hello I'm Brian Tracy and today I want to talk to you about starting and running a business the surest way to financial Independence in our society today whether you're just starting out or looking to grow your existing business these insights can help you to navigate the challenges and Achieve success starting and running a business is a journey filled with ups and downs the first key lesson is the importance of having a clear vision and mission for your business knowing exactly what you want to achieve and why you're doing it will guide your decisions and keep
you focused on your goals for example when I started my business my focus was on helping people to be better in their sales work helping them to make more sales better easier and faster and that's all I focused on for 5 years and it worked I ended up giving seminars all over the world to eventually millions of people to help them to be better in sales in every language and culture that you can imagine that's the key to success is having a clear idea of where you want to end up if you are extremely successful
next adaptability is crucial the business landscape is constantly changing and being able to adapt to a new circumstance is essential for long long-term success this might mean pivoting your business model embracing new technologies or finding Creative Solutions to unexpected challenges I know in the software space you can create a business to try to solve a problem and the problem gets solved before you can even get to Market sometimes you have to adapt to your customer needs in real time that means going out and surveying exactly what features or functions they want and actually making sure
that they were willing to purchase those features and functions and then once you do deliver it to them you have to ask them what what else do you want uh this is called the MVP concept or the minimum viable product and it's absolutely essential things have never changed as fast as they're changing now so adaptability is one of the keys to entrepreneurial and business success now in addition to what Michael said what I have found in speaking to thousands of people every month last week I spoke to people in 105 countries in one one hour
Tes seminar what I find is that what they all want is more and better faster results they want to get results quicker and that speed of results is worth a lot to people especially if they're not getting those results now so always think in terms of results results what results do people want and need and are willing to pay for and make sure that everything that you do keeps linking back and emphasizing that if they follow your advice and use your programs or ideas they will achieve the most important Financial results faster than they ever
would without your help building a strong team is another critical aspect of running a successful business surround yourself with talented dedicated people who share your vision and values a great team can help you to overcome obstacles innovate and grow your business faster I'll give you an example when you start a business there are two major functions the external functions of marketing selling producing and delivering products and services and the internal functions which are handling telephone paperwork accounting Finance business and so on and so forth and some people specialize in one area and some people specialize
in another for example for a business to be successful it has to have at least one person who is very good at selling the product product or service as your business grows you have to have more and more people who are very good at selling and the key is to choose them carefully based on their experience and then train them on a regular and consistent basis internally you want people who and really enjoy processes and getting things organized and completing work and so on and those two have two totally sets of strengths and weaknesses if
you are missing either one internal and ex or external it can cause all kinds of problems and difficulties Michael financial management is key to business sustainability as well keep a close eye on your cash finances manage your cash flow carefully and plan for the long term this means budgeting wisely keeping expenses under control and making smart investments in your business startups I've been involved with the one I was involved with and one I co-founded I know that we never spent any money that we didn't absolutely have to uh we built Our Own Furniture we had
a shotty offices profitability was key finding customers that were willing to pay for our products and services at the profit was absolutely mandatory before we could spend anything on any extraneous expense we would have to find a customer that was profitable cash is what sustains the business it's the lifeblood of your business so making it and accumulating it is what keeps your business and help sustain it during the hard times customer focus is also so essential understanding your customers needs and providing exceptional value is what sets successful businesses apart from their competitors listen to your
customers gather feedback and ask your customers if we could only do one thing for you what is the most important contribution that we can make to your business and you know something they'll tell you and if you then do it and show them that you are doing it they will become loyal to you and they'll use more and more of your services and both of you will benefit more and more you want to continually improve your products and services to meet their expectations and their especially their expressed desires I'll give you an example I uh
went out to sell my product or service at the very beginning and what I found is the biggest single objection was risk they were afraid that if they bought my product or service that they would take a risk now in every single transaction there is a risk there's 100% of risk and the question is how do you divide it up well I learned very early that you need to take all the risk we call this risk reversal so that your customers have no risk how do you do that with unconditional guarantees now I learned something
very interesting in going through the research is if you give a short guarantee a large number of people will ask for their money back before the guarantee is up if you give a longer guarantee fewer if you give a one-year guarantee almost nobody and then if you have the courage give a lifetime guarantee of satisfaction and when you do that you'll never have a return however you now have to deliver on your guarantee and make sure that your customers are so happy that they don't ask for their money back but that's the key how can
you take the risk away from your customers so they can buy from you with no risk at all another important aspect of running a business is having an effective marketing and sales strategy you need to get your message out there and attract the right customers this means understanding your target market crafting compelling messages and using the right channels to reach your audience remember when I was starting out an Enterprise software sales uh I would make 100 phone calls a day and I was kept on falling on my face I kept on not being able to
get in front of the right people I kept on saying you know I'm not interested uh this I'm not the right person this isn't the right industry for you and I eventually started asking for help I started asking for guidance I said how does your business go about buying products or services like this what person in your business is responsible for evaluating these opportunities and eventually some of them actually started to educate me on how their businesses buy their products what sort of person buys that product in their business how to go through that process
