Principles for Successful Entrepreneurs - Brian Tracy

♪ [music] ♪ - [David] Hello achievers, I'm very glad to do a new video with my friend Brian Tracy. Hello Brian, again I am very glad to a new video with you. - [Brian] [foreign language].

- I would love to know, according to you, what makes a top entrepreneur? - Well, there's lots of research recently on the qualities of wealthy entrepreneurs. The first quality of all is hard work.

The 85% of successful entrepreneurs say that the reason was because of hard work. The second was because of self-discipline is they were able to discipline themselves to work on their most important tasks all day. The third was persistence in the face of resistance, difficulties, setback, failure, loss and so on.

So if you took those three, they would be 90% of success is first of all hard work, second of all self-discipline, third of all persistence. - And let's talk about discipline because you are someone very disciplined, and it's very inspiring. And a lot of people are reading books about what they can do in the morning, what they can do to achieve goals.

But what are your triggers to be disciplined every day? How do you do that? - Well, the starting point is to plan every day in writing, on paper.

If you do not have a written plan, then it will be like driving on a slippery road. You'll go all over the road. The second thing to realize is there's only three things you do each day that account for 90% of your value.

We call these the big three. Sometimes, I teach it as the law of three. There are three activities that account for 90%.

Everything else you do accounts for 10% or less. So you have to ask yourself, "What are the three most important things that I do in my work? " And then you have to discipline yourself to start with the most important task and work on that task until it is complete.

And it's a very simple principle, but it is the beginning, and the middle and the end of success. Decide on your most important task, begin immediately, and work on that task with self-discipline until it is 100% complete. In life, it's a very simple principle, but all success comes from completing tasks.

It's not from working at tasks. It's from completing tasks. It is only when you complete tasks that you are successful.

So then you have to ask what are the most important tasks that I should complete? - And you do that every day? - Every day.

- So the tasks can change every day. - Yes. And the rule is do not check your email before 11 a.

m. in the morning because if you check your email. .

. - You'll have new ideas, new projects to manage. - Yes.

And it will be 5:00 or 6:00 o'clock in the evening and you're still checking your email. So the email should be used very carefully because email is a great danger for distraction, and distraction is the opposite of discipline. So the way that you control electronic interruptions is you turn them off.

Turn off your computer. - TV, Skype, Facebook. - Turn them all off, so that you can work on those activities that generate the most revenue.

- Okay just to summarize to be sure to understand, you wake up, and you wonder and you ask to yourself, "What are my three main priorities? " I shut down everything TV, Skype, Facebook electronic device to focus only in my three actions or three projects until 11:00, right? - The most important key to success is to start and complete one important task first thing in the morning.

If you. . .

- Eat the frog. - Eat the frog. If you try to do many things, you end up doing nothing.

So you make a list of all your work before you begin. And then you ask if I could only do one thing on this list which one activity is the most important? And then you do that activity only that until it's complete.

If you start every day by completing a task, you will double and triple your productivity. - Okay, great. Some people will maybe listen to us or watch us and say, "Okay, I have to be disciplined.

I have to know what are my three main priorities," but they will not do that, and they will ask, "I don't know how to be disciplined. I know what I have to do, but I don't know how to find the motivation to do it. " - Yes.

Well, that brings us back to our discussion about goal setting is you have to have written goals as well for your life. A recent study comparing rich people and poor people they find that 85% of rich people have one big goal that they work on all the time. Only 3% of poor people have goals.

So you have to decide what is your biggest goal. If you're in business, usually your biggest goal is income, personal income, business income. So that is your biggest goal.

That's clear. Then you say, "What are the activities that I do to generate income, and of all of those right now which is the most important for generating income? " And so entrepreneurs always think in terms of revenue generation and what we call value creation.

There's another interesting study that has just come out, very good study. It says that there are three rules for success in business. Number one always choose higher quality rather than lower-cost.

Most companies think the way to sell more is to lower the price. But the true reason for success and, there's years of research, is to improve the quality of your product. The second rule is to focus on revenue generation rather than on the costs of your business rather than on the price that things cost.

Focus on revenue generation. And rule number three is that there are no other rules. Two rules: focus on quality and focus on revenues.

And. . .

- It's what we do. You improve the quality of what you say, what you do, and what you give. - Yes.

You improve the quality of your product. There was a study of the 500 fastest growing companies in the world that came out last year. And they found the number one place where they invested was improving the quality of the product that if you had a certain amount of money to invest in your business, it was not on advertising, or machinery or computers to improve the quality.

That's the key to success. - As a speaker, teacher, and writer, how do you improve the quality of what you are doing? - Well, in my estimation, if I am successful, people will listen to me and take actions that are different from before, and they will get better results.

