Elon Musk has made some serious business achievements like building the first successful electric car company called Tesla, changing how the world pays with PayPal and launching commercial viable rockets with a private space company called Space X.
Surely, someone like Elon, who has been called a business genius and compared to Steve Jobs, would have some entrepreneurial insight to share that would be highly valuable to an MSP business!
In fact, by watching his interviews I was able uncover three specific business traits that MSPs can learn from.
Read, Read, Read
If you have any doubts about Elon’s commitment to reading then you simply have not watched any of his interviews. His mom comments in one documentary that Elon read every day and eventually read so many books that he had nothing left to read except an encyclopedia. When someone asked him how he learned enough about advanced rocketry to start a space exploration firm, he replied that he read some books.
If you think that a fancy college had more to do with polishing off Elon to become a business success then you would be wrong as he left Stanford early to start his first business venture with Zip2.
The take away here is that if you want to leap frog the MSP business competition then you better start reading more books like Elon. One tip that he admitted to in one interview is that he reads books on his iPhone.
Don’t Tolerate a Lack of Enthusiasm
In another documentary, there is a segment where Elon is shown working at Tesla discussing some human resource issues with his executive team. In this scene, he gets very passionate talking about the type of person that should work at Tesla and he clearly says that is anyone who is not enthusiastic about working at Tesla should be terminated!
MSP Business should learn from Elon’s attitude about setting high standards and not tolerating employees that don’t share his passion and enthusiasm for his vision. In the same way, IT providers should purge their ranks of any disbelievers!
Go ‘All-In’
During the dark days when several of his initiatives had fallen on dark times Elon searched for investors but alas it was during The Great Recession and no one stepped up. Therefore, Elon had to invest his entire personal fortune to save Tesla and Space X. He explains in the documentary that he could have retired and bought a private island with his wealth. However, he really believed in what he was doing and wanted to change the world with electric cards and eventually go to Mars. Therefore, he put everything on the line as he went ‘all-in’ to saved his companies.
Once again, we see that Elon always has the right instinct when it comes to making major decision that will affect the ultimate success of his businesses. In this case he follows in the footsteps of many entrepreneurs that never tasted true success until they demonstrated their belief by going ‘al-in’. MSPs should mimic this instinct to ensure their business success by going ‘all-in’ with all their personal resources!
Fin
As it turns out there are three amazing business traits that Elon Musk mastered that every MSP Business should seek to learn like become an avaricious reader, not tolerating mediocrity in their ranks and going ‘all-in’ with their resources. If IT companies can model these characteristics in their businesses then perhaps they can become massively profitable and have enough cash to buy a ticket on Space X first mission to Mars!
