Leadership – Success Leaders
Published April 9, 2012 | 
Many have observed over the years that baseball is a slow, sometimes lethargic game, with way too many frequent and inconsequentially important interruptions, offering each spectator many opportunities to consider and think about at their leisure, the situation playing out in front of them on the field. This my friends is what a true fan loves most about the game… it is life!
Leadership Lessons of Baseball
Respect the decisions of the umpire, as this is an essential part of honoring the game that’s of great magnitude. Your child will ALWAYS pay more attention to how you act than to what you say.
Understand that failure exists to bring you wisdom and success and failure doesn’t exist without a reason. Its presence is to provide you the wisdom you need in order to succeed. Each failure your team encounters increases the collective wisdom bringing them one step closer to success. Develop this team-mindset, and they will view failure differently, and for what it is… an opportunity to learn and reach success.
Always learn and understand as much as possible from the failure and you will find that failure brings you wisdom, but how much wisdom you gain will depend directly on your team’s ability to garner from it. So a leader never wastes an opportunity to learn and teach as much as possible. If your team fails to achieve this, they may very well waste a lot of time, energy and resources by continuing the same mistakes in the future, with the same results.
Don’t let the team give up because success may be closer than you think and although the thought of giving up is tempting, especially when teams have repeatedly failed, but understanding how close success can really be is part of the leadership skills you build and use to pass the understanding to the team. So encouragement to hold on tight and don’t give up. Thomas Edison failed thousands of times during his journey to perfect the light bulb. But, he knew the meaning of not giving up, and the rewards success offered.
Maintain your enthusiasm with the same level of passion as when you first began, and your team will respond with its continued heightened efforts.
One good way is by reminding everyone with each step closer to success and celebrating even the tiniest milestone successfully reached. There’s no reason not to be enthusiastic when each milestone achievement brings you closer to success. Another way is to keep their minds focused on the destination, and the next point towards reaching it.
Keep dreaming big dreams and always have a visual of the destination in mind. Spend time for everyone to visualize them and let the dreams energize the entire team. Let them make you even more passionate and enthusiastic. Because once dreaming and visualization ceases, it won’t be long for everyone to lose energy and start sliding to mediocrity.
Keep your confidence in yourself despite any failures. Of course, you need to put a lot of effort towards learning and understanding as much as possible from failure, but you definitely have the ability to make your dream come true. Many people who become great leaders and achieve great undertakings have no special trait. Many times they are just ordinary people with an amazingly extraordinary attitude, and you should always strive for you and your team to be counted among them.
Finally, rather than viewing failure as something to be avoided at all costs, turn even small ones into a “stepping-stones” on the path to great success and achievement, or in other words, remember that “Success is the destination, and failure is how you get there.”
To achieve significant success in today’s world and global economy, understand unmistakably that failure is not just a simple possibility, but it’s a requirement. We must enlighten ourselves to clearly see success and failure for what they truly are. Success and failure have never been nor ever will be opposites, but will always be opposite sides of the same coin.
Things never go right all the time. Some battles you win, and other battles you lose. Whenever you lose a battle, never point fingers or complain about reasons “beyond control” that caused the failure. The real answer is that you must accept the failure, and then quickly determine how to improve and turn failure into great success.
Confidence can Devastate Your Business Dream
Published February 17, 2012 | Your own worth consists in understanding who and what you are, and not in what you have.
The truth of the matter is the one single thing that suppresses more businesses than any poor economic market condition is EGO! Keep reading because if this is not you, then you probably know someone like this.
Trying to do everything is a sign of Egomaniacs telling themselves that no one can do things as well as THEY can. Unfortunately, this is the fastest way to destroy a business even before it gets started, because the excessive time spent on $10/hour tasks including answering every email or returning every phone-call, the $250/hour tasks are neglected including increasing the business’ value to clients, or developing new processes and more effective and efficient strategies that build their business and increase profitability.
Always place blame on external factors when anything goes wrong because minds with excessive egos do not like to fail, ever. This actually presents itself when failure is wrongly framed. It’s easy for struggling businesses to blame “the economy,” or better yet, “dumb prospects,” or any other number of external factors.
Failure to record and measure daily goals EVERY day, because everything can be remembered by ultra-ego personalities that have way too much trust in themselves, and they truly do not believe they need to write down everything that needs to be accomplished. You need to understand that writing down and prioritizing does not mean someone has a poor memory or even better, a weak mind, but it really means that you want to make sure everything is done that’s necessary to succeed.
