I’ve Started Multiple Businesses Over 30 Years — Here’s My 4-Part Formula to Building Long-lasting Success

I was recently asked by a woman entrepreneur in my collective how I had achieved such lasting success. After reflecting on my nearly 30 years of experience, during which I have closed over $1.6 billion in transactions, including $1.4 billion in commercial real estate and $280 million since founding my marketing agency during The Great Recession, I had a response to her question in the form of a framework.

Although I acknowledge that timing and luck played a role, I believe my hard work and strong desire to succeed were most influential. Drawing from all of my experiences in building multiple businesses, I developed a four-part formula, comprising ambition, joy, integrity and relationships, which serves as a practical roadmap for achieving sustained success.

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Ambition plus joy

Ambition is typically the driving force behind many entrepreneurs, including myself. I have always had a desire to succeed in any endeavor I choose, whether in corporate or entrepreneurial roles, over the last three decades.

Most successful entrepreneurs will share that starting and scaling a business is one of the most difficult and rewarding challenges they have faced, myself included. It takes unmatched focus and ambition. What I have learned is that unchecked traditional ambition alone will burn you out. However, when it’s coupled with joy, it becomes a way to achieve long-term sustainable success. This integration is what I call Joyful Ambition™, a new way to deploy ambition and still accomplish your goals without regret and burnout.

Essentially, joy is the foundation of ambition and agency is the compass by which you navigate, giving ambition a potent, tangible driver of longevity. In practice, it’s about being aware of your own version of success and using joy as your guiding force. By connecting ambition with joy, entrepreneurs can cultivate the kind of lasting success that my four-part formula is designed to achieve.

It’s important to acknowledge your milestones and accomplishments along the way, not just after you’ve reached the goal, as you pursue your version of success. This connection between ambition and joy is often overlooked. As Harvard Business Review’s HBR IdeaCast put it: “It might seem that high-achievers with important jobs don’t need — or even have time for — activities that bring them joy. But it turns out that finding joy at all stages of life (along with achievement and meaningfulness) is essential to feeling satisfied and being a more effective leader.” This brings me to another crucial element of lasting success.

Integrity

A client I have worked with for over seven years once told me, “Thank you, Bianca. You always show up no matter what, and that’s one of the things I value most about working with you and your agency.” Since 2008, my agency has served highly regulated industries, including financial services, high-net-worth wealth management firms, law firms and healthcare. In these fields, integrity is both expected and constantly scrutinized. My clients know me as someone whose actions consistently align with their words, a person of integrity.

I’ve been in business long enough to witness the behavior of many entrepreneurs with little to no integrity. Integrity is not only what you say and do for your clients and customers, but it’s also how you run your life and business. If you lack integrity in one area, you most likely lack it in other areas of your life. Integrity is foundational to lasting success. As entrepreneurs, it is our job to have a clear north star and build lasting trust in every interaction if we desire longevity and success.

Relationships

If I had to start over again today and could only keep one thing, I would choose my relationships above all else. After almost 30 years in business, the most important factor for building lasting success is cultivating your relationships. Relationships drive our world; even if it seems like a faceless transaction, there is a person on the other side of the screen, and the interface they are using was imagined by a person.

Building and maintaining relationships is an invaluable skill because trust compounds. And the same holds true whether you’re closing your first sale or landing a billion-dollar deal: People do business with people they trust. A relationship has always been the keystone to every major opportunity I’ve had in business. Great entrepreneurs live by a people-first philosophy that includes their family, friends, team and clients.

Nearly 30 years of success did not happen by accident. Rather, it resulted from purposeful hard work and thoughtful engagement in every interaction, whether behind the scenes or in client-facing capacities. During some of the most challenging times in business, my success was always sustained by fusing my ambition with joy, reinforcing it with integrity that built trust capital, and grounding it in relationships that endure and generate new opportunities.

The four-part formula of ambition, joy, integrity and relationships has continually formed the foundation of my success. I encourage you, whether you are a new or veteran business owner, to remember to truly celebrate your wins, always lead with integrity and honor your relationships. My ongoing experience and success prove this approach is accessible to anyone. For entrepreneurs who desire longevity in their journeys, adopting this framework as a guiding strategy is available to anyone willing to play the long game.

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