today I’m going to talk about the seven
incredible lessons I learned from
Microsoft that saved my business so my
first business was a software company
and I was 19 years old when I was a part
of it and I was an owner in it and I was
struggling i was making three hundred
dollars a month i wasn’t able to survive
and one of the companies that i look to
that really helped save the business and
help me get through to being acquired
three years later and becoming more of a
success as an entrepreneur was microsoft
and i thought i’d share today the
several lessons that I learned from them
that helped me grow a significant
business and hopefully can help you guys
too so number one is form alliances and
this really was the biggest strategy
that that saved my business I told my
business partner I quit we weren’t
making any money we’re disagreeing on
how the company should go forward I hit
rock bottom with my company I thought I
should go back and get a job I thought I
made the biggest mistake of my life and
being in this business and that I should
go off and do something else where I
felt valued I felt like I could
contribute where I felt like if I worked
harder we get results were here I was
working hard and not getting any results
the thing that changed was I said I’m
not the first guy to try to sell
software before how did Microsoft do it
how did Bill Gates do it how did they
get started and forming alliances was
one of the key things that helped that
company grow Microsoft’s big deal came
with IBM when every IBM’s shipped had
Microsoft software on it but Microsoft
was already seven million dollar company
when that happened now seven miles is
not a huge company but it was still
seven million more than what i had when
i would start enough and where i was at
that point and how did Microsoft get to
that seven million the same strategy by
forming alliances so find people who are
already selling to your target audience
and how can you figure out a way to
partner up with them not that they have
to take ownership in your business just
a marketing alliance to go after the
same audience I did that with my company
I closed my first deal for 13 hat at 13
and a half thousand dollars and man that
felt good that may not feel like a lot
of money to you guys but to me at that
time felt like I had won the lottery and
more importantly I
way to be able to continue to grow and
reach more customers the same way so I
had a business plan I had a new recipe
for success through forming alliances
number two is have a vision the original
vision of the company was a slogan that
was a computer on every desk and in
every home and in the mid-1980s that was
still kind of a crazy thing we get a lot
of pushback from people who would either
say look there’s no way they’ll be on
every desk because people’s business
people don’t need a computer and
especially they don’t need it in the
home that’s what we took most grief for
was this idea that what a computer in
every home what would you do with it it
went in a very short period of time from
insane that everyone would have a
computer to my god of course everyone
needs to have a computer
our mission at Microsoft is to empower
every person in all every organization
on the planet to achieve more we make
things that help you make things and
make things happen so what’s always
impressed me about Microsoft is having a
big vision is having the vision when
people think you’re crazy people think
you’re stupid people tell you the same
we’re going to happen you know I want to
help a billion entrepreneurs people say
that’s impossible people say there
aren’t even a billion entrepreneurs on
the planet people may be telling you
that your vision is crazy and stupid and
not achievable not possible and if you
just hang around those people then yeah
you’re never going to realize your
vision but if you start hanging around
people who have big dreams who are
iconic who are trying to do big things
then your big dream feels like it’s more
achievable so when I had haters in my
life saying that I couldn’t do what I
was trying to do I would look to
Microsoft and I look at the big vision
that they had and say listen this is
they started from nothing to started
with you know one guy trying to build a
software company and achieve massive
success if he can do it if they can do
it I can do it too and just being
surrounded by people and companies and
ideas that are big or trying to
accomplish massive things gives me the
confidence and boldness to want to do
something big myself
number three is partnered to grow one of
the things that i love about microsoft
and how they achieve success is they
partner up with other companies to get
into new industries and then grow it so
when they were getting into expedia they
didn’t have any experience in the travel
industry before and so they partnered up
with american express and they launched
expedia.com together and it was an
alliance that lasted a couple years i
think and then american stress backed
out and now Microsoft their own Expedia
and that’s how they enter into new
industries is they they find the partner
that they can work with who understands
I’d space the best and finds a way to
work together recently acquired linkedin
they wanted to get into more the social
media side they want to integrate office
with social networking and LinkedIn was
the most obvious choice and they made
the second biggest tech acquisition in
history I think and so they wanted to
get in that space instead of just trying
to do it themselves they went out and
bought the company and so whether it’s
it’s buying a competitor or buying
somebody complement you to you or
partnering up with somebody to get into
a new market if you don’t know what
you’re doing you can figure it out a lot
