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Establishing your own business may be your life time ambition.

But had you foreseen the challenges ahead, I am guessing there may be days when you wished you had not set up your own business.

In today’s world, as consumers we are all searching for the fast answer:

• audio books are abridged versions of the full book to its faster to get to the end of the story
• microwave take home meals now come in gourmet packaging so you can entertain with less effort but still save face
• and our clothes are made of fabrics that are crease free so we can get rid of the iron – in other words being smart about looking smart.

I sometimes wonder if what many new business owners are looking for is the quick answer to attracting more clients, building a successful business and long vacations.

Increasingly there are promises of how to make your fortune in real estate, online marketing and other business ventures.

We are seduced by the marketing and pull out our credit cards so we can invest thousands on the promise of great success in just 90 days or doubling your income in just 6 months.

There are even those that preach about the law of attraction – in other words “think and it will happen”.

Now maybe you have found a source that can deliver great results in super fast time for little effort - if so please share them with me.

Frankly, I have yet to meet a successful entrepreneur who has built a sustainable business overnight.

Why is is that we want the easy life?

I was recently speaking with a coach who has just created a new coaching teleseminar programme and their question to the other entrepreneurs with her was:

How can I attract more clients to register for the programme marketing online?

My recommended strategy was to look to establish joint ventures with people who market to her ideal clients but do not offer the programme she has created.

Creating interest for your programmes online requires that you must integrate a number of strategies together from traffic generation, to traffic conversation. Yes you can use Google Adwords and other traffic generating tools, but by far the most successful strategy if you are developing your business and do not have a community to market to is to partner with others through joint ventures.

This enables you to be introduced to people they know (usually their community and mailing list) and who might be interested in your products and services. In return you reward your joint venture partner through referral or affiliate income for every person from their community who joins you.

This strategy has introduced me to some terrific clients I have had the opportunity to work with and I have grown by Biz Growth community at the same time.

What was the entrepreneurs reaction? Well I quote:

That sounds like a lot of hard work…

I am not sure where she got the idea of marketing her new programme would be easy? To say that I was taken aback is an understatement.

Frankly it does not matter how how terrific your expertise is, how wonderful your programmes are, or how outstanding your products are. If we don’t market our businesses to our ideal clients we won’t succeed in growing our business because no one will know you exist.

As a business owner

1. your first job is to market
2. your second job is to market some more
3. and your third job is to be even more effective at marketing.

An entrepreneurs life can be fantastic – in fact I love my business so much more than my time in corporate roles even though I had some terrific assignments. You see I am now playing to my strengths and passions.

If we don’t build our businesses around the our strengths, passions, and expertise we are going to find it difficult to be motivated and energised on the days where:

• we have a difficult conversation with a client
• we lose out on a tender or proposal
• the demands of the family are in conflict with the needs of our clients
• our key team players let us down and fail to deliver a project on time.

Need I go on?

An entrepreneurs life is full of headaches, heartaches but that is made up for with the hoorays – the successful, wonderful and fantastic days which we then cherish.

Chris Barrow, a good friend and business mentor is considered the million dollar coach – but was he an over night success? not quite. It has taken him 9 years of hard work to build his successful thriving coaching practice.

Alex Mandossian, another of my mentors, can boast that he has achieved sales results of $1.2million in a week. But Alex was not an overnight success. He has worked exceptionally hard over the last 6 years and has made smart strategic connections with business partners who in turn he rewards and recognises and who adore him. He has now created his own team of brand ambassadors and raving fans.

My good friend Andy Wibbels remarked in an article about “The Secret Movie” which talks about the law of attraction that yes you can do the work you love, which then attracts the things you need and then you work really really REALLY hard. 

The great global brands and empires of Guinness, Coke, Nike, McDonalds and Apple were not built without terrific resources, capabilities, hard work and tenacity.

I am sure their business leaders have had headaches and heartaches along the way. I know this to be the fact as I used to be one of those business leaders.

So to the coach who wants to avoid the hard work, application of effort and commitment to market her programme and fill it to capacity – good luck.

For me THE secret to success lies in what few business leaders fail to do – and that is taking ideas and strategies and driving them into action.

Now if you know how to bottle and sell that, you can be sure you just might become an overnight success.