "wrench-turner" in the company. Unfortunately he's gone through several failed businesses and I can't help but feel for the guy and his family.
After speaking with him about his goals as an entrepreneur, I found that he couldn't let go. He didn't want to delegate the work to other people because he felt like nobody could do it as well as him. That's a terrible belief that many entrepreneurs suffer from. There's always someone out there that can do just as good of a job or better.
He also didn't want to do the uncomfortable kind of work that would grow his business. For him, it was "safer" to do basic labor than to pick up the phone and do some cold calling.
Hard work is putting every ounce of passion, energy and focus into a task for as long as it takes until the work is finished.
Hustling is hard work with 1 improvements added in: The desire to do the uncomfortable.
As I was writing today's post, I got an email from one of the biggest hustlers out there. Gary Vaynerchuck, author of several social media books including Crush It and Jab, Jab, Jab Right Hook. He's one of the most genuine guys on social media. In the video below, he talks a lot about hustling.
If you don't know who Gary is, you should. He started off selling wine in a family business and grew that organization into an online phenomenon. From there, be became an author, speaker and business mogul. I'll warn you here. The guy doesn't hold back. In this interview, he says a few things that you might not agree with at first. Do your self a favor though and listen to the whole interview. You'll be glad you did. If anyone understand hustling in business, it's this guy. You can follow him on twitter at @garyvee.
When you hustle, you work hard on the uncomfortable and not the easy. Successful people hire others to do the easy work so that they can free themselves up to do what most other people are not willing to do.
Think about it. Who's going to be more successful?
1. The entrepreneur who sits in his shop all day doing entry-level labor because its comfortable and "needs to get done".
2. The entrepreneur who sacrifices a bit to hire someone to do entry-level labor so that she can start cold-calling.
I use cold-calling as an example because none of us like doing it. There are people out there that claim to like cold-calling. That's bull. Those people are full of it. But have you noticed that those entrepreneurs who do it are
the ones that are "making it"?
Start being the best sales person in your company. Set aside at least 2 hours every day for prospecting leads and closing deals. Remember, selling is about helping people, not selling to them. People really stress out about getting on the phone to "sell". If you're focused on being a salesman, it will be stressful. Instead, focus on helping people find the best solution to their problem, even if it's not your company. Having that kind of mentality will make this the best part of your day. Oh yeah, and do it with a smile.
Here are a few resources to help you start selling, I mean "helping" better:
Learn how to code a website. Stop paying "programmers" a fortune to build a crappy site. Take the initiative to learn yourself, so that you can get a website that's top-notch. I would recommend building your site in wordpress. It's an easy platform to learn and there are a lot of resources out there to get you started.
If you go to udemy.com, an online classroom environment, there are tons of resources to help you learn how to do this. Check them out here.
Let go of that employee that's been weighing the company down for years, and replace him with someone that has passion. Stop putting up with bad employees and find your superstars.
Check out this great video from The Ney York Times called "How to Fire Someone without the F-Word."
Learn the art and science getting profitable. You're not going to make money until you know how to master it. Forgive the shameless plug here, but this is what we do best. Check out our free class titled "Get profitable in 30 Days".
Write out your main business processes and create a manual for "wowing" your customers. These are great. Every time you hire someone, you can have them up to speed in no time. We actually create videos at Ignite Spot for our new employees to watch.
Stop dragging your feet on that one piece of software that will revolutionize your company and give you a leading edge. Learn more about it, purchase it and get cranking. I have a lot of software systems that I love. Here are just a few of them that we use here at Ignite Spot to make us better at what we do. Hopefully some of them help to take your business to tomorrow land"
Develop a training system for your employees that allows them to be better at building widgets than you are. In other words, you should never build a widget again. Period.
Learn how to master online marketing, social media and Google webmaster quality guidelines. Your ability to bring in customers down the road depends on this. Ignore it and you'll be out of business in less than 5 years.
Here's a great resource I found for you from the guys at Hubspot on getting started with Twitter.
Go to seminar or conference on marketing, finance or sales. I love going to conferences. It's a chance to get away, clear your head and really get dedicated about a specif need in your business. I try to go to at least once conference a year. This year, I'm headed to Boston to go to Inbound 2014. It should be a great chance to up our marketing game here at Ignite Spot. If you go, make sure to say hello!
Make a list of the 10 most common things you do every day. Now hire someone to do those things so that you can do steps 1 - 9 more.
Remember that to hustle is to work hard at the uncomfortable. Make the decision today to never make another widget in your company and you'll be successful.
Now that you're focused on hustling in business, what are you going to do? How are you going to make your business better? Take a minute to check out some of the free business webinars that Ignite Spot offers. They're a good way to get started.
Thanks for reading and happy hustling!
