“The quality of self-denial in the pursuit of a longer-term goal, and indeed, the willpower to maintain that level of self-denial, is excellent training for the boardroom.

The achievement of business success demands high levels of discipline from you in every area of business activity, both large or small.

There is no area of activity that demands more self-discipline than starting and operating a successful business in our current economy.

there is never enough of anything for everyone who wants it. Specifically, there are never enough customers for you to sell everything you want to sell.

there are never enough good people to work with and for you to help you achieve your business goals.

. It requires tremendous focus and discipline to do the things necessary to attract the scarce money of customers toward purchasing your product or service.

You must be completely honest with your product/ service mix to ensure that it is well suited to the current market.

This is an area where false assumptions or incorrect conclusions can lead to business failure.

I have to gently point out to them that the only proof that their product or service is truly attractive or valuable is that people buy it willingly—and then buy it again and tell their friends to buy it as well.

It is not unusual for an entrepreneur to be wrong 90 percent of the time in the beginning of his career.

It requires tremendous self-discipline and character to face the possibility that you could be wrong in your most cherished assumptions and beliefs.

You must believe in the future possibilities of your
business along with your new products and services.

Overconfidence in business can lead
to business mistakes, financial losses, and even bankruptcy

Because of the aggressive and determined nature of your competition, in order to simply survive, you must discipline yourself to be equal to or better than your competitors.

your competitors get out of bed every morning thinking about how they can put you out of business.

To increase your probabilities of success against such competition, you must make every effort to out-think them.

When you start a business or a new venture within a business, you require the discipline to do your homework thoroughly, in advance.

You create a complete business plan before you start operations, and you continue to update it and revise it every year thereafter

A major reason for business failure is that business owners or executives rely on assumptions that are not tested.

They assume that the product or service is excellent in comparison with others.

They further assume that those profits will be substantial enough to make this investment of time and money more attractive than any other use of the same amount of time or funds.

The very fact that a person has the courage and resourcefulness to start a new business means that he or she has above-average levels of natural talent.

They lack the discipline to carefully study
every aspect of the business before committing to it.

You need discipline to identify and determine your ideal customer: the exact person who can and will buy your product or service in sufficient quantities and at the price you need to charge in order to justify going into this area of business in the first place

You need the discipline to develop a complete sales system, from beginning to end, that converts qualified leads into solid customers.

You need the discipline to determine accurate costs and the properpricing of your products and services.

It’s amazing how many businesses are selling products and services at a loss because they have never accurately totaled all the costs of bringing that product or service to market in the first place.

You need the discipline to develop a customer service policy, one in which you treat your customers so well that they become loyal to you and choose you over any of your competitors.

Profits are not the purpose of a business. Profits are the result of creating and keeping a sufficient number of customers who yield a sufficient number of profits after all costs.

Every effort and activity of your business must be aimed at satisfying customers in a manner that is better than any other competitor.

It is only when customers buy from you again that you demonstrate that you have fulfilled the promise you made to them when you got them to purchase the first time.

All successful businesses rely on repeat business, which is possible only with high levels of customer satisfaction. This is a real discipline.

You can survive and thrive only when the majority of your customers are so happy with your products and services that they will encourage their friends and associates to buy from you as well.

You require tremendous focus and discipline to develop and maintain customer service policies that cause people to buy from you, then buy again, and then recommend you to their friends.