THE SEVEN ESSENTIALS FOR BUSINESS SUCCESS

If you own a business, and don’t do anything with it, you’ll go broke. And if you continue not to do anything, not show up, not offer anything for sale, not communicate with potential buyers, you’ll stay broke.

On the other hand, if you take advantage of your opportunity, show up regularly and do enough of the right things in the right way, you will not go broke. You will flourish. So what are the right things? Well, business people want to know that. They have questions. How can I make my business more successful? How can I get more of what I want? How can I win in MY business?

These are good questions. They should be answered. If you’re ready I’ll give you the answers. Are you ready? Okay, here goes. Here are the Seven Essentials that Produce Delirious Contentment In Business:

1. Make sure you have a WINNING-MONEY-MAKING-GRAND STRATEGY, an overarching plan that describes the ideal structure and operation of your enterprise... and that all that's in your GRAND STRATEGY works like it's supposed to most of the time. Getting this right will guarantee two things. First, that you can execute, pull the trigger, hit the nail on the head, in other words, that your efforts predictably produce desirable results for your customers and clients, and especially... for yourself. Second, that you can turn what you do best into plenty of income, CASH MONEY, so you can stay in business and be HAPPY.

2. Make sure you offer goods, products and services for sale that people want or need… and can afford to buy. So no Ferrari dealerships in rural West Virginia and no air conditioner stores in Alaska.

3. Make sure you communicate your offerings to the correct audience, the correct audience means to enough-potential-likely-and-willing-buyers.

4. Make sure you close enough deals.

5. Make sure the money adds up in your favor.

6. Make sure you can do all this consistently… and… on a manageable schedule that leaves plenty of free time to spend any way you wish.

Now then, all this “Make Sure” stuff is about behavior isn’t it? Yup, winning in business is about putting the right behavior in the right place at the right time. It’s behavior, behavior, behavior. And the right behavior gets you the number one characteristic every business person wants for his or her enterprise, and that is… PREDICTABILITY. It sure isn’t chaos and it sure isn’t uncertainty. Nope. People want PREDICTABILITY most of all. They want to know that when they do such and such they will get such and such results most of the time. With PREDICTABILITY there is not much about which to worry. Not much to keep you up nights.

So now we come to that little three letter word HOW. How am I going to make this stuff work in MY business? I can see how this might work in someone else’s business, but what about mine, because MY situation is unique.

So if you’re thinking about your business right now, you might be wondering HOW do I get these six ESSENTIAL MAKE SURES? Well, the answer to that can be found in ESSENTIAL Number 7.


7. Make sure you have an INPUT Generator... a safe place to regularly talk about all aspects of your GRAND STRATEGY and your goals and your Game Plans. A place where you can present your prickly issues and problems - and receive candid, unbiased, no holes-bared counsel to resolve them from people who understand you and who will advise you in a spirit of harmony. A place where you can make bold new commitments and devise fresh Game Plans that can be implemented successfully.

INPUT from this kind of special place makes it possible to keep your GRAND STRATEGY alive and to have all the rest of the ESSENTIALS working smoothly. Armed with intelligent INPUT, you can accelerate the performance of your business at will, overcome any obstacles that hold you back and defeat any behaviors that might be undermining your success. Then you’re always able to make measurable progress in reasonable time, which is ABSOLUTELY SPLENDID. So this place to talk is the 7^th ESSENTIAL.

Years ago I talked to my business owner clients and lots of other people about this need I saw for an INPUT Generator, a save place for business owners to talk about their troublesome issues with hopes of finding solutions. And none of them had such a place, although they all thought it would be a good thing if an INPUT Generator for business owners existed. So I started one.

I designed it to be like group therapy for business owners, a supportive and at times a Synanon type confrontation group. I built in a heavy emphasis on accountability and individual follow up sessions for everyone, because one thing I knew from personal experience… without follow-up meaningful progress does not happen.

This was the beginning of The Master-Mind Alliance program. My clients loved it because it worked. I loved it because it was creative and different and fun. The Master-Mind Alliance began out of a need I saw in my clients. And here we are.


