A strong business relationship with your customer is vital to your future success. If you have a strong relationship with your customer they are more likely to refer business to you.  Referrals, as well as repeat business are the foundation to any successful company.

Learning your customer’s name is important. Saying hello when they walk in the door is too generic and causes them to feel ordinary, like a statistic. Making the extra effort to know their name makes them feel that they are valuable and important to you. As much as you want to be personal, keep in professional.  Hugs or fancy handshakes are inappropriate and can later cause conflict.  A firm handshake and a smile are always welcome.

It is helpful to keep track of client’s birthdays, anniversaries, child’s birthdays and events that they may mention during conversation.  This way, when you talk to them later, whether it be a week from now or even a month, you can ask how their son’s soccer game went “that” weekend or if his wife is feeling better. Anything you can document about a customer will only help you in the long run create a strong relationship and show them that you really pay attention when they talk.  Never use information however that you overhear them say in a personal conversation whether on the phone or in person.  Your nosiness can create quite a bit of conflict.

Customer service is very important and you want to provide them with outstanding service to create a strong business relationship.  Thank you cards or a quick email add a personal touch. Remain professional in your business relationship at all times.  Hanging out or drinking with a client is usually not a good idea unless the situation or business calls for it.  Never under any circumstance start a romantic relationship with a customer.  It will only result in some form of conflict usually resulting in lost business or you losing your job.

It is important to think about how you would want to be treated and take care of that customer with the same respect and customer service.  Always remember your customers are the most important factor in the success of your business and should be treated that way.

All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved. ~Sun Tzu~

To put these two concepts in simple terms, strategy is the overall plan to reach a goal or a plateau and tactics are the day-to-day actions to get you there.

More accurately, most businesses are reactive and just trying to stay afloat. They are tactical, at best. Usually they are random and incongruous.

They may have a high-sounding strategy written down somewhere, but they readily abandon it when the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune arrive at their business doorstep.

They and their staff often become rats in a maze just fighting to survive rather thrive. They take their eye off the ball and haven’t a sliver of a chance for long-term success.

Nobody on this planet teaches the difference better than the god of finding the gold in each business, Jay Abraham

Please watch him in action...

There is a fine line between being a good student and being a blind follower.

There is a defense mechanism within me that goes into a state of high alert when a guru or smooth talker states his/her case in such a manner that the gate to my heart opens and surrenders.

The riffraff that is pervasive online makes the most innocent and curious of souls an instant cynic. Everyone is everyone’s friend and everyone is different than the other “frauds” who are selling us a bill of goods.

Yet if your guard is always up and you refuse to surrender because it – whatever promotion or concept – is too good to be true, then no doubt you will lose the game of life. Intimacy in personal and business relationships has risks. The benefits, however, far outweigh the risks.

To fail or be taken to the cleaners is not a sin. The sin is to stand on the sidelines and become the perpetual critic who never takes action or risks him- or herself.

Worse still, is to become the perfectionist who takes a good idea and dissects it, restores it, analyzes it, second-guesses it, and then back-burners it because of fear of failure and ridicule by the “I told you so” crowd smirking from the do-nothing stands.

What sets apart most of the gurus – mostly spiritually evolved and likable souls – is the ability to believe in themselves and instill that trait in those who work with them.

Our distaste or cynicism of these individuals is often truly derived from our inability to mirror the guru’s character and action traits that set him/her above the rabble. In other words, we can see the mountaintop, but we feel frustrated because our legs and arms are missing when we need them most.

God can only calculate how many success wannabes want someone to give them a secret, instant-success formula. The gurus often have the well-meaning intention to fill that gap and catapult their fans to great achievement, but that is seldom possible and very seldom happens.

Why is that? It is because you must plant seeds before the flower will blossom or the crop can be harvested. Years of bad habits (programming) cannot be overcome with a magic wand or the charismatic machinations of a guru.

You must be determined to re-think and re-program your brain in a manner which turbo-charges your success. Your success is not in the system others preach, but in controlling your thoughts and subsequent actions.

