The top 20 things you need to know in business to be successful!

"Obviously everyone wants to be successful, but I want to be looked back on as being very innovative, very trusted and ethical and ultimately making a big difference in the world.”
Sergey Brin – co founder of Google

1. Give people great incentive to buy from you – people are busy, they have a lot of choice, give them the reason why they should do business with you, e.g. send out a real, that’s a real cheque, crossed not transferable and made out to your company name as a voucher.

2. Business is about people – people do business with people and buy off people, remember the sale is 70% the person, 20% the company and 10% the product. Hire and train great people.

“Even in such technical lines as engineering, about 15% of one's financial success is due one's technical knowledge and about 85% is due to skill in human engineering, to personality and the ability to lead people.”
Dale Carnegie - Self Development Author and Trainer

3. Make it easy for customers to buy – do whatever it takes for people to buy from your business.

4. Give and ye shall receive – the rule of reciprocity. Give to prospects and clients, and they will in turn reciprocate by bringing you business. Why? Because they want to through the innate human condition of reciprocity.

5. Who else has got my target market – identify where your customers are and then create joint ventures, strategic alliances, preferred supplier arrangements with them, e.g. one letter to a large employer has created $40,000 in extra sales p.a. for 5 years, that’s $200,000 in extra sales.

“Becoming wealthy is like playing Monopoly... the person who can accumulate the most assets wins the game.”
Noel Whittaker - Financial Author and Investment Advisor

6. People want information – give lots of benefit-laden information about your products and services. Fact: educated people buy more.

7. Have discipline – being lazy doesn’t make you a millionaire. Consistently completing and actioning things yields measurable results - Tiger Woods didn’t suddenly wake up as world number one did he?

8. Celebrate special events – use any reason you can to celebrate in your business, birthdays, etc. the more different and crazier the more effective they will be. Why? Because you stand out, because you're different.

9. Be organised – ensure you have a strategic business and marketing plan that outlines what you are going to do every month so you are prepared and can plan ahead, then do it! Positive action = positive reaction.

10. Know what works and keep to it – test and measure everything you do.

11. Do simple things: the fundamentals – but do them well. Whatever you do - producing something, marketing something, selling something – don’t over complicate the process. If the execution is excellent, results will be accordingly so. So do things within your means, but do them the best that they can possibly be done.

12. Be creative – have fun in your business by being creative, playing safe is risky, be different and you’ll enjoy success. If you’re they same as everyone else – you won’t stand out, you’ll get the same (or less) results as the others.

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
Thomas Edison – American inventor: The electric light bulb, work with electricity & more than 1000 patents

13. Never underestimate the power of testimonials – testimonials and referrals should form the backbone of your strategy to get new customers. Every successful business always has generated HUGE positive word of mouth marketing.

14. Sales scripts – watch your sales soar when every single person in your business becomes a sales person. Found out the best message, and get everyone to use it.

15. You need to develop a great team – empower your team to make decisions, to solve problems, train them, invest in them, involve them in your business and reward them well and you’ll be able to retire. This includes getting a great team of specialist advisors around you too.

16. To go BIG, leverage with systems – document everything, always improve the system and when something goes wrong, blame the system, and fix the system.

17. Are you doing the best you can - is the product or service you’re offering the best in the market place? Really? Make it better than everyone else and watch the customers keep coming back for more.

18. Know your numbers – business is a whole lot of numbers. You need to know the basics, and what they mean. If you don’t know, find out – then it will make you even more money.

“Before you can really start setting financial goals, you need to determine where you stand financially.”
David Bach - Personal Finance Author of “the Armchair Millionaire”

19. Always remember to say Thank you – but be different in the way you say Thank you. The message is important – and even more important now though is the delivery – be genuine, be sincere – show how much you care.

20. Vision - what’s it all going to look like in 5 years? You need to know, to be able to plan to get there. Set the goals and the strategy follows.

“My success, part of it certainly, is that I have focused in on a few things.”
Bill Gates – everyone knows who he is! (Or you should - he’s the richest man in the world.)

The KEY to selling your business for a lot of money is creating a business that is profitable, can run without you and has a lot of potential. When your Why becomes strong enough, the How becomes easy!