Mr. Barnett’s and 19 Other CEOs Thoughts on Entrepreneurship

LAKEWOOD, Colo. – In a new article by Jerry Nelson, twenty CEOs, business founders, and company leaders shared their thoughts on what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. Included were the thoughts of Mr. Jonathan Barnett, the CEO and founder of Oxi Fresh Carpet Cleaning, one of the fastest growing carpet cleaning franchise opportunities out there.

The ideas and principles shared by the business leaders vary greatly. MJ Pedone of Indra Public Relations said that, “To me, entrepreneurship means being able to take action and having the courage to commit and persevere through all of the challenges and failures.”

Another founder and CEO, Konrad Billetz of Offset Solar, said, “Entrepreneurship is the ability to recognize the bigger picture, find where there’s an opportunity to make someone’s life better, design hypotheses around these opportunities, and continually test your assumptions.” Steven Benson of Badger Maps also stated that, “An entrepreneur must be able to accept failure. . . To be a successful entrepreneur, you have to be someone who is able to risk failure at the deepest personal levels.”

Mr. Barnett, whose company has sold over 360 carpet cleaning franchises, had this to say:

“[Entrepreneurs] have to be people-oriented. Your business will die without a good team to back you up. Study management techniques, learn from great leaders, review where you’re succeeding and failing so you can help others improve. An entrepreneur has to be able to build a team that cares about their work, and to do that you have to care about how you create your team.”

That’s not all Mr. Barnett had to say about this idea. Later, he added:

“Letting go to grow – that’s a principle I believe is vital to any successful business. A leader has to learn to let go of tasks and responsibilities, to hand them off to their team and trust them to complete the tasks. A leader who doesn’t do this – a leader who micromanages and tries to control each and ever detail – is going to cripple their business.”

“That’s because when a leader micromanages, they do two things. First, they limit the company’s growth to how much he or she can do in a day. Even if you’re a workaholic who never stops – which is ultimately self-destructive – their company can only grow as much as they work. One person can never do as much as an entire team.”

“The micromanager also destroys that most valuable asset of the company: the team. By personally controlling every detail, the micromanager tells his or her employees, ‘I don’t trust you’ or ‘You’re not good enough.’ Employees start to resent this or, worse, believe it. This prevents the team from becoming what they should be – the strongest part of the business.”

“So if you’re an entrepreneur, focus on building a great team instead of personally controlling each and every detail. By doing this, you’ll be investing in the future of your company and building up people who will take care of the details. And you know what, if you do your job as a leader, these people will do a better job with the details than you could.”

Interested in Oxi Fresh’s carpet cleaning franchise opportunity, click here. Need your carpets cleaned? Click here.