Have you mastered the 5 secrets to business success?

We just completed the Passion and Profit Secrets telesummit where I was joined by 15 other expert speakers sharing their wisdom, expertise and secrets that enabled them to create 6 figure, multi-6 and 7 figure businesses. It was such a privilege for me to “hang out” with these passionate, visionary leaders who are changing people's lives and businesses through their work. You can purchase all the recordings here.

I quickly saw some core themes that emerged to what it takes to succeed in business. As I see it, there are 5 Secrets to Business Success and the good news is they can be developed and mastered over time.

Mindset – we all have mindsets that shape the results we achieve or not in all areas of our lives. Mindset is a set of attitudes, opinions, and beliefs that we have about ourselves that largely lay unexamined or unchallenged. Carol Dweck, a Stanford University psychologist in her groundbreaking book “Mindset” talks about 'fixed mindsets' and 'growth mindsets'. Of course, the latter is the type that enables you to excel and prosper. For service-based professionals, I see 2 areas of mindset that can get in your way. The first is related to how you value yourself, your expertise and your services, which in turn fundamentally shapes your idea of your self-worth. The second is your mindset about money, the relationship you have with it, and your beliefs about how much you can generate. You only have to look at what you are currently generating in income to see how your perceived self-worth and money mindset are directly reflected in your business.

Business Success Strategies – while there are too many to discuss here, I want to share a top one that distinguishes successful business owners from those who are struggling. We all have the same 24 hours in a day but how you spend that time really makes all the difference. It's imperative to set clear personal time boundaries and ensure that a large chunk of your day is devoted to income generating activities such as prospecting for new clients, marketing, booking potential client meetings, speaking engagements and follow-up. How much time are you honestly dedicating each day to income generating activities?

Developing a Marketing System that Targets Your Ideal Clients – without this, your business is guaranteed to stagnate. There are 5 key areas to build on:

• Marketing mindset (yes, again this is a starting point!) – be aware of your immediate feelings about marketing and you'll have some insights into your mindset;

• Marketing message – in a nutshell, how do you say what you do in a compelling way so that others want to know more?

• Marketing collateral – once you have you core marketing message, all your materials need to be reflecting that message – from your business card, to your website and other promotional materials you use;

• Marketing strategies – once you have your core message how are you going to communicate it to potential clients? Newsletters? Public speaking? Workshops? Networking events? What else?

• Marketing Action Plan – this helps reduce your feelings of 'overwhelm', plans out your campaigns or launches and keeps you focused on the activities that take your business up another level.

A Leveraged Business Model – one of the challenges for service-based business owners is that they become rapidly limited by the number of hours in a day when tied to hourly rates. Leveraging a new business model involves getting out of the 'trading time for money' trap, creating different levels of service with varying degrees of access to you and creating a high value offer for those ideal clients who would love to have your personal expertise and attention. I call this the "Profit Pyramid" and it turns the traditional sales funnel model upside down! This new model enables you to free up time, reach more people and generate more income.

Accountability - so many of the speakers on the summit talked about the importance of having a business mentor and coach who truly understands your challenges, has demonstrated their own success and who also has a proven system that will accelerate your path to success. Having this type of 'business partner' most certainly keeps you focused on your bigger vision and will challenge you to play a much bigger game in your life and business so that you can serve more people, generate more income, and create a far bigger impact.

So take a look at those 5 areas above and honestly identify which ones are missing for you. And if you need help with any of them, please contact me to discuss how we can accelerate your business success.

© 2012 Vanessa Shaw