Rob Raskin

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DESIGNING YOUR BUSINESS PLAN

In Chapter Four we quantified the amount of Profit that you need to generate in order to work toward your Dream and reach your first Reward Goals.

Then in Chapter Five, we discussed the Ten Key Elements of Business.

In this Chapter, we will determine How To Build Your Business so that you can generate the Profits you desire.

Since we need to have an amount for the generation of Profit, for the purposes of illustration I am going to assume that the annual net amount you need to generate is $100,000.

Remember that we said that if you want to generate $100,000 in Net Profit, that we would divide by 4 and add that amount to the $100,000 to determine how much Gross Profit you need to generate.

Dividing $100,000 by 4, we come out with $25,000. Adding the $25,000 to the $100,000, we see that we need to generate $125,000 in Gross Profit in order to have approximately $100,000 Net Profit left to spend.

Based on an annual Gross Profit of $125,000, and dividing by 12 to determine the Monthly amount needed, this means that we need to generate at least $10,000 per month in Gross Profit for 12 months.

When we talk about the generation of “Gross Profit”, we mean that AFTER all EXPENSES have been paid, you will have generated $10,000 in PROFIT left over. A lot of times when a person is new in Business, they get excited about the amount of Gross INCOME that they generate. But Gross Income BEFORE EXPENSES has no correlation to the amount of PROFIT generated.

Let’s say that a business has Gross Sales of $1,000,000 for the year, and after all expenses are paid it cost $1,000,000 for all Acquisition Costs, Cost of Goods, and Operation Costs. This Business may have had a million dollars in Sales, but it generated ZERO Profits because one million dollars in Sales minus one million dollars in Expenses equals ZERO Profits.

Now let’s say another business has Gross Sales of $250,000 for the year, and expenses of $125,000. This leaves a Gross PROFIT before tax of $125,000.

As you can see, the first Example Company had four times the amount of Gross Sales, $1,000,000 as opposed to $250,000, but it generated NO Profit. When we build Your Company, we need to take into account not only how much it needs to Gross, but also exactly what all of the Expenses are expected to be. When we’re done, we will have built a Business Model that will generate the amount of Profits You Require!

One of the advantages of an Internet Business is that it operates 24 hours a day, seven days per week. This means that in order to generate $10,000 per month, dividing by 30 days, Your Business will need to generate $350 per day for 30 days in Gross Profit after expenses.

In a Conventional Business, you can expect your total expenses to be as much as 90% of the Gross Sales Amount. In an Internet Business, the percentage of expenses is considerably lower.

For an Internet Business, especially one that is Selling Information, the percentage of Expenses verses Gross Sales is generally about 50% if the Business is efficiently run. For illustrative purposes, we will build a model using 50% of the Gross Sales to cover all expenses.

There are several reasons why there is a Higher Percentage of Profit from an Internet Business than there is from a Conventional Business:

NO employee expenses
NO separate office rent
NO cost of goods once your information is complete
NO vehicle expenses

These are the major reasons why the overhead for an Internet Business is considerably less than for those of a Conventional Business.

Okay, so based on generating a Gross Profit of $350 per day, and based on having expenses of 50% of Gross Sales, you need to generate Sales of $700 per day based on 30 days per month.

See the following example:

“INFORMATION” SALES PROJECTION:

Dollar amount of Sales per Day: $700

Number of Days per Month x 30

—————————————————–

Gross Sales per Month $ 21,000

Total Percentage of Expenses 50%

Gross Sales per Month $21,000

Estimated Percentage of Expenses x 50%

—————————————————-

Gross Profit per Month $10,500

Number of Months for theYear x 12

—————————————————-

Gross Profit for the Year $126,000

Estimated Tax Liability $ 26,000

—————————————————-

NET PROFIT GENERATED = $100,000

If you are planning on writing a Set of E-books or a Course on a specific topic that you are an expert in, and if the Net Profit that you want to generate is $100,000, then the Business Model above will work well for you.

If however you are selling a Product, the cost of that product needs to be added in to the model. For example, let’s say you are going to sell widgets. Widgets cost you $10 and you sell them for $30.

If this is the case, then for every $30 that you generate in sales, $10, or 33%, is your Cost of Goods. This means that in the example above of the Business Model that sells Information, you now have to add 33% for Cost of Goods to the 50% for Overhead and Operating Expenses.

See the example below:

“PRODUCT” SALES PROJECTION NUMBER ONE:

Dollar amount of Sales per Day: $700

Number of Days per Month x 30

—————————————————–

Gross Sales per Month $ 21,000

Total Percentage of Expenses 50%

Total Percentage of Cost of Goods 33%

—————————————————–

TOTAL EXPENSES 83%

Gross Sales per Month $21,000

Estimated Percentage of Profit x 17%

—————————————————-

Gross Profit per Month (17%) $ 3570 instead of $10,500

Gross Profit per Month $ 3,570

Number of Months for the Year x 12

—————————————————-

Gross Profit for the Year $ 42,840 instead of $126,000

Gross Profit for the Year $ 42,840

Estimated Tax Liability $ 8,568

—————————————————-

NET PROFIT GENERATED = $ 34,272 instead of $100,000

As you can see, adding 33% in to the Business Model for the Cost of Goods took $65,728 out of our NET PROFIT GENERATED! ($100,000-$34,272)

Does this mean that you can only Sell information, or you can’t generate the Profit that you desire? ABSOLUTELY NOT!

What it DOES mean, however, is that we need to REVISE the Business Model so that we KNOW, based on ALL factors, to the VERY BEST of our ability, the EXACT DOLLAR AMOUNT your Gross Sales need to be on a Daily Basis. In so doing after All expenses, you will have generated the Desired Amount of Profit.

Axiom Number Twenty-One – KNOW YOUR BUSINESS INTIMATELY

You need to know YOUR NUMBERS backwards, forwards and upside down.

Let’s take another look at a Business Model that includes a 50% for Expenses, PLUS 33% for Cost of Goods, and with a Net Generated Profit of $100,000 for the year.

Remember that we said that we need to generate PROFIT of $350 per day in order to generate $10,500 per month, $126,000 per year, so that after $26,000 in estimated taxes, you generated $100,000 in Net Profit.

Assuming 50% for Acquisition Costs, Plus Overhead and Operating Costs, and 33% for Cost of Goods, adding these together, 83% of the Gross Sales covers expenses. In order to generate the same Profit of $350 per day with 83% for Expenses instead of 50% for Expenses, this increases the amount of Gross Sales that you need to make each day.

We need to determine the amount of Gross Sales you need for the day to generate $350 in Gross Profit based on 17% of the Gross Sales being the Profit generated after the expenses of 83%.

To do this, you would divide $350 by 17% and see that you need to generate $2058 per day in Sales in order to generate $350 in profit based on 83% for Expenses and 17% for Profit.

See the following example:

“PRODUCT” SALES PROJECTION NUMBER TWO:

Dollar amount of Sales per Day: $2058 instead of $700

Number of Days per Month x 30

—————————————————–

Gross Sales per Month $ 61,740 instead of $21,000

Total Percentage of Expenses 50%

Total Percentage of Cost of Goods 33%

—————————————————–

TOTAL EXPENSES 83%

Gross Sales per Month $61,740 instead of $21,000

Estimated Percentage of Expenses x 83%

—————————————————-

Gross Profit per Month (17%) $10,500

Gross Profit per Month $ 10,500

Number of Months for theYear x12

—————————————————-

Gross Profit for the Year $126,000

Estimated Tax Liability $ 26,000

—————————————————-

NET PROFIT GENERATED = $100,000

As you can see, adding 33% in to the Business Model for the Cost of Goods means that we need Gross Sales of $61,740 instead of $21,000 to Generate the same $100,000 for the Year in Net Profit!

CONGRATULATIONS!

YOU NOW KNOW HOW TO CALCULATE THE GROSS AMOUNT OF SALES YOU NEED TO ACHIEVE BASED ON THE ESTIMATED AMOUNT OF EXPENSES IN ORDER TO GENERATE THE DESIRED PROFIT!

This is a MAJOR STEP toward developing a Working Model of YOUR BUSINESS so that you are SUCCESSFUL in your endeavor!

As you can see, one reason why Information is better to sell in terms of Profit is because your Cost of Goods is eliminated except for the time that you spend writing. If you pay a ghostwriter, or if you purchase the Resell Rights to an Information Product, then you have a one-time Cost that is amortized over time. These are pretty insignificant costs by percentage over time that we will discuss later on.

The IMPORTANT thing to realize is this:

Axiom Number Twenty Two – BUSINESS IS A SCIENCE

So often people go into business without knowing the FIRST THING ABOUT BUSINESS. As you are starting to see, there is more to Business than having a Business License and a checking account.

Most of the Courses available on the Internet today focus on whether you should start with a Free Hosting Site, or whether you should learn to do your own Web Site. But the CRITICAL INFORMATION ABOUT BUSINESS was no where to be found. That’s why I decided to take the time to put this Course together. For you, this Information will prove to be the difference between Success and Failure!

Okay now that we have done our Overview in which we have seen how the Gross Sales that we need to generate each day in order to meet our Goals, now we need to figure out the following:

How many sales per day
Of which items
At what cost and
To whom are we going to sell

To meet our projection.

Let’s go back to the first projection:

“INFORMATION” SALES PROJECTION:

Dollar amount of Sales per Day: $700

Number of Days per Month x 30

—————————————————–

Gross Sales per Month $ 21,000

Total Percentage of Expenses 50%

Gross Sales per Month $21,000

Estimated Percentage of Expenses x 50%

—————————————————-

Gross Profit per Month $10,500

Number of Months for theYear x 12

—————————————————-

Gross Profit for the Year $126,000

Estimated Tax Liability $ 26,000

—————————————————-

NET PROFIT GENERATED = $100,000

According to this projection, we need to achieve Gross Sales of $700 per day and maintain a 50% Cost of Expenses in order to earn $350 per day, which is the number we need in this example in order to generate the profit we desire.

Okay, so now we need to generate $700 per day, which means that based on what we are Selling, $700 divided by the Sales Price of the item we are Selling equals the number of Sales we need to make.

Of course, by the time we are done you will have more than one product, but for now let’s concentrate on having an Information product to Sell and determining how many we need to Sell to achieve our Gross Sales Goal.

If you are Selling Information, say an E-book set that you have written on “How To Whatever”, you need to determine how much people would be willing to pay for that book. The best way to get an idea is to see what competitors charge for similar information. This is simple but effective “Market Research.” You want to determine the price that your market will pay for your information.

You WILL need something SPECIAL to differentiate you from the others, but price does NOT need to be the special factor. You do not have to be the cheapest. When we talk about Marketing later, we will talk about lots of different ways to make your offer SPECIAL.

Let’s say that you determine that you can sell your Information for $98. Well, obviously, if you divide the $700 that your business needs per day by the $98 per sale, you’d see that you need 7.4 sales per day to achieve your target of $700.

If however, you can only price your information at $49, then $700 divided by $49 equals 14.6 sales per day to Gross $700 in Sales.

As you will see when we get to Your Business Plan in PART THREE of this Course, you will want the Profit – whether it is an E-Book Set, an E-Book Course, or a Product or Service of any kind, to be about $98 as a minimum. There are exceptions to every rule, of course.

However, it is a FACT that the LOWER the Profit, the MORE SALES you will have to make to reach Your Goal. When we discuss driving Traffic to Your Site, Visitors, Prospects, and Sales Ratios, you will see that it may be easier to achieve Your Desired Profit with a minimum Profit of $98 per Sale.

Ultimately, the BEST PRICE to charge for an item is something that will require TESTING. Once you have determined the amount that you would LIKE to charge for Your Offer, at some point you will need to TEST that Price. We will talk about Testing in detail later, but for now the point needs to be made that Testing requires making ONLY ONE CHANGE AT A TIME. If you are Testing the Price, that would be the ONLY CHANGE you would make, and then you would track the results.

