Partnership Can Make You a Better Businessperson.

There is very little or no leverage in being a solo-preneur. It surprises me why most people want to make it on their own. Most people are not willing to see the compounding effect of teamwork in business partnership. The problem is that these solo-preneurs usually lack an ingredient – the missing ingredient – sometimes that which is most essential to their success. Therefore, they keep digging and keep failing, not because they are not smart but because they can’t know it all and because they want to do it all.
No wonder the thinking guru John C. Maxwell wrote an entire book under the caption, “Talent is never enough.”

The Missing Ingredient Syndrome
When I read business and economy books, I frequently come across the expression of a missing ingredient. However this phenomenon was banished during the trade by barter system.
Why?
Because people were willing to cooperate. Mr. Adams knew he could not have everything, so he gave Mrs. Ann a little of this to get a little of Mrs. Ann’s that.

However, the phenomenon of the missing ingredient has been reintroduced to business world. There is no more cooperation. Everyone believes the other person is a cheat. He’s going to run away with my money. He’s not trustworthy.
So, when are you going to get the trust worthy person?
Why should I bother answering that when I could just do it all by myself!!!
Wrong mentality.

You want to do it all alone. You want all the glory to be yours which is why you don’t want to commit to learning people skills. You believe everybody is the same, so why not work with the only person you can trust – you.

There is virtually no solo success. Nobody actually emerged successful without help. Emerson once made a remarkable statement. He said, “None of us is as good as all of us.” Nobody actually became successful alone. Trust me they always had help on the way.

Do You Know?
“Us” was responsible for creation, not “I”
Coca-Cola’s bottling idea was borrowed.
The Wright brothers could never have built the aircraft alone. Do you doubt they had help?
Thomas Edison may have invented the light bulb but trust me not all by himself.
Mark Zuckerberg may be the CEO and founder of Facebook Corporation but the name “Facebook” was a contribution as against “The Facebook.” – He had help no matter how little.

Synergy Plays Great Role.
When the trinity came together, creation was reality
When coca cola borrowed its bottling idea from a security officer it became an multinational venture.
The synergy between the Wright brothers birthed the mechanical flying creature.

Partnership Is Essential For Business Success.
Can you imagine what would happen if you decided to tap into the power of synergy? English has many names for one idea. Whether you call it teamwork, synergy, partnership, trade by barter, the goal is one – working together.
Why?
Because none of us is as good as all of us.

The trade by barter system entails you give the other person a service that will rather be hard to afford while you offer a worthy service in return.

The other person may be the answer to that lacking ingredient in your business.

 If you do delivery service you may partner with a retail shop. You drop some goods at the retail shop for nearby customers to pick up later while you help them deliver to their customers that stays around your route .

Partnership Can Make You A Better Businessperson .
It takes the right team of experts to take a company public and run that company profitably. If you want to become successful in business then you need help. A team of healthy partners is a strong leverage in business and when you are leveraged, you can begin to see how much fun there is in doing business. However,  creating partners isn't  one of those quick fix or 'learn-it-a-day' drill. It takes experience to work with people. It takes the mind that has hit a dead end once or twice in dealing with people but is still committed to learning people skills, acknowledging the tremendous leverage that could be realized when the skill is mastered.
Here are a few helpful tips.

Partner with the right persons.
In as much as I endorse partnership in business, this does not give the grant for partnership to be abused.  Make sure you choose a capable and competent partner. You don't want a financially drained person neither do you want the rigid contexed person. Look for the best qualities in your partner and partner with only individuals or companies that meet this requirements.

Keep to the partnership terms
You don't want to be a cheat.  Remember that you are dealing with human beings. And humans are embedded with the intuition to detect a duplicity. Be a person of integrity and all ways keep to the agreed terms of business. This is very essential even for bigger  companies that are into outsourcing. You want your company to keep a healthy relationship with its partners so as to maintain the viability and ease of doing business. Therefore, the importance of maintaining good relationship with your partner companies can't be overemphasized. Remember the golden rule, "do unto others what you want done unto you." If you want good partners, be the first to be a good partner.

Create more partners.
For start-ups,  I recommend  starting with one or two individual partners and one partner company. Focus on building trust, devising ways of making the partnership more profitable for both ventures. This will go a long way to establish a strong bond and trust in business. And when the ease of dealing with partners sets in you can create even more partners.
Why?  Because more healthy partners means more leverage, and more leverage means your ability to get rich even quicker with very little or no effort.

Build an intelligent team of partners today and tap into the leverage thereof.


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Confidence Building, A Fundamental business feat.

Believe alone may not be enough to drive you to your destination. There are many post all over the internet on that topic and in fact I recently crafted one for you. But, what if we needed something beyond believe, something that doesn't just enables you to start up something but equips you with the needed bravado to do it extraordinarily.
That big word is confidence. Take a public speaker for example. He does his research and believes in what he’s about to deliver. Believe takes him to the stage but confidence backs him to speak.