faster by working with people who
already have that knowledge or I think a
lot of entrepreneurs just trying to do
everything themselves we try to figure
it all out for ourselves and we make a
ton of mistakes but we can learn from
the expertise of others to help us get
into those markets faster however you
want to structure that deal is a lot of
different ways to skin the cat so they
say but just not trying to do everything
yourself and find the right partners for
you to enter into different markets can
save you a lot of time
number four is work with influencers one
of the fastest way to grow your business
is to look at who are the influencers
who have your audience and how can you
get them on your side how can you
connect with them how can you get them
to help you spread your message when i
first started my biotech software
company one of the things that I really
focus on was getting into the media
trying to connect with the key people in
the media who I influence to my target
audience and how can I get them to tell
bike store can we do any of you together
can I profile my founder can we support
and give content to help your
publication grill can we be an expert
you know those experts that you quote
any time a story comes up Microsoft is
doing that now with us so you know I’m
part of a program where there’s a number
of us who are all part of Microsoft
influencers team you know they don’t
force me to say anything right but they
bring me out to Microsoft they show me
the new tech they’re working on honestly
until until they did that I thought
Microsoft was a boring company and they
brought me out to their offices and I
saw the cool stuff that they’re doing
and it’s interesting again and I want to
check out Microsoft products i’m curious
about what new thing is it coming down
the pipe and so the lesson is you know
if you’re trying to promote a new app or
you’re trying to get your new product
out onto the market instead of trying to
go you know one at a time door by door
try to find those influencers look at
who are the biggest people on YouTube
and Instagram and Facebook and Twitter
now who are talking about your space
right if you had a product for
entrepreneurs we want to talk to someone
like me if you had a product for the
music industry you want to talk to sort
musicians right for any category that
you’re in there are experts or our
thought leaders and if you know they
mentioned your company it would start to
take off those are the people that you
want to try to target work with
influences can be a massive way to
shortcut your path to getting market
acceptance
number five is innovate one of the
things that I respect and admire the
most about Microsoft is innovative to
keep innovating it would have been easy
to just sit on their product office and
not do anything about it and and now
they move like they’ve moved on to the
cloud even to the point we had their CEO
Satya Nadella using Apple products in
his demo so I want to first start off on
on this iphone and it’s it’s not my
phone but it is an iphone but what it’s
a pretty unique it is a pretty unique
iphone in the same thing i like to call
it the iphone pro because it’s got all
the microsoft software and applications
on it it’s got sky it’s pretty amazing a
lot of companies get lazy a lot of
entrepreneurs get leads you’ve had some
success in the past and you let that
success be the chains that hold you back
from doing more and I experiences to my
youtube channel where you know the start
I was having success with some of the
series of my channels but I lost
interest in them even though they were
being successful and so the key was to
innovate like kept doing new things kept
trying new things still on the YouTube
channel now there’s new innovations that
come out every week some of them are
bigger some of them are smaller somebody
may notice some you don’t and I testing
that try and I see what you guys like
but also what I like what makes me come
alive and too many entrepreneurs get
stuck in the rut of doing the same thing
over and over and over and over again
and even though it may make money in the
short term when it gets boring like for
any entrepreneur the same thing
repeatedly gets super boring and to
overtime if you stop investing into your
company and your products or services is
going to start to decline so you need to
constantly innovating and I believe your
company should always be reflection of
who you are what you’re into then what
you’re passionate about and bring that
to your business every day to help fuel
the growth
number six is believe I’ve always felt
that I’m not I have confidence I mean
this is one of those fascinating things
right I’ve learned which is all great
achievement is in happens only when you
have self belief and you have confidence
in yourself this is obviously an easy
one for me my channel is all about
believe I felt when I was a younger
entrepreneur though I didn’t I didn’t
fully believe in myself all the time I
was 19 years old selling software to
people three times my age who had
degrees that didn’t have and I felt like
they wouldn’t want to buy from somebody
my age in looking up to Microsoft and
Bill Gates and how we started he was
young entrepreneur and how he made
chicken Vince big companies to work with
him it gave me a little bit more
confidence and helped me realize that
really what it’s all about is providing
value if you can provide value if you
can help somebody then they don’t care
as much about how old you are what
country you’re from or all the other
things that we think that people care
about the care bill can you help them
and once I got over that I started to
believe in myself more I served the
close deals I showed the closed sales I
started to make business happen and it
was all just up in here so if you can
