The Five Requirements For Success
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What do you want to be when you grow up?
Do you know what you want out of life? Are you living the life you have always wanted? For me I knew early on that I wanted one thing out of life, I wanted to be the captain of my own ship.
It has had it’s risks, but I do enjoy the freedom of being an entrepreneur and the life experiences it has brought me.
Today, I want to talk to you about what I believe to be the 5 requirements for success:
- getting an education
- setting goals
- passion
- relationships
- ownership
I enjoy devoting my time to the community and one way that I do that is through Junior Achievement BC.
JA is a high school program that teaches students how to run a business. This is my 4th year of being a facilitator for JA and I have to admit I love it!
Every year I am asked to give an informal presentation on my perspective on what a person should do if they want to prepare themselves to be an entrepreneur.
1) Getting an education.
Let me clarify myself here, I’m talking in a broader sense about “learning”. I don’t care what age you are. Never stop learning. There is always something you don’t know and there is always something that you thought you did know, but you really didn’t, and there is always someone out there that knows more than you. (having said this, if you are in younger I strongly reccomend gettign a good solid education).
If you are an adult, take at least one seminar or course a year on your current occupation. You can always be better at what you do. Why? Because if your dream is to be an entrepreneur you are going to need to be an expert in what you do and you will also need a lot of secondary skills to back you up while you get your feet planted firmly on the ground in your business.
Besides what are you going to do when a key employee gets sick? As a small business owner or entrepreneur you need to wear many different hats.
If you are a young adult, go to University! I can’t stress this enough. As a young person your eduction is critically important to what kinds of jobs you are going to be able to get and what kinds of doors will open for you. If you are still uncertain what you want to be when you grow up (who ever grows up?) then take a business degree. Sales and business is a very viable career option.
2) Setting Goals (long and short term)
You can’t get somewhere if you are wandering aimlessly through life. Goals keep us moving forward, they make us accountable to ourselves. I write out a to do list every morning. It keeps me focused and on track.
Break big goals into smaller goals. It’s much easier to tackle a task when you don’t see some huge monumental mountain in front of you, and don’t forget to reward yourself when you reach those goals!
Remember those who “fail to plan, plan to fail”.
3) Passion
You must love what you do. when you love what you do it’s much easier to stay up until 2 am because you have a project that must be finished by the next day for an important client.
Having passion for what you do also manifests itself in your sales presentations. People will sense that you are passionate about what you do and they will be drawn towards you.
4) Relationships
You can’t get where you are going alone, and why would you want to? The fact is, 99% of what we want to do in life, someone else has done it. “People who have been there done that” can help us get to where we want to go 10 times faster. So why not ask them out for lunch? You might be surprized by their answer! You will generally find that the more successful a person is the more they will want to share their experiences, their trials, and their insights with others.
Never forget the power of relationships and how they can help you get to where you want to go. The geeky guy you went to high school with just might be the next Bill Gates!
5) Ownership
In my opinion there just is no better way to go. It doesn’t matter how old you are or what stage of life you are in, freedom to create, to build, to experience – there’s just nothing like it. Have there been rough times? You bet, during the early stages there were some very close calls where I didn’t know if I was going to make it.
Despite what the late night infomercials and the internet snake oil salesman will tell you there are no short cuts. Having a successful business takes a lot of hard work and knowing the right things to do.
I do want to leave you with one thing I’ve learned over the years since becoming an entrepreneur. Free information you find off the internet is generally worth what you paid for it. There’s nothing worse than having a limited supply of money and blowing it on a promotion or “idea” that doesn’t work.
Free advice from a mentor is priceless.
Kevin Boyle
Author / Public Speaker / Sales Trainer and Coach
“The Secrets to Sales Mastery”
ps – Did you enjoy this post? Please feel free to add your comments!
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Customer Service – Delivering WoW!
If you would like to learn more innovative new skill sets and strategies to help you build an incredibly successful business and dramatically improve your sales results, visit my web site http://www.salesmasterybook.com and subscribe to my FREE 8 part email home study e-course on relationship sales and marketing!
