I believe there is a direct relationship between hard work and success. Those who work harder achieve more. And that applies equally to individuals, families, ethnic groups, and nations.

Yes, talent helps. But talent is not something we can choose. It is given to us, as are so many other “advantages”: the kind of family we are born into, the color of our skin, and even our native intelligence.

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It takes courage to turn away a paying customer. But sometimes that is what you should do.

Let’s say you have a business that repairs car brakes. You have three mechanics who work for you. One of them is a master mechanic. He can do just about anything. Someone comes into your shop and asks you to repair his muffler. You could use the business, so you take the job. (more…)

Your staffers may try to dazzle you by producing voluminous white papers, complex analyses, etc. So what? These days, anyone can find huge amounts of data on the Internet on any topic. And it’s a big waste of your time to dig through it to find something you can use. (more…)

BK, MN, BB, and I were talking about mergers and how companies are managed afterward. The doomed AOL/Time-Warner combo (and split earlier this year) came up.

This got very quickly into the question of how much forward thinking a CEO should do. (more…)

You know those parents who say they want to be their children’s “best friends”?

You know the ones I’m talking about. Those obnoxious moms and pops with six-pack abs and designer jeans who have fun smoking pot with their kids and passing them candy-flavored condoms. (more…)

How can you get your key employees to quickly develop the skills and talents they need?

How do you get them to understand what you understand?

In short, how do you get them to succeed?

These people can make your future immensely richer, fuller, and happier. But much of what they eventually give you depends on how good you are at providing them with advice and direction in a way that makes them feel motivated instead of discouraged. (more…)

According to most “serial business builders,” bad hiring and firing decisions are among the most serious mistakes entrepreneurs make. These include:

1. Not spending the time and energy to recruit the very best employees

2. Not paying close enough attention to an executive’s performance

3. Waiting too long to fire someone

Think about the people who report to you. How would you rate them? Good? Very good? Excellent? Are they better than you at what they do? Can you think of anyone who could do the job better? (more…)

One of the most important business skills is almost never talked about. It is speed.

In Ready, Fire, Aim, I explain that the faster you get good ideas to the marketplace, the better your chances of succeeding. And the faster you can get almost anything done, the less it will cost you.

You don’t want to sacrifice quality for speed. But you don’t want to slow things down to get them “perfect” either. (more…)

The Internet is the world’s largest and most comprehensive source of information.

Need instructions for fixing a flat tire … a copy of War and Peace … a map of the Paris Metro? You can find all of it — and so much more — online.

But the sheer amount of information can be overwhelming. Much of it is useless. And sometimes finding what you need can be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

People have never been so well informed … yet, so confused.

Lots of entrepreneurs go around thinking “Access to information is what separates the winners from the losers.” And “The smartest person in the room should be the most successful.” Not true. If it were, whoever bought the most “how-to” products or read the most books would be the richest. And we both know how ridiculous that is.

That’s not to say getting the right information isn’t important. But it’s only a tool. When it comes to being successful in business, there are a few easily overlooked factors that are absolutely vital.

So, what are these deciding factors?

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Close your eyes. No, don’t do that. You won’t be able to read this.

Let’s start over. Picture yourself enjoying your ideal retirement. What are you imagining?

• Perhaps you’re standing knee-deep in a Montana river, fishing for trout.
• Or strolling through the cobbled streets of Prague, browsing art galleries.
• Or reading Faulkner on the back porch, listening to the sounds of your grandchildren playing in the yard.

How does that feel?

Pretty good, huh? But chances are your actual retirement will be quite different. For one thing, you may not be able to afford to travel in Prague. It may be Orlando instead. And those kids playing in your yard? They will likely to be your great-grandchildren. Why? Because you’re probably going to retire a lot later than you think.

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Nearly every successful entrepreneur I know has grappled with burnout. I’ve personally gone through it and come out the other side several times. I did it by using these four techniques:

1. Truly disconnect.

In today’s business world, we are constantly tethered to our BlackBerries and “always-on” connections. As a result, when we truly disconnect from time to time, the effect is almost magical.

By “disconnecting,” I mean being totally out of touch with work.

On a recent trip to Baja, for example, I did something that might seem a bit over the top: I “black holed” all my e-mails during that week. Everyone who e-mailed me got an automatic response letting them know (more…)

Clayton Makepeace has it. Bob Bly has it. Michael Masterson has it. The late, great “infomercial king” Billy Mays had it. I’m talking about a simple skill that, if you learn and apply it, will ensure that you NEVER go hungry.

