How To Succeed in Business

I'd like to ship you a free copy of my book Habits of High Performers. If you come and join the 2026 goal setting workshop, I will ship you one of these today. The link is in the notes. Please come and join me to set up the very best 2026 you could imagine. If you've set up goals in the past or New Year's resolutions and they haven't substantiated, I'm here to help you across all the key pillars of your life nail your goals. I'll see you there. Welcome to Lead On Purpose. I'm James Laughlin, former seven time world champion musician and now executive coach to global leaders and high performers. Each week I'll publish a solo cast where I'll share my top high performance habits and methodologies to supercharge your life and career. If you enjoy the show, please take a short moment to subscribe and leave a rating and review. I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time to connect today and investing in yourself. Enjoy the show.

A huge welcome back to Lead On Purpose. It's James Laughlin here. I'm so excited to connect with you and often I get people writing in questions or sending me little messages on Instagram LinkedIn around things that they're trying to think about, trying to strategize, trying to help others with. And this is a question that comes in often and I wanted to address it today. And that is, how do you succeed in business? Well, first things first, you gotta learn to fail. Nobody succeeded without failing. Go back to when you walk, you know, go back to nine months old. There's no way you just popped up and away you went perfectly. You had a few stumbles and trips and falls. Took you weeks, maybe months to start to get a bit of confidence. Years to get confident to run without scraping and falling. So you've got to learn to embrace failure. However, when it comes to business, absolute failure means the end of the business. So we want to avoid that. Micro failure. And failing fast is really important. I want to give you some stats. 1 in 5 US businesses fail in their first year. You look across many other western societies, that's no different. This is from the U.S. bureau of Labor Statistics, by the way. By year three, 38% of businesses fail. By year five, 50% and 10 years in, 65% of businesses fail. How crazy is that? 65%. So if there was a thousand businesses started today, in 10 years time, 650 of them would no longer be here. How sad. How sad. And the question is, why well, here's why. The number one reason that businesses fail, particularly in the first few years, is cash flow problems. What does that come down to? Managing money. Look, people who start businesses are often creatives, they are often visionaries. You know, think of Richard Branson. Visionaries, right? Not all visionaries have great mathematical accounting brains. I'm one for sure, right? I like to be creative and think and be entrepreneurial. But I have an accountant. I work with a lot of companies who have amazing CFOs. There's no way the founder, president or CEO would take on the responsibility of all the financial side of things. They've got a CFO to take care of that. So cash flow problems, managing money is a crucial, crucial aspect of making sure that you succeed in business. Secondly, a lack of demand for the product or service. I totally understand people getting excited about a new product, new software, new service. But unless you actually do proper research and ask the market, do you want it? Do your product market fit? Is it essential? And whatever you're providing, is it going to provide a solution to a hair on fire problem? I have an amazing client I work with, really enjoy conversations with him, and he's in the SaaS business and talks about setting up a SaaS business that whenever you're doing your research, you need to talk to your potential clients who you're creating this product for, this software and you want to ask them about these problems and you say, you know, if I can get a solution for that problem, you know, is that a hair on fire problem? Like, oh my goodness, the world is falling apart. If it's a yes, well, you get enough of those yeses. All of a sudden there, you know, there's a, there's going to be a demand for your product. You know, a product like Xero. And I don't get any royalties or endorsements from Xero for saying this, but it's an accounting software I've used for a long time and if they were to shut it down tomorrow, my hair would be on fire. And if someone stepped in and said, hey, here's an alternative, I would jump right at it. So will your business and your new products, new services, will they solve a hair on fire problem? Another reason why businesses fail is not researching the competition. So many businesses that fail, they're willfully blind. They know there's competition out there, but they don't spend time analyzing them. Look, when I go back to my world champion drummer days when I was trying to be the world's best drummer, I was constantly analyzing critiquing my competition. How are they performing? What instruments do they use? How are they tuning them? What's the structure of their, their music and the theory of what they're doing? What's the posture, you know, what's the tempo, what's the dynamic variations? No different in business. Who are your competitors? Where do they live? Who do they serve? What do they charge? What's better about their product than yours? What are they, you know, what are they doing to innovate? How are you keeping on top of that? How do they market? What's their team structure like? What's their customer service like? So when you don't research the competition, chances are it's going to out compete you and beat you. Fourth, having the wrong team members, selecting poor leaders is a huge issue. And fifth, burnout. You know, people try to go too hard, too quick. And often it's sos, Shiny Object syndrome. Starting out in business or develop a new product, you're kind of saying yes to everything. That in and of itself is such a challenge. And when I'm working with startups, my question is, what is your monomaniacal focus? And that has to be centered around what is the problem that you have the solution to Everything else should be noise. You double down on that one thing. Get doubling down on the one thing. And as always, I like to recommend books, love to read, and a great friend of mine wrote a book, co authored a book called the One Thing. His name is Jay Papazan. And it's all about getting clear on what's the most important thing that's going to turn the dial so you won't burn out if you're focused on the most important work, that way you can strike some counterbalance. So that's why businesses fail. And the reason you're listening to this episode is because the title is how to Succeed in Business. So I'm going to finish with how does one succeed in business? And I can just tell you now, not every business that I have run has been successful. And in fact, the ones that I have founded and established that weren't as successful, I learned more from that than I did from the ones that were successful. Because it's easy to be successful, it's easy when you're on top. But when you're losing or failing, that's difficult. But that's where the greatest lessons are. And so what I'm about to share with you in terms of how to succeed in business, it comes from my own experience, but also with the great companies that I get to Consult to with the great leaders that I work with, one to one, and also the professional athletes and teams that I work with. These themes that I'm going to share with you, that they appear in all of the successful organizations and teams that I've ever dealt with. So please have pen and paper ready. Please note these down and ask yourself, am I clear on these? Okay, there's only a small handful of insights I'm going to give you right now, but I want you to actually ask yourself, am I clear on each of these? There's five in total. So first one's first, have a clear vision. Have a clear vision. Be really, really clear about what your vision is. And it shouldn't be a vision for the week. You've got to have a vision that challenges you, that stretches you, that inspires you, that borderline scares you. Then you have a vision.