Look at the following illustration, which demonstrates this point:

Axiom Number Twenty-Three – TESTING YOUR SALES PRICE

Let’s say that you were making:

5 sales per day at $ 98 which equals $490 or

10 sales per day at $ 89 which equals $890

Which is the BETTER PRICE for you to charge?

Obviously, since Electronic Information costs nothing to deliver, the more Gross Sales you generate, and the more Customers you have, the more Profitable you are. So charging $89 is a much better choice.

We need to discuss a lot more information in order to complete a sound Business Plan. When we get to Part Two of this Course, we will go into detail regarding many different ways of adding PROFIT CENTERS to your Site. For now, I just want you to be familiar with the concept of Testing to find your best Sales Price.

In addition, we need to briefly discuss an overview of the concepts of THE TWO CRITICAL RATIOS that determine how many Front-end Sales your Site will have. Combined with your Sales Price, this determines the PROFIT you will generate from your initial sales.

Axiom Number Twenty-Four – THE TWO CRITICAL RATIOS ARE THE PROSPECT-TO-VISITOR RATIO AND THE SALES-TO-PROSPECT RATIO.

Your PROSPECT-TO-VISITOR RATIO separates the total amount of people that click on your Site with those that you determine are actually at least remotely interested in your Information. In order to get an accurate accounting of the number of Legitimate Prospects so you can see what your actual Sales-To-Prospect Ratio is, there needs to be some way for you to determine this.

We will discuss this in more detail in a later Chapter, but in reality, whether it’s due to the advertising, or the keywords, the site, or circumstance, a certain percentage of your Visitors will not be legitimate Prospects.

Let’s say for illustration purposes that you draw 100 Visitors per day to Your Site. And let’s say that of those 100 Visitors, 90 get far enough into the Site for you to count them as a “legitimate prospect”.

Your Prospect-To-Visitor Ratio would then look like this:

90 Prospects out of 100 Visitors equals 90/100 which equals 90%

This means that for every 100 Visitors to your Site, you have 90 QUALIFIED Visitors, or Prospects. The ratio of how many of those Visitors are Prospects will in part determine your total number of First-Time Sales.

Now let’s take a look at the SALE-TO-PROSPECT Ratio. Let’s say that for every 45 Prospects that look at your offer, 1 makes a purchase. This means that if you have 90 prospects, then you would make 2 sales per day. This calculates as follows:

Based on having 90 Prospects, of which 1-in-45 purchase your information, divide the 90 by 45 and you will see that 90 divided by 45 is 2.

This means that if you have 100 Visitors per day to your Site,

and 90 of those Visitors are legitimate Prospects, and

One out of every 45 Prospects becomes an immediate Sale,

Then you will have 2 sales out of 90 Prospects.

This means that for every 100 Visitors, you will have 2 sales. If your Sales Price is $98, then your immediate Gross Sales would be $98 times 2 sales, which means you generated $196 in Gross Sales through first time buyers.

Now, before you panic, this is only meant to be the FOUNDATION for your Business Plan! You need only to see the general factors right now. As we learn more, we will work on making the necessary adjustments in order to determine the profitability of Your Business. At that point we will discuss the options that we have available in order to increase the Profitability to Desired Levels.

But first, let’s take a look at the illustration below to demonstrate the fundamentals of the details that we discussed thus far in this Chapter.

We determined that in order to generate a Net Profit of $100,000 for the year, we needed to have Gross Sales of $700 per day. We are now determining how much of that $700 per day will be earned based upon the price of the item that we are selling, the Prospect-To-Visitor Ratio and the Sale-To-Prospect Ratio.

Take a look at the following table:

Sale-To- Number $ Sales Goal

Price Visitors Prospects Prospect of Sales Generated Amt +/-

$29.99 100 90 1/45 2 $ 59.98 $700 -$640.02

$39.99 100 90 1/45 2 $ 79.98 $700 -$620.02

$49.99 100 90 1/45 2 $ 99.98 $700 -$600.02

$79.99 100 90 1/45 2 $159.98 $700 -$540.02

$99.99 100 90 1/45 2 $199.98 $700 -$500.02

As you can see, even at $99.99 per sale, based on 90 Prospects and a 1/45 Sales Ratio, and based on ONE product only, Sales Dollar Volume is $199.98, leaving the Site $500.02 short of the Projection of $700 for the day.

Now to compare, let’s see what the numbers look like if there’s 500 Visitors per day with the same 90% of the Visitors also being Prospects and the same 1/45 Sale-To-Prospect Ratio.

Sale-To- Number $ Sales Goal

Price Visitors Prospects Prospect of Sales Generated Amt +/-

$29.99 500 450 1/45 10 $299.90 $700 -$400.10

$39.99 500 450 1/45 10 $399.90 $700 -$300.10

$49.99 500 450 1/45 10 $499.90 $700 -$200.10

$79.99 500 450 1/45 10 $799.90 $700 +$ 99.90

$99.99 500 450 1/45 10 $999.90 $700 +$299.90

Well, what a DIFFERENCE the number of Visitors makes, all other factors remaining equal!

To demonstrate this point further, let’s take a look at what the numbers look like if there’s 500 Visitors per day with the same 90% of the Visitors also being Prospects and the same but the Sale-To-Prospect Ratio improves from 1/45 to 1/30.

Sale-To- Number $ Sales Goal

Price Visitors Prospects Prospect of Sales Generated Amt +/-

$29.99 500 450 1/30 15 $449.85 $700 -$250.15

$39.99 500 450 1/30 15 $599.85 $700 -$100.15

$49.99 500 450 1/30 15 $749.85 $700 +$ 49.85

$79.99 500 450 1/30 15 $1199.85 $700 +$499.85

$99.99 500 450 1/30 15 $1499.85 $700 +$799.85

As you can CLEARLY see, these three factors play a CRITICAL ROLE in the PROFIT you ultimately generate. There is much more to learn, and many more factors to consider. But for now, we have learned three CRITICAL FACTORS.

The SALES PRICE of your information and how to test to maximize PROFITABILITY
The PROSPECT-TO-VISITOR RATIO and its effect on PROFITABILITY
The SALES-TO-PROSPECT RATIO and its effect on PROFITABILITY

There’s a LOT of things you can do to improve upon the amount of PROFIT that you generate. These include:

Merchandising
Front-end Upsells
Back-end Sales
Autoresponder E-mail Sales
Affiliates Sales
Affiliate programs, and
Duplication.

We will discuss each of these and determine how they affect you and YOUR BUSINESS.

When we are done with this Course, you will have:

A Business Plan of EXACTLY what do to,
Direction as to EXACTLY what adjustments to make,
An understanding of EXACTLY what it Costs to go into your Business before you start and
An understanding of EXACTLY what you can expect Your NET PROFIT to be.

And You will know:

How to Market,
How to Sell,
What adjustments to make
How to identify a Target Market,
How to cater to that Market,
How to Automate your Site,
How to duplicate your efforts,
How to Maximize your Sales-to-Prospect Ratio,
How to charge the best price,
How to Merchandise,
How to sell products aside from your own,
How to have other Sites make sales for you,
How to set up your business,
How to track your ads,
How to manage the profits,
How to file your taxes,
How to manage your growth, and
How to exit the business when you are ready.

It is IMPORTANT that you understand that you are learning a SCIENCE.

I hope you feel that you are GAINING CONFIDENCE as you proceed through this Course!

CHAPTER SIX REVIEW:

In this Chapter we learned Three Important Axioms:

Axiom Number Twenty-Two – BUSINESS IS A SCIENCE

By identifying all of the factors that affect Your Business, accounting for them and making the appropriate adjustments, You control to the greatest extent possible the PROFIT GENERATION of Your Business.

Axiom Number Twenty-Three – TESTING YOUR SALES PRICE

We discussed the fact that it takes testing to determine what your most PROFITABLE price point is. 10 Sales at $89 yields more PROFIT than 5 sales at $98.

Axiom Number Twenty-Four – THE TWO CRITICAL RATIOS ARE THE PROSPECT-TO-VISITOR RATIO AND THE SALES-TO-PROSPECT RATIO.

The two CRITICAL RATIOS when building the Foundation of Your Business Plan are:

The PROSPECT-TO-VISITOR RATIO
The SALES-TO-PROSPECT RATIO

We learned how changes in each of these three variables: The Price, The Prospect-To-Visitor Ratio, and the Sales-To-Prospect Ratio DRAMATICALLY affect the PROFIT Your Business Generates.

In this Chapter we discussed the Foundation for what will eventually be Your Business Plan.

We learned how to arrive at the amount of PROFIT we want to generate based in part on the anticipated percentage of Expenses.

We learned that if you are Selling a product other than Information, that adding the percentage of the Cost of Goods lowers your percentage of Profit and requires you to have a larger Gross Sales Volume in order to generate the required PROFIT.

We learned that there were THREE CRITICAL ELEMENTS that make up the Foundation of the Sales Presentation.

These Three Elements are:

The Price of the item you are selling
The Prospect-To-Visitor Ratio
The Sales-To-Prospect Ratio

We will explore each of these in Great Detail as we work toward Creating A Business Plan which will Include a WORKING MODEL that demonstrates how the Profit of Your Business is Affected when one or more of these Three Critical Elements are Positively or Negatively changed.

Filed under: Sales by Rob Raskin
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UNDERSTANDING BUSINESS

In Chapter One, we explored the Three Most Important Characteristics that you need to have in order to allow yourself to be Successful. In Chapter Two, we explored the Three Most Important Character Traits that you need in order to be able to work for Your Success. In Chapter Three, we worked on identifying Your Dream – the overall picture of how you ideally see enjoying your life.

In Chapter Four we quantified your Dream by identifying your current net cash requirements.

Then you created Your Reward Goals, defined Your Positive Affirmations, and determined Your Net cash requirements for the next 5 years based on your current Net cash requirements plus the additional cost of your Reward Goals.

As you can see, you are inching our way closer developing a course of action to provide you with the income that you need to have in order to live your Dream.

Our next challenge is to determine what you can do to earn the amount of money that you desire.

The FIRST step is to remember this:

Axiom Number Sixteen – THE AMOUNT OF MONEY AVAILABLE TO BE EARNED TRULY IS UNLIMITED!

We all know people who have made a LOT of money in their lifetimes. We’ve seen their stories on TV. We’ve read about them. We may even know some of them personally. Ask yourself this question: Did they earn the money they earned because they are so much SMARTER than you are? Is it the case that they can earn big money, but you can’t?

I’m not talking about Athletes or Movie Stars; I’m talking about people in Business. There’s no doubt that some of them are more talented in a particular field than you or I will ever hope to be. But there is a UNIVERSAL TRUTH that you need to know in your heart. And knowing this truth will make it MUCH EASIER for you to understand and believe that you have the SAME CHANCE AS ANYONE of earning however much money you want to earn!

The Universal Truth I am talking about is simply this:

Axiom Number Seventeen – ALL BUSINESS IS THE SAME

That’s the beauty of Business. And the reason why I can help to guide you toward Your Own Dreams. I’ve been fortunate to be Successful in Business for many, many years. In addition, I’ve had the opportunity to help many others in their business ventures. I’ve been fortunate to be involved in many different types of businesses. It’s been the best education a person can ever receive. You can read books forever, but there is NO substitute for experience.

There is NO Business whose Goal is not to ultimately do ONE THING, and this ONE THING is what I spoke of at the very beginning on My Site Presentation. Do you know what this one thing is?

GENERATE PROFIT!

It doesn’t matter WHAT type of Business. From a Mom-and-Pop Grocery Store, to General Motors, the purpose of the Business is to GENERATE PROFIT.

I recently had a conversation with a friend who was seeking advice regarding starting out in Business. He said to me “Rob, what’s the Secret to being Successful in Business?”

