The Entrepreneur’s Success Code® program, delivered by a Success Code Coach®, is the proven foundational path for business owners to improve their professional lives and realize their personal dreams. Success lies in learning how to become. . .

“The CEO of Your Life”
Our monthly publication, “Becoming the CEO of Your Life”, continues to expand the teachings contained on the Entrepreneur's Success Code Series CD set.

Each month, we provide expanded insight into select Success Code principles along with practical applications to apply to your business today!

Our belief is that one should:

Live – Your authentic life
Lead – From your heart
Discover – Your mindset for abundance

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LIVE – LEAD - DISCOVER ™

Becoming the CEO of Your Life!

When you are looking in the mirror, you are looking at the problem. But, remember, you are also looking at the solution. – Anonymous

Live – Your authentic Life
Know your Life Purpose. Allow yourself to integrate the heart and soul of what you truly want in your life into every aspect of your life and business. Your Life Purpose is a statement about who you are, or who you want to become. It is your life’s mission, your reason for getting up each day. It will guide you on the path of living your life with intention.

Lead – From your Heart
Bring balance into your life and your business, Apply fundamental leadership principles based on your Life Purpose. Take your passion, which brings your unique strengths to the forefront, and maximize your effectiveness in all that you do. Connect your strengths with your profession and life to create alignment, accomplishment and joy.

Discover – Your mindset for Abundance
With clarity of purpose brought by your Life Purpose, focus on your strengths. Discover ways of thinking about your profession, your life, and the relationship between the two. Exploration and discovery never ends. It is the ever-evolving path to your Life Purpose and all of that which you desire.

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Principle 8: Become an Entrepreneur, leave behind the manager, technician, or inventor in you.

Action Step: Understand the role of the entrepreneur and create your company vision. 

Purpose: Free yourself to own a business, not just have a job at your business.

Practical Application: Review the four different “characters” of a business owner:  inventor (dreamer of new products or services), technician (expert, skilled craftsman, doer, and fixer), manger (organizer in you, loves systems, directing, and organizing), and entrepreneur (source of vision, spirit, and capital). Score yourself on a scale of 1-5 for each character, with 5 meaning “That is 100% who I am”.  Discover which of these characters is strongest in you, and which is weakest. Estimate how much time is distributed between the different roles. Then take the first step to creating your company vision. Keep refining the vision until it truly excites you. Then share it with everyone who works for you, or involved in your company in any way. 

Result: You will become an entrepreneur and begin to experience abundance on all levels. 

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Principle 5: Learn how to hold people accountable.

Action Step: Create employee agreements.   

Purpose: Establish a systematic basis for accountability.   

Practical Application: Begin with one key member of your team, and create an Employee Agreement. First identify the outcome of the position this individual fills. Then create a checklist of actions require to achieve that result. Review the Position Outcome and Position Actions with the employee and make any necessary changes. Once complete, asks the employee to sign the agreement. Establish a regular Accountability Meeting with the employee. Repeat these steps for each employee. 

Result: Ensure that the result is being produced, even when you are not there.

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Principle 6: Learn what it takes to create efficient promotions.

Action Step: Track and measure the return on all promotional activities. 

Purpose: To achieve maximum return on the marketing dollar through careful measurement of results. 

Practical Application:  Prior to each promotional activity identify the following: product, target market, outcome (i.e.: customer numbers, revenue generated, profit yielded), timeframe, promotional concept, key message, and budget. At the completion of each promotional activity identify the following:  product, promotion, prospects reached, response total, response rate (%), conversion to sales total, conversion to sale rate (%), actual cost of promotion, difference from budget (+/-), revenues generated, and gross profit (or loss). Review your experience of the promotion and record the lesson(s) learned. 

Result: To achieve maximum return on the marketing dollar through careful measurement of results. 

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Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done
by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan

Execution, says Bossidy and Charan, is "the missing link between aspirations and results". Execution is the business leader's most important job.

While failure in today's business environment is often attributed to other causes, Bossidy and Charan argue that the biggest obstacle to success is the absence of execution. They point out that without execution, breakthrough thinking on managing change breaks down, and they emphasize the fact that execution is a discipline to learn, not merely the tactical side of business. Supporting this with stories of the "execution difference" being won (EDS) and lost (Xerox and Lucent), the authors describe the building blocks--leaders with the right behaviors, a culture that rewards execution, and a reliable system for having the right people in the right jobs. With these in place, execution can occur for the three core business processes of people, strategy, and operations.

