7 Undeniable Reasons Why Some People Fail Where Others Succeed

7 Undeniable Reasons Why Some People Fail Where Others Succeed: "

‘Success happens not by chance, but because you were given a chance and took advantage of it.’ - Kevin Geary

To most people, being born in a free country is the greatest gift. To others, it’s a fleeting thought. For the latter, I feel sorry.

Before I go any further, I must admit that not everyone will find success. There will always be those who sit around waiting for success to find them. There will be those who are simply not willing to achieve it. And then there’s the fact that success would not exist without failure. All of these things create what we know; a world where success and failure are experienced by different groups of people.

Everyone in a free country has the opportunity to succeed. So why doesn’t everyone succeed? Because success and failure are choices made consciously and subconsciously and failure is chosen by many for various reasons.

Here are 7 undeniable reasons why some people fail where others succeed:

1. They Define Success Wrong

‘Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven’t planted.’ - David Bly

Do you believe that success is won, innate, or earned? The answer someone gives can tell you a lot about them, and why they are where they are.

Success is won: if you believe that success is won, you experience animosity and envy toward those you view as lucky or more fortunate than you. You also believe that success is out of your control; it simply depends on a flip of the coin or certain circumstances.

How hard are you willing to work if you believe that success is won rather than earned?

Success is innate: people who believe success is innate often feel the same as those who believe it’s won. The only difference is that believers in innate-success have a more pessimistic view of opportunity; it’s trivial to them (we’ll go over this a little later). Why does opportunity matter if success is innate?

How hard are you willing to work if you feel your opportunity doesn’t matter and your chances of success are nil because of your circumstances?

Success is earned: the last group of people believes what we know to be true based on statistical analysis; success is earned. These people understand that in order to succeed, they must earn it. How do they earn it? They climb the mountain and utilize the same process others have used to achieve.

How hard are you willing to work if you believe success must be earned?

2. They Define Opportunity Wrong

‘The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity.’ - Ayn Rand

Do you believe that opportunity provides a possibility of success, a probability of success, or that it’s trivial?

Let’s ask the same questions we asked when we discussed success:

• How hard are you willing to work if you believe the opportunity you were born with is trivial?


• How hard are you willing to work if you believe the opportunity you were born with is a possibility?


• How hard are you willing to work if you believe the opportunity you were born with is a probability?

I hope this is coming together for you. I still want to go further though. I want you to see exactly how your views on opportunity and success work together to help determine your outcome.

• People who believe success is won see their opportunity as a possibility, but sometimes as trivial.


• People who believe success is innate see their opportunity as trivial.


• People who believe success is earned see their opportunity as a probability, but sometimes only as a possibility.

In layman’s terms, the rich see success as earned and view their opportunity as probability. The middle class see success as earned and view their opportunity as possibility, but sometimes as probability. The poor class sees success as won or innate and views their opportunity as trivial, or in some cases as a possibility, but not a probability.

Of course, people don’t stay in one class their entire life. The people who move between classes tend to have the same outlook as those of the class they move to.

3. They Define Work Wrong

‘The value of a man’s position is often determined by the number of people qualified to fill it.’ - Kevin Geary

We just discussed two important terms: success and opportunity. In order to continue our discussion further, we must discuss another, ‘work.’

‘But success doesn’t always come from hard work!’

Inevitably, people will point out that factory employees work harder than CEOs. Of course, this depends on your analysis of the word ‘work.’

Choose a corresponding term:

• Physical Labor


• Mental Labor


• Labor

Those who claim that success doesn’t always come from hard work only acknowledge one aspect of work, physical labor.

Of course, work is labor, period. Excluding mental labor from the term work is biased and unfair. CEOs may sit at a desk, wear a suit, and enjoy the air conditioning, but that doesn’t mean they labor any less than the man in the shop room, it’s simply a different type of labor. Not accepting this is like making the argument that one who hates their job labors more than one who enjoys their job and the pay should be altered to make up for it. You see where this is going?