My shortest answer was as simple as his question: Build a Business that will generate THE PROFIT THAT YOU DESIRE and make sure that ALL OF YOUR ACTIONS ARE CONSISTENT WITH YOUR ULTIMATE GOAL, which is to GENERATE THOSE PROFITS.

The importance of this answer should not be lost. We will talk about several different kinds of Businesses, their potential for Profit Generation, cash requirements, etc. But once you have arrived at the decision of what your Business will be, every decision you make, all of the effort you put in, and everything you do, must be consistent with your ultimate goal of generating the proper income.

Before we talk about some specific types of businesses, let’s talk about the basic Key Elements of All Businesses, so you can more clearly appreciate how similar every Business is.

Axiom Number Eighteen–TEN KEY ELEMENTS OF ALL BUSINESSES

Key Element Number One – PROSPECTIVE CUSTOMERS

No matter what kind of Business you run, you will never have a Customer if you don’t first have a Prospect. The number of Prospects that are interested in a particular product or service that you want to offer will in large part determine the amount of Profit that you will generate. There are of course numerous other factors that we will discuss in detail, but first and foremost, there must be Prospects for your Business or you will never have a Customer!

Key Element Number Two – REACHABLE PROSPECTS

Your Prospects must be somewhere where it is COST EFFECTIVE to reach them. Cost effectiveness is dependent on the amount of Profit that you generate from each Sale. But no matter what kind of Business, if it is not cost effective to attract your Prospects, the Business will not generate Profit, which is its purpose!

Key Element Number Three – SALES CONVERSION RATIO

Once a Prospect is attracted, the ratio of the conversion of that Prospect to become a CUSTOMER is a Critical percentage regardless of the Business. If it takes 100 Prospects to make a Sale, for example, and it costs $1 per Prospect for advertising costs, it cost $100 in advertising costs for every 1 out of 100 Prospects that becomes a paying customer.

If the Profit on the item that the Business is selling is $500, then the $100 “lead cost” is an acceptable cost. If however, the Profit on the item is only $100, then the entire Profit was neutralized by the cost of acquiring the customer, before any overhead or operating expenses. This means that this Business will fail to generate Profit after all expenses, which is obviously the opposite of the desired outcome.

Key Element Number Four – ACCEPTABLE SALES COSTS

Advertising costs + Sales costs = Acquisition costs. Whatever the Sales costs, the total of the Marketing or Advertising costs, plus the total of the Sales costs, must be at an acceptable percentage of the gross Profit. If the Acquisition costs exceed the Generated Profit, the Business will obviously fail.

Key Element Number Five – COST OF GOODS

This is an obvious one, but part of the equation. If the Sales Price is not sufficient to exceed the cost of goods, then obviously the Business will fail.

There are however, four additional considerations in this area: Spiraling costs, spoilage or breakage, employee theft, and correctly identifying the cost of the goods, taking into consideration labor, shipping, and all costs associated with the cost of producing or procuring that product or service.

Key Element Number Six – OPERATIONAL OVERHEAD

Regardless of the type of Business, there are costs associated with the Operation of the Business and the delivery, service, and collection for products or services rendered. The costs must be controlled so that the Operation runs efficiently.

The cost of the Operation Expenses must be such that the cost of acquiring the customer, plus the cost of the goods to fill the customer’s order, plus the Operation Expenses, are less than the amount of Gross Sales so that the Desired Profit is generated.

Key Element Number Seven – BAD DEBTS

There will be a certain amount of money that doesn’t get collected for products or services rendered. There must be an allowance for bad debt in the Operating expenses. As with all expenses, it must be within acceptable parameters.

Key Element Number Eight – ACCURATE RECORDS

The ONLY way any Business can ever know where they stand is to have accurate records and reports for all aspects of the Business. These include Marketing Reports, Sales Reports, Cost of Goods Reports, Reports for All pertinent aspects of the Operation, Accounting Reports, Projections based on earnings, Future Plans, and of Course, both a Solid Marketing Plan, and a Sound Business Plan.

Key Element Number Nine – MARKET ANALYSIS

No matter what the Business, a quarterly analysis of the Market for that Businesses products and or services is critical to keep up with changes in the market place, competition, or other factors. No Business can be expected to operate Independently of the Market Place.

Key Element Number 10 – Expansion, Duplication, Liquidation

Everything that begins, ends. It’s a fact of life here on Earth. And so it is with Businesses. Knowing when to expand, when to duplicate, when to sell out and when to liquidate are all essential in bringing closure to any Business.

As you can see, ALL Businesses must generate a sufficient amount of Gross Profit in relation to its acquisition costs, cost of goods, and operating expenses, such that the Net Profit is equal to or greater than the amount called for in the Business Plan. All Businesses face similar challenges, and it is up to you, the Businessman, to Rise to the Challenges that face you.

BY THE END OF THIS COURSE, YOU WILL BE PREPARED FOR BUSINESS!

Remember this:

Axiom Number Nineteen: A BUSINESSMAN IS A PROBLEM SOLVER.

From the day you open your Business, to the day you sell or liquidate, you are a Problem Solver. Problems will consistently occur. This is the nature of Business. The worst thing a Businessman can do is to be bent out of shape because things are not running smoothly all the time. Here’s another one of my sayings:

“ If it was easy, ANYONE could do it!”

Well, anyone CAN SUCCEED as long as they have ALL of the following:

A Positive Self-Image
The Character Traits that are most important,
Quantifying their Dreams,
Defining their Goals
Creating urgency by Dating those Goals,
Understanding of the nature of Business and
Understanding what is expected of themselves.

And of course, to realize that they are about to become innovative, clear thinking, confident PROBLEM SOLVERS. It’s like the kiss of death to go into Business expecting no problems. From experience, No problems equal No Business!

When I reviewed much of the information that was available today on the Internet, one of the Major things that was Obviously missing was a detailed discussion of everything that we discussed up until now. Specifically when it comes to Generating Profits, there’s a big difference between just telling you what to do, and EDUCATING you as to what makes a first makes a PERSON Successful, and THEN what makes a BUSINESS Successful.

We have discussed what it takes personally to be SUCCESSFUL, and now we are discussing what it takes for a BUSINESS to be SUCCESSFUL.

Business has existed long before the Internet ever even became a thought. Those who had the right outlook, the traits we discussed, and the guts to forge ahead, became rich beyond their wildest dreams. It doesn’t matter if it’s hundreds of years ago, or hundreds of years in the future. It doesn’t matter what Business it is. And it doesn’t matter if it is an Internet Business or not. The 10 Key Elements will continue to be the same.

A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS WILL GENERATE PROFIT.

It’s just that simple.

Therefore, before learning the specifics of exactly what to do to build an Internet Business, first and foremost you should understand the concepts of running a Successful Business.

A lot of the books that are available today tell you to do this and that and the other. But without a CLEAR UNDERSTANDING of the NATURE OF BUSINESS, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Why? Because when the going gets tough, without a conversation and focus on everything we discussed up until now, you may very well not have any idea of what to do if its not working the way you expected it to work. You may not know what to do, panic, and quit.

That’s the LAST THING I WANT YOU TO DO! Because when you give up, you’re giving up on YOUR DREAM.

Axiom Number Twenty – YOU ARE ENTITLED TO YOUR DREAM!

And NOBODY is going to take it away from you, INCLUDING YOU!

The Attitude that you need to have by the time you finish this Course and get started with Your Business is that you “OWN” your Business. In other words, you don’t fear it, you’re not worried about it, and you’re not “hoping” its going to work out.

You’re going to be CONFIDENT that you:

Belong in Business,
Know what you’re doing,
Understand what makes Businesses successful,
Are prepared to make the necessary adjustments and
Solve the problems that arise to make your business Generate the Desired Profit

So often, people go into Business without having any idea what they are doing, the fail, they decide it’s not for them, and they spend the rest of their lives watching others Succeed and feeling inadequate. That’s NOT going to happen to YOU!

KNOWLEDGE BUILDS CONFIDENCE. With this in mind, let’s take a look at a Business example so we can better understand what makes them work.

Okay, let’s have some fun! See if by the following description, you can guess the TYPE of Business that is described.

First, we need to identify the Potential Customer that has the need for this product or service and determine where and how to best REACH that Potential Customer.

Then we need to decide what our Marketing Plan will be. Will we advertise on the radio, television, newspaper, and/or magazines?

Will we send out mailers, or flyers, or should we send out canvassers or use telemarketing?

Once we get the attention of our Prospect, what next?

Should we send a salesperson out to their place or invite the Prospect to our place? How do we train our sales people?

If additional employees are required, how do we go about hiring them, what benefits do we offer and what are our alternatives?

Once the Prospect becomes a Customer, how do we get paid?

Do we offer financing? Do we take credit cards? How do we protect ourselves against bad debt?

What is the best way of storing, making our product available, and delivering the product to the Customer in an expedient and satisfactory manner?

How do we follow up with this Customer so they know we appreciate their Business?

What type of encouragement do we offer for the Customer to refer his friends to us?

What method of resell do we have to continue to sell related products to this Customer?

What is the best way of tracking our Business in all pertinent areas?

Okay, so now that I have described The Setting up of This Business, my question is:

What type of Business is it that I just described?

Think…

IF YOU GUESSED ANY BUSINESS, CONGRATULATIONS !!!!!!!!

What I described could have been a flower shop, a car lot, a homebuilder, a dating service, or an INTERNET BUSINESS.

THE 10 BASIC PRINCIPLES OF ALL BUSINESSES ARE THE SAME!

The reason why I am making this point SO CLEAR is because there are advantages and disadvantages of every Business. Some have more potential for generating Income, but the offset may be a huge budget to start out with or a lot of employees to maintain the level of sales and service. Some may have less of a potential to generate Income but may be much easier to manage. As we discuss different Business choices, which are the prelude to developing YOUR BUSINESS, its important for you to not think of an Internet Business as anything other than what it is. Simply, a Business.

Now, that’s not to say that an Internet Business doesn’t have its advantages. There are some significant advantages to having an Internet Business, as opposed to a Conventional Business. And we will discuss these. But the ONE THING that needs to be CLEAR is that the Foundation for Your Success, as it specifically relates to this Chapter, is for you to have an understanding of the Key Elements of Business. Having an understanding that these Ten Key Elements apply to an Internet Business just as they apply to ANY OTHER BUSINESS, whether it be 100 years ago or 100 years from now, is critical information that is a vital part of Your Success.

Once you understand the Tools that are required, how to set up YOUR BUSINESS, and how to apply the KEY ELEMENTS to your Business, you will be well on YOUR WAY TO SUCCESS!

CHAPTER FIVE REVIEW:

In this Chapter we learned Three Important Axioms:

Axiom Number Sixteen – THE AMOUNT OF MONEY AVAILABLE TO BE EARNED TRULY IS UNLIMITED!

It takes THREE THINGS to earn however much money you desire. It takes SELF-CONFIDENCE. It takes KNOWLEDGE. And it takes RELENTLESS PURSUIT. Once you BELIEVE YOU CAN, You know WHAT TO DO, and You are willing to WORK For it, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING CAN STOP YOU!

Axiom Number Seventeen – ALL BUSINESS IS THE SAME

There is NO Business whose Goal is not to ultimately do ONE THING, and this ONE THING is what I spoke of at the very beginning on My Site Presentation.

And that ONE THING is: TO GENERATE PROFIT!

Axiom Number Eighteen–TEN KEY ELEMENTS OF ALL BUSINESSES

By understanding this concept, and by understanding the Ten Key Elements of Business, you should now have more Confidence as you move forward. The Internet is not an “alien being” that needs to be feared. It is simply a new technology and as such an Excellent Opportunity to build a Business and to generate profits.

In this Chapter we discussed that the amount of money available to be earned

today is UNLIMITED, and that the common thread of ANY BUSINESS is to GENERATE PROFIT.

