This post originally appeared on Entrepreneur.com - #Growing Your Business
The social-media incubator’s manager, Adam Quinn, offers six lessons in business, success and entrepreneurship.
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From his days of playing collegiate volleyball to scaling and selling businesses, Adam Quinn has been no stranger to ridiculously hard work. As the manager of Jake Paul’s Team 10 franchise, Quinn oversees some of the biggest influencers of the game and has his hands in an incredibly valuable piece of social media real estate. From consistency to humility, Quinn shares six of his biggest lessons for rising to the top and taking your people with you.
1. Staying organized is everything.
In the business game, especially when managing influencers, organization is the ultimate difference between gaining huge brand deals and losing clients. “Organization is what helps you stay two steps ahead of everyone else,” Quinn says. Without it, you’re running between the line of efficiency and mistakes, and mistakes are hard to come back from, especially when they result from a lack of organization. Quinn’s ability to stay organized in his life and in his business management is what has given him the ability to stay on top of huge deals, massive social media numbers and a wildly influential team.
2. Loyalty rules.
“Loyalty trumps everything,” Quinn explains. Without it, you don’t have a leg to stand on. Especially in the social media and influencer space, loyalty is the singular most important piece of the pie. When managing a team of people, continued loyalty is what allows the space for people to grow and increase their followings, their brands and their lives.
Related: Malcolm Gladwell’s Advice to Entrepreneurs
3. You have to keep going.
“A lot of the time, people find themselves going somewhere positive and successful,” Quinn explains. “And they’ll take their foot off of the gas instead of hitting full throttle again and again, for years and years.” The continued decision to slam down on the gas over and over is what makes the difference between people who reach a decent point of success and the people who soar far past it. Whatever ceiling you have for yourself can be shattered, and that’s how true success is reached. “It’s all going to keep going,” Quinn says. “So, so do you.”
4. Body language is imperative.
Whether you’re working with a social media influencer or tax accountant, your body language speaks for you before you can even begin to speak for yourself. In turn, it dictates so much of your own business mindset that it can often mean the difference between a bad impression and a good one. “Humans have a tendency to judge, and in that first 10 seconds, 90 percent of that judgment is from your body language,” Quinn says. “The way people carry themselves is the most underestimated quality in today’s world.”
5. Virality does not equal success.
We live in a world and a social media space that tends to put a lot of emphasis on numbers, shares and virality. And a ton of good things that can happen when those metrics are leveraged into a business mindset alongside consistency and audience acquisition. However, reaching for virality over organic content and growth isn’t the way to go. “Virality and success are not the same thing,” Quinn says. “Success is when blood, hours, time and sweat have been poured into something. There’s a big misconception that virality is the way to go, but social media is going to move more into the direction of authenticity.”
Related: Guy Fieri Is Insanely Busy. Here’s How He Gets It All Done.
6. You don’t choose your beginnings, but you do choose your middle.
In the digital age that we live in, there are resources everywhere to help you improve yourself, better your business decisions and become the person you want to be. Regardless of how you were raised or the opportunities you feel you have been given, becoming a successful entrepreneur all comes down to building your own opportunities and leveraging the resources at everyone’s disposal. “You don’t get to choose where and how you grow up,” Quinn explains. “But make choices that can better you regardless. You can achieve anything, from any upbringing.”
Whether he’s managing chaos at the Team 10 house or focusing on his own internal hustle, Adam Quinn knows what he’s doing. With an organized mindset, a loyal team, a consistent hustle and a focus on authenticity, he’s barely made a dent in his own success.
