Women can do business with as much success as men can. In fact, in many cases, women are better suited for certain ventures than men are. For example, all businesses that involve much direct contact with partners, clients, and even employees can be fit for women, since they typically tend to be more receptive and patient than men are. Still, not every woman can be a successful business woman – it takes hard work and certain innate qualities.

Finding Your Area
To be a successful business woman you should first find the area or niche that best suits your skills. This is often harder than it sounds, and it may even take a few years. Knowing yourself, as well as being realistic about your skills, is crucial – self-reflection as well as trial and error will be needed. A successful business woman is usually active in an area or niche that she is passionate about, that is to her more than a mere job.

Acquiring the Experience
All successful entrepreneurs have gained at least some experience before they venture into their own business. Most have acquired this experience by working directly in that area, whether they held senior positions or were simple employees. Before you can be a successful business woman you should have worked in a specific area enough to understand how it works. Some business women start ventures that are unlike anything they did before, but these women are generally few.

Working Hard
To be a successful business woman you must work hard. Luckily, most ambitious women are hard workers, so this requirement is no that daunting. It’s important though that your efforts are invested in the right area, otherwise success will come so slow that it won’t be worth all the sacrifices you have made. Here employees come into place – to be a successful business woman you need to hire the right people, and you need to do it from the start.

Getting Along With Employees
A successful business woman has to be respected by her employees if the business is to work. Hiring the right people is important here. Many issues between employers and employees arise not out of malice or ill will, but simply because the people in question have different personalities and simply cannot get along. Such problems can be avoided if you hire people that you feel you can trust, and especially those who are recommended to you.

Your attitude that you show up with each day has a lasting impact on your behavior that affects your outcomes. A person’s attitude is an expression of their mindset at any time and in any given situation. Your attitude represents a feeling that can be changed instantly or maintained for a lifetime.

Why is this important?

It is important to understand the attitudes of the most successful business owners so you can emulate them and move your business forward.

Let’s begin.

1) Success Business owners are passionate about the success/value they can create. Unsuccessful ones are more passionate about watching people on TV live out their dreams in sports, movies shows etc. than actually going out and creating the life they want.

Action Steps:

Consider any major success story – what did they have in common?

· Passion for the value they could create.

· Ask yourself am I really passionate about my project?

· Is this passion sufficient to take me through all the ups and downs that I can expect in growing and scaling my business?

· If the passion is really not there – stop and rethink your next move carefully.

· As the old expression goes – “Don’t climb your business ladder to only learn it is leaning against the wrong wall“.

2) Successful owners maintain a positive mental attitude as a steady state condition. Unsuccessful ones have a mental state that changes and varies with outside circumstances.

Why is this important?

Many times in life you rise and fall to your level of expectations.

If you start with a Negative Mental Attitude you are likely to not fully apply yourself and get results consistent with your expectations.

Life is too short to be grumpy and you will attract other people who are also grumpy and will pull you down.

A positive mental attitude is not sufficient but it is a requirement to succeed.

Action Steps:

· Change your attitude right now by focusing all your thinking on what you are grateful for.

· You cannot maintain two completely different thoughts in your mind at the same time.

3) Successful owners are hyper consciousness about what they are thinking and their attitude at any given point in time. When they feel their attitude turning towards the worse they take massive evasive action to change their attitude since they know their attitude determines their altitude in life. Unsuccessful Business owners allow their emotions derived from their environment to run unchecked. They pay little attention to what they are thinking about and emotionally move with the current. Unsuccessful Business owners are not in control of their mental state.

Action Step:

· Take time at multiple points during the day and ask yourself: “What are my thoughts and feelings on ________ (the most pressing issue for you right now).

· Journal those thoughts and then analyze why you think the way you do.

4) Successful Business owners understand the importance of understanding the root of fear so they can eliminate it before it impacts their attitude. Successful Business owners have an abundance-oriented attitude and believe there is more than enough for everyone. Unsuccessful ones never get to the root of their fears and correspondingly their attitude is impacted. Unsuccessful Business owners have a scarcity-oriented attitude and believe that the pie is only so big – for them to prosper someone must suffer.

Action Steps:

· Write down a list of what you are fearful of.

· Separate the fears into two columns.

· Those that are rational with real consequences and those that are not rational without real consequences.

· For example jumping out of a perfectly good airplane to sky dive is a rational fear – you could die.

· Speaking to a group of 1000 industry peers at a conference is an irrational fear.

5) Successful Business owners have a can do attitude and focus on what they want irrespective of the odds. Unsuccessful ones allow the statistics of others to shape what they believe is possible and often settle in life.

Action Steps:

· Write down very clearly what you want and why you want it.

· Now go deeper and ask the question why again – you will soon discover your internal core motivation and it is this motivation that you need to harness to drive you through to achieve what you want.

· Pay no attention to the Nay Sayers and those that tell you why the odds are against you – they have already given up on their dreams and consider themselves to be “practical”.

6) Successful Business owners maintain an attitude of true collaboration and cooperation with others because the notion of competition while important is not the primary focus. Successful Business owners preoccupy their mind with offering incredible service as a way to differentiate themselves and be selected by the market. Unsuccessful Business owners believe that competition is the primary focus and their attitude is they must beat their competitors into the ground. Unsuccessful Business owners preoccupy their mind with how they can hurt the competition and by accident win new customers.

