Have you ever heard of the old Hebrew expression, roughly translated to ‘the wise man learns from those around him’? If so, then you’ll understand the spirit behind this post. As an entrepreneur, it’s incredibly easy to fall into rhetoric.

You may have seen a few Al Pacino speeches from inspirational movies on YouTube, or subscribe to your own #TakeNoDaysOff hashtag, or maybe now your initiative is starting to grow a little, you simply want to flex your results.

Yet this isn’t the best way to curate your professional image, nor to relate to those around you, nor to craft a sustainable enterprise. In fact, the smart entrepreneur is much more humble than this. The smart entrepreneur knows that despite his skills, one of his greatest strengths is relying on the experts around him, or those he enlists to help him move forward. To this extent, he can grow and use his own talents in their right place.

In order to better express this idea, we wish to use a few examples that we feel may help. Please, consider the following advice.

Excellent Managed Services

You cannot possibly hope to invest in the full infrastructure of your business by yourself. It’s quite commonly understood that new businesses often rely on logistics services for deliveries, for instance, because curating that set of delivery trucks, hiring drivers, and establishing a network is simply not worth the investment unless they reach a certain point in their growth. It’s also important that you take the IT services you are responsible for to heart, as they will provide you a systemic and cohesive approach to every tech issue, for instance cybersecurity. That in itself will be outsourcing a vital department via a reliable, worthwhile service. It’s not hard to see the worth to be found here.

Trusting Your Team

Trusting your team is an essential part of this process. The smart entrepreneur knows how to delegate authority. The lesser entrepreneur tries to micromanage everything, spreads themselves too thin, and has little idea of how to hire specialists for the right tasks. When you can stock yourself with the right people, handpicked based on experience, or provide a worthwhile internship program to help someone develop within your systems, you will never be at odds with your team, but allied with them.

Understanding Industry Shifts

Use the progress of other successful initiatives to better develop your own understanding of the industry you inhabit. For instance, take the Blackberry example. While they had a good hold on market share thanks to executives using their phones, the iPhone launched out of the gate with app-access and a range of smartphone features never seen before. Blackberry felt that innovation and quickly building their own platform was not a necessity, as they assumed all internet use could easily take place within the internet browsing app already available on their phones. It’s not hard to see how a willingness to truly research the industry shift may have helped them retain their relevance. Use this example to inform your own action.

With this advice, we hope you can become that smart entrepreneur, standing on the shoulders of experts.