As I celebrate my father’s 60th birthday today, I think about what he taught about small business success in my youth. When I was a kid my father owned a lighting manufacturing company. He manufactured light fixtures and sold them to bigger companies.

Even at a very young age I realized that there was a lot to owning a successful small business.

As a small business owner my father had a lot of roles to fill. He had to make sales calls, manage his staff, keep track of accounting, and pay the bills all while being a husband and a father.

While he had a successful small business, there are many things I learned both from his successes and his failures.

Below you’ll find 7 things I learned about small business from my father.

My hope is that you’ll take these lessons and improve your small business while also having the ideal life of a business owner.

1. Identify what you’re great at – one thing my father realized was that he was great at making sales. Once he learned he was a natural at selling, he was able to focus most of his time selling himself and his products.
2. Create a support team – now that he was focused on selling, my father had to get other great people to do everything else. Lucky for him his brothers also know the business and they supported him so he could continue growing the business.
3. Manage relationships well – his business wouldn’t have been successful if he didn’t manage relationships well. After all, it was his relationships with his employees and his customers that helped him build the business. Without them there wouldn’t be a business.
4. Always go above and beyond the call – my father would always find ways to go above and beyond the call. At times he rushed orders. Other times he gave price breaks to help the business out. He would also go out of his way to make sure that the products got to where they needed to be as fast as possible.
5. Tell customers what you’re doing for them – one thing that I noticed from my father’s business is that customers really don’t know what you do for them. All they see is the final outcome. It’s up to us as business owners to reveal what goes on behind the outcome so they can appreciate and value what we provide.
6. Always stay on top of your money – in business, if you don’t manage your money right, you could be out faster than you got in. Always be responsible for making timely payments to others while also ensuring that others are paying you on time.
7. Follow-up is the most profitable thing – my father realized that it was easier to get more sales from existing customers than getting brand-new customers. He was able to continue growing his business and become more profitable simply by following up with those relationships he formed.

While my father had his business many years ago these principles still apply to small businesses today. Are you putting all of these strategies in place in your business? If you’ve overlooked any of them in your business, today is the best day to get started.