Category: Entrepreneurship

6 Ways To Build Your Self-Confidence

In this post, I share with you the 6 ways to build your self-confidence. Gaining self-confidence isn’t easy and it does require a lot of work. However, being confident in ourselves and our abilities is crucial to our success long term in all aspects of life.

Confidence is a tool you can use in your everyday life to feel comfortable doing anything you want. The great thing about self-confidence is that it works just like a muscle. It grows in response to the level of performance required of it. The more you use it, the more it grows and the better you get with it.

Self-confidence is extremely important in almost every aspect of our lives, yet so many people struggle to find it. Sadly, this can be a vicious circle: people who lack self-confidence can find it difficult to become successful because of their inner limitations. The good thing is that self-confidence can easily be gained with the right approach.

Here are 6 ways to build your self-confidence:

1. Get Things Done  

Confidence is built on accomplishment. If you achieve small and big goals, you’re going to feel much better about yourself. It begins with your day-to-day goals, what do you need to accomplish today to help meet your goals? If you accomplish the goals you set for each day, you’ll start feeling more confident in your own abilities. Keep in mind that progress is incremental and big changes do not happen overnight. The more you accomplish on a day to day basis, the better you’ll feel about yourself.

2. Stay Away From Negativity And Bring On The Positivity

This is the time to really evaluate your inner circle, including your friends and family. This is a tough thing to do, but it’s time to seriously consider getting away from those individuals who put you down and shred your confidence. Be positive about everything even if you’re not feeling it quite yet. Put some positive enthusiasm into your interactions with others and hit the ground running. Stop focusing on the problems in your life and instead begin to focus on solutions and making positive changes. In addition to that, surround yourself with people who make you feel good about yourself.

3. Let People Know You Don’t Deserve Being Put Down

If there’s someone in your life who puts you down or makes you feel small, you owe it to yourself to let them know that you expect something different from now on. Truly, you deserve better. You should confront them about how you feel and ask them politely to stop bringing you down. If they listen, then you have a positive relationship. If they don’t listen, it’s time to stop spending time with them.

4. Act Positive

More than just thinking positive, you have to put it into action. Action is the key to developing self-confidence. It’s one thing to learn to think positive, but when you start acting on it, you change yourself one action at a time. You are what you do and if you change what you do, you change what you are. Act in a positive way, take action instead of telling yourself you can’t, and be as positive as you can be.

5. Be Fearless 

Failing isn’t your enemy, it’s fearing failure that truly cripples you. If you set big goals and have big dreams, you’re going to feel overwhelmed but you have to believe in yourself. Every single wildly successful person has been afraid, but they are successful today because they didn’t allow fear to stop them from their goals. Whether it’s approaching your boss about a raise or just speaking up in front of a group of friends, be fearless in your actions.

6. When All Else Fails, Create A Great List

Life is full of challenges and there are times when it’s difficult to keep our self-confidence up. Sit down right now and make a list of all the things in your life that you are thankful for. Then, create another list of all the things you are proud of accomplishing. Once your lists are complete, post them somewhere that you can easily be reminded of what an amazing life you have and what an amazing person you really are. If you feel your self-confidence dwindling, take a look at those lists and let yourself be inspired all over again.

Conclusion

Gaining self-confidence isn’t easy and it does require a lot of work. However, being confident in ourselves and our abilities is crucial to our success long term in all aspects of life. In this post, I shared with you the 6 ways to build your self-confidence.

8 Powerful Tips For Work-Life Balance

Finding a simple work-life balance takes time and effort, but it can dramatically impact your happiness and overall success. In this post, I share with you 8 powerful tips for work-life balance.

Owning a business isn’t easy because it requires a lot of sacrifices and a ton of hours. Many people as entrepreneurs and business owners especially struggling with having a healthy balance in life. Myself included, I found myself working way more than my friends and family expected me to.

Not only that, but I saw myself burning out and getting extremely tired from just working. That’s when I knew I had to do something to create a healthier balance in my life. Today, I spend time with friends, workout, have leisure time and work making my life a lot more balanced.

Here are 8 powerful tips for work-life balance:

1. Seek Out Opportunities To Create More Meaningful Work

If you want to transform your life so you’re not merely living for the weekend, you need to get more meaning out of your work. This means actively thinking about how you can transfer your personal passions to add value to your workplace and ultimately have more fun. Keep your passions at the top of your mind because if you love what you do, you’ll feel less frustrated with it.

