Today I want to tell you a true story about a dear friend of mine that I can honestly say made it on his own. He started life out rough, but through countless months of hard work, he became a very successful online businessman.

For his own privacy he asked me to not use his real name or disclose his identity in the article, which I will respect. For the sake of this story I’ll refer to him as John.

A bit of background

John was brought up in a lower middle class family. His family was definitely not wealthy, but they had a roof over their heads and food on the table for every meal. John was an only child to two people that were not quite fit to be parents. Like I said before, they put a roof over his head and fed him, but other than that they had no real connections with John. If they ever went anywhere he was left at home, they would not support him in any of his activities, nothing. Other than the food and housing, John supported himself with part time jobs since he was 12 years old. John eventually became very depressed because of the rejection he felt from his parents. By the time he got out of high school, John knew that he would no longer be able to live at home or he would end up killing himself because of how miserable he was. John moved out into a 1 bedroom apartment on his own after he graduated. He was barely able to pay for food and rent with his job at a nearby market. After about 3 months out on his own, John lost his job. The market he worked at closed down and left him jobless. After weeks of searching for a new job unsuccessfully, John decided he may have to move back home. He went to his house to talk to his parents about this, but shockingly they no longer lived there. He had not kept in contact with his parents while he was on his own for obvious reasons, so he had no idea that they moved away. John was now 3 days away from being homeless, and 3 days later he was.

Being homeless sets in

John was literally homeless now. He lived out on the streets just like you would imagine. The thing about John is that he had never been lazy by any means, he was a very hard worker. He spent his days looking for work. Within a week he had found some opportunities that looked promising, but he didn’t have any reliable mode of transportation and this was not attractive to employers. After about a week and a half of not finding work, John had nearly given up. He literally didn’t have a penny to his name. With such depression and discouragement setting in, John found himself in the local library looking for self-help books because this was the only thing he had access to without paying for it. Since John wasn’t much of a reader the book thing really didn’t work out for him, but the library offered something else that was of interest to John, free internet. Free internet access was great to him, he could keep himself entertained and get his mind off of all the problems he was having in his life.

Finally some hope

After a couple days of hanging out at the library, John stumbled upon an advertisement stating “Click here to make money.” Normally he wouldn’t have been at all interested in something like this, but at the current state of his life, he certainly was interested. Now this ad he clicked really wasn’t any good for him, it was just one of the millions of get rich quick schemes which he figured out after about 2 minutes. But the idea of making money on the computer really got his brain thinking. John hadn’t ever been very computer savvy, but he really was interested in the idea of making money while sitting in front of the computer screen and had all the time in the world to learn how to do so. So he began researching on the internet how people are making money off of their websites. Luckily for John, he was a quick learner. Within a couple of days he had started his own website using a combination of free utilities he read about while researching beginner methods of making money on the web. Although still homeless, things were really starting to brighten up for John. He had something on his mind all day to replace a lot of the thoughts he had about being homeless. For the next couple of weeks John would spend most of his day at the library learning everything he could.

John finally landed a part time job at a restaurant washing dishes and clearing tables. He was able to make enough money to finally get a place to live, but this did not stop him from pursuing his online ventures. Being the hard worker that he was, John would work his day job and go to the library immediately after work to continue his online work. He had to do this for several months until he had saved up enough money to buy a computer of his own. Once John had enough money to buy his own computer, he really began to get things going for himself. His day job was now full time, and he spent at least 8 hours a day working on his online business. This meant very little sleep and very little fun for John. He really didn’t mind though, the online venture he had kept him very excited and eager to learn.

Success feels so good

After a year of working non-stop, John was finally making enough money with his online business to quit his day job and concentrate solely on the internet work. This was the greatest accomplishment John ever had. He worked his way from off of the streets to being completely self supported by an online business. At this time he wasn’t rich by any means, but he made enough money to pay his bills and have a little bit of fun. He always tells me that feeling is much greater than anything he has ever felt.

Today John is extremely successful at the age of 26. He owns hundreds of websites and even bought the restaurant he worked for after being homeless. Making over a thousand dollars in a day is nothing uncommon for John’s online business. Although John could literally sit back and not work ever again, he chooses not to. The struggle he went through instilled a sense of hard work and drive in him that he’ll never lose.

First, recognize that motivation is an inside job. The word motivate means to impel, inspire, hope, stimulate, incite, propel, spur, goad, move, induce, prompt, instigate, fire, provoke, actuate, cause, egg on, drive, excite, and to trigger. Don’t wait for someone to motivate you, here are 17 ways you can motivate yourself.

1. Set daily, weekly, monthly, yearly and lifetime goals. A goal is a goal if it’s writing. Goals get you going in the direction that’s right for you.

2. Listen to a motivational tape. Record into a tape recorder your favorite quotes, anecdotes and personal success stories. Play back your tape frequently. Nothing is more motivating than the sound of your own voice. Try it!

3. Get motivated to make better telephone calls by buying Art Sobczak’s new book, “How To Sell More In Less Time With No Rejection.” To order call Art at 402-895-9399 or visit his web site www.businessbyphone.com.

