3
KEYS EVERY SUCCESSFUL
BUSINESS MUST HAVE
by Sandi Krakowski
SMASHWORDS EDITION
* * * * *
PUBLISHED BY:
Sandi Krakowski on Smashwords
3 Keys Every Successful Business Must Have
Copyright
2010
by Sandi Krakowski
3
KEYS EVERY SUCCESSFUL
BUSINESS MUST HAVE
What does it really take to build a successful business? Through our blog and on Social Media, you get actionable tips from me on how to grow your business the smart way. But I’m often asked for a simple secret, or easy way to get there.
The truth is…. there is a secret. And once you’ve mastered these steps, it does become simple. But it still involves work. If someone promises you the easy way to millions, do yourself a favor a run the other way, because they don’t have a clue about success. In this book, I’ll share with you the three most important keys to a smart, successful business.
Recently a tornado – not that common in the fall – proved as just one more reason why I believe that you need to have everything in your business backed up online. Running an online business that definitely taps into offline resources, but keeps things online is hugely important.
In the matter of a minute and a half I had my briefcase, my laptop, my iPhone, my bat phone, and my iPad and Daytimer. I grabbed my Bible, and ran downstairs. Then I ran outside and I told those winds to be still and “don’t you dare hurt nobody!”
Some of you may think I’m crazy, but I just believe that if we walk in faith we can do those kinds of things, and sure enough the tornado five minutes later blew over.
I am here full of faith and full of some tools to give to you. I am being stretched. I believe we lead by example, so if I wasn’t personally being stretched, I personally don’t think I’d have anything to share with you. If I wasn’t personally being stretched out of my own comfort zone, how on earth could I look at you, write to you on Facebook or send you an email and say, “We need to get past the comfort zone.”
So I thank my God that He’s dealing with my comfort zone that for years has said, “Email? Okay. Live events? Sure. I’ll go speak even,” which used to be a comfort zone, but not anymore, “but TV? I don’t know about that.”
And then of course the very first contact I start getting from different things that a publicist out of Beverly Hills has been working with me on is TV. So I stand before you with a little bit more of the Mrs. Gumby on me, a little bit more stretching, when I share with you on the keys that every business must have.
I want to say to you that I honor you. I am proud of you, how you are stretching yourself, how you’re going beyond what you’ve always known into areas that you’ve never known. I’m going there as well.
I’ve never been on national TV. The closest as I could get would probably be Ustream, which is not technically TV, but I honor you because you’re a group of people who aren’t just talking about it, but you’re really stretching yourself and growing.
You write to me. You’ve given me your testimony. Some of you are in absolute saturation mode with our products. I am humbled and I am honored that we had one of the biggest weeks. I’ve run companies for 14 years, and back in May I walked away from half a million dollars in retainers, walked away from a lot of the copywriting and marketing and things that we were doing in a freelance fashion, and started this company.
Since May we’ve grown from 3,500 on our house list to over 64,000 people, and I’m proud to tell you because of who my God is, not who I am, that we actually are just getting ready to clear a million dollars in sales in six months in this division of our company, and it couldn’t happen without you – 175 orders in five days.
I’m getting a little choked up because it couldn’t happen without you. You are people who believe in more. You are people who step up. You are people who say, “I’ve had enough and I’m going to do whatever it takes.” So I stand with you today to say the same kind of thing, and I want to share with you how on earth, what are the keys that hold this together.
What are the keys that helped me to build a business like this but still be with my kids? What are the keys that helped me to build a business like this and still be working on my marriage, working on my own self, working on my own comfort zone and my own fears and the different things that are in me? What are those keys?
I can tell you this, that because of what I’ve done in business in the last 14 years, I built my very first company in 2-1/2 years that went to $4.5 million and built it all the wrong way. I worked 90 hours a week, had just a few virtual people working for me, was a complete control freak, had to do everything, was having the supermom syndrome at the exact same time as doing all that.
Sure, lots of money, lots of profit, customers that I loved, but sheer exhaustion. Do I have an eagle’s eye view of the wrong way? I have an eagle’s eye view of how far and slow and quick you can go from utter devastation to huge success and fall back down.
When I was in the ICU battling bacterial pneumonia with chemo in one side, battling critical diseases and morphine in the other side and Rocephin shots in the behind, how on earth did I go from managing hundreds of orders one week to – bam! – in a hospital bed, being told, “We don’t know if you’re going to make it.”
I went from purchasing what I thought was a dream home that was going to satisfy all the desires I had to have a different kind of home and a different kind of life, on four acres across from Buffalo, where my dream quickly turned into an absolute money pit, turned into absolute bondage, where the taxes on the dream house went from $2,000 to over $8,000 in under three years and I thought, “Oh my God, how do we get out of this mess?” – all at the same time as being sick and everything else that happened. How do you go from that to getting a mustard seed of courage?
I want to pass something on to you. It has been said, and I believe it was God who said it – you can disagree with me and I’ll love you anyway, and you love me because I think it’s He who said it, and we’ll be different and we’ll just be powerful because we’ll have unity and diversity.
Jesus said that if you have faith the size of a mustard seed – have you ever seen a mustard seed? For crying out loud, you’d see it and not see it in faster than the flash of a second. It’s so small!
“If you have the faith of a mustard seed, you can look at this mountain and tell it, ‘Be moved,’ and it shall be done for you.”
Well, I had a mustard seed of courage and looked at the disease and looked at my God and saw Him bigger. I looked at the debts and looked at who was on my side, and saw Him bigger.
All I’m going to ask you is to have mustard seed kind of courage. That’s it, just mustard seed size, because I’m a life that’s been transformed by a mustard seed size faith.
I know all the wrong ways to build businesses, and thank you God, I learned all the right ways to build businesses when I came back, where you don’t work 90 hours a week, where you put up boundaries, where you have rules really that keep you safe and healthy, where you don’t work 24 hours a day, where you no longer esteem those who pull all-nighters over and over and over again and forsake their family, where it’s no longer acceptable to say, “In a minute, mommy’s busy right now,” where it’s no longer healthy to say, “I don’t have time to have a date with my husband because I’m building my business.”
You put up boundaries where you get sleep, you reject negative thinking, you’re extremely careful who you hang out with, who you allow to speak into your life, and what mentors you follow, as in a provable track record. You’re very careful that you’re not doing too many things at one time.
When you get to the point where you build it the right way, where you don’t take personal calls during business time – my husband and I, as many of you have heard, have lived here in Indiana for almost four years. We moved here on a job relocation for him, and because I’m plug and play we did not put our tent pegs deep into the ground and did not purchase a house. We rented a home for the last 3-1/2 years, saw the entire market tank beneath us, and now are purchasing a home in a buyers market.
There are times when things cross over and I spend time doing specific things that are different than work because I’m willing to work that evening, but my point is this. I’m no longer a workaholic. I know when to take time off, and I have the wisdom to know the difference of when to take a phone call and when not to.
I know not to turn the stinking TV on. Frankly, I probably watch TV two to three hours a month anyway, and then I watch all those things that build me up for success and make my gifts sharper.