Always remember, that “the mind is for thinking, not remembering,” and always keep pen and paper handy to record tasks you need to carry out and complete each day for the greater success you are focused on reaching.
Only open to “FREE” advice exposes shallow egos, which are constantly thinking and calculating that “their value is higher than that of others.” Carefully consider that only an irrational person with a superego would not trade their $50 ideas for a $250 idea from someone else. It’s definitely a hard fact that no one is an expert at everything, 
so you would think that it makes sense to continuously seek ways of constant improvement. So based on that, not investing in important educational and training materials, along with guidance and mentoring from others, means that someone is either: completely irrational; or they believe that their ideas are ALWAYS more valuable than the ideas of anyone else.
Wise Ben Franklin once said: “Invest the coins in your purse in your mind, and your mind will fill your purse with coins.” That’s one you will want “write down” and occasionally read to stay on the right path to greater business success.
So, if a GAP exists between where you want to be and where you currently are, be sure that letting your ego get in your own way is not what’s holding you back from the success you’re striving for.
The Importance of a Business Plan
Published December 22, 2011 | To chart a course of action and follow it to a successful end requires courage, convergent focus and discipline.
How important is the Business Plan?
In addition to writing hundreds of business plans, I have written many, many articles, and given dozens of seminars on the subject of business planning over the past decade, so you would think I would eventually reach the point where I had nothing left to write or say.
But as long as people keep asking questions, I’ll keep answering them, especially something as critically important as business planning to not only the level of success achieved, but the very essence of success that determines the longevity of business success and associated staying power.
I must say, if you are seeking any kind of funding, the business plan is quite critical. Most sources of funding (i.e., angel funding, venture capital, bank loans, etc.) absolutely require a business plan without exception. A simpler way to put it is, without a plan, your chances to raise funding are zero, nada, and zip. Almost without exception is it possible.
The simple fact is that if you aspire to be successful at business, you need a well-written business plan. The studies are endless that prove entrepreneurs who develop formal business plans are much more successful than those who do not.
You most likely wouldn’t think to start out on a long cross-country trip without a map of how to get to your ultimate destination, so why would you even attempt to start a business without a business plan?
If correctly developed, a business plan is a precise definition of your business, identifying your goals and serving as the ‘resume of your business.’ It facilitates the proper allocation of your resources, and manages unexpected and unforeseen obstacles and difficulties, with good business decisions. In addition, for the reason that it provides specific and highly-organized information about your company, and exactly how you will repay borrowed money, a well-prepared business plan is a crucial and central part of any loan application. And furthermore, it informs and enlightens your sales personnel, suppliers and others about your operations and goals.
Even with the volumes that have been written about the crucial importance of a business plan, many entrepreneurs make the same mistake and needlessly delay when it comes to preparing any kind of written plan. They argue without merit or proof that their marketplace changes too quickly for a useful business plan or claim they don’t have enough time.
But if a general contractor wouldn’t consider for a second, starting construction without a blueprint, enthusiastic business owners would be very wise NOT to rush into any new venture without a business plan.
The Significant Value of Planning
Let me say once again, a business plan is your roadmap for the business, a truly consequential document that provides the vision, goals and benchmarking that is the future of your business. At the plan’s very essence it creates momentum and also provides regular opportunities for reality checks including what worked in the past year, where gaps exist, and a clear picture of what next year is most likely going to look like.
The process of business planning is extremely valuable for the very reason that it provides convergent focus, clear guidance, and strength of commitment to ongoing maximization of success.
Planning is a process that is completely focused on exactly what you are passionate about, and one of the greatest things about a business plan is that it shines the proverbial light directly on your successes. It creates targeted benchmarks so when you achieve successes they are recognizable, allowing for acknowledgment of your successes, as well as the specific areas of business that still need your close attention.
Plans certainly make entrepreneurs, business owners and management teams more effective and accountable as well. Just imagine that when the year has been mapped out, you can get straight to running the business, rather than ineffectively thinking about it “in place.”
So it’s time to start planning!
Your Cash Flow Management as Important as Revenue
Published November 22, 2011 | Common Business Mistakes You Want to Avoid
Negative Cash Flow Doesn’t always Mean Disaster or Mismanagement
As with any good business enterprise, they make sure to take good care of their customers and employees, but more times than not fail to take good care of the business cash flow. It has been common in today’s economy, to find receivables that run into more than 90 days. As a general rule of the thumb, any receivable greater than 120 days can be classified as a doubtful debt, and banks look at everything over 60 days as a problem they won’t accept as collateral for additional funding for the business.