the right words to use to attract that customer and having these conversations helped reorient our entire marketing Department's Focus allowing us to get more and better highquality leads and Prospects which are then able to close and grow that business exponentially over two years so don't be afraid to ask for guidance if you're not making the progress that you want yeah that's a a great point in the years and years of research they found that most important single word for for success in business is the word ask ask politely ask in an informed way ask regularly
ask charmingly ask persistently but always ask for what you want before you ask the answer is no if after you ask the answer is still no you haven't lost a thing but it's amazing how many people as Michael just said will say yes this is the answer to your question one of the great questions in business is remember there are many people in a business who can say no but there's only one who can say yes so one of the questions you ask is who is the one person who makes the final decision in this
area and they'll say oh oh that would be so and so and could you set up a meeting with me and this person so rather than talking to all the little people who sometimes want to express how important they are speak to the person who can say yes running a business is not always easy and there will always be times when You Face significant challenges so persistence and perseverance are absolutely essential for Success staying persistent maintaining a positive mindset and learning from failure are crucial to overcoming obstacles and achieving long-term success now I've studied success
in business for now almost 50 years and the most important thing that I have found looking at the success most successful and richest people in the world like Jeff Bezos of Amazon is that there's no such thing as failure there's only feedback is that what you do is whenever you make a mistake of any kind you stop the clock like a timeout in a game and you say all right what exactly happened here be clear about what happen so that you're not trying to solve a non-existent problem the second question is um what did I
learn from this experience what did I learn from this experience and the third question is what will I do differently next time what happened what did I learn what will I do next time and by asking those three questions you put your foot on the accelerator of your learning curve you get smarter and smarter faster and faster but always remember there's no such thing as mistakes every successful business is built on a foundation of countless little mistakes that they use as learning experiences the business world is always evolving and staying ahead means continually learning and
adapting invest in your own education stay informed about industry Trends and always look for ways to improve your business now I can tell you that in business if you're not learning a new skill a new technique a new marketing method u a new way to engage and find customers you're basically going to lose to somebody who is uh one of the best interview questions that I've ever heard and I've asked it frequently is what books are you reading if you're about to hire somebody and they're not reading any books don't hire them you have to
constantly be refining your skills and forging them in the fireplace of the market right the market is dictating things faster now than at any time in human history so read industry specific books uh listen to podcasts there's a bunch of wonderful podcasts very smart people talking about exactly what they're doing in their business yesterday so you can actually take that information and apply it to your business today um and then go to Industry events go to seminars take online and virtual workshops uh constantly be refining your skills and what's wonderful about doing this is when
you go to these workshops when you go to seminars when you go to events with other people who are also continuously learning and focusing on personal and professional development you meet some of the best people in the whole entire world world only great people focus on helping build their skill sets um helping themselves get better uh learning more about their Craft um and helping to improve their business starting and running a successful business requires a Clear Vision it you've heard the word Vision over and over again what does it mean no nobody knows I'll tell
you what it is imagine what I call the magic wand Theory where you have a magic wand and you could wave this magic wand and make your future business perfect in every way what would it look like that's your vision then adaptability what do you need to change to in your behaviors and in your business to be more like your vision of what a great business would look like for you and remember your vision will be different than any other business vision and you need a strong team people who are also committed to the vision
and you need financial Acumen and the ability to analyze your numbers remember the numbers are everything you need customer focus and this is perhaps the most important of all is successful people think about their customers all the time because customers are every by the way one of my favorite observations from Peter Ducker is there are no customers in the office there are no customers in the office so if you're in the office during the business day you're not working because there's no customers there you've got to get out and start get as we say get
out and get among them all right effective marketing is where you you project your message and you get people to say I want that I'm interested in that I want more information on that that's what marketing does selling follows up and closes the sale and finally you need perseverance and a commitment to continuous learning nothing is more important than that I've been in business for 60 years now and I still read 3 hours a day 3 hours a day I have thousands of books all over my house and my basements and in the garage and
everything and I still buy probably two books a week I don't read them all but I read a lot of them so you must Implement these key strategies to achieve your greatest success as a business owner now here's what's most important is it's going to take a while for for you to be successful working hard upgrading your skills committing yourself to good time management and so on but the time is going to pass anyway the time is going to pass 5 years from now 5 years will have passed the question is are you going to
be successful and highly paid and living in a beautiful house and providing a wonderful life for yourself and your family or are you going to still be struggling and the answer is you are going to achieve these goals but you have to work very very hard in the short term to enjoy great rewards in the long term if you need help getting clear on your goals as you start or continue to run your business then download my 14-step goal setting guide it's packed with steps to help you succeed in your entrepreneurial journey and it's free
now I love to hear from you so my question today is simply this what's one lesson you've learned learned from your business Journey one bit of feedback that you twisted around and turned into a lesson and how has it impacted your success when you talk to successful people they will always remember a critical failure that they had small or large that was the reason for their success later on leave a comment below and I'll be sure to follow up with you thanks for watching and remember if you want to change your future take action and
take action now if you enjoyed this video and feel it was valuable in teaching you about starting and running a business subscribe to the Brian Tracy International Channel like this video and share this video with your friends don't forget to click the button on the screen for a free gift thanks again for watching [Music]
