A person who willingly goes into business for themselves - and intentionally seeks out 'solopreneurship' - is insane!

There are three things that can be organized: time, space, and work. Note that, despite what many believe, you cannot organize people - you can only organize the work that people do.

Strategic Work is all about the big questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? Tactical Work is all about answers: This is the system we use to do each task. This is how we do it, how we measure it, how we monitor it.

In my experience, most small businesses are worried about the client fulfillment - 'getting the Job done' - and lead generation far more than they are in how the sales process flows.

If you haven't created the time as an owner to understand why people are choosing your model over your competition, then you are only managing the business that comes in the door, not actively seeking it out.

I've said it for four decades - work 'on' your business, not just 'in' your business!

The deciding factor of why some entrepreneurs are successful and others fail is not limited to your DNA or your education; it is about the actions you take as the leader of your business.

It's fashionable to use terms like 'sales funnels' to describe the sales process for many companies, and it is true that the funnel design is very appropriate for the digital world, but despite all the prose written on sales funnels and the like, my question is still the same - when do you close your sales, and how long does that take?

Be honest: if your pitch is 90 minutes and you only have 60 set aside for a business lunch or a cup of coffee, there is no way that you can give an honest representation of your company or products. You're lying to yourself and wasting your own time as well as that of your prospect or partner.

We all know that Ray Kroc founded the McDonald's franchise back in the 1950s, and it then became the most successful business enterprise in history.

Results transform the world, and a great dream creates results. That's what this thing we call 'business' is really all about.

More than a few studies have shown that the five people you spend the most time with represent you - so you need to decide - who do you want to be?

The entire idea of building a series of systems in a business is simply this - to create the tools that allow you, as a business owner, to increase productivity and get the job done. The idea behind these systems, of course, is to quit needing your judgement or input in every area of the business.

The kind of work you do, when you do it, how much of it there is, and who you delegate it to are often the cause of the quasi-schizophrenic behavior seen in many business owners and entrepreneurs.

Your first job, as an owner and an entrepreneur, has to be to understand how the business is going to actually work.

Growing your own business is great. Watching your ideas come to life, taking care of new customers and watching them become repeat customers, and successfully building your team is a feeling that can't be matched.

Being an entrepreneur is more than a matter of simply starting a business.

The world of the small business owner is all about moving multiple items forward at once, and it's a fool's errand to believe one person can do it all when the shift comes from linear to parallel.

As the owner, you have to look into the mind of the customer and see and feel how their relationship to your product works - not just that the product works.

Steve Jobs didn't seek solace among minimum wage workers. He sought it from highly educated men and women who understood and shared his focus on growth, technology, and company-building.

I don't know why the word 'solopreneur' is in our lexicon. Nobody can physically do it all by themselves, and more importantly, why would they want to? Being the sales team, the HR department, management, and production all by yourself is terrible. Period.

No matter what your company does - build, manage, produce, import - as an owner, you can't avoid the hard work and skip straight to success. No class can give you that, no YouTube video can teach it, and no book can mark it off your list.

If you are planning to start a business, and if you want that business to have a hope of succeeding, be sure you are approaching your venture from a true Entrepreneurial Perspective.

Don't look at small business as a means to an end and a way to make money until the corporation hires you; look at it as a chance to create something of immeasurable value and beauty in a world that desperately needs it.