Experts on business success have identified certain operating factors and personal abilities that contribute to high achievement. Don’t worry if you and your business don’t have all these things now. An AdviCoach business coach can help you learn and develop everything you need to succeed.

Operating Factors

  • Set a goal for the business. Write down the overall objective you’re working toward. Decide where you want to be in five or ten years. You may want to: be the market leader in your business; grow your team to a particular number; run a sustainable business with a small carbon footprint; or offer your products or services across the country or around the world. Once you’ve defined your goal, run your business to reach it.
  • Attract and keep the best talent. People are your company’s most important asset. Getting and retaining the best people can make the biggest contribution to your business success.
  • Understand your customers’ needs. Successful businesses spot a pain point or a gap in the market, research what customers are looking for, then offer a solution that meets the needs and wants of those customers. Some companies—notably in fashion and technology—have succeeded by creating demand, but they’re the exception. The rest of us need to probe the needs and dreams of the customer, then fulfil them. This customer-focused approach to business development leads to a more customer-focused approach to sales and service—creating another point of difference.
  • Record everything. Documenting everything you do lets you stockpile ideas, build credibility, and settle disputes. It’s especially important to collect all the data you can on your market, sales, and operating costs, because today there are tools that give you useful insights from that data with a single click.
  • Build solid business relationships. Create a professional network of suppliers, customers, collaborating partners, mentors, thought leaders, and other industry players. These are people who can be a source of business, talent, ideas, and advice. Go to in-person events and get active on LinkedIn.
  • Know your competition. You want to find out where your competitors are vulnerable. And you don’t want to be left behind or blind-sided by a competitive offering you didn’t know existed. Successful businesses pride themselves on being proactive, not reactive.

Personal Abilities

  • Be willing to learn. There is always something to learn. This could be something that helps you grow into better version of yourself—or technology that help you work more efficiently. Willingness to learn pushes you to places it would take you longer to reach, if you got to them at all.
  • Be disciplined. Successful business people have the will power and determination to do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done. They work hard and stay motivated in a world full of distractions.
  • Be patient. Success in business comes from quiet and consistent effort over years of work. Don’t let a big sale or a bad week distract you. Stay the course, with a slow and steady approach. You’ll minimize risk and build confidence with your team.
  • Be transparent. Successful businesses are built on a culture of trust, by having leaders who are perfectly transparent. Communicate your values and live by them. Consult your team about decisions. Follow through on your promises. Admit your mistakes and commit to not making them again going forward.
  • Be decisive. As the leader, you still have to make the tough decisions. The buck stops with you, and there can be times when success depends on making prompt, confident decisions. You may not have all the information you’d like, but at those times, success comes from tapping into your experience, paying attention to your gut feelings, and committing to your call. An imperfect decision delivered in time beats a perfect decision that comes too late.
  • Be resilient. No business ever achieved success without missteps, setbacks, and bits of bad luck. These events don’t determine whether you succeed or fail—but how you respond to them That’s why resilience is so important—but you really need to work on it. Examine setbacks for the lessons they provide and the opportunities they create. Remember that you learn more from failing than from smooth sailing.
  • Be persistent. A study was once done of America’s most successful CEOs—people like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet. The had vastly different backgrounds and personalities, but one thing in common. They all were exceedingly persistent: they kept pursuing a goal long after the average person would have given up!