I'm truly grateful to have met Dyson's CEO, Jim Rowan during an exclusive event organised by Time Auction Singapore a few months ago before the lockdown.  

We discussed the future of Dyson, entrepreneurship for the Millenials and even what he'll do for the 1st 30 days if he were to start from zero again.

Note: Aside from all the influential speakers, coaches and entrepreneurs I've spoken with, I find Jim a true visionary - so you have to pay attention to this.

From this 2 hour meetup, I've learned some amazing things from Jim which I would like to share with you.

Jim first shared that the secret sauce for every company to thrive is culture. He believes that everyone in the company has to build a culture where they can speak up. Regardless of your ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, it is important for everyone to be given a chance to speak up so that everyone can learn as a team. If it's like the 1960s authoritative leadership style of managing people and the company, then it's detrimental for the company's growth.

Secondly, you want to be very careful about taking money. Sure taking free money is great but there's no such thing as a free lunch. Even though you might not expand as fast if you use your own money, it’s much safer. Because if you were to borrow money from multiple sources to build your business, you'll be in a lot of debts and it'll take a longer period of time for you to clear them.

Last but not least, the person's IQ needs to be decent. However, when it comes to building a business, you need more EQ than IQ. Jim mentioned that he encountered a highly intellectual Russian who wanted to meet him.

After looking at his qualifications, he realized that even though he had no jobs for him, he would still like to have a meet up with him.

Jim shared that this meetup was the most memorable one for him. During the meeting, the guy was awkward, nerve-wracked and he didn’t know how to respond to Jim. It’s a wasted opportunity for him considering he was fortunate enough to meet the CEO when many other people don’t have the chance to do so.

Therefore, he has shared with us that in order to measure EQ, you got to have these 2 things in place:

1) TQ : Trust Quotient

This means that you’ve to be trust-worthy or else people will not even buy or respect you and your brand. Can you imagine buying a Rolex watch but you need to service it every single month because of it's faulty mechanisms? Or even a Financial expert that claims that you can entrust your money with him but in the end, your funds have been misused by him? Trust is something that's very important especially in businesses these days. Without trust, you can lose a lot of valuable clients to your competitors and your business might go bust after that.

2) DQ: Digital Quotient

It just means that you need to be tech-savvy. Well, not to the extent of coding. But more towards Search engine optimization and even social media. Like what he has mentioned, if you do not follow the trend like how Nokia and Blackberry had, then you'll be losing out in the industry that you are in.

There you have it. The tips that Jim Rowan has shared with us during the exclusive meet-up. I hope this inspires you in your journey of building your businesses up.

Have a great week everyone!

Cheers!