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When evaluating successful home businesses, there are certain things they all have in common – things that you could say were essential to their success. In fact, without these things a home business is sure to fail. It does not matter what type of home business you have or how successful you want to be, you need to know these keys to home business success in order for your home business to thrive.  

Market Research

If you want to run a successful home business, you are going to need to research your market before you get started. Without proper market research, your home business may be doomed from the start. For example, say you want to start a dog washing business and you want to charge thirty dollars for each dog you bathe. You figure you can bathe about seven dogs a day and since you have very little overhead, your business should be profitable almost instantly. Unfortunately, when you start to advertise and you open up for business, you do not get a single call. What went wrong?

If you would have done your market research, you would have found out that there are five other dog washing businesses in your town. Not only do these businesses already have relationships with the local dog owners, they charge between fifteen to twenty dollars for their services. So not only are you the new kid on the block, you are the one charging the most for the services you are offering. With the right amount of market research, this costly mistake could have been avoided. 

Do not make the same mistake made in our imaginary scenario. Perform market research and know exactly what you are getting into before you jump in. 

Proper Planning 

Every successful business, whether it is a home business or a brick-and-mortar business, needs a substantial amount of planning. Because of this, it is essential that every home business has a detailed business plan written. You can write the business plan yourself or you can hire a professional business writer to perform the work, but make sure the business plan is in black and white and is updated as needed. After all, as a home business grows and changes, the business plan will need to grow and change along with it. 

Great Advertising 

Every successful home business invests in good advertising. Without advertising, no one is going to know about your business. However, bad advertising can be just as detrimental to a home business as no advertising can be. If the advertising you produce for your home business does not reflect the quality your home business offers, why would potential customers trust you to provide them with quality products or services? Your advertising speaks volumes about your home business, so make sure it is done properly and professionally. 

Self Discipline 

All successful home business owners are self disciplined. Without self discipline, you might find it tempting to sleep in until noon everyday or let mundane paperwork slide. Your home business is as real as any storefront business and it must be run as such. Because of this, self discipline is a characteristic that all successful home business owners must possess.  

Organization

Every successful home business has a certain amount of organization involved. The paperwork and files must be organized, the bookkeeping must be organized and the home office itself must be organized. Without organization, things will fall through the cracks and mistakes will happen. To ensure that your home business is as successful as possible, make sure you have an effective system of organization in place.

Remember, a home business is like a baby. It needs to be nurtured and cared for in order to grow. By practicing these keys to home business success, you will be well on your way to operating a lucrative and successful home-based business.

The 5 forgotten laws of true success   (by Jason Oman:   #1 best-selling author of:   “Conversations with Millionaires  -  what Millionaires do to get rich, That you never learned about in school!”)

#1: The Law of Growth  :  I’m going to start here by talking about why most success students never get the ball rolling in the ‘making money’ department.You see, most success students I’ve come in contact with are trying to :  > Make $1,000,000 (one MILLION!) before they’ve ever made $100,000.  > Make $100,000 before ever making $10,000.  > Make $10,000 before ever making $1,000!Does this sound familiar?Once you really look at this concept you can easily see that this goes 100%against the very Laws of Nature!

#2: The Law of Concentration  :   ‘Success Junkies’ are all scattered. They’re trying to start 3 businesses at one time and not making more tha n two dimes in any of them.  As a beginning entrepreneur you can’t succeed trying to build two businesses or income streams at once. If Michael Jordan couldn’t succeed at two sports what makes you think you can work a full time job and build two businesses from scratch when you’re just starting out?

Why do we all try to make this so damn hard on ourselves?  It makes no sense. Many people are getting taught a philosophy that leads you all over the place. You must concentrate on ONE idea and follow through to completion.

“Success is commitment to completion.”

“Success is commitment to completion.”

#3: The Law of Directed Thought  :   We’re all being taught to ‘think and grow rich’. But, who is telling us the stepby- step formula for doing it?  Our thoughts are all over the place. There’s no aim. No direction. No target.  And I’m not just talking about goal setting.  We know we have to ‘think wealthy’, but can you tell me how to do it?  Most people can’t. If you can’t either, then listen up.  Because before I made a huge breakthrough in this area, I was lost as well.

