21 Tough, No B.S. Questions for Entrepreneurs

  1. Name five "success models" you are currently studying in detail: reading biographies about them, their autobiographies, magazine articles, visiting their businesses, corresponding with them, etc. (for 'modeling' purposes)
  2. Evaluate your current behavior: how you advertise, market, promote, price; your goals and objectives, etc. based on each thing's representation of the idea of "finite" or "infinite". (See: Page 3)
  3. Name at least 5 people you associate with, hang out with, brainstorm with, frequently conduct business with, who challenge you to be and do better, who exhibit success characteristics you respect, and who encourage and motivate you.
  4. Name anyone you associate with who is the opposite kind of influence: and cite your intentions to reduce the contact you have with them.
  5. Make a list of things interfering with your maximum success, that you have NOT been fully accepting responsibility for, blaming others for, making excuses for. Develop separate ACTION PLANS for each of these things, to take and exert control. (See: Page 20)
  6. Make a list of 10 "industry norms" you and everyone else in your field conforms to, and feels compelled to conform to. Create a separate page for each, and begin jotting down - without critical analysis - every way imaginable to violate these norms, to turn them upside down. (See: www.renegademillionaire.com)
  7. Invest some creative thinking time in: "if 'x' happened, what would we do?"(See; Page 44-45)
  8. Evaluate how you 'test' new ideas, improvements in products or services, ads, sales letters, etc. (See: Chapter 3)
  9. What do you know about your competition you didn't know a month ago?
  10. Have you "mystery shopped" your competitors? Your own business? Lately?
  11. Have you delayed raising prices out of fear? (Pages 71-75)
  12. Do you have Price Strategies? What are they? Can you enunciate how you decide on price? How you decide when to raise prices? Creative strategies you use to boost transaction size?
  13. Who do you think you are? How do your customers think of you, define you? Have you asked them?
  14. Is your business engineered to meet and support your personal and lifestyle goals? Are you its master or its slave? (See: www.renegademillionaire.com)
  15. Are you more of a "doer" than "marketer" of your thing or more of a "marketer" than "doer"? Be sure: assess how much of your time gets invested in each.
  16. Are you a 'small business owner' or an 'entrepreneur'?
  17. Do you know and use your two most important numbers? (See: Page 114)
  18. Do you have a compelling, unique sales proposition? It answers this key question: Why should I, your prospect/client, choose to do business with you vs. any and every other option available to me? (To work on this, get my book The Ultimate Marketing Plan)
  19. Are your employees sabotaging your marketing? (See: Page 158)*
  20. Do you have a true SYSTEM, a set of set procedures for managing and protecting your time? (Read: NO B.S. TIME MANAGEMENT FOR ENTREPRENEURS)
  21. Are you married to your goals or married to your business, as-is? (See: Page 216)