In terms of pay scale, people who run companies are worth a lot more than those who assemble products. Why? Because it’s easy to find people who can assemble products and it’s not very easy to find people who can operate multi-million dollar companies for a profit.

Needless to say, the man in the shop room wouldn’t have a job if the CEO behind the desk wasn’t doing his (and vice versa). The only difference is which job you’d rather be doing, and that depends solely on the choices you make throughout your life.

How do you think the CEO views success and opportunity? How do you think the shop worker views those same terms?

4. They Defeat Themselves

‘To expect defeat is nine-tenths of defeat itself.’ - Henry Mencken

While there is a minority of people who actually choose to fail, the majority that fail simply make poor choices or have a poor outlook. Basically, for the majority, failure is a choice but not a decision.

I can’t possibly list all of the bad choices people make which lead them to failure, but a few to get you headed in the right direction are:

• Abusing drugs or alcohol / addiction.


• Not getting an education.


• Having a poor work ethic.


• Having a child too young or out of wedlock.


• Immaturity / laziness.


• Borrowing too much money.

And the list goes on, and on, and on…..and on.

Of course, there are also those things which are out of someone’s control.

If you’re born into an inner-city family and attend a poor school system, you obviously start out behind others. If you’re handicapped, your road to success may be longer and more difficult. But none of this bars you from success; I’ll elaborate on this later when we discuss circumstances.

Lastly, as our quote up top reminds us, many people defeat themselves simply by expecting defeat in the first place. They don’t expect success and it actually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. For more on this, you might like my highly popular article; Your Life Sucks Because You Expect it to Suck (and 10 Ways to Improve it Right Now).

5. They Think Failure is Final

‘Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.’ - Winston Churchill

‘But, hard work doesn’t always equal success. Some people work really hard, but fail. They tried and didn’t succeed.’

Failure is a key ingredient in success. Those who don’t achieve success most likely quit after their failure. Quitting, of course, is a choice.

If you were to follow in the footsteps of a successful person, you would likely pass the remnants of multiple failures. If you followed in the footsteps of a failure, you would find their lifeless future at the feet of their first opponent.

So the question is, how hard and for how long are you willing to fight? There are no shortcuts, statistically. The vast majority of millionaires are self-made and far too many lottery winners are broke and worse off than they were before they won the lottery. Why? Because wealth is about behavior and money doesn’t protect you from failure.

If you want to succeed where other people fail, you have to step right over failure and keep walking. The people who don’t make it let failure defeat them. Failure becomes their end result because they refuse to walk any further.

Look at it this way; if you aren’t dead yet, there’s still hope.

6. They’re a Victim of Their Circumstances

‘The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself.’ - Mark Cain

One of the biggest rebuttals given by non-achievers is that they are held back by their circumstances.

I don’t think circumstance is a fair argument though. Yes, you may be subject to circumstances that make it more difficult for you to succeed, but that doesn’t change the fact that you start with the same opportunity as others; the opportunity provided to you by living in a free country.

It’s also important to note that some people handle circumstances better than others. For instance, you can’t say that a handicap is a circumstance that prevents you from achieving when others with the same handicap have achieved.

Everyone has issues, circumstances, road blocks, etc. It’s all about how you deal with your circumstances and how hard you’re willing to work to overcome them. But the basics don’t change; you’re still in a free country and nobody is preventing you from achieving except for yourself.

Circumstance is also unimportant because it doesn’t determine finality. For example, a trust fund baby can lose his fortune with a series of bad decisions just as easily as a child from the ghetto can acquire a fortune with a series of good decisions.

Don’t be quick to judge others based on their circumstances. Instead, judge them based on their ferocity in overcoming those circumstances.

7. They Take No For an Answer

‘Opposition is a natural part of life. Just as we develop our physical muscles through overcoming opposition - such as lifting weights - we develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and adversity.’ - Stephen R. Covey

First, you are given an opportunity. Then, based on that opportunity, you hatch a dream. And when you try to execute that dream, you meet your opposition. It is here on the battleground, facing the opposition, that success is either realized or lost.

