Within a year one of them is raking in money hand over fist and other one has filed for bankruptcy. What happened here? How could two people with same qualifications and an even start wind up in such different circumstances? It can usually be summed up in one word:

Personality!

So, what is personality and can it be defined? Personally, I think there are three traits of character that define a persons personality.

They are:

#1. How a person percieves himself. This can also be listed as ego. Are you all wrapped up in yourself to point of ignoring others, or do you put wellfare of others first?

#2. Your outlook on life in general. Are you always complaining because nothing is going your way, or do you see a setback as a challenge and say, "Here is a chance for me to make improvements!"

#3. How you percieve others. Do you see other people around you as someone you can use to get what you want, or do you see them as fellow travelers, who, while working together, can accomplish more than each individual working seperately?

1) Practice maniacal focus! Who is your customer, how do you reach them with your advertising, partners, channels and/or OEMs? If you can't readily identify these benchmarks, then you may need to take a hard look at look at your business structure, personnel, costs of good/services, etc. and rework your model.

2)Outsource and build virtuosity into your company. We tell clients to minimize fixed costs like feudal barons of old – they kept a core group of fighters to man garrison walls and hired (outsourced!) conscripts when baron from next door came calling at castle gates with a legion of longbows behind him to exact tribute. Marketing, finance, HR, IT infrastructure, even product development or manufacturing can be easily outsourced to specialists who have levels of proficiency that you might not be able to afford if you tried to hire them full time.

3)Flex and tier your pricing creatively to minimize barriers to entry. If chaos is order of day (and we think it is) then make sure your pricing is tiered or structured so your clients can afford to try out your products and services – and be flexible in your negotiations and look for creative ways to bring new customers aboard.

4)Make your suppliers real business partners! Fed Ex and UPS are setting up shop in their customer's shipping docks to save valuable time and money and become active business partners. You may not have clout of a Fortune 1K company/behemoth to leverage Fed Ex but you can ask your suppliers to extend terms, work with you on just in time delivery schedules or get creative with pricing, joint promotions, etc.