- Yes. - So therefore, my job is to study and research so that I can give people the best ideas that they can use immediately to get better results. And so, I continue to research on every subject and sometimes I find a new idea that someone has learned that's better than an old idea.

So I will change that. - So you are updating every day, your main sites. .

. - The reason people come to a seminar, you always say that a product has two goals. It has a problem to solve or a job to do.

So people hire a speaker to do a job. In other words, like you hire a carpenter, or a cleaner or someone, a painter, to do a job, all right? They hire the speaker, or they read the book, or they listen to the audio because they want it to do a job.

And they're hiring this speaker or audio or book to do a job. So the question you ask is what job does this person want me to do for them? Now, it may be entertainment like going to a movie maybe socializing like going to a restaurant.

Okay, but what is it? What is the job? And you say, "Well, people want to increase their sales and profitability in their business.

" that's very simple. So say then my job is to help them increase their sales and profitability immediately as a result of my seminar. So some people will do a seminar and they will spend the entire time telling stories about themselves.

Well, that does not do the job. That does not help people increase their sales and profitability. It may be entertaining, but it does not fulfill the commitment.

It does not do the job. So the other question is what is the problem to be solved? And in all businesses, if we're talking about businesses, the one major problem is low sales.

Sales are too low, all right? So what is the solution to low sales? The solution is high sales.

So therefore, the problem to be solved is to help people operate their business to increase their sales or to increase their profitability. - I see. It's great answer.

I love that. I would like to talk with you about something. There is lot of book of about the power of the why.

For example, we have Simon Sinek who talked a lot about the why. I would love to know two things, what is your "why" if you have one, and if you have, how did you find it? And also, how people can find their own "why".

- Well, the whole purpose of the business, mission, purpose, goal, strategy, in my estimation, is to help people is to help people achieve something or accomplish something that they could not achieve or accomplish without your help. So that's the "why". And for me the "why" is very simple.

When I was young, I was poor, and I had no education and no money. And then I discovered continuous learning, personal development. I found you can learn anything that you need to learn to be successful in that area.

You could learn to do brain surgery if that was important to you. You could learn to repair an expensive automobile. You could learn to prepare a dish in the kitchen.

You can learn anything. You can learn all business skills. You can learn all sales skills.

When I discovered this, I still remember, I couldn't believe it because it meant that my potential was unlimited. And the more you learn because of the way your brain works, the stronger it becomes, so you can learn more faster. It's like a muscle.

If you make your muscles strong, you. . .

- You can do more in less of time. - Yes. And so I practiced it myself and changed my life within one year.

So then I began to tell other people this is how it works. And they took the ideas, and they changed their lives. And so I began to teach and tell people these ideas.

And then I realized I needed to learn more. So I spent thousands of hours reading and studying and going to seminars. I took 4,000 hours at the university to get an MBA degree.

I took hundreds of hours of audio program maybe thousands. - To train yourself. - To learn new ideas, to help people achieve success faster than they ever would because I had that experience.

I wanted everyone else to have that experience. Even when I'm talking to you now you can see this is my passion because I want to help people to be successful faster. - Yes.

So do you think people can find their "why" in looking at their struggles? - Yes. But what you have to ask is if you had all the money in the world, if you were rich but you had to do something you still had to work, you could not go on vacation, what would you choose to do?

What would you like to do if you had all the money? And you ask that question you think well, if I had all the money, then I would like to do this. You know I spoke to one man who became wealthy, and he wanted to build schools in India for poor people.

That's what he wanted to do. He's built now 42 schools. - Wow, great.

- I know two close friends of mine who were very successful and they wanted to build hospitals in Uganda. They saw something on television, and they visited Uganda, and they realized there was a big need. So now, they come back here and they work, and they raise money, and they go back every year and they build a new hospital in Uganda.

It is something that pulls you is you want to do it. And so ask yourself, "If I had all the money what would I want to do? " And then another thing you can ask is, "What if you only had 5 years left to live or 10 years?

You say, "If I only had a short time left to live, what would I want to leave behind? What would I want to leave behind? What would I want people to say about me?

" - It's helping to focus on the true of what you have inside. - Here's a very important story. They studied the 500 owners of the fastest growing businesses in the world, and they asked them, "Why did you choose this business?

" And all of them said, "I choose this business because I really loved the product. I wanted the product for myself, and so I developed it for myself," like the founder of eBay was looking for a way to sell his candy dispensers. He had a collection, and there wasn't anything.

So he created a little auction site on the internet at the beginning. And then he found he could sell other things in an auction. They built eBay, one of the most successful companies in the world.

But he started it because he wanted it for himself. So you'll always be successful, if you create the product or service because it is something that you want and believe in for yourself. - You have a burning desire to buy it.

So you have a burning desire to sell it. - Yes. Well, there's a great story.

