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A graduate of Mount Royal College in Calgary, Alberta, and the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, William (Bill) McBean began his career with General Motors of Canada Limited in 1976.
Bill has started several new businesses outside the automotive industry, including a professional hockey team and a security company that operates in the Texas oil industry. He is currently a partner and chairman of Net Claims Now and its related companies, which provide invoicing, collection, business lead-generation, and other administrative services to businesses in the restoration and emergency response industry throughout North America.
Bill is the author of the new book “The Facts of Business Life: What Every Successful Business Owner Knows that You Don’t”
Favorite Success Quote
Key Points
1. Get People on Your Side Who Push You More than You Push Yourself
One of the key themes in nearly every great persons story is a mentor or group of mentors who taught and trained that person to better themselves. You cannot expect to get ahead in life by surrounding yourself with people playing the game of life on the same level as you.
Go out there and build relationships, find friends who have achieved what you want and listen to them. The key to remember is that mentors are rarely seen as a mentor. They are more often a friend first and a teacher second.
Focus on expanding your social circle and building relationships with these high level people and your results will sky rocket.
2. Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance
One of the biggest causes of failure in the business world is poor preparation. By failing to plan, you plan to fail. It is imperative that you have a plan in place and have the entire team prepared for the work ahead if you want to succeed at any level.
3. Have an Exit Strategy
Too often business owners fail to, as Stephen Covey says, “Begin with the end in mind.” Unless you are building a legacy company, something that you want to be working on 20-30 years from now, you need to have an exit strategy.
Decide early on how you plan to build, grow, and sell your business for maximal profits and ROI.
4. Get Systems in Place
The hallmark of successful business people is the creation of systems. Without a system in place, you leave your work and your results to chance. By making a conscious effort to build up processes and procedures for every part of your business, you ensure that you are setting yourself up for success.
5. Fail and Learn Fast
News flash. You will fail. It is an inevitable part of business and life. At some point during your time on this earth, you will fail at something, and if you are like 99.99% of the population, you will fail at a lot of things.
The key is to fail fast and learn from it. Never allow a failure to carry out for longer than necessary, learn to swallow your pride, accept defeat and move on.
Influential Books
1. The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People by Stephen Covey
2. The E-Myth by Michael Gerber
3. The Facts of Business Life by Bill Mcbean