How to Grow Your Business: An Interview with Vincent Sharps of Mindgrub

Vincent Sharps is an inspiration to all aspiring business leaders. Growing up in a military family, Vince’s father is a Retired Air Force Officer, turned Entrepreneur then served in Martin O’Malley’s Administration. Vince learned from his father’s example to be an advocate for his community, and to this day is involved in the community and non-profits. Vince believes that if you focus on your community and helping people, business has the opportunity to manifest itself, and as a result his own life has been enriched through those interactions.Vince is currently the Vice President of Mindgrub, an innovative end-to-end digital agency. He shared with us some of his thoughts about how to make your business a success, given his diverse background as former Co-Founder & President taking a startup to successful acquisition in 2012, additionally holding roles as an EVP/CMO, and COO in his career:

1.      Find the right people. For all businesses of all sizes, the key to growth is having the right people. That means you need to hire right, train, mentor, and clear the path to enable your people to grow with your business.
To focus your efforts in hiring properly, identify a job description of what talents you need. Find someone that has those talents and then identify a path for them to succeed in your company. It’s much more important to have good people who can grow with you than to fill a position with just anyone. Once your new hire has been properly on boarded, their path should be nurtured. Keep mentoring, training, and guiding until that employee can perform the job you need perfectly.

2.      Keep up with technology. Stay one step ahead of the game. When you keep up with technology, it shows your clients that you’re dedicated to your cause and to where the market is heading. Research which technology will fit your company best. Look into going mobile, or moving into e-commerce. Don’t be afraid to try something new – new technology helps you meet your customer’s needs even better than before.

3.      Spend your time on what’s important. “Efficiency currency” is the term Vince uses to describe the process of spending your time in an efficient manner to reach your goals. If it’s important, it’s valuable. If it’s not important, then you shouldn’t be doing it. Assign values or tiers to what’s most important, and then do the one’s worth the most – these are the activities with the highest “efficiency” values. This way, you don’t have the excuse that you’ve been too busy to get to something – the real answer is that it just wasn’t important to you.

4.      Be genuine. Anything you do will be a lot easier and successful if you have a genuine interest in what you’re doing. Learn about your clients and your products. Find the commonalities that you share. Research to discover why your clients want your services, why the market wants it, and why you want to provide it. Believe in that cause, and you’ll be invested in your success.

5.      Be aware of your business. There is no better model for the future than the past. Take the time to look at your business. Notice patterns and trends, problems and successes. Take what you’ve done to chart your next path. It’s healthy to reassess weekly, or even daily, keeping your finger on the pulse of your company. If you find a problem that you’d like to correct, find one specific example of that problem that you can use as a case study. Elaborate on the problem and discover solutions for it. Most likely, when you solve that one case study, you’ll have most of the solution for the rest of the problem.

If you focus your time and energy on activities that are valuable for your business, you’ll be well on the way to success and practicing #EfficiencyCurrency.

Find more tips for success from Vince in his latest article, A “Rogue One” or Two Tips for Crushing Your BizDev Goals in 2017