Help Another Entrepreneur

[oldkevx]

I'm dangerous (relatively) to talk to about "career" advice.

Even more, I find myself giving it in unsolicited ways to people I know and care about.

I want to share something awesome that happened today with the hope that you will take a moment from working on your business to help others doing the same. It is easy to put our heads down and work on our businesses with laser focus and not look up to see what is going on.

I have a few friends in life that I've never met in person, thanks to the interwebs. I noticed a post earlier this week on Facebook from one of these friends who owns a small business. It wasn't alarming, but for some reason I filed it toward the front of my brain as something I should be aware of.

Yesterday I was driving down the highway rocking out to the most successful indpendent rapper in the world (KC's own Tech N9ne) and something prompted me to call that friend and check in.

Turns out he was seriously contemplating thowing in the towel and getting a job. We talked about a myriad of things such as ex-spouses, head games, health and obviously his company. A quick 20 minute call ended in me telling him not to get a job and to go on an information diet. He was loading his brain with blogs, books and podcasts. I assured him that once he cleared his head and focused, he would be excited about his business and it would prosper. How do I know? I recently did the same thing and the results have been great.

Right after I called he had a kickball game and visited with one of his teammates afterwards. That conversation led to him realizing he needed to focus his business on a very narrow market (health).

Long story short, we just talked again and we both believe that everyone needs to take a look around and watch out for each other every once in a while.

If you are working on/in your business alone it can get dark sometimes. Make sure you have people you can pick up the phone and call and also make sure you are on someone's list of people they can call.

Do things larger than yourself and your business. I know that helping another business owner keep his head in the game is by far the most rewarding achievement this week for me. Way better than money.

Who can you help today?

 

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[Ravens_Shadow]

Great thread by the way, good on you for helping someone out!

I figured this would be a good thread for me to post in as it deals with the same thing, except from the opposite view. There have been a number of people who have reached out to me due some of my posts asking for advice over an extended period of time (and people i've met in person outside of the forum). I don't really have a whole lot to give, except advice on sales funnels, functionality, and just parables and other things that can help people understand how i'm becoming successful on my own roadmap, which is enough to get someone to get over their own barriers if they use what they learn.

Don't get me wrong, helping others is a fantastic thing, but you have to know when they actually want help. Generally I like to schedule phone calls and if the phone call is missed and they just don't call at the set time, then that's on them. If they miss the second call, that's the end of it, they're dead to me. You have to watch out for people who are going to waste your time, and you have to know when to just walk away and never look back. People will go around and around in circles for years and years. If someone isn't respecting your time, don't even bother. If they don't call when they say they will, and don't leave you a message as to why they didn't call, they shouldn't even be on your mind any more. It's just infuriating when you set time aside in your schedule to help others and they can't even take the initiative to pick up the damn phone and get at least some insight into the things they could learn, that just may help them grow their business exponentially.

tl;dr - People who miss meetings, phone calls, etc should be avoided at all costs as they will waste your time every chance they get. They're unreliable and not worth a penny glued to the sidewalk.