--- title: 99 business lessons learned the hard way description: 99 business lessons learned the hard way image: https://www.peerviewdata.com/hubfs/Blog_Images/shutterstock_252879541.jpg --- [![](https://www.peerviewdata.com/hs-fs/hubfs/PD%20logo_horiz_gradient.png?width=182&height=80&name=PD%20logo_horiz_gradient.png)](https://www.peerviewdata.com/) # Peerview Data Insights ## 99 business lessons learned the hard way by [Kirk Enright](https://www.peerviewdata.com/old-blog/author/kirk-enright), on Aug 27, 2015 8:30:00 AM  ![shutterstock_252879541](https://www.peerviewdata.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Blog_Images/shutterstock_252879541.jpg?width=250&name=shutterstock_252879541.jpg "shutterstock_252879541") 1. Your company is only worth what somebody will pay for it. 2. Test. Refine. Scale. Repeat. 3. Success isn't about being* best*, it’s about trying to be *better*. 4. Loyalty flows up, not down. 5. The more people cc’d on an email, the less important it is. 6. Hire for character first, passion second, and experience third. 7. The most strategic thing a company can create is a budget. 8. If the most strategic thing your company creates *isn't* a budget, you're probably in trouble. 9. [Cash flow is king](https://www.peerviewdata.com/ceo-secret-ebook). 10. *Profitability is the spoiled, over-indulged princess that everybody pays attention to when the king lets her run the kingdom.* 11. *The queen varies by industry.* 12. Customer retention is more cost-effective than customer acquisition, but it's not nearly as much fun. 13. Performance is relative. 14. Every business problem has a solution, but that doesn't mean you'll like it. 15. Be authentic, even if you're a prick. 16. If it weren’t for meetings, nothing would get done — *not because meetings are productive but because the spontaneous interactions before and after are. * 17. [Control what you can, not what you can’t.](https://www.peerviewdata.com/blog/ceo-insomnia-cure) 18. Thanks to social media, every company is one [tweet](http://www.twitter.com), [post](http://www.facebook.com) or [update](http://www.linkedin.com) away from disaster. 19. Know who's really in charge. 20. When you're an entrepreneur, your only safey net is you. 21. Everybody thinks their business is unique. 22. All businesses are more alike than they're different, despite what everybody thinks. 23. Nobody is an industry of one. Everybody competes for customers and clients. 24. *Confident* trumps *smart*, but only in the short term. 25. Everybody needs a good lawyer. 26. There's a potential rock star in every company who's being over-looked. 27. [Praise is a more effective motivator than money](https://www.peerviewdata.com/blog/wtf-a-water-bottle-will-motivate-employees-more-than-money). 28. A business plan is to success, what traffic school is to a speeding ticket. 29. 1/3 up front for new clients. 30. Your most powerful marketing tool is a satisfied customer. 31. Share insights. 32. Thanks to social media, your employees are your brand. 33. Sometimes the most obvious problems are the hardest to see. 34. Get more sleep. 35. Starting a company is easy; growing a company is hard. 36. Sometimes you have to burn bridges. 37. You become an employee the instant you take money from investors, no matter how much equity you retain. 38. Nothing is ever perfect. 39. Creativity is messy and it throws off a ton of sparks. 40. A great business model is [simple](https://www.peerviewdata.com/blog/amazons-business-model-in-one-simple-graphic); a bad business model is complicated. 41. Get it in writing. 42. There’s no such thing as work-life balance for entrepreneurs, only strategic neglect. 43. Being [data-informed is better than being data-driven](https://www.peerviewdata.com/blog/data-driven-vs-data-informed-2). 44. Pick your [business partner(s)](https://www.peerviewdata.com/about-us) wisely. 45. Everything is marketing. 46. *Everything is branding, too.* 47. If you want to improve your business, act like a SaaS company. 48. [Noboby expects the Spanish Inquisition](https://www.peerviewdata.com/blog/ceo-school-what-will-your-board-do). 49. Stop and listen to the person who says the least in a meeting. 50. Business plans are bullshit, but you still need one if you want to raise money. 51. Most angel investors will turn out to be devils. 52. If you don't care, quit. 53. Everybody gets burned out eventually.  54. Read a non-fiction book about a completely unrelated industry at least once every three years. 55. Pay your interns. 56. You can't solve a problem by ignoring it. 57. Or tabling it. 58. Every company should know it's [CLTV](http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/224153). 59. If you want to motivate your sales team, play [this clip from Glengarry Glen Ross](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVQPY4LlbJ4). 60. Be on time. 61. *What you spend on marketing* isn't nearly as important as *what you spend your marketing money on*. 