Thoughts on Building a Business

Today I wanted to share with you a transcript from Napoleon Hill. Those of you who have been receiving my Newsletters, will know that I am a huge fan of Napoleon Hill. If you don't know who Napoleon Hill is, he is regarded as the father of success principles. He wrote about the Law of Attraction long before "The Secret" ever came along.

This particular transcript, Napoleon talks about the importance of keeping an open mind and how it has made a difference to successful people. Bear in mind that it was written in 1960.

"An open mind is a free mind. The person who closes his mind to new ideas, concepts and people is locking a door that enslaves his own mentality. Intolerance is a two-edged scythe that on its backswing cuts off opportunities and lines of communication. When you open your mind, you give your imagination freedom to act for you.

It's hard to realize now that less than six decades ago there were men who laughed at the Wright Brothers' experiments at flight. And barely three decades ago, Lindbergh could scarcely find backers for his trans-Atlantic flight. Today, men of vision freely predict man will soon fly to the moon -- but no one's laughing. It's the scoffers who are held in scorn.

A closed mind is a sign of a static personality. It lets progress pass it by and hence can never take advantage of the opportunities progress offers.

Only if you have an open mind can you grasp the full impact of the first rule of the science of success: "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve."

It would be well for you to take stock of yourself. Are you among those who say "I can" and "It will be done" or do you fall in the group that says "Nobody can" - at the very moment somebody else is accomplishing it? An open mind requires faith - in yourself, your fellow man and the Creator who laid out a pattern of progress for Man and his universe.

The days of superstition are gone. But the shadow of prejudice is as dark as ever. You can come out into the light by closely examining your own personality. Do you make decisions based on reason and logic rather than on emotion and preconceived ideas? Do you listen closely, attentively and thoughtfully to the other fellow's arguments? Do you seek for facts rather than hearsay and rumor?

The human mentality withers unless in constant contact with the stimulating influence of fresh thought. The Communists, in their brain-washing technique, know that the quickest way to break a man's will is to isolate his mind, cutting him off from books, newspapers, radio and other normal channels of intellectual communication.

Under such circumstances, the intellect dies for lack of nourishment. Only the strongest will and the purest faith can save it.

Is it possible that you have imprisoned your mind in a social and cultural concentration camp? Have you subjected yourself to a brain-washing of your own making, isolating you from ideas that could lead to success? If so, it's time to sweep aside the bars of prejudice that imprison your intellect.

Open your mind and set it free!"

Source: Success Unlimited. Vol. VII, No. 12. December, 1960. Pg. 39

So in short, if you keep an open mind, you will see more opportunities and will be able to achieve more. We are all limited by our thoughts and beliefs. The main difference between someone who has achieved something and someone who hasn't; is the achiever believed that it was possible and then took action to achieve it, whilst the non-achiever didn't believe it was possible. So whenever someone approaches you with an opportunity, keep an open mind and then make an informed decision.

The MYOB Small Business Survey for July 2008 found that only 41% of Small Businesses have or utilise a website. With the growing usage of the Internet, I find this amazing. I honestly thought the figure would be up around 70%.

Even more of a concern, is that only 45% of Small Businesses have registered a Domain. This means that rather then using email addresses that promote their business (like info@yourbusiness.com.au), they are using email addresses that promote the Internet Service Provider they are using (eg. yourbusiness@bigpond.com). I believe that using an email address that uses your unique domain, portrays a more professional image. More importantly, there is no excuse for not having your own domain and email addresses, as it takes all of 30 minutes to set up and will only cost you $54. So if you don't have your own domain name and email accounts, contact me and I will tell you how to go about it.

But I get sidetracked! The same survey found that many small businesses are using the Internet more and more. Of particular note is that 91% of you use the Internet for Online Banking and 79% of you pay Supplier Bills online. Yet only 41% of you have your own website. Shouldn't you have an online presence!! Shouldn't you be one of those Suppliers that other Businesses pay online. After all, it makes sense to make paying you as easy as possible, and the number of people using online payments shows that this is becoming the preferred option.

To find out more about the MYOB survey, click here.

As I have discussed in previous Blogs, Web 2.0 is now here.

But what is it?

In a nutshell, the Internet used to be about information. We used it to find out information on any topic. This may have been information on the "plight of the small footed bandicoot in Central NSW' or maybe on a good Personal Trainer in your area. So from a business sense, people would look for information on our business to decide if they wanted to use us for our product or service.

Web 2.0 has evolved beyond pure information, to where we use the Internet to connect to other people. The obvious areas here is with the various websites like Myspace and Facebook. These are sites where people post their information so that other people can contact them.

This is an area that is growing rapidly, so if we are serious about growing our own business, we need to work out how we can use this.

I recently came across a great little video on Youtube, that explains what Social Media is. Better still, it explains it in a Business Scenario. So if you would like to start understanding Social Media better, check out the video.

How do you have an effective website?

Many websites have been put together with no real thought to what you are trying to achieve. It's all well and good to have a fantastic looking website, but if it's not making you money, then it is a waste of money.

The 4C's are a great way to look at your website to ensure that you have designed it to be effective. They were developed by Bardia Housman who is the Founder of the Web Development Company that we use for our websites. And they are:

• Content
• Credbility
• Conversion
• Customer

In a nutshell, you need good content to attract people to your site, which will then give you good credibility. This credibility will then help you convert these visitors into customers, who you must now look after to keep as customers.

This is a simplistic explanation. Download the full article on the 4C's, to learn more. It's a great read.

Time really flies when your busy. The only problem with being busy, is that you can start to lose sight of the bigger picture. You become so entrenched in the day to day activities of trying to keep up with your workload, that all the peripheral activities (usually the important ones at that) take a back seat. I've recently found myself falling into this trap. It's what I call the curse of the Small Business Owner. We end up creating a Yo-Yo effect, where we start by focussing on getting work, then switching to doing the work only to realise that we've run out of work and going back to step 1. The problem with this, is that we never really get the business under control and end up being a bit like a dog chasing its tail.

So what's the solution?

The solution is to do what I'm attempting to do and start tracking exactly what tasks you are doing each day. Once you have a couple of weeks tasks, review them and decide what tasks you can let go of and delegate to someone else. Then you simply put all of these tasks into a Job Description to give to them. Better yet, you can look around at other businesses and see if there are any opportunities to outsource to them. The advantage of this is that you only pay for work completed and don't have to hire someone and then worry about giving them enough work.

A common excuse I get from people about doing this is; "I can't afford it". But Common Sense would argue that if you freed up more time to spend on Sales and Marketing, you would have more money coming in to afford it. So give it a go, it's the first big step to growing a successful business.