believe like Bill and believe like Sasha
you’re on your way to having success in
your business
and number seven is have high standards
I get energized when I see people
achieve high standards in anything at
work when somebody comes to me with an
idea that they’ve implemented and it’s
something that I’ve not seen before
that’s the thing that gets me going I
think having high standards comes when
you have a deep passion for what you’re
doing and you are proud of what you’re
putting out I want to create videos for
you guys for myself but also for my
grandkids like I want to be able to
create something that I would be proud
to show my grandkids and say look what I
did and I think a lot of people mail it
in a lot of people quit too soon a lot
of people just give a mediocre product a
lot of people only make something to the
standards that their customers have
we’re really you should be making it to
your own standards like your standard
should be higher than what your customer
standards are what the government
standards are i remember when i was in
school growing up I never got the best
grades in my family my sister has always
had straight a’s and I was getting B’s
and C’s and my parents always told me I
was a cost rlly Carmichael I can do
whatever I I wanted to and then
something funny happened and I know what
triggered the switch but in my last year
of high school I didn’t get just
straight A’s I got straight 90s and i
exceeded the expectations of my parents
my parents wanted me to be here I was
always down here and something happened
that made me go up here and that should
be the case for you like your standards
for yourself should be higher than the
Sanders your customers have of you if
you have a job it should be higher than
the standards that your boss has for you
it should be higher than the standards
that the community with the media has to
you you should have high standards and
that comes when you actually love what
you’re doing and you care deeply about
it like if I produce their copy video it
would bother me like we’ve not produced
videos on certain days we’ve held back
videos because I didn’t like it enough
I’m sure if you guys saw you say I was a
good video you should have kept it it
was quality but just bothers me that it
wasn’t to my standard that doesn’t mean
everything we put out is perfect but
we’re trying to make it better every
time and it’s important that you have
really high standards in your company so
those are the seven lessons that I
learned from Microsoft that saved my
business I’m curious what you thought of
them which one
like the best which one you think is
most relevant to you have you learned
something from a big company that’s
helped you in your business leave it in
the comments below I’m going to join in
the discussion thank you guys so much
for watching and continue to believe and
i’ll see you soon
incredible lessons I learned from
Microsoft that saved my business so my
first business was a software company
and I was 19 years old when I was a part
of it and I was an owner in it and I was
struggling i was making three hundred
dollars a month i wasn’t able to survive
and one of the companies that i look to
that really helped save the business and
help me get through to being acquired
three years later and becoming more of a
success as an entrepreneur was microsoft
and i thought i’d share today the
several lessons that I learned from them
that helped me grow a significant
business and hopefully can help you guys
too so number one is form alliances and
this really was the biggest strategy
that that saved my business I told my
business partner I quit we weren’t
making any money we’re disagreeing on
how the company should go forward I hit
rock bottom with my company I thought I
should go back and get a job I thought I
made the biggest mistake of my life and
being in this business and that I should
go off and do something else where I
felt valued I felt like I could
contribute where I felt like if I worked
harder we get results were here I was
working hard and not getting any results
the thing that changed was I said I’m
not the first guy to try to sell
software before how did Microsoft do it
how did Bill Gates do it how did they
get started and forming alliances was
one of the key things that helped that
company grow Microsoft’s big deal came
with IBM when every IBM’s shipped had
Microsoft software on it but Microsoft
was already seven million dollar company
when that happened now seven miles is
not a huge company but it was still
seven million more than what i had when
i would start enough and where i was at
that point and how did Microsoft get to
that seven million the same strategy by
forming alliances so find people who are
already selling to your target audience
and how can you figure out a way to
partner up with them not that they have
to take ownership in your business just
a marketing alliance to go after the
same audience I did that with my company
I closed my first deal for 13 hat at 13
and a half thousand dollars and man that
felt good that may not feel like a lot
of money to you guys but to me at that
time felt like I had won the lottery and
more importantly I
way to be able to continue to grow and
reach more customers the same way so I
had a business plan I had a new recipe
for success through forming alliances
number two is have a vision the original
vision of the company was a slogan that
was a computer on every desk and in
every home and in the mid-1980s that was
still kind of a crazy thing we get a lot
of pushback from people who would either
say look there’s no way they’ll be on
every desk because people’s business
people don’t need a computer and
especially they don’t need it in the
home that’s what we took most grief for