What You Need to Know About Confidence.

Psychologytoday.com defines confidence as a belief in one's ability to succeed. A research paper on How to build confidence by Yasmine Shahin in 2015 defined confidence as a state of being that makes you feel that you can achieve what you want in life."

Most people are just too scripted in an inferior context that they rob themselves of the right to stand out. The net of timidity keeps them locked up in a cocoon, never to make their mark on the market.
Even though they strongly believe in what they do, they find it hard to express it openly or make a profitable venture out of their ideas. Why?

Because they think they are going to sound foolish and that what they have to say will not make sense. So they sit down and watch other business persons create their own businesses. And One funny thing is that these people will often see the mistakes others are making, and the variety of things others are doing wrong, but they can’t voice out or at least stand up to exploit the opportunities right before them.

Surely, this are the signs of self doubt, but not in your business this time. The problem is that you doubt your potential to emerge successful. You lack the right proportion of self conviction. That invaluable factor that makes you give a deaf ear to anything the folks have to say. You don’t  give an ear, because you are sure of your self and what you represent. And like Yasmine said, you feel and believe that you can achieve what you want in life.
Confidence is what you need to succeed. It is a mantle that stabilizes the feet of it’s possessor. It makes you a professional overnight. With confidence, you don’t panic.

Confidence in Business.

There is a term under business and economy called Business confidence index (BCI)
The business confidence index (BCI) is based on enterprises' assessment of production, orders and stocks, as well as its current position and expectations for the immediate future.

In order words, Business confidence index is the metrics of a business or economy that Portrays how trustworthy the venture is. It's value will either encourage or discourage investors from investing into your business. It reflects profits and loses and how good or badly a venture is operated.

Take for instance, the Business Confidence in Nigeria increased to 17.70 in the fourth quarter of 2017 from -2.60 in the third quarter of 2017.

Consequently, more investors would pump in their funds during the fourth quarter than during the third. This is because in the third quarter, BCI was low therefore investors did not trust the economy,  but the fourth quarter was not so because as investors began to see an improvement in the BCI they knew their funds were entering into a growing economy.
The point I want to make from this is that the business confidence index depicts the trust factor of a company or startup.  But people make up companies, people make up it's board of directors and infact, someone is the CEO.  Therefore a company is a legal person managed by individual persons. So anything that affects the company is as a result of decisions made by the individual person(s) that run the business.

Consequently,  if the confidence index of a business is low,  it simply means that the board of directors or managers of such companies have  very little confidence to take the right decision that could have produced a better result in the current positions and equity of the company.

Maybe we should just check individual confidence index

In business, you never want to keep quiet while things go wrong. Confidence and willpower takes care of that. The true leaders with the right individual confidence index are recognized by the way they handle difficult times.
What it takes to make strong but risky business decisions that could turn profits for your company is a reflection of your confidence factor and how much of a leader you've become.
I’ll explain.

People like to associate with success. A successful person is a confident person. They don’t want to deal with a mediocre because when losses come they bear it together.

Now, when your business is facing hard times, people are watching critically to see if you are showing the needed confidence index and persistence to take on the task. If you are, they hang around, because they want to be proud affiliates or shareholders. But when you act with even the slightest show of indecision, fragility and inactivity, they secede, sell their shares, and close their affiliate accounts. Why? because they don’t find you competent and no one wants to be on the losing team.

More importantly, your investors discover that your individual confidence index in the negative, and the wise investors know that it will sooner or later reflect on your BCI, therefore, they quit.

Confidence qualifies you to compete.

When your associates find a strong bust of self confidence is in you, you automatically become the latest CEO of the most competent board of directors. You will tend to build audiences faster and progress will be made at a rapid rate.
 You don’t need to be a professional, in order to display confidence. All that is required is a strong sense of discipline, and a strong decision to stop worrying about the competition and focus on your goal.

Confidence is that force that gives you a say. You walk into that podium undaunted by what comes your way. You know why? Because you have pride in your sense of person, you are confident that you can tackle anything that comes your way, thus,  you execute decisions with authority after you must have done your research. Take note that confident people don't take stand on decisions because they are right, but because they are not afraid of being wrong.

 Believe can get you going but confidence makes you a professional. A high Confidence index will make your competitors to sweat under their pants because, you will build customer base more rapidly.
The world needs confident people in business, people with very high confidence index. Others listen to and look up to them.

However, building confidence might just be that one spice you are missing. Harness the quickening power of this virtue and find your business or career shooting up like the storms.

Ready to take control and build confidence?

1. Focus on your passion:
When you start wanting to be everything in the world, to look more smarter and professional than you are, you will find your self with no focus and as a result no confidence in public. Focus on that very thing you know, don’t claim what you ain’t. just stick to being you and that will pay of handsomely. What this does is give you more time to research around your passion, and then get professional in that field. When you focus more, you realize more than you would have done without. You become an authority in the field and people listen when you speak.