Everyone faces opposition on their way to the top. The crack babies and the trust fund babies both have their own sets of problems. And you can’t assume that one faces more opposition than the other; everyone’s life and path to success is unique.

The one thing they do have in common is the opportunity for success. But, as you try to succeed, there will be people and circumstances around every corner that try to tell you no. The disability you were born with tells you no, your abusive parents tell you no, your pessimistic friends tell you no, your lack of self esteem causes you to say no to yourself, addiction tells you no, and so on.

The people who succeed are those who don’t take no for an answer. They shrug off the pessimism, they choose better friends, they put up boundaries with their family, and they surround themselves with positive people and things.

Conclusion

Success is possible for anyone who is willing to achieve it. There are many who want success, but there is a huge difference between wanting-to and willing-to. You have to be willing…

The other thing to remember is that your outlook and the way you define success, opportunity, and work play a large role in determining your outcome.

If you aren’t achieving, the first person you should always look to first is yourself.

This was a guest post by Kevin Geary from Change Your Tree. Kevin is also the author of The Good Parent’s Guide to Teaching Your Children How to Retire Young and Wealthy.

Image by Thomas Hawk.

"


(Via PickTheBrain.)

Noteworthy

Came across this TechRepublic article titled 10 tools that simply collaboration, some great ideas in here...

Infinite Skills has an interesting series of short videos on using Photoshop.  You can check it out here and long with some free samples.

 

 

Great Tech Support & Sales Conversion!

I have been shopping for a replacement network laser all-in-one printer.  I had gone to Staples to look at a couple of different units and ended up buying one that the salesperson and, based on the information in the manual and in the store, would do everything I wanted, and it was at a very reasonable price.  I took it home, hooked it up to the network and couldn't get the network scanning to work on my Macs.

I spent the next hour or so locating online support documentation and at last in the latest manual, buried in a footnote, discovered that the network printing is only supported on Windows.  Awesome.  Gratefully Staples has a friendly return policy and I was careful in unboxing the unit so everything is perfectly intact.

I then looked at the HP units and couldn't find any good documentation to clarify if Mac scanning was only USB or also network capable and finally called their tech support for pre-sales.  Immediately I was speaking with someone who was very friendly and was able to locate the answer quickly.  She then asked if I would like to purchase the unit and gave me the price on the spot (which also happened to be lower than any of the other advertised prices).  Turns out they have a friendly return policy as well and will pay for return shipping!

In sum, the great part is that I was able to get the answer to my pre-sales question from tech support quickly and they had the opportunity to immediately turn the tech question into a sale so it worked out great for everyone.

And that kind of hearkens back to what I credited to my sales success while putting myself through undergraduate school--individuals could ask me detailed questions about products which I could provide or readily find the answers to and that built a level of trust that people don't always get by going to a salesperson who doesn't know much about a product.  The moral of the story...  If your job is selling products, know something about what you're selling.  If your are a savvy company and realize that tech support questions can be turned to sales, think about it.  You may have to hire more expensive labor to do it but done right, you can have some pretty satisfied customers and it can lead to quick sales.

In Depth: Why you must keep track of your online profile

Very good article here....

In Depth: Why you must keep track of your online profile: "

You might not realise it yet, but you're a brand. All this time you've been walking and talking and posting on the internet, thinking you were a person, when you've been a brand all along. Who'd have thought it?

All of your activities have been contributing to the brand, building a profile for it and even advertising it.

Why is it important to think of yourself as a brand? Because as information about individuals becomes increasingly available online, you want to make sure that information is not only accurate but also positive and succinct.

For example, this weekend I arrived early to meet a friend at his friend's house. I didn't know this friend of a friend, so on my way there I Googled him. I found that I was already following him on Twitter and discovered his blog, the company he worked for, his Facebook page, his Flickr account and so on. In 10 minutes, I thought I had a pretty good profile of his interests (cats, anime, politics) and personality (funny, busybody).

