Words of Wisdom from 6 Business Masters

Starting and running your own business can be a challenge, and some days you may even question why you ever decided to leave the run-of-the-mill corporate world. Even if you're having a bad day at the office, there are plenty of advantages to being your own boss and a variety of people to take inspiration from.

Here are some words of wisdom from some of the best business masters, and how you can make them work for your company:

"You should never hire someone to work for you unless you would work for them in an alternate universe" - Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO, Facebook

When it comes to hiring new staff, many people look for candidates that can fill the current role well. However, the Facebook Founder believes that finding professionals that are stronger than you in certain ways will help your business flourish. Instead of being threatened by their strengths, value them and utilize them in your company.

"As an entrepreneur, you write your own future. The harder you work, the higher probability of you being successful." - Matt McCall, Founder, CrowdVest

If you don't believe in what you're doing or selling, then you won't be successful and neither will you have the willpower to get up each day and work for it. Of course, everyone has days where they question what they're doing and entrepreneurs are no different but you need to have a passion.

"Start small, think big, scale fast." - Sara Blakely, Founder, Spanx

Biting off more than you can chew is a problem that businesses of all sizes experience so focus on what you know and build on it. Blakely started with just one product, got reviews and worked on the feedback from it. This helped her decide where consumers wanted her business to go and where her time, effort, and money should be invested.

"Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming." - Richard Branson, Founder, the Virgin Group

A lot of time can be wasted dwelling on the ways you could have done better. Whether it's a pitch that didn't hit the mark, a marketing mishap or just a way you could have made a product better, you should focus your time on how to improve in future. As Branson says, business opportunities happen all the time so don't get caught up on the bad, plan for the good ones.

“Being an entrepreneur is different than starting and quickly exiting a startup. I think entrepreneurs create long-term companies and jobs.” - Chrissy Crawford Corredor, Founder and CEO, ArtStar

Being an entrepreneur means you want to be in it for the long haul. You don't want to just launch an idea and have it accepted, you want to see consumers using it, giving you feedback on it, and pushing you to develop it further.

"People will only ever change the way they do everyday tasks if it's overwhelmingly clear how it makes their lives better." - David Marcus, President, PayPal

The Golden Circle theory explains how most people will only ever adopt something once it's been established to a certain point. It's based on how some of the world's most inspirational leaders have sold their ideas to those around them. You'll need to do this in order to show consumers or other businesses why they need your product and how it will make their lives easier.