was this idea that what a computer in
every home what would you do with it it
went in a very short period of time from
insane that everyone would have a
computer to my god of course everyone
needs to have a computer
our mission at Microsoft is to empower
every person in all every organization
on the planet to achieve more we make
things that help you make things and
make things happen so what’s always
impressed me about Microsoft is having a
big vision is having the vision when
people think you’re crazy people think
you’re stupid people tell you the same
we’re going to happen you know I want to
help a billion entrepreneurs people say
that’s impossible people say there
aren’t even a billion entrepreneurs on
the planet people may be telling you
that your vision is crazy and stupid and
not achievable not possible and if you
just hang around those people then yeah
you’re never going to realize your
vision but if you start hanging around
people who have big dreams who are
iconic who are trying to do big things
then your big dream feels like it’s more
achievable so when I had haters in my
life saying that I couldn’t do what I
was trying to do I would look to
Microsoft and I look at the big vision
that they had and say listen this is
they started from nothing to started
with you know one guy trying to build a
software company and achieve massive
success if he can do it if they can do
it I can do it too and just being
surrounded by people and companies and
ideas that are big or trying to
accomplish massive things gives me the
confidence and boldness to want to do
something big myself
number three is partnered to grow one of
the things that i love about microsoft
and how they achieve success is they
partner up with other companies to get
into new industries and then grow it so
when they were getting into expedia they
didn’t have any experience in the travel
industry before and so they partnered up
with american express and they launched
expedia.com together and it was an
alliance that lasted a couple years i
think and then american stress backed
out and now Microsoft their own Expedia
and that’s how they enter into new
industries is they they find the partner
that they can work with who understands
I’d space the best and finds a way to
work together recently acquired linkedin
they wanted to get into more the social
media side they want to integrate office
with social networking and LinkedIn was
the most obvious choice and they made
the second biggest tech acquisition in
history I think and so they wanted to
get in that space instead of just trying
to do it themselves they went out and
bought the company and so whether it’s
it’s buying a competitor or buying
somebody complement you to you or
partnering up with somebody to get into
a new market if you don’t know what
you’re doing you can figure it out a lot
faster by working with people who
already have that knowledge or I think a
lot of entrepreneurs just trying to do
everything themselves we try to figure
it all out for ourselves and we make a
ton of mistakes but we can learn from
the expertise of others to help us get
into those markets faster however you
want to structure that deal is a lot of
different ways to skin the cat so they
say but just not trying to do everything
yourself and find the right partners for
you to enter into different markets can
save you a lot of time
number four is work with influencers one
of the fastest way to grow your business
is to look at who are the influencers
who have your audience and how can you
get them on your side how can you
connect with them how can you get them
to help you spread your message when i
first started my biotech software
company one of the things that I really
focus on was getting into the media
trying to connect with the key people in
the media who I influence to my target
audience and how can I get them to tell
bike store can we do any of you together
can I profile my founder can we support
and give content to help your
publication grill can we be an expert
you know those experts that you quote
any time a story comes up Microsoft is
doing that now with us so you know I’m
part of a program where there’s a number
of us who are all part of Microsoft
influencers team you know they don’t
force me to say anything right but they
bring me out to Microsoft they show me
the new tech they’re working on honestly
until until they did that I thought
Microsoft was a boring company and they
brought me out to their offices and I
saw the cool stuff that they’re doing
and it’s interesting again and I want to
check out Microsoft products i’m curious
about what new thing is it coming down
the pipe and so the lesson is you know
if you’re trying to promote a new app or
you’re trying to get your new product
out onto the market instead of trying to
go you know one at a time door by door
try to find those influencers look at
who are the biggest people on YouTube
and Instagram and Facebook and Twitter
now who are talking about your space
right if you had a product for
entrepreneurs we want to talk to someone
like me if you had a product for the
music industry you want to talk to sort
musicians right for any category that
you’re in there are experts or our
thought leaders and if you know they
mentioned your company it would start to
take off those are the people that you
want to try to target work with
influences can be a massive way to
shortcut your path to getting market
acceptance
number five is innovate one of the
things that I respect and admire the
most about Microsoft is innovative to
keep innovating it would have been easy
to just sit on their product office and
not do anything about it and and now
they move like they’ve moved on to the
cloud even to the point we had their CEO
Satya Nadella using Apple products in