We also discussed the 10 KEY ELEMENTS OF BUSINESS:

Prospects

You cannot have a customer until you have a Prospect

Reachable Prospects

If your Target Market is not easily reachable, the costs involved in gaining the attention of your potential customer may be cost prohibitive based on how much Profit per Sale you generate.

Sales Conversion Ratio

Once you have the attention of a Prospect, closing the Sale with an acceptable percentage as it relates to your advertising cost is a Critical Element of the Success of your Business.

Sales Costs

The entire Sales Cost needs to be a percentage of the Profit generated by the Sale such as to allow for the Cost of Advertising, the Cost of Goods, and the Cost of the Operating Expenses and still generate the Desired Profit.

Cost of Goods

The Cost of Goods must be monitored to be sure that they remain consistent as they relate to the Sales Price. Sales Price adjustments in this area are common.

Operational Overhead

This includes All of the Expenses of providing delivery, service and collection to the customer as well as all Expenses other than Acquisition Costs and Cost of Goods.

Bad Debts

An allowance needs to be made for products or services rendered for which payment is not received. This amount needs to be monitored and controlled. In general, a bad debt allowance will range anywhere from 2% to 5% of the Gross Sales Amount.

Accurate Records

This includes all reports so every area of Your Business can be monitored, and adjustments made in critical areas to maximize your Profit generation.

Market Analysis

A quarterly review of trends in the Market place is critical to be able to adjust for changes in the market, for competition, for the economy, or for other factors.

Expansion, Duplication and Liquidation

Always keeping in mind GENERATING PROFITS, there may be a time to Expand your Business, or perhaps a time Duplicate Your Efforts. We will talk about the different way to do this in a later Chapter, as well as planning for Your Future, when to liquidate your ownership interest in the business, etc.

We finalized this Chapter with a discussion of the fact that:

KNOWLEDGE BUILDS CONFIDENCE

And that by understanding the Key Elements of Business, you will be much more able to SUCCEED because you will be more prepared and have a better understanding of the tasks before you.

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MAKING YOUR DREAM REAL

Let’s review what we have learned so far.

First, we looked inside ourselves to determine HOW WE VIEW OURSELFS in order to move forward without baggage that may hinder our own attempts at Success.

Next, we looked at THE TRAITS that are the most important ones that we must have in order to give ourselves the best opportunity to succeed.

Then we determined what our ULTIMATE DREAM is, and we translated that Dream to writing so we can see it, refer to it, and repeatedly read it so it is REAL.

We determined what our “REWARD GOALS” are so we can measure our Success “One reward at a time.”

Then we added time frames to each goal to create a sense of URGENCY.

Next we created a series of POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS to help ourselves to become the best that we can be.

Our next step is to determine what your CURRENT BUDGET is. Once you have a starting point for Your Budget, we will then add to Your Budget the dollar amount necessary to achieve your Immediate Reward Goals.

Why? Well, how are we going to Achieve Your Goals without knowing how much money you need to make in order to in fact achieve them?

You see, there are 2 philosophies when it comes to just about anything in life that you choose to do.

One is to PREPARE, to HAVE A PLAN, to KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO DO and HOW YOU PLAN TO DO IT.

The other way is to put in as little effort as possible and “hope” that you will achieve whatever it is that you set out to achieve.

The majority of the people operate the second way, not the first. Is it any wonder that the more people struggle than celebrate?!

Lots of times, by the time we are as old as we are, we have learned bad habits. We’ve learned not to read the directions. We’ve learned to justify why less than a full effort is okay. And we’ve trained ourselves that it’s just not necessary to go the “extra mile” for our own selves.

And then we decide that we want to be SUCCESSFUL in BUSINESS. And that’s the FIRST STEP. But there are several other steps that are necessary in order to get you on YOUR PATH, YOUR JOURNEY, TO YOUR DREAM!

So, with this in mind, we need to first create a Budget so you know EXACTLY where you are RIGHT NOW.

The Bonus Book: SUCCESS IS IN YOUR REACH, which just celebrated the 20^th anniversary of its first print, has a detailed section devoted to Budgeting. For the purposes of this exercise, however, we do not need to have a to-the-penny number. What you’ll want to do is to overestimate your expenses so that you have MORE THAN ENOUGH money to provide for all of Your Living Expenses.

Then you will ADD ENOUGH TO LIVE YOUR DREAM AND REACH YOUR GOALS. THAT’s the number we are looking for!

Axiom Number Fifteen – WHAT DOES MY DREAM COST?

There’s an old song that goes: “Dreaming is free.”

Well, Dreaming may be free, but turning your Dream into REALITY takes CASH! And if you’re a good Dreamer, it takes LOTS OF IT!

So, before we decide what to do to make the money that is needed in order to realize your dream, the first question is this:

WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT BUDGET BEFORE ADDING ANY REWARD GOALS?

CURRENT MONTHLY BUDGET:

Follow this format to estimate your monthly expenses. This does NOT include any “REWARD GOALS” that you have listed.

Rent/Mortgage

Utilities

Maintenance

Food

Entertainment

All other home expenses

Car Payments

Boat Payments

Motorcycle Payments

Insurance

Maintenance

Fuel

All other transportation expenses

Loan payments

Credit Cards

Life Insurance

Tuition

All other monthly payments

Property Settlements

Taxes if applicable

10% for emergencies

10% for long-term savings

List all other outgoing

Monies so you have an accurate

Total of how much your monthly

Expenses are in order to live

Your current lifestyle.

Once you have a Total for your Monthly Expenses, then multiply that total by 12 to get an Annual Total. So for example, if your Monthly Expenses are $4,000 per month, then for 12 months, $4,000 times 12 = $48,000. This means that to live the way you are living now, you need to earn an after-tax amount of $48,000 for the year.

The amount of money that you need to earn prior to taxes in order to yield the Total Amount of your Overall Expenses is dependent upon a lot of factors. These include:

The tax bracket that you are currently in
The amount of deductions you have
Changes in the tax bracket code

In general terms, a family with a $60,000 Gross Income, and a reasonable amount of expenses, should generate a Net Income of approximately $48,000 based on current tax laws. This is for illustrative purposes only to make sure that you realize that you always need to generate enough of an income so that AFTER TAXES, you have enough money left to comfortably live your dream.

In general terms, by adding 25% to the net amount, you should be in the ballpark of how much you will need for your gross amount to be, until you get up to higher levels of income. At $1,000,000 per year for example, income tax is 35% not including State or Local taxes depending on where you live. So when you get up to $1,000,000+, you’ll have to add 50% to your Net income requirement in order to have a good idea of how much you will need to generate in terms of Gross Income in order to Net the amount that you need to Live Your Dream.

Notice that I added in 10% for Short-Term Savings for unforeseen expenses and items that have not been accounted for, and 10% for long-term savings. That is a really wise strategy. Some experts suggest even more than a 10% for a cushion to cover the unknown. Since you know your lifestyle best, if you feel that you need to add in more than the 10% that I suggest, by all means do so!

ADDING IN THE COST OF YOUR SHORT TERM REWARD GOALS

Okay, we now have a figure for how much money you comfortably need, and you know that by adding 25% of the Net, that you will arrive at the approximate Gross amount that you need to earn. The easiest way of doing this is to divide your Net amount needed by 4, to get 1/4^th, and then add it to the Net Amount to calculate the Gross Amount.

For example, in our illustration of a $4,000 per month Net household expense, we multiply by 12 months to get the Annual amount, which equals $48,000. We then divide the $48,000 by 4, to get the amount that is equal to 1/4 of the net expenses.

In this illustration, $48,000 divided by 4 = $12,000. We then add the $12,000 to the $48,000 Net expense amount and we get $60,000 total Gross Income required in order for the Net to be approximately the $48,000 needed.

This is how we determine what our gross income needs to be in order to arrive at a sufficient net income. Again, as the amounts increase, the percentage needs to increase as well.

Now, we have both Your Net and Gross Income needs based on your CURRENT lifestyle. All we need to do now is to figure out how much money it will take to be able to Live Your Dream and Reach Your Reward Goals!

Since you put down dates next to your Reward Goals, you need to add the amount of money that you will need for the Goals that you want to achieve in the next 12 months to your Annual Net Requirement. So if you want to put $25,000 cash in the Bank for Savings in the next 12 months, and purchase a motorcycle for $25,000 in the next 12 months, totaling these, $25,000 + $25,000 = $50,000 additional.

Allowing $2,000 for insurance, licensing, maintenance, helmet, jacket, chaps, etc. you need $52,000 total to accomplish putting $25,000 in the bank and owning your Dream bike and related gear.

Based on a current Net requirement of $48,000, and adding $52,000 for the New Goals, you now need a $100,000 Net Income for the year to accomplish all that you’d like to accomplish.

Remember, we said that we need to divide the annual net amount by 4, and then add that amount to the Net amount to determine approximately how much Gross Income you need to generate for the year.

In this case, $100,000 divided by 4 equals $25,000. Adding the $25,000 to the $100,000, you need to generate a Gross Income of $125,000 so that after tax, you have $100,000 Net Income left over so that you can do all of the things that you want to do in this 12-month period.

Its YOUR TURN to calculate for YOUR specific 12-month period, based on YOUR GOALS, how much money you need to earn in order to do what YOU want to do. This Dollar amount is Critical, because in order to live Your Dream and reach Your Goals, you need to know EXACTLY what Your Gross and Net Incomes need to be.

In our example, $125,000 in Gross Income leaves $25,000 for taxes and $100,000 for Net Income. Our example included all living expenses for the year, 10% for Short Term Savings, 10% for Long Term Savings, and then $52,000 for the addition of the two REWARD GOALS for this 12 month period.

This budget is a fairly safe budget from which to work. I say “fairly” safe because as we discussed earlier, depending on numerous factors, the $25,000 that was added to cover tax liabilities may not be sufficient.

Remember. it is the case that as the income requirement increases, adding an estimate of 25% may not be enough. You should consult your Accountant or Tax Planner for more specific information to be sure that you have a good idea of what your Gross Income needs to be based upon your Net requirements.

You have created your Dream, and you have created Reward Goals that are all a part of the Lifestyle that constitutes your Dream. Now is the time to make any adjustments you’d like to make. First, look at the Goals that you have for yourself for years 2, 3, 4, and 5. Then, do the same exercise we just did for year 2. It gets more complicated because in the case of a new home, for example, you are not paying cash, so your monthly expenses will increase.

For example, let’s say that your home is currently in your budget for $2000 per month for your monthly payment, plus your utilities and your maintenance. That means that part of your $48,000 Net Expense requirement includes $2000 per month or $24,000 for the year, for your current home.

If your Dream home is going to cost $5,000 per month for its total expenses, then you are increasing your overhead by $3000 per month, which equals $36,000 per year additional. So that means that in the year that your home would be complete, your Annual Net requirement would increase from $48,000, to $48,000 + $36,000. This means that your BEGINNING OVERHEAD is now a Net Income of $84,000.

Now if your Goal includes not increasing Your Base Overhead, then the cash requirement to achieve Your Goal needs to be determined. For example, let’s say that you have a mortgage of $200,000 on your current home, and it’s worth $400,000. And Your Dream home is $1,000,000. If you wanted to maintain the same overhead with regards to your mortgage payment, you’d want no more than a $200,000 mortgage on the new property.

This means that if you sold your existing home for $400,000, and cashed out $200,000 over the amount of your mortgage, you would have $200,000 to put down on the $1,000,000 dream home. If you only want a mortgage of $200,000 on that dream home, then from the price of $1,000,000, you would subtract the $200,000 cash from the sale of the existing home, as well as the $200,000 mortgage on the new home. This means that you will need an additional $600,000 in cash in order to maintain the same monthly payment.