2. Drop Activities That Drain Your Time Or Energy

It’s easy to get sucked into habits that make us less efficient without us realizing it such as keeping your Facebook tab open at work so you don’t miss something “important.” Do an inventory of activities that don’t enhance your life or career and minimize the time you spend on them.

It’s hard to say “no” especially to an opportunity or a loved one, but sometimes that little word is the key to a bit more work-life balance. Will the office really collapse in on itself if you don’t do one more final thing? Learn to use the word “no” judiciously and it will become a powerful tool in balancing work and family.

3. Put A Time Window On Responses

Whether it’s an email, a phone call, or an employee question, make it clear that you will respond to questions and requests within a specific time frame. For some, this simply means a 24-48 hour window while others opt to only address questions during a specific time frame each day (like 9:00-10:00 a.m.) This will keep you from rushing to respond while also letting others know when they can expect to hear back from you.

4. Get A Move On

Research shows that exercise helps you remain alert. Finding time to hit the gym may be hard in a jam-packed schedule, but it will ultimately help you get more things done because exercise releases endorphins, boosts energy and increases your ability to concentrate.

If the gym’s not an option, are there people in your neighborhood you could meet several mornings a week before work to go for a quick 30 minute walk? If mornings are a no-go, how about stepping away from your desk at lunchtime to go for a stroll? Remember, it’s all about finding some sort of time pocket in your day to get some exercise in.

5. Get Up Early And Do Something For Yourself Before Starting Your Working Day

Do you feel like your week revolves around work and everything else comes secondary? Getting up early and making some time for yourself before getting to work is an easy way to refocus your day and gain better control of your work-life balance. This could mean doing some exercise, walking the dog, having breakfast with your family or practicing mindful activities such as meditation, journaling or yoga.

6. Monitor & Analyze Your Activity

Thanks to wearable tech devices you can easily monitor both your level of physical activity and your sleep habits. For managers who want a clear picture of balance, these relatively low-cost tools can paint an accurate picture and help you get back on track with healthier habits. Not only that, but they provide healthy reminders to stand up, breathe and stretch throughout the day.

7. Work Smarter Not Harder 

Instead of working so hard, find ways to work smarter. It’s all about efficiency in anything you can do. If you can get the same things done in half the time without working as hard, you’d do it right? Anyone would! I’ve learned to work smarter by delegating tasks to employees and others while focusing on the mission critical things myself on a  day to day basis.

8. Quit Rushing To Work 

Rushing to work and skipping breakfast is an unhealthy reality for many. Waking up in a rush sets you up for an unsettled day and skipping breakfast only adds to the recipe for disaster. If you’re not taking the time to fuel your body before work, your productivity and energy levels are ultimately going to take a hit as the day progresses. This means you’ll have less motivation to make the most of your day, which leads to a decline in productivity and potentially missing important deadlines.

Conclusion

Finding a simple work-life balance takes time and effort, but it can dramatically impact your happiness and overall success. In this post, I shared with you 8 powerful tips for work-life balance.

8 Things To Do Before Launching A Side Business

In this post, I share with you 8 things to do before launching a side business. Starting a side business sounds so simple, but it’s much harder in practice. It may be challenging to build a sustainable side business while working a day job, but if you make a consistent effort over time, you can make it work.

Thinking about starting a business? You aren’t alone. 44% of people are more interested in doing so now than they were two years ago. A research revealed that nearly three in four people who work a 9 to 5 job admit they are unfulfilled by it and therefore want to start a side business to pursue their passions. However, while your new business may consume much of your time and energy, you shouldn’t give up your full-time job just yet.

Let’s face it, times are tough. The unemployment rate is high and it doesn’t help that the cost of gas and food prices are also on the rise. Out of necessity, many people have started to look for ways to supplement their income. Some have succeeded with side business ideas while they worked their full-time job before making it a full-time career. I’ve launched a side business while in school and have some great advice on how to be successful with it.

Here are 8 things to do before launching a side business:

1. Make The Commitment

First and foremost, you need to ask yourself how bad you want this. This will get difficult, it will strain your relationships and you’ll continually be forced to make tough decisions. In fact, if starting a business while working a full-time job is ever easy, you’re probably not doing everything you should be doing. Growing a side business will be an incredibly challenging experience and that’s because nothing worth having comes easy.

You need to set round rules in order to get started with your side hustle idea. You have to take action in order to be successful and that’s always the first step. Make an actual commitment to yourself before launching a side business!

