The universe loves speed. The faster you sort through choices, commit to a decision, and take action, the more opportunities will come to you. No one ever knows if the decision is the right one — it’s always just an experiment, just a test — but each decision, each action, each opportunity will take you closer to the BIG ONE, the one brilliant idea that will take you from five figures to six, or from six figures to a million dollar business.

Let me give you an example. Google came out with a new radio advertising program a little while ago. I thought, hum, that’s an interesting idea, I don’t know if radio would work for my business, but this would be an easy way to try. So I paid $300 to a company (found through the Google radio site) to create a 30-second spot to promote my free Special Report, How to Avoid the Top 10 Money Mistakes. I created a soft squeeze page www.top10moneymistakes.com, for the ad, so I could track the results. Then I spent $200 on the ad running in California for a week.

What happened? There were about 150,000 impressions (pairs of ears) who heard my ad …  6 people came to the webpage, and only 1 person signing up for the Special Report and eZine. That’s a conversion rate of .00006%!! How hilarious!

But now I know that radio did not work, probably because a short radio ad does not work for this type of business, unless I spent a ton of $$ running the ad a zillion times. But I never would have known without testing. (and, I’m thinking I may now run a test on internet radio with the same ad, since people may click more if they are already on their computer …)

Example #2: Last November I heard about a company that created and launched viral movies. They had a special, that if I committed ASAP I could sign on for 2006 rates (their current rates are $1500 more!). I took out my credit card and signed up.

Six months later, on June 21st, my movie was launched. In just the first 12 hours or so, 30,000 people viewed the movie, and 1200 people signed up for my Special Report and eZine. Not only is that a good conversion rate (4%), that was an amazing number of people to sign up in one day! I’m so glad I spent that money, and I plan to do more viral projects in the future.

But if I had waited, then I would not have been able to get the lower rate. And, it would have been months (or years) until my movie would have launched.

So if you see opportunity coming your way … jump on it.  Just make sure you also measure your conversion rates and your return on investment.

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My teacher had told me to do something that I did not want to do. I responded, "You are not the boss of me. I am the only boss of me."

Are we surprised that 24 years later I quit a six figure job and promising legal career in a fancy law firm, to open my own business? My nephew Eli is very much the same. At age 5, when he enters a playground he immediately starts organizing the children into a complicated game of his own design (including kids 8 years his senior who have no interest in being bossed around by a kindergardener). On his first day of school, he went around the room introducing himself, and told the prettiest girl in the room that he had saved the seat next to him just for her. He’s going to be either an entrepreneur, a politician, or a evangelist. So perhaps I am especially programmed, given a set of gifts that makes me think like an entrepreneur. If we are being chartiable, call me confident and comfortable with risk. If we are being somewhat uncharitable, call me a know-it-all. But it is more than that. To start a business, not only do you need to be confident in your abilities, and comfortable with the possibility of failure — you must be a smart worker (not just a hard worker), efficient. Able to see the unexpected, put 2 and 2 together to make Q’. The ability to dream, to care, to want to change something and actually have the guts to do something about it. Vision. Entrepreneurship is not just vision, though. Vision is 20% of success — it is the motivation, why we are here, the dream of success and how we will change the world. But that’s only the start — 80% is follow-through. Will you stick it out, through everyone thinking you’re crazy, months of ineffective marketing, piles of paperwork, complaining clients, late hours of wondering if you will ever break even, and then, if you will ever be able to pay yourself a salary? You must also work smart. Instead of just plodding through, working hard, you must be a marketing expert, a business strategy expert. You must find experts to help you reach this vision — read books, blogs, website, e-books, go to seminars and conferences, hire a coach or two. And then finally, you must have brass b*lls. You must have the gumption to ignore the comments and criticism and not them deter you from your choosen path. When I quit my job, the partners at my old firm thought I was crazy. One partner kept trying to convince me that I "had a future" there (but was that a future that I wanted?) and telling me how good my review was going to be in a few weeks. And, he said that he hoped that I would fail so I would come back and work for him (is that supposed to make me want to come back?). Another started asking me, how was I going to get clients, how was I going to do marketing (I would still have to do that as an attorney…). But by the time I quit, I knew exactly what I was going to do. I knew it was my destiny, and had an answer for every question. By that time I had been working on my business during train rides, lunch breaks, and after hours, and already had a plan and was excecuting on that plan. Some people would not be able to handle that criticism. Some people would let someone in authority talk them out of it. That is the difference between an entrepreneur and an employee.

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