When you read about successful people, whether it be in business, sport, science, arts or academia, they share three common factors.

Things don’t go well in business by accident. It’s because people that care work in accordance with a straightforward system.

The basic do’s and don’ts of advertising have not changed much whether you are using print or online media.

If you follow these basic rules, you will have a much better response and your advertising will pay for itself.

Whatever your business does, the key to success (and the biggest variable) is the performance of the people that work in the business.

If you are going to get good performance you must have six key things in place:

Most people in business find through personal experience that customers can behave in very different ways. This usually means the following:

1. 20% of your customers provide 80% of your profit (Best Customers).
2. 20% of your customers give you 80% of your “hassle” (Worst Customers).

Local retail businesses face a real difficulty when it comes to competing against larger, online competitors. These giants have three big advantages over you: