The point is that you are never out of the game irrespective of any hardships. You can stay motivated and keep picking up the pieces, wherever they may have fallen in the past. Persistence and practice will move you in a positive direction. Being knocked back often may not be desirable, but it does not ruin your long-term prospects either.
There are a few classic sales books and tapes that you might want to review during your business planning phase: Jeffrey Gitomer’s Sales Bible; Mark McCormick’s What They Didn’t Teach You at Harvard Business School; Harvey MacKay’s Swim with the Sharks; and Donald Trump’s The Art of the Deal. And, of course, this very book. [...]
Finally, a Third Bet, which fits most new business candidates (if you are not applying your First or Second Best Bet), would be to choose a relatively random line of business after exhaustively studying research and financial models on emerging industries, even if you have no personal interest or history in that particular line of [...]
Like athletes in the Olympics, the people who train the hardest on one goal and prove to be the most adept will win, or at least get to share the top prizes. Others who can’t manage to get past the competition will be run off and knocked down. By maintaining your focus, distractions and detractors [...]
Competitors and insider stakeholders who doubt you and your abilities are predictable obstacles that every businessperson has to navigate. Other jealous, doubtful, or unmotivated people who are close to you personally or on the competitor’s side will constantly try to get in your way, break you down, or challenge you. Regardless, your job is to [...]
So long as you’ve been working harder and smarter and aligning yourself with good partners, employees and suppliers, you can survive at the expense of, or in cooperation with, all those who compete.
Once you’ve selected or invented a business idea, you should review it from many different angles. With this insight, you can create numerous small business tests in search of the most profitable. We suggest trying higher risk ideas with potentially high rewards along with those that are generally lower-risk, tried and true moneymakers.
This process [...]
The best ideas and the most sensible ideas are the ones that are not contrived. This is why people always say, “Why didn’t I think of that?”
In order to achieve a winning edge—the element that separates you from the rest of the pack and ensures your success in business—you will have to find ways [...]
You can see that each idea would have helped you be the leader in your class (even if a bit heavy-handed) and is analogous to how you can still lead in the business world. If you could have changed the rules like this in class, you could have attained straight A’s. Fortunately, in business, you [...]
Keep in mind that the smartest people are not always on top. In reality, the person who believes in himself or herself the most, irrespective of their nominal brainpower, is usually the most successful.
You have probably heard the expression, “He’s smart, but he doesn’t apply himself.” This is not a beneficial way to go [...]
