Summary of Principles Chapters 1 thru 16

Last chapter I told you I was going to summarize the principals of being an entrepreneur in these first 16 chapters. PRINCIPAL 1: Trust your instincts to connect you to that infinite intelligence available to you. Over and over and over in my life I have learned that when you are trying to create a business you will run into seemingly unsurmountable odds. But if you want to be an entrepreneur you can't stop. There are many ways you can deal with unsurmountable odds, but one is a great gift from (fill in your blank here)__________, (eg. God, Universe, Goddess, infinite intelligence, or whoever or whatever you believe to be a supreme force in the universe). This gift almost always works once you yourself have tried to do it on your own in every concievable way. You have to think of every possible solution, but once you have exhausted your resources, put the question you need answered to your subconsious mind and then forget about it. Edison did this constantly. When he was stumped he would take a cat nap and awake with the answer. You have heard I am sure many times people saying, "I just woke up and had the answer." Think about it. So a very important principal is to trust your instincts. Your instincts will guide you if you have done your share of the hard work in trying to solve the problem yourself. But at some point you have to let go of it and just wait for the answer. PRINCIPAL 2: Be open minded in looking for what people want to buy and how to present it to them. The next thing I learned was to test different sales approaches and different products until you find out what it is people want. It is much easier to sell products people want then to try to convince them to buy something they don't want. It is also important to get the feedback personally. Since I did most of my sales as a child going door to door, I got to see exactly how people responded to different products and sales approaches. Books are great to help you learn different sales closes or presentations. And there are tons of opportunities on what to sell. But until you test them out yourself you will not know what works for you and you need to experience people's reaction to the products. Don't be afraid to test out different products or services until you find the one that gets you AND your customers excited. If you sell products or services that excite you, and your customers are receptive to them, you have a winner. PRINCIPAL 3: Persistance wins out in the long run. Remember how I returned to the fellow that turned me down every week or more for over a year? Eventually I found the service he wanted and the presentation. Just don't quit. Remember how I eventually took over all my competitors lawn mowing jobs by must persistantly being available to his customers? Just don't quit. This does not necessary mean to hound a person to death, but you should politely follow up as long as possible until they make it clear not to contact them anymore. Also the persistance of performing your sales routines is important. Keep going to new prospects, keep perfecting your products and services, just keep on and keep on. Dont' stop I read a story this week about the man that invented Velcro back in 1955. He was sure that people would want this product. He worked on it for 6 years and lost everything he had working on it until finally he ended up in a cabin in the mountains still trying to solve the problem. He finally did solve the problem and by 1958 was selling 50 million dollars worth per year of his velcro invention. Thomas Edison found 10,000 ways a light bulb would not work before finding the right way. Being an Entrepreneur requires a lot of persistances. It is not all fun and games, but the rewards can be extravagant if you do not quit. PRINCIPAL 4: You cannot hear them say no. When someone tells you no, just consider it another learned lesson. It is not a judgement against you, it simply means you did not have the product or service or presentation that person at that time needed. But that does not mean you will not eventually find the product or service or presentation that person will need. Just don't give up and dont' say no. Just go on to the next person and keep going through all your prospects. Check back with the people that told you no in a fair amount of time with another offer or another product or another presentation. They said no before to a different offer or product or presentation, not the next one you are offering. PRINCIPAL 5: Be gentle. The only way people are going to let you contact them over and over is if you are polite, gentle, and respectful. Don't be pushy. Don't be rude. Don't interrupt. ALWAYS LISTEN. Always CARE about your prospect. Always try to see how you can help your prospect. I will be presenting more principals in how to be an entrepreneur over the next chapters, first in story form and then in summary. Thank you for being my reader!! You can read all the chapters of "How To Be an Entrepreneur" by going to http://salessuccessmagazin e.com. These stories are copyrighted by Timothy L. Drobnick Sr. 1995 thru 2005. Any person using this article must publish it without modification and include authors bio and links.