4. To overachieve every quota you are given take this advice. First write yourself a check dated for 12/31/04 payable to yourself and write how much you want to earn on the amount line. Make three laminated copies and put one in your briefcase, auto console, and home office. Second, always aim higher than the quota you are given. If you adjust your aim, the results will follow.

5. Buy an inspirational book of quotations and keep it in your car. Read three quotes daily. Remember – inspirational words usually inspire us.

6. Invest 15 minutes daily to read books and articles about the selling profession. This is gourmet food for your brain. Don’t skip a day.

7. Get a mentor, preferably one outside of your company. The truly successful people never go it alone.

8. To jack-up your sales performance, prepare your own laminated cue cards. Create cue cards for making appointments, your 12 best questions, for handling the price objection, and for asking for the order. Each cue card should be prepared word-for-word. Your performances will sky-rocket.

9. Buy a composition notebook for your car. Record your successes, failures, and daily observations about your selling environment.

10. Read the “The Ancient Scrolls” an inspiring book by Tim Connor. To order call 800-222-9070 or e-mail him at Tim@TimConnor.com.

11. To get motivated about improving your personal financial situation, set a personal net worth goal and write it on a spread sheet, then review it monthly. Self worth increases proportionately with net worth.

12. Tell your family if you achieve 110% or more of your annual sales quota – you’ll take them anywhere they want to go on vacation.

13. Tell your family when you reach a new monthly sales record milestone, you’ll take them out to celebrate.

14. Select one song that really gets you moving and play it every morning as you back out of your driveway.

15. Make a dinner date with your spouse tonight then go some place special.

Every day is a great day, especially if you don’t see your name in the obituary section of the paper.

When you’re motivated you can make every day a masterpiece.

Everyone wants to succeed in life. And no one starts a business of any sort, on-line or off-line, wanting to fail.

Yet the sad fact is that 80% of offline and 97% of internet businesses will fail in the first year. 84% of internet businesses will never make any income at all.

So what can you do to ensure your success?

Luckily these four simple (never confuse simple with easy), tried and tested steps dramatically increases your chances.

1. Set Out Your Goals

Success means something different to us all. A self-made businessman worth millions of dollars would be thought successful by most. But if that businessman only rarely sees his family, never gets to play golf and spends all of his time on airplanes or in some exotic sounding (but usually antiseptic) hotel, is that really a success?

Would that businessman think his life a success?

Possibly, possibly not.

But if that man had set himself goals for his business, private and social lives he at least has some way of measuring his achievements.

Before starting on any endeavour – set your goals.

Make sure your goals are specific enough that you know when you have achieved them. “I want to make money on the internet” is weak. “I want to make $100,000 next year and $200,000 the year after” is much stronger.

Don’t forget to include your private and social goals. Many rich people complain that they have all the freedom that money can buy – but money can’t buy the time to enjoy what they have earned.

2. Plan, Plan, Plan

If the number one key to success in retailing is location, location and location, the number one key to success in business is plan, plan, plan.

Remember the 5 Ps success model – Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance. (When I was taught this in the military there was a 6th P – for the sake of a mixed audience I have left this out. Use your imagination – you’ll guess what it was )

If you’ve done your goal setting you know what you are going to achieve. The point of planning is how you are going to do it. Break each goal down into constituent steps needed for its achievement. For each step decide what, who, where and when it is to be done.

Be realistic and make sure that every step is achievable in the time set. Be prepared – when you plan-out all that you need to do, the amount of work can be daunting. Better to know this up-front than sale merrily into a venture only to find it is a huge monster that is going to take you a lifetime to kill.

3. Action Counts

I’ve seen some beautiful plans. Highly researched, well thought out and presented. I’ll talk to a business owner and they’ll say, “We’ve got a plan” and, after searching around for a while, pull it out of the bottom draw of a filing cabinet.

“So, why aren’t you using it”, I’ll ask. Nine times out of 10 the plan was produced to obtain funding. Despite the really good work to produce the plan once finance is received the plan is put to one side and ignored.

Big mistake. Taking action is the only thing that counts. And the plan ensures that your actions deliver your goals.

Every successful business I have looked at has clear, current business, operational and marketing plans. It doesn’t matter whether your business is offline or online – effective plans deliver results.

4. Another 5 ‘P’s to Success

Passion – You have to believe in what you are doing. No where is this more obvious than on the internet. You can spot the ‘me-too’ advertisers in a second. The people who succeed are the ones in have passion, who truly believe in what they are doing. So do something that you love.

Push – No matter how good your plan you have to provide a big push to get it moving. Your plan inevitably involves change. Achieving change takes effort. Think of it as if you were trying to move a boulder. To get that boulder up and moving takes a lot of muscle and effort. Once it is moving though it becomes much easier.

Persistence – Getting started is relatively easy. Afterall, you are all fired up with energy and enthusiasm at that time. Few things worth achieving happen over night. Instead, there will be problems, hold-ups and frustrations. Don’t allow yourself to become disillusioned or demotivated. You need persistence.

Patience – Results don’t happen instantly. Allied to persistence you will need some patience.

Profit – OK, OK it’s trite. But follow the steps here, gear yourself to provide these 5 Ps and you will succeed.

No one can guarantee your success whether in life or in business. You can dramatically increase your chances of success through these four simple, very well established principles.

The question is, “WILL YOU”?