Winning at business

Anyone who has spent any time with Sarah and I in the last 18 months will most likely have heard us talk about Dave Ramsey.

Dave is a Christian financial author who helps people get rid of debt - not a debt consolidator (that's a bad idea). Dave is a successful entrepreneur and I enjoy reading books and various articles. He's a straight-shooter, my kinda guy.

As a new business owner with ghijk and the prospect of possibly being an employer some day soon, I think this is a great article.

The other day he posted 29 tips for winning in business:

1. Organizations are never limited by their opportunity; they are limited by their leader. The good news is that you can choose to change
2. As a business owner, always be generous. If you are a dentist, all your team members should have great teeth.
3. Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you. This is how you build unity and loyalty.
4. Love your team well. Treat them like family, and they will act like family.
5. Most people and organizations fail from a lack of clear goals and focus.
6. Time is like a fire: It can either destroy us or it can keep us warm. Learn to manage your time well and stop putting off things that make you uncomfortable.
7. Your business, ideas and team will be paralyzed by an indecisive leader. As the Bible says, “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.”
8. Train your team to bring you several possible solutions, not just problems.
9. Lack of communication will limit you, hold you back and keep you from winning. When in doubt, over-share with your team.
10. When everyone knows what the goal is, anyone can pick up the ball and run.
11. Confrontation tastes best when served fresh. Don’t postpone it.
12. Your yes means yes and your no means no. That’s called integrity.
13. If you put up with people not doing a job, then people doing the job won’t want to do it.
14. Put rock stars on your team and treat them like rock stars.
15. The EntreLeader has a responsibility to make sure that the family they lead is taken care of.
16. **When you do the right things, all benefits come to you. **
17. When hiring for a position, you are looking for the right player, not just talent.
18. If you wouldn’t hire them again, why are you keeping them?
19. People will allow themselves to be led by someone who treats them with dignity.
20. **Make all errors on the side of giving too much grace. You’ll never regret it. **
21. Some days, being a leader stinks. But if done right, the good far outweighs the bad.
22. Micromanagers are control freaks who don’t have the maturity to trust their team.
23. One way you say “I love you” is with your checkbook. Show your team you care.
24. Get rich quick doesn’t work. Slow down.
25. If using God’s financial principles in our personal lives causes us to win because they always work, then using God’s financial principles in our business lives will cause us to win because they always work.
26. Character is everything in leadership because that’s what people look for and how they decide whether they are going to follow you or not.
27. Stop being in such a hurry to fill a position. It takes less time to hire one good team member than three different boneheads who don’t work out.
28. God is inordinately pleased when we are obsessively, compulsively consumed with the needs of others.
29. Take a lesson from The Tortoise and the Hare. Slow and steady wins the race every time.