How To Grow A Successful Business: Everything You Need To Know
T. Harv Eker
Author of #1 NY Times bestselling book Secrets of the Millionaire Mind [Founder of Peak Potentials Training]
If you want success, wealth, and freedom, the best path for you might be growing your own business. It’s one of the few proven ways to achieve both time AND money freedom.
With a successful business, you’re in control. You get to live the way you want, have the things you want, and make your unique mark on the world.
It gives you unlimited income potential and control over your time and energy.
If you want success, wealth, and freedom, the best path for you might be growing your own business. It’s one of the few proven ways to achieve both time AND money freedom. If you want our proven roadmap to growing your business, The 5X5 Business Growth Challenge is for you!
And the benefits aren’t limited to the end results—the process of growing a business can be a rewarding experience, encouraging you to grow as a person along the way.
You can have a lot of fun learning, experimenting, and putting your creative energy to use.
Sometimes that can also mean facing challenges and setbacks, which force you out of your comfort zone.
By building on the enjoyable aspects and mastering the difficult ones, you can move toward success much more quickly. But before you start working towards it, it’s smart to have a good idea of what success would look like for you.
The clearer your goals are at the outset, the more you’ll enjoy yourself along the way while experiencing bigger and better results.
Business Success Paves The Way For Life Success
With today’s technology, it’s easier than ever to set up a business that works anywhere in the world, if that’s your ideal.
You can be free to go where you want, when you want, without the slightest hiccup in your operation. You can delegate and outsource to your heart’s content, removing yourself from most of the daily tasks of running the show.
On the other hand, you might dream of working long hours on projects you enjoy and care about.
You might thrive on personal interaction with customers who appreciate your products or services.
Maybe it all sounds good, and you want a business that lets you both work hard and play hard. It’s totally up to you.
We know it can be hard to decide, but it’s almost impossible to create the right business structure for you if you don’t know what you want to get out of it. Knowing what you want to achieve from the outset helps you make decisions along the way.
So first, what does success mean to you?
What do you see when you envision your ideal life?
Are there things you want, like tailored clothes, luxury cars, jewelry, or high-end electronics?
Are there experiences you’d love to have, like dining at 5-star restaurants, full access at the Olympics, or a luxury stay in the Maldives?
Are there groups of people in your community that you want to help? Which ones, and what specific contributions would you love to make?
Next, think about how you’d like your business to operate.
How personally involved do you want to be in your business?
What do you want to spend most of your time doing?
What activities do you want to be built into your day, your week, your month, and your year?
Take some time to answer these questions for yourself, but don’t worry about getting it perfect (you can always change them along the way).
The more you know what you want, the more your business can help you create your ideal lifestyle. This is the way to true success—success by your standards.
Are You Entrepreneur Material?
Even though growing a successful business can be really rewarding, it’s not an easy path. It’s not for everyone. With all the potential freedom comes at least an equal amount of responsibility.
- There’s no boss to give you directions, and there’s no instruction manual. It’s up to you to decide what to do and how to do it.
- There’s also no one watching the clock, which can be liberating, but also a HUGE problem if you aren’t skilled at time management, yet.
- There’s no executive to turn to for tough decisions—you can build a team and gather mentors and coaches, but the buck stops with you.
The Hallmarks Of An Entrepreneur
The list of double-edged swords and hard realities goes on… so how can you know if growing a business is the right thing for you?
First, think about WHY you want to start (or would even consider starting) a business.
If it’s just about making money, that might not be a strong enough motivator to sustain you through challenging times. Passion is important. You MUST know your ‘why.’
Beyond that, you know you’re an entrepreneur when:
- You continually see problems and think of new or improved solutions.
- Your desire to be financially free or rich is stronger than your love of fitting in or sticking with something that seems safe and familiar (like a J-O-B). You’ve also figured out there’s no real security in having just one source of income, especially when someone else decides how much you get paid.
- You value freedom, growth, and creativity. You don’t like taking orders, and you’re not happy in a job. Maybe you even consider yourself “unemployable”.
- You’re willing to learn, grow, make mistakes, and figure things out. You’re able to take risks, fail sometimes, and keep going anyway.
If a lot of the above describes you, starting or growing your business may not just be the right path for you, it might be the ONLY path that will get you where you want to be in life.
The Cost Of Failing In Business
Taking the leap can be scary. A lot of people put it off. They might feel like they don’t know enough, or don’t have anything of value to offer (often called “Imposter Syndrome”). They might be afraid to put themselves out there as an expert.
They might not know how to turn their ideas or passions into a profit-generating business. They might be afraid of failure, or of the changes that come with success.
Some of these might be legitimate fears. Growing a business, whether you’re successful or not, can have a big impact on both your personal and financial life.
Success itself, or just working towards it, can be stressful in some ways. Your relationships can change due to working long hours or focusing on networking. Your sense of personal identity can even change as you focus more and more on your business.
Then there’s the very real possibility of failure. A third of businesses fail in the first two years and half by year five. Failure can mean losing money and damaging relationships. For some, it means losing everything. There can be legal consequences, reputation damage, and lives turned upside down.
These kinds of scenarios stop a lot of people in their track, and they should. It’s important to have your eyes open to the negative possibilities as well as the good ones. But succumbing to these fears can prolong your dissatisfaction, limit your financial prospects, and leave you full of regret.
If building a successful business is important to you, you have to use your fears as motivators to keep moving forward rather than reasons to avoid it.
