SUPER-ACHIEVERS: THEIR SUPPORT SYSTEMS

This week I read the amazing story of LuAn Mitchell, one of
Canada's great entrepreneurs. Her story will never be a movie
because no one would believe it! Pregnant at 16, later a
beauty queen who married a man even after they found out he
had a life-threatening disease, single mom, and CEO of
(believe it or not) one of Canada's largest meat packing
companies (!), she has an astonishing story of perseverance
and accomplishment.
How did she do it? And, what can we learn from people like
LuAn who over-come the odds and get results most of us only
dream of?
I think there are at least four basic principles that MUST
be kept in mind.
The basics are just that, the BASICS! Too often we get
caught in the busy-ness of life and we either forget to
monitor the first principles of success, or we get over-
confident and think we can re-invent the basics, but there
are no "new fundamentals." The fundamentals have not
changed. We either take care of business, or we struggle.
(Or we count on "luck" to save the day...never a smart plan.)
So, what are the basics?
1. Use your HEAD.
Success requires a great strategy. Too often I see idealists
trying to build something that just doesn't make good sense.
They don't have a budget, adequate financing, an effective
strategy or common sense. They have a great idea and charge
ahead, hoping that "somehow" customers will find them. Or
that "somehow" things will work out. Success requires a smart,
logical, effective strategy. Use your head!
2. Follow your HEART.
In addition to a good plan, success requires passion! No matter
how good your plan, there will be challenges along the way
and only passion, determination, faith and "insane optimism"
will carry you through. If your heart isn't in it, don't even
try! (I am convinced that often "procrastination" is really a
great plan with no heat, no fire, behind it.) Super-achievers
are passionate people! Follow your heart.
3. Create a TEAM.
Even marathon runners have a team of trainers, coaches, family
and friends to encourage their "solitary" run. Writing a book
has brought home again that writers need a TEAM of editors,
publishers, publicists and printers. You will need mentors
(a coach), employees or other "staff" to help you achieve
your dream. Winners work in teams and understand the strength
in numbers. Create a winning TEAM and trust them to help you.
4. The joy of hard, hard WORK.
Nothing happens until someone, somewhere, rolls up their sleeves
and gets to work. In this "information age" we tend to forget
that only WORK makes stuff happen. Whether it's the daily
discipline of raising children, teaching school, ministering
to your flock, or the more traditional work of driving a truck
or making sales calls or working in the mill, human work is
the basis for all RESULTS, and only results really count.
If possible, do work you love. And always look for ways to
make things easier, more fun and more productive, but in
the end, hard, hard work (actual productivity) is the basis
for achievement.
Of course, there is more to life than achieving "success",
but doing something worthwhile and leaving our mark in
the world is a huge part of "the good life."
Whatever your dream, you can achieve it! You can even climb
Mt Everest - people with prosthetic limbs have done it, and
so can you! Or, you can start a business or retire early or
mentor a child or create music. Whatever your heart
desires, you can achieve it if you have a solid plan, a
great team, and the willingness to work "until" it becomes
a reality.

5 RULES FOR ENTREPRENEURIAL SUCCESS

Entrepreneurship is the art of finding profitable solutions to problems. Every successful entrepreneur or business person has been able to identify a problem and come up with a solution to it before someone else did. Here are the 5 Rules for Entrepreneurial Success.

1. Find a Need and Fill It

Human needs and wants are unlimited. Therefore, the opportunities for entrepreneurship and financial success are unlimited as well. The only constraint on the business opportunities available to you are the limits you place on your own imagination.

2. Find a Problem and Solve It

Wherever there is a widespread and unsolved customer problem, there is an opportunity for you to start and build a successful business.

Once upon a time, before photocopies, the only way to type multiple copies of a letter was with carbon paper placed between sheets of stationery. But a single mistake would require the typist to go through and erase the mistakes on every single copy. This was enormously clumsy and time-consuming.