For more information about the benefits of the Master-Mind Alliance, click here. Master-Mind Alliance

4 AVENUES TO BUSINESS OWNERSHIP

People can become business owners in four ways. They can start it, they can buy it, they can inherit it, or they can win or steal it.

By win or steal it I mean that they are already in business and decide to take aim on another person's business in an effort to out perform the other guy with higher quality products/services and better values. And they do this so well that they in fact aquire (win/steal) the other person's business or at least many or perhaps all of the other person's customers or clients. Then they own it.

However, none of these four avenues to business ownership prepare a person to run a business successfully... and therein lies the problem.

To succeed in business you must know what you are doing beforehand. Or, you must quickly find out. And you don't have much time. You gotta learn what you need to learn, and then learn that quickly or your business will not do well and you'll be frustrated and feel awful. Ugh, who wants that?

So where do you go to learn what you need to learn, and then learn it? Why at the Master-Mind Alliance of course. 

The Master-Mind Alliance is a sounding board of business people like you who share their insights and relevant success experiences openly. It's an opportunity to receive ongoing collaboration with non-competitive peers, to connect with people whose opinions you respect. The meetings follow a prepared agenda that leads to education, strategic decision making, new plans and better results. It's a regular, systematic, focused conversation about your business, your issues, your problems and your opportunities.

For more information about the Master-Mind Alliance please visit our website, http://www.master-mindalliance.com/
 

FOUR QUESTIONS

In the natural unfolding process of life, we set about answering four questions basic to how we live. We do this without even thinking about doing it. We develop answers, then we develp better answers, then we develop even better answers... and so on and on for life.

The FOUR QUESTIONS are:

1.     WHAT do I want to BE?

2.     WHAT do I want to DO?

3.     WHAT do I want to HAVE?

4.     HOW will I accomplish those objectives?

Since we do this unconsciously all the time, why not take charge and formalize the process?

We might be better off if from time to time we sat down, took the time to formerly ask and answer these questions, took some notes along the way, then talked about our answers with people who care about us.

Talking about our lives with people who care about us, what a concept.

COURAGE IS AN ANGEL.

Yup, Courage is an Angel.

The Courage Angel makes the difference between a good business-life and a great business-life. Here's the deal. Appropriate strategic behavior applied in just the right place, in spite of uncertainty and doubt and fear, is what it takes to go from an ordinary business to a DONE Business.


And that little Courage Angel is an amazing guy. He makes it possible for you to do the things that must be done, even though doing those things may sometimes make you feel uncomfortable. The Courage Angel helps you do them anyway... and that's how you get all that you want out of life.

Who would not choose great over good, a DONE Business over an ordinary business?

Don't we all want great? Yes we do.

Question is, how do we get that?  Ah yes, how do we install more courage into our lives and into our business ventures in particular. 

But before we can talk about that, we have to be clear about what we are talking about. Just exactly what is courage anyway?

Wikipedia says courage is the ability to confront fear, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation. That it is acting in spite of fear. Okay, I buy that, but where does courage come from? Well, it comes from within us, of course.

So again, how can we dig down inside of ourselves and act more courageously in life and in our business activities in particular? Where do we get the courage to go from good business to great business?

Four steps to greater courage and a greater business-life:

1. Think of The Results: Have a very clear picture in mind of what would happen if a particular act of courage you were contemplating were to actually be implemented. Think of the ultimate outcome. Would it be more money from your business activities? More time off? Greater self-fulfillment? Be specific.

2. Think of The Worst: We are often told not to think of the down side. This is ridiculous. Please carefully consider the consequences. What’s the worst can happen? You could lose everything. Go broke. Disappoint people who care about you. Now, use some common sense. Acting courageously does not equal acting stupidly. Being courageous means taking levelheaded action, following a decent plan, including all the necessary steps.

3. Think of What You Are Missing: "You miss 100% of the shots you never take." ~ Wayne Gretzky, National Hockey League super star.

4. Just Do It: Is it time? If you decide it is, then go for it. Don’t let doubt talk you out of going for what you want.

The world belongs to those who reach out and grab it with both hands, to those who do something -- rather than just wish, hope, pray and plan to do something someday, but only when the time is right. Those folks who are waiting, they're probably not ever going to be happy.