Make Greatness Your Goal! - Chris Widener

If greatness is your goal, whether in your business life, your personal relationships or your own personal growth, here are some guidelines to get you on your way. Greatness is possible! You can achieve the goals you set for yourself and you can make a difference in your own life and those who live and work around you! Set greatness as your goal! Here’s how: 

Identify greatness for yourself. While there are some basic generalities that most people would consider great, there are broader definitions of greatness, ones that each individual sets for him or herself. For example, most people would consider Mother Theresa great while only some would consider Donald Trump great. Helping humanity is a broad generality while building a real estate fortune isn’t. So what you need to first do is ask, “What does greatness look like for this company, organization, family or for myself?” From there you can develop values and a mission statement etc. But if you don’t first identify it, you’ll never reach it. 

Maximize targeted end results. As Covey says, “begin with the end in mind.” What end results do you want. Be specific. Come up with all of them. Maximize them. Leave no stone uncovered. Set out for yourself all of the goals or end results you must hit in order to reach greatness. Write them down, memorize them and distribute them broadly (if doing this for a group). Maximize your targeted end results! 

Make distinction your endeavor. What is the endeavor of the great? Usually it is to distinguish themselves from the average. They seek to rise above the rest by the quality of their product or service. Everything goes toward the goal of making themselves distinct from the run of the mill. That is their mission. And in doing so, they make themselves great! 

Map your effort thoroughly. The three most important words in real estate are “location, location, location.” In reaching a goal, the three most important words are “plan, plan, plan.” Okay, “execute” and “persevere” work too, but go with me here! Too many people wish they would achieve something but never write down a plan for getting there. When I want to go on a long trip I don’t just wish to get there. I plan on how to get there. I get a map, I figure out distances, times etc. Map out your goal thoroughly. This will help you achieve greatness. 

Regularly take time for regeneration. Achieving greatness is hard! You will care more, work harder, and take more lumps and setbacks than the rest. So you will need to take time to regenerate so you can fight again another day. Your body needs rest. Your mind needs rest. Your emotions need rest. Your spirit needs rest. I firmly believe that a person who rests well can do more in less time than the one works without setting aside time for regeneration. You may be able to reach goals without rest, but somewhere along the line, you will fall harder and longer if you aren’t regularly regenerating yourself. So take your vacation time this year! 

Have a strict evaluation process. Every plan and goal needs an evaluation tool. And it should be a strict evaluation process. This is how you objectively decide whether or not you are proceeding toward your goal. If you have the right evaluation tool and you look six months into it and you aren’t hitting the goals, perhaps you need to change the goal or the way you are going after it. The evaluation process is not to be underestimated in its importance! 

Take somebody else with you. True greatness is not individual. The one who becomes great spreads the reward of greatness around. Incorporate many people into the plan and let them eat of the fruit of success. I live in an area that has literally thousands of millionaires created by a company that had a vision of greatness. And while yes, they experience the reward, the rewards then go out many levels through the whole community, from businesses that support our community to non-profit groups, churches, and schools. True greatness blesses those many levels away. 

Learn to party! Party? Yes! What good is greatness if you can’t enjoy it? And not just the final destination but also the entire journey. Be sure to stop along the way and relish in your movement. Celebrate small and large victories. This keeps the sprit high and the big mo rolling! Spend the money, buy the food and blow up the balloons – it’s time to celebrate!

Living Without Limits - Article by Brian Tracy

The starting point of great success and achievement has always been the same. It is for you to dream big dreams. There is nothing more important, and nothing that works faster than for you to cast off your own limitations than for you to begin dreaming and fantasizing about the wonderful things that you can become, have, and do.

As a wise man once said, “You must dream big dreams, for only big dreams have the power to move the minds of men.” When you begin to dream big dreams, your levels of self-esteem and self-confidence will go up immediately. You will feel more powerful about yourself and your ability to deal with what happens to you. The reason so many people accomplish so little is because they never allow themselves to lean back and imagine the kind of life that is possible for them.

A powerful principle that you can use to dream big dreams and live without limits is contained in what Elihu Goldratt calls the “Theory of Constraints.” This is one of the greatest breakthroughs in modern thinking. What Goldratt has found is that in every process, in accomplishing any goal, there is a bottleneck or choke cord that serves as a constraint on the process. This constraint then sets the speed at which you achieve any particular goal.

What Goldratt found is that if you concentrate all of your creative energies and attention on alleviating the constraint, you can speed up the process faster than by doing any other single thing.

Let me give you an example. Let us say that you want to double your income. What is the critical constraint or the limiting factor that holds you back? Well, you know that your income is a direct reward for the quality and quantity of the services you render to your world. Whatever field you are in, if you want to double your income, you simply have to double the quality and quantity of what you do for that income. Or you have to change activities and occupations so that what you are doing is worth twice as much. But you must always ask yourself, “What is the critical constraint that holds me back or sets the speed on how fast I double my income?”

A friend of mine is one of the highest-paid commission professionals in the United States. One of his goals was to double his income over the next three to five years.