It’s nice to Dream, and it’s nice to set Goals. But you will have nothing but frustration if you do not take the time to plot your course. You may for example decide that you are willing to increase your mortgage to $500,000, so that when you have $300,000 in cash, on top of the $200,000 from the sale of the old home, you will put $500,000 down and finance the remaining $500,000.

In this scenario, you’d need to calculate how much the new payment, higher expenses, and new furniture will cost, so that you have an exact plan of how much money you need in order to ACHIEVE YOUR DREAM OF UPGRADING TO THE NEW MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR HOME!

For the upcoming 5-year period, you need to know how much money you want to have available for your use BEFORE you get started on a business opportunity. This is CRITICAL because the Business(es) that you decide to pursue MUST produce the necessary income for you to ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS AND LIVE YOUR DREAM.

At this point, you should have 4 documents ready for your wall. First, you should have YOUR DREAM clearly defined and written out, framed, and on your wall in a place where you can see it at all times.

Second, you should have Your REWARD GOALS Clearly written out including Dates for achievement as well as the cost for each one.

Thirdly, you should have Your POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS written out, framed and on the wall next to your Dreams and Goals.

And finally, you should have Your PROJECTED BUDGET for years 1-5 framed and on the wall so you know how much Net Income you need for each of the next 5 years in order to Live YOUR DREAM and achieve YOUR GOALS.
CHAPTER FOUR REVIEW:

In this Chapter, we learned One Important Axiom:

Axiom Number Fifteen – WHAT DOES YOUR DREAM COST?

We’ve taken this Dream and made it a lot More Real, haven’t we? What is needed now is a Business(es) that is capable of generating the Net amount of money needed to make your Dream come true! By the Completion of This Course, that is EXACTLY what YOU Will Have!

We then started with our Current Cash Requirements.

We constructed a budget that included 10% for short term savings and 10% for long term savings
We calculated approximately how much Gross Income we needed to generate in order to have the Net requirement needed.
We then added in the cost of our Goals for the next 12-month period to determine how much money we need for our Net requirement.
We then repeated this procedure for years 2, 3, 4, and 5 so that we have a 5-year plan that addresses Your Dream and includes Your Goals.

WHAT WE HAVE DONE IS TAKEN OUR DREAMS AND GOALS AND MADE THEM REAL IN THE SENSE THAT THE ONLY THING LEFT IN ORDER TO LIVE THE LIFE WE HAVE IMAGINED IS TO EARN THE NET INCOME REQUIRED!

To this point, we have also identified the areas within ourselves that are in need of improvement, and we have addressed them in our POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS so that we get ourselves into More Productive Habits in the areas that are the most in need.

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SUCCESSFUL GOAL-SETTING

Now that you have Established and written down YOUR DREAM, next we will work on establishing some clearly defined GOALS.

GOALS:

One of the first things we need to talk about with regards to goals is this:

Axiom Number Twelve – URGENCY

Nothing happens unless YOU MAKE IT HAPPEN. If you don’t have a TIME by which a specific Goal is to be met, the odds are that you will not only not achieve your Goal, but you may also lose Focus of your Goal.

Think about some of the Goals that you have had in the past. Have you achieved them? Did you move toward them with URGENCY? Was there a “drop-dead-date” by which time your Goal MUST be achieved?

When you give yourself a deadline, you create a time frame by which time you expect from yourself that the Goal you have set is to be realized.

URGENCY IS A CRITICAL PART OF SUCCESSFUL GOAL SETTING!

Another CRITICAL part of SUCCESSFUL Goal setting is determining HOW you are going to achieve the Goal. You may have heard the saying that “Most people don’t plan to fail – they just fail to plan.” This is so true for so many.

HAVING A GOAL DOESN’T MEAN ITS EVER GOING TO BECOME A REALITY!

Remember that in Chapter One we discussed the UNIVERSAL TRUTH that everything that happens starts first with the THOUGHT.

It follows logical thought, then, that having the Goal – the thought, the idea, that Goal that you have in mind, is a CRITICAL step toward achieving it. BUT, CLEARLY it is not the ONLY STEP toward achieving it. Rather, in addition to defining WHAT the Goal is, you need to define WHEN you will achieve this Goal, and HOW you will achieve this Goal.

Otherwise, what you have is simply an idea, not a methodical call to action.

WHAT your goal is, WHEN you will achieve it, and HOW you will achieve it. THESE are the three CRITICAL ELEMENTS to be SUCCESSFUL in achieving your goals.

CREATING GOALS:

Now we’re going to create a list of GOALS! This is EXCITING, because you are shaping Your Dream, which is more of a lifestyle, by adding tangible Goals of physical things that you want to achieve.

YOU ARE NOW BUILDING YOUR BLUEPRINT FOR YOUR LIFE!

I have my Goals in a frame on the wall right in the front of my desk just next to my monitor. It a CRITICAL PART of my SUCCESS. I am FOCUSED on EXACTLY what it is that I am expecting myself to accomplish, and the Date by which I expect to accomplish them!

Since Goals must have time frames by which time they are to be achieved, it is best to design your list of Goals in time-frame order this list is the list of Goals that you will see every day. They will become a part of your daily thought process.

As you are probably beginning to see, PREPARATION IS A CRITICAL STEP TOWARDS SUCCESS. So often, people get an idea of what they want to achieve, and set off to achieve it WITHOUT:

having a plan,
taking personal inventory,
thinking about what their quest will take,
having goals along the way,
working toward their ultimate dream,
knowing where they are and
knowing what they need to do to get where they want to be.

To quote Vince Lombardi once more, “Practice doesn’t make perfect. PERFECT practice makes perfect.” And so it is with SUCCESS. Sometimes it happens by accident, and when it does, it’s a beautiful thing to witness. But we’re not playing the odds here. We’re talking about YOUR SUCCESS here. And in order for YOU to have the BEST CHANCE AT SUCCESS, we’re going to take the time to leave NO STONE UN-TURNED.

It makes no sense to rush into business without taking all of these factors into consideration. Knowing yourself well, knowing what you want, planning how to get it, paying attention to detail, and then confidently and methodically executing your plan is what we are doing together throughout this Course.

Preparing in this manner offers you the BEST POSSIBLE OPPORTUNITY FOR YOUR OWN PERSONAL SUCCESS! Keep in mind that this list shall include only Goals that require financial achievement.

Follow this format:

Today’s date MY “REWARD” GOALS

DATE FOR MY COST

ACHIEVEMENT GOAL OF GOAL

For example:

1) By 7/01, $ 25,000 CASH in bank account 451-21-2 $ 25,000

2) By 10/01, BRAND NEW Harley Fat Boy $ 25,000

3) By 12/31 BRAND NEW BMW M-5 Convertible $ 60,000

Whether it’s a new car, extra money in the bank, to pay off your home, or to put your kids through college, whatever your dream may be, list them in order of the date you want to achieve them by. I normally keep 12 goals on my list. You may only have 5, or you may have more than 12. The purpose of this exercise is for you to build some Reality into your Dream.

Axiom Number 13 – THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING

What you have just created is a list of the Goals that MOTIVATE you. You now have TANGIBLE ways of proving to yourself that you are on YOU OWN PERSONAL JOURNEY TO SUCCESS.

You are working toward YOUR DREAM, part of which is YOUR “REWARD” GOALS!

HOW EXCITING!

However, there is one CRITICAL ELEMENT that we need to now ADD to our “REWARD” GOAL list. And that element is the POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING.

How do we do this? We do this by making a POSITIVE ASSUMPTION. The POSITIVE ASSUMPTION that we make is that we ASSUME that we have ALREADY ACHIEVED THE GOAL!

Here’s how it works.

In the example listing of goals, our first “REWARD” GOAL entry is:

1) By 7/01, $ 25,000 CASH in bank account 451-21-2 $ 25,000

This entry resembles a “wish list”, doesn’t it! Well, we’re not making this list for Santa to deliver it to us. This is a Goal that we are going to EARN and FEEL GOOD about!

Its time we add two words to this entry to start training our minds toward the POSITIVE DIRECTION OF SUCCESS in which we are headed.

TWO SIMPLE WORDS:

I HAVE …

Look at the difference it makes to add, “I HAVE” to your “REWARD GOAL” list.

1) By 7/01, $ 25,000 CASH in bank account 451-21-2 $ 25,000

1) By 7/01, I HAVE $ 25,000 CASH in bank account 451-21-2 $ 25,000

Now, imagine reading this every time you sit down to work on your computer, every time you’re waiting for a file to download, or a program to load. Your mind starts to OWN that Goal that you’ve set for yourself.

By having your DREAM in WRITING, and by having your REWARD GOALS in WRITING, FRAMED, IMPORTANT, and ACCESSIBLE, you have now thought about how you see your IDEAL LIFE.

You have DEFINED YOUR DREAM, you have WRITTEN IT DOWN, you have now ADDED YOUR GOALS, and you have POSTED IT in a CONSPICUOUS PLACE for you to READ and INTERNALIZE on a CONTINUOUS BASIS.

I HOPE YOU CAN SEE HOW EXTREMELY POWERFUL THE WORK THAT WE ARE NOW DOING IS IN RELATION TO YOUR SUCCESS!

COMPLETING YOUR “REWARD” GOALS

Okay, you have now finished your “REWARD” GOAL list. You should now have your DREAM and your “REWARD” GOALS in order for you to print them out, frame them, and put them up somewhere where you can see them and read them consistently.

To complete them, you need to add this entry:

“MY SUCCESS IS GUARANTEED AND CANNOT BE STOPPED BY ANY MEANS WHATSOEVER.”

Having YOUR DREAM, and YOUR “REWARD” GOALS, framed and in front you, including dates and costs for your “REWARDS”, is a Fundamental, Positive, and Critical part of YOUR JOURNEY toward SUCCESS!

Axiom Number Fourteen – POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS

Now that you have created Your Dream, and Your Goals, you are on our way to creating the overall blueprint that will constitute YOUR JOURNEY TOWARD SUCCESS.

But first we must go back and tie in the Self-Confidence, Self-Worth, and Self-Determination that we spoke of in Chapter One, as well as the Focus, Commitment and Desire that we spoke about in Chapter Two. Just because we raised these issues, doesn’t mean we have everything we need to just roll on ahead.

Remember we discussed that there may be areas that need to be worked on, and that there were some simple exercises for doing just that? Well, what we’re going to do now is to create a listing of POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS.

These are Positive Statements that you will read every day as well as Your Dream and Your Goals while you are at your desk, to build your Confidence and to solidify where you are.

Now before we go any further, let’s talk for a minute about what I mean when I say, “where you are.”

There’s a saying that goes: “You’re only as strong as your weakest link.”

There are 4 major areas in which every human being must be strong. Otherwise, your weakest area is the one in which you are most exposed.

These 4 areas are: MENTAL, EMOTIONAL, PHYSICAL, and SPIRITUAL.

It’s important to discuss these 4 areas one at a time so that you can formulate your POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS to be the best that they can be for you.

Your body is like a machine. Taken care of, it will produce optimal results. Not maintained, its performance will not be the best. Your Mental, Emotional, Physical and Spiritual worlds must all be addressed if you are to be operating at your finest level.

MENTAL – What do you enjoy doing on a regular basis to stimulate your mind to keep it healthy? Do you like to read? Play chess? Solve crossword puzzles? Whatever you like to do, you MUST stimulate your mind on a consistent basis having nothing directly to do with work. Otherwise your thinking will get dull, and you will not operate at your best.

EMOTIONAL – Your EMOTIONAL HEALTH is not as easy to nurture as your Mental Health but equally critical. Some of the things that you can do for the betterment of your Emotional Health are: listen to music that moves you, spend quality time with loved ones, treat yourself to something you enjoy and is positive. Examine what if anything is an emotional burden in your life.

