(The irony of this post is not lost on me)

When in the starting up phase of a business you receive a lot of advice from other well intentioned business owners, family, friends, consultants, plumbers, pastors, mailmen, barbers, etc. It seems like everyone and their dog has advice for you, the aspiring entrepreneur. While it’s easy to disregard advice from non business people, you automatically assume that people who are in business or business consulting must know what’s better for your business than you do. That is simply not true.

No one is going to care about your business more than you do. Sure, people can give you advice. Take it as only that though, Advice. Listen to it, digest it, process it, check your gut on it, and then make your decision. Don’t be scared to not follow people’s advice too. If they get offended they were not well intentioned in the first place.

One of the hardest decisions I’ve been part of over the years was against the advice of a very smart business person. They completely disagreed with the decision we made. It turned out, and admittedly by the advisor, that it was the best decision we could have ever made.