So have you got a clear vision? I want you to write that one down. Have I got a clear vision? If you do write it down, in fact, I'd like to go next level. Write it down, take a screenshot of it, share it with me on social media, put it up on your stories or send it to me or tag me, and it would be great. What's your vision? I want to know. The world needs to know. Secondly, have a clear plan.

It's interesting that most lenders, banks, want you to present a business plan. Scrap the business plan. Don't start that until you've got your vision. So first was the vision. Now it's have a clear plan. Okay, how are we going to execute to achieve that vision? And again, that plan should be specific. It should be time specific. It should have a team wrapped around it with roles, responsibilities, strategies. Third, if you want to succeed in business, particularly in those early years, keep your expenses low. I mean, it sounds so simple. You might hear your grandfather say it right? But keep your expenses low. Many people who I see failing in business are those who get a little bit of traction going and all of a sudden they're buying private jets and Lamborghinis and yacht trips and splashing on champagne. You know what? Some of the most successful business owners I've ever interviewed, met or coached, they wear the same pair of jeans with a very plain T shirt or a polo shirt and pretty much the same pair of shoes. They drive a nice car. Nothing crazy. They take nice holidays. Nothing crazy. Keep your expenses low. And as you grow that business and grow that revenue and that net profit, keep your lifestyle the same. Don't go crazy. You only add More stress to your plate and you will increase the chances of failing in business. Number four, here's a really crucial one. This is what I'm very passionate about. Utilize and build your network. You must do that if you want to succeed in business or in life. You've got to utilize and build your network. What, what do I mean by utilize? Well, you've got people you know, they've got people they know and they've got people around them who need things solved. If you are the solver of a problem, make sure you're letting people know what problem you solve. Don't be shy, ask for help. Be proud of your achievements. Know who you serve, know who you don't serve, and go in there and let your network know what you do. And that works when you add value. So ask yourself, how do I add more value to my network and build that network? How do you do that? Get around new people, show up, be a part of a mastermind, go to a networking event, go to a personal development or professional development event seminar. You know, my high performance leadership event, I bring in. There's usually between 80 to 100 leaders of all ages and stages from all over Australasia and they get together and they have a lot of fun, they do a lot of learning, but they create friendships for life. And those friendships are professional as well. They're helping each other. Yeah, I can help you. I'll introduce you to this person. It's amazing to watch. Absolutely amazing. Last but not least, invest in training your team members. At the end of the day, if you're not developing your team members, they're going to get stale, they're going to get bored and it's going to cost you in the end. Nobody wants to hang around a business that doesn't support their growth and wellbeing. So invest in training. I'm always just so excited to see a company go, you know what? We're going to develop and invest in our people and it's going to help, it's going to help them, it's going to help their families and in the end it does end up helping the company too. So if you want to succeed in business over the long term, you've got to invest in your people, get them the coaching, buy them the books, get keynote speakers to come in. I was recently asked to come and speak at a local governmental organization and they have what they call Culture Club. And no.

It'S not a singing, karaoke, lunchtime gig. I wouldn't be much good at that. But Culture Club was a place where they bring in a speaker, a key guest every month. And it was really cool to to see a handful of people from the organization come in and take notes and ask questions and want to grow their mindset, skillset. I mean, that speaks volumes. So if you're in a company, what does that company do to really invest in you? If you run that company or you're a senior leader, what do you do to invest in your people? What kind of mentorship, coaching, training? What have you got there for them? What does the library look like when they walk into your office? Is it full of books that they can take at their leisure? I want to continually challenge you on that. So look, thank you for connecting today and investing in your own growth and your leadership development. And to lead others, we must learn to lead ourselves. And that's never a destination. It's constant and never ending. So until next time, please get out there and lead your life on purpose.

Thanks for tuning in today and investing in your own personal leadership. Please hit that subscribe button and I'd love if you'd leave me a rating and review. I've got some amazing guests lined up for you in the coming weeks and leaders, it's that time to get out there and lead your life on purpose.