Then recognize it for what it is, and deal with it. Whether it involves Self-help readings or counseling, if you have an emotional hole in your heart, you will be preoccupied with that dilemma and unable to give your best effort to YOUR JOURNEY TO SUCCESS.

PHYSICAL – Your PHYSICAL HEALTH is pretty easy to maintain. It takes a minimum of 3 hours per week, 30 minutes for three times a week for light exercises, and 30 minutes for three times per week for aerobic exercise such as treadmill, life cycle, etc. A doctor of course must clear this since there’s no way for me to know what your specific conditions are. But I CAN tell you that you will perform better if you keep oxygen pumping to your brain, if you “feel” good, and if you feel good ABOUT YOURSELF. If you think that because you are running an Internet Business, you can let yourself go, THINK AGAIN!! You are supposed to be very own BEST FRIEND, so take care of yourself!

SPIRITUAL – Your SPIRITUAL HEALTH is based upon your own feelings that you are happy with the person that you are, with the path that you are on, with your beliefs, whatever they may be, and with the amount of time and effort you dedicate in this area. If you are preoccupied wondering what life is all about, how you fit in to the cosmos, what the purpose is of the universe, then devote some time to reading and learning and wondering. For those areas to which you ARE comfortable, put aside time each week to use in a way that is meaningful for you.

The lesson to be learned here is not to get so caught up in Your Journey to Success that you change for the worse. Money has the capacity to change people, a lot of times for the worse. Its not because money is evil. Its because lots of times people think that money somehow makes you a better person. NOT TRUE! Here’s one of my quotes: “The only thing difference between a fool and a fool with money, is the money!” If you’re a fool, you’re a fool, regardless of how much money is in your account or of how many toys you have. We’ve all known people with hearts of gold, that have very little money, and people in the news that have LOTS of money, toys, fame, and prestige, that we would not want to call our “friends.”

Having explored the “FOUR HOUSES”: Mental, Emotional, Physical, and Spiritual, as they are sometimes called, let’s take a minute and think about which of these areas are your strongest areas and which of these areas are ones that you need to focus upon.

We are now going to create a THIRD page for you to put up next to your DREAM and Your Reward Goals. This page is your listing of POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS. Its importance should be apparent to you because in prior Chapters we discussed all that you need in order to be SUCCESSFUL.

These AFFIRMATIONS help to tie the ideas together into one page of reminders of all that you want to be, so that you can strengthen yourself internally and help yourself to achieve your dream.

Follow this format. The first six affirmations should be written exactly as these are. You should modify the next 4, for the “four houses” so that they are meaningful to you personally. The last two should also be written exactly as they are.

POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS

I am a CONFIDENT person and I achieve my goals
I look at myself in a POSITIVE MANNER because I am a good person
I am entitled to SUCCESS and will work with DETERMINATION to achieve my goals.
I have the ability to FOCUS on my DREAM
I have the COMMITMENT to dedicate myself to my own SUCCESS
I have the desire to SUCCEED.
(MENTAL) I read, play chess, work crossword puzzles, daily
(EMOTIONAL) I listen to classical music, spend time with loved ones, daily
(PHYSICAL) I work out a minimum of three hours per week
(SPIRITUAL) I read scripture, go to worship, etc. daily, weekly

11) MY SUCCESS is GUARANTEED and CANNOT BE STOPPED BY ANY MEANS WHATSOEVER.

I HAVE SET MY MIND TO ACHIEVE MY DREAM. I AM A WONDERFUL, CAPABLE HUMAN BEING AND I WILL ACHIEVE MY DREAM AND MY GOALS!

As a side note, if you want to add to this list, the things in life that you are grateful for, this would add to your Strength of Character and Conviction as we ready ourselves to move forward and to take the next step, which is to QUANTIFY our DREAM.

After number 10, and before the last 2 Affirmations, these are my additional 6 Affirmations, listed as number 11 through number 16 on my POSITIVE AFFIRMATION list:

I am grateful for the love from and for a higher power

I am grateful for the love I have from and for myself

I am grateful for the love I have from and for my wife and children

I am grateful for the love I have from and for my fellow people

I am grateful for the gift of being able to both give and receive love

I will continue to work on being the very best person I can be

For me, these serve as a constant reminder of exactly where I am in life. It keeps me balanced and focused on everything that’s important to me. It’s the foundation for my blueprint. As we continue, we will build the blueprint that will constitute the framework of Your JOURNEY TO SUCCESS.

I’d like to close this Chapter with a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt:

“The future belongs to those

Who believe

In the beauty

Of their Dreams.”

CHAPTER THREE REVIEW:

In this Chapter we learned Three Important Axioms:

Axiom Number Twelve – URGENCY

Nothing happens unless YOU MAKE IT HAPPEN. If you don’t have a TIME by which a Specific Goal is to be met, the odds are you will not only not achieve your Goal, but you may also lose focus of your Goal.

Axiom Number Thirteen – THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING

In the case of Your REWARD GOALS, you do this by making a POSITIVE ASSUMPTION. The POSITIVE ASSUMPTION that you make is that you have ALREADY ACHIEVED THE GOAL!

Axiom Number Fourteen – POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS

“You’re only as strong as your weakest link.”

In Chapter One we discussed the three internal qualities that you must have in order to be SUCCESSFUL.

Self-Confidence
Self-Worth
Self-Determination

In Chapter Two we discussed the three character traits that you

Must have in order to be SUCCESSFUL.

Focus
Commitment
Desire

And now, in Chapter Three, we are talking about the three things you must do in order to be SUCCESSFUL.

Determine Your Dream and Your Goals
Determine WHEN Your Goals will be achieved
Determine HOW will you achieve it

There are 4 major areas in which every human being must be strong. Otherwise, your weakest area is the one in which you are most exposed.

These 4 areas are: MENTAL, EMOTIONAL, PHYSICAL, and SPIRITUAL.

It’s important to consider each of these 4 Critical areas one at a time so that you can formulate your POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS to be the best they can be for you.

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DREAM, BUT DREAM BIG!

One of the VERY FIRST PRINCIPLES of creating Your Own Success is exactly this:

Axiom Number Four – NO LIMITS!

If you feel that there is a ceiling, there is. But there is ONLY a ceiling as long as you believe its there. It’s sort of like when they train elephants. They put a chain around the elephant’s leg so the elephant can’t go more than a certain distance from the pole. After a while, the elephant learns that it can’t go past a certain point, and it stops trying. The trainers then remove the chain and the elephant never goes past that point again.

We do this to ourselves. Conditioned from when we were little, we grow up with our own ceilings, our own limits. And they are very real to us. Unless and until we change our THINKING, we will never change our REALITY. In Chapter One we talked about the correlation between THINKING AND SUCCESS. Now let’s talk about how to DREAM AND DREAM BIG!

Whether your dream is to retire within 3-5 years with a certain lifestyle, or to continue to build a dynasty, you’ve got to have YOUR DREAM in order to keep yourself motivated and focused.

Being an Independent Business Owner demands that you put in the amount of effort that is required so that you ultimately Achieve Your Dream. Remember that you are doing this for YOU, so give yourself a full effort. In Chapter One we also talked about having Self-Confidence, Self-Worth, and Self-Determination. There is nothing more devastating to your attempts at Success than negative self-talk. NONE!

We will talk about goals soon enough, but first, before we write down tangible goals, we must determine what your DREAMS are.

Axiom Number Five – DEFINE YOUR DREAM

Let’s Dream a little right now. It’s not as easy as you might think!

Let’s start by defining what a Dream is, because some people just don’t know how to Dream!

There’s a big difference between a DREAM and a GOAL. A Dream is the lifestyle created in part by the Achievement of Your Goals. In other words, a “new car” would be a Goal; a new home would be a Goal, etc. But the life you can see yourself leading; now that is bigger than any one Goal, and that is your DREAM.

Lots of people are afraid to Dream Big, usually out of fear of failure, or looking foolish as a result of failing. This may make perfect sense based once again on how they were raised.

This is VERY CRITICAL TO YOUR SUCCESS so pay close attention to what we are about to discuss.

Growing up, most of us have been taught to do our homework, study, be prepared, and get good grades. There was shame in failure. You wouldn’t want your parents to know if you failed a test, and depending on what group you were associated with in school, you may be chastised for failing. Failing is considered bad in almost every sense. Failed marriage, failed drivers license test, failed math class, failed etc.

Not only is failure considered shameful, but so is even standing out in the crowd. How hard to kids work to “fit in?” whether it’s the right sneakers, styles or colors? How about hairstyles, peer pressure for drinking, smoking, sex and drugs? It never ends. Most people want to fit in and need to fit in.

While there are a lot of pluses to being raised to Succeed, there are also some serious negative side affects to having such a deep seeded fear of failure. Let’s talk about how some of the side effects of what we learned while growing up affects us in a negative manner as we strive to build a SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS.

Axiom Number Six – ASSUMING RISK

On my Web Site, I quoted George Gilder, who is well known for his definition of what an Entrepreneur is at the core of his own self.

ENTREPRENEUR

He casts aside his assurance of 40-hour weeks,

Leaves the safe cover of tenure and security,

And charges across the perilous fields

Of change and opportunity.

If he succeeds,

His profits will come

Not from what he takes from his fellow citizens,

But from the value they freely place

On the gift of his imagination.

The KEY WORDS in these words of wisdom are the FIRST three words of the second part of his definition of Entrepreneur:

“If he succeeds”

An Entrepreneur is an individual who does NOT follow the crowd.

An Entrepreneur is NOT an individual who is afraid to stand out.

An Entrepreneur is NOT the kind of person to be content earning a wage and living within the means of that wage.

An Entrepreneur is a person who recognizes the RISK involved as he:

“CASTS ASIDE the assurance of a 40-hour week,

Leaves the SAFE COVER of tenure and security,

And charges across the PERILOUS FIELDS…”

Axiom Number Seven – RISK IMPLIES THE POTENTIAL FOR FAILURE

Perhaps the character traits that suit a businessperson best are now becoming more clear to you. These include:

Taking a risk,
Standing out in the crowd,
Subjecting yourself to ridicule, and
Recognizing the potential for failure

These traits, which ALL SUCCESSFUL BUSINESSMEN MUST have, are all in DIRECT OPPOSITION to everything we learned growing up!

Now, all of a sudden, at whatever age you are, you are making the transition from what is comfortable for you from your childhood memories, to taking a chance, a risk, of recognizing that the possibility for failure exists! After all, you’re NOT playing it safe. You ARE giving up the “security” of 40-hour weeks!

Can you hear your heart beating fast? Are your palms the least bit sweaty? Are you feeling a wee bit queasy? WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF BUSINESS, MY FRIEND!

That adrenaline rush that you feel, that EXCITEMENT of feeling like you’ve got the confidence to go forward and reach for YOUR BRASS RING,
THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT WHEN I SAY YOU NEED TO HAVE SELF-CONFIDENCE, SELF-WORTH, AND SELF-DETERMINATION!

Here are some words of wisdom coined by yours truly:

“IF YOU’RE NOT CHASING

YOUR DREAMS,

YOU’RE NOT LIVING!”

I hope you are starting to see that it takes some Character Traits that are either part of your personality right now, or in need of being developed, in order to be Successful In Business. As promised, you’ll learn step by step exactly how to do everything you need to do to be Successful running Your Business, but before we get to the nuts and bolts, we have some more work to do on DREAMS and GOALS.

AFTER ALL, IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE YOU’RE GOING, HOW WILL YOU KNOW WHEN YOU GET THERE?

Let’s try to take a deep breath and clear our mind so we can think clearly. A cleansing breath is achieved by taking a deep breath in through the nose, holding it for several seconds, and then blowing the breath out through the mouth. Cleansing breaths are very powerful, so you do not want to do more than 3 at any one time or you may become dizzy. However, this is a very useful technique to calm yourself down whenever you feel your anxiety level increase.