2. Plan Out Your Schedule And Strategy

Have a realistic accounting of the time and energy needed to launch and run your side business. Create a small schedule of when you plan to work on your side business. You can do it before going to work in the morning or work on it for a few hours each night after work. Your first schedule will probably not be the one you go with for the long haul, but some kind of guide will be extremely helpful.

In addition to the schedule, you also want to plan out a proper strategy. How are you going to execute this? Do you have the finances necessary to get your business off the ground? Will you need help or a business partner? Ask yourself the tough questions early so you’re on a solid path.

3. Assess Your Finances

One of the most important considerations in your decision to start a new business is your financial standing. Keeping your regular job when you first launch your business does help reduce the financial burden of startup costs. However, before getting too far into your business plans, make sure that you are accounting for those costs with your current salary min mind.

4. Don’t Be In A Rush

When you’re operating a business part-time, realize it probably won’t grow as fast as a full-time business would. Many side business owners get discouraged because it takes so long for their businesses to grow. Generally, the growth of a business  is directly proportional to the amount of time put into it. So when you can only put in a few hours a day plus weekends, it will take longer to get up to speed.

5. Check Your Employee Agreements

Depending on what type of business you want to start, you may run into some issues if you’ve signed an employee agreement with a noncompete or nondisclosure clause. Check with a legal adviser to help you understand your state’s laws about employment agreements before you start your business. If there are any discrepancies or conflicts with your existing agreements, you may need to wait until you’re financially able to quit your full-time job before you can officially start your business.

6. Check Your Employee Agreements

Depending on what type of business you want to start, you may run into some issues if you’ve signed an employee agreement with a noncompete or nondisclosure clause. Check with a legal adviser to help you understand your state’s laws about employment agreements before you start your business. If there are any discrepancies or conflicts with your existing agreements, you may need to wait until you’re financially able to quit your full-time job before you can officially start your business.

7. Outsource Your Weaknesses

This one is all about focus. Look for opportunities to outsource every possible part of your business creation that you can. Obviously, you don’t want someone else planning your goals, roadmap or telling you what your product or service should look like.

The point here is that you need to be doing what you do best. While it would be great if you could code your own website to test out your digital service idea, if you don’t already command a knowledge of web development, you’re looking at a few months of dedicated learning time just to get to the point where you’ll be able to understand the basics.

8. Get Ready For Stress

Imagine this scenario: You’re at work and a customer from your side business calls your personal cell phone. He has a problem with a product you delivered the night before and needs you to fix it immediately. If you don’t, he’ll refuse to pay for it and you’ll have to eat up the expenses and potentially get a bad review. On the same token, you also have a project that’s due in a few hours at work that can’t be late. What do you do?

Every job has a stress factor. So when you’re juggling both a full-time job and a side business, you’re going to have numerous tense situations. You need to be prepared for the stressful situations that may come up. Entrepreneurship is only for the mentally strong people!

Conclusion

Starting a side business sounds so simple, but it’s much harder in practice. It may be challenging to build a sustainable side business while working a day job, but if you make a consistent effort over time, you can make it work. In this post, I shared with you 8 things to do before launching a side business.

5 Ways To Learn From The Mistakes You Make As An Entrepreneur

None of us look forward to making our next mistake, but we all know that mistakes are all part of the journey. In this post, I share with you 6 ways to learn from the mistakes you make as an entrepreneur.

Many of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world are masters at learning from their successes and failures. They tend to be especially good at finding the reasons for their failures and ensuring they don’t repeat them. The majority of professionals and entrepreneurs are not particularly interested in reliving their mistakes or even diagnostically consider their successes. Nevertheless, when you systematically examine what went right and what went wrong in various business situations, you’ll be able to learn career-advancing solutions.

Most successful entrepreneurs usually have a litany of stories about bad business decisions, bad investments, choosing to work with the wrong people and so many other valuable lessons along the way. It appears that failure is inevitable. The key to success is what you make of your failures.

Here are 5 ways to learn from the mistakes you make as an entrepreneur:

1. Stop The Impulse To Blame

We’re taught in school and society that mistakes and failures are shameful things and we should avoid them at all costs. Our entire educational landscape tells kids that there’s just one right answer and it’s never good to be wrong. With this background, it’s no surprise that our natural instinct is to try to justify our actions or blame someone else for the situation.