I was only able to raise myself to successful entrepreneur once I learned how to direct my thoughts to attain a specific aim. I discovered the secrets of how the mind works and how to direct it toward helping me create Financial Victories.  If you want to go from just a student of success to finally getting some actual cash-in-your-pocket results, then you must learn how to use directed thought!  As a student of success you can probably already begin to see the importance of this.

#4:  The Law of Your Own Power  :   For too long I looked outside of myself for the power to become successful.  One day it was ‘this guru’ that had the answers, then it was ‘that guru’ and on and on.  You don’t need any gurus.  We all need to realize that WE are the ones who have the power that we need to build wealth and financial freedom!

You see, confidence comes from victories, but no one is teaching us how to get them. So, we give away our power. No. No. No.   You and I have the power.  You just need FINANCIAL VICTORIES to help build your self esteem and  skills. THEN you can keep upgrading your financial life.  The journey of a thousand steps begins with your first Financial Victory!

You have the power! Not anyone else! (They have their own power too. But, you don’t need THEIR power, you need to tap into your own power.)

#5:  The Law of Pen & Paper  :    I’m not sure why this isn’t drilled into us more. Or, why we have such a hard time allowing this concept to sink in. But, we all need to realize that…

Nothing is real until you put it on paper!

Nothing is real until you put it on paper!

You see, after researching interviews with more than 50 multi-millionaires like Tony Robbins, Robert Allen, Mark Victor Hansen and others, I can tell you that

everything they do goes down on paper.     This is a core secret of success.   It sounds simple, but magic happens when it goes to paper.

“Success Junkies’ keep ideas and thoughts inside their own heads. Before they know it the ideas are forgotten. You must realize that…

A Forgotten Idea Is a Worthless Idea!

Successful entrepreneurs put their ideas on paper.

For more success stories and idea’s visit http://parria.netsalaries.com

To be successful is most people’s main goal in life; though what that success actually means to each person is usually very different. So what does success mean to you?
Perhaps you feel that in order to be successful you need more money? Or maybe it could be that you want a family of your own? Success to you could also be that you want to go back to university and study to improve your career prospects? There are so many things that success could be and you have to realise what it is in your life that you want to achieve, in order to know how to be successful.
Achieving Success in Your Life
Now you know what success actually is, how do you go about actually achieving it? Well the answer is simple – you have to take the next logical step forward.
For example, if you feel that to be successful you need to get a better job and earn more money, you first need to understand what to do in order to make that happen. So, sit down and make a list of all of the ways that you could get a new job. Perhaps you need to create a fresh resume or maybe you do not yet have the right skills in order to get the job that you would like? Whatever it is that is stopping you, write it down.
Next you need to figure out how to overcome those obstacles. If you need to create a resume then you may need to look through various tips in order to write one properly. If the problem is a little more complicated such as you do not have the right skills, then maybe you could join a part time course near you in order to achieve those skills needed?
There is always a way around things; though the path may not always be an easy one. The problem many people have is that they just give up before they achieve their success.
It is thought that most people throughout the world are not living the most successful life that they could be leading. That is a shame when you think about how easy it could be once you know just what it is that you want to do. Excuses come into play all of the time yet the truth is that most of the time people are just too scared of their own success. Are you scared of your success? Does change worry you?
If change does worry you then it could potentially hold you back. In that case you will need to understand what it is that scares you and you will need to confront it if you do want to make a success of your life. In fact, if you do manage to conquer your fear then that in itself is a success.
Overall being a success could mean a whole range of things to many different people. It all depends upon your own personal preferences what a successful life is for you. You just need to understand what it is that you want in life and write down your life goals. That way you will know exactly what success means to you and you will also have a clearer idea of how to achieve it.