Action Step:

· Develop the ideal customer journey path for your client.

· Vividly imagine how a district and delightful experience can be crafted to meet your customer where they are to help them get to where they want to go.

· Focus 100% on the customer problem and anticipating their needs because you understand them so well.

7) Successful Business owners maintain a balanced attitude and seldom allow events in life to be taken personally. They look at life’s events objectively and are careful with the labels they use. Unsuccessful Business owners love to assign labels to everything and often get very excited because they take everything personally.

Action Step:

· Exercise your intellectual asset of Perception – whenever you examine a new idea – turn it over in your mind to see things from all perspectives.

· Be very careful before you assign a label to something as being “good” or as being “bad” because these choices impact your thinking downstream.

· For example if you lose a key customer and associated this as a “Terrible Loss” you cut your mind off from understating why they left and what can be done to improve the customer experience to:

· retain the rest of your clients and

· To innovate your service to attract more clients.

8) Successful owners maintain an attitude rooted in humility. Their inner self does not need this validation. Unsuccessful owners win so seldom that they want the whole world to acknowledge how great they are when it happens. Their sensitive inner self needs this validation

Action Steps:

· Objectively look at how you respond to wins and loses relative to your interactions with others

· Do you boast about your wins or are a quietly confident individual?

· Consider asking those that are very close to you this question and see what they say.

9) Successful Business owners maintain an attitude that is open to being wrong. Unsuccessful Business owners believe they are seldom wrong because they are so smart and accomplished

Action Steps:

· Make a list of mistakes you have made or were wrong about your business.

· Take a look at your financial statements and ask yourself this question again. If you struggle to see your weakness you will never address it or compensate for it through smart hires.

In this article I show you the 5 best kept secrets to set up a successful business. Keep them in mind, absorb them and you will see the success will come after you!

Many roads lead to Rome. Let’s make that clear at first. There is no book or person who can tell you: If you do it this way, you will always succeed. It’s hard to tell, why some people do and why some people do not get success. When I started doing business, the success stayed away for a long time. I was desperate at times. Why am I not successful? I kept wondering. I work so hard, my product is good and I am not an uncomfortable person to do business with. Jealous I looked at the people who were successful and tried to find the reason. Why them and not me? This way of thinking, I continued for two years. Until I realized that this way of thinking will not bring me any step further. I started to look more at myself and stopped trying to search for the reason of success of others. I adjudged them their success and focussed on myself. This brings me to the first secret to set up a successful business.

* Think and stay positive

Especially when you occur setbacks, put yourself over it and move on. Be positive about yourself, to others and adjudge everyone their success. Negative thoughts should immediately be removed. Focus on your own success and stay to it!

Well, that’s easy. Think positive and now what?

This brings me two secret number 2.

* Enjoy doing business

Make sure that there is time for making fun. It makes no sense keep on swimming against the tide very hard. Turn around and see what it will bring you. Trust, that it is okay, to let go sometimes, think positive and see what happens. It will really surprise you. Do not feel guilty if you do have that extra cup of coffee while enjoying the sun. Enjoy the fact that you are an entrepreneur and you can determine your own time schedule.

Enjoying your work, is not so hard to do, is it? What is next?

* Live healthy

As an entrepreneur you have to work hard for your success. That’s okay, but you should be capable to do that. I sleep six to seven hours a night. I do not need more hours. The reason for this, is because I’m fit. I eat healthy, sport a lot and have relatively little stress. It is okay to sleep less hours when I am thinking of great new ideas while I am laying in my bed. Those lack of sleeping hours belong to my way of living. The next day I will be fully focused again and I am never sick.

it all seems so obvious isn’t it? Well let’s continue.

Maybe one of the most important secrets is the next one.

* Accept the success and amaze others

Gradually I got the success that I worked so hard for, but somehow I dared not to accept it. I thought it was strange that I had success and found it a little bit scary. People suddenly want something from you, will I not disappoint them? Do I really want this? Yes!! This is what you have strived for, otherwise you would not have never started it. Just accept it, enjoy it, take your responsibility and overwhelm other people in all their expectations. In fact, amaze them with your product or service. Always give that little extra, which they don’t expect. Even though you may not get back. Especially in these times of crisis, this is the way to distinguish yourself from the rest. People are going to talk about you and this will lead to the desired snowball effect.

Ho, stop what is going on here? People take it easy! This could be a summary of your thoughts, which includes the last secret.

* Be true to yourself, respect where you came from and respect others who are still there

You get busier and busier. And you notice that more and more people want something from you. Now you need to keep in mind where you came from. In the beginning, you were disappointed too when people didn’t answer your emails. You had to call people yourself, to persuade them to do business with you. Respect others who are now at that stage. So treat them like you wanted to be treated back in the days. Answer all emails, never be arrogant or set yourself above other people. Do not think you are better than anyone else. Make sure you still be the nice person to do business with. No matter, who the other person is. So, do not make the same mistake as many others do. They became cocky simultaneously with the success. It will work against you and even the cocky people will notice that once. Although they might be too proud to admit it.

With these 5 secrets in mind I am convinced that at least you will be on the right track to success and mostly stay on that track.

I wish you all the best!

Tjalling