The word "motivate" means to urge, excite, drive, to have an over whelming desire to accomplish a particular goal. If you want to build a successful business, you must have some motivating factor that will help you reach your goal.

Money as a Motivator

Most of the thousands of people who enter the mail order marketing business each year are motivated because they think that they are going to make huge amounts of money. Needless to say 98% of these people are disappointed.

If money is the only thing that interests you about going into a mail order business, you are headed down the wrong road. I understand very well that being in business is about making money, However, making money is only a part of being in business. Money is necessary to keep your business running but it's just a part big picture.

Money is the reward that you receive for the product or service that you offer to those who need what you have to sell. The important thing is to offer your customer the best product or service that you can. If you are going to make money in this business you must have customers who are willing to do repeat business with you. If all you are concerned about is making money, the quality of your product or service may not be up to the highest standard and if your customer is not satisfied, more than likely your customer won't want to do business with you again. If this happens, you will be defeating your main purpose - making money! Put the quality of your product and your customers first, before making money, and you will stand a far better chance of reaping the reward you seek (making money).

Goal Setting as a Motivating Tool

I have read a lot about goal setting as a motivating factor to help people succeed in business. I think that it is a very good practice to set goals. However, when you set a goal for your self it is important to keep in mind that the reason for setting a particular goal must be strong enough to motivate you to set about doing the things necessary to reach your goal.

Just saying that you are going to reach a particular goal by a certain time is not good enough. There must be some motivating factor that will keep you working towards your goal. For example, if I say that I want to write a book and have it completed one year from now, I had better have a plan on how I'm going to go about reaching that goal. The chief motivating factor for writing the book would not be just to make money but the sense of accomplishment that I would get from writing a good informative book that would help others. When you set goals for yourself, make sure that you are willing to see them through to the end. In order to do this, you must have a strong enough reason for setting the goal in the first place.

Self Motivation

When you have a business of your own, there is no one to tell you what to do. You are the one who has to make ail of the decisions. When you are doing something wrong, you have to be the one to correct it. You also have to be your own cheerleader!

In other words you have to be the chief motivating factor that will make you business successful. What does it take to do this? You have to love what you are doing! You must take pride in the product or service that you are offering to others. Get your happiness out of your work and you will stand a far better chance of being successful than if you do it just for the money.