2. Achieve little success everyday.
Past successes contributes to recent ones. When people comment and leave good review of your business and book. You feel successful and that leaves in you a certain confidence that you are now becoming an authority. So I found a way anyone can utilize that natural phenomena, turn it into a formula that can build confidence and make you the hero you were meant to be.
Set small goals everyday not something you doubt you may not keep to. Set something you can fathom. In business , try making shorter plans. Instead of taking on your financial plans all at once break it into different articles while you work on each one daily or weekly, as the case may be. When you work on that little stuff and achieve success you immediately begin to get some satisfaction, a sense of fulfillment for solving problems. This builds your confidence, and improves your competence – you ability to outshine your competitors.

3. Spend good portion of time to prepare.

Good preparation begets boldness, and boldness yields confidence. When you prepare for what you want to embark on, you get on top, you become an authority in that field and people look up to you. Preparation gets you ready for the opportunity. It makes you competent when the contract finally comes or when you finally start the business. When you are prepared, you will always have something to say, something to write, new ideas to offer, or the right decision to make. This keeps your audience, followers, associates and partners more engaged with you. They believe in you because you are competent. But when you spend the time doing irrelevancies and futilities, pursuing things that does not align with your plan, you end up being unprepared and unready. Then when the opportunity you’ve patiently waited for finally comes, the spectators find you shivering, the audience and associates discovers that you can’t make a decision, the followers and fans find out that you have nothing to offer and thus they let go of you and go for the others. Why? Because they see an incompetent fellow in you. They automatically see that you don’t even trust yourself, “how the hell do you want us to trust you” they keep asking. Start preparing today because luck is that point where preparation meets opportunity.

4. Be sincere with your followers.
Being open-minded with your business partners and followers is a very essential factor, however, most people overlook it.  When you are insincere or not clear about a particular fact, or maybe you try to maneuver, you may  not observe the many eyes and ears that are watching and listening. Then sometimes when you are feeling confident one fellow stands up and makes a reference or drop a sincere bad review. Then you find yourself sweating in front of your audience. Be strict about what you believe, state it plainly, and let all you do in and out of business reflect it. This is to say, be yourself. It saves you a lot of stress and heck in the future.

Instead of being turgid about the competition, build confidence and become competent. Because confidence is creative.

Yasmine says, building self-confidence begins with the process of self-exploration. And I think the process of self-exploration, with what you stand to gain, is worth the time and effort.

5. You don't always have to be right.

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8 Must do’s That Will Help You Get Focused: No Focus, No Fortune.

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An archer without a target will shoot aimlessly and realize nothing; a businessperson without focus will do all the businesses there is and end up frustrated. Have you spent most of the time in your life pursuing several things at a go without an actual goal or target, Or have you left a business for another just because you think the income isn’t rolling as estimated?

Greed Makes You Want To Kill Two Birds With A Stone.

Sometimes, the problem is not from the business but the business owner. When you don’t focus on one task to the finish, you literally vanish your strength in the quest for several others at a go. You are caught in between the dilemma of which bird to kill. Both birds will look pretty and beautiful but there’s just one chance and one stone. Many would go for both birds and end up losing everything.

Although I don’t expect you to completely agree, this is what most people do in business. Bruising the head of two birds with one stone sounds figuratively and connotatively possible. However, have you ever considered what it looks like to kill two birds in reality with one stone? 90 percent impossible.

So why do people keep repeating this mistake? They take an ideology that is meant for figurative speeches and apply it to their lives and businesses. Achieving two tasks at a go is only possible and applicable to very few activities like the daily chores at home or office. Not your career and business.

Focus brings out the best in you and quickly directs you to your fortune. Avoid the temptation of catching all the birds at once and you will flourish.

  They Tried To Kill All the Birds

John C. Maxwell shares a wonderful hunting adventure in his book, “Talent is never enough” republished as “Beyond Talent.” He recounts on an adventure he and a friend had in Buenos Aires of Argentina. The Buenos region of Argentina is known for the uncountable number of doves that parades over the air almost constantly. So, they went dove hunting.

While they stood and watched, thousands of birds will fly past them in so much that the cloud was almost black with them. He and his friend shot freely with the thought, “well, since the air is filled with these black creatures, it won’t matter where we shoot, we’ll certainly kill one.” Tragically, they spent almost two hours shooting and sweating, and you know how many birds they caught? None.

When a man abhors his sense of focus, he loses his fortune.

If you really want to be successful in business, there is one important thing to do. Take a record of all your ongoing business projects, analyze them critically on the basis of your scale of preference. Note that this should not be in determined by which business produces the highest income but on that which defines your true passion.

Take that one business apart from the rest. Begin to focus, deposit your strength and resources into the business, and take it by the horn. You will be amazed when you discover that your potential for success has become a reality.

