These eight qualities are essential for you to succeed in business…
1. Know What You Want
Know yourself and exactly what you want and expect out of your business. So many people enter into business and spend years in that business environment without having any idea of what they want, or what is possible to get out of their business.
In fact, most business owners are working so hard in their businesses that they don’t have time to work on them. As a result, they’ve become slaves to their business. They’ve got things backwards. They’re working for their business rather than their business working for them.
Take the time to carefully analyze where you’ve come from, where you are now, and what you want to accomplish in your business, your job or your career. Then begin to set some meaningful goals to help you accomplish your objectives. You see, if you don’t know where you want to go, you’ll have no idea of what to do in order to get there.
Meaningful goals are an essential requirement for success in business. With goals, you have a target to aim for, a purpose for being, and a direction to travel. Without goals, it’s easy to wander aimlessly, getting sidetracked with any little thing that comes along.
When you set your goals, think of the word, “SMART.” You should have SMART goals. That is, your goals should be:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Realistic
- Timebound
2. The Ability To Focus
The second quality is the ability to focus. Many people hesitate to go into business because they think they lack the talents and abilities necessary to succeed. They look at others who are successful and think that they must have unique talents or capabilities. But after getting to know that person, they find them to really be quite average.
The main difference is that the successful person has developed the ability to focus. A person of average intelligence who is focused on a clearly identified and specific goal, will consistently outperform the brightest people who are not focused on anything specific.
3. Determine The Price You’ll Pay
You must determine the price you’ll have to pay to be successful. For everything in life, there is a price. And it must be paid before you can realize the rewards. In many instances, it takes sacrifice.
If you want to reap the great and abundant rewards your business can provide you, you’re going to have to do some not-so-glamorous things at some not-so-convenient times.
It’s been well said that you’ll have to do “…the things that unsuccessful business owners don’t want to do.”
If you are not willing to make the necessary sacrifices, then you can’t expect to be as successful in business as someone who is willing to make those sacrifices.
4. Self Responsibility
You are totally responsible for the success of your business and your life. There are no excuses. There may be setbacks or economic downturns, or problems that affect your business.
Your suppliers or vendors may discontinue making or providing your favorite products or services, change the way they do business with you or even merge with another company.
Economies change, corporate policies change, and prospects don’t buy from you, and the weather is too hot or too cold.
While those things definitely have an impact on you, the way you do business and the sales you make, it is important to realize that those things are beyond your control, and its up to you, and you alone, to accept responsibility for the success of your business.
No matter how bad you might have it, no matter what difficulties or challenges you might encounter, let me assure you that there are many people who have had difficulties and challenges far greater than any you are ever likely to encounter, and somehow, they manage to pull through. And you can do the same.
5. Be Committed
Make a total commitment to your success. Once you have made the decision to be in business, be in that business.
Get into it with both feet. Don’t let anything hold you back.
Even more than getting in the business, see that the business gets in you.
Make a commitment that you are going to succeed, no matter what.
Don’t try to work two different jobs or projects at one time. You can’t do either of them justice, and you’ll likely end up frustrated and broke, and never know whether or not you could have been successful.
6. The Extra Mile
The sixth personal quality necessary to achieve outstanding success in business is that you must be willing to go the extra mile.
It’s the “Under promise, over deliver” concept, and can be summed up in the following statement: “If you are always willing to do more than what you get paid for, the day will come when you will be paid for more than what you actually do.”
Robert Cialdini, in his book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, discusses what he calls the Law of Reciprocity. Basically, it says that when you do something for someone else there’s an unstated obligation for them to want to do something for you in return.
So, when you go the extra mile for your customers or clients, you’ve just set the stage for that law to take effect. But it’s only on that “extra mile” that this works. When you give what might be considered “normal” service, or “adequate” service or – even “good” service, you haven’t earned the right to expect that law to work for you.
In fact, even performing “knock-out” service often isn’t enough to gain you an advantage. We’ve all come to expect that from any number of businesses.
You’ve really got to do something special in order to gain an advantage in today’s highly competitive marketplace. Then, and only then, can you expect to create that nearly compelling desire in your customer to want to reciprocate. This simple truth says it all: “There’s no traffic jam on the extra mile.”
7. Control Your Time
The seventh quality is that you must master and take control of your time. Time is an expendable commodity. Each one of us has the same 24 hours in each day. When those hours are gone, they cannot be replaced. They are gone forever, never to be recaptured.
You must treat your time as precious, and guard it wisely and selfishly. Don’t let anyone disrupt you or take you away from the focus you have on your goals.
People who don’t have goals are used by people who do. If you let others draw you away from your goals, you are simply saying that their goals are more important than your own.
If you are serious about business success – really serious, then this is one of the most important and critical areas to defend.
8. Persistence And Determination
Number eight, is to develop persistence and determination. From time to time you will encounter setbacks or reach plateaus where it seems like nothing is going right.
Your competitors lower their prices, run massive ad campaigns and unheard of promotions, and the next thing you know your customers and clients begin doing business with them.
Business is walking out the back door faster than it’s coming in the front door.
Your volume is beginning to drop, and you become concerned.
You seem to be spending more time in a defensive posture than you do in servicing your existing customers, and you’re losing.
Now is not the time to give up. Now is the time to dig in and begin to play offensively. To be determined not to lose your good customers – the ones you worked so hard to get. Your strategy should be to keep in touch with them and continue providing exceptional service.
Nearly every business is cyclical. Eventually things will change.
While you can’t be competitive on price all the time, you can be competitive on the service you give, and the empathy you have for your customers and their problems.
Resolve in advance; that no matter what, you’ll never give up.