I think I finally figured out the secret to success. It came to me as an epiphany one night as I was driving home from work. Frankly, it was so simple and obvious, I can’t believe it took me years to figure it out. It came to me as I was thinking about some of the key people I’ve met over the years in the Information Technology field, and I found their attributes were essentially no different than other successful businessmen I’ve met. I guess we should begin by asking ourselves what we consider to be a “success.” To me, this is not just making a comfortable living. Instead, I’m talking about those people who dominate an industry or company, primarily through their personalities. I do not wish to portray this concept of success in a cynical light, but rather as a realistic perspective of the captains of industry.

In order to become a success in any industry or business, I have discovered it is not necessary to produce a good work product, nor do you have to be conscientious about your craft. No, it’s much simpler than that; you just have to be an ass****. And I say this with the utmost sincerity. All of the “movers and shakers” I have met over the years, particularly in the I.T. industry, fall into this category and you would be hard pressed to find anyone that doesn’t possess these simple attributes as described herein.

First, you have to find a cause for you to pitch. It really doesn’t matter what it is, just something you are comfortable with, and something that appeals to the masses, particularly if it relates to a human weakness such as greed, violence or sex. Or it might be that you have invented a new mousetrap. In this event, you need to portray it as “state of the art.” Either way, you want to go well beyond simply peddling your offering, you want it to dominate market share.

Next, you have to cultivate a certain physical image, something that distinguishes you, usually by not conforming to current standards. This could be something as simple as a new hair style, facial hair, clothes, hats, jewelry, etc. The more outlandish, the better as you will inevitably be falsely mistaken for a genius and it becomes your unique logo which people remember. For example, I remember one guy who loved to wear a cape. You may not remember exactly what he said, but you remembered him because of that stupid cape.

Next, you have to master the art of communications as well as miscommunications. Very important: you do not have to be right in your message, just entertaining. This means you can be loud, obnoxious, even insulting in order to get noticed. And the more verbose your vocabulary is, the better, as people will misunderstand what you say yet regard you as a genius. This means you always try to speak above your audience, and most definitely not at their level. By doing so, you are endeavoring to dominate your audience through intimidation. You must also be a master politician as you have to be acutely aware of the hot buttons needed to motivate or coerce people to do what you want them to do.

This fixation on physical image and communications obviously means you realize the importance of facade as opposed to substance. It also means you understand the need to keep moving along before somebody understands what you are truly about. This requires you to be able to move politically faster than your opponents and undermine them as required. I am reminded of one CEO in the I.T. field who during the work week would make the life of everybody in the office miserable, but always made it a point to attend his church each week to be absolved of any wrong doing.

All of this highlights two points: first, morality and ethics have nothing whatsoever to do with becoming a success, and second; you must be self-centered with a huge ego. You see workers more as servants as opposed to employees. It also means your word is not your bond. In fact, honesty and integrity have absolutely nothing do with becoming a success. To illustrate, I remember when Hitler wrote that preposterous Munich Agreement for Neville Chamberlain promising he would never invade the Sudetenland: what a classic!

To be a success your behavior is perhaps best characterized as “pompous” and you enjoy a highly visible profile. I am reminded of a customer of ours in the Midwest who was developing new information systems for the business. Whereas most of the project teams quietly went about their business and delivered quality systems on-time and within budget, there was one Project Manager who never delivered anything of substance on time or within budget. But because of the nature of the projects he was working on, whereby he was applauded for his skills for putting out fires, he enjoyed much higher visibility than everyone else and was promoted more rapidly than others. In other words, he capitalized on “the squeaky wheel gets the oil” phenomenon. As an aside, we advised our client that their chief firefighter was also their chief arsonist (which never quite set well with management or the subject in question).

Successful people are certainly not afraid of stepping on toes and making enemies as they already know how to combat them. Show me someone who is successful without making any enemies and I’ll show you a fraud. If they’re not pissing someone off, they’re not doing their job. In fact, they’ve discovered employees generally work better when they’re pissed off. This sense of ruthlessness may make his confidants squirm a bit, but not to the point of creating a mutiny.

To offset their unscrupulous tactics, successful people will support high profile causes, such as charity, which is designed more to improve the person’s image as opposed to helping a worthy cause (besides, it’s a handy tax write-off). Another earmark of the successful person is his/her infatuation with toys. They have to have the most expensive car, the largest boat, or their house has to be wired with the latest technological gizmos. All of this is aimed at projecting a certain “winning” image to impress others. It’s one thing not to be apologetic for your success, quite another to flaunt it like P.T. Barnum.