And good news for you — you have a leg up on a lot of business owners, because you’re here, learning and growing. If you’re willing to apply what you learn, you can accomplish more than you might think.
7 Great Reasons To Follow Your Dreams of Business Success
If you have the guts and persistence to overcome challenges, to do whatever it takes, and to get the help you need, the rewards can be incredible:
1. Financial Wealth and Freedom
You can always have an abundance of money for yourself and your family, and more coming in regularly. You can give freely to others and never have to worry about running out.
2. Freedom of Time and Location
If you want, you can build your business to make money for you no matter where you are or how much time and energy you put into it.
3. Security
If you want to get rich, you should be in control of your income, not some boss or HR department. That way, you can create multiple income streams and build in safety nets.
4. A Sense of Accomplishment and Fulfillment
Knowing you can create a goal and achieve it gives you a sense of empowerment and inspiration to do even more.
5. Becoming a Leader
Your happiness, confidence, and success can become a source of inspiration for others, just as Harv has inspired hundreds of thousands of his students.
6. Making a Difference
Your business isn’t just about you making money. It’s about helping people solve problems they care about solving. It can also be about providing a livelihood for anyone you employ or work with.
7. Leaving a Legacy
At the end of your life, what do you want to have stood for? What impact do you want to have had on the world, and how do you want to be remembered? Your business can be the vehicle for making your mark.
All of this and more becomes possible when you grow a successful business. Sounds pretty good, right? So how do you get started? Here are a couple of tips we’ve taken from Harv!
Top 10 Tips For Business Success
You can find lists of top business or marketing tactics all over the internet, but they come and go. Fundamentals don’t change. Check out these key principles for starting and growing a successful business.
1. Surround yourself with mentors and advisors
Learn from people who’ve achieved a lot of business success. Many masters share incredible insights on their blogs, podcasts, and social media channels. For example, Harv shared his battle-tested formula for success on a Facebook Live that was viewed by tens of thousands of people. And good news for you — you can watch the recording for FREE on the blog.
2. Think for yourself
Don’t blindly follow others’ tactics, even if they are successful. Learn the principles and apply them in a way that works for you, both in running your business and marketing it.
3. Come up with a winning idea for your business
CB Insights, a business analysis firm, has been assessing startup failures since 2014. They report that 42% fail due to a lack of market need for their product or service! Don’t let this be you. Get to know a specific target audience and figure out what you can offer them that they want. Use the problems you’ve overcome yourself as inspiration. Then do your research! Don’t just decide your idea is great and go off to build it in a cave. Involve the people you intend to help.
4. Choose a focus
Don’t try to do be all things to all people. Be the best at one thing, and tailor your marketing to one audience.
5. Have a plan, AND be flexible
Don’t get attached to your ideas. Going back to #3, listen to feedback, improve your offerings, and pivot if need be. Some of the most successful companies rise from the ashes of their founders’ failures.
6. Work on your business, not just in it
A lot of business owner stay so caught up in delivering their product or service that they don’t carve out time for planning their growth or creating systems and initiatives that will help them reach their true goals.
If you just can’t seem to get your business going and seeing results, there may be something you’re missing. Want to learn how to get unstuck? Then join our upcoming 5×5 Business Growth Challenge!
7. Prioritize marketing
Without marketing, you have no customers, and without customers, you have no money and no business. Marketing is so important that Harv recommends devoting 80% of your time, energy, and resources to mastering your marketing.
8. Manage your money & keep costs down
CB Insights’ #2 reason for startup failure (29%) is running out of cash. Meanwhile, bootstrapping and “lean” business have become popular buzzwords among entrepreneurs. Ask yourself at every step how you can do the most with the fewest resources and expenses.
9. Face your fears
Fear is there to protect you, not to stop you from going after your dreams. Learn to use fear as a motivator instead of a roadblock.
10. Practice self-care
Business success isn’t all about the glory of lounging on the beach. It takes a lot of hard work to get there. Be sure to take care of yourself along the way by eating well, exercising, getting plenty of sleep, and doing things that feed your spirit. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, so plan to sustain your energy over the long haul.
And remember, business forces you to grow, so be proactive about developing your skills and knowledge. According to the Small Business Administration, half of businesses fail in their first five years. If you want to be in the half that succeeds, you have to keep learning and improving.
An Entrepreneur Must Always Be Learning
We continue developing this blog to serve as a powerful resource for your business education, and we encourage you to take advantage of it!
Want to learn how to effectively launch and grow a business you love?
Then join our upcoming event called,
“The 5X5 Business Growth Challenge:
How To Launch And Grow A Business You Love”
The challenge starts on August 13th until August 17th and is being hosted by my son, Jesse Eker. Over the course of FIVE days, he’ll be giving you FIVE powerful steps over 5 LIVE videos to create a business that gives you true financial wealth in nearly any industry, crisis, or economy.
Ever wonder how I turned my business into an online multi-million dollar empire so quickly? Then you won’t want to miss this challenge. It didn’t take hundreds of steps. In fact, we’ve boiled them down into just FIVE key steps… and they’re all yours for just $5.55 when you register today!
Co-Founder of Sports 1 Marketing | Consultant & Business Coach | Keynote Speaker | 3x Best-Selling Author
4 年Great insights here. Thank you for sharing!
Digital Marketing Agency CEO ?? ? Data & Analytics, Paid Media, Organic Marketing, Creative, Technology, Social Media, SEO, Ads, Email, Websites, & Video Content ??? National & Global Marketing ??
4 年This is really great advice. Always learning something from you. Thank you for sharing.