31 Business Lessons You Usually Learn The Hard Way

1. Sometimes your best effort isn’t good enough to land you the deal.

2. You can’t learn if you aren’t willing to listen.

3. The only way to get other people to care about you is to care about them first.

4. You can’t find opportunities for success if you aren’t looking for them.

5. Just because social media is free doesn’t mean it gets you results.

6. You have to change the conversation before you can close the deal.

7. The difference between success and failure is just a decision to keep trying.

8. If you market like a “person” you have a better chance of getting people to buy.

9. Just because all your competitors are doing it doesn’t mean you should too.

10.You don’t have to build rapport to build trust.  Chit-chat is overrated.

11. Pretending like you never make mistakes doesn’t make it so.

12. Working smarter is a result of hard work; not a replacement for it.

13. Your big moment usually comes before you’re ready for it.

14. “Apologies” and “Thank You’s” are the best way to create a conversation on your terms.

15. You have to give a lot to get a lot.

16. Spend less time networking and handing out business cards. Be amazing.  People will find you.

17. Once you provide the answer people stop listening. Leave clues instead.

18. There is no easy way out for big problems; but there is always a way out.

19.Negativity isn’t reality.  Not for you.  Not for your critics.

20. You don’t need permission to start marketing to a prospect.

21. Being “professional” is key to getting prospects to want to do business with you.

22. Working smart will get you more applause.  Working hard will get more done in the long run.

23. Sometimes bad things happen to good people with great strategies.

24. Just because it hasn’t worked out already doesn’t mean that it won’t ever.

25. Anything that is easy to do isn’t going to lead to success.

26. Ironically, the quickest way to become an experts is to defy industry experts.

27. The number of people who believe in you doesn’t correlate to your chances of success.

28. Being the smartest person in the room doesn’t necessarily make you rich or wise.

29. You don’t have to be “up for the job” to finish the job.

30. If you haven’t failed a lot, you probably aren’t going to win a lot.

31. Experience is what you get just after you need it.

From Business Insider