He applied the 80/20 rule to his client base. He found that 20 percent of his clients contributed 80 percent of his profits, and that the amount of time spent on a high-profit client was pretty much the same amount of time spent on a low-profit client. In other words, he was dividing his time equally over the number of tasks that he does while only 20 percent of those items contributes 80 percent of his results.

So he drew a line on his list of clients under those who represented the top 20 percent and then called in other professionals in his industry and very carefully, politely, and strategically handed off the 80 percent of his clients that only represented 20 percent of his business. He then put together a profile of his top clients and began looking in the marketplace exclusively for the type of client who fit the profile; in other words, one who could become a major profit contributor to his organization, and whom he in turn could serve with the level of excellence that his clients were accustomed to. And instead of doubling his income in three to five years, he doubled it in the first year!

So what is holding you back? Is it your level of education or skill? Is it your current occupation or job? Is it your current environment or level of health? Is it the situations that you are in today? What is setting the speed for you achieving your goal?

Remember, whatever you have learned, you can unlearn. Whatever situation you have gotten yourself into, you can probably get yourself out of. If your real goal is to dream big dreams and to live without limits, you can set this as your standard and compare everything that you do against it.

The three keys to living without limits have always been the same. They are clarity, competence, and concentration.

Clarity means that you are absolutely clear about who you are, what you want, and where you’re going. You write down your goals and you make plans to accomplish them. You set very careful priorities and you do something every day to move you toward your goals. And the more progress you make toward accomplishing things that are important to you, the greater self-confidence and self-belief you have, and the more convinced you become that there are no limits on what you can achieve.

Competence means that you begin to become very, very good in the key result areas of your chosen field. You apply the 80/20 rule to everything you do and you focus on becoming outstanding in the 20 percent of tasks that contribute to 80 percent of your results. You dedicate yourself to continuous learning. You never stop growing. You realize that excellence is a moving target. And you commit yourself to doing something every day that enables you to become better and better at doing the most important things in your field. Concentration is having the self-discipline to force yourself to concentrate single-mindedly on one thing, the most important thing, and stay with it until it’s complete.

The two key words for success have always been focus and concentration. Focus is knowing exactly what you want to be, have, and do. Concentration is persevering, without diversion or distraction, in a straight line toward accomplishing the things that can make a real difference in your life.

When you allow yourself to begin to dream big dreams, creatively abandon the activities that are taking up too much of your time, and focus your inward energies on alleviating your main constraints, you start to feel an incredible sense of power and confidence. As you focus on doing what you love to do and becoming excellent in those few areas that can make a real difference in your life, you begin to think in terms of possibilities rather than impossibilities, and you move ever closer toward the realization of your full potential.

The 50 Critical Questions Essential to Running a Great Business

There are hundreds of questions essential to running a great business. Of all of the questions, I consider these the 50 most critical. Consider making each of these questions the topic for weekly management meetings. Do we have a vision about where we are going as a company? 

1. Do we plan adequately to grow the company? 
2. Do we communicate the plan to all who are involved with the company? 
3. Do we have good cash management? 
4. Are we building cash? 
5. Is the overall financial condition of the company improving or deteriorating? 
6. Do we have timely and accurate financial data to review? 
7. Does the data we have help you make decisions? Do we need more? Do we look at all the 
data you receive each month? 
8. Do employees understand how their work impacts the company financially? 
9. Is our company performing well compared to industry standards? 
10. Do we have adequate internal controls to prevent employee theft? 
11. Do we meet with employees at least once a month to review variances and trends? 
12. Are we losing market share? 
13. Have we surveyed or otherwise communicated with our customers for their input in 
improvements in service and new products? 
14. Are overall customer complaints trending up or down? 
15. Do we clearly understand our customers and markets? 
16. Do we know where we are positioned in our market? 
17. Are our products and services out of date? 
18. Is our pricing appropriate and competitive? 
19. Are we regularly creating new products and offering them to existing customers? 
20. Are we satisfied with our revenue growth? 
21. Are all of our product sales profitable? 
22. Is our customer base shrinking or increasing? 
23. Can we identify customers or groups of customers whose business is not profitable for us?
24. Are we satisfied with our plans to expand via the Internet? 
25. Do we spend time with our direct reports, one-to-one? 
26. Do we spend time with our top customers, one-to-one? 
27. Are our sales and customer service people superstars? 
28. Do you celebrate the achievements of the company and its employees? 
29. Do we do self-audits on our own records, and the maintenance of equipment? 
30. Do we have back up suppliers for most of our manufacturing process needs? 
31. Do we have adequate internal quality controls or do customers know first if processes failed? 
32. Have we adequately protected our intellectual property? 
33. Are our facilities that are adequate for today also adequate for our growth plans? 
34. Are we adequately minimizing the threats to our business? 
35. Are our facilities and information systems prepared for a natural disaster or other physically 
destructive force? 
36. Do we have adequate back up procedures for our information systems? 
37. Are we making the best use of available new technologies in manufacturing? 
38. Have we talked to our suppliers about better prices or terms or other changes to our 
relationship to benefit us both? 
39. Do we regularly chart and review operational performance? 
40. Do we spend enough time to be sure we are hiring for the long run? 
41. Do we follow compliance laws and have written policies as required? 
42. Are we following procedures that are most likely to keep us out of employee lawsuits? 
43. Does our compensation and benefit structure allow us to hire highly talented employees? 
44. Are our employees overworked? Do we spend a lot in overtime and temporary help? Is that 
number increasing? 
45. Do we tolerate gossip or other behavior that undermines employee morale? 
46. Do we ask employees to review the company? 
47. Do we give enough types of feedback to employees regarding their performance? Do we 
review them individually at least annually? 
48. Do we insist our employees stay employable? 
49. Is the CEO accountable to someone for his or her decisions and actions? Does the Board (if 
you have one) communicate their expectations about the company? 
50. Is the CEO accountable to someone for his or her decisions and actions? Does the Board (if 
you have one) communicate their expectations about the company?

