A business legend who can teach entrepreneurs a thing or four...
The former head of Group Danone (water, yoghurt, and so on) died in May. His business mind was incredible, and he was well known for knowing exactly what he wanted to achieve with his business and how. See his obituary here.
An inspiration to all business owners, I think you’ll agree. And certainly a go-getter of the old school kind. The get up at four in the morning to shine his shoes kind.
So I thought I’d take a look at what I thought his life teaches entrepreneurs today…
Business lesson number one.
Never give up, even when things get scary.
The Great Depression didn’t stop him. That’s The Great Depression.
Is the Recession stopping you?
Business lesson number two.
Remain true to your values.
All he cared about was serving the best to his customers. It is for this reason that he was seen as a true business professional and leader. His core values forced him to feel that the customer was king. And he followed through on this.
Business lesson number three.
Do what you love.
He loved his product. It wasn’t work to him. If you’ve all been paying attention at the back there, you’d know that this is pretty much Gospel Bible stuff when it comes to running a business.
Business lesson number four.
Work outside your product.
He sweetened his yoghurt when this was unheard of. He added different fruits from other suppliers. In fact, this is almost the very first example of (God forbid…) open source business. He was the first to say Got an idea? Let me know…
All joking aside, if you take the four lessons and develop them to fit you, you can quite safely say that, as an entrepreneur, you are following the same business principles of a man who took a company through The Great Depression, and now has a stake in nearly every bottled water product on the planet.
Until next time, work smart.
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