Business owners often wear a secret medal called the ‘Stiff Upper Lip Medal’. It is awarded to those who take all of the negative things any business has to face and keep them inside, worried that if they tell someone about them, that they have had a tough week or that their business is financially tough, the person will think less of them. I have found it to be quite the opposite.

In my first book on marketing one of my recommendations was to start a marketing ideas box. The aim of this was to collect samples of good marketing that had caught my eye. It contained copies of brochures, advertisements from newspapers, promotional giveaways or anything that I felt was good marketing. The aim was to give me inspiration for when I was planning my own marketing.

There is nothing in the rule book that says to be successful at what you do you need to work yourself to death. Unfortunately, many business owners are so busy working that they are stopping themselves from being successful. If you work too much you wear yourself out. You can’t think clearly, you make bad decisions, you stop having fun, people close to you start to keep away, you start aging quickly...

Many enormously successful entrepreneurs have got to where they are with just one initial opportunity. This is the one that made them and started their career. Interestingly, these opportunities were generally created by the foresight of the aspiring entrepreneur and their ability to put a proposal forward, regardless of who the person receiving it was.

It’s hard to build a winning business if you are not in control and many business owners will understand exactly what I mean by this statement. If your business is running you it’s time to make some changes. Many of the tips covered in this book address aspects of this concept but you need to make a very conscious decision that you are taking control of your business and it will be run on your...

Way, way back at the beginning of this book I wrote about the role that passion plays in building a winning business—and I sincerely believe it is the main ingredient. But while it is essential to be passionate about what you are doing it is also wise to learn the art of detachment. In real estate we are always told, ‘buy with your head not with your heart’.

Checklists can take many shapes and forms—you might like to make up a template on your computer or you might prefer using an exercise book so you can keep track of past lists. Finding your own technique is important.