So take a minute right now, close your eyes (I am assuming you are not operating heavy equipment right now!) and take a deep breath in through the nose, then hold it for 5 seconds, then blow the breath out through your mouth. Repeat this procedure 3 times so that you are relaxed and ready to Dream.

Now, think about YOUR DREAM. Not a “thing” likes a house or a car. Your OVERALL Dream. Financially free to sail around the world? Do you have a Villa in France? Are servants drawing your bath? Do you own your own plane? Are you a professional golfer? Are you retired? Are you an investor with millions of dollars? Are you a parent with two kids in college and the funds to afford a fine lifestyle in addition to tuition?

I remarried not long ago, and my new bride, Kathey and I both share a similar Dream. We both would love to spend time in Hawaii when it is too hot or too cold in Las Vegas, and we’d like to spend some time in Pennsylvania enjoying the change of season. We’d love to be able to go to Europe when we want to do so, not be tied down to a job and not have to worry about what things cost.

We want freedom. THAT’s our REAL DREAM. Freedom to choose what we want to do with our lives. We don’t want to build someone else’s dream, working a 40-hour week, for what “feels” like security until the pink slip comes in the pay envelope.

We’ve envisioned our LIFESTYLE, and we’ve recognized that we want to be FREE to enjoy life to its fullest. And what that means to US is what I just shared with you. Your definition of living life to its fullest may be very different than ours.

But the one thing that ALL ENTREPRENEURS have in common, is this:

WE WANT OUR DAY IN THE SUN!

We want it ALL, and THEN some! We DO NOT WANT to work 40 hours a week and NEVER GET ANYWHERE! WE REFUSE!

Entrepreneurs have THEIR OWN IDEAS OF HOW THEIR LIFE SHOULD BE LIVED. And they’re GOING TO REACH OUT AND GRAB IT!

By the way, when I capitalize the letters like I have done in the paragraph above, its because I am VERY PASSIONATE about what I do! I LOVE BEING FREE TO REACH FOR THE STARS, TO DREAM BIG DREAMS, AND TO CONTROL MY OWN DESTINY!

AND THAT’S WHAT THIS IS REALLY ALL ABOUT, ISN’T IT???!

Now, before we talk about Goals, let’s talk about how many of us have thought for our entire working lives, and why this way of thinking is DEVASTATING to our Journey toward SUCCESS.

Almost every one of us judges our job, position, or career at least in part as being a “good” job or a “bad” job based in large part on the pay.

Person one: “He’s making $18 an hour!”

Person two: “Hey, not bad”

Person one: “She started at $35,000 per year!”

Person two: “Oh she must be very happy!”

Person one: “He’s only making $400 a week.”

Person two: “I’ll bet he’s glad just to be working.”

Well, my friends, here it is:

Axiom Number Eight – UNLIMITED PROFITS ARE THERE FOR YOU

I’m not talking about “good” money.

I am talking about UNLIMITED money!

When you are done with this entire Course, all three parts, you will see the whole picture of what I am talking about, but I want to make this point as clearly as I can:

THE AMOUNT OF PROFIT YOU EARN IS ENTIRELY UP TO YOU!

But the first thing you MUST do, which is TOTALLY ESSENTIAL, is to STOP thinking in terms of how much money you make per hour, per week, per month, or per year.

People who are SUCCESSFUL in Business NEVER EVER EVER

DO THIS ONE THING:

Axiom Number Nine – NEVER TRADE TIME FOR MONEY!

When I talk of no limits as to how much you can make, let me give you an example. Suppose someone came along right now and said they’d pay you $50 an hour, 40 hours per week, on a guaranteed contract for however much time you specify. That’s $2000 a week, $8000 a month, for your choice of time. 1 year, 2 years, 5 years.

If you take this offer, you’ve sold yourself out as far as your Dream is concerned, haven’t you? Unless your Dream was small enough to be able to be achieved with a $100,000 gross annual salary, less taxes of course, you are compromising your Dream. You’re giving up. You’re taking the safe way out.

If someone offered you $100 an hour, or $200 an hour, or $500 an hour, or $1000 an hour, you’d be “settling” for that amount. Now perhaps you’d be PLEASED AS PUNCH with $1000 an hour for a 40 hour week. That’s $40,000 a week! $2,000,000 per year! That’s a LOT of money!

That is, as long as your dream doesn’t include having multiple mansions in different countries with your own jet, pilot and staff !!!!!

My point is that whenever you “settle”, and that’s what you’re doing when you work for wages, you are compromising Your Dream for “safety”, and I put that word in quotes because you really do not control your own destiny. And at some point, perhaps you’d rather modify your Dream and take the “sure thing.”

But what if you didn’t take $100 an hour, which is a $200,000 gross income, $150,000 net, and instead, you followed your dream, you created your own dynasty, and you did considerably better than $200,000 per year.

DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MANY MULIT-MILLIONAIRES, BILLIONAIRES, AND MULTI-BILLIONAIRES WOULD NEVER HAVE EXISTED IF THEY DIDN’T HAVE THE GUTS TO FOLLOW THEIR DREAM?

There’s so many it’s mind-boggling. What if Bill Gates went to work for IBM for $200,000 per year? Would he be worth 50 BILLION DOLLARS TODAY?

Have we not heard of Donald Trump? What if he became a builder and built small homes in the suburbs? Would he be THE DONALD??

My point is that as they say in baseball:

“You can’t steal second, AND keep one foot on first.” In order to reach for the brass ring, You’ve GOT TO TAKE A CHANCE. You’ve got to take a chance so at the end of the day, you can say “I left it all on the field. I’ve lived a full life. I am good-tired. I met life head on. I did not live in fear. I did things MY WAY. I had a dream, and I followed MY dream. I did NOT build someone else’s dream.”

Such is the Mind, Spirit and Soul of the ENTREPRENEUR. A person with Dreams, Guts and Desire. A person to be Respected, Revered and Admired. A person that has earned the right to walk with “that” swagger because they had the Strength and the Conviction to follow their Own Guiding Light.

For many years, I had a poster on my wall at my office: It said:

“Only those who risk going too far can possibly know how far they can go.”

For me, I’d rather be IN THE GAME, and wind up hurt, than sit on the bench and wonder what might have been.

I’d like to close this Section with a quote from the great philosopher Henry David Thoreau:

“If a man doesn’t keep pace with his companions,

Perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

Let him step to the music which he hears,

However measured or far away.”

DARE TO BE DIFFERENT! Remember, if you’re not the lead dog, the view is all the same!

DREAMS:

For this section, you will need a pen and paper. You’ve purchased this Course, so you should get the most out of it! You might be thinking that you’ll get the pen and paper later. I know you’re comfortable, and you don’t feel like getting up. But trust me, you will get more out of this exercise if you have a pen and paper!

When we first spoke about DREAMS, I purposely did not have you have a pen and paper for that exercise because I wanted you to relax, and let your mind Dream. We learned that the DREAM is the bigger picture. It is the overall achievement. It is how you see yourself in your ultimate life’s picture.

Take a moment to write down your DREAM. Because before we go any further, into goal setting, we need to have the Dream clearly identified.

Here’s an example of a Dream written down at the top of your page:

Today’s Date:

By my _______th Birthday on _______, I want to be financially independent, free to travel the world, play golf three days a week, help those that I can, maintain my health, feel good about what I have accomplished, and most of all, have peace and happiness in my heart.

Now, before we go ANY further, let’s ask the tough question:

Axiom Number Ten – ACHIEVING YOUR DREAM

Here’s the question:

CAN YOU ACHIEVE YOUR DREAM DOING WHAT YOU ARE DOING NOW?

The decision as to whether to go into business straight ahead, full-speed, with the intent in every fiber of your being to BE SUCCESSFUL in business, is founded upon a number of factors. Of all of the factors, the single most critical factor is simply this: You have a DREAM – can you reach it doing what you’re doing now?

If the answer is YES, then by all means consider staying your course. After all, why deviate from the path that will take you to your Dream? Where else would you want to go?

If on the other hand, you cannot achieve your Dream by doing what you are doing now, then the next question is:

IS YOUR DREAM IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO YOU TO MAKE THE 100% COMMITMENT THAT IT WILL TAKE TO CHASE IT?

Axiom Number Eleven – FOCUS, COMMITMENT AND DESIRE

FOCUS: If you do not have a clear picture in your mind, and written down on your wall, of what you ultimately are trying to achieve, you will NEVER get there. In actuality, most people don’t know what their Dream is, let alone how to get there. That’s why we are taking the time that we need to take to first make sure that are starting out with the proper Foundation for Success.

COMMITMENT: Are you the kind of person who makes a commitment, and keeps that commitment no matter what? If you are late for an appointment, do you call? Is your word your bond? Once you put your mind to something, is there no stopping you? Focusing on your Dream is the first step. Being committed to stay on your path is your second step.

DESIRE: This is where your PASSION for Achieving Your Dream becomes the fire that fuels your efforts. You can be focused on what it is you are trying to accomplish, and you can be committed to work along on your path. But if you don’t have that BURNING DESIRE, that INNER FIRE, that INTENSITY, that you KNOW in your Heart and in your Soul that you WILL ACHIEVE YOUR DREAM, No Fire equals No Dream. It’s just that simple.

In Chapter One, we discussed THREE CRITICAL ELEMENTS:

Self-Confidence, Self-Worth, and Self-Determination. These are all concepts that relate to how we think of OURSELVES. Without these three CRITICAL ELEMENTS, we are setting ourselves up for failure because if we are not ready to accept Success, as we start experiencing Success, we wind up in a crisis state. As we discussed, the time to deal with how we feel about Success is BEFORE we get started so we can work on any issues that we may have identified.

Now, we are exploring three more CRITICAL ELEMENTS. But the difference is that these three elements are not as related to our SELF-IMAGE as they are to the TRAITS that we MUST have in order to achieve that which we set out to achieve.

The combination of Self-Confidence, Self-Worth, and Self-Determination, combined with the three character traits of FOCUS, COMMITMENT, and DESIRE, make for the foundation of a person who has the BEST CHANCE for SUCCESS.

In Chapter Three we will Create Our Listing of Positive Affirmations. This exercise will help you to strengthen the following:

Self-Confidence
Self-Worth
Self-Determination
Focus
Commitment, and
Desire

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Where Success Begins

We are going to come upon CRITICAL TRUTHS, with we will call AXIOMS. These are the inevitable truths, which with we must deal in order to arrive at a SUCCESSFUL journey.

Axiom Number One – THE SINGLE MOST CRITICAL TRUTH ABOUT SUCCESS

If both in your Mind, and in your Heart, you do not Believe that you are entitled to SUCCESS, you will NOT achieve SUCCESS.

Let’s first define SUCCESS. Our definition of SUCCESS for the purpose of this course is that you MET or SUCCEEDED the goals that you set for yourself. We will soon talk about setting goals, and working on a program to achieve them. But for right now, let’s talk about where SUCCESS BEGINS.

Any guesses? I told you that you’d be tested! Think about it for a second. WHERE does SUCCESS BEGIN?

SUCCESS BEGINS in one and ONLY ONE PLACE:

BETWEEN YOUR EARS. IT IS A UNIVERSAL TRUTH THAT EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS STARTS WITH A THOUGHT.

You’ve probably heard the saying “whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.”

I have seen SO MANY people FAIL because SUCCESS literally scares the heck out of them. Many people are just as afraid or MORE afraid of success than they are of failure.
However, pointing this out is virtually worthless, if we don’t stop right now and work on identifying what is going on in YOUR head.

Believe me, trust me, and do not doubt this for ONE second. No matter WHAT YOU DO, if you do not FIRST AND FOREMOST have your head in order, everything else that you do will be a half-hearted effort to prove to yourself what your internal self-image really is.

This is a CRITICAL, CRITICAL, CRITICAL area. Don’t skip this part!

