Way to Wealth

There are more than eight million millionaires in the United States today. Most of them are self-made.
They started with nothing an earned all their money within one generation. The 10 wealthiest multibillionaires
in the US all started with nothing and earned their money in a single lifetime.
Fully 80% of self-made millionaires are entrepreneurs or salespeople. Starting and building your own
business is and always has been the high road to wealth in the United States.
The good news is that the United States is today the most entrepreneurial
country in the world. Fully 70% of Americans dream
about starting their own business someday. Fully 1/12th of Americans
working today are working in a business start-up.
Entrepreneurship is natural and normal for most people. You have
within you, right now, the talents and abilities that you need to start
and build a successful business, to take complete control over
your life, and achieve financial freedom. You just need to learn
how.
If you can drive a car, you can learn to be a successful entrepreneur. As Richard Branson, founder of Virgin
Records and Virgin Airlines said, “Once you learn how to start and build a business, you can do it over
and over again. The principles are the same.”
The good news is that all business skills are learnable. You can learn any business skill you need to
achieve any business or financial goal you can set for yourself.
Once you learn a skill, you can use it over and over again. Each time you use it, you get better and better,
and as you get better you achieve the same financial goal with less time, effort and energy.
www.BrianTracy.com
Fully 80% of
self-made
millionaires are
entrepreneurs or
salespeople.
By Brian Tracy
Way to Wealth
REPORT
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To succeed in your own business, you need a range of skills. The absence of one key skill can hold you
back, or even be fatal to your dreams of business success. Fully 80% of new businesses go broke within
the first four years; 86% of current businesses are under-performing.
The Purpose of a Business
The purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer in a cost effective way. Profits are not the purpose
of a business. Profits are the result of skillful, successful, customer acquisition and customer service.
Business is quite simple. It consists of three basic activities. First, you must find or create a product or
service that people want, need and are willing to pay for. Second, you must market and sell the product
or service in sufficient quantities to cover all your costs and make a profit. Third, you must manage and
administer the people, money and business activities. Give yourself a grade on a scale of 1-10 in each of
these three areas. Wherever you are weak, that will be the source of all your problems.
If you are currently operating your own business, go to Brian Tracy University on www.BrianTracy.com
and download the Free Business Assessment with 25 questions and scales that will help you analyze
your business completely in less than 10 minutes. This assessment is free. It can change your business
life. Accurate diagnosis is half the cure.
Three Qualities of Successful Entrepreneurs
There are three qualities of successful entrepreneurs, based on studies of many thousands of them. First,
they have the courage to launch, to step out in faith, with no guarantees of success. They are willing to
face the prospect of temporary failure in the pursuit of opportunity, freedom, control and financial independence.
Second, they have the quality of optimism. They have a positive mental attitude toward themselves
and their business opportunities. They have the self-confidence to keep moving forward.
Third, entrepreneurs are persistent. They never give up. As far as they are concerned, “Failure is not an
option!”
Three Keys to a Successful Business
If you are not now in business, how do you determine what business to go into? Jim Collins, in his book
Good to Great, analyzes more than 1000 companies to determine what makes a business great. He finds
that the ideal business is one that has three qualities. First, it is something that you have a passion for. It
is a product or service that you really like and enjoy, and you want other people to experience it as well.
Second, a successful business is something in which you have the potential to be the best in your area.
You may not be the best when you start, or at the moment, but you have the potential to be the best if you
keep improving.
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The third quality of a successful business is that you are offering a product or service that is highly profitable.
If you do become the best in your field, you will make a lot of money as a result.
The way you find a product or service is first, find something that you really like believe in, care about
and want other people to use and enjoy. You must be excited about your product or service if you want
your customers to become excited about it. Second, go to a potential customer for your product or
service idea and ask him or her if they would buy it, and how much they would pay for it? This is called
“Fast, cheap, market research.” The only true test is a customer test. When you ask a customer for their
opinion, they will always tell you the truth. This can make or save you a fortune in the course of your
business career.
The three questions you ask before you introduce a new product
or service, or start a business, are these. First, is there a market
for your product or service? Is it something that is better, faster,