One company that grew the fastest in this study of fast-growing companies grew 42,000% in three years, 42,000%. That's 4,200 times in three years. Well, what was the product?

The product was an iPad that was especially programmed for children to do their homework. And they put the children's programs from television onto the iPad, and they put the homework from the school on the iPad. So if the child did the homework, they could watch TV program.

When they'd do more homework, they'd watch more TV programs. - It's cool. - So children became motivated to do their homework.

And all their children, this little family, two or three families, got straight A's in school. Grades went straight up always did their homework and always. .

. so the other parents said, "Why do your children get such good grades? " They said, "Because of this little program we developed for our iPad," and they said, "Can we have that?

" They said, "Yes. " And they began to tell other people. They grew 4,200%.

Everybody wanted this iPad program to help their children to get good grades at school. - Wow. - And you think, of course.

. . - They fulfill a need and.

. . - Yes.

They solve a problem. They achieve a goal. They fulfill a need.

- Great. You have so many studies. I don't know.

Where do you find all your studies? Because it's a great way to illustrate your ideas. Where do you find your studies?

- I read two to three hours each day. I read. .

. - Morning? When do you read?

- I read all the time whenever I have time to read like, for example, next week I will fly to Georgia in Southern Russia all right? The flight will be 15 hours. I will have to sleep of course, but I will probably read eight hours on that flight.

I will take books, and I have books on my iPad. And I have magazines, business magazines, and I will read and take out pages and read. So I will get 8 hours, or 9 hours or 10 hours.

And then flying back, I will get another 8 hours, or 9 hours or 10 hours of reading. But each day I read at least two hours each day just in the city a little in the morning, a little in the day, a little in the evening continually reading. It's very much like eating.

You cannot eat your whole day in one meal. You have to eat. .

. - Your week in one day. - Yes.

And people think well, I will wait until the weekend and then I will read all my books and magazines. No, you have to read a little at a time. And the key to learning, by the way, it's very interesting.

In music, all the music that you hear is the pauses between the sounds bom bom bom bom. It's not the notes. It's the pause bom bom bom-bom.

So in learning, it's the pause between taking in the information. If I say to you, "The very best place to invest in your business is to improve the quality of your business," pause, you have to think about that. That is a good idea.

That's a very good idea. The second place that you can invest is to improve your marketing, quality and then marketing. And so in other words, you have to take time to think about what you're learning while you are learning it.

Other than that, it's like having a hose with water in your mouth just non-stop. You cannot learn anything unless you slow down, pause, think. - Digest everything.

- Digest it, yes. Just like eating a nice dinner, you'd have to chew, and digest and take time. - And another question I would love to know at the end of your life, let's imagine this is the last day.

When you will look back to your life, what would be the three things you will be most proud of? - Well, number one is my family. I have four children, and two of them are married, and the others will be married.

I have grandchildren, five grandchildren and, of course, my wife. But my family has always been healthy and always has been happy and has had a good life. So that to me is more important than everything else.

I would say number two which is way down below I would like to say that I helped a lot of people to be more successful faster. - Me too but you help me. - Yeah.

But probably the third thing is that I would want people to say that Brian Tracy was a good man. That's all. - And what is a good man for you?

- Pardon. - What is a good man for you? - A loyal friend, a person who always tells the truth, who is a loyal friend, who is helpful, who always supports their friends.

You can always count or depend upon him for anything. I have, like you're here, doing an interview, you know that I am very busy. - I know that.

- I came out of my studio this morning. I'm going into another meeting very soon. But I have a rule that if with my friends, and you're my friend, whatever you ask the answer is yes.

[foreign language] It's always yes. [foreign language] - How do you maintain the relationship? What do you do?

Yes, because it's something for me not easy everyday because I meet amazing people, and sometimes, I'm saying, "Oh, I'm not giving news to Brian, for example, and I want to. So how do you manage that? - Well, if you can imagine the pistons in an engine, they're always going up and down.

So let's say you have an automobile engine with eight Pistons. It is the same as your priorities. They're constantly different.

They change. One goes up, one goes down, and go up. This happens all the time with your life, with my life.

There's no simple explanation. It's always changing and sometimes every hour. So you have to just keep setting priorities.

What is the most important now? For example when my children would come to speak to me when I was working, I would always stop everything. My wife wants to speak to me I stop all work because they are more important.

And now my grandchildren come to see me when I'm working, I stop everything to pay attention to my grandchildren. My top priority is always the people in my life. So whatever is happening, people always go number one.

- And how old is your grandchildren? How old is he? - My granddaughter is three.

- Three. She is three years old. Let's imagine that she's coming now, and she speaks to you and that she wants to play with you.