The problem is that as soon as you start blaming other people or outside circumstances, you completely spoil any chance of learning from the mistake. The first step is to move away from assigning blame and have the courage to stand up and say, “this is my mistake and I own it.” The learning process begins the minute you start taking responsibility.

2. Know It’s OK To Fail

Yes, it’s OK to fail and commit mistakes. The adage we learn from failure is true. Be open with your mind, eyes and ears. The lessons are there for you to understand and to do better next time. Think about what you have done right, what you can do better and what you should stop doing. That is one of the easiest ways to analyze how to learn from failure and not commit the same mistakes again.

3. Reevaluate Your Planning

How much time did you spend planning the best way to achieve your goal or task before you started? How much thought did you give to anticipating hurdles or problems that might arise and to figure out how you would handle them if they did? The vast majority of us spend little if any time on this kind of planning, despite the likelihood of our running into obstacles and unexpected circumstances. In the future, make sure to plan your general strategy, consider potential setbacks and figure out how to overcome them before you ever begin.

4. Keep Going 

Above all, the lesson you learn from your mistakes is that you can survive a mistake and keep growing. Dealing with failure and other letdowns is a big part of your journey. Overcoming adversity is a theme in every heroic story we’ve ever heard or read. Getting knocked down and getting up again is not only part of life, but it’s how we learn to roll with the changes life throws at us.

5. Learn The Bigger Lesson

Across multiple unsuccessful initiatives, you can determine different ways of thinking, habitual actions and repeated poor judgments. From here you can discern the bigger lessons you need to master in order to ensure you only make new mistakes. Whenever you make a mistake, focus on learning the bigger lesson behind why things didn’t go as planned.

Conclusion

None of us look forward to making our next mistake, but we all know that mistakes are all part of the journey. In this post, I shared with you 6 ways to learn from the mistakes you make as an entrepreneur. If you are looking for a bit of inspiration, check out 300+ Top Inspirational Quotes & Quote Pictures.

10 Things People Who Love Their Lives Do Differently

In the end, loving your life is about trusting your intuition, taking chances, finding happiness, cherishing the memories and learning through experience. In this post, I share with you 10 things people who love their lives do differently.

How many people do you know that truly love their lives? Sadly, it’s becoming a rarer thing to witness in today’s world. Many people proclaim to be extremely happy, fulfilled individuals, but feel frustrated and discontent behind closed doors. However, fulfillment isn’t something that can be faked or acted into existence.

What most people don’t realize is that in order to turn your reality into one that you truly love living, you need to learn how to do lots of little things differently. There are many small disciplines, perspective shifts and emotional states that we all have to master before we can awaken to a happier, simpler, more fulfilling life.

Here are 10 things people who love their lives do differently:

1. They Learn To Set Boundaries With Others And Create Possibilities For Themselves

Healthy boundaries define who you are in relation to others. Setting clear expectations about what you accept and tolerate can define how others treat you. It’s important to set these boundaries in order to allow yourself room and freedom to grow as an individual.

Learn to be selective and say no. Turn down requests for your time that are unwanted and unimportant. Set clear boundaries for unacceptable behavior. People often just treat you the way you allow them to treat you. By setting this precedent, you’ll deal with less drama and situations you don’t want to be in.

2. They Don’t Bother Trying To Make Others Like Them 

They like themselves and they are the only people they ever answer to. You could like them. You could hate them. You could even pay them no mind whatsoever. It doesn’t make a difference to them because they don’t care what others think of them.

They do what they do because they decided to do it. They aren’t trying to gain your approval or acceptance. They don’t want to be part of your team because they’re a team of their own. They live their lives the way they see fit and if you like them for it, great. If not, then so be it.

3. They Flow With Life, Not Against It

When everything in life seems to be going wrong, most people panic and start making dramatic changes immediately rashly. Sometimes in life, you have to go with the flow. There will be tough days and really good days. Regardless, you need to stay grounded and no that the next day can be completely different.

4. See Problems As Challenges

The word “problem” is never part of a happy person’s vocabulary. A problem is viewed as a drawback, a struggle or situation that needs to be dealt with. Meanwhile, a challenge is viewed as something positive like an opportunity, a task or something they must accomplish. Whenever you face an obstacle, try looking at it as a challenge.

5. They Eliminate The Excess To Make Room For What’s Important

Our lives are constrained by one overwhelming limitation: time. We only have 24 hours in a day to live our lives. It’s important to take a step back and think about how we fill that time up. If you’re filling that time with unwanted tasks, you’re taking time away from something you might love doing.

