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When entrepreneurs first startup and attempt to market their own businesses, there are an unlimited number of things they might choose to do in order to ensure that the business gets off on the best possible foot, and that as many issues as possible are preempted.
With millions of business-related blog posts out there, and thousands of books, there are plenty of suggestions from which to draw. You might decide to go through a major SEO and web-marketing blitz, or to get crystal clear on your USPs. You might hire a virtual assistant, or you might take advice and focus on staying at an Airbnb instead of a hotel for business travel.
Ultimately, though, there’s a good argument to be made that the success of your business starts and ends your own personal degree of character, which would mean that getting your own house in order and acting with honor would be the fundamental step to take.
Here are some reasons why this might be true. Read on to learn more.
Liars, manipulators, and people who avoid responsibility, get outed sooner or later — and then it’s game over
Sooner or later, good things happen in business to industrious, truthful people, who adopt full responsibility for their actions. They are sought out over the more unscrupulous competition. Their names get spread around. They are considered easy to work with, and obliging. They are respected for their integrity.
The opposite happens to liars, manipulators, and people who avoid responsibility.
Though, in the short time, these less scrupulous types may manage to “game the system”, they inevitably get outed sooner or later. Word of their underhanded tactics spreads. They are caught in an epic blow-out and become national, or international pariahs, as is the case with the abysmally scandalous and failed Fyre festival, and it’s now-jailed orchestrator and CEO.
Good character almost always pays off, but not always at once. Bad character may pay off at once, but will almost always cause untold mayhem and permanent career ruin down the line.
To be resilient, a business needs to be founded on healthy and enduring values — and those have to filter down from you
Businesses that are founded on healthy and enduring values, such as accountability, are undeniably more resilient than businesses that are not founded on those principles.
If your company culture is that no one takes responsibility, and everyone backbites and tries to shift blame, good luck staying in business when the going gets tough.
The thing is, these resilient values — or their negative counterparts — have to filter down from you. The leader always influences their team through their behavior.
If your life goes off the rails and you don’t deal with it, your business will likewise spiral out of control
If you’re the entrepreneurial force behind a private business venture, it is very unlikely that your business will remain unscathed and continue to be resilient and productive if your personal life goes completely off the rails.
Good moral character, for one thing, reduces the odds that your personal life will go off the rails. It doesn’t stop things from going wrong in your life, but it does equip you to meet life’s challenges in a more balanced, forthright, and resilient way.
At the very least, if you’ve got character, you are more likely to be able to defer and arrange things in your business so that operations proceed in a functional manner, while you handle your personal affairs.