Once your mind is fully intact and fully engaged, nifty ideas of successful people you know can bring to you unimaginable wealth. Until that point, you will only mentally masturbate with the stars in your given field rather than be a star yourself.

Below is an interview between three stars who can help you once you learn to help yourself:

The Lottery Mentality is pervasive in Internet Marketing. Flashing big paychecks and penning catchy headlines can still - in the modern age - separate a fool from his/her money.

No, it’s one damn sale and then another.  For most people online, lots of money – called investment in the future – flows out to buy this program, that software, or the ultimate coaching program that could and should put you over the top.  But it isn’t and doesn’t.

My daughter once bought me a shirt saying, “No money, no honey.”  Such stark truths make us desperate for money.

So when your sitting in front of the PC, pounding out your specifics to buy the newest and best program that will absolutely make you Bill Gate’s neighbor in a New-York minute, if an email comes across your desktop saying

“Congrats – You Made Another Sale”…

The temptation to open such bogus mail is often too much, even though you may be sure it is a come on or an outright scam.  The lottery mentality is easy bait to fish with when your prospect has had little to no success in online marketing and the bills are mounting.  We want to make sales or have Godly intervention!

Most of us are smart enough to smell a pedigree Nigerian scam:

“Hello, respected sir/madam.  This message may come to you as a great surprise.  My late brother-in-law, Abdulah Ben Goldfarb, recently died in disgrace in an underground cavern and left behind a small fortune of gold bullion used by the decrepit government of Sierra Leone to finance a drug ring.  Fortunately, he smuggled a map to me pinpointing the location of this stolen property of the people of my beloved country.  But I need your help to make things right…”

About 12 years ago, I got scammed on a lottery win that I couldn’t remember entering.  But I was so hungry to have instant riches, that I deluded myself to believing I had entered that phantom contest.  I was humiliated and embarrassed when I shared this story of imminent wealth with a few people.  They laughed at me and mocked me for my gullibility.  That memory doesn’t sit well with me.

When I received an email from a highly respected marketer, let’s call him B.E., with a subject title, “Congrats – You Made A Sale!” – I could feel my blood boiling.

From this point forward, please note, I will name names and print the gist of any verminous email like this.

There is abundance in this world sufficient to feed the teeming masses of malnourished, starving human beings.  It is never necessary to  scam anyone to get money or booty undeserved.  Those people resorting to  such lowest-common-denominator deception should be tarred and feathered.  I’ll do my best to smoke these vultures out.

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“Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another person.” ~Tennessee Williams~

There is no telling what other people have in store for you, especially when you haven’t anything in store for yourself. You may get the Fillet Mignon of life or a can of vermin instead. Whichever one is handed to you, you own it because you chose to be led rather than choosing to lead.

Many people live as victims’ of circumstance. Reactive rather than proactive, they cling to the notion of inevitability, fate, and the evilness or unfairness of the world out there.

Most of us – at some time in our life or throughout it – have thrown up our hands in surrender and screamed bloody murder at a forsaking God,

“Why me? I’m good. I’m kind. I mean well. I work myself to the bone to move up the ladder. Why, Lord, am I in limbo, despite my valiant efforts and an ocean of good intentions?”

There are people in this world who do seem to learn from their mistakes and grow. Instead of taking the “poor me” attitude which can lead to drowning in a flood of bitter tears, they wipe their eyes and redouble their efforts. They resolve to be the the leader rather than the victim, from this moment forward.

Such an individual is billionaire entrepreneur, Bill Bartmann. Like many very successful people, he hit rock bottom and thought the end of the world was at hand. But then he shook off his wounded ego and miserable financial struggles and proceeded to the top of the economic and spiritual mountain – a summit where he has perched from for over 20 years.

The time for bitching and moaning has passed. It is time to grab back the reigns of your life and soar or soar once again. No excuses allowed at this altitude, OK? Get intrigued with possibility thinking (again). But don’t just pray for divine intervention, start rowing for shore.

Your Holy Grail does exist, as surely as you do.