However, if I'd been really committed, I could have found all sorts of information. Deep Googling of my own name threw up fan-fiction from a magazine forum I used to work on, as well as some gadget fanboys threatening violence against my person for underscoring one of their preferred devices five years ago.

It wouldn't be good for a future employer to see that as one of my main hits, but thanks to good profile management and search engine optimisation, it's buried deep in Google's archive.

What differentiates your brand from you, the person? Well, everything you do as a person can contribute to the brand, but it shouldn't necessarily. Many other people can contribute to the brand, too – sometimes unconsciously, sometimes negatively.

All the data and media that we're generating and adding to the internet and social networks is part of this database, and additions are increasingly automated (location tracking on Latitude or Gowalla, media tracking on LibraryThing, LoveFilm or Raptr) so there's a need for effective filters to reveal where important events have occurred and manage their impact.

Media and social monitoring is about tracking any brand across all media. Simply put, it's about making sure you hear everything important that people are saying about your brand, and filtering out the noise, the incorrect results and the homonyms so you can reach out to the positive and negative people out there – to reward the friendly and correct the unfriendly.

It can vary from simple, free tools such as Google Alerts to complicated expensive tools such as Radian6.

Egosurfing – the act of searching for your own name – is therefore little different to standard media monitoring. The only real difference is your lack of resources – most of us aren't going to spend our entire salary on a Nielsen BuzzMetrics subscription. Nor are we going to have the time or the staff to set up and maintain a complicated monitoring tool. We just need something quick and dirty to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Taking this into consideration, we've picked four products that enable you to track your online profile. We've had Radian6 recommended to us by no less than Microsoft's Internet Marketing department, so we've included it here even though it's high-end stuff.

Google Alerts is a no-brainer because it's free and simple. Finally, Social Mention and Trackur offer easy social media monitoring. There are several tools we would have liked to examine, but which were too niche for our deliberately wide-ranging test.

Technorati is an older tool that only rates blogs and uses a fairly arbitrary metric. Blog Pulse is similarly blog-focused, but more up-to-date. Board Reader, as you might guess, tracks message boards and forums. Scoutlabs and SM2 are similar to Radian6, but Scoutlabs is cheaper and lighter on features, whereas SM2 is more useful for PR and marketing. AlertRank sorts your Google Alerts for you and is also free, so we've included it under Google Alerts.

Almost all of these, and the products on test, output RSS feeds. Put these into a feed reader and you've got a bespoke social media tracker – if you're willing to take the time to configure it.

Finding your brand online is only the first step. Next you need to ensure that the results that come top are positive, that your own content comes first and that you have procedures in place to deal with crises or negative feedback. Profile management is just starting to grow in importance. It can't be long before a standardised metric is accepted by social media experts and, more importantly, HR departments, meaning that personal profile monitoring will be key to job applications.

Now is a good time to start shaping your profile so you can become the brand you want to be.

Radian6
Price: $500 (10,000 results), $1,000 (25,000 results), $1,500 (50,000 results) + $100 per user, per month.
Supplier:www.radian6.com

Two separate 'social media gurus' have recommended Radian6 to us. Getting hands-on with it is initially daunting; the highly polished interface makes it seem more complicated than it is.

Thankfully, no-one's allowed to even use it without a thorough demo, and there are video tutorials to further explain it all.

The heart of the tool is in its configurability. It allows you to set up keyword profiles, choosing languages, media types, regions and sources, and output the resulting data in a variety of colourful and useful ways. It also includes team management tools, so someone like Stephen Fry can identify problem content and assign it to someone else.

While this power is wonderful, it's not so necessary for smaller users, especially as the base price is so high and it takes so much time to configure and maintain. If you're a media personality, the power and flexibility of this are great – but it's not really useful for most individuals' purposes.

