Do you want to build a multi-million dollar business?

When you start a business, making millions seems like an impossible dream. Today there are so many tools and knowledge available to entrepreneurs that making millions is easier than ever.  Unfortunately, most businesses fail before they ever make their first million. There are infinite reasons a business can fail, but if you follow a few tried-and-true rules your chances for success increase by a huge measure.

Before we go any further, I want to tell you something I have learned from interviewing many entrepreneurs. Before they have succeeded in business, most of them failed many times.

So, what stops you from business success?

So, what exactly is it that is holding you back from earning seven figures? Let’s take a look at the top reasons.

What is it that stops you from business success?

Be clear about why you want to start a business. Money is not enough of a motivator if you really want to succeed in business. There has to bee a deeper meaning to your reason for wanting to be your own boss. I wanted to start my own business since I was seventeen years old. As an employee, many times I felt that I could make better decisions if I owned the business. What is your reason for wanting to be an entrepreneur?

A common mistake wantrepreneurs make is the desire to come up with a revolutionary new business idea. You don’t need a revolutionary idea to make millions in business. Facebook was not a revolutionary idea. There were other social networks on the market before Facebook. Starbucks wasn’t a revolutionary idea. There were plenty of other coffee shops before. The iPhone wasn’t a revolutionary idea. There were other smartphones on the market before the iPhone. Do you sense a trend here? What really successful business do is that they improve on existing business models. Focus on making something that is already out there and make it better.

A sure way to fail in business before you make millions is focusing on perfection. You don’t have to be perfect to make millions in business. Think of all the products you have bought in the past. Were they flawless? Of course, the goal must be to create a great product or service.

The desire for perfection is a form of failure.

Don’t try to be perfect. Be prepared to experiment. You cannot just do one thing and expect to make millions of dollars. You need to experiment and take your focus off of the perfection. No matter how out of this world your idea may be, test and experiment. You will never know how your product is going to do unless you experiment. If you focus on perfecting something that you have not experimented with, you are most likely going to fail.

If you don’t think things through your business will never make millions of dollars. If you do not pre-determine what you want, you rely on luck or chance for business success. You are going to want to plan short and long-term strategies before you start planning your tactics.

Think about what types of clients you want to attract. Develop your tactics based on your target market. Your strategy will be very different if you have a B2B enterprise target market than if you sell to teenagers.

Focus on what makes you different. Differentiating yourself from your competition is one of the best ways to succeed in business. You can’t better your competition without being different.

Accountants get Respect in the Business World

There are very few positions in the business world that are as respected and valuable as accounting. If you were thinking about raising capital or meeting with investors, having a background in accounting will automatically raise your profile and will instantly increase their trust in your abilities. They will automatically assume that you’ll be able to make more sound decisions and will be more inclined to trust you with the finances than a self-made entrepreneur. Furthermore, a venture capital firm is more likely to allow you to retain control if you have a background in accounting.  One SuccessHarbor reader, Jaren Nichols of ZipBooks Accounting Software found that to be true: “My background in accounting, and in particular having a masters degree in accountancy was key to gaining the trust of our investors as we raised our first substantial round of funding.”

Every entrepreneur should consider getting a qualification in accounting. If you’re currently running a business and don’t have the luxury of going back to school and pursuing a degree, you can always get an online masters of accounting. Getting your masters degree in accounting online will give you the same skill set you would get at any Ivy League school while still being able to oversee your operations.

There are many ways to differentiate your business, here are a few examples:

  • Live your core values loud and clear. You earn respect when you live your core values instead of just paying lip service to it.
  • Put your customers on a pedestal. Almost no companies out there do. Every business wants you to believe that the customer is number one, but most don’t. Focus on what your customers are doing, share their struggles and successes.
  • Communicate a unique point of view. Find opportunities to share through speaking, writing, and publishing. This is not just for marketing professionals. Everyone in the company should take part.
  • Instead of selling things sell the experience. How does it feel? How will your customer feel once using your product or service?
  • Be different. Doing things the same way as your competitors is a recipe for business failure.
  • Don’t try to be different in every way. Focus on one or two things.
  • Serve a niche. Become the industry expert in serving a niche market before you try to rule the world.

Develop a strategy that your team can get behind. You will not reach your business goals without a real strategy.

Another problem is that learning intelligent delegation is something many people fail to do. You want to find someone who is going to do something just as well or even better than yourself. It is a hard concept to understand but is a necessary aspect of true leadership. Entrepreneurs who fail to attract smarter and more skilled people than themselves remain the bottleneck of the business. If you are the smartest people in your business who knows everything, your business will remain small.

Most entrepreneurs are also making the wrong trades. Trading time for money is not going to make you millions. You can make a living trading time for money, that is what the self-employed do. It may seem like a good idea for a while, but you are going to start fighting a battle that cannot ultimately be won.

The way to build a multi-million dollar business is to focus on how much power you can get from leverage. Investment properties, angel investing, building an empire, strategic partnerships and affiliate marketing are just a few of the possibilities.

Last, but not least, most people should be customer-centric, but sadly are more ego-focused. People do not want to pay for what you know; they want a solution or an outcome to their problems and desires. They are looking for results, not knowledge.

If you can avoid the above business mistakes, you will be well on your way to earning seven figures. It may not seem like an easy thing to do, but it can be with the right focus. It is not always about you; it is about your customers and what they want, need, and willing to pay for.