I hardly ever watch T.V. The only time I do is when a show comes on that I can learn from. So the other day I stumbled across a show about Ted Turner.
In case you didn’t know, Ted Turner was the person who founded CNN, the cable news network over thirty years ago.
The show was really all about how this one individual made such a huge difference in the world. In particular he totally changed the landscape for television, especially the news reporting aspect of it as he had a vision for a 24 hour a day TV station that would just be all news all the time.
This whole idea was a rather novel one at the time, as back then you really just had your local news at 6 pm, followed by a half hour of national news on the big three networks. Then you would have some local news back on at 11 pm. That was really it, a little bit of news spread over the course of the entire day. Going to a 24 hour format was revolutionary.
The entire show was fascinating. It really showed how Ted Turner was able to be so successful at so many different things. Everything he touched took off and became a huge success. He certainly has a lot of talent, and no doubt he put in a lot of blood sweat and tears into each project. At one point in the show he said he slept at his office for 20 years in a row.
But what struck me the most was how simple his approach was to building CNN. Here is this guy trying to do something that’s never been done before, and he is taking a gigantic financial risk in doing it yet his idea to make it all work was so simple. Want to know what his plan was? His plan to build one of the greatest companies the world has ever seen?
His plan was to become “the most trusted name in news”. Wow, that sounds kind of simple doesn’t it. I mean the guy is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on something that’s never been done and his master plan involves being trustworthy? Hmm… how did that plan work out?
Well… unless you have been living under a rock for 30 some years you’ve probably heard of CNN. It was a huge success and continues to be to this day. The foundation of that success lies in the fact that people trust that network to deliver news that is accurate and unbiased.
If you are wondering why I decided to talk about Ted Turner, CNN and why getting people to trust you is important it’s because of this one simple fact. If someone can build an entirely new type of television network out of the blue, while spending hundreds of million of dollars and base it all on getting people to believe that his company was the most trustworthy, then that very principle will work for you as you build your cleaning company.
At the end of the day Ted Turner is one of brightest business minds of the last century. To give you a reference point, at one time he was worth 10 billion dollars. And if he thinks trust is important, then IT’S IMPORTANT. He built the CNN empire on trust alone.
So I’ll wrap this up by asking you to embrace this trust principle I’ve spoken of today. I try to convey this all the time to newcomers to the business because it’s so powerful. For some reason people try to be somebody they are not when starting a business. The real goal it to just be true to themselves. So let trust be the foundation that your empire is built upon, as that’s the most solid ground you can find to build on.
Thanks for the great information!