A good life isn’t often about having more, it’s about having less. When you eliminate things like unnecessary tasks or toxic people, you’ll find more time for the things that bring you joy into your life.

6. They Love Their Friends But Don’t Rely On Them

Friends are tricky because they aren’t really yours, are they? You don’t own them. They are their own people who have their own wants and needs. They are people who will always put themselves ahead of you and your goals. Friends are great to have, but relying on them too heavily will leave you disappointed.

Those who live happy lives have very close friends, but they keep their independence in order to avoid those moments. It’s the lack of independence and relying heavily on others that often comes to ruin friendships or all relationships for that matter.

7.  They Have Goals

Happy people are always working toward meaningful goals in life. While they care about outcomes, they are more concerned with who they are becoming than where they are going. They never stay stagnant in life and always set expectations for themselves to push towards.

8. They Follow Their Passions

Happy people have the ability to find and pursue their passions in life. They have found a way to tailor their lives in a way that allows them to spend their time doing what they love. They work hard and make sacrifices along the way, but they make sure to spare time to do follow their passions.

9. They Appreciate What They Have

In many ways, happiness is uncovering what you already have. Buried beneath your insecurities, discontentment with life and projections of what “should” be, you can find the inherent happiness within your own being. Take some time each day to be grateful and blessed for all the things you have instead of concerning yourself with what you don’t have.

10. They Live In The Moment 

One of the unhealthiest things people do is living in the past or solely for the future. As mentioned earlier, our time on this planet is limited. There is no better time than the present and you need to enjoy it. It’s great to cherish the past and set goals for the future, but don’t forget to soak in the moment that is now.

Conclusion

In the end, loving your life is about trusting your intuition, taking chances, finding happiness, cherishing the memories and learning through experience. In this post, I shared with you 10 things people who love their lives do differently.

How Quitters Can Become Winners

There is a way to win even if you’ve failed in the past, it just requires the right approach to bounce back. In this post, I share with you the ways on how quitters can become winners.

“Winners never quit and quitters never win.” – Vince Lombardi

You may have heard and read this quote many of times throughout your life, but it’s one of the realest quotes I’ve ever heard. At whatever point you heard those words as a youngster or an adult, it generally influenced you or made you sick.

However, many people have developed this perception that once you become a quitter, there is no going back. Most think that they are forever a quitter now and they can never win again.  That’s not actually true. If you make the decision to quit, but come back to give it a try (even if it’s years from now), you can change the outcome entirely.

Here’s how quitters can become winners:

1. Embrace Failure

First of all, you need to accept that you have failed in accomplishing something and need to find improvement within yourself. You need to see failures as a critical learning spot as they test your perseverance, flexibility and willingness to learn or change direction. To become a go-getter, you should not be bogged down with frustration, but analyze what was responsible for it. Possibly you’ll get to know what needs to be improved.

2. Set Up Particular Objectives, You Have To Know Where You Are Going

Envision you are in a race, however you don’t know where is the end goal, would you have the capacity to win? No, you wouldn’t. That is the reason you must have a particular target, you have to know precisely what bearing are you going in and where the end goal is. Furthermore, figure out how to work towards an option that is so instead of working heedlessly.

3. Set Goals

Goal setting is a feature in just about every self-improvement piece there is. Why? It’s what drives you towards a certain vision. By creating goals, they are almost like little milestones along the way that to lead to the big win. Writing goals down reinforces that. Winners are those go attack life with a plan and with the desire to succeed. Those who just let life happen will never win.

4. Make No Room For Negative Thoughts

Make yourself busy and fill yourself with positive energy. By doing this, the fear of “what if?” will be eliminated and you might become more productive. How you think will directly be reflected in the work you do and the mental strength that you have. If you constantly are thinking negatively, your own mind will hinder your success.

5. You Have To Figure Out How To Assume Responsibility For Your Activities

You can’t point the finger at others for your oversights and you can’t utilize excuses for your challenges. Champions are individuals that are mindful of their own oversights, they comprehend that it’s their decisions and choices that brought them there. Victors don’t utilize pardons, they discover solutions. Even if you screw something up terribly, take accountability for it and you’ll grow so much as a person for doing so.

6. Work with Positive People

Whether it’s a mentor, partner, lover or friend, spending time with positive people adds to your own strength. They can help you learn, develop and grow. They can also point out errors and faults in a constructive way and will always show you the way forward rather than pull you to a stop. It’s always good to have peers, the more positive the better.

