One of the most important ingredients to achieving business success must surely be confidence.  It’s come up many times in recent conversations.  The confidence to sell, make a presentation, negotiate better terms, forge your own unique path or persist with your ideas against the odds.

It’s all too easy to assume that those around us were just born confident – or even are confident. Losing or failing to manage your confidence in a business context can cost you dearly.  Let’s discuss this critical topic.

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Entrepreneur Magazine’s article, Richard Branson: Five Secrets to Business Success caught my attention recently.  Originally written as a list of five keys that Branson regards as important to successfully building a business, I’ve converted it into a checklist of five useful questions worth reflecting on.

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There’s a lot that goes into making a successful business. So many things to think about and actions to take, the to-do list seems to grow longer by the minute.  That said, I’m always keen to understand how a business – your business – makes money.  How does it actually generate cash?

Take my business as an example.

I blog, tweet, contribute to a thriving business community, meet people, generate ideas and intellectual property, build products, manage cash-flow, plan, collaborate – to name a few activities.  But none of that makes money. How I make money is by selling consulting hours to large organizations and more recently, by selling products on-line.

If we know specifically how each other generates revenue, we can be more efficient and effective in helping each other succeed commercially.

Let’s discuss this important business development topic in the comments.

Too busy to make money?

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So here’s the plan. Give away your ideas, your know-how and your hard-earned wisdom and experience as blog posts, e-books, slide presentations and videos – for free – and crowds of people will come running to your blog. Then do your best to convert as many of these people as you can to buy more of your ideas, your know-how and your hard-earned wisdom and experience.

Am I the only one who has a problem with this logic?

Surely, by giving our precious intellectual property away – the family silver – we not only train people NOT to buy our ideas, but also erode our future ability to earn income.

I would love to discuss this touchy topic with you in the comments.

Giving away the family silver for a golden future

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Crowds of people rushed into the bookshop to buy your book. It’s the latest must-read title – a sizzling hot best seller, climbing and dominating the charts for weeks on end. Or that’s how the story goes.

Getting published off-line is something I’ve thought about a lot over the past few years. You?  Have you ever thought of getting published off-line? If so, why? It’s a large undertaking and I’m curious as to why people do it.

I would love to discuss this topic with you in the comments.

Mountains of opportunity

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Let’s talk about making money!

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Heading off to the Tweet-up

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