Let’s talk a little bit about how we may have been raised because it is the tapes of our childhood that form the adult that we make the transition into becoming.

First, let’s talk about school. Have you ever been taught that it’s okay to fail? Or was your goal from the very first day to get good grades on every exam? This is a double-edged sword, because while you are striving to achieve, which is good, you’re also being taught that failure is unacceptable. And while failure is NOT the desired goal, obviously, there is a valuable lesson in having the self-confidence to TAKE A CHANCE, even though that chance might not bring the desired result.

If you feel that failure is one step closer to success, you’ve got a healthy attitude. Because there is a saying that goes: “The only time you fail is the last time you try.” But if you have a deep-seeded fear of failure, such that if you fail you will feel like you are less of a person, this is UNHEALTHY and will hinder your efforts to be SUCCESSFUL.

Think about this for a second, because there are plenty of things you can do to change your outlook on this issue. But for CERTAIN, if it is the case that you are desperately afraid to fail, SUCCESS will be MUCH MORE DIFFICULT to achieve.
The reason for this is that you cannot REACH FOR SUCCESS without RISKING FAILURE. They go hand in hand. They are not mutually exclusive. You have to feel OKAY with the possibility of failure NOT to proceed based on FEAR. Otherwise, you will lack the frame of mind necessary to make good, objective decisions at critical points in your business evolvement.

Okay, we’ve spoken about school. Let’s talk about our childhood because it is from our childhood that we get our “parental tapes” that helped mold us into the person that we are today.

Did you grow up with SUPPORT? “Johnny, you are a wonderful, valuable, special person. I support you 100% in anything you decide to do and I believe in you 100%.” If you did, then you probably feel this way about yourself: Confident, whole, ready and willing to take a chance, to rise to a challenge, to come out victorious, because that’s how you perceive yourself.

If on the other hand, you grew up with criticism, ridicule, indifference, or abuse, to name a few, you might not be in touch with the Self-Image that you need to have in order to step up to the plate and hit that home run.

There’s an old saying that goes: “If you don’t like the cookie, change the recipe.” I can’t be clearer that WHO YOU THINK YOU ARE DETERMINES WHERE YOU ARE IN LIFE. I have seen SO MANY people with talent, banging their heads against the wall wondering why they aren’t making it. Ninety-nine percent of the time, they aren’t making it because THEY AREN’T LETTING THEMSELVES make it.

Now this is heavy but CRITICAL. If a person who doesn’t have a Clear, Confident Vision of themselves being Successful, gets CLOSE to being Successful, this is UNFAMILIAR TERRITORY to that person and it’s apt to scare the heck out of them. After all, they are fighting a LIFETIME of how they feel about themselves.
Does your little voice inside say “I am not a confident person? I am afraid to take chances. I fear failure, I am NOT the guy with the fancy cars or the big house or the extra cash?” If you are, then getting close to achieving those things forces you to decide if you are the guy that you thought you were, or if you are the guy that you are becoming. This struggle for your own self-identity is something that needs to be identified and worked on NOW because of its CRITICAL RELATION TO YOUR SUCCESS.

Axiom Number Two – ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING

Well, I am here to tell you that this is 100% TRUE. I have seen this many, many times through the years. Some folks have less talent than others, but Truly Believe that Personal Success is part of their Reality, and these folks wind up being Successful- some Incredibly so.

Others, while sometimes possessing far more talent, do not possess that which is MORE IMPORTANT THAN TALENT – A POSITIVE SELF-IMAGE.

We’re going to talk about the nuts and bolts of everything that goes into making your business a SUCCESS, of course. There are many tangible things that you can do to help your Business to be Successful, including specific Marketing, Sales and Operational aspects of your Business.

But FIRST and FOREMOST:

Axiom Number Three – THE THREE CRITICAL BELIEFS:

• You MUST have the CONFIDENCE that you WILL be SUCCESSFUL,
• You MUST feel that you are ENTITLED to be SUCCESSFUL, and
• You MUST feel that NOTHING can PREVENT your ULTIMATE SUCCESS

You, and ONLY you can address these 3 critical points. If you haven’t ever thought about them in these terms, you may not immediately know the answers. So, let’s take these one at a time and make sure that we Clearly Understand Exactly what’s Necessary so that we are Building your Success upon a Solid Foundation.

You MUST have the CONFIDENCE that you WILL be SUCCESSFUL.

Think back through your life when presented with a final exam in school, or your driving test, or a job interview. Did you BELIEVE in yourself? Having Self-Confidence is a CRITICAL Element to Your Success because by believing that you can MAKE it happen, you do not stand in your own way. There are exercises that you can do to improve your self-confidence if it is lacking. We’ll talk further about these soon.

Only you can answer whether or not you have the confidence in yourself to make the decisions that need to be made when challenges arise. I CAN tell you that beyond the shadow of a doubt if you don’t have confidence in yourself, you will have a MUCH MORE DIFFICULT if not IMPOSSIBLE time being Successful in Business. It is one of the KEY ELEMENTS necessary toward your Success.

You MUST feel that you are ENTITLED to be SUCCESSFUL

This point is really at the heart of whom you feel you are. And this question that is being raised is CRITICAL to your Success. WHY? Because if you don’t feel that you deserve Success, you will sabotage your own chances to prevent yourself from becoming someone that you don’t see yourself as being.

We ALL know people that do this. They get a job, then they get a promotion, things seem to be going well, and bam, they’re out of work for a reason “beyond their control”. Or they put their mind to accomplishing something, they start to get close, and then something always happens to derail it.

This is because you need to have a POSITIVE SELF-WORTH in order to feel that you DESERVE to feel good about what you set out to achieve. You may feel for example that anyone with money is doing something illegal, wrong, or immoral, or that having money will change you in such a way that you will become a snob, or that your family won’t like you. If ANY of these “negative tapes” are playing in your head, you will sub-consciously prevent your own Success because of your concerns.

Feeling good about who you are, and that you are ENTITLED to SUCCESS, is a CRITICAL ELEMENT to your overall success. In the next section we will talk about some of the things you can do to strengthen your own feelings of self worth.

You MUST feel that NOTHING can prevent your ULTIMATE SUCCESS

DETERMINATION is a character trait that is fundamental to achieving any goal that you ever set out to achieve. Imagine how many times your first attempt at something was unsuccessful. And why wouldn’t it be? If it’s your first try at something, by definition you are inexperienced at it.
The likelihood of succeeding at ANYTHING your first time out is certainly not as good as after you try, try again. Yet so many people try something, fail, and give up. Remember the saying, “The ONLY time you fail is the last time you try.”

This is BOTH CRITICAL AND TRUE. WE DEFINED “SUCCESS” EARLIER AS ACHIEVING THE GOAL THAT YOU SET OUT TO ACCOMPLISH. We did NOT say “achieving your goals on the first try,” or “achieving your goals with no difficulty, tough times, obstacles, or challenges.”

The reason for this is that as the saying goes: “SUCCESS is a JOURNEY, NOT A DESTINATION” and this is true from the perspective that when you embark upon a journey to achieve a goal, like ANY journey, you are going to encounter difficulties, tough times, obstacles, and challenges.

At any point in time, you can decide to abandon your goal. Again, only YOU know yourself. Do you quit easily? When you want something, does NOTHING stop you? Or do you try once and give up?

DETERMINATION is one of the MOST CRITICAL ELEMENTS of SUCCESS because it is only by learning from the past, making key adjustments, and TRYING AGAIN, that you can help yourself to Insure Your Success.

Take a minute to think about whether or not you are a determined individual. The reason you’re reading this Course was because you wanted to achieve your goal, which is to be SUCCESSFUL in BUSINESS. In order to do so, you need to know your own strong points and weak points, so you know what to lean on and what to work on as you Build Your Business. In the next section we’ll talk about some of the things you can do to help yourself in this area.

Remember this quote from the great football coach Vince Lombardi, who said:

“Ultimately our success will come not from never failing, but from rising every time we fall.”

Remember that ANYBODY can give up. That’s easy to do. Bearing down, making adjustments, and trying again, and again, and again – now THAT’S what you need if you’re going to be SUCCESSFUL in Business, or for that matter, in ANYTHING that you desire to achieve!

Keep in mind that for many of us, this is a lifelong process. Childhood may have been particularly damaging to our feelings of Self-Confidence, Self-Worth, or Self-Determination. Perhaps you were brought up being told that you’ll never amount to anything, or that you always make bad decisions, or perhaps you were discouraged from an activity that was important to you because someone felt that you weren’t “good enough.” If so, you may have scars from your childhood tapes that you need to work on in order to be able to Touch the Strength that is inside of you.

But make NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT. EVERYONE, and I will emphasize this, EVERYONE, HAS THE ABILITY TO BE SUCCESSFUL. The reason why many are not is because while we go about trying our best, we often don’t go about working on Self-Improvement. A lot of times we either are not aware that we are in need of Self-Improvement, or, we are aware but we don’t know what to do about it.

There’s nobody that I know of that doesn’t have one or more issues that they can be working on to improve. I think that this is part of life’s journey. What I have pointed out to you thus far is that being SUCCESSFUL in BUSINESS is a result in large part of WHO YOU BELIEVE you are. SUCCESS STARTS INSIDE OF YOU, WITH HOW YOU PERCEIVE YOURSELF.

If you have finished this section feeling that you are “good to go” in these areas, then more power to you. I suspect that you’ve been given some food for thought. In thinking about some of the things in life that you have wanted to achieve but did not, be honest with yourself as to WHY you didn’t achieve them. If you have Confidence, Entitlement, and Determination, then what stopped you from Achieving Your Goal?

In the next section, we will talk about some of the easier things you can do to set yourself on the right path. There have been volumes written on Self-Improvement. There’s no feasible way to summarize all of the information on this subject into one Course. But I feel that it is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY to impress upon you as CLEARLY AS POSSIBLE that BEFORE we ever start talking about the nuts and bolts of business itself, that we need to start with ourselves.

Too often, the assumption is made that each of us is ready, willing, and able to build a Successful Business. It doesn’t work that way. Being Successful MUST FIRST be a STATE OF MIND. There’s a saying that goes “If you can conceive, and you can believe, you can achieve.” Conceiving the idea is the first part, and it’s an easy part. We’ll get to identify ideas and what their chances of success are. And the third part, “you can achieve” is a result of the part that goes: “And you believe”. That’s the WHOLE thing, right there. You’ve got to believe. You’ve got to believe in your idea, but MOST IMPORTANTLY, you’ve got to believe in who you are and that you are entitled to achieve your goal and that you are determined to do so.

Before we leave this section, I want to quickly tell you a story to demonstrate this point because the point of this story is so Very Critical to Your Success.

The New York Mets are a Baseball team that was established in 1962. Out of 160 games in their first season, they lost 120 of them! They were worse than bad. By 1969 however, they won enough games to squeak into the World Series against the mighty Baltimore Orioles.
At that time, man for man, the Baltimore Orioles were giants in comparison. Virtually nobody gave the Mets a chance to beat the Orioles in the best of 7 series.

Nobody EXCEPT the METS, and their loyal fans in the City of New York.

Their slogan was simple: “Ya gotta believe!”

The Mets lost the first game of the series. But then rising to the occasion, the Mets made miraculous plays on both offense and defense, as it became clear that something very special was happening right before our eyes.

The Mets went on to SWEEP the Baltimore Orioles, winning the series 4 games to 1.

There is NOTHING MORE POWERFUL than your belief in yourself. NOTHING!

Every Chapter in this course is important because it relates directly to YOUR SUCCESS.

But NO CHAPTER is MORE important than this one, because without having a SOLID FOUNDATION, you’re not going anywhere.

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UNDERSTANDING BUSINESS

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SUCCESSFUL GOAL-SETTING

DREAM, BUT DREAM BIG!

Where Success Begins

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