Verdict: 4/5

Google Alerts
Price: Free
Supplier:www.google.com/alerts

Google Alerts Egosurfing starts when you first type your name into a Google box and hit [Enter]. Google Alerts is just an automated version of that, and deceptively simple with it. You put your keyword in, and hit [Enter].

It then starts delivering digests of all the mentions of your keyword across the web. If you want to configure it further, you can specify the type of content you're tracking (blogs, video, groups and so on), the frequency of the emails you receive and how many results you get (a measly maximum of 50).

It's hard to detect a difference between the results this finds and those of Radian6, but it's the output tools that Radian6 throws up and the way it rates content for you that give it such a large edge (forgetting, for the moment, its huge cost).

Alerts has been mashed up to create AlertRank, a separate rating tool that sorts alerts before they hit your inbox, but it doesn't match the flexibility of the bigger products.

Google Alerts is free and comprehensive, but if you want more results or filtered results, look elsewhere.

Verdict: 3/5

Trackur Free
Price: Free (one search), $18 (five searches), $88 (25 searches), $197 (250 searches), $297 (unlimited searches).
Supplier:www.trackur.com

Claiming a 60-second set-up time, Trackur performs a similar search to Google Alerts from a keyword or search string. However, it's slightly more powerful, allowing non-exact matches, mandatory includes and excludes, domain exceptions and unlimited results (which can be seen as a graph).

Once you've run a search, you can export it to CSV, grab it as an RSS feed or get it through email. It also includes sentiment tracking, colour-coding the results by traffic lights so you can easily see which are positive and negative.

Sadly though, despite several searches for very famous names, we never saw any sentiment other than neutral. Trakur also limits you to one saved search per account.

If you want more, you must subscribe (or create duplicate accounts) which isn't particularly desirable, but not initially expensive either at $18 for five – though the costs can rise quickly if you get into setting up corporate accounts.

Verdict: 3/5

Social Mention
Price: Free
Supplier:www.socialmention.com

Like Trackur, Social Mention aggregates user-generated content. It also has the same ability to customise your search: you can select the type of content, the date and so on. It does everything Trackur does, and it's free for any number of searches.

Its sentiment tracking actually works and is useful, though you can't click through to see it. Social Mention breaks down the top keywords, users, hashtags, postrank and sources for each search and provides you with CSV data for all of them, as well as letting you sign up to alerts that are at least as good as Google Alerts. It even gives you some handy stats about how you're reaching out to your audience.

Finally, Social Mention produces more results than Trackur does (though not as many as Google or Radian6), can be integrated with your search bar and, though it doesn't let you save searches, allows you to export as many RSS feeds or email alerts as you like.

Combined with the fact that it's free, Social Mention is an easy winner here.

Verdict: 5/5

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• Virgin Media launches Sofa Stadium footy app
• Viacom officially appeals YouTube court verdict
• Exclusive: Peter Crouch beats off Sherlock in London
• In Depth: How the web showcases bright new comedy stars

"

 

(Via TechRadar: All latest feeds.)

AT&T Fires Back at Verizon

Verizon has become increasingly bold in their attacks on AT&T. The most recent commercial depicts an iPhone as a recent newcomer to the Island of Misfit Toys because of the alleged thin coverage provided via AT&T's 3G network.

While I find the commercial really amusing, I have to tell you that in my own experience with Verizon wireless data, I have been extremely disappointed.

I do a lot of camping in Northern California and up until the end of this month, will have carried two different wireless cellular modems with me. Only about half the time do I get coverage at the state parks with either Verizon or AT&T. In all but one experience, I had no coverage from Verizon but did with AT&T.

I'm not an AT&T fan, however, but they have better coverage in the places where I'm more dependent on cellular data. I'm still baffled at how they can have such predictable black holes of coverage in the middle of S.F. or on Highway 37 between Novato and Sear's Point.

