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The Aggie 100 entrepreneurs have each traveled their own road. Some roads have been as straight as a west Texas highway and some as twisting as a Colorado mountain pass. Either way, the leaders of these fast growing Aggie-owned or Aggie-led companies have leaned a lot from their travels. Imagine the value of those lessons. Imagine the power of sharing those lessons with our current students and fellow entrepreneurs. The Center asked this year’s Aggie 100 honorees to do just that. We asked each for that one bit of advice they would pass to a fellow entrepreneur or current student.
Their nuggets of wisdom are listed in an accompanying article. Reading them all, you’ll begin to see a few themes emerge. I decided to try to parse their words and uncover the most common themes. While some talked about business concepts, such as watching the cash or investing in income producing properties most focused on character and culture. The words of wisdom could be divided into ten themes ranging from honesty and integrity to faith, fun and quality.
Aggie Qualties Chart
The fact that these ten themes emerged is no surprise. I think most people will tell you that the most innovative product or novel service will go nowhere if the business does not operate with the right character and attitude. If there was a surprise in the numbers it was the difference between the top four and the next six. While many Aggie 100 members found strength in their faith or recognized that you must have fun along the way, the vast majority zeroed in on what I think of as character, leadership and team.
The most frequently mentioned theme was honesty and integrity followed by hard work and tenacity. Most of us understand that “honesty is the best policy” and that integrity is a difficult thing to win back once it is lost. Most of us also know how much we value honesty and integrity when we deal with others. There are very few entrepreneurial success stories that don’t include hard work, tenacity and perseverance through difficult times. New entrepreneurs who don’t recognize this fact will quickly become disillusioned with the process.
The job of a leader includes setting the goal, defining a path, providing the resources and motivating himself and the team to accomplish the goal. No wonder dreaming, vision and passion were part of the third most frequently mentioned theme. Teams want to work on something important, they want a lofty goal, they need guidance. It is up to the entrepreneur to create this environment. It is equally important for the team to see the entrepreneur’s passion for the company, its products and its customers.
"People" was fourth on the list. Advice included taking care of people and rewarding people. It included hiring the right people and trusting them to do their job. Very few home run companies are one-person operations. The right team, treated in the right manner with the right leadership is critical to success.
The last six themes included faith, fun, creativity, respect, trust and quality. Some might argue that respect and trust can be lumped in with honesty and integrity, which would make that theme even more of a number 1. While these themes were not mentioned as often, we can all probably cite examples of companies that did not reach their potential because the work environment was not trusting or fun. Maybe quality was not “job 1”. Maybe the leaders did not have a rock, like faith, to lean on. All can and do make a difference.
Examine your company and see if you are following the advice of this year’s Aggie 100. If not, ask yourself why; 100 fast growing, Aggie-led companies can’t be all wrong!
Read the Nuggets of Aggie Wisdom >
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