I'm not really into the business of giving out tips, but if you are not using an all-encompassing software to integrate and sync your schedule, then you might be losing time. Most of these are free, and they can allow you to keep track of everything in one place and then access that from your computer, phone, or tablet.

Empirical and observational data along with a healthy dash of intuition often have to be combined as business owners begin to look outward, not inward, at what solutions they can provide to their customers.

Your success has to be measured against yourself - a decade ago, last year, or yesterday.

Whether your dream is a $100,000 in sales or a million, the amount of work is likely the same - you'll still have 86,400 seconds each day, so why couldn't you imagine creating the company and enterprise that can fulfill every aspect of any dream you wish to have?

You cannot build a company or manage a life by chasing others; you have to find your success competing against yourself. There will always be a bigger fish.

Unlike what most people think, entrepreneurs are not special people who know how to do special things that others don't. Entrepreneurs can be made, because we're all born with the potential - that special human quality - to create.

If you make converting a lead into a sale harder than a trip to the local DMV, then you lose sales to someone else - with an inferior product - who can make it painless. Don't do that!

The more Strategic Work you do, the more effective, productive, and joyful the Tactical Work becomes.

The entrepreneur rarely thinks in terms of what he or she wants, but dreams about results - always results and nothing but results - that can solve someone else's problem or contribute to making someone else's life better.

As an entrepreneur and a small business owner, you are intimately familiar with goals. You've dreamed of the 'right' ones, you've projected 'real' ones for the banker and the investor, and, secretly, you've imagined how life can be if you can reach the ones you've set.

When I say, 'doin' it, doin' it, doin' it' to a group of small business owners, they immediately respond. They recognize the experience of doing the same things over and over. Keeping the business afloat without ever getting ahead. And it's more than frustrating - it's heartbreaking.

'Product life' is measured in months, not years, and as soon as you introduce a 'product,' understand that others in your business are going to reverse engineer it to duplicate the results after they circumnavigate the patents, the trademarks, and the intellectual property.

Your success starts with how you are able to get clients in the door, get their business, and leave them satisfied. If you, personally, have to spend too much time doing that, you have simply bought yourself a job, not an enterprise. Take hints from success stories all around you!

If you ever hope to get ahead as an entrepreneur, the answer is not becoming an effective juggler, but in understanding and designing the systems to keep your team, not you, busy, busy, busy.

You're going to dream no matter what you do in your life, so make those dreams so big that you can attract others who are amazed at your visions and goals.

The challenge of any business owner is not only to keep the saw sharp, but also to know if you even have a need for such a tool.

Everywhere you turn, there are lists and statistics. Any business, any sport, any hobby - we will try to categorize who is the best at some component of that endeavor. It's part human nature and part technology, since we have been conditioned to have access to answers and trivial problems at our fingertips.

People crave predictability, and when you design and use systems, you give people predictability. More importantly, when you build systems, they can help you orchestrate, and orchestration helps you create the habits that continuously improve the systems!

My experience has shown me that the people who are exceptionally good in business aren't so because of what they know but because of their insatiable need to know more.

After decades of studying the men and women that make the decision to open their own Great, Growing Company, I'd have to say it comes down to the Vision they have for that business - do they expect to build the company or just have some income for the short term?

If you expect to grow your business, you need to be plotting out your schedules days in advance. Until you get that most basic of steps orchestrated, you can never get to the critical steps that I outline in any one of dozens of books.

The only choice that leads small business owners to real success in their endeavors is the one that requires real thought. Understanding and building the systems they need within their company to afford them a framework of organization that can scale the business from a company of one to a company of one thousand.

Remember: you cannot build a better mouse trap by fixing the old one - NewCo demands active ownership, and that activity is not the sum of doing multiple jobs but, instead, the sum of implementing paradigm-shifting changes that create new industries and solutions.

Tactical Work is the work you do every day in your business to generate income, along with all of the operational, financial, and management tasks that entails.