Top Ten Mistakes made in Business Plans

1. Not proving that you have the management expertise to make it happen.
The quality of your people will lend credibility to your ideas and even to your financial projections. If your management team is not as strong as it could be, join forces with a great board of advisors.

2. Not demonstrating where your revenue will come from - what customers pay you and
why they pay you.
Don’t be too aggressive in setting revenue projections or you will undermine your credibility.

3. Not proving that your business model and long term cost structure is good enough to make a real profit. 
How will your business make money - what is your margin structure, what are your costs?

4. Not being clear enough in your product description to allow the reader to quickly see the need and the niche for this product. 
It may seem obvious to you, but not so to the reader not educated in your business.

5. Not proving that the market opportunity is big enough to get interested in. 
How big is your market now and what will it look like in 5 years?

6. Not adequately acknowledging your competition. 
Investors know that if there is no perceived competition, there may be no market for what you are offering. The better you can describe your competition, the better you understand your market, and the more likely you will dominate it.

7. Not writing for the target audience. 
Although the core is the same, the plan should be written for the perspective of banks, equity investors, and others. Go as far as you can to tailor each plan to the audience’s specific interests to show you’ve done your homework and know to whom you are talking.

8. Starting with a boring, unenthusiastic executive summary. 
This is the first section to be read, and if it isn’t exciting the rest may never be seen. Make it fun and be enthusiastic. It should stand alone and generate interest for more. It deserves all the thought you would put into a professionally done promotional piece for your customers.

9. Poor presentation. 
If you have typos and grammatical errors in your business plan, the reader will assume the work you do in your business is sloppy too.

10. Saying too much.
Keep the entire plan to a maximum of 30 pages, with an executive summary of 3 pages or less. If investors are interested, they will ask for any other information they need. Amateurs talk in the business plan about unimportant details because they don’t know what they should say and what they shouldn’t. Hire a professional editor to reduce the page count and help you emphasize your strengths.

How to Write a Business Plan for Small Businesses

A plan for your small business is useful if you want to focus yourself and get an overall picture of what you have to do in order to build your enterprise. On top of that, a good business plan is an absolute must if you want to convince institutions or individuals to loan money or invest in your business. One way to organize your business plan is to compose it like an informative news article, explaining the "who," "what," "when," "why, and "how" of your business. 

 Who are you?
Write about your background and previous experience in your field. Tell about your notable accomplishments, and about your partners and staff. If your company has been in business for some time now, then write about your "track record." Explain what your company has already accomplished and give an idea of how it stands in relation to competitors in your particular field of business.

 What are Your Products or Services?
What are you producing or what are you going to produce? What are your products or services? What kind of revenue will these activities be bringing in or what is the expected range of revenue once the products are launched? Answer these questions giving a complete picture of the principal activity that you are engaged in or will be engaged in during the timeline of this business plan.

 When Will things Happen?
If you have a new start-up business, this section of the plan will allow you to explain the steps that are needed to set-up your business and make it fully operational. How much time do you need? When will the business be up and running? If you are have an already existing business, it is useful to place somewhere in the plan a list of targets that you want to achieve and give approximate dates as to when these targets can be reached.

 Where is Your Business?
Where are you located? Do you work at home or do you have business premises? If you have a business location such as a store or factory, then explain about the size and capacity of this establishment. What is the business climate like in your area? Are there significant competitors and what are your prospects of competing in this market? Answer these questions as best you can and give yourself and would-be investors a clear picture of where your business is situated geographically and with relation to your overall market.

 Why are you in Business?
Explain why your particular enterprise, product or service is needed. What can your add to the already existing area of business that your are entering? What need are you going to fill? The answers to these questions are particularly important for investors looking for opportunities in emerging businesses and emerging markets.

 How will it all Happen?
Your sales and marketing plan should be outlined in this section. Explain how you intend to establish your product or service and what steps you will take to create or expand your customer base. How will you finance the start-up and/or expansion of your business? Explain the source of your funds whether you have existing loans or liabilities. How much money do you need to raise in order to get realize your overall plan for the launching or expansion of your business? Explain how you are going to translate your business idea into a living reality.

Take a look at your planned business or your existing business from the perspective that has been outlined in this article, and write a concise business plan. It will help to bring clarity to your operations and convince investors and lenders to participate in your enterprise.