Three Keys to Unlocking Your Success as a Business Owner

James Harold Webb shares his top three tips for becoming a successful business owner.

Today’s guest post is by James Harold Webb, author of Redneck Resilience: A Country Boy’s Journey To Prosperity.

Growing up poor in a rural community in the South, I learned early in life that if I wanted more than just food on the table and clothes on my back, I had to earn it myself. From making potholders to mowing yards to being a high schooler operating a printing press and finally becoming an x-ray technologist, I was always super focused on what it would take to change my family’s financial and social presence.

Now that I’ve achieved those dreams, I can look back on what key components it took to accomplish and build an effective career and, ultimately, become a successful business owner. Below are three of my top recommendations.

Value relationships

Listen to people. Invest in people. Take the time to recognize people and to hold yourself accountable to them. Whether it’s your employee or your customer, be more willing to give more to that relationship than you are eager to receive. Investing in relationships has brought more wealth to my life than the stock market ever could, and I’m glad I didn’t wait to “get rich” before I learned that lesson.

Start now. Focus as much or more on your lines of communication as you do on your bottom line, and success will follow. When you meet someone, think about what you can do for them and learn from them instead of what you can get from them. It’s natural to meet and get to know people and recognize opportunities, to think about what they can do for you, but understand that you’ll get so much more if you think of them as an investment rather than a target.

If you take nothing else away from this article, let it be this: You and your career or business will be formed, shaped, built and defined by your approach to relationships. Everything else is just technique and craft. Relationships are the single most important thing in your life.

Work harder than anyone else

I don’t believe in luck, but I have learned that the harder I work, the luckier I get. This isn’t about the appearance of working hard. This is about setting an example for everyone else. When you’re exhausted and have had enough for the day, send two more emails, make two more phone calls, do two more things. When you wake up and don’t feel like going to work, go anyway. Push yourself, because no one else is going to do it for you and it gets really easy to lose your way.

The only thing you can always control in business is your hustle, and the people who hustle the most tend to be the ones who reap the greatest rewards. Don’t fall for the modern trap about work/life balance. For an entrepreneur or career-driven executive, it doesn’t exist. We have one speed—all in—for everything we do. We measure our output in accomplishments, not account balances. Those who want to put in just enough time and work to reach a certain income will lose that income to someone who wants to work.

It will be hard sometimes. It will be exhausting. It will mean delayed gratification and personal sacrifice, but the work is the thing that will set you apart, and the benefits will be obvious.

Set expectations and put your employees in position to succeed

If an employee is fired and they didn’t see it coming, it’s the manager’s fault. Barring theft or some kind of gross incompetence, firing someone means you didn’t put them in a position to succeed. If a business is struggling, it’s on the leadership. If someone in a company doesn’t understand their role, their job, their future within an organization, the blame belongs to the people responsible for putting them there.

I’ve been asked many times for my secret formula for management, and the truth is that there is no secret. It’s simple. Be clear. Be available. Set expectations, make sure they are understood, and check in often. You can’t manage more than a handful of people effectively. Management and leadership require attention and investment, not edicts or intimidation.

Communicate changes, concerns and compliments with equal ease and confidence. Seek feedback. Management and leadership are as much about creating effective, healthy relationships as they are about org-charts and “orders” that have no place in a manager’s playbook.

It’s funny how many of the lessons I’ve learned in business echo those I’ve come to appreciate in life. Saddle up, buckle in, and take the ride utilizing these key lessons.

​​James Harold Webb (www.jamesharoldwebb.com) is an investor, philanthropist, successful multi-business owner, and the author of Redneck Resilience: A Country Boy’s Journey To Prosperity. Webb began his entrepreneurial journey in the health industry as the owner of several companies focused on outpatient medical imaging, pain management and laboratory services. Following successful exits from those companies, Webb shifted his focus to the franchise world and developed, owned and oversaw the management of 33 Orangetheory Fitness® gyms, which he sold in 2019. Not one to stop, he currently has two additional franchise companies in various stages of growth.

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