Who do you hang out with?

There an old saying that goes like this,"You're known by the company you keep."
That is really very true. There are two types of people in businessworld...Successful people and unsuccessful people. Some people are successful in business because of great skill and strategy or because of inheritance of an already big-named entity. Some fail because of lack of focus and bad marketing plans. Whatever the result, there's always a reason and you NEED to know these reasons. How would you know? Your attitude determines your altitude. If you enjoy hanging out with whiners and complainers who resist positive change in their lives, these attributes will rub off on you. When you're going to a bar or some social spot, it is important for you to be observant and choose wisely who you hang with mostly. You need to seek the company of successful business people. Not people who SAY that they're successful, those who have evidence of the claims and who are easy to talk to and willing to exchange ideas.
Most of the time, when you identify yourself as an entrepreneur to an established or experienced business person, they're willing to hear your story and help you out if they can. Well that is if you're not in their field to compete against them. You need to surround yourself constantly with big hitters. People who are successful like to talk about their businesses and you can learn a lot from them. If you keep hanging out with losers, and people who generally don't have growing and successful businesses, your optimism diminishes without you knowing it and it will indeed affect your business negatively.
Take your time to choose carefully and wisely ALL THE TIME. These same "big hitters" can be the beginning of new networks that you can establish which will help you to build your business and serve a wide cross section of prospects or clients. Always be eager to listen to successful people whenever they speak. You can learn mountains of information from them. There are many things that you'll never learn in school or college but the school of hard knocks is the way to go. That's the kind of information you learn on this blog as well.
So please remember to always try connecting with successful people and learn what they do to be successful. It will be essential to your business regardless of its nature.
Please stop by my website to learn about my business
Thank you very much for your time and attention.

Learning from OTHERs' experiences

Hello once again! I know it is a few days late for this post but here I am. Last week was interrupted by general elections activities. Most of you may scold me and say,"There's never a holiday in business". That's so true yet so NOT true at the same time. My business is built on a number of systems so my lack of input does not hinder any progress whatsoever. Just a matter of starting some processes and have them replicated and go on running for themselves so stepping away from the business does not scare me.
Anyway, to move onto this week's topic, let me begin by admitting that experience IS definitely the best teacher. Take for example, a social worker who deals with rape victims. Of course you can study counselling at the university level and become a professional but the true counsellors are those who may have actually experienced the trauma, rape in this case. There is a lot to be said and learnt from such an experience but if you want to become such a consellor, you may be required to look at some existing cases of rape and learn from the subjects' behaviour.
The same applies to business in general. As an entrepreneur, I like to observe businesses that are huge and well established and think about what they do to be so successful. I also make certain I pay attention to failed business ventures and try to pinpoint exactly where they went wrong. It is much better to learn vicariously than it is to learn by making your own mistakes. Of course no one is immune to making their own mistakes but although it may be important to make your own mistakes, in business, it can be very costly and that can ruin a startup company in very little time.
One common mistake I observe is where someone opens a business based solely on the personally intriguing nature of the idea. Intrigue is great but when starting a business, you need to identify and investigate certain things at first. Things such as the need for your service or product in your area or you may wish to ponder about the ongoing maintenance cost of your business. This is common among businesses that are started based on hobbies and it bankcrupts many an entrepreneur.
You have to be wise and link and connect with successful people and learn from them.
More to come during the week.
Thank you for your time and kind attention!