connectionuk - January/February 2017

BY RACHEL HALLIWELL

THERE NEVER seems to be a dearth of free, and sometimes unwanted, advice. But sometimes you hear something that resonates so deeply it becomes a guiding principle that gives you an edge in running your business (and improves other areas of your life). What follows is treasured advice that six successful entrepreneurs received at some point in their journeys.

When I was set-
ting up [my current
company] in 2013,
my business part-
ner said that while
understanding what
my competitors were
up to was important,
it shouldn’t be my
primary focus. He
asked me, “If you
decided to start play-
ing golf tomorrow,
how do you think it
would affect Rory
McIlroy’s career?”
Obviously, McIlroy
would never worry about an amateur
until [the amateur] crept up and stole
his lunch. My partner urged me not to
get distracted by the background noise
made by my competitors, whose actions
were beyond my control and whose mis-
takes I might too easily copy. Instead, he
said I should have faith in my own goals
and vision for the company. I took his
advice to heart, and have marched to my
own beat ever since. We’re now one of the
largest software companies in our field,
with tens of thousands of users across the
globe. I’m glad I listened.

I don’t remember who gave me my best piece of business advice—that striving for perfection is your enemy in business—but I know it’s served me extremely well since I launched [my company]. I suspect I read it in one of the many motivational manuals I have devoured over the years. The essence of the advice is that it’s far better to be imprecisely right rather than precisely wrong. If I’d waited until [my company] was perfect it would have been at least another year before I’d have launched—in fact, it may never have happened because I’d always have found areas to improve upon. Instead, soon after the site went live, Yahoo selected it as one of its websites of the week; orders started coming in before I’d even put the credit card processing into live mode. From there it was all systems go—I just had to

Successful entrepreneurs share their best business advice

Sage advice

FOR YOUR BUSINESS

get on with it. Waiting until things are perfect is a mistake. Far better to move forward with what you have and then see where you can improve from there.

I’m dyslexic, and when I was younger I needed extra help at school, particularly when I was doing my exams. At 15, when I was coming up to taking my GCSEs I got very upset about this because I felt so self-conscious. My mum sat me down and gave me a piece of advice that I’ve held close ever since.

She said that the only person in life with the power to stop me from achieving my goals was me. And the best way of holding myself back was to worry about what other people thought about me and the choices I made. Since then I have always felt truly accountable only to myself; every time I’ve made a decision in business I’ve done it knowing that as long as I believe in what I’m doing then it’s the right thing. My mum empowered me that day with words that continue to give me an inner confidence that has only helped my success.

P RO F ES SI ON AL IM A GE S

20

16

BENJAMIN DYER

S OL PAR KE R

MICHAEL PARKER

CK G OL DI N G

SAMANTHA NICHOLSON

CEO of Powered Now (powerednow. com), a company based on the Isle of Wight that provides software to the construction industry in the UK and worldwide.