This skill has enabled me to successfully negotiate multimillion-dollar deals. Plus, it has given me a quiet assurance, a pit bull type of confidence in myself.

The skill I’m talking about is knowing how to close a sale. Basically, all it takes is asking your prospect a simple question.

It doesn’t matter what you’re selling or whether you’re doing it in person, on radio/TV, in an e-mail newsletter, or via direct mail. When it’s time to close the sale, (more…)

Too many entrepreneurs and business owners seem to believe that they cannot leave their office – even for a few days of fun in the sun – without things getting off track. I call this “I Can’t Leave My Business” syndrome.

If that’s the way you feel, you either have some serious micro-managing issues that need to be worked on… or you need to remember why you went into business for yourself.

You might think you’re indispensable, but everyone (including you) is replaceable. If employees are left to fend for themselves without the “big boss” insisting on approving everything, most things would still get done. Maybe not quite the way you would do it, but the end result would be close enough… and you’d have the freedom to enjoy your life.

In fact, I think freedom is the operative keyword for entrepreneurs. (That is why you struck out on your own, right?) And unless we exercise that freedom by stepping away from the office from time to time, it slowly collapses – and we become nothing more than highly paid servants to our businesses.

[Ed. Note: Starting your own Internet business is the epitome of freedom. You'll have the freedom to concentrate on your passion... the freedom to set your own hours... the freedom to work from anywhere in the world. Best of all, you could finally have freedom from financial worries. Get started building your own Internet business with help from ETR's experts. They'll show you how to set up a website, create products, make sales, and much more. Act by 5:00 p.m. Saturday and you could get 80% off this powerful program - plus a $2,000 bonus. Get the details now.

For more about how much freedom you can have with an Internet business, check out master Internet marketer Yanik Silver's website www.MaverickBusinessInsider.com. He breaks new ground in online marketing every day... and still finds the time to "get away from it all."]

My buddy – author, CEO, and consultant Peter Bregman – recently wrote a commentary for CNN.com advising people to embrace the recession as a chance to reconfigure their careers to be in line with their passions.

“Focus your time on what you’re truly passionate about,” he said. “Successful people are passionate, obsessed. And obsession isn’t motivated by money. It’s deeper than that. Find your obsession. Let it loose. …

“You’ll work at your obsession all the time because you want to. And that kind of persistence, that kind of focus, is worth a lot of money. But (more…)

Aging baby boomers are driving a multibillion-dollar market, according to a recent study by MarketResearch.com. And there’s a big opportunity for you to tap into the trend. I’m talking about the “cosmeceutical” industry. (”Cosemeceutical” is a combination of two words: cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.) Examples of cosmeceuticals include skin- and hair-care products, anti-aging creams, and moisturizers – all of which claim to have “drug-like” benefits without the harmful side effects.

Boomers aren’t the only ones buying and using cosmeceuticals. Young and old alike are potential customers.

The quickest and easiest way to get in on this business opportunity is to become an Internet affiliate for an established company. Three companies I like that offer affiliate programs in this area are:

• Perricone MD
• Mercola.com
• Celazome Skin Care (Commission Junction manages their affiliate program.)

As an affiliate, you associate yourself with a company that has a proven brand name and product line – a big plus, because that’s what people will be searching for on the Internet. And you won’t have to handle any orders, customer service, support, or billing. That sort of thing is taken care of by the company you become an affiliate for.

Instead, you focus your energy on marketing their products.

That could mean keyword advertising on Google, MSN, Yahoo!, Bing, or hundreds of other sites, directories, or search engines. It could also include opt-in e-mail marketing, social media marketing, targeted blogs, and whatever other channel you find to be effective. The links you provide in your advertising will be unique to your affiliate account, ensuring you will get a commission every time a prospect you send to the company’s website buys.

[Ed. Note: Marc Charles is a member of the Liberty Street League, a group of investors and entrepreneurs specializing in "off Wall Street" investments and business opportunities. Find out how the League can boost your wealth today.]

Your chances of success in starting a new business decrease with each step you take away from the business you already know.

Let’s say you have a successful neighborhood restaurant called The Steak House. Your basic business is selling a certain kind of eating experience to a local community.

Over a few drinks with friends, you come up with two new business ideas:

1. The first is to open a local restaurant called The Fish House.

2. The second is to go into the wholesale steak-selling business.

Both of these businesses have elements that relate to what you are already doing.

The Fish House is almost identical except for one difference – you will be selling fish, not steak. Everything else – how you attract new customers, how you create a profit margin, and how you control your costs to deliver a bottom line – remains the same.

