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122 • The 100 Greatest Ideas for Building the Business of Your Dreams

you to meet such strict timescales, and that the speed with which they are acting
gives you less than enough time to react to the best of your ability, and so on. Give
good reasons for not going for this one and then ask to meet the person at a later
date to discuss their requirements for future projects and make sure you get the
name of the person who recommended you so that you can go and see them as well.

The result of such 'positive qualifying out' will be an opportunity to get into BT
in the future, and also a clear signal whether or not your proposal would be taken
seriously. If the training manager remonstrates with you insisting that the recom-
mender had painted a picture of your training that was an exact fit for their require-
ment, then reluctantly and modestly you can change your mind. If they just say
'OK, thank you for your frankness', you probably did the right thing.

This is one specific case to illustrate this first tip. Somehow you have got to get
to a stage where there is a plan and you are sticking to it - flexibly of course. Another
angle on this is when the owners of the business become so bogged down in the
running of the administration and office work that they never get out to the custom-
ers. You need discipline here to block out in the diary an increasing amount of time
when you will be out 'doing it' and then stick to that plan.

Idea 75 - Know your critical success factors

OK, I don't much like the term either, but it says exactly what you need to do. Sit
down and work out what you need to get right in order to exist now and in the
future. Some critical success factors (CSFs) will be common to your industry, and
you can read them up; others will be peculiar to your offering and only you can
identify them. One of your CSFs is also known asyour USP - Unique Selling Propo-
sition or propositions. Anyway, find them out, tell people about them, work hard on
them and review them from time to time because nothing stays still.