People are often looking for the magic to make a business work. When you listen to a successful person talk, they typically get asked, “What is the one word you would pick that is needed to be successful?” My word for that question is determination. As I listened to Randy Boyd speak today at The Legacy Centre Speaker Series, he answered the question with the word PERSISTENCE!
In this context, I would say that both words are synonyms. It takes every bit of persistence and determination that you can muster to get a business to the million dollar mark, let alone the multi hundreds of millions mark like Randy’s company PetSafe. During their annual review, Boyd asked his people why they have failed, and if they have not failed in some way, then he says they are not pushing the boundaries enough.
At Efficience, we have done some innovative work with PetSafe and are excited to be working with their team pushing the boundaries. This work will be released soon, and then l will share this exciting stuff! They are all about making having pets easier and more fun!
Randy shared a story about working with suppliers. He pushed them to continue to ship products to him and negotiated payments over time. He juggled things coming and going to pay suppliers as he made sales. This is a classic story of a successful business person. Many of us have it in our heads that successful people have it so good and have it all figured out, so they have no worries or issues. If someone is successful, it is almost always because he or she went through a lot of worries and issues, with the key being that they PERSISTED through them.
What about you? If you have some level of success in business or life, what would be your one word that you would describe that it takes to make it to a higher level?