Now for the big question: Do you have the strength and temerity to be a success? Just remember, you have to look at yourself in the mirror every day. Frankly, most of us do not have the intestinal fortitude for it, and quite often our moral convictions prohibit us from acting accordingly.

Please understand, I do not present this thesis to be insulting, cynical or even humorous, but to consider the subject very objectively. We certainly do not like to believe these attributes for success are valid, but are they? The idea of someone working their way from the mailroom to the boardroom in this day and age is simply a ludicrous fantasy. It requires taking some rather unscrupulous tactics in order to succeed.

But interestingly, the masses are enamored with successful people, even in the face of some of their practices. For example, on one hand we are appalled by executives who are generously rewarded with hefty bonuses even if the company is floundering, but on the other hand we envy their success.

There is only one drawback to being a success, it is very lonely as you have no true friends to confide in. In fact, you are closer to your attorneys and accountants than you are to your friends and neighbors. Nonetheless, you trust nobody but yourself. But if you have supreme confidence in yourself this may be a small price to pay.

I guess the point of all of this is that there is nothing fair in business, a message I often convey to young people entering the work force. If you want something, you are going to have to earn it, which will inevitably require you to compromise your principles.

A lot of people confuse the quirky mannerisms described herein as “entrepreneurial” or mistake them as signs of brilliance. In reality, it is nothing more than a charade. To paraphrase an old expression, “You don’t have to be a brain to be a success, just an ass****.”

Have you ever:
Â? Felt intimidated by a woman more successful than you?
Â? Turned your intimidation into a reason to avoid her?
Â? Conjured up flaws she must have to make you feel better?
Â? Decided you couldn’t tolerate her but you didn’t know why?
Â? Or, all of the above?
We don’t necessarily hate highly successful men because many of us expect men will sometimes be more successful. It feels like the world is set up that way. But when it comes to another woman who’s achieved success – watch out!
As part of a new venture, my business partner Stacey Hall and I, occasionally conduct free teleclasses introducing people to MasterMinding and showing them how it works. More importantly we show them how it can help improve their business and change their lives for the better.
After a recent introductory teleclass, I got an email from a woman who attended. I’ll call her “Debbie.” She said, she’d love to join a MasterMinding group, but wouldn’t want to be on a weekly call with one particular person. I was stunned.
The person Debbie was referring to was a woman who contributed to the conversation appropriately. There was nothing off-putting, offensive or rude in what she said. However, it was obvious she’s been quite successful.
I asked Debbie to explain. She replied, “That woman purposely made everyone else on the teleclass feel ‘bad’.” I could feel the hurt and bitterness in her words. “I’ve worked very hard in my life only to get screwed over and over again,” she continued. In Debbie’s mind, any woman doing better than her is purposefully out to make her feel bad and take advantage of her. She was extremely intimidated and put off by the other woman’s success. I felt sad for her – because her “lack mindset” and belief will surely hold her back no matter how hard she works at her business.
She clearly has challenges with her self esteem and confidence level – something MasterMinding has helped countless people overcome.
If you believe anyone successful views themselves as “better than you” – you’re putting yourself in a lower position. They didn’t do it – you did.
Additionally, it will be far more difficult for you to be successful. Why? Because deep in your mind you may believe all women who succeed only want to make others feel bad and take advantage of them. Of course, if you’re a nice person, a person of integrity, a person who cares you’d never do that. You’ve just created the scenario where you’ve blocked yourself from becoming a successful woman. Your negative beliefs about the women you connect with who are successful effectively block you from achieving success yourself.
Have you ever put down another person and the only REAL reason was because they were more successful and it made you feel uncomfortable or jealous? Doing that, even in your mind, assures you will never enjoy success.
Imagine if instead Debbie said to herself, “Y’know, it might be a little challenging at first being in a MasterMinding group with a woman more successful than me. She might live in a bigger house, or travel to enticing places and make bigger business deals. But maybe being around someone who’s achieved more than I have can help me learn and grow.”
If you decide not to feel bad about another woman’s success (which is within your control) you can enjoy a wonderful, positive connection.
Several years ago I had a MasterMinding partner who was a millionaire. She was highly successful. She was extremely supportive and gave me a tremendous amount of support, encouragement and tips. I finally asked her what she got out of MasterMinding with me. We were both equals as women, but when it came to business she was clearly in the stratosphere. She told me she saw me as a person who was highly successful in relationships. That was one facet of her life where she had challenges, needed support and she felt she could definitely benefit from me. I was floored. Never assume just because someone else makes more money that you can’t help them improve their life.
It’s empowering and fun to be part of a MasterMinding group made of a mix of people from a myriad from highly successful to just getting started. With an open mind and heart you can and will benefit from all of them. Simply be ready to accept the gifts that come when you are happy to receive and you know we’re all blessed in our own unique way. We all have good things to share.

