Build Your Own Business
The road to becoming a self-made millionaire in America is starting and building your own business. If you’ve tried this endeavor already, you know that it’s not as easy as it sounds. Most businesses started by inexperienced people fail, but this is good news.  Why?  Because you can get the experience you need to succeed.

Probably the primary reason why people don’t start businesses is because they’re afraid that they’re going to lose their money and for good reason. 99 percent of businesses started by people lacking business experience fail within the first two or three years.

Why Businesses Fail
And why is that? It’s because they don’t know how to succeed. They haven’t the slightest idea how to make a business successful. They may have an idea for a product or service, but they don’t know all the things that they need to know to run a successful business.

Why Businesses Succeed
However, surprisingly enough, 80 percent of businesses started by experienced businesspeople succeed. Now why should this be so? The reason is because experienced businesspeople know what to do. They know how to purchase their products and their services. They know how to negotiate with their suppliers. They know how to raise money. They know how to negotiate leases. They know how to sell and to market. They know how to manage their finances. In other words, experience is the key. In order to start your own business and succeed, you have to learn how.

Competence Makes the Difference
Now according to Dunn and Bradstreet, 96 percent of businesses in America that fail, fail because of what is called “managerial incompetence”. Managerial incompetence means that the people running the businesses don’t know what they’re doing. And here are the two critical areas of managerial incompetence that cause business failure.

1. Lack of sales and marketing. Forty-eight percent of businesses that fail in America fail because the business cannot sell enough of its products or services. Very few businesses fail when they have high levels of sales and revenues coming in.
2. Lack of cost control.  Forty-six percent of businesses that fail in America do so because they don’t manager their expenses.  They may be selling enough on the front end, but they’re losing so much on the back end that they go broke anyway.

Sales, marketing, financing and cost control, all require experience and on-going research. If you’re serious about becoming financially independent, you simply must learn everything you can about these aspects of your business.

Put Luck On Your Side
Business success is not a matter of luck. Business success is a matter of application. It’s a matter of ability. It’s a matter of experience and skill and intelligence, and wonderfully enough, you can learn what you need to know to be successful. Energy and enthusiasm go a long way, too, but that’s another post!)  You can start by learning through on-the-job training. Most successful businesspeople become successful because they get all their training by working for someone else at first.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to make sure that your business succeeds greatly:

1. Take the time to get the knowledge and experience you need in business by working for someone else where you can learn a lot in a short period of time. Go to work in an area in which you are interested and learn everything you possibly can.
2. Read and study in business, especially entrepreneurial business, all the time. Read one or two business books per week and read every business magazine that is published on your subject. Never stop learning and growing.

Until next time,
I Invite you to Live Joyfully!

Posted under Motivation