or cheaper, or all three, than anything else available? Never assume.
Always test your assumptions before you invest.
Second, is the market large enough? Are there enough people
to buy enough of what you sell to make it a prosperous business? Third, is the market concentrated
enough? Is it possible for you to reach your market with conventional advertising or promotional methods?
The key question in marketing is always this: “What exactly is to be sold, and to whom is it to be sold, and
how is it to be sold, and at what price, and how is it to be billed, produced, distributed and serviced?”
You can ask and answer this question over and over again throughout your business career.
Always test your
assumptions
before you invest.
Start, Build, Manage or Turn Around Any Business
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Three Ways to Increase Sales
There are only three ways to increase sales: first, you can make more individual sales. Second, you can
make larger sales per customer. Third, you can make more frequent sales to the same customer. You
must be continually thinking of ways to do all three.
Customer Satisfaction
The primary job of the entrepreneur, which determines his success, is to innovate and market. Innovation
means finding faster, better, cheaper, easier ways to serve customers. Marketing is to find better, faster,
cheaper and more efficient ways to sell your product or service to your customers. Innovation and marketing
goes on throughout your business life.
There is one primary job, goal and measure of business success. It is “Customer Satisfaction.” The entire
purpose of your business, and your success, will be determined by how well you satisfy your customers in
comparison with other people who want to satisfy the same customers.
The key measure of customer satisfaction is “repeat business.” This means that your customers come
back and buy from you again and again.
The ultimate question for customer satisfaction is this “Would you recommend us to others?” Your customer’s
answer to this question will tell you everything you need to know about the efficiency and effectiveness
of your business operations and your products or services.
Your goals in building your business are three. They are, 1) To get the customer to buy from you for the
first time. This is the major focus of your sales and marketing efforts. 2) They are to get the customer to
buy again because he or she was so satisfied with the first purchase. In reality, the second purchase is
the most important because it is proof that you delivered on the promises you made to get the first sale.
The most important is number three, that your customers bring their friends and recommend their friends,
and refer their friends to buy from you as well.
The primary purpose of marketing and advertising is to make selling unnecessary. If you have chosen
your market accurately and you have advertised effectively, people will automatically say, “That’s for me!”
The rule is that “good advertising sells.” If your advertisement is a good advertisement, it will trigger immediate
sales. If it does not trigger immediate sales, you must stop that advertising immediately and start
advertising in a different way or a different place.
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Four Strategic Marketing Principles
There are four keys to successful sales and marketing.
1 Specialization – you must specialize in a particular
customer, or market area. It must be clear to you
and to everyone who deals with you that this is your
area of specialization.
2 Differentiation – the title of the book Differentiate
or Die is quite true. To be successful in business,
you must have a competitive advantage, an area of
superiority that makes you different and better than
any of your competitors. Your competitive advantage
must be something that your customer wants,
needs, values and it willing to pay for.
This is often called your “value offering.” It is what makes you the “only supplier”
for the customers you have chosen to serve. Sometimes it is called your “area of
excellence.”
Finally, in differentiation, you need a “Unique Selling Proposition.” This is something that you
do or offer that no one else in the world can offer to your customers.
As Jack Welch of General Electric said, “If you don’t have competitive advantage, don’t
compete.” Your ability to develop a competitive advantage, a unique selling proposition, is
the key to your success in business.
3 Segmentation – this is the process of identifying your ideal customers, the customers who
will most appreciate the product or service in which you specialize, and the way in which
your product or service is superior to anyone else’s.
4 Concentration – this requires that you concentrate all of your sales, marketing and business
efforts on contacting and selling exactly those customers who can most benefit and enjoy
from what it is you do better than anyone else.
Your competitive
advantage must
be something
that your
customer wants,
needs,values
and it willing
to pay for.
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Seven Strategic Questions
There are seven strategic questions you need to ask in the process of specialization, differentiation, segmentation
and concentration. Here they are:
1 Who is my customer? Who is my ideal customer? Who is my perfect customer? You must
be absolutely clear about the age, income, education, tastes, history, background and desires
of your ideal customer before you begin a business, and especially before you begin
advertising.
