Business Advice From A Billionaire - Mark Cuban
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What if you could ask BILLIONAIRE’S and leading business leaders about their thoughts on starting/running a business and the state of our economy?
Well, I did just that! I used my connections to get to some of these people and was just plain lucky getting answers from others. When a billionaire talks business, it may just take one small thought or distinction to help you see how YOU can take your business to the next level.
One key point is that it’s not just WHAT someone says, but their thought process behind it that can really make a difference in your business.
First up, BILLIONAIRE Mark Cuban, who is a self made business genius and current owner of the Dallas Mavericks.
My question to Mark:
“If you could give just ONE piece of advice to people who are starting or running a business and are worried about money and the state of our economy, what would it be?”
Mark Cuban’s answer: “You can’t do both, pick 1.”
Great advice, amazing. Bottom line is that you need to let go of all the negative economy CRAP that the media loves to report and focus on building your business. The media doesn’t focus on the fact that Amazon.com had their best holiday season ever or that a 17 year old kid started a blog and sold if for 3 MILLION dollars six months later.
Go out there and focus, dominate, and claim the success that YOU deserve.
Photo Credit: jdlassica
Do Something You Think Is IMPOSSIBLE This Month
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Fair warning: I am VERY passionate about this topic so watch out!
Imagine for a moment that it is February 1st and during the month of January you accomplished something that you literally thought was IMPOSSIBLE. How would you feel? How would that set you up for the remaining 11 months of this year?
If you start a new year off with massive success in the first month, it’s amazing how fast it can snowball and help propel you to your best year EVER.
The question is, in your life, what could you accomplish in January that would make you feel like you are on top of the world? Maybe it’s money related, exercise, family. It doesn’t matter what it is, just pick something you think is close to impossible and commit to yourself that you will achieve it.
I can list hundreds of examples of people who overcame huge odds in a short amount of time but the biggest challenge is clearing out the limiting roadblocks in your mind about what you can and can’t achieve in a certain amount of time.
So, what will YOU achieve this month that you think is impossible?
If Richard Branson Learned About The Airline Business In Only 4 Months…
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Did you know that Billionaire Richard Branson literally learned how to create and run an airline in only 4 MONTHS?! That’s right, 4 months.
How many people would have never even tried such a crazy thing? Answer: 99.9% of the population. Maybe that is why there are far more low income people than billionaires.
What can this mean to you?
Ask yourself this: If Richard Branson can learn the airline business in 4 months, what can I achieve in 2009? DON’T PUT LIMITS ON YOURSELF. Get rid of the blinders, self doubt, negative thoughts about the economy, and all of that CRAP.
Challenge yourself to accomplish things in 2009 that you think are impossible. The next step is finding a way to make the impossible, possible. When you learn how to do that, you become much more valuable in every aspect of your life.
One of my goals for 2009 is to create 10 new millionaires in the world. It won’t be easy. I could have set a goal to create just 2 or 3 and that would have been great, but I want to strive for what I think is close to impossible.
Once I create 10 new millionaires in this crazy economy, there won’t be anything that I cannot do.
Remember, make the impossible, POSSIBLE!
My Goal: Create 10 New Millionaires In 2009
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One of my goals for 2009 is to create at least ten new millionaires. That’s right, 10 millionaires. This WILL HAPPEN. I always succeed when I put my mind to something,
People have asked me, why am I doing it?
The simple answer is, because it’s a challenge and it serves the greater good. The detailed answer is: Because people think it can’t be done in this economy, because people think this recession will paralyze and hurt them, because many of you live in fear and I want to help you take back your life and dominate in 2009.
We will talk about business, beliefs, mindset, strategy, tactics, and I’ll even share advice from a few billionaires that I have had the privilege to talk to.
While the economy isn’t perfect, there are still many successes happening and people getting rich doing what they love. Amazon.com had their best holiday selling season ever this year, did you know that? A fart program is the best selling app for the Iphone. A few months ago, an 18 year old sold a blog for 3 MILLION dollars that he created just six months earlier!
There is plenty of opportunity, make 2009 your year to TAKE IT.
Valuable Insights About Herb Kelleher And The Success Of Southwest Airlines
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It’s no secret that in the United States, Southwest Airlines is one of the most successful airlines out there, if not the very best. In an era where many airlines are losing billions of dollars, Southwest has continued to thrive and make money in an unprecedented way.
Much of their success is due to their founder and CEO, Herb Kelleher. You can learn lots of valuable business advice if you study Herb and Southwest Airlines.
The person who turned me on to Herb was billionaire and Virgin founder Richard Branson, who is a business genius himself.
Herb and Richard share much of the same “primary attitudes” and I will highlight a few of them here:
1. Employees are number one. The way you treat your employees is the way you treat your customers.
I will add that in addition to employees, you should also include vendors, JV partners, and people like that to the list.
2. Think small to grow big.
This is a big one! I am telling you, the small companies have a huge advantage right now over the huge brands. It’s one of the reasons why Richard Branson runs so many of his Virgin business units as small companies.
3. Manage in good times for the bad times.
This is so important, especially now. As someone in business, you always need to be thinking about what you will do if sales go down, or you lose a key supplier, customer, things like that. Make sure that you always have action plans for these types of things and set up your business so you have various forms of income coming in at all times. (remember that old saying, don’t put all of your eggs in one basket)
In my next blog post, I will share three more strategies and business principles from Richard Branson and Herb Kelleher and we will dig a little deeper to see how they apply to smaller businesses all the way down to the one man (or woman) internet business.