7. There is Always a New Day

There will be rough days in the journey. Life is a roller coaster and that’s what makes it so exciting. If life was always moving at one pace and there was no ups or downs, you would probably get bored of it. The idea sounds good at first, but if you really think about it….the challenges are what excites us. If you have a really rough day, just remember that there is always a new day and you can bounce back.

8. Maximize Your Strengths

As you analyze what made you fall, it is always easier to identify your strengths. To become an ultimate winner, you need to work on your weaknesses, but maximizing your strengths is equally crucial. When you focus on your strengths, it keeps you in touch with your innate worth.

9. Ask For Help

If you feel that coming out from this depressing situation alone is not your cup of tea, then seek help from your elders or close friends. With the right support, you’ll certainly be able to dump all the negativity from your brain and fill it with positive thoughts. Just remember that there is nothing wrong with asking for help and the best people in the world do so all the time.

10. Remain Focused

Maintaining your concentration towards the end goal is what makes a difference. Try not to slack, dependably maintain your psyche and focus towards your objective. Focus is key because distractions will be plenty along the way. Those who succeed don’t allow the distractions to deter them off the path that they are on.

Conclusion

There is a way to win even if you’ve failed in the past, it just requires the right approach to bounce back. In this post, I shared with you the ways on how quitters can become winners.

5 Business Topics To Study Closely For Aiding Your Success

While there is no “right” set of characteristics for being a successful entrepreneur, certain general traits and practical skills will help you succeed in the long run. By examining your own personal strengths and weaknesses, you can quickly get a sense of how well this career will fit with your personality. In this post, I share with you 5 business topics to study closely for aiding your success.

What makes someone a successful entrepreneur? It certainly helps to have strong technical skills or expertise in a key area, but these are not the defining characteristics of entrepreneurship. Instead, the key qualities are traits such as creativity, the ability to keep going in the face of hardship and the social skills needed to build great teams.

If you want to start a business, it’s essential to learn the specific skills that underpin these qualities. Most of us aspire to excel at our jobs and grow in our careers. However, in today’s globally competitive landscape where excellent talent is abundant, employees need to develop strong skills that enhance their performance and contribution in the workplace. Whether you’re a business owner or an employee looking to expand your knowledge of the business world, you’ll find something valuable in this post.

Here are 5 business topics to study closely for aiding your success.

1. Sales Skills

Sales is actually the basis of almost all business success. You are always selling, even if your role does not include sales in the job description. You sell during marketing activities, team meetings, customer service, product management, conferences, business development, engineering, user experience and more. A solid foundation in how to sell can give you a wide advantage over your colleagues and competitors.

2. Leadership Traits

The traits of a good leader include role-modeling, vision setting, motivating others, accountability and developing future leaders in the workplace. All organizations want inspirational leaders and most of them develop certain individuals for these roles. However, ultimately it is also up to employees to find situations where they can use their strengths and demonstrate resourcefulness. While there is no substitute for experience, leadership training workshops and seminars are a great way to prepare for success as a future leader.

3. Focus And Discipline

We passed the point of information and communication overload long ago. Even highly focused overachievers who should know better still find that a few tweets, texts and emails later, half the day is gone and all the work remains.

Focus and discipline have always been critical to success in just about any field, but these days, managing distraction have become harder for even the most disciplined among us. Worst of all, that’s not likely to change any time soon. Now, more than ever, you have to learn how to shut out the noise without shutting yourself off from what really matters. That’s not easy to do, but you have to find a way to disconnect from the distractions and lock in on what’s important.

4. Positive Mental Attitude

One crucial quality you need for your career and life is to reduce the amount of time that it takes you to achieve your goals is by developing a positive mental attitude.  A positive mental attitude is very much a decision that you make. Remember, you become what you do. If you engage in activities with a confident, optimistic and positive mindset, it will reflect in the work that you do as well.

5. Interpersonal Skills

The ability to be a team player is so fundamental to your work that there are few better things to focus on. Interpersonal skills are just a fancy way of saying how you get along, relate and communicate with others. Employers hire people with domain expertise, but they also want to hire people that they feel they can get along with.

Conclusion

While there is no “right” set of characteristics for being a successful entrepreneur, certain general traits and practical skills will help you succeed in the long run. By examining your own personal strengths and weaknesses, you can quickly get a sense of how well this career will fit with your personality. In this post, I shared with you 5 business topics to study closely for aiding your success.