Life without a priority is baseless. You should have something that sets your impulses on fire — a motivation. A business that you know very well and also love doing. Take it as your priority as far as the world of business is concerned. Let it be the function that determines what remaining resources there is to put into another.

Unless this function is confirmed, other probabilities and uncertainties can wait. Prioritize and focus on your passion.

Diversification should come only when the establishment of that prioritized business function is proven true.

A tree can only sit comfortably on a solid root. When the root is not established, the outer growth suffers uncertainty. Being the jack-of-all-trades and master of none doesn’t seem like what the  pros do. I have discovered that they focus on establishing the root business, they give it all they’ve got, sometimes they feel like they should give up, but they keep going. However, when the root is solidified, they diversify and boom it becomes a seemingly serendipitous materialization of wealth.

He Was Making The Same Mistake

Mike was very bothered about his financial predicament, so he decided to consult me. This guy was not poor he had the money but couldn’t manage it. In order words, he was experiencing the financial yo-yo effect — one day he made a huge profit and the next, he loses everything.

He Pours Out His Grief

“I have been in business for a very long time, but I can’t tell how I suddenly lose the money. I make money every day but somehow I don’t actually find that money in my purse.”

Immediately, I understood his grief. I knew what it felt like to lose everything and to start all over so, I stopped him from spilling all of it because I hated how it was making him feel.

“You are not the first person with this sort of problem, and I am personally a living experience of your story.”
Mike becoming impatient snapped back.

 “Why does it have to be that way,”

 “Because you made it that way.”

He was just trying to let that one in when I continued.

“The problem is not your business, but you.”
Mike was a friend and I knew him to own several businesses. Perhaps, they were just becoming too much for him to manage.
 

 “What is your focus?” I asked.

“To make huge money and build a great animal farm in my old age.” He responded hurriedly.

While that made me want to eke out a laugh, I tried so much to keep myself in check.

I noticed that Mike’s lack of focus was really costing him much. He went on to explain the businesses he did which I will not disclose for a reason best known to me. However, there was actually no focus. It was too much for him, so he found himself running around all day only to make money from one and lose it to the other. Then I advised Mike as follows:

Write a Plan That Focuses On One Business

In order words, make one business the function of all.

I have noticed that many people write a plan that contains more than one business venture. There is no focus in such a plan.

In an episode of the recently concluded series: How to start your business with little or no money, I covered a topic how to write an action plan that gets you started. A Plan can just be the pathway to success, but an action plan built on focus is a narrow path illuminated with a spotlight pointing straight at the goal and target. With this type of plan, you never lose focus. Your potential is at maximum because there is a clear view of your destination.

How Do You Teach Your Child To Crawl?

You probably do know the answer to that but let’s be a little emphatic here. You don’t sit a child and tell him to start crawling. This is what many are doing in business, and as a result, this is costing them great fortune and their potential to succeed. If you neglect focus, you get confused. When the destination is clear and there is a visible and well-written action plan that focuses on one business, you automatically get motivated to pursue and attain success.

Now here’s what we do, we sit him down, get a pizza, and place it a little farther from his reach. Immediately, his instincts becomes triggered; he automatically gets motivated to grab the pizza and so, he starts to crawl towards it.

What’s your goal? Do you actually have a target? What is your focus?

Maybe you are missing a pattern that the rich follow. It’s not about how many businesses you build; it’s about the one you build that thrives. Start building focus today by doing the following.

• Analyze your portfolio: Make a list of all venture and investments you’ve placed. Analyze these platforms based on their yielding capacities and scale of importance.
• Define your passion: After a careful analysis, choose the one that aligns with your passion. Something that drives you to action. It is that business you will willingly do for free if that's what it takes to keep going.

• Synchronize your passion with the business and career 
• Pursue that one that matters and do it with all you’ve got: Start working on that segmented and specialized business platform. Do all it takes, do more research and keep the hustling to the full. 
• Define what your success will look like — To grab the pizza: In order to know when you've succeeded, you should first know what success means for your business. Does it mean constantly increasing customer base, increased product sales and revenue? Does it mean good business reviews or how many branches the company has got?
• Don’t get distracted: Don’t get lost in the sea. Focus on your destination — the pizza. 
• Make sure you have an action plan 
• When you’ve attained your definition of success, you can choose the next plan that synchronizes with your passion, and iterate the process.

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Why Do You Let Fear Stagnate Your Investment Plans?

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Fear is very dangerous and very common amongst entrepreneurs. Starting investors are especially more prone to this form of anxiety. Therefore, if you are venturing into an investment idea or you’re thinking about launching an investment platform, then this post is for you.

The Fear of Loosing

Fear is a sore enemy of progress. It inhibits action and obliterates goals. It creeps in even when the resources needed are enough and you are sure the way is viable. It is said that “fear kills several times over before an actual death.”

An athlete with fear automatically begins to doubt his athleticism. He asks too many questions, whose answers are ambiguous.

