<ul><li>Make customer service a competitive advantage through memorable, personalized experiences. </li><li>Take care of employees first so they can take care of customers. </li><li>Build trusting relationships over time. </li><li>Identify your ideal customer archetype. </li><li>Continuously improve service offerings. </li><li>Remain honest always. </li><li>Integrate simple processes and helpful technology.</li></ul>

Deliver Great Service 

Sales fundamentally depends on human relationships and social skills. Passion for your product and likeability build connections. Without strong people skills, sales will always struggle. Approach sales through a human lens first. Have convictions about the value to customers. Establish trust and rapport. Sales enables all other functions.

Master Sales

Experienced mentors can help you avoid common pitfalls and fill knowledge gaps as a new entrepreneur. Be open-minded, ask questions, and gather advice from multiple experts. Prioritize and synthesize the information. Find mentors with complementary skills to get guidance on legal, financial, strategic and other key issues. Understand your responsibilities in the mentoring relationship. Expect to continually evolve.

Remain Teachable

Engage and retain talent over the long-term by fostering an inclusive, appreciative, flexible, and trusting culture. Clearly define authentic values and guard them religiously. Make your culture more than superficial words on a wall. Enable positive change driven by employees. Ensure everyone feels valued and impactful.

Foster Purpose

Having a strong network of advisors, mentors, colleagues, and friends is essential for starting and growing a business. Each relationship offers unique value, whether it's professional expertise, emotional support, or just an outside perspective. Actively build and nurture your connections. Show up authentically, listen closely, communicate clearly, and don't be afraid of failure. Surround yourself with diverse viewpoints.

Expand Your Network

It's natural to have fears about taking the leap into entrepreneurship. Fear can motivate preparation, but it can also paralyze action. <ul><li>Be informed so you can make smart decisions.</li><li> Know yourself, your core motivations and vision.</li><li>Identify gaps or needs in the marketplace. </li><li>Develop a sound business plan. </li><li>Secure proper funding for each growth stage. </li><li>Check your ego regularly.</li><li> Continuously examine your relationship with money.</li></ul>

Confront Your Fears 

Stay strategically future-focused, even before fully staffing your venture. Envision how you will segment your team into functional groups and empower leaders. Continuously evaluate if your structure fosters growth or impedes it.

Adopt a Future Focus 

Being a business owner is not for the faint of heart. <ul><li>At a minimum, it takes a person with a firm resolve, the ability to persevere and pivot during challenging times, the humility to admit mistakes, and empathy for the people around them. </li><li>Self-reflection should come long before setting pen to paper for a business plan. </li><li>Understanding who you are is critical to being a leader who seeks to align purpose with profit.</li></ul>

Broken To Better: The Premise

You have to ensure your team feels valued, that they know their contributions are making a difference and that you care.

Changing habits requires an internal decision and commitment to a new path. Perseverance and focus make new habits stick. Bad habits result when we lose resolve. To change, decisively commit to a plan and mindfully persist despite distractions or resistance.

Change Habits

<ul><li>Initially hire to fill skill gaps, but prioritize cultural fit to sustain the organization. </li><li>Hire team players who rise to challenges and pitch in where needed. </li><li> As you grow, separate employees into functional areas and teams. Build future leaders by empowering your best team members. </li></ul>

Put People First

In the 2022 book Broken to Better: 13 Ways Not to Fail at Life and Leadership, CEO of Branded Group Michael Kurland candidly shares every step of his own entrepreneurial odyssey—selling everything he owned, driving across the country to launch his new business, and ultimately building a purpose-driven culture that aligns purpose with profit. Along the way, Kurland distills a lifetime of experience down to its purest essence.  

Being a business owner is not for the faint of heart. It takes a firm resolve, the ability to persevere and pivot during challenging times, the humility to admit mistakes, and empathy for the people around you. Understanding who you are is critical to that journey. In Broken to Better, Michael Kurland candidly shares every step of his own entrepreneurial odyssey-selling everything he owned, driving across the country to launch his new business, and ultimately building a purpose-driven culture that aligns purpose with profit. Along the way, Kurland distills a lifetime of experience down to its purest essence. From key principles of organizational strength to the secrets of profitability and growth, Broken to Better offers up all his triumphs and mistakes in the same spirit of perseverance, fearlessness, empathy, and gratitude. Although Kurland humbly claims he did "whatever it took to avoid failing," the truth shines through on every page-he did whatever it took to Be Better.

MICHAEL KURLAND

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