Starting a wholesale steak-selling business is about selling steaks – and that’s what you already do. But in this case, there are many differences. For one thing, the market is different. You are not selling to local diners but to regional businesses. This means the selling strategy is different… which means the profit margin is different. And so on.

Opening The Fish House is an example of starting a new business that is only one step removed from what you know. Opening a wholesale steak business is three or four steps removed.

The first new business idea has a good chance of succeeding. The only unknown: Will there be a big enough local market for fish? The second business idea has a poor chance of succeeding. There are simply too many things you don’t know about it.

It is possible to succeed by taking two or three steps away from your core experience. As a rule, though, you want to take one step at a time.

[Ed. Note: Get even more of Michael's surefire strategies for getting ahead in business in True Path to Profits: A Master Entrepreneur's Guide to Business Success. Find out more - including how you can get a bonus subscription to Michael's VIP newsletter, Ready Fire Aim - right here.]

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These are the seven steps of a failed product launch:

1. Get an idea for a product.

2. Write or design the product.

3. Print or manufacture the product.

4. Advertise the product.

5. Watch the marketing campaign flop and generate no sales.

6. Sell or give away the product to family members and colleagues.

7. Store the unsold inventory until it is thrown away.

Never try to launch a product by using the “I know best” approach illustrated above. Remember that what you think means nothing. It is what you know that counts.

So, how do you know your prospective customers will want your product? You test and test and test some more.

In this Internet age, testing is easier than ever before. If, for example, you are torn between two titles for an e-book you want to market, don’t go with your gut and don’t go with what your friends tell you. Test a couple of pay-per-click (PPC) ads and see which one gets more clicks.

Don’t worry about not having your product ready while you’re testing your PPC ads. Develop the ads and let them run for five to seven days. When potential customers click, let them know that you are building a “hot list” and will contact them as soon as the product is ready. Or give them something else in the meantime. (That’s what we did when we were testing titles for our most recent book. We opted our responders in to a subscription for ETR.)

You can use the same plan with banner ads, text ads, and even dedicated e-mails to ensure you are on the right track – before you spend the time and money to develop your product.

This is a cheap and easy way to test product ideas without expensive R&D costs. Plus, you have the added benefit of simultaneously building a list of interested prospects.

Remember: When you test anything, make sure the results of your test scream, not whisper.

[Ed. Note: The above article was adapted from Changing the Channel: 12 Easy Ways to Make Millions for Your Business, published with permission from John Wiley & Sons. Get your copy today.]

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My wife K is a member of a cult. As a loyal member, she never gives up an opportunity to proselytize. Over the years, she has recruited our sons and most of her friends into her religion.

The cult she belongs to is represented by a symbol. It has distinct colors. It has a special language that other cult members recognize. They love their religion. They worship at its altars. They sing its praises. They believe that anyone who is not a member of their cult is silly, stupid, or foolish. And they will argue with you if you say one word against it.

When this cult asks for contributions, they give and will give again. They are happy to do it because (more…)

“Historically, very few children have thought of entrepreneurship as a career choice. We are hoping this game ["Hot Shot Business," developed by Disney Online and the Kauffman Foundation] will move the thought of owning their own business to the same cognitive level as other more popular career choices. Our children are our future, and since more than 50 percent of new jobs come from small business, it is imperative that we encourage today’s children to be the entrepreneurs of tomorrow.”

When businesses are set up properly, the optimum selling strategy is one that acquires as many customers as the allowable acquisition cost will allow. What that means is that new customers are brought in at breakeven or a loss. Thus, a healthy optimum selling strategy for the front end is never going to be profitable. All the profits, when you see the business from this perspective, come from the back end.

So how do you increase back-end sales? How do you get your customers to buy more frequently from you and pay more per purchase?

The answer is customer service. Doubling, tripling, quadrupling, or quintupling your back-end sales is a matter of good customer service, and good customer service involves only three things.

1. Knowing what your customers really want.

2. Finding out how you can do that for them.

3. Talking to them about what you are happy to do.

[Ed. Note: The above article was adapted from Michael Masterson's bestselling book Ready, Fire, Aim, published with permission from John Wiley & Sons. Get your copy today.]

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Are the following two sentences correct?

• “The Minister of Public Security… signed last night in Washington D.C. a memorandum of mutual understanding with his American counterpart….” (The situation involves two people.)

• “A person met through a mutual acquaintance is often more easily integrated into one’s network than a person met on one’s own.” (The situation involves two people and their relationship to a third person.)

