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Gevril and Haurex Italia dinner during Baselworld in March 2011 with Larry Brauner standing in the background.
Baselworld 2012 is right around the corner!
Jun
22
Critical Success Factors
Filed Under Best of 2008, Outside the Box, Personal Development and Success
This post is somewhat longer than usual. Sorry for that, but I put a lot of work into it. I hope you like it.
Last Wednesday during my regular bi-weekly business mentoring tele-conference I revealed several powerful business success secrets.
While I was specifically addressing entrepreneurs, small business owners and sales professionals, these principles apply to all people and to all areas of our lives, not only business success.
Have you noticed? The year 2008 is half over.
Near the end of 2007 I posted Personal Development: 10 Simple Success Strategies to “help turbo charge your personal development in the New Year”. This may be worth re-reading if some of your goals and objectives have lost much of their earlier inertia.
Commitment
What are you committed to?
Mike Hernacki in The Ultimate Secret to Getting Absolutely Everything You Want wrote:
“In order to accomplish something, you must know what you want and be willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish it.”
It sounds too simple, doesn’t it? However, it is your intention and commitment that set The Law of Attraction into motion on your behalf.
Want proof?
Reflect back on your most important accomplishments, such as raising a child, getting a college degree, running a marathon, starting a business, or developing an Internet presence, and you’ll agree that your commitment to your success was absolute.
It wasn’t that you felt obligated. Rather you felt that the goal was extremely important to you, and that you would deal with any obstacle that might arise — without knowing in advance exactly what would be demanded of you on your way to success.
Without total commitment The Law of Attraction would have probably delivered an obstacle that you would not have been willing to handle, and you would have failed.
This success secret is so important that I’ve read Mike Hernacki’s timeless book about a dozen times over the past decade.
Acquiring New Skills
I am commited to ongoing personal development and acquisition of new knowledge and skills. I read mind expanding books, blogs and e-books.
Your objective may require the mastery of new skills – or it may not. Your willingness to do what it takes is what really matters. If new skills are required, then you must be ready and willing to learn them.
Working Hard
You may be required to apply a great amount of effort. When I wanted to run the New York Marathon in 1984, strenuous preparation was absolutely necessary. In 1985 that was still true but to a lesser extent, since I had maintained a high level of fitness in the interim.
Tenacity and Persistence
Let’s bring this home.
You want to develop a presence at one of your favorite social networking sites – or you want to write a blog – or you want to build an Internet presence. These objectives usually require a high degree of tenacity.
So often people abandon online social networking, blogging or social media optimization without realizing their objectives. They weren’t willing to persist. Perhaps their belief system was weak.
I have been social networking online for many years. I have continuously posted to this blog for nearly eight months.
Why?
I know what I want, and I’m willing to persist until I achieve it.
Belief
As I stated in Personal Development: The Law of Belief, “Our motivation and how we act is determined by our underlying beliefs.
“If we don’t believe that something is possible, we won’t even try to make it happen. Please listen to a conference call I recorded on 8/22/07 that illustrates this concept.”
A healthy belief system is critical to success in business and life.
Treat Your Business Like a Business
Production
Showing up counts for something, but it doesn’t count for enough.
Success in business and life depends on producing value either directly or indirectly through people you influence.
If you have a job and don’t produce, you won’t get very far, and sooner or later you won’t have a job.
If you have a business and don’t produce, you won’t have money in the bank.
If you don’t come through for people, you won’t have their friendship.
You must make a positive contribution in order to be successful.
One way to ensure that you’re productive is to set daily or weekly goals or benchmarks.
For example, let’s suppose you’re in sales. You need to make six product sales per month to meet your business objectives. In order to make six sales, you need to make 15 presentations. To get 15 appointments, you’ll need to speak to 60 people.
You work about 20 days per month. On average you will have to speak to three people per day in order to speak to 60 per month.
Your benchmark or goal becomes three a day. If you focus on 3+ per day with consistency, you will likely make your six product sales per month.
You’ve succeeded at breaking down your abstract monthly goal into concrete daily actions.
Diversification
Big corporations employ a wide variety of media and messages to bring their product to market. They advertise on television, radio, in print and through direct mail. They experiment with many versions of their ad copy.
You cannot do everything a giant company can do, but why not learn from their example?