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.

- Herman Cain

I use to think that if my world would change, then I would change.

I use to think that if my world would change, if I could just have that Mercedes Benz, house on the Lake, Slim super model figure, perfectly seed straight long blond hair, and tanned bod then I would change and I would be happy.

In fact I suffered most of my teenage years with Anorexia and bulimia because I associated being slim with being successful. That is not the case at all and if you can relate to my line of past thinking we need to change this line of thinking quickly.

I did not realize that my world was not going to change for what I had; my world wasn’t going to change until I changed.

I didn’t realize that the problem was not on the outside, but it was on the inside. I spent a large part of my life chasing after something that was make believe. I was searching of success in the next lottery ticket, in the next pound I lost, in the next partner I had. It never dawned on me that those people that are truly and authentically successful are those people that are true to themselves and to others. They know themselves and hold and adequate self image. In short they are true to themselves, they are authentic.

Now if you are anything like what I use to be like you may be clouded with so much falseness and much of that you don’t know how it got there. But hopefully by working through this book you have cleared some/if not all of those grey clouds and the crystal clear blue skies are beginning to shine through. If you are in this place then success is going to follow, I will work with the fact that you know who you are now otherwise you wouldn’t have made it this far in the book. Since you know who you are, what you stand for and your personal vision, purpose and spirit you can now build upon this and plant the seeds for a successful authentic life.

The sun went down yesterday on all of us, on the poor people, the homeless, the rich and the mega wealthy. The sun arose today on the poor, the homeless, the rich and the mega rich this morning.

So what am I trying to say? I am saying that the problems that we have and are experiencing are not only excluded for us, the rich, the poor, the mega rich and the homeless all experience problems. It is not the problems that we have aren’t only for us, we all have them. It is not what problems we have it is how we effectively deal with them that will lead us to success.

We have been given a creative faculty within our mind and within this creative faculty we have been given, free and clear – imagination and with this imagination we can learn to use it to rise above an obstacle or failure to success. We can use the tools and the resources that we have internally to rise above and to lead us to the success we desire.

So what does success mean for you? I know that success for me means something different from what you classify as success. Dr Maxwell Maltz believes that there are some key characteristics of success. These apply to all I believe regardless of how you see success.

S – Sense of direction. When we have a sense of direction we know what we are shooting for. We have a clear direction in which to guide our mind and steer our thoughts to a useful and productive goal.

U – Understanding. When we understand ourselves and our lives truthfully it places us apart from the crowd. It places us on our own path, and isn’t that what living is all about? Being on our own path, learning about life how things work, understanding people and most importantly understanding ourselves as people, what makes us unique, our strengths, and our abilities, our talent and our minds.

C- Courage. Courage comes from faith. I believe faith and courage go hand in hand. You see when you are working toward a goal there are times when you must be courageous and dive deep into the depths of the water, into the unknown. When you go down under the water, you loose site of the shore, but you don’t panic, you have faith that you will find your way up to the surface and will safely swim to shore. That is why courage and faith are perpetual. Courage comes from conviction in what you are doing also. You must have an inner firm belief that what you are doing is right for you, if you don’t you may just find out when it comes time to be courageous that it is not a goal that is well believed.

