5 Big Business Lessons You Can Learn From Jay-Z

Growing up, Jay-Z has always been the man! Ever since hearing his song 99 Problems, I loved everything about him.

However, Jay-Z is more than just a great rapper/musician. He’s a business mogul and probably one of the smartest businessmen in the world today.

Here are 5 big business lessons you can learn from Jay-Z:

1. Brand YOU

“I’m not a businessman, I’m a business man!”

I’ve heard a lot of great quotes, but this is probably one of my favorite ones all time! Jay-Z understands that all his revenues and profits would falter if his name wasn’t attached to the business.

Jay-Z successfully created an enormous brand around himself. Wherever Jay-Z chooses to go, the opportunity to make money follows him.

Lesson: Branding your business is important, but it typically doesn’t last forever. By branding yourself, you take your name with you everywhere you go.

2. Get Mentored & Be A Mentor

Jay-Z didn’t become a successful business mogul overnight. He received lots of mentoring from a lot of other great minds that helped him reach where he is today. Jay-Z was mentored by Clark Kent, Damon Dash and others who helped him tremendously.

Jay-Z knew the opportunity to speak with his mentors was rare, so he used every minute of it to soak up as much information and knowledge as he could. He put that wisdom into action and instantly saw results.

Lesson: Regardless of where you are in life, always look up to people better than you. The advice, wisdom, and information you can learn from others can take you far.

3. The Art Of Negotiation

If you can’t sell, negotiate, or close deals……business will be tough. Jay-Z grew up as a drug dealer, which taught him how to hustle and negotiate with the best of them.

When he stopped dealing drugs, he took his negotiation skills with him. These highly prized set of skills that Jay-Z possessed has helped him greatly to make big leaps in the business world.

Lesson: Business is all about sales and negotiation. You can do everything right, but still be broke if you can’t sell. Learning to negotiate and close deals is VERY important and you only get better by practicing.

4. Data Rules

“Men lie. Women lie. Numbers don’t.”

Jay-Z is one of the all time best-selling recording artists in the world. However, he still gets challenged very often by others.

HIs response is always the same. Check the data, facts, and statistics. How many records have I sold and how many have you sold? That usually shuts everyone up.

Lesson: Nobody can argue with pure statistics, data, and facts. The strongest argument is one that is concrete. Business evolves around data and numbers so use that to your advantage.

5. Focus On The Money

Jay-Z has always had a knack for making money. You give him anything, he will find a way to make you a dollar out of it. In that way, he’s very similar to me and that skill can take you very far with many people.

Jay-Z has always focused on the things that will make him money. Whether it was dealing drugs, making music, selling clothes, or any of his other business ventures, he went after the ones that were making him money.

Lesson: You’re only a business when you start making money. Making money, revenue, and profit should be one of your primary goals. If something is making you money, stay focused on that rather than looking for other ways to expand and grow.

Conclusion

As you can see, Jay-Z has a lot of experience and skill in the world of business. It’s often easy to overlook musicians, but many of them have a lot of business-savy which has helped propel their success.