The first article in this series listed more than 25 tactics to increase your business success, all of them based on my experience. I started with nothing and didn’t get to college, so I know you can achieve maximum success, regardless of your education. E-mail me to get the first article (or any of the other articles) in the series. Each of the rest of the articles takes a closer look at one of the tactics listed in that first article.
Those of you who know me know I live the positive energy mantra. What do I say when you ask me how I am doing? I say, “The best!” There is no other way to achieve maximum success in what can be the grueling drive to the top.
How can you practice positive energy and what will practicing it do for you?
- Even in the middle of something negative, you can be positive. Look for that path, live it, breathe it, and evangelize it. Everyone around you will notice and positive energy makes whatever you are facing likely to come out better. An employee wrecked the delivery truck this morning? He’s ok, and we needed to replace that truck anyway. And now we can get the larger model, and aren’t we glad we had insurance! Rent a truck and move on.
- Always be cheerful. My dad taught me that no one cares if your feet hurt, so why tell them! Being positive is infectious and appreciated by those around you most of the time.
- Positive energy can get you and your team through a rough spot; just keep it positive! Again, your team will notice and be more effective.
- You can usually find a positive result, even in a bad financial report. You still have to work on the bad fundamentals, but approach them with a positive spin. In other articles I’ve talked about my old boss at Ford, Dixon Thayer, and his mantra of positive dissatisfaction. Being positive will bring better results; no one likes to have negative energy.
- In private meetings, even when admonishing employees, get past the admonishment as soon as possible and focus on the path forward with a program to solve the issue and get to the result you both want. The employee wants to get through it more than you, and leaving it on a positive note can the employee over the negative feelings sooner. When you have to do one of those sessions, give the employee time and space to lick their wounds.
- With vendors, bankers, and other stakeholders, you want to be the one they remember as always having positive energy. Be careful not to be unrealistically optimistic so that you can always under promise and over deliver.
- Use the same positive energy in your personal life will improve your home life and your relationship with your kids and spouse.
Don’t confuse having positive energy with just sugar coating everything negative. Not holding others or yourself accountable is not positive energy. Nor does positive energy mean you are unrealistically optimistic. Just be happy and optimistic as you plow through the minutia of the grind to the top. And love what you do.
You can’t fake positive energy for more than a short time; you have to adopt it, and be bought in and you must love what you do (most of the time). If you don’t love what you do, go find something else that you want to do enough to let the positive energy flow.
Remember only you can make business great!
Ron Sturgeon, Mr. Mission Possible, has been a successful business owner for more than 35 years. As a small business consultant, he can deliver wisdom and advice gleaned from an enviable business career that started when he opened a VW repair business as a homeless 17-year-old and culminated in the sale of several businesses he built to Fortune 500 companies.
Ron has helped bankers, lawyers, insurance agents, restaurant owners, and body shop owners, as well as countless salvage yard owners to become more successful business people. He is an expert in helping small business owners set the right business strategies, implement pay-for- performance, and find new customers on the web.
As a consultant, Ron shares his expertise in strategic planning, capitalization, compensation, growing market share, and more in his signature plainspoken style, providing field-proven, and high-profit best practices well ahead of the business news curve. Ron is the author of nine books, including How to Salvage More Millions from Your Small Business.
To inquire about consulting or keynote speaking, contact Ron at 817-834-3625, ext. 232, rons@MrMissionPossible.com, 5940 Eden, Haltom City, TX 76117.