Then a secretary working for a small company in Minneapolis began mixing flour with nail varnish in order to "white out" the mistake she was making in her typing. Soon, people in other offices began asking for it. The demand became so great that she quit her job and began working full-time manufacturing what she called “Liquid Paper.”

A few years later, the Gillette Corporation came along and bought her out for $47 million cash.

3. Unlimited Opportunities

There are problems everywhere. Your job is to find one of these problems and solve it better than it has been solved in the past. Find a problem that everyone has and see if you can’t come up with a solution for it. Find a way to supply a product or service better, cheaper, faster, or easier. Use your imagination.

4. Focus on the Customer

The key to success in business is to focus on the customer. Become obsessed with your customer. Become fixated on your customer’s wants, needs, and desires. Think of your customer all the time. Think of what your customer is willing to pay for. Think about your customer’s problems. See yourself as if you were working for your customer.

5. Bootstrap Your Way to Success

Once you have come up with a problem or idea, resolve to invest your time, talent, and energy instead of your money to get started. Most great personal fortunes in the United States were started with an idea and with the sale of personal services.

Most great fortunes were started by people with no money, resources, or backing. They were started by individuals who came up with an idea and who then put their whole heart into producing a product or service that someone else would buy.

Action Exercise

Look for business opportunities everywhere, develop, an entrepreneurial mindset, and continually be open and curious about the needs not satisfied and problems not solved.

One idea is all you need to make your first million.

YOUR WORK: YOU GOT TO LOVE IT!

A long time ago, I heard Jim Rohn talk about the necessity
to "love your work, every single day." I've never forgotten
that.
Jim was wise enough to make the distinction about "liking"
your work every day. Very few of us are fortunate enough to
enjoy every moment of every day on the job. Things go
wrong. People get cranky. Sometimes, stress and tension and
anxiety are life's way of telling us we are in the wrong
line of work, or it's time to make some changes.
But those daily ups and downs are not the same thing as
"loving" your work.
I recently got an email from a friend who noted that his 13-
year old son can be "a handful, but we don't love him
because it's easy, we love him because we do." Your
relationship with your career should be something like that.
Ultimately, your financial success is the result of
"loving" your work--nurturing it over time, going the extra
mile, doing it right whether anyone is watching or not.
Love means taking care of the details. Loving your work
means investing in your customers, investing in tools and
skills and resources. Ultimately, loving your work means
investing in your own future.
Whatever your job, profession, or business, love and
sustain it. Care for it and give it every chance to grow.
There is no other path to ultimate, long-term success.

INTERNET MARKETING: 10 SIMPLE RULES

1. Invest Small When Starting Anything New.

Always invest small when starting out. It’s possible any ad you run may lose money. Always keep your risks and investment small whenever you'’re starting a new type of advertising. Even if you had that top level copywriter write your ad, not everything they write will be a home run. It may need a few changes to produce the results you want. The market you'’re advertising to may not be perfect. There is no such thing as a “Sure Thing.”

2. Test Everthing.

Only one expert is right, and it’s not me. It’s your own personal test results. Test headlines. Test the length of your ad copy. Test audio and video on your sales page. Test a squeeze page before visitors get to the sales site. Constantly run 2 ads on Adwords for every ad group. Test a “try before you buy” offer. Test telephone follow-up. Quit blindly following gurus and test everything!

3. Be Unique.

Don’t ever be a me-too business. Take a look at everyone in your marketplace. What is different about you from them? Here’'s a quick exercise. Write down all the benefits someone gets from your product or service. Now cross off all the benefits they can also get from other people’s products and services. What’'s left? If nothing is left, you may need to rethink or modify what you offer to provide something unique in your marketplace.

4. Target Your Ads Only to Buyers.

You'’ve chosen your niche, but do you write your ads to all your visitors. No. You will never achieve a 100% buying rate. Much more common is 1%....and 10% is extremely high (possible at times with strong follow-up). This means at least 90% of your website visitors are NOT your target audience even though they came to your site. You'’re not writing to them. It doesn’t matter if those people like what you write at all. You’'re writing only to the BUYERS.....that 1 to 10% of your unique visitors who will take action.

