The key to business success is really quite simple. It is your ability to offer a product or service that people will pay for at a price sufficiently above your costs to produce. Ideally you need to price your product or service at three to five times your cost, thereby giving you a profit that enables you to buy and offer more products and services.

Before you can sell a product or service for a profit you must find one. You must find a product or service that fills a need or solves a problem for people. It must be product or service that provides a result for people that makes their life better in some way.

You may have a million-dollar idea in your own mind. Many people have had the experience of having an idea for a product or service nag at them over and over again and simply push it away or ignore it.

People come up with new ideas constantly which they never act on. This is a tragedy because any one of these ideas could make that person a millionaire, if they would just follow it up, which is why its so important to look into your own mind and ideas for new products and services.

Another strategy for finding a product or service is to always keep your eyes open for opportunities. Often times just by finding a new product or service that is doing well in some other part of the country or the world that hasnt come to your market area can make you wealthy.

Very often all you need to do is just ask the owner of the product or service if you could have the right to sell it in another market and for a flat fee or a residual on sales they will give you a license to sell their product or serving in another market.

If you do purchase the rights to sell an existing product or service, its important to remember that before you bring a new product or service back to your market area, be absolutely sure that it is selling well somewhere else. Many people advertise products outside their market area, so make sure that the product is selling well already in other markets.

Once you have come up with a product or service you have to a add value to it by bringing the product or service from another place to where youre selling it, or by creating the product or service and selling at a price higher than your total cost of production. Your business becomes profitable by either selling a few products or services at high prices, or by selling many products or services at lower prices with smaller profits.

The best business strategy is, of course, to sell a larger volume with a smaller profit on each item. The most successful and profitable businesses sell large quantities of their products over a wide area, thereby broadening the market and reducing their dependency on just a few customers.

One of the main reasons so many people fail in business is they have grandiose ideas of being the first into the market with a brand new, untried, or unproven product. Dont make this mistake!

All successful entrepreneurs have spent thousands of hours building a knowledge base one piece at a time. They are experts in their field, with a high level of knowledge that makes them very valuable in the marketplace.

Successful business people in any field are those who have far more experience in that field than the average person. There is nothing that replaces experience, whether its in entrepreneurship, management or selling. Many people do not take the risks that are necessary to move out of their comfort zone because they are afraid it wont work.

That is why you must learn the skills you need to be successful before you start your own business. Business success in not a matter of luck, its a matter of application. Its a matter of ability. Its a matter of experience, skill and intelligence. You can start learning through on-the-job training. Most successful entrepreneurs became successful because they got all their training by working for someone else.

As you gain the experience, skills, and knowledge, you will start to magnetize your mind with visual images of wealth and success, and you will begin to see profitable ideas everywhere in your life. You will also start to attract into you life the people and opportunities you need to achieve your goals. The key is to develop and then trust your intuition, your gut feeling concerning any business decision.

You must prepare yourself for business success by reading every business publication and exploring every opportunity. Remain open to all ideas, but in the final analysis you have to trust yourself. Trust your inner voice to tell you the right thing to do. All successful entrepreneurs have achieved their success by listening to their inner guide.

Your intuition will never fail to lead you to your highest good, but you never succeed it you refuse to listen to it.

Copyright2006 by Joe Love and JLM & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.

Joe Love

Joe Love draws on his 25 years of experience helping both individuals and companies build their businesses, increase profits, and achieve total success. A former ad agency executive and marketing consultant, Joe?s work in personal development focuses on helping his clients identify hidden marketable assets that create windfall opportunities and profits, as well as sound personal happiness and peace.

For Joe, success in life is the comprehensive product of greater wealth and income, better personal relationships, and productive attitudes and environments. He is the founder and CEO of JLM & Associates, a consulting and training organization, specializing in personal and business development. Through his seminars and lectures, Joe Love addresses thousands of men and women each year, including the executives and staffs of many businesses around the world on the subjects of leadership, achievement, goals, strategic business planning, and marketing.

Joe is the author of three books, Starting Your Own Business, Finding Your Purpose In Life, and The Guerrilla Marketing Workbook.