Powerful Question To Ask Yourself
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This is a very short and simple post, simple question, but it is very powerful if you take it seriously.
What would you be doing if you KNEW that you could not fail?
I’ll ask it again:
What would you be doing if you KNEW that you could not fail?
Your answer to that question just might lead you to major success and happiness.
How To Handle Customer Complaint Calls And Emails
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If you are in business, it’s inevitable that at some point in time, you will deal with an unhappy customer. I have had clients use a three question formula that works extremely well. You can ask these questions and solve the problem whether you are communicating in person, over the phone, or by email.
The Three Important Customer Service Questions:
1. What happened?
2. What was supposed to happen?
3. How can I make it right?
It’s that simple. If you care, and you are empowered to make things right, asking those three questions should fix almost any customer problem. It’s important to let the customer do most of the talking and regardless of what the resolution is, make sure they know that they aren’t just a number, that you really and truly care.
Twitter Success Tips
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Yesterday, I posted a “Twitter Strategy Chart” to my blog and I received dozens of emails asking me to expand on what I wrote and share my Twitter success tips with them. This post is my answer to those emails.
10 Twitter Success Tips
1. Be Genuine And Authentic -
This means, all twitter posts should be from you personally. Don’t have employees tweet for you, don’t you dare have virtual assistants tweet for you, it must be from you 100% of the time.
2. Add Value -
When you post twitter tweets (say that five times fast, it’s fun!) try and add some value from time to time. For example, share a shortcut that you learned today, a great Wordpress plugin that other people might love, a recipe idea, words of encouragement, anything! Just make sure you try and add value.
3. Never SPAM -
Everyone hates spammers. Don’t ever SPAM your twitter followers because it’s a nasty thing to do and it doesn’t work anyway. If all you do is post affiliate links people will unfollow you and rightly so. Remember #2 above, add value.
4. Communicate! Use Twitter To Interact With Your Customers, Prospects, Friends, Etc -
Twitter is an excellent tool for communication. Ask questions, get feedback, help others, build relationships. Frequent communication is the name of the game.
5. Don’t Welcome Every New Follower Publicly -
This one will probably cause some backlash but I am going to say it anyway. Some twitter members send a public thank you to the twitosphere every time someone new follows them. I am here to tell you that not everyone needs to see that, if you want to send a thank you why not send a direct message? There are times when I have an entire screen of “thanks for the follow” tweets and it’s not something I recommend that you do.
6. Twitter Design -
Don’t have the standard basic/boring design. There are lots of cool twitter backgrounds out there now that you can use to make your twitter page look any way you want. Another good twitter design idea is to make sure that you list your website, blog, and other social media accounts on your main twitter page so people can easily find out more about you if they wish.
7. Understand The Twitter Community -
This is a big one. For people new to twitter, look around and visit many different twitter pages so you can understand how others use twitter and determine what makes sense to you versus what you don’t like. Understanding the twitter community and how people use twitter will help you get started on the right foot.
8. Don’t Be Shy -
Twitter is a communication tool and the only way to have some fun with it is to…you guessed it, communicate! Reach out to people you don’t know, ask questions, answer questions for others, DON”T BE SHY! Most people on twitter are friendly and if they aren’t then they aren’t worth talking to anyway. Start today but being proactive and talking to others that you don’t yet know, it’s fun!
9. Use Twitter Search -
The twitter search tool (http://search.twitter.com/) is an excellent tool to find like minded people and find people who are interested in, and talking about things you like. For example, let’s say you love tennis. Go to the twitter search tool and type the word tennis in and you will find many people tweeting about tennis. BOOM, there you go, you just found a new group of friends you can start tweeting with. Join their conversation and get tweeting!
10. Have Fun! -
This is the most important step of all. Be yourself, be authentic, and have some fun. Don’t be afraid to be the real you and tweet about what you are doing in your daily life. Be interested in others and you will be interesting to them.
You can follow me on twitter here: http://twitter.com/paulgram
Free Twitter Strategy Chart
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I created a Twitter Strategy Chart that shows my simple strategy for how I use Twitter. (See the small snapshot above) I thought I would give this away to anyone who would like it. The chart is in PDF format and can be downloaded below. It can also be freely distributed.
Excuses Are For Losers
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I’ve heard them from employees, joint venture partners, clients, and many others. Successful people don’t make excuses, they create results. That is the bottom line.
If you want to succeed online and make a billion dollars, I don’t care if you are rich, poor, fat, skinny, sexy, ugly, can’t dance, have a big zit on your nose, grew up rich, grew up poor, you are old, you are young. You get the picture right?
All of that stuff up there means nothing yet many people use those types of things to excuse the fact that they are not living the life of the dreams and doing what they want to do in life.
I’m serious now, for every single “excuse” I wrote above I can find you someone who is happy and very successful that could of used the excuse to fail but chose to succeed and win in their lives instead.
While excuses might make you feel better in the moment, they are like a boat anchor weighing you down and preventing you from going anywhere. Excuses are for losers.
If you have anything in your life right now that you even remotely think of as an excuse as to why you are not succeeding, I want you to do two things:
DROP IT. Unhook that ugly anchor and throw it overboard so you can go and DOMINATE.
Just remember….successful people don’t make excuses, they create RESULTS!