“People are usually motivated more by the fear of losing than by the desire for gain” — Michael Leboeuf

 

How Does This Apply To Business?

Repeatedly, I see people that I consider greenhorns and rookies; claim to be business pros. However, it becomes a mere flipping of the tongue until what is professed is practiced. The financial education upon which many investors brag remain ineffectual until it brings to fruition a profitable business venture or investment.

“The young soldier will remain a militia until he gets out on the battlefield.”

Nevertheless, even as you try to get rid of the mere theoretical financial education syndrome, it doesn’t get funny and altogether interesting. Fear, self-doubt, and the shattered focus syndrome shows up.

The young entrepreneur begins to ponder

•  Aren’t there too many competitors already? Will my knowledge suffice? What if I lose everything

•  The investment platform is already saturated. The big guys will harvest the tubers while I pick up the crumbs.

However, this surely leads to no action at all. So stop asking yourself questions that only time can answer, whilst there are better things to do that could make you calculatedly determined.

• Instead of thinking, consult a mentor

• Start very small

• Bash the thought of the competition and focus on the trend.

• You mustn’t be all-knowing…. Success doesn’t demand all the knowledge in the world.

• Stop the fearful self-interrogations.

Courage and calculated analysis are what’s needed to get you into that investment platform. However, getting that courage entails that you…

1.  Control Your Mind

Fear is an enemy of progress. It kills at a rate statistics can’t and will certainly never decipher. It thwarts plans and obliterates dreams. But of course, that’s if you give it space.

The Fear of losing engulfs the mind so that it can’t envision rightly. When it gets hold of a person, it whispers enchanted voices that do the magic. It gets you out of control and controls you. How sadly this happens even unconsciously. To get out of this heavy state of mind, you first have to discover it, determine to let it go and then push it out. You need to immediately start controlling your mind and never allow an imposter to control you.

“Don’t let the fear of losing be greater than the excitement to win” — Robert Kiyosaki

2. Begin Small — it helps all the time.

Most times, tasks that are practically too big for you to handle at a stroke is what you’d rather go for. Perhaps you need to start handling little things efficiently rather than big things in the reverse.

 It is true you need to dream and think big. Starting big is a different thing altogether. It is a show of fame, ego, and mastery. Therefore, if you’ve not attained mastery in what you do, it is rational to start small and grow your way up.

In my own philosophy, everyone gradually develops from the embryo in the womb to the statuesque figure he/she finally assumes. So let’s apply the same formula to business.

Don’t take on a project or a business that you don’t have the capacity to handle. That’s practically a conscious invitation of doubt. Even if you have the resources, it’s easier to grow up than to plummet after a purported show of fake fame and egotism.

Therefore, instead of taking on something that can cause me to do nothing at all, I will rather dream big, but start small to grow.

Of course, you should keep your focus high, be the successful entrepreneur you wish to be. But not in a day. Cases of instant success are very rare. Break the long streak of tasks to smaller and simpler ones.

To be clear, it’s good to have that big plan but it’s wise to split them into a smaller action plan. It does the trick of getting you immediately started.

When I was first introduced to the Forex market, I registered into a demo account. But I made the mistake of selecting a $5 million funding. My wins were huge but so were the loses. However, at some point, I started to get better at picking the right take profit and stop loss points. And obviously, I became better at deciding when to enter the market or exit.

With this success, I was now ready to open a real trading account. But my real trading account funding was comparatively small and so, trading with the little funding I had, was almost impossible and tiresome being that I had practiced with $5 million. And you know what this resulted? I lost all my funds then I had to start the demo account all over. Guess what I did this time!

Don’t go for the summit when you haven't perfected down the stem — Raw suicide. Start from small; it will pay off handsomely and even beautifully in the long run.

3. Bash The Thought Of Competition And Focus On The Trend.

There will always be a competition. Everyone wants to be the next big thing that pops up on the screen; everyone wants to be recognized, so we keep struggling and competing in the market.

You are a potential competitor. Stop spending time worrying about businesses and other competitors who may not be as equipped and talented as you are. Get into business and begin in the smallest way you can to compete. Let them worry about the Rising star and what he is up to. Don’t let yourself get lost in the thought of a very high competition. Just get started and momentum will locate you.

                                                                                

4. Stop Doubting Your Financial Education And Potential

No one knows it all. If you agree to that fact, why do you still look yourself in the mirror and mutter, “he needs more education.” Well, let me say this, “You actually don’t need more education; what you need is more action.”

Jeff Bezos CEO of Amazon came up with the 70% rule. He explains that the best decisions are made with just 70% of information. If a person waits for 90%, he is actually being slow.

You should take action immediately. What you want to focus on is not whether the education is enough or not but on your ability to quickly recognize mistakes and correct them.

5. Discover The Right Person To Ask

With my experiences in working with different clients, I discovered that it is a common tendency to become infected with the imposter syndrome. We tend to wonder if we are capable of the task especially if it’s our first time.

