4. Create a mailing list that tells people when you've written a new article or articles.

Your list can help you to get your articles published on a regular basis by ezine publishers and webmasters who enjoy your writing.

Your list can also help you to keep your affiliates up to date on new articles they can use to earn commissions and help you to successfully get more people to join your affiliate program.

5. Use your articles to create a free ebook.

You could create an ebook compilation of your articles and use it as a bonus for joining your ezine or purchasing your product.

You could also offer your ebook as a freebie to get more people to visit your site.

To increase profit you get from your ebook you could let people rebrand your ebook with a link to their website, business or affiliate program.

If you run an affiliate program, you could also let your affiliates rebrand your ebook with their affiliate URLs and use your ebook to earn more commissions.

6. Use your articles to create an ebook you can sell.

If you've written lots of articles you could put together a best of compilation of your articles and sell it to your visitors.

To increase your sales you could give people resell rights to your ebook along with their purchases.

This will increase your ebook's perceived value because you'll be giving your customers a way to make money with your ebook.

Just because boss of a successful firm like yours drives a brand-new Bentley it doesn't mean you should rush out and buy one too. That won't guarantee success.

You're looking to find things that she did in order to afford Bentley in first place.

So find out as much about their processes and systems as you can and then look for evidence to support applying similar things that work for them to your business.

Subscribe to their mailing list. Visit their premises. Talk to their staff. Talk to their customers. Read their ads (or notice that they don't advertise). Network with them.

You can learn just as much from non-competing businesses too. So why not set up a support / learning group or see if a successful entrepreneur would be able to mentor you.

#3. Have A BIG Goal

Big goals, by definition, should be easier to hit than small goals. So don't think small - think big.

After nearly 8 years in business I still like to set regular, big, 90 day goals. I call these goals SHAGs - Short Hairy Audacious Goals.

Too many businesses focus on surviving. They think in terms of what they don't want. They miss opportunity to really succeed and then get what they were desperately trying to avoid - failure!

Focusing on what you don't want really doesn't work. If you don't want to fail you should focus on succeeding in a big way.

#4. Improve Constantly

Have goals and set targets. Know what outcomes you want and quantify them where possible.

Then work towards your goals using following cycle...

1. Implement (Do Something) 2. Measure (Test & Review) 3. Improve (Learn & Adjust)

As my friend and firewalk trainer Sanjay Shah says, if you simply improve by 1 percent a day, you'll have improved 300 percent (allowing for holidays) in a year!

#5. Don't Follow The Crowd

Look, we both know most businesses fail so don't do what most other businesses do or you'll get same results.

Don't just advertise because every other business seems to advertise. Make sure advertising will make you money.

Don't just do telesales because that happens to be service your local Chamber of Commerce is selling.

Don't measure turnover when profit and cashflow is usually more important.

Don't take on staff just because other businesses believe more people equals growth. More people often just means less profit!

Don't do same thing, in same way, to same people as every other business like yours.

Do something different!