Day in, day out; week in, week out, year in, year out… And so it goes with people in business. Some succeed. Some do not. Statistically, 95% of businesses fail in the first 10 years! Can you believe that? It almost makes you not want to even try….ALMOST! I’ve been doing this for a while now and I’m definitely successful at it. I’ve helped many others succeed in business as well. Surely, there are scores of skills required to make the business world go ’round but, based on my experience, I have 3 top “must-have” skills that are necessary to truly succeed in business.

In order to succeed in business, you must be able to:

1. Sell – There a large number of sales that have to be made in business, starting with you, yourself! You certainly cannot succeed by selling yourself short. Do that and you’re done before you start. You need to sell a product, service, and/or an idea to buyers/customers. You’ll need to draw a bridge from your prospect’s pain to your product’s solution. That’s the big one! You may need to negotiate with suppliers – that’s a sale. You may need to sell your vision to employees and investors. Sell, sell, SELL!!! Clearly this is a #1 priority, yet, oftentimes, this is neglected and becomes the beginning of the end.
2. Build – In this case, “build” refers to building a team. In business building, one person can only do so much, only go so far. One needs to learn how to leverage others’ talents and skills so as to reach further, perform faster, and remain competitive. Success can be measured directly in one’s ability to leverage a team’s talents. Build a winning team and you will soar!
3. Teach/Learn – Cross-training is important in small business and large. If I can teach you to sell, for example, my talent is leveraged further. Teach others to leverage systems and procedures to work more efficiently; teach others how to grow personally and enhance their own sense of self. Teaching enables replication, replication enables multiplication, and that’s how business prospers. Learning, of course, is just the other side of teaching. Always keep an open mind to new ideas, tricks, and tactics.

Yes, folks, there’s more to it than that. Then again, without these foundation blocks, there may actually be nothing more – you’ll be part of the 95% mentioned above – doomed to FAIL!!!