Compassion – for you and for others is critical. Have you heard of that age old saying be hard on the task but soft on the person. Live by this motto and realize we judge others far to harshly for their actions and we are far to kind on ourselves because we judge ourselves for our motives. Realize that people do the best that they can at the time with the knowledge and information they have.

Esteem – You need a certain level of inner esteem to reach your goals. This esteem is what you will draw upon when you are discouraged or put down. Keep adding to your reserve bank of esteem.

Self acceptance – You must accept yourself for your uniqueness, your shortcomings and everything in between, give yourself a break from personal torture and past mistakes. You are not your mistakes, yes you may have made some past mistakes but you are not them and they are not you. You are a child of God, you must accept yourself for who you are right now as a person, and never accept any nasty comment from anyone.

Self confidence – Believe in yourself, believe you will do it, and you will do it. Our confidence usually comes with practice, and practice comes with repetition, and repetition comes with remembering our past successes that we have had. We carry out new endeavors when we know we have succeeded in the past because we can build on these. It doesn’t matter if you fail, pick yourself up, brush yourself of learn and move on.

Success is what we all aim for in our lives but sometimes it is too general and we need to be more specific.

In the space below mind map or brainstorm what success means for you?

Does it mean a loving kind caring and compatible partner who enjoys reading similar books, or does it mean giving your time and energy to a local charity once a month?

What ever it is, dare to dream, and dream big.

If we all watched and applied the principals of The Secret why do we not have those stashes of cash, 100 foot yachts, and sprawling mansions? If you watched or read The Secret and had the slightest hint that there just might be something missing . . . you are 100% correct. This type of metaphysical manifestation is an absolutely great start and while it certainly does carry all the exciting energy to make it a very profitable publication it lacks a lot of important information and details.

Manifestation is deeply rooted in our soul’s evolution which is subject to universal law and karma not only form this life but others as well, as well as inherited karma. We will save the inherited karma lesson for another article. First, it is important to realize we that all come into this world to learn certain lesions. One of the keys to manifesting is to know and understand your karma and dharma.

Karma is the universes balancing that you experience within this life. Dharma is your soul’s purpose of experience in this life which is in balance with your soul but unlike karma not necessarily in balance with this life, it is in balance with all your souls experience, evolution, and growth. An example of dharma is how people feel they are often treated unfairly throughout their lives and still others claim incredible luck.  

Knowing and understanding your karma and dharma can help it work for you. For example, if you find yourself constantly financially challenged even when you do everything right, chances are this is an indication of a karmic or dharma challenge which you are meant to face in this life. By investigating what your other challenges are you can over come the previous and in a way cancel them out.  

What others may think of as a blessing may not be a blessing at all. How many smart, beautiful women are single without the love of their life because they intimidate most men in some way? It is amazing how many wonderful caring people give so much to others that they neglect themselves and suffer. Being psychic is supposed to be a gift but let me tell you – it is far from easy to live with! So with this, rethink what you may see as gifts in yourself and others. Any of the afore mentioned, used properly, can help overcome a financial challenge in the example.

By using our karma and dharma in balance we lessen the impact of hard lessons and rather than suffering without we can rejoice in the experience of our dharma in a more balanced state within our lives now. Elevating our level of awareness and practicing non-judgment also helps us to see what it is that life is trying to teach us rather than being beat over the head with one painful experience repeated over and over in different ways because we didn’t “get it” the first, second, or one hundredth time.

Guaranteed, you have never been older than you are right now so get it right as quickly as possible and get moving on to bigger and better things as quickly as possible.  If the thought of figuring out your karma and dharma on your own is not a task you feel comfortable with doing, you are wise. Often when we look at ourselves and our lives through our own eyes we are blind to the perspectives of others and the universe with only our experiences upon which to draw our conclusion. Also, we have to remember we are looking for challenges within ourselves so we are already challenged in that area. An honest second opinion of someone who has already mastered our challenges is a great value.