62. Share your failures. 63. Doing the right thing doesn't always pay off. (Unfortunately.) 64. Forgive once. 65. The single best book on creativity is ["A Technique for Producing Ideas"](https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Technique_for_Producing_Ideas.html?id=xN0_-WoTbRgC&source=kp_cover&hl=en) by James Webb Young. It was written in 1965 and nobody has even come close to topping it. 66. [Women are underpaid](http://time.com/money/3820458/equal-pay-day-careers-biggest-wage-gap/). 67. Don't ask to be promoted, ask what you should do if you want to be promoted. 68. A contract is only as good as the lawyer who's challenging it. 69. Taxes... *ugh!* 70. Sometimes you just have to wear your [cleanest dirty shirt](http://www.forbes.com/sites/modeledbehavior/2012/11/16/the-cleanest-dirty-shirt/).  71. Content marketing takes more time and effort than anyone admits. 72. Investors travel in packs. 73. Companies rot from the bottom up. 74. Don't pivot just to pivot. 75. A good budget is shaped by the past and inspired by the future. 76. If you're not measuring, you're not marketing. 77. Not everything happens for a reason. 78. [Valuations aren't rational.](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-17/the-fuzzy-insane-math-that-s-creating-so-many-billion-dollar-tech-companies) 79. If you don't know what a "stop, start, kill" exercise is, you probably need to do one tomorrow. 80. You can manage for growth, you can manage for profitability or you can manage for value. Not all three. 81. Nothing kills a company faster than bad culture. 82. For most companies, the unofficial employee could be titled* The Emperor's New Clothes*. 83. Every founder will eventually discover ["The trough of sorrow."](http://andrewchen.co/after-the-techcrunch-bump-life-in-the-trough-of-sorrow/) 84. Get to 1000 customers any way you can. 85. HR matters. 86. 90% of revenue is momentum. (This is a metaphor, not a statistic.)  87. Nobody every tells you how important it is to be lucky. 88. Everybody is expendable under the right circumstances. 89. If you want to engage your employees, challenge them. 90. The phrase "Measure twice, cut once" applies to marketing, too. 91. A good pitch explains; a great pitch inspires. 92. *Knowing* your limitations is smart; *accepting* them is dumb. 93. Just because you can *do* a job doesn't mean you can — or need to be able to — *manage* that job; just because you can *manage* a job doesn't mean you can — or need to be able to — *do* that job. 94. You can't just reverse-engineer success. 95. If you're in marketing, you'll be a lot less confused and overwhelmed by the incredibly rapid pace of change if you subscribe to the [Marketing Technology blog](https://www.marketingtechblog.com/). 96. Debt is a tool for experts. 97. There are hundreds of metrics every business should track, but [these](https://www.peerviewdata.com/ceo-secret-ebook) are the ones that matter the most. 98. Sometimes *the hard way* is the only way. 99. ___________________ * *No. 99 is intentionally blank because there's always at least one more lesson left to learn.   _____________________________ **How can we help you?** **See *how you're doing* and *where you should be doing better* with our Strategic Management & Planning tool. ** → Request a demo: [![Demo](https://no-cache.hubspot.com/cta/default/457584/40fd1418-ebc2-4fb3-8744-76dc9934e907.png)](https://cta-redirect.hubspot.com/cta/redirect/457584/40fd1418-ebc2-4fb3-8744-76dc9934e907) → Sign up for a trial account — *$799 plus a one-time $395 set-up fee.* [![Sign Up](https://no-cache.hubspot.com/cta/default/457584/2ce98fcb-02a6-4f0a-b4d8-f940e6efc4c5.png)](https://cta-redirect.hubspot.com/cta/redirect/457584/2ce98fcb-02a6-4f0a-b4d8-f940e6efc4c5)   ![Peerview_Data_BV_20_Online](https://www.peerviewdata.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Peerview_Data_BV_20_Online.png?width=230&name=Peerview_Data_BV_20_Online.png)   _____________________________ Topics: [Money](https://www.peerviewdata.com/old-blog/topic/money) [People](https://www.peerviewdata.com/old-blog/topic/people) [Customers](https://www.peerviewdata.com/old-blog/topic/customers) [Planning & Forecasting](https://www.peerviewdata.com/old-blog/topic/planning-forecasting) [Competitive Analytics](https://www.peerviewdata.com/old-blog/topic/competitive-analytics) [KPIs](https://www.peerviewdata.com/old-blog/topic/kpis) [Business Performance](https://www.peerviewdata.com/old-blog/topic/business-performance) [Small Business](https://www.peerviewdata.com/old-blog/topic/small-business) [Business Intelligence](https://www.peerviewdata.com/old-blog/topic/business-intelligence) [Analytics](https://www.peerviewdata.com/old-blog/topic/analytics) [Data](https://www.peerviewdata.com/old-blog/topic/data) [fear](https://www.peerviewdata.com/old-blog/topic/fear) - 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