2 Why does he or she buy? What need or desire does he or she have that causes him or her
to buy in the first place?
3 What value, result or reward does he or she expect when he or she buys from me? What is
my value offering to my customer?
4 What do you do better than anyone else? What is your competitive advantage? What makes
you superior to any other choice the customer can make?
5 Who or what is your competition? Not only
your direct competition, but any other use of
the same amount of money, or any other way
to satisfy the same need. You must be crystal
clear about who you are competing against if
you are going to compete successfully.
6 Why does your customer buy from your competitor?
What value does he perceive that he
receives from your competitor that he does not
receive from you? How could you counteract
this?
7 What does your customer need to be convinced
of to buy from you, rather than from
anyone else?
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Once you have answered the above questions, ask yourself, “What are the 20% of your activities
that could account for 80% of your results?” Remember, only a small number of your
decisions and actions account for most of your financial results. What are they?
Seven Key Result Areas of Selling
There are seven steps to selling more of your product or service.
1 Prospecting – this is the process of lead generation. Where are your prospects? Who are
they? How do you get to them?
2 Establishing rapport – your ability to build trust, credibility
and confidence in your prospective customer is
the key to making the sale.
3 Identifying needs accurately – this is the process of
asking focused, targeted questions to make sure that
you fully understand what your customer wants and
needs and is willing to pay for.
4 Presenting – this is where you show, teach and
explain the benefits of what you sell. You focus on
what your product “does” rather than what your
product “is.”
5 Answering objections – this is where you answer the normal and natural concerns that
prospects have about price and capability.
6 Closing the sale – you must learn how to ask for the order and tell the prospect exactly what
he or she has to do to complete the sale.
7 Getting resales and referrals – this is the “acid test” of success. Do your customers buy from
you again, and recommend you to their friends and associates? This is the key to the future.
The Law of Three says that there are three activities that account for 90% of your sales results. They are
prospecting, presenting and closing. All sales activities are essential, but prospecting, presenting and
closing are the keys. All your business problems will arise from a weakness in one of these three areas.
All sales
activities are
essential, but
prospecting,
presenting
and closing
are the keys.
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The good news is that these are all learnable skills. You can become excellent in prospecting, presenting
and closing, and you must commit yourself to excellence in these areas if you want to build a successful,
profitable business.
The Marketing Mix
There are seven parts of the marketing mix that you must continually think about and revise in the face of
fast-changing market conditions.
1 Product/Service – what exactly do you sell? What exactly does it do to improve the life or
work of your customers? Is this the right product for you, and for your market, at this time?
2 Price – how much do you charge, and how do you charge it? Could there be a better way to
price and charge for your products?
3 Promotion – these are your methods of marketing, advertising and selling. What revisions
do you need to make in your promotional activities to increase the sales of your products or
services?
4 Place – where exactly do you sell and deliver your product? Could there be a better place?
5 Packaging – this refers to the external appearance of your product or service, your business,
your way your people dress and groom, and every visual image that your customers
see or experience. 95% of the first impression that you make on your customers will be
visual, and the visual appearance can often determine whether you make the sale or not.
6 Positioning – how are you positioned in your customers mind? How do they think about you
when you are not there? What do they say about you when they think of you? What words
do you trigger in your customers mind when your name is brought up?
7 People – who are the key people in your business who deal with customers? Who are your
key salespeople? Who are your key service people? The fact is that people do not buy products
or services; they buy the people who sell those products or services. Sometimes, one
change in your key people can change your entire business.
One of the most important business skills you will ever learn is called “Zero-Based Thinking.” In zerobased
thinking, you continually ask this question, “If I were not now doing what I am doing, knowing what I
now know, would I get into it again today?”
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© Brian Tracy. All rights reserved. The contents, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form for any purpose without the written permission of Brian Tracy.
Is there any part of your business, your product, price, promotion, place, packaging, positioning or people
that, knowing what you now know, you would not start up again today, if you had to do it over?
It takes tremendous courage to admit that you have made a mistake, or that you are doing the wrong
thing based on the current market. But facts are facts. If you would not get into it again