8 Things You Must Do To Be Successful That Your Friends Are Probably Not Doing

It is easy to believe successful people reached that level through luck or raw talent. That is almost never the case though. Hard work always prevails over time. In this post, I shared with you 8 things you must do to be successful that your friends are probably not doing.

Becoming wealthy and leaving an impact on the world is not an easy feat. If it were, everyone would go around doing it. At that point, it would not be much of an accomplishment at all.

Instead, being extremely successful requires an extraordinary amount of work, especially nobody is looking. The best people have developed habits that help them reach their goals. These routines are not necessarily challenging to form, but they take consistent effort over extended periods of time. Creating these tendencies in your own life will propel your success.

Here are 8 things you must do to be successful that your friends are probably not doing:

1. Take Advantage of Every Introduction

When someone introduces you to another person, there tends to be a very good reason for it. The top people take advantage of these introductions because they know that they might lead to great opportunities. It is easy to blow off an intro or not follow up, but doing so is a missed chance to create a meaningful relationship with a like-minded individual.

2. Exercise Incredible Drive

The most successful people are driven individuals who push and shove until the job is done. They’re able to stay focused on getting results and they keep doing the hard things long after others are only doing what’s comfortable.

Unsuccessful people appear to spend a lot of time in emotions and considerations that cause them to stop or settle before rationalizing how these feelings should be satisfied. What they don’t seem to understand is this mechanism of a drive is a muscle that can be developed by practicing nonconformance with society’s definitions of success.

3. Practice Gratitude

Practicing gratitude improves your health, relationships, emotions, personality and career. People who are grateful and happy with what they have and where they are in life are more satisfied with their life circumstances in general.

Individuals who have a habit of practicing gratitude are more compassionate towards and generous with the people around them. Many people talk about the secret to happiness. Gratitude is at the core of happiness and successful individuals practice gratitude daily. You can keep a journal and reflect on the things you are grateful for in meditation or prayer, but you should be grateful every single day.

4. Constantly Adapt To Surroundings

If you cannot look back six months and see a drastically different person, then you are not growing fast enough. This is especially true early in life. The most successful self-employed people are constantly learning and adapting. They let their barriers down and are always willing to change things about themselves in order to be better, happier and more productive.

This can be extremely challenging for many because it means letting your guard down and being vulnerable. We see ourselves in a certain light and we make our decisions accordingly. Changing means accepting that our past choices might not have been the best. When those past actions are tied up with our ego, it can be especially difficult to move past them. The best people are able to do so in stride.

5. They Never Make Excuses

Regardless of how many excuses they make, successful people often know that it will not change the outcome. Even justified excuses don’t automatically make a project or person successful. When things go wrong, the successful person often sees it as an opportunity, not an insurmountable hurdle.

Unsuccessful people tend to spend a lot of energy and time making excuses, blaming the economy, the customer, prices or competition. Even if the “excuses” are all true, just complaining about it likely won’t improve the outcome and successful people know this. No matter how justified you are, try never to make an excuse for any outcome.

6. Consistently Read

The brightest people are always learning. There is endless knowledge available in the world and in order to continue to improve and learn more, reading is a necessity. Most people make excuses as to why they do not read very much. Education never ends and the most successful people in the world have a constant thirst for knowledge.

7. They Are Willing To Fail

The old saying “no risk, no reward” seems to apply to those who are successful. These people often go for it almost with a willingness to fail. Of course, they aren’t interested in failing, but they know that if they don’t put themselves in a position to fail, they’ll never create the ability to win.

Unsuccessful people seem to play it safe. They may not speak up or offer ideas because they operate from a place of fear. They may be afraid to fail because they’re overly concerned with the judgment of others, so they do the minimum and try to “fly under the radar.”

8. They Pursue Their Passions

The top people do not spend their lives living other people’s dreams. They pursue their own passions. This gives them the energy to attack each day with all that they have. It also allows them to think more independently. After getting over the fact that you cannot please everyone and that you have to think for yourself, life becomes a lot better.

Conclusion

It is easy to believe successful people reached that level through luck or raw talent. That is almost never the case though. Hard work always prevails over time. In this post, I shared with you 8 things you must do to be successful that your friends are probably not doing.

How To Build Trust With Potential Clients

Sometimes building trust is simply a matter of treating a client how you would want to be treated as a client. Exercise some empathy when working with clients. Understand that you’re one of many pieces of their business, just as they are of yours. Then act as you’d want someone else to treat you. In this post, I shared with you ways on how to build trust with potential clients.

