TRANSPARENCY. Y Y

“…{You} must recognize that we are living in a different generation than the one in which {your} father had lived, and that it was possible, in building up an industry such as {his}, to maintain a comparative secrecy as to methods of work, etc. and to keep business pretty much to those who were engaged in it.

“Today…it {is} absolutely necessary to take the public into one’s confidence, to give publicity to many things, and especially to stand out for certain principles very broadly.”

Obviously, this advice must have been provided fairly recently to a business leader who hadn’t yet caught on that things are significantly different than they had been. Now, instead of operating in secrecy, even a major, multi-national corporation must be — what’s that word we so often hear — transparent, right?

I mean, this is the 21st Century. With the Internet, search engines, social media, and review sites, there are many ways a company can have it’s reputation ruined and its customers, shareholders, and stakeholders angry at them. Now, corporate leaders must — they simply must — adopt this most recent way of conducting their business.

Junior’s father and his associates at Standard Oil were famous for being extremely secretive about their operations. And, this secrecy — far from helping their cause — resulted in very negative public opinion of their business and set the stage for future legal difficulties and eventual threats of imprisonment. Later in his life, even Senior eventually came around and realized his mistake in this regard.

The point is, while the public now has many more avenues for determining what a company truly stands for, they’ve always had a much higher regard (and, trust!) for those companies that not only show their true colours, but communicate them, as well.

Mega-corporation or small business; solo practitioner or non-profit charity; early 1900’s or 2000’s, the principle itself never changes…only the media that expose it for what it truly is.

Internationally-known speaker, Bob Burg is co-author of The Go-Giver and Endless Referrals. His newest book is Adversaries into Allies. Visit www.Burg.com

BY GARY PITTARD

III was talking with some winners, real estate agency business owners, at one of our Winning Ways seminars. They mentioned hearing some industry speakers who all shared one common theme: “Work hard”.

One of them said something telling: “Work hard? That’s the entry level to success. If you want to be successful at anything, you have to work hard, but you must work hard on the right things”.

The world is full of hardworking plodders who never achieve any real material success in their lives. I am not saying that true success is all about material success, it is not, but let’s face it, life is so much better if you have some material wealth to contribute to your enjoyment of life.

Is anything holding you back?

Some people have a Poverty Consciousness. They cannot bring themselves to believe that they deserve any of life’s little luxuries. This is usually linked to low self-esteem.

Either one on their own is enough to put the brakes on anyone’s journey to greatness, but the two together make it even tougher to succeed.

Such people are most often the ones who never set goals, never formulate plans and, even if they do these things, do so half-heartedly so that when they inevitably fail to reach their ‘goals’ they can say, “See, I tried that but it didn’t work”

Serious About Success

Over the years I have seen many people come and go from the real estate industry. I have seldom seen any who were serious about success over the long term. They allowed something to hold them back, but in many cases it was not the willingness to work hard.

I agree with my friend’s comment about hard work being the entry level to success. There is a saying that says, “Take an incompetent person and get that person to work hard. All you have is a hardworking idiot”. Harsh, I know, but oh so true.

Never let anyone put you down, convince you that you cannot succeed. You CAN succeed, but it takes more than hard work.

Design your own vision of success. Make it a complete picture – not only material wealth, but also the things that truly contribute to a full and happy life.

Now plan that future – to the decade, year, quarter, month, week and day. Set goals, write Affirmations, and now work hard, every day on actions that take you closer to your vision.

Success won’t just happen. And hard work won’t get you there UNTIL you know where ‘there’ is.