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Waltmorey
Pinellas Park, Florida, United States
I founded Core Business Solutions with the goal of helping business owners improve operating results, add value, and recapture the energy and passion that was present when the business was new. We also have the expertise to assist start-up companies create the foundational structure needed to provide the best opportunity for the business to grow and prosper in uncertain economic times. Our goal is to help the business entrepreneur/owner, through mentoring and coaching, develop or enhance managerial skills while providing that independent and objective advice and expertise usually provided by a board of directors.
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Saturday, May 16, 2009

Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success.

So, who said this: "Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success."
And what does it mean? First of all this quote is from one of the most successful entrepreneurs ever - Henry Ford
The meaning is direct but applies to many areas of our business lives and even our personal lives.
What Henry Ford was getting at is how important preparation is to reach success. It sounds logical and simple but why are many people in business not ready for success?
The answer lies deep in our business souls. It's so much easier to go right into things without planning, thinking ahead or developing a strategy of exactly what steps must be completed to even have a chance of success in any business venture whether it's starting a new business, changing your business's culture, adding new equipment or marketing your product or services. So what causes us to forge ahead without preparing beforehand. Some would say it's arrogance resulting from a thought process such as "I know everything I need to do" or "I can do this because I have a positive mental attitude and others with less talent than me have made it" or that these new business owners saw a wonderful MLM presentation that convinced them anybody can be successful.
The sad news is that 95% of all business failures are as a result of the business owner not being ready to do what's required or not knowing what they must do, to be successful.
So what's the answer. How does one increase the chances of business success? The answer is Strategic Planning. Do you have a complete written business which includes a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) analysis as well as a marketing plan with monthly activity objectives, budgets and revenue goals or milestones and a related sales plan?
This is the basis, the foundation, the structure that you must have to know where you want to be and how you are going to get there with your business. How do you know how you are doing if you don't have a plan to compare to? You could be selling widgets but not making enough profits to stay in business.
The Top Seven Reasons businesses fail are:

1-Lack of Planning

2-You start your business for the wrong reasons

3-Poor Management

4-No Website

5-Location, Location, Location

6-Insufficient Capital

7-Over expansion

In the coming weeks I'll review each of these in detail and how to avoid these pitfalls in your business.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great sound advise. Failure to plan is a plan for failure. It's not easy to do the analysis of an idea that you know in your gut will succeed. But, without the analysis, you won't be prepared for the obstacles you will face in your business venture. I look forward to Walt's future blogs on the pitfalls to avoid in business. RM

Sheryl Gibson said...

I look forward to your future blogs and agree.

Kate Dunkin said...

Great post Waltmorey! I was looking online for articles on mold repair when I came across your blog and I'm happy I did because this was so informative. Thank you for sharing this with us!

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