Trust is the number one influencing factor to the success of any type of relationship. Trust allows for open communication, autonomy, mutual respect and effective collaboration. Most of us assume that a client’s decision to work with a developer is based on price and skill alone. While this rational assessment does play a role during the initial screening process, their final decision to work with you (or not) is influenced by a much more emotional factor; the ability to trust you.

Trust is arguably the most important part of any successful business relationship. When a client hires you to provide them with any service, they assume a certain degree of risk that the work will actually get done to the level of quality that was promised.

By taking the time to foster a sense of trust between you and your client, you’ll bolster their confidence in your abilities and help reduce that initial uneasiness that comes with entering a new business relationship. Knocking down these barriers will not only make your life easier during the project, but it may actually help you win more business in the future as well.

Here are ways on how to build trust with potential clients:

1. Share Real Success Stories

One of the most important ways to build trust with new clients is to use “social proof” by creating case studies and testimonials to show the real stories of real people who have hired you before.

Even if your company is new, if you have a well-established track record of success in your previous career (and in the combined expertise of your leadership team and board), you can build trust by reminding customers of your other experiences.

2. Develop A Client-Oriented Mindset

“Client-oriented” has become a term loosely tossed around by agencies and freelancers as a tactic to woo prospective clients. Despite its rise as an industry buzzword, having a client-oriented mindset is an effective way to show prospects that you are someone they can trust with their business.

But becoming a truly client-oriented developer is much more than just saying you are one. It means actually having your client’s best interests at heart and reflecting that in your actions. You want to be seen as a trusted advisor for your client and not just another freelancer looking to make a quick buck.

3. Email Like A Professional

How you present yourself in your initial communications with new and potential clients is crucial to building trust. That doesn’t mean you need to be extra formal all the time, but rather keeping things professional. An effective email is more about being relevant, brief and to the point while remaining friendly. Speak to your client how you would a colleague. Depending on their style, you can keep it casual but be sure to present yourself as the professional business owner you are.

4. Be A Team Player

In order to thrive in your industry and become a successful salesperson, it is imperative to be more than just a salesman in your prospectors’ eyes. Your potential buyers need to see that your interests include helping them and helping their company. Display interest in your prospect’s needs and discuss important details about the market you’re in. For instance, if you sell car parts, talk to your B2B or B2C prospect about the vehicle industry and come up with real statistics that can help you complete the sale. Being a team player is more about interactions and gaining knowledge than by offering advice, so make sure you listen to your prospects and learn from them.

5. Great Service Matters

When customers trust a brand, 83 percent will recommend a trusted company to others and 82 percent will continue to use that brand frequently. While hardly anyone talks about the time you went above and beyond for a customer, you’ll certainly hear from the disgruntled ones if you failed to make a deadline or delivered a product that didn’t do what you promised.

Earning a customer’s trust starts with providing great service. How would you want to be treated if you were a customer? The reality is that service should come naturally, instead of being strategically planned. The more you plan for great service, the less time you’ll spend delivering it.

6. Don’t Make Guarantees You Can’t Deliver On 

If you start making guarantees that you’re unsure of whether you can deliver on, you’ll set yourself up for failure. Most experienced decision makers know that in a service-based industry, like marketing it’s nearly impossible to make any precise guarantees. My motto has always been to under promise and over deliver.

Instead of making guarantees about specific results, be radically transparent about your process. Show your clients how your firm works and how you approach problems for your clients.

7. Build Referrals

Clients who come to you by referral are strongly influenced by the trust the referral source has in you. They often contact you ready to hire you immediately. This can make it worth your while to engage in trust-building activities aimed at people who have regular contact with those likely to need your services.

8. Be Honest

There is no doubt that keeping secrets or hiding certain aspects of your company will undermine your clients trust. Hiding things can only damage your brand’s reputation, especially if some of your prospects are knowledgeable enough. You need to be open with your prospects and present them both the positive aspects and the drawbacks of your company. Of course, you should emphasize the positive aspects. Honesty is the foundation of every strong relationship and the basis of every successful sale.

Conclusion

Sometimes building trust is simply a matter of treating a client how you would want to be treated as a client. Exercise some empathy when working with clients. Understand that you’re one of many pieces of their business, just as they are of yours. Then act as you’d want someone else to treat you. In this post, I shared with you ways on how to build trust with potential clients.