 Top 9 Lessons I Learned From 300 Business Books At the time of writing this script of this video, I'm reading the biography of Elon Musk. Four weeks back, I read Robert Green's 600-page book, The Law of Human Nature. Two weeks ago, I read How to Think Like Steve Jobs. I fell in love with books at age 17. I read business books soon as I discovered I would become an entrepreneur. I prefer to spend time in the library. As a result, I have read hundreds of books over the years. These books have helped me to gain a wealth of knowledge in business building. In this video, I'll share with you 10 lessons I learned from reading over 300 books. 1. People Don't Buy What They Need In 2012, I launched an information product on the internet. To do this, I set up a Facebook ad to target a specific audience. Well, I wasted my time and money. Nobody paid attention to what I was selling. Why? Simple. They didn't want it. Months after this failure, I read a book about marketing. The author revealed that humans don't pay for what they need. I learned my lesson. And from then, I looked for what people want to buy, not what they need to buy. A good example is fruits and carbonated drinks. We need to eat more fruits. But we buy carbonated drinks more. We want Coca-Cola, but we need fruits. People won't pay for what they need. People will pay for what they want, even if they have to borrow. 2. If You Change Rose's Name, It Smells Different Shakespeare wrote, Change Rose's name, it still smells like a rose. Well, he was never an entrepreneur. Smart entrepreneurs know the flower smells different when you change the rose's name, because names do matter. People buy names. People respect brands. When I learned this, I spent more time coming up with names for all my businesses and products. Once, it took me three months to find a suitable domain name for one of our businesses. Do you think names do not matter? Then spend a day introducing yourself to people as Judas. Observe their reaction when you say your name. 3. Being the First Is Better Than Being the Best It's easy to think most successful companies have the best products. Sadly, this isn't true. Companies who create new, relevant innovations get the most financial returns at first. They gain the head start to hire smart people. They build better structures to help increase their products' success. As a result, they make much money. These companies do not create the best products. They create fresh innovations that attract people's attention. We become attracted to them and we give them our dollars. They build their businesses better with the money they make. Simple. It's best to be the first than to create the best products. 4. You Can't Build a Business You can only build people who build a business. As a fresh entrepreneur, I knew I would work with people, so I spent time reading books on human relationship and psychology. Recently, I made a slight digression. I knew small businesses work with other people and big businesses rely on other people. The bigger your business grows, the clearer it becomes that you can only do a few things. You'll have to rely on people's expertise to do the things you do not know. Knowing how to get the right people then becomes your biggest job. You can't build a great business. You can only build great people who build a great business. 5. We Don't Buy Books We pay for the cover Your brand affects your business. In the same way, your business name does. You may have the best product in the world, yet a poor brand cannot sell those products. The reason is simple. We make decisions often based on business brands. When your brand fails you, nobody trusts your product. A good brand will sell your good product. A poor brand will plummet your product sales, even if you have the best product. 6. You Can't Work 5 Days a Week Countless times I've had to change some ideas in my dream. I discover new ideas to help me improve my business. Why do I do this? Listen to this. Employees can work 5 days in a week. An entrepreneur works round the clock. If you want to truly build a successful company, you'll think it, eat it, talk it, read about it, and even dream about it. You must be immersed in what you do or you will never succeed in your business. What you do occasionally, you will soon forget. But what you give yourself to, you will succeed at it. Otherwise, why did you choose to become an entrepreneur? 7. If Your Business Can't Run Without You, You Have a Job Not a Business Read Michael Gerber's E-Myth Revisited to learn more about this. While it's important to love your business, you don't have to be there all the time for it to work. Your responsibility as an entrepreneur isn't to be involved in the day-to-day running of your business. If your business needs you before it operates, then you won't have the time to think, read, or strategize for the future. Someone will soon take your place. 8. Who You Are Is What Your Business Becomes Businesses are like children. Just as children inherit trades from their parents, businesses inherit their owners' trades. For example, if you are optimistic, your company will attract optimistic people. Whenever you hire a pessimist, the environment won't be favorable for him. He would have to change or be fired. If you're a perfectionist, your staff will either be perfectionist or you won't favor them with your promotion. This is natural. You don't have to do anything to make it happen. Your team becomes you, and eventually, your business becomes you. Therefore, to improve your business, you must improve yourself. 9. If The Other Guy Knows What You Don't Know, You Have Failed Show me a consistently successful entrepreneur who doesn't learn every day. There is none. I couldn't imagine myself not being curious. I learned long ago that if I failed to learn, my competition will soon put me out of business. Bill Gates reads up to 50 books a year. Warren Buffett reads 70-80% of his working hours. Elon Musk taught himself some difficult things in life because he likes to read. If you don't know what your competition knows, you will soon be out of business. Only passionate people become successful entrepreneurs. To succeed as an entrepreneur, you must be passionate about it. Or at best, find something else you're passionate about. If you like this video, do subscribe to this channel, so you'll be notified when we publish our next video. Also, like this video or share it with your friends on social media. Thank you, we love you.