How long time you will take with her before to say, "Okay, now it's the time to come back to work. " - Usually my grandchildren have very short attention. So it doesn't take very long only a few minutes two or three minutes maybe five minutes.

And then they want to go and do something else. - Okay. So you take the time to pay attention, but then you come back to what you were doing.

- Pistons chain. - How do you do to create true relationship to be authentic with people. Yes, what is your point of view about that?

- Well, again, I am working a lot in the subject of business model reinvention, business model innovation. A business model has about 10 different parts, and they're very much like the pistons in an engine. And the most important part of a successful business is happy customers.

And so therefore, everything must be secondary to happy customers. So the primary job of a business is to create new customers to make more sales. The second job is to make those customers happy, and so whatever else is always secondary.

So if you have a customer, the customer is now top priority, making the customer happy so that the customer returns and buys from you again. That's the most important thing of all. That's the heartbeat.

Paperwork, computers, emails, are all secondary. The customer comes first. Now, how do we know that this is true?

Is all successful companies put the customer first. And unsuccessful companies think the customers like too much trouble or the customer always asking for too much. And so they think that their work in their company is important.

But the rule is that there is no results inside the business. There are no results inside the business. All the results are outside the business with the customers.

So the reason that you plan strategy and organize is so that you can focus on the most important things you can do to make your customers happy. Everything else is secondary. Some human beings get along well together and some do not, and this is just a fact of life.

Just like when a man meets a woman sometimes there is a connection sometimes no connection. It's the same with customers. Sometimes the customer likes you.

Sometimes the customer is neutral. You cannot change that. So the key is to create as many opportunities to meet as many new customers as possible.

- How many employees do you have today? - About 22. - How do you do to find the people who will understand the mission and the purpose of your company?

- It's like finding someone to marry. You have to talk to a lot of people. The best thing and I teach an entire seminar program on hiring the best people.

But a simple way is to make a list of everything that you would like in the perfect person [foreign language]. What would be the. .

. - The perfect one. - And then when you meet people, compare against your ideas.

Writing these ideas down will improve your ability to hire good people by two or three or five times. You make much better choices. You recognize good people.

- You mean in an interview or you mean. . .

- Yes, in an interview. Just write everything down, and so you are clear in your mind what you're looking for. - Okay, do you have a personal assistant?

- Yes. - And how did you find her? - First of all, I have a lot of experience with personal assistants.

And I was very clear about what I wanted a personal assistant to be able to do and what previous experience she had. So when we found this personal assistant she was perfect. She fitted the list based on experience and knowledge.

- And did you find her in posting job research on websites? - Probably. I don't do that myself.

I have my other people who will do that work and then I will make the final decision. - Okay. So at the end, you delegate these things.

Okay, a last question how to become an international speaker? - Well, the reason that I became an international speaker was because I had produced several video training programs that I distributed overseas in foreign languages. And as a result, the companies who attended the video training said we would like to bring him to Germany, and then to Poland, and then to Italy.

The second way is that I wrote books. The major reason why I am so popular overseas is because of my books, and I write four books each year. - If you have to advise one now for entrepreneurs what could be the one they have to read it now?

- One book? - Yes, one book. - I cannot answer because I have 70 books, and you have to ask what subject it would be most important.

- Business developments, Business traditions. - Business development, then you would read my book "The Way to Wealth", which is one of the best books ever done on business success. And it takes you through each step practically of what you need to do to build any business.

If you wanted to learn to sell, then you would read one of my books on "The Psychology of Selling" or "The Art of Closing the Sale. " If you want to manage your time better, you'd read one of my time management books. So the question is when you say, "What restaurant should you go to?

" it depends upon your appetite or tonight I feel like this kind of food. Well, it depends upon the subject that can help you the most at this time. - I see.

Do you want to say something to French people? - Yes. Well, the word entrepreneur [foreign language].

The future, [foreign language], is dependent [foreign language] and these are people who take risks to create new products and services and businesses. And they determine the whole future of France and fortunately, entrepreneurship is learnable. You can learn to become an excellent businessperson and then you can accomplish any financial goal you can set for yourself.

- Cool, a lot of people, entrepreneurs, are looking for their pitch, the way to introduce them. Let's imagine that they want to speak about you. According to you, what is the best way to introduce you?

What they have to say. Brian is. .

. let's imagine that you talk about Brian Tracy. - I would say that Brian Tracy is the most helpful professional speaker and seminar leader in the world today.

What people say about me is they say that you'll learn more practical ideas in a seminar with me than with any other speaker in the world, and that has been my goal for many years. And now millions of people say those words that if you want to learn a lot of good ideas, Brian has more ideas on any subject than anybody else. - Good.

A good way to introduce you. I will use. .

. I will repeat that and learn it. Thank you very much.

- Thank you.