The Greatest lesson learnt, became my greatest gift…
Very early on in my career I learnt, what I believe has been the single most valuable lesson contributing to, not only my early business successes almost 3 decades ago, but it is still a core fundamental principal that I live and abide by today and is always at the forefront of any working deals or relationship that I embark upon.
So, this crucial and key cornerstone of my success is ‘honesty’, something that was instilled in me from a very early age and has become an integral part of my overall being and genetic make-up.
There seems to be a common misconception that in order to ‘make it big’ in the world of business, you must lie, be deceptive, use underhanded tactics, basically anything to get the deal done and to the detriment of everything else. However, I totally disagree with this notion, both myself and some of the most established entrepreneur’s and moghuls that I know, use ‘honesty’ as the basic driver when entering a business relationship and carrying out a business transaction.
This lesson was to start opening doors for me and it all started in my first venture within telecoms, at the time I had dealings with a big supplier within the industry, who I had worked with for several years, and built up a level of goodwill and credibility with. After a brief meeting with him in his offices in London, where I had expressed an interest in expanding my business dealings with him, he set out a condition for this expansion to happen, this consisted of activating a certain number of handsets,across several different geographical locations.
If I hit the target, it would allow me to obtain an increased level of credit, as well as the ability to finance an increased amount of handsets and could propel me and my company forward exponentially. I fulfilled the target set wholeheartedly, to the best of my ability, exactly down to the brief provided and did not cut any corners. A few months later I was invited to another meeting with my supplier, when I met him, he shook my hand, and stated ‘son you’re a man of your word’, he told me that he had checked the site report for the handsets that had been activated, everything had been done correctly with no cutting of corners whatsoever.
My supplier also stated that ‘most people would have taken the short route, made a quick buck and that would have been the end of it’. However due to my absolute ‘honesty’ with him, it built up my credibility and I was seen as a man of my word and someone who could be trusted to work with. I got an increased line of credit and was also introduced tosome major players in the field of telecommunications, which led to my business expanding 10-fold.
My lesson in this post, is to emphasise that anyone looking to start their career, should always remain consistent. Let your honesty shine through, whether you get success or failure, always actwith utmost integrity and honesty because in the long run it will get you further. Always look at building long term business links and relationships, if you create the right image from the outset, it will open up more doors, people will trust you and want to do deal with you, as well as refer you to others, after all people buy people in this industry.
In my next blog post, I will discuss how I still use this crucial and elementary discipline of ‘honesty’ in my current day to day dealings. Now I am operating on a whole new level and playing field, however the lessons that I learnt and used in my early and very humble beginnings, are still at the forefront of my mind and integrated into every relationship that I build and in every deal that I do.
To your success always
AD