5. Develop a Backend From the Beginning.

You should already have a basic idea or outline for your next offer before your first one is done. If your first product is an ebook or CD, what will you offer next? You may start your backend by offering joint venture deals and affiliate offers from others. The money is any business comes from repeat purchases and backend sales. In fact, I'’d never want to be in any business where I HAD to make money from one product. It destroys your marketing ability. If your competitor can break even or even lose money on their advertising, how can you compete if you have to make a living off the same offer?

6. Your Network Determines Your Net Worth

First heard that expression from Mark Victor Hansen. Strategic Alliances, social networking, referrals, viral marketing, etc. are the key to building your business online. Going it alone is a recipe for failure. In most businesses, affiliates make up 50% to 75% of sales. Incoming links from other sites is the key to search engine optimization. Find ways to serve the other top players in your niche. Network. Mastermind. Grow together....even with competitors.

7. Don’t Restrict Your Business to Internet Only.

You'’re not an Internet business. You’re an Internet based business. Develop your business model with both Internet and offline strategies. Follow-up on customer by phone. Here'’s a quick tip – call people who just purchased from you to thank them for their order and also offer them something else at a discount price right now (I’ve seen people increase profits by 40% from that alone). Send direct mail to your customers. Rent a targeted mailing list and send postcards to drive people to sign-up for your list. Use offline publicity and networking to generate leads.

8. Build your Relationship with Your Lists.

Yes, I said “lists,” not “list.” Concentrate on educating your list members....both with good content and about your products/services. Use online follow-up methods such as email and be willing to use direct mail. Send thank you cards to JV partners and customers. Run a teleconference where you meet with your customers or prospects. Create a blog. Put a face on your company and let them get to know you as a person.

9. Focus on Your Gifts.

Focus your time and attention on what you'’re best at. There’'s dozens of ways to market your site. Concentrate on the ones that most fit with your style and skillset. If you hate writing, then don'’t use writing as your primary advertising method. Or hire out the writing. Figure out what skills you have....and focus on those. Outsource the rest to others. If you try to force yourself to be just like “Guru #1,” it’s simply going to be an exercise in frustration. You'’re unique. Build a unique business suited to you.

10. Plan for the Long Haul.

I’'m sure you’'ve been told about instant riches overnight. Quit trying for that. And quit trying to jump on the “new thing.” Pick a business and work on it. Yes, I said work...that dirty four letter word so many people hate. Things might no go right when you first start. You might have to modify a few elements of your presentation. You might have to change your product. To be successful in this business requires you have a backbone and stick to it even when things don’t go your way! Develop at least a one year plan with daily actions to push you to success. You'’ll make modifications along the way, but at least you have a basic roadmap of where you'’re going.

HANDLING OBJECTIONS IN SALES

In golf, there is a saying that, "You drive for show, but you putt for dough."

In selling, you prospect and present for show, but you overcome customer skepticism and gain commitment for dough. Your ability to answer objections and get the sale is the true test of how good you really are as a salesperson.

The True Test of Selling

This is perhaps the most stressful and challenging part of the sales process. It's where the rubber meets the road. It is your ability to answer the questions that the prospect puts to you and overcome his natural reluctance to make a commitment that wraps up the sales process. It is also the part of the sales process that salespeople dislike the most and which customers find the most stressful.

Plan It in Advance

The end game of selling must be carefully thought through and planned in advance so that you are thoroughly prepared to bring the sales conversation to its natural conclusion at the earliest and most appropriate moment. Fortunately, this is a skill, like riding a bicycle, that you can learn through study and practice.

Handling Objections Comes First

Handling objections and closing the sale are two different parts of the sales process but they are so close together that we'll discuss them as a single function. Just as there are reasons why people buy a product, there are reasons why they don't. Often answering an objection or removing an obstacle is the critical element in making the sale. You can answer the objection and close the sale simultaneously.

