Hearing the stories of those who have built great success, it can sometimes seem that the gene of entrepreneurialism was spliced in before birth and Rick Meekins is a shining example. While he wasn't the subject of any genetic experiments, Rick had built everything from a paper route to a dating website and had done so at a very early age. While he could be dubbed a "born entrepreneur" he wasn't always successful as he has certainly seen his fare share of failure and hardship. Over the years, Rick learned the power of offering value to others and with that as his primary focus he has been able to build extensive success in his business.
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Takeaways:
"Inspect what you expect." - Tweet This
"Look years in the future at what your business COULD be." - Tweet This
"If you leave the house without a destination all you'll get is lost." - Tweet This
"Give away your knowledge for free and charge for your expertise." - Tweet This
"Empower your team members to think for themselves and they will." - Tweet This
"Learn to serve the people who are going to be a part of your business." - Tweet This
"Make investments in people and create an interdependent relationship." - Tweet This
"Make sure that there is an exchange of value at every level in a relationship." - Tweet This
"It is to everyone's benefit to make the working experience as positive as possible." - Tweet This
Resources We Shared:
Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space by W. Chan Kim
Dealing With Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate At Every Phase of Their Evolution by Geoffrey A. Moore
Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City by Brad Feld
Connect With Rick:
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Listen To The Podcast:
Read The Transcript:
[raw]
Brian: Hello, hello and welcome to CatalystMLM. I’m Brian Swichkow and today on the show we have Rick Meekins. Rick is an advocate for small businesses and entrepreneurialism. He founded Aepiphanni Business Consulting to support their needs as they explore opportunities for transformation, growth and significance. He’s written 100s of blog posts, spoken publicly and received media attention from Fox, Small Business News, Atlanta Business, Radiox, Huffpost Live, and so many more. Rick is mission driven to help others be extraordinary at what they do and is rather just awesome in general. Thanks so much for being on.
Rick: Hey, no problem, it’s my pleasure, thanks for having me.
Brian: Yeah, so, I met you, what was it a little over a year ago now.
Rick: Yeah.
Brian: And, met through Linkedin, which that a whole nother story in it’s own right, you know. Connecting with random strangers to have hamburgers, coffee, and great conversations. Which, we’ll get to the coffee part later. But, you started as an entrepreneur, and now help entrepreneurs. So, tell me a little bit about the journey you took. You know, now being the type of person, helping the type of person you once were.
Rick: Oh yeah, sure, sure. I mean, I guess I’m one of those people that always look for opportunities. You know, I’ve always been an entrepreneur. I shouldn’t say always, but, I actually launched my first business when I was about 14 years old. I’m in highschool and, you know, I guess they invented the computer dating service, nah. But, I had a computer dating service when I was 14. But, you know, I’ve always looked for opportunities. You know, I was the guy that had the newspaper route and the law cutting business, etcetera, etcetera. That just, that really etched, independence was really etched into the way that I’ve evolved, if you will. My last venture was probably the highest risk adventure I’d gotten into. It was a full service restaurant, we served, I think we had about 200 seats, we had a banquet facility, outside catering. So, as you could imagine, I mean, we’re you know, running around in circles.