Business Success Tips
We live in an increasingly connected world where information is at our finger tips. As entrepreneurs and business persons we have access to the best business advice, tactics and strategies from successful entrepreneurs and business persons from around the globe. Learn from the success and failures of others, just like you, by using websites, podcasts, webinars, online libraries and other services.
There are great success tips out there. Here are a few of my favourite ones adapted from articles entitled 8 Highly Effective Business Success Tips for Entrepreneurs by Matthew Zoren, and 11 Success Tips from Small Business Leaders by Deborah Shane. Perhaps the advice you need to keep you motivated, or take you to the next level, is within the next few paragraphs.
1) Keep the big vision in sight
It is easy to get trapped and distracted by small and large things when you are in business. Many things do not go as planned. Having a big vision allows you to get back on course. It is the compass which shows the way forward.
2) Fuel your vision with perseverance
Keep pressing forward towards the vision even when things are not going as planned – this is perseverance. Discomfort and fear are part of the process – persevere!
3) Make a plan but be flexible
It is important to set out a business plan with accompanying marketing outline. There should be enough details here to help keep you accountable and on track. However, part of being in business is the ability to be flexible. There is little need to develop or adhere to a cumbersome business plan which does not allow room for change when it becomes necessary.
4) Focus on your expertise
Identify your strengths and use them to build your business. Hire persons who have the strengths that you do not have and outsource other business functions as necessary. Do not try to be a jack of all trades in your business.
5) Don’t reinvent the wheel
Find other business models which are similar to your model and learn from them. Emulate and recreate. This saves times and money. For example, buy software or a system and adapt that rather than trying to recreate a new system from scratch.
6) Take care of yourself
This is so important. Health is wealth. Without your health it matters very little how good your business is.
7) Use leverage to your advantage
Try leveraging your time. Hire help for things which free up your time to do more important things for your business. Use down time such as waiting rooms, airline flights and more to get things done.
8) Laugh more
Laughter is happiness. Laughter is good for your emotional and mental state. Being in business brings a level of stress which must be managed well for your overall well-being. Don’t take yourself so seriously that you forget to laugh.
9) Network and surround yourself with positive people
Hang around with persons who are positive self-starters and that will rub off on you. The opposite also applies.
10) A positive mindset will keep you going
It is amazing what can be accomplished when we have a positive mindset. Challenges and frustrations will come but how you choose to think about them, or handle them, will make all the difference.
By Shellecia Brooks-Johnson