I can also add that 3G is definitely not created equally. This summer we drove from northern CA to southwestern MT via Utah, Nevada, and Idaho. I did many impromptu tests of wireless data along the way and the coverage by AT&T was equal to or better than Verizon the entire route. And when both had good signal, there was no appreciable difference in speed, even though AT&T's was listed as being on their older and slower 'Edge' network while Verizon was on their '3G.'

My other issue with Verizon is their failure to adopt global standards in mobile technology--specifically, to use SIM cards or GSM with their mobile devices. How long has Europe been using SIM cards now? 10 or 15 years? T-mobile and AT&T are the only national carriers in the US who get this....

Anyhow, AT&T fired back today with a press release stating their position with regard to Verizon's attacks. Good reading, enjoy!

10 things you should know about launching an IT consultancy

10 things you should know about launching an IT consultancy: "

There’s no shortage of books on how to start your own business — and some of them are excellent resources. But if you’re preparing to launch an IT consultancy, you need more than general business strategy. You need nitty-gritty tactical details like these.

---

Oh yeah. You’re going to work for yourself, be your own boss. Come and go when you want. No more kowtowing to The Man, right?

Running your own computer consulting business is rewarding, but it’s also full of numerous and competing challenges. Before you make the jump into entrepreneurship, take a moment to benefit from a few hundred hours of research I’ve invested and the real-world lessons I’ve learned in launching my own computer consulting franchise.

There are plenty of launch-your-own-business books out there. I know. I read several of them. Most are great resources. Many provide critical lessons in best managing liquid assets, understanding opportunity costs, and leveraging existing business relationships. But when it comes down to the dirty details, here are 10 things you really, really need to know (in street language) before quitting your day job.

Note: This information is also available as a PDF download.

#1: You need to incorporate

You don’t want to lose your house if a client’s data is lost. If you try hanging out a shingle as an independent lone ranger, your personal assets could be at risk. (Note that I’m not dispensing legal nor accounting advice. Consult your attorney for legal matters and a qualified accountant regarding tax issues.)

Ultimately, life is easier when your business operates as a business and not as a side project you maintain when you feel like it. Clients appreciate the assurance of working with a dedicated business. I can’t tell you how many clients I’ve obtained whose last IT guy ‘did it on the side’ and has now taken a corporate job and doesn’t have time to help the client whose business has come to a standstill because of computer problems. Clients want to know you’re serious about providing service and that they’re not entering a new relationship in which they’re just going to get burned again in a few months time.

Incorporate. Form an LLC. Have questions about whether an S-Corp is right for you? Talk to an accountant. Then hit LegalZoom.com. The site will walk you through a questionnaire (you’ll need to have the advice of your accountant at the ready to answer the queries), and then it’ll file the appropriate paperwork for a fraction of the cost an attorney would charge.

#2: You need to register for a federal tax ID number

Next, you need to register for a federal tax ID number. Hardly anyone (vendors, banks, and even some clients) will talk to you if you don’t.

Wait a second. Didn’t you just complete a mountain of paperwork to form your business (either as a corporation or LLC)? Yes, you did. But attorneys and online services charge incredible rates to obtain a federal tax ID for you.

Here’s a secret: It’s easy. Just go to the IRS Web site, complete and submit form SS-4 online, and voila. You’ll be the proud new owner of a federal tax ID.

#3: You need to register for a state sales tax exemption

You need a state sales tax exemption, too (most likely). If you’re in a state that collects sales tax, you’re responsible for ensuring sales tax gets paid on any item you sell a client. In such states, whether you buy a PC for a customer or purchase antivirus licenses, taxes need to be paid.

Check your state’s Web site. Look for information on the state’s department of revenue. You’ll probably have to complete a form, possibly even have it notarized, and return it to the state’s revenue cabinet. Within a few weeks, you’ll receive an account number. You’ll use that account number when you purchase products from vendors. You can opt NOT to pay sales tax when you purchase the item, instead choosing to pay the sales tax when you sell the item to the client.

