The Legacy of Fred Smith Fred Smith, the founder of FedEx was born into a major entrepreneurial family. His legacy and innovation have left him as a legend for entrepreneurs trying to make it in the business. There are hundreds of things that we can learn from his life but here are some ones that will help you build your business.
Keep the dream alive When you have a dream, don’t give up on it. When Fred was at Yale he wrote a paper on an overnight delivery service in the future based off of computer systems. His teacher gave him a “C” for not writing an economics paper on something that was realistic. While this was probably very discouraging, he still kept his dream alive.
Get trained Fred wasn’t afraid of getting training from the best. He went off to the Marine Corps in order to understand some of the best delivery procedures in the world. Everything he did was with that vision of an eventual overnight commercial delivery service to the world. He knew it was possible and he wasn’t going to let anyone tell him he wasn’t. When you are getting trained though, it takes patience and persistence in order to get to you end-all goal.
Continuous progression Even when Fred created FedEx created his overnight delivery service, he wasn’t all of the sudden just satisfied. He continued to progress by improving management in the company. He did hundreds of small innovations in order to keep the company on top. This sort of continuous progression can help you get ahead and stay ahead of the competition as an entrepreneur.
Motivate your team Fred was able to motivate his team by instilling loyalty through effective Human Resources managment and by developing a sense of equality with all members and levels of the company. There was more human “investment” in the company and this proved to be the kick start that got FedEx where it is today. What happened was that there were a number of strikes at UPS that opened the door for FedEx to take on the surplus of packages needing to be shipped. This meant that employees had to work almost twice as much as they were before. With the investment and loyalty that was in place due to great management strategies, FedEx grew almost overnight.
Management like military Fred learned early on when he was in the Marine Corps that there needed to be a strong unity between the noncommissioned officers and the commissioned officers. In business this meant that the lowerlevel employees needed to feel like they were part of things and that they were taken care especially when a company was trying to run a tight ship. This is exactly what Fred was trying to do because he wanted to take them to the next level of Air-ground support in order to get overnight deliveries to the masses. Whatever level of management or business you are at, make sure you apply some of these great skills that Fred had. You will be sure to see a huge amount of growth and unity. Most of all, you will see your employees take on challenges in a much more innovative way.