FIVE SECRETS TO BECOMING A

SUCCESSFUL ENTREPRENEUR

By Harvey Mackay
 Five Secrets to Becoming
a Successful Entrepreneur
By Harvey Mackay

Published by:
Early to Rise
245 NE 4th Avenue, Suite 201B
Delray Beach, FL 33483
Phone: 800-718-2269 Fax: 561-819-0336
Website: http://www.earlytorise.com/
E-Mail: Visit us on the web at http://www.supportatetr.com/helpdesk/

Jason Holland - Managing Editor | Jessica Kurrle - Associate Publisher | Lauren Bunker - Graphic Designer

Copyright © 2010 by ETR, LLC

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 If you think quitting your day job and starting your own business is easy, think again. Luckily, we
know the secrets to becoming a successful entrepreneur… These are the things they don’t teach
you in business school. Read on to discover how to turn your business into a raging success…

Sometimes turning your dream into reality is one of the toughest jobs of all.

But, I promise you, it’s absolutely worth it.

Renowned business speaker and best-selling author Harvey Mackay has been through it all. He
purchased a tiny, failing envelope company in 1959 and turned it in to a $100 million business with
over 600 employees?

So, how did he do it?

He has a degree from the University of Minnesota and graduated from the Stanford University
Graduate School of Business Executive Program. But, he says he learned the most important les-
sons far outside the classroom.

Luckily, he’s here to share some of the secrets he learned as he turned his business into a success…

Read on to discover the 5 secrets to becoming a successful entrepreneur… and, as an added bonus,
find out the one thing that they actually do teach you at Harvard Business School!

Jason Holland, Managing Editor, Early to Rise

Success Secret #1:

Make Yourself the Happiest Guy (or Gal) in the Place
If you aren’t, you shouldn’t be running it!

But, of course, no one is able to be up every minute of the day.

So, how to you fight the inevitable drag of doing tasks you hate
but that have to be done?

Harvey Mackay likes to play a trick on himself. If he has to do some-

thing he doesn’t like, he makes it a point to be especially nice to
himself later by doing something he really does like. The same day.

“I think about the possibilities all the time I’m plowing through the
monthly reports on loading-dock shrinkage and ninety-day-plus re-
ceivables of more than five thousand dollars from accounts outside
the metro area. Then, four hours and six aspirins later, I’m ready to
give myself a new tennis racquet, dinner out, or whatever mad and
capricious delight strikes my fancy at the moment,” says Mackay.

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 After all, you’re doing a great job. Reward yourself. No one else is going to do it.

Success Secret #2:

If It’s Your Company, Then It’s Your Problem
Some people who go into business for themselves fantasize that they’ve finally been able to escape
from the drudgery of whatever they’ve been doing.

Don’t kid yourself. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.

You’ll be doing more dog work your first few years of running your new business than you ever
did in your previous corporate gig.

There is nothing that you should be unwilling or unable to lay hands on if you have to. Phillip
Pillsbury, of the Pillsbury Pillsburys, wouldn’t have needed to work a day in his life, but he served
as president of the company that bore his name. He accomplished a good deal in his eighty-one
years. Yet one of his proudest accomplishments was losing the tips of three of his fingers. That
marked him as a journeyman grain miller. His hands carried the unmistakable brand of a man
who had been employed grinding flour, and whose fingers had been caught – more than once – in
the giant rollers. Phillip Pillsbury knew what it was like to do a tough, hard, dangerous job. More
important, everyone at Pillsbury knew that he knew it.

Until you get up and running, you’ll do everything. You’ll learn every job you have to hire for and
trace every dollar that goes out. You’d better be the best-informed, best-qualified person in the
place. Otherwise, you should be working for the one who is.

Success Secret #3:

Don’t Confuse Charisma With a Loud Voice
Some of the most effective corporate leaders are corporate
mumblers.

They’re barely audible. People have to strain to hear them. That’s

the idea.

S.I. Newhouse, the media magnate, claimed to have given only

three public speeches in thirty-five years. And he declined to
submit to the essential transaction of his publishing empire: He
wouldn’t be interviewed.

This is just one of dozens of examples. Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple

Computers, makes a splash in the media during Apple product

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 launches, but that’s the only time he appears in public.. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein is
notoriously reclusive… despite running one of the most successful firms on Wall Street. The list
goes on.

Harvey Mackay has an example closer to his home:

We used to have a police chief around here who hardly uttered a sentence without making some
wisecrack about his alleged poverty of intellect. It drove his enemies nuts and helped make him
one of the most popular men in town. He was also one of the smartest and most vain, but he man-
aged to keep it beautifully hidden under his self-effacing speaking style.

What’s the point of all this?

One simple lesson: The bigger they are, the less they have to do to prove it.

Success Secret #4:

The Pat on the Back is Back
Your employees shared your dream. Give them their share of the
rewards.

Give them an incentive to perform with profit sharing and stock-

ownership programs.

Hutchens Over the Road Suspension Systems doubled its profit-

ability with only a 10 percent increase in sales when management
gave employees a stake in the company.

Rubbermaid is known for its superior quality. Line employees

are the key to maintaining that quality. They’re constantly on the
lookout for defects. Do you think it’s a coincidence that Rubber-
maid has had a profit-sharing plan in place since 1944?

It’s a win-win approach to labor relations. The employees benefit; the owners benefit.

Success Secret #5:

Your Employees Usually Have the Answers
When you have a problem, ask your employees for the solution.

“Time after time,” says Jack Shewmaker, former president of Wal-Mart, “I have seen struggling

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 businesses where the solutions to problems were know by employees.” And they were the one
group of people that management didn’t ask for the answers.

It shouldn’t be a surprise, your employees are in the trenches. They experience a company’s prob-
lems first-hand and know every nuance of how the company works. Who better to ask?

Be sparing of building walls between management and labor. It isn’t necessary to make class
distinctions based on the corporate hierarchy. Perks should be awarded for performance achieve-
ments at all levels, not just management.

The more means you have for staying in contact with your people, the more quickly you’ll be on
top of their concerns and your problems.

Bonus!
The One Thing You Do Learn at Harvard
Business School
There you have it, five secrets to becoming a great entrepreneur
that you won’t learn in business school. But, Harvey wanted us
to share one last secret:

Harvey Mackay once attended a seminar on entrepreneurship

taught by a Harvard Business School professor. The professor
told the class the ten things he tries to teach students who want to
be entrepreneurs.

First on the list was “Don’t run out of cash.” The last thing on the
list was “Don’t run out of cash.”

“I’d have to say, whatever the eight were in between, you really
only have to remember that one thing,” says Harvey Mackay.

4 Five Secrets to Becoming a Successful Entrepreneur | www.earlytorise.com

 Published by:
Early to Rise
245 NE 4th Avenue, Suite 201B
Delray Beach, FL 33483
Phone: 800-718-2269 Fax: 561-819-0336
Website: http://www.earlytorise.com/
E-Mail: Visit us on the web at http://www.supportatetr.com/helpdesk/