The 5 Habits of Highly Successful Small-Business Owners

The 5 Habits of Highly Successful Small-Business Owners

By Salim Omar

Have you ever wondered what the difference is between a business that consistently grows and another that struggles just to make ends meet?   Or why a business that was started in a basement of a home can outperform some of the best-run "big" companies in sales and profits?

Two businesses, operating in the same marketing arena and selling the same products or services, can have extraordinarily different results.  How can one business continually grow and prosper, while the other struggles?  How can one business owner run a highly successful business while still spending a good portion of his or her time away from the business on trips and vacations with the family, and another owner work day and night only to see his business fail? 

Such questions have always intrigued me. In my quest to answer them, I sought input from successful business owners. I became a student of business. I read every business book I could get my hands on. I enrolled in seminars and courses across the country. I listened to audio and videotapes of some of the greatest minds in business.

What I learned has been truly transformational.  In this article, I will impart to you some of what I have learned.  For the most part, there is no such thing as a successful or unsuccessful business; there are successful or unsuccessful people, entrepreneurs who run businesses. Becoming a successful entrepreneur requires a certain self-image, a certain mindset. I like to refer to this mindset as the

"5 Habits of Highly Successful Small Business Owners."

Here they are: 

Habit #1:  Have a clear vision of their business, and commit their vision to paper  

"A man to carry on a successful business must have imagination. He must see things as in a vision, a dream of the whole thing."

Charles M Schwab, American stockbroker
 

The chances of your small business' success improve substantially if you have a clear vision of what you want your business to look like, and what you want it to accomplish for you in the future. Your vision is your dream for the future of your business and it should delineate the path you will take to turn that dream into reality. You need a crystal-clear vision, one that you can communicate clearly, with vitality and a strong sense of commitment. Everyone involved in your business must comprehend your vision and, even more important, must believe in its success as much as you do.

Setting direction and guiding the business toward reaching your vision will make it successful. Vision is the owner's business philosophy. It's his "double vision" - his ability to keep the business' long-term dream in mind while micro-managing the business on a day-to-day, hour-by-hour basis.

Successful entrepreneurs commit their vision to paper. In all my years in business, I have found that not doing so is the single most fatal error a business owner can make. There's a direct correlation between having a well-thought-out, written vision statement and the success of your business.

Your vision should be a written statement of what your business will be when it is complete. It is a detailed picture of the future - what your business will look like, act like, smell like, feel like, and how it will perform when it is fully developed. Some of the things your written vision statement should include are: (1) the line of business you are in, (2) your company size, (3) the markets it will serve - demographics and psychographics, (4) the number of employees you will have, (5) the number of locations that you will operate from, and (6) what competitive advantages will differentiate your business from your competitors'.   

Habit #2:  Put the proper systems in place 

You need systems to be able to deliver a product or service in a predicable and consistent way. All successful businesses have a "how we do it here" manual, also referred to as a "policy and procedures" manual. Standardize your procedures so that everyone knows what they are and how to do them. These procedures involve production systems for your products or services, systems to deliver those products or services, systems to track new customers or clients, systems to help you keep up with your finances, systems to hire and train new employees, and the list goes on. 

Look at the systems that operate within the McDonald's chain.  A McDonald's in the Bronx operates exactly the same way as a McDonald's in Palm Beach.  It runs just as predictably and profitably in either place. Why? Because there is absolutely no area in which procedures are not specifically spelled out through documented systems.  Every procedure is outlined so clearly that anyone can be put into the system and taught to function at an extremely efficient level in a very short time.

Documented systems can make a difference to your own time, as a business owner.  Without such systems in place, everything depends on you.  If something happened to you, even for a short period, the entire business would be thrown into chaos.  With properly documented systems of management and organization, a key employee (even you!) could leave suddenly, and the business would not suffer. You could replace the employee with minimal disruption. As new problems come up, you can adjust the systems you have in place to accommodate the needed changes. 

If you set up the right systems from the start, they help run the business. You can be free to spend your time however you wish: more personal time for yourself, more time for your family, your community, and more time to enjoy a richer, more balanced life. 

 Habit #3:  Know what they don't know and then quickly get the help to fill the void

Most small business owners don't realize that having an occupation or skill does not necessarily equate to building a successful business around it.  It takes different skills to build a business.  Let me give you an example. A personal friend of mine, John Chang worked as an engineer for 12 years before he started his own engineering firm. He was considered to be one of the best engineers in his firm before he went on to start his own engineering company. But John had never run a business before, and he did not have the knowledge and skill to operate his new company successfully, despite his engineering expertise. There is a lesson to be learned. The sooner you, the business owner, develop entrepreneurial skills, the sooner you will turn your expertise into business success!

You will need a number of different skills; financial, marketing, management, and customer fulfillment skills are among those required if you want your business to run like a finely tuned machine.

Can you imagine an athlete training for the Olympic competition without a coach?  Of course not! Nor can you develop these skills without qualified help.  A business coach will help you think in a new way, show you how to stay on track with your plans, and ultimately achieve your vision. 

Habit #4:  Have a mindset of preeminence

Preeminent (adj.):  excelling others, outstanding.

The business owner has to have the mindset to view his business as a product - not the product or service he is producing, but his whole business as the product. It's an entirely new way of thinking, and as soon as such thinking is adopted in any business, the business begins to make massive leaps forward. 

