My Reading Notes From:
No Excuses
By Brian Tracy
Most people think success comes from good luck or enormous talent, but many successful people achieve their accomplishments in a simpler way: through self-discipline. No Excuses! shows you how you can achieve success in all three major areas of your life, including your personal goals, business and money goals, and overall happiness.
With these guidelines, you can learn how to be more successful in everything you do –instead of wistfully envying others you think are just “luckier” than you. A little self-discipline goes a long way — so stop making excuses and read this book!
Courageous Patience: the courage to stay the course when things are not going well. The time between going all in and when you start seeing results.
Mark Twain: I worry about a lot of things in life. And most of them never happened.
Persistence and self-esteem are directly related. Each time you persist and force yourself to continue on, even when feel like quitting, your self-esteem goes up. Each time you persist, you get better at persisting, and you eventually become unstoppable.
Every time you go the extra mile you put yourself on the side of the angels.
Start by telling yourself, repeatedly, “I’m unstoppable!”
Your “response ability” to problems determines your success in the long run.
Optimism gives you resilience. So, you must control and discipline your thinking.
To Double your production over the next year or less- use the Law of 3’s
Make a list of everything you do during a week. Small and large
Ask, which 1 thing on this list contributes the most to my job function. Circle.
Ask what the 2nd is. Circle.
Ask what the 3rd is. Circle
Now discipline yourself to do those 3 things ALL DAY LONG.
Concentrate on doing the thing that warrants your desired hourly rate. Watch how much time you spend on low value tasks, and not doing the things your boss would consider the most important.
Resolve today to be the hardest working person in your business. Every day, you must have a single minded focus on getting your goal accomplished – no matter what.
If you continuously go to your boss and say, “I’m all caught up on my work. I want more responsibility” you will be seen as the go-to guy.
Birds of a Feather Flock Together: So, dress like the bosses do. “Do I look like one of the top people in my field?”
Leaders have vision. They then have the ability to project forward into the future where they want the organization to go, share it with others, and gain others commitment to make that happen.
You must THINK, ACT, and TALK like a leader.
You cannot raise moral in a business. It filters down.
7 Principals of Leadership
Clarity= most important. Must be absolutely clear about who you are and what you stand for. Your goals, objectives, and where you want to lead people to. Must have a mission and a purpose.
Competence= you must set the standards. Continually seek improvement
Commitment= must be absolutely committed to the success of the business and that the company will be the leader. Passion motivates and inspires
Constraints= must address the limiting factors.
Creativity= open to new ideas of all kinds. Gives encouragement for improvement
Continuous learning= the best companies have the best trained people.
Consistency= calm, positive, and confident under pressure. Keep fears and misgivings private. In control.
95% of entrepreneurs make <$50k per year. And a vast majority doesn’t take the time to thoroughly research all aspects of their business. Then you must identify your ideal customer. The exact person that can and will buy your product at the price you set. Then you need a marketing plan that will provide a steady stream of these people.
Recommendations is the ultimate answer for long term success.
The average successful entrepreneur puts in 59 hours per week. Just plan that everything will cost twice as much, and take 3x as long.
The purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer.
Selling is the most important aspect of business. Nothing happens until someone sells something. Everything either helps or hurts sales. Must focus on generating sales every hour of every day. 75% of your time should be with your sales people. Don’t do paperwork during normal working hours, when you COULD reach customers.
Ask yourself repeatedly “Is what I’m doing RIGHT NOW leading to a sale?” If not, stop right now and go do that.
The biggest problem that telephone and outside sales people face is rejection. So, we go through a series of “Displacement Activities”. Most common one is making fewer calls. According to Columbia, an avg sales person works 90 min a day.
You are only working when you are ear-to-ear or face to face with people who will buy in a reasonable horizon.
Spend more time with better prospects= THE key to success
Must realize that it’s not personal. There is a laundry list of simple normal and natural response in a normal business response. It has nothing to do with you.
Success is to go from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. – Winston Churchill
To double your sales – Double the minutes you spend talking to prospects. Instead of following the path of least resistance.
You never know where your next sale will come from. So, you have to cast a wide net.
You must plan and discipline yourself to stick to a plan of sales activity.
Never let yourself have enough prospects to call in a given day. Always be looking for new prospects. Start you day early with an in-person, face-to-face sales call.
Plan your day geographically. Many sales people will spread out their calls so they feel like they are working when they are actually just driving around.
You are only working when you are ear-to-ear or face to face with a possible client.
Act as if your sales manager is around all of the time.
