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3/13/08: Upstart, or Thinking Smart? |
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Upstart, or Thinking Smart?
You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair. ~Douglas MacArthur
During one of my recent seminars, a rookie salesperson said that his manager and some of his company’s tenured employees told him that it was going to take him a while before he “truly understands the business.” What those seasoned folks don’t understand is that because they told him it was going to take a while, it IS going to take a while!
That well-intentioned advice only encouraged him to take his time getting to the top. Here was my advice to him: Respectfully smile, listen and learn from as many seasoned business professionals as possible, but don’t EVER let them dictate how long it takes you to reach your potential. Only YOU have control over that decision.
This week I had a fella named Cameron Johnson on my weekly business radio show. Cameron is a millionaire, just published his second book on entrepreneurship (You Call the Shots), created and sold more than a dozen internet businesses and was recently a business guest on CNBC, Fox News and more. Oh, and did I mention that Cameron just turned 23 years old?
So what’s the point? Well, if you ask Cameron, he will tell you that he has no more skill and knowledge than anyone else. But what Cameron does have, like many successful young business people, is tone deafness to those who tell them that the path to business success is going to take “lots of time in the trenches.”
While the lessons learned from time in the business are invaluable, there are some things that the rookie employees, and even business owners, can do to speed up the clock:
* Seek out knowledge from tenured colleagues and peers and learn from THEIR experiences.
* Add only 15 minutes to each work day.
* Take that 75 extra minutes each week to learn something new by reading a book, a journal or internet newsletter.
* Stay tuned to the latest technology in business that can make you more efficient.
* Don’t let your mind grow old.
To listen to Brian’s radio interview with former teen self-made millionaire Cameron Johnson, go to www.preciseselling.com/Radio.htm.
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