The aftermath of these self-doubting questions is a discouraged state of mind that leaves you unwilling to embark on your capital projections. You get dissuaded from what you may have done perfectly if you gave it a shot.

Now I discovered that if I could find a mentor that I trusted; someone I am comfortable with. Instead of doubtful self-interrogations, I would say it aloud to a mentor whose words will break my underlying doubts and defenses thereby equipping me for action.

I recommend that if you want to overcome the fear of losing, you need to be a little vulnerable to your mentor. Instead of asking questions you will only realize answers to after you start, say it aloud to that trusted mentor or fellow. That word from him has a way of pushing you to action.

I hope you start taking control of your financial life today. Forget about the down trends and focus on the trending. There are still many opportunities to utilize. Remember we are in this together. So while you make progress applying these principles let us know and I will be sharing my experiences as we go on.

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Episode 8: Why Your Preparation Will Be Futile Without Consistent Practice

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Preparation is the basic and most essential element of business success. However, in most cases we find it hard to act out our preparation, to create a mark that will speak volumes of our preparedness. What impedes or hinders us from making a difference even after the much preparation? Perhaps, there is already an answer to it.

“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”
— Stephen King

Preparation Is Prerequisite For Success.

Preparation is getting ready. We become a better version of ourselves by preparation. There is no magic to it, there is no abracadabra; preparation is simply the most essential element of success.

Preparation precedes success

As algebra precedes calculus in mathematics, and crawling, walking in the developmental stages of a child, so is preparation a prerequisite for success. The prepared person will win if he shows up. The prepared, will always have an edge over others. They are at an advantage even over the most talented of men because they have mastered their skills and sharpened their saws through deep commitment and devotion to the learning process.

The next time you walk up to an event in which you are one of the participating players or presenters, one of the many questions that silently linger in your heart would be, “am I really prepared for this?” This again proves that preparation precedes success.

Preparation is a very important factor for any real success. You need to be actively present in what you profess to represent. Are you an entrepreneur businessperson, a business coach, an athlete, a scholar?

“The best way to succeed in business is to be in business”

You’ve Been Prepared Mentally

This series has centered on preparing you to be able to take on whatever business idea, career or craft you wish to pursue. It means to help you find and utilize your opportunities.

Opportunities come to us in many ways, but sometimes we don’t even recognize them and consequently we miss our big chance. Preparation opens your eyes to opportunities. It helps you see beyond the normal. However, this is not just about recognizing opportunities but utilizing it.

The ability to recognize and utilize opportunities is more of a mental exercise, and from the very beginning, we’ve focused on building that exceptional mentality for success.

Some of these mental preparations are as follows:

•         The start formula

•        How to exorcise your fear to start

•        What hinders you from success

•       The action plan that activates the start formula

All these, prepare you mentally and set you in the right mindset for action. They inscribe the basic principles of success so that you win mentally and when you win mentally, you are already a winner.

Preparation Vs Practice

Preparation is getting something or somebody ready in advance. Nevertheless, preparation and practice is sometimes mistaken to mean the same thing but this is not so.

Practice means the act of repeating something to get better. It is the performing of a task so that a person gets accustomed to it. Practice is the continuous repetition of an activity, a consistent participation in a craft in order to get better. It involves the activities a person does, in respect to his jurisdiction that makes him a better artisan.

In other words, a prepared person denotes a ready or set person whereas practice involves all the activities after which a person or a thing is certified set or prepared.

Going back to the maxim, “preparation is prerequisite for success.” It can also be said that “practice precedes preparation which in turn is prerequisite for success.”

Before attaining the state of preparedness, one must have practiced repetitively whatever be his craft. Practice is the successive realization of set goals for the basic purpose of getting better and preparation is the state at which practice accounts for a mastery in the said skill or craft.

Does Practice Have To Stop?

However, the problem with some of us is that we are too fast to assume the state of preparedness. It takes time to get prepared; more than we even conceive. Preparation costs practice and indefatigable commitment.

A football team spends days practicing for a 90 minutes match, the same way a speaker will spend several hours for a 30-minute speech. Consistent and unrelenting Practice is the cost one must pay for attaining a state of preparedness. However, when you are truly prepared, success is not farfetched.

Even after reaching a state of preparedness, practice is just too precious a thing to let go. We tend to forget about perfecting in things and areas we’ve already been awarded excellence.

Statistics shows that only one-third of adults finish an entire book after their last graduation. This proves that our teachability drops rapidly immediately we attain erudition in a given profession. Why does it have to be so? Why do we have to stop practicing?

When you stop learning or practicing, your preparedness dwindles. You become less and less competent until you are back in a pit you once triumphed. The Mathematics professor will always say, “Friends, if you leave Mathematics, Mathematics leaves you.”

