7 unbreakable laws of success that apply to any business

Steve Jobs followed the 7 unbreakable laws of success that apply to any business:

1. Follow your passions
2. Find your noble cause
3. Simplify everything
4. Unleash your creativity
5. Create "insanely great" customer experiences;
6. Become the storyteller-in-chief
7. Sell dreams, not products

This article explains how I am implementing these laws.

Follow your passions

After more than 2 decades configuring the SAP system, I discovered that I find more satisfaction in coding solutions and see them being used by others to improve their working lives. It is not a surprise that any given spare moment I am thinking of new ways to improve my existing code or else try out to code a new idea that came into my mind. I lose the sense of time when I am applying new skills, seeing it being born and turning into something beautiful. It is frustrating to get stuck, but I cannot rest until I find a way out, because I know these are the moments when I will take a quantum leap forward in my knowledge.

Find my noble cause

It is true that all businesses running SAP eventually need to move to S/4 HANA and that it has an impact on how they need to handle customer/vendor integration. It is also true that many businesses have turned a blind eye when it comes to the quality of their data. There is a huge business opportunity to offer solutions to improve data quality. Companies running their business on good data can achieve a 70% profit increase. Imagine these thousands and thousands of organisations that will struggle migrating their business partner master data into S/4 HANA. Imagine the spreadsheets that will be generated with complex macros and virtual look-up tables. Imagine the time wasted when there is no significant improvement of the quality loaded into the new system. Imagine how it breaks the moral of the people doing the groundwork, being pushed into so much pressure that they either get a nervous breakdown or simply hand in their notice. Offering a good tool to take away the complex matching of potential duplicates will save lives, and that realisation drives me forward.

Simplify everything

When it comes to building solutions, I discovered that people will not bother about the fine tuning of parameters when the default result is satisfactory. When they trust the outcome there is no need to figure out how it works. The aim is to show them a result they believe is true, which is a very difficult task. As soon as you make that breakthrough you make the user interface as simple as possible. The mantra “do not make me think” must be applied as extreme as possible, making the need to read documentation a rare occurrence. The process to get from A to Z must be logical and self-explanatory. Automate as much as possible, taking out unnecessary steps that add no real value. You will be surprised that your clients just take the shortest and fastest route to reach their destination, as they have other urgent things to focus on.

Unleash your creativity

For many years I have been trying to unleash the entrepreneurial mindset that is lurking inside of me. That triggered me to read many books about psychology and marketing and branding. You discover the true reason why people buy your products and services. Where most sellers focus on the “what” and “how”, the buying decision is always based on “why”. Even the worst designed product has a chance to outsell your beautiful and slick tool when your competition is able to tap into the emotional decision making of your prospects. It makes sense to build solutions with the “why” at the core. Understand that humans care about the quality of data, but do not like to spend much time in keeping it clean. Understand that humans like to have control on cleaning their data, but do not wish to take a lot of time and effort to learn how to do this. You find the balance between control and automation and then you have a good chance to demonstrate you understand “why” the need you to fix their problems.

Create "insanely great" customer experiences

Human contract drives the customer experience. If I ever get the chance to employ people, then I make them more important than customers and stakeholders. Focusing on employee satisfaction makes them happy to come to work or doing some extra work to help out their colleagues. Keeping the working environment clean and inspirational and productive increases the chances that they want to stay employed. Offering the highest possible service keeps them ensured that they keep their jobs. Customers will notice this instantly, as smiling faces will greet them. Customers feel that they are understood when they report problems, reassured we do the best we can to fix it as soon as possible. Why would customers ever want to move to a competitor when we do a good job. Why would customers leave when they like us?

Become a storyteller-in-chief

Telling stories is the main single thing that I learnt through my marketing studies. Making people interested in what you have to say is a powerful superpower. Offer many cliff-hangers and wait until the very last moment to reveal the punchline. Mastering this art of storytelling and people want to invite you for lectures. The more lectures you can give and grab the attention of your audience, the more chance that you can sell your products and services. Stories allow you to tap into “why” people buy from you and drives you away from the boring “what” and “how”, which you can explain during a demo at the end of your presentation or after you made the sale.

Sell dreams, not products

The hardest lesson I had to learn is that it is not about me. It is never about me. My weakness is that I am constantly shining a light of myself, when in reality people do not care. When a prospect sees the benefits in their lives by using my skills, products and services, then they even do not need to read my resume. If I am successful in selling their dream and focusing on their potential success then I get the chance to make that difference in their lives. Selling dreams is possible when all previous laws are implemented successfully.

I found my passion and a force inside of me drives me forward.

While my products and services are complex, it is easy to learn and use.

My stories tap into “why” clients need my products and services.

I understand that my clients want to be understood when there is a problem.

And it is never about me, but what I can do for someone else.

External links if you want to know more...

The original article that inspired me to write this article.

My website will explain how your company can purify your data and why I care.