What
does it take to win in business?
Many
will say inspiration or luck or simply money and access. But I would argue that
we often overlook the personal behaviors that stoke success. These are the
small steps you can take every day to move yourself forward in business.
1.
Develop win-win relationships. The
rise of the Internet has served to shrink the size of the world. It has made
the importance of trust in business even greater than before. Earning the trust
of your clients and trading partners has now become an absolute condition for
success in business. In order to develop relationships of trust you must
consolidate conflicting interests – something that goes against all logic. In
other words, you must foster win-win relationships. This means making sure that
even your trading partners profit from your transactions.
2.
Understand precisely the risks you face. Risk
is a word that is almost always partnered with avoidance. Sometimes it seems
the entire world is avoiding risk. But the one thing to keep in mind is that
behind things that the entire world avoids is often hiding a business
opportunity. To be successful, one must risk. But risk is not the same as
gambling. To face risk, one must carefully understand its true nature. When we
began Rakuten, we took a risk – the risk was that the Internet would not expand
as rapidly as we expected. To guard against this risk, we kept our initial
scale low. We did not just take a risk – we worked to fully understand the size
and type of risk we faced and then developed a plan to deal with it even in the
worst-case scenario.
3. As a fundamental rule, move swiftly.
In my experience, all of the really excellent
business people I have met in my
life shared the ability to act quickly. I cannot think of a
single exception.
The speed at which they made decisions was quick. The speed at
which they
implemented decisions was quick. They even walked quickly. As a basic
principle, be quick to act.
Many
will fail to achieve their business goals because they are waiting for some
kind of outside action to occur – a change in technology or governance or
consumer taste that will somehow propel them forward. But the truly successful
do not wait for outside influences. They look to their own actions, every day,
to create their own personal wins.
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