It will all be for nothing if you do not practice consistently or participate actively in your craft. If you hope to build a career in singing, writing, marketing, or entrepreneurship and you do not find a way to sing, write, market or find new business opportunities respectively, every day, then there is absolutely no way you can get to success and remain at it.

Success is not a one-time achievement of a predetermined goal as many people see it. It is a gradual and systematic acceleration towards that goal. What this means is that every step you take, and every action, can lead either to your success or to failure.

Here is the bottom line. No matter how good you get in your business or profession, find ways to practice every single day and even when you attain erudition in a profession, keep practicing.

Here is a simplified progression flow.

Writers, write; investors, invest; businesspersons, build businesses; athletes, participate in sports. Every single day, in the very best way you can, always practice and you’ll be surprised how good you’ll get.

As you begin to figure out ways you can start practicing your craft, note that a couple of things can always hinder you from practicing.

#1 Friends

Friends are great tools for success as they can be an inhibition to growth. The friends we keep determine most of our actions and that is how it is. When a writer has a friend whose center is pleasure and entertainment, you can imagine how impossible that combination is. More often than not, the writer will certainly be dissuaded from embarking on a project he has at hand perhaps due to a party that will be held at some place after the next two or three streets.

When you discover a friend who inhibits your productivity, perhaps that’s not a good union and I think there’s an obvious action to take — Keep away. This is because friends are important determining factors of our success rate. You think you're the boss of your life, well that’s only partially true. Your friends subconsciously rule you and since they do, it is an unarguable fact that you need better friends.

#2 Your Boss

Many people work for money and not for passion. Some of these persons are innocent about this because they never did have a choice. People take on roles in organizations or positions in business premises mainly due to frustration and the unavailability of a second choice. Thus, they work for money and not for their passion. Their day-to-day actions are inconsistent with what they actually want to be or do. Therefore, they don’t practice their craft because their busy-ness does not align with thier core values.

Your bosses push you away from the activities you really care about, and then they allot you some stuff that is irrelevant to your craft and profession. The point is that if in your place of work, you are not delegated to activities that concern your career or interest, your boss may be trampling on your practice environment.

Do you suffer from a tight schedule at work? Are you delegated to do things that are incongruous with your career? Then maybe you are spending precious time under the wrong boss.

#3 Your Environment

The environment plays an enormous role in the making of a person. Whether you emerge a winner or a loser, your environment has the major answer. Many a time, we tend to be the eagle that dwells amongst chickens. We tie ourselves to a strange environment and as such, we are greatly affected. We undermine our potentials and tend to put up with the flow of things around us. However, we consequently live a life whose potential talents and fortune lay waste on an island of no return.

If you dwell among wolves, you tend to act like one; the eagle raised in a chicken’s pen thinks he is a chicken and acts as such. Therefore, until you break loose from your hallucinations and move to the right environment for your craft, you may never soar like that eagle did.

You may be spending time in wrong place all this while and that might just be the reason you cannot practice. Your environment plays an important role in making you the success you want to be. You can’t be the eagle that dwells among chickens. That’s insane.

#4 Family

I do not want to talk much about this, because there is no avoiding it. My advice is that you figure out the perfect timing so you can practice your craft and still get back to family. Family time is fabulous time — don’t mess it up.

For instance, a writer may decide to write within the hours of 3am to 4:30am then she wakes by 5am in order to attend to the kids and get them early to school. However it applies to you, make sure you find time and practice.

Here are a few things you can do to create the best aiding environment for practicing your craft.

• Change your friends. Speaker Joe Larson says, “My friends did not believe that I could become a successful speaker, so I did something about it. I went out and found me some new friends.” You too can do the same. Nothing should stand in your way to success; it is just too costly a mistake to make.

•  Be Always at the right environment — don’t be the eagle in a chicken pen.

• Change your boss — of course, you can. Find yourself a new boss who understands the importance of working in a position that is consistent with your craft and interest.

• Schedule your practice time so it does not coincide with family time — respect family)

You may be a professional athlete but if you do not show up on the event day, it won’t matter. You may be the most sophisticated investor, but if you do not start investing, how will you discover? You may have gathered all the financial education on business building, but if you do not build a business for real, it just won’t matter.

Revisit the action plan; get to work with it, research opportunities where you can practice your craft, for it is in practicing that you get prepared. Being a practitioner in the field is the only way you can get better. Your ideas will remain an illusion until you show up and become a real practitioner. No financial education will compensate for your inaction. You may not perform very well in the first few months or years, but trust me, the exponential power of action will soon catch up with you.

Always look for means to practice your craft for real. If it means changing all your friends, do it. Even if it requires leaving your current geographical environment, board a flight immediately and if you cannot afford one, use a taxi. Whatever it takes, however much it will cost, be a practitioner.

The lessons taught in this series, will not matter if you do not keep practicing them. Remember the quote by famous Roman philosopher Seneca, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” And the only way to be truly prepared is to practice constantly. You have a choice to start today and smile tomorrow.


