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Ben Neumann presents …

“Business Strategy Roadmap”

A Report About Teamwork As A Leadership Style

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Partner with Ben Neumann! He's made over $150 million in Internet ventures. Learn more: JVwithBenNeumann.com

How To Find The Best In People

To start this piece off, I'd like to share a quick quote with you: "I never met a man I didn't like" - Will Rogers. In this quote, Mr. Rogers was actually referring to Leon Trotsky (revolutionary and founder and leader of the Red Army) and the rest of the quote is as follows: "I bet you if I had met him and had a chat with him, I would have found him a very interesting and human fellow, for I never yet met a man that I didn't like. When you meet people, no matter what opinion you may have formed about them beforehand, … after you meet them and see their angle and their personality, … you can see a lot of good in all of them."

You see, Rogers took the time to get to know people, what made them

tick, what made them unique, and he found at least one admirable trait or characteristic in each of the people he met - although sometimes that took some effort. If you look at our "modern" society we have a very much of a “microwave mentality,” in which we make judgments and assumptions about people very quickly. If we're wrong about them, we spend very little time thinking about what our assumptions and judgments have done to that person.

Let's take our aesthetic judgments for example. You see somebody who is

fat and you simply assume they're greedy and eat too much because they enjoy it. But you rarely think about what drives that person to eat that way - do they eat for comfort, for example? Does that man or woman have a genetic predisposition to obesity? Here's another example. How about if you meet a person who has really bad acne, even in their adult years. Do you assume that they just don't wash themselves properly, or that they eat a diet filled with fatty food? Without knowing their medical history, you can never know what is causing their skin problems.

Keeping an open mind about the people you meet or work with each day is the key to finding

their virtues and the things you'll like most about them. Even if this person has disappointed you or caused you problems in the past, every person deserves the benefit of the doubt, and for them to be given an opportunity to show you how they can excel in specific areas of life and in work.

Project-based work can really help you see where a person's strengths and weaknesses are. So,

for example, the 'natural leaders' tend to come to the fore, your 'creative' people are there to give you 1,000 ideas a minute, and the 'project manager' type of people are happily adding structure to the whole thing.

Want a way to engage someone you may have a bad feeling about, but you know you have to

work with? It's an unpleasant situation, but there's a way to flip it in your favor. Here's how. Have an off-site team day, where you get to see how this person or these people behave outside of work. A lot of people have a work "face" and a separate "face" or persona for their real lives and until you know both sides to a person don't be too quick to judge them. A picnic is a safe call, but the bar could be even better! Who said going out shouldn't be a way to socialize, even if it's about work?

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Why People Love Energetic Entrepreneurs

They say that laughter is infectious, but if that's true, then other emotional traits must be infectious too, right? After all, no one could prove that laughter is the only emotionally contagious 'thing.' This is something that all too many business people forget about when it comes to the workplace, and how their own energy affects other people around them, and the business as a whole.

You all know somebody in your workplace whose very presence around people is enough to

cheer the office up, and rally the team to work harder. These people spread a positive message to everyone they come in contact with. Then there is the person who is the "black cloud of despair" and people avoid them like the plague because their negative energy affects every single person they come in contact with - they make every working day feel longer and more difficult.

So it's worth remembering for entrepreneurs that when it comes to your business, your

employees are going to take all their emotional and physiological cues from you. For example, if you're slouching around the office with your shoulders slumped and mutter replies to people, it doesn't create the right "energy" for the workplace. That doesn't meant you need to screech into work on rollerblades and cartwheel to your desk (although that would look AWESOME, and probably go straight to YouTube). The point is this: your attitude and energy at work, every single day, will have a domino- effect on those people working with you.

If you want a shining example of how your own personal energy can affect your entire business

have a look at the Virgin brand and Richard Branson. Here's a guy who sold used records from a market stall when he was a kid, then opened a chain of record stores (remember vinyl, folks?). Then, Branson opened his own airline and rail service, and now he'll be the first entrepreneur to offer space tourism via the Virgin Galactic brand. But this isn't some boring old "suit" that barks orders at people - this is a guy who skydives, travels the world in hot air balloons, and tries to break world records - putting his life in danger several times while making those attempts.

Look at this crazy-ass boss!

But what does that mean for his business? Well, if you ask people who work for Virgin, you'll

find happy people who are treated well and who see their "boss" as somebody who cares and somebody who loves life. The energy that Richard Branson creates by pursuing his life and his goals with passion drives every single employee in his company forward in a way that other businesses can only glow green with envy over.

Your own personal energy and your zest for life and for your work will "flow" downwards to

the other people that work with and report to you. What kind of energy do you think you should be sending their way?

Partner with Ben Neumann! He's made over $150 million in Internet ventures. Learn more: JVwithBenNeumann.com

Discover Motivation In The Most Unlikely Places

When you're working for yourself or running your own business, sometimes you'll find that your body is willing but your motivation has taken a vacation to Cancun for the next 4 weeks (and it hasn't been returning your calls, either). Lacking motivation as an entrepreneur is the same as having writers block - the sense of frustration is palpable, but you just can't seem to "shift" whatever it is that has been sucking you dry of motivation for the last number of days or weeks.

How To 'Remove "You" From The Equation'

Take a time-out and walk away from the problem. You need to mentally and emotionally switch

off from whatever issue, task or project you're dealing with and leave it be for a while. The longer you stare at something the more you're committing that "something" to your short-term, and then long-term memory; once that happens, your mind reaches a kind of 'mental plateau' where your ability to resolve the "something" stops.

That's why you literally get off your ass if you're sitting, or take a hike if you're not - you need

to walk away, and do something else. The more random that "something else" is, the better it is for you. This will clean your mental palette and give your mind the ability to create the solution you've been looking for subconsciously. Try it.

Help Others

I know, I know. How can helping others help you? Well, as part of the "removing yourself" from the issue you need to do something else until your motivational problem clears, but I've always found that helping others is one of the best ways of motivating myself. When you put yourself in a position of serving others through volunteer work, or being charitable, you learn a lot of valuable life lessons about yourself and the world around you. Even just sharing information - such as this report - is a helping experience, and that makes me feel

good. It's often when we're helping others that we have those 'Eureka' moments that drive us to achieve great things in life and in business. You can also improve the life of another person or animal in the process, so it's the most holistic type of "Win-Win" you could wish for.

Accountability Coach

Sometimes, what we see as a lack of motivation is partly a motivational problem, and partly that we're just being lazy, and basically need a kick in the rear to get us going. That's why an accountability coach can be a very useful assistant to keep you focused and moving forwards. For this to work properly, you'll need your "coach" to be one of your peers, or at least somebody with a similar background, job and experience level as you - they need to be able to really talk to you and their motivational steps will come from understanding where you are and what you're struggling with. It also means they know how to get you back on track and won't take any BS or excuses from you.

Lacking motivation isn't something you'll ever need to worry about if you put these tips to work

for you.