I’ve hired 30 employees outside of the USA with the help of Shepherd and it has been an absolute game changer for my business.
Underwriters in Colombia for $1,500 per month full time. Customer service reps with perfect english in the Philippines for $1,100 per month. Executive assistants for my construction team for $1,000 per month.
If you haven’t hired an employee abroad, doing so will change your business and your life. I recommend setting up a call with Shepherd and getting the process started.
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Ok lets rock:
To start a mega-successful company you need 3 things:
- Operational skills
- Capital
- Network
Before you start your first company you don’t have any of them.
The goal of company #1 should be less about the money and more about getting more of those 3 things.
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It all starts with operational chops. This is the skillset required to run a company, lead people and find customers.
These skills include:
Sales, delegation, problem solving, time management, organization, writing, decision making and more.
Most of these skills are not taught in school so very few people have them naturally. It is not natural to delegate, for example, because no school in the country tells you to delegate your homework to somebody else and no sports team will tell you to delegate your workout to somebody else.
They are muscles that must be built up through repetition and practice.
Sales is a huge part of it – as a business leader you’re spending 95% of your time selling. Selling customers on your offering, employees on your vision, partners on your model, investors on your ability, etc.
Now here is the secret:
Once you build up your operational skills by doing some “low-risk” form of entrepreneurship which also makes you some money (capital) your network and your access to more capital will automatically grow.
Step one is operational skills. The rest follows.
You build a network by getting good at something and becoming an expert. People are very selfish when it comes to their network and one thing reigns supreme:
What can you do for me?
If you’re talented and you can build teams or you’re an expert in a certain industry, people will come to you for advice or get you involved in that area. Your network grows.
Capital also flows to people who are good operators in two ways:
- You make profit from your businesses you are operating
- People want to invest with good operators
It is a compounding effect and a flywheel.
The better you get at operating the more capital you make and the more your network grows.
The more your network grows and the more capital you have the bigger shots you can take and the more successful you can become.
Then the snowball is rolling down the hill and before long it can’t be stopped.
The big problem:
Most wantrepreneurs watch shark tank and study the titans of startups. They think they need that mega-successful startup NOW. Entrepreneurship = new idea = change the world.
But they aren’t equipped. They don’t have any of the three ingredients.
They try to solve hard problems without any of the skills required to make it happen.
Some get lucky or are just phenomenally talented (i.e. Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates).
For every one of those there are 9,999 other entrepreneurs who tried to do something really hard with none of the key ingredients and ended up failing and going to get a job.
My advice to you:
Think small.
Your first business isn’t about becoming mega successful. It isn’t about changing the world. Take “scale” out of your vocabulary.
Start small and make your first business about building up your operational skills, network and your own personal capital.
Start a company that is low-risk. One that you can study companies that do exactly what you want to do. One where you don’t need every customer to win – you just need a piece of the pie.
One where you can make low-stakes decisions and practice. You can make mistakes and survive.
Improve your skills and build up your ability, bank account figure and your network of other people who are assets and you could hire or get involved with.
Then, later, when you’re better and have more of those three things, go bigger.
Onward and upward,
Nick
P.S. I’m an investor in a new web development firm called WebRun.
They built this amazing investor landing page for my real estate firm and I’m VERY impressed by their work.
If you need a website overhaul, new website or landing page – schedule a call with Will at WebRun to get a free proposal!