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5 Top Success Factors for Today’s Entrepreneurs

Guest post by: Sylvia Lafair

Article Overview: Are you a go-for-it kind? Do you think out of the box, any box? Can you sell ice to Eskimos in winter? Is entrepreneur success mostly about innovation and the ability to convince others to do what you want them to do? If you answered Yes to the above questions you are on the right track. BUT WAIT! THERE IS MORE! One of the key parts of being an entrepreneur is keeping your eyes on the goal. Without the steadiness of staying with the program entrepreneurs are merely wishful folks whose dreams only manifest half way.

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5 Top Success Factors for Today’s Entrepreneurs

Are you a go-for-it kind? Do you think out of the box, any box? Can you sell ice to Eskimos in winter? Is entrepreneur success mostly about innovation and the ability to convince others to do what you want them to do?

If you answered Yes to the above questions you are on the right track. BUT WAIT! THERE IS MORE!

One of the key parts of being an entrepreneur is keeping your eyes on the goal. Without the steadiness of staying with the program entrepreneurs are merely wishful folks whose dreams only manifest half way.

Here are the five keys to staying on track so your dreams can become big, bigger and best.

1. Passion: Believe in yourself and believe in your product or service. Nothing can replace the initial passion, that fire in the belly that makes it worthwhile to get up and every day and plunge on.

2. Focus: Keep your eye on the ball. Once you start to spread yourself too thin you lose the edge and become just another also ran. This is where the rubber meets the road and where you must not get seduced by another and yet another project.

3. Flexibility: The journey is bound to go down some dead ends. Don't loiter there being mad that your ideas hit a snag. Get out and get going. The sign of a true entrepreneur is the ability to make lemonade (or margaritas is you prefer) from lemons.

4. Relationship: You can't do it, whatever the "it" is alone. The key to success is to make all relationships important. You never know when someone you have helped will be there to help you in return. Don't do anything for an ulterior motive; do it because it's the right thing to do.

5. Integrity: Never, ever, ever sell out to anyone for money or fame or special favors. It will come back to haunt you sooner or later. While entrepreneurs move fast, the goal is to think about the long term results, the legacy you want to leave when it is time to life off to wherever.

These five areas will keep you safe and insure that whatever you so, no matter how much or how little money you make, your work, your life will be considered a success.

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Home > Leadership > Sylvia Lafair > 5 Top Success Factors for Todays Entrepreneurs >
Article Tags: dreams, entrepreneur success, eskimos, innovation, steadiness, success factors

About the Author: Sylvia Lafair
RSS for Sylvia's articles - Visit Sylvia's website

Developing leaders and transforming teams is my speciality. As a clinical psychologist I know that we bring the behaviors we learned in our original organization, the family, into our present work organization. The key to leadership is understanding how individuals form a system and how that system impacts the bottom line. I have worked globally and find that the core of relationships is much the same whether in California, China,or Chile. My book "Don't Bring It to Work (Jossey Bass) offers tools and strategies for developing collaborative work cultures and important core techniques for entrepreneurs to have motivated and fast moving teams. I am a speaker at national conferences, radio, and television. You can follow my blogs at  http://www.sylvialafair.com/blog/ . You may contact Sylvia Lafair, PhD, author of "Don't Bring It to Work" directly at, sylvia@ceoptions.com or 570-636-3858 for any questions or feedback you may have.

Click here to visit Sylvia's website
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More from Sylvia Lafair
Entrepreneur Education Its All In Your Head
How to Lead with Determination and Still Have Compassion
Entrepreneur Development What to Give Your Staff
Morale is King and Queen of the Workplace
Leadership Lessons from Charlie Sheen John Edwards and Tiger Woods


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Re: The 3 Factors That are Limiting Your Productivity Re: The 3 Factors That are Limiting Your Productivity - Hi Evan, Thanks for a great article and video on 'The 3 Factors That are Limiting Your Productivity'. I think that no matter whether you are self employed like myself or a CEO with staff, it is so important to manage your time so as to maximize the benefit to your business. Your expression Eliminate; Automate; Delegate is easy to remember and will certainly stick in my mind. There are many good business ideas out there but they will ultimately run into difficulty without proper planning and execution so these tips will certainly help. I have also left this comment on the article and will place a link to it on my blog. regards, Mal.
CEOs and Email - Slaves? CEOs and Email - Slaves? - I wonder if the emails they are responding to are filtered thru their assistants first 'cos they seem to spend a lot of their off hours responding to them. True they are successful but I'm not sure I'd be willing to pay that price. I'd be interested to know what's the in the typical day planner of Entrepreneurs on the Forum. Entrepreneurs are a different breed than Paid Employees- so it would be interesting to view the contrast.
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