How to Succeed in Business: Tips From a Financial Entrepreneur

Anthony and I first connected through the Business Development Group at Wiss and Company. Anthony’s focus and smarts, combined with a cunning sense of flexibility, make change a rare obstacle for him.

Anthony’s honesty about the roller coaster of entrepreneurship is refreshing: Far too often leaders tune out the truth. He creates value for his customers in a space many people know little about: credit.

Ladies and gentlemen, Anthony…

David: What traits do the most successful people share?

Anthony: Every single successful person that I have encountered has a resilience that you don’t find often, they can and often do bounce back from major setbacks in life and come back stronger than ever.  Successful people also aren’t afraid to make mistakes or to try something new.  “We’ve always done it this way” is a toxic phrase.

David: What are some of the hardest truths to face up to in business?

Anthony: That you will fail.  And the greater number of times you attempt to do something, the more times you will fail.  And that’s part of business, making and learning from your mistakes and improving for next time.  The loneliness is also exhausting.  No one tells you how hard and all-consuming being at the top really is, probably because they are too busy doing it!  It’s hard to relate to friends and colleagues that don’t understand issues you are facing such as scalability or struggling to make payroll.

David: What is the most important thing you bring to clients in your work and why?

Anthony: Expertise.  In all areas of business people choose to work with those who have a mastery of their chosen field, and I’m like most entrepreneurs in that I spend every waking moment thinking about how I can improve my understanding within my industry and solve new and existing problems.

David: What are some of the biggest roadblocks you experience in delivering the best possible experience for your clients?

Anthony: Credit is rarely taught to individuals in a formal sense, and everyone from teachers to billionaires to celebrities all have one thing in common – they often don’t know anything about how to create the ideal credit profile and what can be done to improve their existing credit profile.  Ensuring that clients do their best to help the process without a solid background of how credit works makes my job that much harder.

David: What are some of your own personal development challenges? How are you working on them?

Anthony: Managing my time has been my biggest personal challenge.  How do I prioritize a list of challenges and opportunities that stretch out from here to the North Pole?  Especially when the landscape changes quickly in the business world.  And I’ve heard of this thing called work/life balance but have never seen it personally.  My solution is to kill two birds with one stone.  I’m going to start taking spin classes with my wife.  The exercise will increase my energy, reduce my stress, and increase my productivity at the office.  The class will also allow me to connect with my wife outside of the home and office — we work together which makes the work separation that much harder!

Anthony Davenport is the President and CEO of Regal Financial. You can reach out to him on Twitter or at Regal Financial’s website.

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