Organizations that compete on low prices have to deal with this prevalent issue on a far too routine basis. Worse yet, sales people are quite often reluctant to ask for the payment after delivering the material or providing the service.
Now business enterprises that experience continued positive cash flow, then there is really no problem, except to identify where to invest excess cash surpluses for the greatest returns. But in the more acutely-critical case of negative cash flow, the problem is very serious. Without the cash on hand you can’t pay the bills and wages in time. You most likely may not be able to borrow on a short-term beyond a certain limit that’s been established.
Understand that once a business starts having to borrow from Peter to pay Paul, it is generally at much higher interest rates, and the business can start to spiral downward. And just like anything negative in the market about a specific business, the word travels fast and like it or not, the whole world comes to know about the business’ misfortune. Ultimately, if continued, then one goes broke and out of business. It is an important fact to be aware of, that the major cause for bankruptcy is fatality of the business caused directly by inadequate cash flow, rather than a loss in operations.
“Customer satisfaction, Employee satisfaction and Cash flow are the three most important indicators for a business” – Jack Welch
However, negative cash flow doesn’t automatically mean disastrous impact or even mismanagement. In many cases businesses experiencing rapid growth and expansion can require much larger cash flows than normal to finance new projects, along with research and development and other critically important investments. While many other companies that experience seasonality with their respective flow of cash, may not have adequate cash flow when faced with leaner periods of time. The main danger to be highly-aware of at all times is when the short term debt or current liabilities become too high to be met by current assets.
The benefits of good cash flow management are:
- A clear understanding of what the cash position of the business is and what it is likely to be, avoids unwanted embarrassment. No one wants to lie that the check is in the mail.
- A business that has an understanding of its cash position knows exactly what it needs to borrow, thereby minimizing interest expense or, if applicable, the firm can choose to invest its idle cash as part of its financial management policies.
- Simply providing the bank with a cash flow analysis is highly-impressive to loan officers.
- Enabling proactive cash flow strategies through the use of cash analyze deters surprises.
Cash flow analysis ensures that a company does not have face the decision to bounce a check before it realizes that it needs to borrow money to cover expenses, which is never a good situation. In contrast, if the cash flow analysis indicates that a loan won’t be needed for several months, the business has more than adequate times to better negotiate terms.
Cash is the life-blood of all businesses large and small and good cash flow management is critical to extending the staying power and level of long-term business success.
Make Your Business Plan a Living Document
Published November 21, 2011 | Common Business Mistakes You Want to Avoid
What Happens Once You Write the Business Plan?
One of the most difficult tasks entrepreneurs and small business owners will ever face is writing a comprehensive plan for their respective businesses. That’s why many never complete the critical planning process, let alone attempt it, and that’s not good. But those that successfully complete the planning development also cultivate the strong realization that their business plan is a valuable reference.
The comprehensive business plan you create is one of the most valuable tools for operating the business you will ever have. Therefore you need to view the plan as a living document, take the time to maintain it, and it will remain an extremely valuable component of the pursuit of the greatest-level of success you set your sights on. The really good news is that once you’ve learned how to write a business plan, keeping it updated should be relatively easy.
Understand that as you continue the operations and growth of your business, it’s practically certain that you will make strategic changes to how you do business, make important decisions on new products or services you may want to offer, and just as importantly, which to discontinue. You might also change market strategies which may include distribution of your products or services, and continue to discover new methods and processes to improve your business operations and how you manage it.
There are important benefits to keeping your business plan current including (1) if you ever need to apply for additional funding through either sources of equity-based private funding, or debt-based lenders and directly related SBA loan programs, the more up-to-date your business information needs to be, and your updated plan should already be available. 
Time is money and because you are ready to submit your updated business plans, you’ll already have saved on both. (2) By maintaining your virtual-living plan, you force yourself to regularly re-examine the document, which in turn helps keep you clearly focused on what’s important to the success of your business.
How Often Should You Update Your Business Plan?
First of all, understand that depending on the nature of your business and the market conditions, you can update your business plan either 
(1) on a schedule, such as once every quarter or every six months, or (2) you can choose to update it on a virtual (real-time) basis, as changes occur.
Keeping plans updated in real-time is a new concept of understanding to many entrepreneurs and small business owners, and may seem like a nuisance, but it’s really the ideal method. Consider that it allows you to quickly act when you need additional funding, or if you need to sell your business, and by turning your plan into a more useful “business road map” it keeps you on top of business at all times. And that’s exactly where you need to be to greatly increase your business’ staying power and chances for success and growth, as your clear focused awareness makes even difficult tasks much easier, with an increase in successful results.