Why do it this way? Because many (most) consultants charge clients far more for a purchase than the consultant paid. Some call it markup; accountants prefer to view it as profit. But you certainly don’t want to have to try to determine what taxes still need to be paid if some tax was paid earlier. Thus, charge tax at the point of sale to the customer, not when you purchase the item.

#4: You need to register with local authorities

Local government wants its money, too. Depending on where your business is located and services customers, you’ll likely need to register for a business license. As with the state sales tax exemption, contact your local government’s revenue cabinet or revenue commission for more information on registering your business. Expect to pay a fee for the privilege.

#5: QuickBooks is your friend

Once your paperwork’s complete, it’s time for more paperwork. In fact, you’d better learn to love paperwork, as a business owner. There’s lots of it, whether it’s preparing quarterly tax filings, generating monthly invoicing, writing collection letters, or simply returning monthly sales reports to state and local revenue cabinets.

QuickBooks can simplify the process. From helping keep your service rates consistent (you’ll likely want one level for benchwork, another for residential or home office service, and yet a third for commercial accounts) to professionally invoicing customers, QuickBooks can manage much of your finances.

I recommend purchasing the latest Pro version, along with the corresponding Missing Manual book for the version you’ve bought. Plan on spending a couple of weekends, BEFORE you’ve launched your business, doing nothing but studying the financial software. Better yet, obtain assistance from an accountant or certified QuickBooks professional to set up your initial Chart of Accounts. A little extra time taken on the front end to ensure the software’s configured properly for your business will save you tons of time on the backend. I promise.

#6: Backend systems will make or break you

Speaking of backend, backend systems are a pain in the you-know-what. And by backend, I mean all your back office chores, from marketing services to billing to vendor management and fulfillment. Add call management to the list, too.

Just as when you’re stuck in traffic driving between service calls, you don’t make any money when you’re up to your elbows in paper or processing tasks. It’s frustrating. Clients want you to order a new server box, two desktops, and a new laptop. They don’t want to pay a markup, either. But they’re happy to pay you for your time to install the new equipment.

Sound good? It’s not.

Consider the facts. You have to form a relationship with the vendor. It will need your bank account information, maybe proof of insurance (expect to carry one million dollars of general liability), your state sales tax exemption ID, your federal employer ID, a list of references, and a host of other information that takes a day to collect. Granted, you have to do that only once (with each vendor, and you’ll need about 10), but then you still have to wade through their catalogs, select the models you need, and configure them with the appropriate tape arrays, software packages, etc. That takes an hour alone. And again, you’re typically not getting paid for this research. Even if you mark hardware sales up 15 percent, don’t plan on any Hawaiian vacation as a result.

Add in similar trials and tribulations with your marketing efforts, billing systems, vendor maintenance, channel resellers, management issues, etc., and you can see why many consultants keep a full-time office manager on staff. It’s no great revelation of my business strategy to say that’s why I went with a franchise group. I have a world of backend support ready and waiting when I need it. I can’t imagine negotiating favorable or competitive pricing with computer manufacturers, antivirus vendors, or Microsoft if I operated on my own.

Before you open your doors, make sure that you know how you’ll tackle these wide-ranging back office chores. You’ll be challenged with completing them on an almost daily basis.

#7: Vendor relationships will determine your success

This is one of those business facets I didn’t fully appreciate until I was operating on my own. Everyone wants you to sell their stuff, right? How hard can it be for the two of you to hook up?

Well, it’s hard, as it turns out, to obtain products configured exactly as your client needs quickly and at a competitive price if you don’t have strong vendor relationships. That means you’ll need to spend time at trade shows and on the telephone developing business relationships with everyone from software manufacturers and hardware distributors to local computer store owners who keep life-saving SATA disks and patch 5 cables in stock when you can’t wait five days for them to show up via UPS.

Different vendors have their own processes, so be prepared to learn myriad ways of signing up and jumping through hoops. Some have online registrations; others prefer faxes and notarized affidavits. Either way, they all take time to launch, so plan on beginning vendor discussions, and establishing your channel relationships, months in advance of opening your consultancy.