As the business owner, you have to learn how you can give your customers or clients the best possible experience; to enable others to see your business as a trusted, valued, respected, and expert advisor. This mindset can be applied to any type of business. You have the responsibility and the obligation to provide guidance and direction to your customers, and to give them the best short-term and long-term outcome. 

Many times, I have seen business owners make one simple, but momentous, mistake. Instead of "falling in love" with their customers, they fall in love with the size of the company, growth of the company, number of employees, or the market share. The way to greatness today is to transfer your ultimate passion away from products and services, and toward people!  By doing so you will begin to look at your business as a whole, and any interaction that the customers have with any parts of your business, as part of an overall experience. If you as the business owner are focused on making it the best, most rewarding, most fulfilling, most enjoyable experience for the customer or client, you will dominate everyone else in your business sector.      

A strategy of preeminence - of excelling - along with the approach of looking at your business as a whole, is truly transforming. If this is the only idea from these 5 habits that you take to heart and adapt and implement, you will see a significant improvement in your business.

Habit #5:  Work on their business, not just in it

The successful small business owner understands the real value and reward that is derived from working on the business rather then just working in the business. She understands that working on the business means viewing her business as a whole. She sees her business made up of various parts that integrate seamlessly to function as a whole.

Working on, instead of "in" the business is strategic work.  It is the way businesses transform themselves from vision into reality.  It requires asking strategic questions and then doing everything to find answers to those questions. 

Smart entrepreneurs do the necessary strategic work, and regularly ask the following questions:

What is my market share?

Who is my ideal customer?

Where is my industry headed?

Who are my competitors?

What are my competitive advantages?

What are other successful businesses in my industry doing?

How do they market their product or service?

What are other successful businesses outside my industry doing?

What is the "experience" my customers are having with my business?

What is the "experience" customers are having at my competitor's place of business?


"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning."             --Albert Einstein

Salim Omar, CPA is the author of the newly published book, Straight Talk About Small Business Success In New Jersey.

More free information can be accessed on his website http://www.OmarGroupCPA.com

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YOU CAN BECOME AN ENTREPRENEUR TODAY

Take the 7 Steps of Successful Entrepreneurship - Learn to How to Start Your Business Today!

By Brad Lauritzen

YOU CAN BECOME AN ENTREPRENEUR TODAY!

Do you realize that there are over six million self-made millionaires in the United States alone? These people obtained their wealth through two primary sources - businesses and investments. Do you want to gain more wealth in your life? Do you have what it takes to start your own business?

Starting your own business is easy if you have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish and you want to benefit others. There are some simple steps to beginning your business. They are listed below.

1. PLAN - Ask yourself what you enjoy doing and what unique skills you possess, then determine why you want to begin a business (aside from making more money) - successful business owners have a purpose beyond themselves in beginning their business.

2. SERVE OTHERS - Research the market for your product or service to measure the demand for your product or service, then design a way to be able to use your knowledge and skills to meet the need others have.

3. CLARIFY - Create a business plan including what you hope to accomplish, mission statement, financial goals, and what help you will need in beginning your business, then begin keeping a written log of your business progress and adapt your plan each day to changing circumstances.

4. FINANCE - Evaluate financial requirements for your chosen business field and obtain the financing required to start your business. This is far easier than you might imagine.

5. OVERCOME - Work on your business everyday to accomplish your goals. Give as much time as you can to your business, but don't be discouraged if things don't go exactly as planned. You will run into unforeseen obstacles in your quest for business success.

6. PERSIST - Be persistent. The only way you will fail in achieving your goals is if you quit. Make a decision to arrive at your destination no matter what and you are sure to succeed.

7. GROW - Reinvest your profits back into the business to ensure its long-term growth. Create ongoing relationships with customers for cross-sells or up-sells. Use the Internet as a portal for residual income.

Becoming a successful entrepreneur is not as difficult as you might imagine. Starting a business requires a definite decision to accomplish your objective, a willingness to take action despite fear, and an unconquerable spirit to press on after the initial excitement of your business has passed and obstacles crowd your path.

Learn more in my special report "The 7 Steps to Creating a Profitable Business" where I will share detailed information to help you get started on your path to business success. Obtain this detailed information today at NO COST by clicking the link below. [http://www.thebearformula.com/take-action-now.html]

I will teach you how to plan, finance, market, and profit from your business idea.

Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Take-the-7-Steps-of-Successful-Entrepreneurship---Learn-to-How-to-Start-Your-Business-Today!&id=5285008] Take the 7 Steps of Successful Entrepreneurship - Learn to How to Start Your Business Today!