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DISCOVER THE POWER OF A BUSINESS PLAN, AND HOW YOUR SMALL BUSINESS CAN UTILIZE IT.

A business plan in its simplest form can be seen as a guidebook with detailed information about how a startup will grow from bottom point to the peak of heights.

Often times most investors neglect this leverage and go ahead doing the planning in the course of running the business. The one problem with this type of plan is that it does not have a focus and will always amount to failure.

THE POWER ROOT.

A business plan is that specially written information that carries the power to transform any business model. It harnesses and utilizes the power of focus. The business plan is always successful because it directs all efforts to a specific goal. Whenever effort is focused at a point, there is a compound effect that always leads to success. Therefore the power of a business plan is found in its ability to focus efforts, to one goal. Nevertheless, there are good as well as bad business plans.

 The power of a business plan is found in its ability to focus efforts on one goal.

Tips For Effective And Good Business Plan Writing.

1.       You don’t need all the research

It is very necessary that one makes proper research before venturing into any business model. Going into a business without any knowledge about it can be very endangering to your capital. Therefore, research is very necessary before any business plan is set up. Nevertheless, you don’t need all the research. Many people are just indecisive, they don’t just know what option to choose, what brand to assume, the best prices for their products and so on. Therefore they spend a lot of precious time making research upon which they will definitely not come up with a conclusion, instead, will  end up being more confused and frustrated. It is said that “time is the investors most valued asset” and John C. Maxwell in his book Talent is never enough asserted, “Anything worth doing is worth doing immediately”. Therefore ask yourself if starting will at least take off some emotional burden, strengthen your willpower or create positive cash flow. If any of the following applies then start up with your little research and stop wasting valuable time. It is said, “the best way to succeed in business is to be in business” and an English playwright James Ardley in one of his verses lamented,

  He slept beneath the moon

  He basked beneath the sun

  He lived a life of going-to-do

  And died with nothing done.

" Anything worth doing is worth doing immediately!"
John C. Maxwell

Therefore to avoid doing entirely nothing, do your little research and start immediately for it is in starting that your research becomes practical.
 

2.       Define your short and long term goals

Though a cliché, the saying "Everything happens for a reason" still stands true. If am privileged to rephrase that, I would say, “if there is no reason (goal), then there is no need to pursue anything”. Setting your goals is very important to creating a successful business plan. You should be able to clearly state your business goals and objective and then how to go about achieving them." You don't pursue without a prey or race without a finish line." Everything must be done for a reason and as such your business plan should have a specific short term goals  (goals you wish to pursue at the very instant whose results are seen immediately) and long term goals (goals you wish to achieve in the long run of the business).

" You don't pursue without a prey or race without a finish line."

3.       Clearly, define your vision and mission statement

Where there is no vision there is no focus and where there is no focus, there is no success. There is no truly successful business without a vision and mission statement. The mission statement gives any business a strong reason to keep fighting while the vision statement focuses the businesses efforts at a specific goal. Every business plan must include these. In tough times, the mission and vision statement has a way of rekindling the passion for success. Therefore, if you are already operating your business without a mission/vision statement, success demands you get one. Remember, your mission statement gives you the reason to keep fighting and your vision statement focuses your efforts. There is no limit to what you can achieve with them.

"In tough times, the mission and vision statement has a way of rekindling the passion for success... there is no limit to what you can achieve with them."

4.       Define your marketing and advertisement strategies

Marketing and advertising should be an essential part of any business plan. Proper advertising feeds the marketing department. When the advertisement is dead, the sales report automatically gets gloomy. That is how related both fields are and in fact, a dwindling sales report automatically beget a dwindling business structure. Therefore, every effective business plan should contain a nicely strategized marketing and advertisement plan.

5.       Review

Professional writers proofread their articles, actors review their appearances, so, do review your business plan. A bad business plan can recklessly squander a heap of capital. So, why not spend little to review your plan than face financial crisis. Business planning is great and cool but how well and effective is the question. For your business plan review, you can consider consulting professional business analysts and advisors to help review your plan, make necessary amends and leave you with a plan that works perfectly for your business.

6.       Start immediately:
 To plan is good, to start is best. Starting is as easy literally but not practically. It can possibly take a lifetime to actually start up a long-time plan. Don’t hesitate your success, don’t nurse failure in the reins of your heart. Pursue your vision and mission no matter what stands between you. Associate with dream builders and the right business partners that can encourage your idea. Beware, bad associates can kill your career. Determine to pursue your plan and start immediately.

" To plan is good, to start is best...START NOW!"

Do you already have a business plan but not sure whether to start or how effective it will be? Are you tired of losing money on countless investments? Contact our board of responsive professionals today and let's create an effective business plan for that your particular business idea + Review. You can also contact us for a review of an existing plan. We will ask a few questions and get the work done. Join happy users of our product today.

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