Very few psychics know how to do karma and dharma reading (of course I am one that does and offer it as part of my Manifestation class that I teach). This is the quickest way to identify the balancing act most effective for your life. However, as a fair warning, this is not always an easy session as it will be focusing on your challenges first. What is important is to remember and focus on what brings balance and your empowerment for your manifesting your highest and best destiny possible which is the true secrete to living an outstanding life of fulfillment and purpose for your souls evolution on its journey home.

*For more information about this author click here.

Copyright (c) 2009 Willie Horton

You may have already my article “Strategies for Effortless Business Success” – with the emphasis on the word effortless. In this follow up article, I want to explore what I mean by success – because most “normal” people really haven’t got the first clue what the word actually means in the context of their everyday lives. Bear in mind, of course, that normal people are technically insane – their subconscious mind controls them – not the other way around.

Many people, when they first hear me say this, laugh at the notion – but, I can assure you, that it is no laughing matter, for it is the normal perspective on success that has brought the global banking system to the very brink of self-destruction. It is the normal definitions of success that has brought the auto industry to its knees, left ordinary people with unserviceable debt and made life so incredibly difficult for so many business people. So, before we go any further, let’s understand that normal definitions of success simply won’t do.

A couple of years back, I asked a large gathering at a Chamber of Commerce business breakfast, if they thought that making abnormal financial gains and achieving abnormal business growth would be a good definition of success. Considering many people to have achieved that level of “success”, many of the participants made the point that that kind of “success” often comes at a high price – whether it be family life, personal life or even health, many people “gain the whole world” and “lose their own soul”.

Unfortunately, normal definitions of success are both comparative and competitive. Businesses compare themselves to the competition. There was a time when large accountancy practices measured their success by comparing their employee numbers against those of their competitors – to the point that one such firm employed extra gardeners to put them into first place on what was a completely mis-constructed league table. Life assurance companies construct their version of success based on the amount of new business growth – regardless of whether their new business was profitable or not (or even sensible or not). And banks measure their relative success on the “size of their balance sheet” – like bold boys going around shouting that “mine is bigger than yours”!

We all know where comparative and competitive definitions of success get us. What appears to be common sense has actually turned out to be complete nonsense. For your business, you need to know what success means for you (just as you need to know what your version of personal success is). Can I be so bold as to suggest a framework definition of real business success?

“We excel at what we do – and we do it effortlessly. Each customer is valued as if they were the only one (because we simply never know who will be the most important customer to us in the long run). We get very well rewarded and make the kind of margins that others envy. We don’t regard what we do as work – it’s both fun and it allows us plenty of “work/life” balance. The team is more like family – there are no hidden agendas, everyone’s open – we hold back on nothing. We’re constantly open to change and the next big opportunity.”

Perhaps, you think that’s an ideal and that an ideal world simply does not exist. You would be wrong on both counts.

Over the years – including quite recently – I’ve worked with business teams whose outlook and ambitions closely mirror what I’ve written above. Such businesses are few and far between – which, I suppose, means that they are abnormal! But, if you don’t want to be normal in your personal life (because so-called “normal” people are technically insane!) why settle for normality in business? If psychological research proves that normal business teams are dysfunctional, why settle for a normal business team? The vast majority of businesses range from dysfunctional to mediocre – the more successful are simply a little less dysfunctional and mediocre than everyone else – why settle for that when you can achieve effortless business success?

I refer back to my first article in this series – where I gave you four simple ideas on how to create an effortlessly successful business strategy, where we talked about seeing, feeling, hearing, smelling and tasting the desired outcome. I suggest you adopt that approach. In doing so, the things you will experience as a result of your abnormal definition of success will need to be encapsulated in that desired outcome.

Successful entrepreneurs hone their character and leadership traits over time to keep reaching for new horizons and to achieve ever-shifting goals. Success, therefore, is a journey and not a destination. What are the traits that you need to work on to achieve sustainable success? 

Leaders are rarely, if ever born. Circumstances and persistence are major components in the development process of any leader. So, if your goal is to become a successful entrepreneur, focus on those qualities you need to incorporate into your make-up.  

 If you are a leader visualising to become a successful entrepreneur and business owner I have found one of the best direct sales companies. They can be found at:

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