If you use half a dozen methods to reach out to your potential clients, you’ll enjoy these benefits:
- You’ll achieve success with some approaches, even if others fail.
- You’ll attract a wider variety of clients than using a single method.
- You’ll be able to see which methods perform better relative to each other, so that you can refine your marketing plan.
- You’ll lower your overall risk through diversification.
Here are some of my favorite marketing channels:
- Online social networking at social networking sites
- Offline business networking at a business networking group such as Network Plus, facilitated by Ted Fattoross, the group’s founder
- My Online Social Networking blog that you’re reading right now coupled with keyword research and search engine optimization
- Social media sites and social bookmarking sites
- Classified advertising in small weekly newspapers
Over time you’ll develop your own favorite marketing channels if you haven’t already done so.
Tracking and Analysis
If you want to make informed business decisions, you must track your results and analyze your data. If you can’t do it yourself, then you must get an expert to do it for you or show you how to do it.
Tracking and analysis are not something optional.
Let me ask you, would you even consider driving your car with your eyes shut?
You can’t afford to run your business with your eyes shut or even partially covered.
Cost per Acquisition
One of the most basic marketing measurements is cost per acquisition, the amount that you’re spending on average to complete a sale using each marketing method. Simply put, it’s the total spend divided by the total number of sales.
It is important to consider your staff costs including your own time, not just the out-of-pocket expenditures for design and media.
Cost per acquisition is an excellent way to compare marketing channels, but there is one very important caveat. Customers from one marketing channel may be more valuable than from another. Therefore marketers must take into account customer long term value, the other side of the equation.
Customer Long Term Value
Customer long term value can be difficult to calculate, but it is generally approximated as the income you expect to earn from a customer over a 12 to 24 month period. If your business is on the risky side, lean towards 12 months. If it is very stable, then 24 months may be appropriate.
To be successful, cost per acquisition cannot exceed customer long term value. It ought to be less.
Trend Data
You can also track your performance or the performance of your staff. Trending performance data and marketing data over time will help you see the bigger picture.
Masterminding and Mentoring
As stated in my post Even Mentors Need Mentors, “I learn from reading many books, e-books and blogs, and from speaking frequently with friends and mentors. Having mentors has greatly shortened my learning curve.”
Masterminding with your peers and seeking out mentors will help you as much or more than any other single strategy mentioned in this article.
Please feel free to comment and share those strategies that have made the biggest difference in your business and personal endeavors.
Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to my RSS feed or by e-mail. Also, visit my About, Services, Media Buzz and Connect pages to learn about me and my social media and web marketing services.
Tags: belief system, Business Networking, business networking group, consistency, critical success factors, entrepreneur, keyword research, mentoring, network plus, SEO, social bookmarking sites, starting a small business, Strategies, success secrets, Success Strategies, Ted Fattoross
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Social Networking is a great way to meet new friends, connect with old friends, and in some cases make money.
Great post… I bookmarked it — socially.
I think reading this will help “newbies” start with the right mindset and focus.
It’s all too easy to fall into the trap of “easy online riches”. With that attitude there is seldom any real commitment. People bounce around trying this and that. They never set any firm goals or stay with one thing long enough — and end up failing.
I too, think commitment is a critical factor in business success. Your post goes hand in hand with a new book I just read, “Get Noticed, Get Referrals” by Jill Lublin. The title of the book is a bit misleading in that it covers a lot more than business referrals. What Jill describes as building relationships is really committing to relationships and as you said, the principles work in all areas of life. She also offers systematic advice on using focus to accomplish goals over an extended period…and to be certain, business credibility is built over time.
If you want more brilliant business tips from Jill, you can sign up for her free newsletter and be notified about special promotions happening this week.
I think that this is exceptional information that provides the reader with concreate advice and is of great value.
Best of all, the author is a true contributor and is serving others well by providing quality information for all to use at their will.
Hi Larry
I absolutely agree with you - well done.
If one has a positive mindset and believes in themselves in achieving their goal the sky is the limit.
David
[…] Larry Brauner gets pretty regular coverage here on HBM, and for good reason! His recent post on critical success factors is one for your favorites list, and the “Production” portion of this post is some of the best […]
I agree completely. I have been working towards earning a living online for the last 3 years and am gradually getting there just because I am determined.
Success will only depend on how the workers do their job to make things effective and efficient that is why every business must have a strategy to use.