#8: You must know what you do (and explain it in 10 seconds or less)

All the start-your-own-business books emphasize writing your 50-page business plan. Yes, I did that. And do you know how many times I’ve referred to it since I opened my business? Right; not once.

The written business plan is essential. Don’t get me wrong. It’s important because it gets you thinking about all those topics (target markets, capitalization, sales and marketing, cash flow requirements, etc.) you must master to be successful.

But here’s what you really need to include in your business plan: a succinct and articulate explanation of what your business does, how the services you provide help other businesses succeed, and how you’re different. Oh, and you need to be able to explain all that in 10 seconds or less.

Really. I’m not kidding.

Business Network International (plan on joining the chapter in your area) is on to something when it allots members just 30 seconds or so to explain what they do and the nature of their competitive advantage. Many times I’ve been approached in elevators, at stoplights (with the windows down), and just entering my car in a parking lot by prospective customers. Sometimes they have a quick question, other times they need IT help right now. Here’s the best part; they don’t always know it.

The ability to quickly communicate the value of the services you provide is paramount to success. Ensure that you can rattle off a sincere description of what you do and how you do it in 10 seconds and without having to think about it. It must be a natural reaction you develop to specific stimuli. You’ll cash more checks if you do.

#9: It’s all about the branding

Why have I been approached by customers at stoplights, in parking lots, and in elevators? I believe in branding. And unlike many pop business books that broach the subject of branding but don’t leave you with any specifics, here’s what I mean by that.

People know what I do. Give me 10 seconds and I can fill in any knowledge gaps quickly. My ‘brand’ does much of the ice breaking for me. I travel virtually nowhere without it. My company’s logo and telephone number are on shirts. Long sleeve, short sleeve, polos, and dress shirts; they all feature my logo. Both my cars are emblazoned with logos, telephone numbers, and simple marketing messages (which I keep consistent with my Yellow Pages and other advertising).

I have baseball hats for casual trips to Home Depot. My attaché features my company logo. My wife wears shirts displaying the company logo when grocery shopping. After I visit clients, even their PC bears a shiny silver sticker with my logo and telephone number.

Does it work? You better believe it. Hang out a shingle and a few people will call. Plaster a consistent but tasteful logo and simple message on your cars, clothing, ads, Web site, etc., and the calls begin stacking up.

Do you have to live, eat, and breathe the brand? No. But it helps. And let’s face it. After polishing off a burrito and a beer, I don’t mind someone asking if they can give me their laptop to repair when I approach my car in a parking lot. Just in case they have questions, I keep brochures, business cards and notepads (again, all featuring my logo and telephone number) in my glove box. You’d be surprised how quickly I go through them. I am.

#10: A niche is essential

The business plan books touch on this, but they rarely focus on technology consultants directly. You need to know your market niche. I’m talking about your target market here.

Will you service only small businesses? If so, you better familiarize yourself with the software they use. Or are you targeting physicians? In that case, you better know all things HIPAA, Intergy, and Medisoft (among others).

Know up front that you’re not going to be able to master everything. I choose to manage most Windows server, desktop, and network issues. When I encounter issues with specific medical software, dental systems, or client relationship software platforms, I call in an expert trained on those platforms. We work alongside to iron out the issue together.

Over time, that strategy provides me with greater penetration into more markets than if I concentrated solely on mastering medical systems, for example. Plus, clients respect you when you tell them you’re outside your area of expertise. It builds trust, believe it or not.

Whatever you choose to focus on, ensure that you know your niche. Do all you can to research your target market thoroughly and understand the challenges such clients battle daily. Otherwise, you’ll go crazy trying to develop expertise with Medisoft databases at the same time Intel’s rolling out new dual-core chips and Microsoft’s releasing a drastically new version of Office.

"

(Via Clippings.)

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"

(Via Clippings.)

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