his demo so I want to first start off on
on this iphone and it’s it’s not my
phone but it is an iphone but what it’s
a pretty unique it is a pretty unique
iphone in the same thing i like to call
it the iphone pro because it’s got all
the microsoft software and applications
on it it’s got sky it’s pretty amazing a
lot of companies get lazy a lot of
entrepreneurs get leads you’ve had some
success in the past and you let that
success be the chains that hold you back
from doing more and I experiences to my
youtube channel where you know the start
I was having success with some of the
series of my channels but I lost
interest in them even though they were
being successful and so the key was to
innovate like kept doing new things kept
trying new things still on the YouTube
channel now there’s new innovations that
come out every week some of them are
bigger some of them are smaller somebody
may notice some you don’t and I testing
that try and I see what you guys like
but also what I like what makes me come
alive and too many entrepreneurs get
stuck in the rut of doing the same thing
over and over and over and over again
and even though it may make money in the
short term when it gets boring like for
any entrepreneur the same thing
repeatedly gets super boring and to
overtime if you stop investing into your
company and your products or services is
going to start to decline so you need to
constantly innovating and I believe your
company should always be reflection of
who you are what you’re into then what
you’re passionate about and bring that
to your business every day to help fuel
the growth
number six is believe I’ve always felt
that I’m not I have confidence I mean
this is one of those fascinating things
right I’ve learned which is all great
achievement is in happens only when you
have self belief and you have confidence
in yourself this is obviously an easy
one for me my channel is all about
believe I felt when I was a younger
entrepreneur though I didn’t I didn’t
fully believe in myself all the time I
was 19 years old selling software to
people three times my age who had
degrees that didn’t have and I felt like
they wouldn’t want to buy from somebody
my age in looking up to Microsoft and
Bill Gates and how we started he was
young entrepreneur and how he made
chicken Vince big companies to work with
him it gave me a little bit more
confidence and helped me realize that
really what it’s all about is providing
value if you can provide value if you
can help somebody then they don’t care
as much about how old you are what
country you’re from or all the other
things that we think that people care
about the care bill can you help them
and once I got over that I started to
believe in myself more I served the
close deals I showed the closed sales I
started to make business happen and it
was all just up in here so if you can
believe like Bill and believe like Sasha
you’re on your way to having success in
your business
and number seven is have high standards
I get energized when I see people
achieve high standards in anything at
work when somebody comes to me with an
idea that they’ve implemented and it’s
something that I’ve not seen before
that’s the thing that gets me going I
think having high standards comes when
you have a deep passion for what you’re
doing and you are proud of what you’re
putting out I want to create videos for
you guys for myself but also for my
grandkids like I want to be able to
create something that I would be proud
to show my grandkids and say look what I
did and I think a lot of people mail it
in a lot of people quit too soon a lot
of people just give a mediocre product a
lot of people only make something to the
standards that their customers have
we’re really you should be making it to
your own standards like your standard
should be higher than what your customer
standards are what the government
standards are i remember when i was in
school growing up I never got the best
grades in my family my sister has always
had straight a’s and I was getting B’s
and C’s and my parents always told me I
was a cost rlly Carmichael I can do
whatever I I wanted to and then
something funny happened and I know what
triggered the switch but in my last year
of high school I didn’t get just
straight A’s I got straight 90s and i
exceeded the expectations of my parents
my parents wanted me to be here I was
always down here and something happened
that made me go up here and that should
be the case for you like your standards
for yourself should be higher than the
Sanders your customers have of you if
you have a job it should be higher than
the standards that your boss has for you
it should be higher than the standards
that the community with the media has to
you you should have high standards and
that comes when you actually love what
you’re doing and you care deeply about
it like if I produce their copy video it
would bother me like we’ve not produced
videos on certain days we’ve held back
videos because I didn’t like it enough
I’m sure if you guys saw you say I was a
good video you should have kept it it
was quality but just bothers me that it
wasn’t to my standard that doesn’t mean
everything we put out is perfect but
we’re trying to make it better every
time and it’s important that you have
really high standards in your company so
those are the seven lessons that I
learned from Microsoft that saved my
business I’m curious what you thought of
them which one
like the best which one you think is
most relevant to you have you learned
something from a big company that’s
helped you in your business leave it in
the comments below I’m going to join in
the discussion thank you guys so much
for watching and continue to believe and
i’ll see you soon
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