Make It a Reason to Buy

Objections can be turned into reasons for buying. Just as there is a primary reason for buying a product, a hot button, there is a primary objection that stops the person from buying it. If you can emphasize the one and remove the other, the sale falls together naturally.

Smaller Products Versus Larger Products

In selling smaller products or services, where you can prospect and make a complete presentation in the first meeting, your approach to closing will be different from that required if you are selling a larger product in a multi-call sale that stretches over several weeks or months.

Ask For the Order

In the shorter, smaller sale, the prospect knows everything necessary to make a buying decision at the end of your presentation. Your aim should be to answer any lingering questions and then ask for the order. In the larger sale, you may have to meet with the prospect several times before the prospect is in a position to make a buying decision. You will have to be more patient and persistent.

Action Exercises

Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, prepare yourself in advance for the endgame of selling by anticipating anything the customer might offer as a reason for not buying. Be ready.

Second, look for the hot button, the reason the customer will buy, and press it. Meanwhile, find out his major reason for not buying and remove it.

EIGHT LIFE LESSONS THAT MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Sometimes it takes a while but I have learned a few things,

and when I remember to use them, they make life better. 

Over the years, we do begin to figure things out, and 

knowing the "rules" sure makes life easier!
Which leads to my first Big Truth: we just have to learn
some things for ourselves. I've read lots of books, studied
with smart people, and been given great advice.
Unfortunately, in the eagerness of youth, I chose to ignore
most of it. It takes time to figure life out and other
people's advice doesn't always fit, and that's ok. Give
yourself some time and a bit of slack. You don't have to
get the hang of this all at once.
Second, some lessons have to be learned more than once. If
only I had a nickel for everytime I've made a mistake,
learned from it, then done the same thing all over again!
(I take some comfort in noticing that other people do this,
too.) Humans are smart, but we aren't as smart as we think
we are. And, we have short memories. Fortunately, we're
allowed more than one mistake! Get over it.
Third, flexibility is more important than power. People who
are hopeful, cheerful, and creative also tend to be
optimistic and happy. Too often, strong-willed people are
just stubborn. I'd rather be optimistic, eager and creative
than "determined." I finally learned this truth: "If at
first you don't succeed, try, try again - then move on."
Fourth, curiosity is more valuable than talent. Talented
people take offense at this, but little kids taught me this
one. The eager kids with the big eyes and restless
questions always seem to figure stuff out. The bright kids
usually get better grades, but they don't have as many
adventures or good stories to tell. In life, go for the
stories!
Fifth, doing stuff is more important than knowing stuff. I
loved school , so I obviously believe that knowing 

stuff is important, but life must be LIVED, not studied.

People who take risks, try things, build or invent stuff, 

make mistakes, and create memories are the people 

who live the "good life". Get in the game!
Sixth, people are more important than things. Sure, all you
wise folks are going, "Duh!", but this one takes a while
for most of us to really absorb. As kids, we want new toys,
as adults we need new cars, or whatever. It's not until
later that we realize memories and success come from
people. Adventure and delight and joy come from our
relationships with people. Stuff just clutters up our
attics and our lives.
Seventh, opportunity is more fun than success. We need a
challenge, we need to grow, stretch, look over the horizon,
and explore the next frontier. Every level of success is a
foundation for the "next big thing." Highly successful,
creative and energetic people enjoy life's big challenges;
the rest of us just sit with our problems.
And finally, what we contribute is more meaningful than
what we get. This may be consistent with some great
religious or spiritual tradition, but mostly it's just
practical. Creating and building is simply more rewarding
than consuming and throwing stuff away. Leaving footprints
that others can follow, being kind or generous, mentoring,
or opening a door for someone, is simply more fun than
collecting stuff.
There are lots of collections of life lessons and "rules"
for making life work out well. My guess is that we all have
to find our own path, find our own rules, and word them in
our own way so that they truly work for us. The key is to
find the principles, the "rules" that DO work for you.