Why some people always make money no matter what business they commit to

I’ve heard it said that how you do anything is how you do everything. The reason why some people succeed almost all the time is because they understand their core strengths. In this article you will learn four techniques that will allow you to build upon your strengths while managing your weaknesses. As you read through the techniques, identify your strong character strengths and skill sets. Think about how you might apply what you learn in business and in your personal life.

Successful men and women direct their efforts towards the most important things in their life. If you aspire to be successful and/or build on your present success, you too will benefit by imposing on yourself, effective time management skills.

If you’re committed to achieving the results you’re seeking in your life, the single most important thing you must do is take personal responsibility for you. Many people try to shift responsibility for their circumstances to some outside source. I have met people who blame their job, the economy, their spouse, or dozens of other possibilities. Entrepreneurs who create extraordinary results — the super-wealthy and super-successful — take complete responsibility for all aspects of their lives.

Warren Buffett is a great example of this. In 1987, just before the Black Monday stock market crash, Buffett acquired a 12 percent stake in the Salomon Brothers brokerage house — only to find that the federal government was investigating a trading scandal within the company. The banks were going to call in $146 billion of loans, the doors would be shut, and 8,000 employees’ jobs were on the line. Because of Buffett’s reputation for integrity, Salomon Brothers was told that they would be given the chance to turn things around only if Warren Buffett himself were put in charge. Buffett became interim chairman despite the fact that this wasn’t his typical role as an investor.

This heroic move of taking the personal responsibility saved not only Buffett’s stake in the company but the jobs of everyone involved. It was possible only because of Buffett’s reputation. Buffett’s sense of responsibility is also demonstrated in his annual reports to the shareholders of his holding company, Berkshire Hathaway. He communicates with absolute candor, and he says it’s more important to talk openly about mistakes than successes. Every year his report includes what he calls the “mistake du jour,” in which he gives all the details of the biggest money management error he made that year. This level of frankness, combined with his extraordinary results, has made Warren Buffett one of the wealthiest people in the world.

Take responsibility for results on the personal level, the professional level, and even on the global level.

Delegate It

Even ‘Super You’ needs help and support. Start by specifying the outcome you desire to the people you trust to deliver it. Establish controls, identify limits to the work and provide sufficient support, but resist upwards delegation. Keep up to date with progress and focus on results rather than procedures. When the work is completed, give recognition where its’ deserved.

“Maintaining focus is essential for success. Understand your circle of competence, the one thing you’re good at, and put your time and energy there.”

- Bill Gates

Delete It

Organise your professional and personal tasks based on how urgent and important they are, and take care of the most urgent and important first, followed by activities that are not urgent but still important. Focus your time and energy where they matter most. Here’s how: The table below shows the Eisenhower Matrix, a popular strategy we use at our Cost Of Success two-day events. Each quadrant has examples for types of activities and the order in which to handle them.

From the illustration above, it becomes clear that making money no matter what business you are in, involves conscious planning and thoughtful decision making. One of the reasons that our success partners that join our mentorship program get extraordinary results is our ability to help them stay focused, prioritise tasks and not get derailed by temporary failure or unimportant distractions.

If you want to know if you are any good at time management, start by asking yourself these three questions:

1. Do I know how to effectively prioritise my tasks based on importance and urgency?

2. Do I know how much time I spend on each of my various tasks?

3. Do I have to take work home to get it done? ( This question assumes that your ‘normal’ place of work is not at home.)

Delay It

According to the Pareto principle (The 80/20 rule), 20% of actions drive 80% of results. Translated, this means that successful people know that the top priorities (or the top 20%) are going to drive the most important results. They delete, delegate or delay the rest. Temporarily pause tasks that don’t need to be handled right away, and schedule when you have the availability. Examples of agenda items that may require being delayed could include new requests from a colleague or friend and new project ideas.

“As long as you are alive, you will either live to accomplish your own goals and dreams or be used as a resource to accomplish someone else’s.”

- Grant Cardone

As you gain more experience with applying the techniques provided here, you will be able to screen tasks and requests subconsciously as they come to your attention. The advantages and value of this is that you can process incoming agenda items before they have a chance to land and take root on your to-do list. You could always keep those ideas that are worthy incoming agenda items on a ‘someday’ list. Learning to procrastinate the right activities is a prime success skill.

Outsource It

One strategy that can help you save time, money and frustration as you scale your business or organise your personal life is to outsource as much work as possible to skilled, but cost-effective, external service providers.

Whether you use the internet to find service providers or are requesting and evaluating quotes from vendors the ‘old fashioned’ way, there is practical advice that is sure to increase your return on investment:

1. Clearly define the scope and schedule of your project/s

If you don’t know what you want, chances are that nobody else will either. By understanding exactly what you require, it can help you to share those ideas with your selected agency.

2. Recruit service providers like you would a full-time employee

Outsourcing agencies are not created equal. Check references and ask for feedback from other clients who have used their services.

3. Avoid selecting outsourcing agencies based on price alone

In my experience, and from the feedback of our success partners, the most successful of our projects were the ones where the outsourcing agency offered a balance of good value and quality results.

I always recommend starting a new agency off with what I call teaser jobs. Relatively small and simple in scope, these teaser jobs provide me with a sense of the agencies’ competence, efficiency and timescale for a range of deliverables. My Mom raised me to believe that the proof is in the pudding and there is no better tool to evaluate an experience than the experience itself.

Define a clear payment plan that is attached to decided milestones. For example you may agree to 50% payment upfront and the balance at completion or hours worked milestones/payments. There is no set way to accomplish a win-win scenario. Where payment was related to performance and output, I have always had positive results. Clarify ownership and any legal aspects as early on as possible. Make sure the outsourcing agency understands how you intend to use the deliverables they are agreeing to provide. Finally, get everything in writing.

Stay focused on your core strengths and use deletion, delaying, delegating and outsourcing to compete in the global marketplace. If you are constantly improving the quality of your business’ products and or services, you will naturally attract surplus demand. This leaves many entrepreneurs and aspirants feeling stressed, unhappy and feeling that they are letting people down. Successful entrepreneurs apply the techniques we covered in this article every day to work around the limitations brought on by surplus demand. These proven techniques systematically helps them and can help you to take advantage of the opportunity to leverage time and management skills to add more value.

Eliot Kelly is recognised as a serial Entrepreneur, and has been featured on CNN, BBC, BBC Three’s Be Your Own Boss and an extensive list of magazines and articles.

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