Seven Good Habits That Lead to Startup Success From planning ahead to staying focused, mastering these seven habits will put you on the road to success.

There are key habits you must develop if you want to become asuccessful entrepreneur. The absence of any one of these habits canbe costly, if not fatal, to your business. When you becomecompetent and capable in each of these areas, you'll be able toaccomplish extraordinary results, far faster and easier than yourcompetitors. Without further ado, let me introduce the 7 habits ofbusiness success:

1. Plan ahead. The better, more thoroughly and moredetailed you plan your activities in advance, the faster and easierit'll be for you to carry out your plans and get the resultsyou desire once you start to work.

There's a "Six P" acronym that reads, "Properprior planning prevents poor performance." To become a betterplanner, develop the habit of asking and answering the followingquestions:

• What exactly is my product or service?
• Who exactly is my customer?
• Why does my customer buy?
• What does my customer consider value?
• What is it that makes my product or service superior to that ofany of my competitors?
• Why is it that my prospective customer does not buy?
• Why does my prospective customer buy from my competitor?
• What value does he or she perceive in buying from mycompetitor?
• How can I offset that perception and get my competitor'scustomers to buy from me?
• What one thing must my customer be convinced of to buy from me,rather than from someone else?

Once you've asked and answered these questions, the nextstage of planning is to set specific targets for sales andprofitability. You must determine the exact people, money,advertising, marketing, distribution, administration and servicepeople and facilities you'll require in order to achieve yourgoals. The more thoroughly you plan out each stage of your businessactivities, before you begin, the greater the probability will bethat you'll succeed once you commence operations.

2. Get organized before you get started. Once you'vedeveloped a complete plan for your business, you must then organizethe people and resources you need before you begin--and you mustmake this a habit before the start of any new project you launch.In organizing, you bring together all the resources you'vedetermined you'll require in the planning process. In themilitary, there is a saying: "Amateurs talk strategy, butprofessionals talk logistics." It's absolutely essentialthat you determine every ingredient you'll need before youbegin business operations and then bring them together so thatthey're ready to go when you open your doors or begin yourproject. The failure to provide even one important ingredient inadvance can lead to the failure of the entire enterprise.

3. Find the right people. Fully 95 percent of yoursuccess as an entrepreneur will be determined by the quality of thepeople you recruit to work for you. The fact is, the best companieshave the best people. The second-best companies have thesecond-best people. The third-best companies have average ormediocre people--and they're on their way out of business.

4. Learn how to delegate. You must develop the ability todelegate the right task, to the right person, in the right way. Theinability to delegate effectively can be the cause of failure orunderperformance of the individual, and even bring about failure ofyour business.

When people start in business, they usually do everythingthemselves. As they grow and expand, their job becomes too largefor one person, so they hire someone to do a part of it. Ifthey're not smart, however, they try to retain control of thetask, and they never fully hand over both authority andresponsibility to the other person--a situation that's sure tolead to failure.

5. Inspect what you expect. Once you've delegated atask to the right person in the right way, it's essential thatyou monitor the performance of the task, and make sure thatit's done on schedule and to the required level of quality.Remember, delegation is not abdication. You're stillresponsible for the ultimate results of the delegated tasks, andyou must stay on top of it. So set up a system to monitor the tasksyou delegate and make sure they're being done as agreed on.

6. Set specific, measurable standards and score cards for theresults that you require. What gets measured gets done, and youhave to set specific timelines and deadlines to make sure you"make your numbers" on schedule. Everyone who'sexpected to carry out a task must know with complete clarity thetargets that he or she is aiming at, how successful performancewill be measured, and when the expected results are due.

7. Develop the determination to win. To succeed greatlyin business, and to become a self-made millionaire, there areadditional habits you need to develop. One of these habits is thedetermination to win, to succeed, to outperform your competitionand to ultimately be successful. This competitive instinct anddetermination to win in the face of any obstacle or difficulty is achief motivating power that drives entrepreneurs and eventuallyassures successful careers.

Brian Tracy is the "Success Secrets" coach atEntrepreneur.com and one of America's leadingauthorities on entrepreneurial development. He's producedmore than 300 audio and video learning programs that cover theentire spectrum of human and corporate performance.