In The Careful Writer, Theodore M. Bernstein explains:

“Properly speaking, mutual connotes interaction or recognition between two or more persons or things. The meaning ’shared in common’… is not now considered good usage.” (That sense of the word was popularized by the title of Charles Dickens’s novel Our Mutual Friend.)

Thus, the first sample sentence above is correct, but, judged by the rule just cited, the second one is questionable.

Another language authority is adamant that mutual should be used only to mean “reciprocal.” Instead of “mutual friend,” he advises us to write and say “friend in common.” But that locution strikes my ear as awkward and clunky.

Bernstein agrees: “Because a suitable substitute is lacking, the tendency these days is to accept the phrase mutual friend or mutual acquaintance.”

Although I tend to be a traditionalist on language matters, I can be flexible. We need not blindly follow linguistic rules if they don’t make sense. This is one such case. So my verdict is that both of the sample sentences at the beginning of this article pass muster.

[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]  

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There’s a new gal in my sketch comedy group. She’s smart, clever… and will probably not last 90 days.

I’ve seen so many people like her – not only in sketch comedy but in every type of business – self-destruct because of one thing: They spend too much time trying to prove how talented they are. Not by delivering extraordinary results that can’t be ignored, but by boasting about minor successes that aren’t very impressive… criticizing others without being qualified to do so… and giving advice without being asked for it. In general, by rubbing just about everyone the wrong way.

That is not the way to form relationships that will lead you to success. As MaryEllen Tribby said in her article “Is Your Ego Bigger Than Your Skill Set? ” “Whether you are working in a corporate environment or on your own, you should always be building relationships. Relationships with your customers, your competitors, and certainly with your curre-nt and previous mentors. If you take these people for granted… and start putting yourself ahead of them… you’ll be burning valuable bridges.”

It’s worth taking a very candid look at yourself to make sure you aren’t letting your ego get in your way. If you deliver extraordinary results, your talent will be recognized. Forget about trying to prove your value any other way.

[Ed. Note: Paul Lawrence is a business author and entrepreneur who owns and operates a six-figure Internet publishing company. He also produces the prestigious annual International Sketch Comedy Championships. For more information on his methods for success, check out his Dare to Live Your Dreams program

Discover how to prove your talent and become more successful with secrets used by billionaires right here. ]

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When I began searching for the secrets of success many years ago, I discovered something interesting: Success leaves tracks.

So if you want to be a big success, look for those tracks. Find out what successful people in your field are doing, and do the same things. You will shorten your learning curve and accelerate your results.

That’s what I did.

When I studied the interviews, speeches, biographies, and autobiographies of successful men and women, I found that they all had something in common. They were all described as being “extremely well-organized.” They used their time very, very well. They were highly productive and they got vastly more done than the average person in the same period of time.

I followed their paths and it made me who I am today.

Here are two things you can start doing immediately to put this idea into action:

First, develop a plan to learn from the actions of the experts in your field. This can save you years of hard work.

Then, study everything you’ve learned and choose one of those things – the most important one – to implement. Decide how to do it. Then do it.

[Ed. Note: With Brian Tracy’s Flight Plan, you can discover how to achieve more, faster than you ever dreamed possible. You also receive 2 BONUS CDS!

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In business, the best opportunities don’t usually announce themselves ahead of time.

There is no warning. And there is precious little time to consider your choices.

As a young man, I balked at making hard decisions. I hesitated and put them off. Even worse, I told myself that other, maybe better, opportunities would always be just around the corner.
The truth is, most life-changing opportunities are never repeated. And once I vowed to pursue success without making excuses, I learned the value of quickly saying “yes.”

That is how I met all of my mentors and secured long-lasting relationships with them. And how I mastered freelance copywriting faster – and with greater rewards – than anyone else in the game. That is also how I’ve attained every shred of success I can lay claim to. By recognizing… correctly judging… and grabbing onto opportunities that most people missed.

It’s often a matter of being in the right place at the right time, armed with the right skills to take advantage of what has been laid before you.

It’s not easy to become that guy who is always alert for chances to engage with life on a higher level. To hear what others refuse to hear. To murder your ego and crush your natural skepticism and stubborn reluctance.

But once you do… you’ll never again be daunted… because part of being open to opportunity is being prepared for the risk.

[Ed. Note: John Carlton is an expert copywriter, a pioneer in online marketing, and a teacher of killer sales copy. He knows marketing inside and out. Discover how to get your hands on the kick-ass secrets of the world's smartest, happiest, and wealthiest marketers. 

Make sure you are equipped to handle any opportunities that come your way with the Internet's premier goal setting and achieving program.]

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