Top 8 Elon Musk Business Tips

Success, they say, leaves trails. For someone to succeed, he or she must have gone through some processes and often, you will see these people talking about your experiences. One businessman that has not hidden the fact that he followed certain processes or imbibed some rules is Elon Musk.

The CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and most recently Twitter, Elon Musk is not just known for his financial acumen and the business leadership he has exhibited to lead the aforementioned and other companies. He is also known for his vocality in giving ideas to up-and-coming entrepreneurs.

In this article, we present to you some of the top Elon Musk business tips. We hope these tips help you re-evaluate your small business operations and see ways to improve.

1. Persistence and Preparedness to Work

It is not uncommon for business owners to “sit back and let others do the work.” That doesn’t appear to be one of the items in Elon Musk’s playbook. He believes that business owners, particularly those looking to build a global brand should be ready to “put in the work,” as much as they have employees.

In some of the interview clips posted on YouTube, Elon Musk has been quoted as saying he slept a couple of times in the Tesla factory to motivate the workers. But beyond inspiring the feeling of his being there, he also does the actual work.

He encourages business owners to:

• Be prepared to work harder and add more work time. For example, he opines that someone that adds more hours to the work-life might have a considerable edge over someone that has less, simply because more hours equal more aspects of the business’ expansion to cover.
• Persistence is an important factor and must be taken as a mindset. Even after failing at some of the businesses that he started and co-founded, Elon Musk kept persisting until he did something great with the likes of SpaceX, Tesla and The Boring Company.

2. Building a Great Team Takes Time and Requires Excellent Decision-Making

Some business owners treat their businesses with kid gloves, especially when they leave the vision of the company out of the equation. Elon Musk believes that every team member or employee of a company should understand the company’s vision. That would help smoothen out any contrary opinions they may have.

However, Elon Musk also believes that people should be allowed to make their decisions. If the employees are not willing to see the company’s perspective of things and take steps to help bring the vision to life, it may be worth it to show them the door.

3. Communicate More

The statement “no man is an island” is one of the beliefs Elon Musk holds dear. He believes in continuous learning, which is why he encourages every businessperson to talk to people.

Doing this does not just help these persons break boundaries and learn new things, but also serves as a medium to boost communication patterns.

4. Contribute more to Society

No doubt, one of the major reasons for floating a business is to make profits. However, it is important that you create a social welfare program through which your company can give back to society. You can map out a certain percentage of your earning for Cooperate Social Responsibility (CSR).

Elon Musk thinks it is wise for people to make more positive contributions to society.

When you look around, you are bound to see some places where your help or input would be greatly appreciated. It could be by constructing drainage systems in poor neighborhoods, hosting community events or any other genuine gesture of goodwill.

Related: Sacrificial Giving and Its Benefits

5. Be Useful to the Society

Contributing to the society and being useful to it appear to be the same sides of the coin, but they have a thin line of difference. While the former has to do with contributing to the society more than one consumes, the latter has to do with doing the things that will make remarkable impacts in the society.

In his words, he says “do things that are useful to your fellow human beings, to the world.”

6. Life isn’t about Money

For a billionaire of Forbes’ recognition, a CEO of leading companies and a notable figure in the world, saying that “money isn’t everything” appears to be a statement that should be taken with a pinch of salt.

But Elon Musk seems to share a similar view as Bill Gates, the CEO of Microsoft. Both men have a view that money should be put to good use, to help people and push for charitable causes. That is perhaps one of the motivating factors for Bill Gates’ heavy investments in healthcare and scholarships.

For Elon Musk, investing in healthcare is not his immediate concern. He hasn’t hidden his love for Mars and continually talks about exploring that space. Mr. Musk plans on spending a huge chunk of his fortune to build something remarkable on Mars, perhaps, a new habitat for people to live in. The techprenuer once donated Telsa shares worth $1.95bn to charity.

7. Taking Risks is a Must

The business ecosystem is war-like, with many brands trying to outshine the others and knock them out of business. This tends to cause cold feet for some entrepreneurs who lack the guts to play in such systems.

For these persons, Elon Muskhas the following words for them, “everyone’s trying to optimize their ass-covering” due tothe “tremendous bias against taking risks.”

Elon Musk opines that risk-taking is an important element in running a business and should not be shied away from.

Related: How to Know If You Are Meant to Be An Entrepreneur

8. Interviewing is an Important Decision-Making Process for Hiring Employees

Elon Musk believes that getting applications for open roles in any of his companies is just the simplest part. The hardest part is getting the right candidates. For this, he believes that asking “meaty questions” during the interviewing process can make all the difference.

He has been quoted as saying the following, “Tell me the story of your life and the decisions that you made along the way and why you made them. And also tell me about some of the things you worked on and how you solved them.” This question is aimed at helping him pick the candidates that are a better fit for the job.

When asked why he does this, he says that “People that really solved the problem, they know exactly how they solved it — they know the little details.”

Related: 5 Marketing Lessons Business Owners Can Learn From Elon Musk

Final Thoughts

The best business ideas and strategies are better learned from the businesspeople that have excelled in that area. The Elon Musk business tips in this article are a few from the exhaustive list of techniques the CEO has talked about in different interviews.

The other business tips from Mr. Musk include having a vision for the business, being passionate about what you do and ignoring critics.