The Authors are clearly professing the holistic approach of systematizing your business. There is no “try” here, it’s “do”. Structure and substance, the heart of the successful business, are simply the predictable systems with the right people.

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The Success Code Coach® Team invites you to take the first step in transforming your business and your life with our complimentary Success Code Assessment! Experience more success! Reveal the true picture of where you are right now. Create the clarity and direction for both your life and your business.

Our process provides you the opportunity to imagine what is possible for you and your business. You will discover your true potential during our complimentary coaching call.

You can take the Assessment right now or simply contact us at 800-908-9189.  We will guide you the rest of the way.

To ensure a great one-hour call with a Success Code Coach®:

1. Take the Assessment in an uninterrupted block of time.
2. Don’t over analyze your responses.
3. There are no right and no wrong answers.

Learn more about what we do, how we do it and why we do it! Simply complete the form and we will send you a free audio CD of Your Inner Entrepreneur.

"Jeff Burrows is the new voice of entrepreneurial wisdom. He gets to the heart of the struggle that so many business owners experience and points the way to lasting success and satisfaction. With vision, passion, and spirit, he guides you back to the dream that launched your enterprise-and shows you how to make it real.”

- Donald J. Trump

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Interview with Mike Rubie, CEO, Mountain Supply Co. www.mountainsupply.com

How many years have you been a Client with us?
I started with you guys in 1999 or 2000.

How many years have you been in business?
My Company was started in 1960 and I took over in 1987.

During this time, you have had complete turnover of management- your CFO, COO and 3 branch managers.
When I started with my coaching, after the first 6 months I saw that I needed to enroll at least my Chief Operating Officer into the program. I remember that Mick, my first coach, was in Montana visiting so he stopped by to say hello. I introduced my COO to him and after 15 minutes of talking to my COO, Mick came back and said to me that even though the COO agreed to do the program the COO had no interest in it. Of course I was shocked, how could anyone not want to have an easier way to do things? About five months later my COO resigned, then my branch manager in Bozeman that had been with me the longest resigned, then my branch manager from Missoula resigned. Had the branch manager in Billings not been hired within the last six months I’m sure he would have resigned also. Then lastly, my controller resigned.

When all this happened I was wondering if I had made the right decision. But what I found is when we showed the new replacements our vision and invited them into our group we started to see excitement grow. This excitement started to extend to all employees. Even the people that have been here 25-30 years see that we have changed for the better. I have had several employees tell me that they have turned down offers from competitors for more money because they knew that they would not get the same environment at some other place. We have had employees leave to go to work other places and have called back in a few weeks to see if they could come back to work for us. They didn’t realize just what kind of environment they had here and they wanted to come back.
Now, when we recruit for a position, we have people knocking on our door. We have some people coming back every time and say they aren’t giving up until they get a job here. Not only does this help us in recruiting, it gives our managers great satisfaction that they are on the right track.

Now I have all the managers being coached. They see it as not only a great help on the work side, they also see the benefits in their personal side.

Please explain the biggest shift you’ve noticed in yourself and the way you go about doing business every day as a result of our coaching.
About one year ago we started a mentoring program. I noticed that we weren’t developing new managers. What I thought would be a way to just replace managers has become a great way to help the current manager push their vision down into the branch. I have five in the program right now and will be looking at adding another two to three people this fall. I didn’t realize how much fun I would have with the program or the great ideas that come from these students!

How would you describe your leadership style now as opposed to before you worked with us?
When I took over Mountain Supply Co. in 1987 I didn’t know anything about the business. So my style of management has always been to ask questions. Now I ask questions to see if other people understand what to do. I ask questions on purpose. If they understand the concepts I don’t ask anymore questions, if they don’t understand I keep asking questions until they get it or I have them research the question and get back to me.

How has your Life Purpose Statement/Primary Aim impacted your life?
Having a primary aim makes decisions a lot easier. When I developed the mentoring program it was an easy decision who should be running it. Because it fits with my Primary Aim I can have a lot of fun doing this program.