Reality: According to the SBA, 63% of all small businesses fail in the first 5 years.

OUCH! It sounds harsh, but it’s true. And having been in business for over 6 years, I can tell you I’ve seen many colleagues go the way of “have to get a job” in order to put food on the table and take care of their families.

And the sad part, many of those businesses could have succeeded. It’s generally not a lack of ideas, technology is rarely the issue and with the low cost of doing business online, it’s often not money.

The top reasons most small businesses fail are:

1. Lack of vision and systematic strategy — what’s the long-term (you decide what this means) vision for your business and how are you going to get there?

2. Lack of marketing system — many business owners spend so much time reinventing the wheel around trying to get new clients that they either burn out or focus too much time on the “getting new ones” and not enough on the “serving existing ones”. Do you have a marketing system in place?

3. Lack of a client follow-up system — once clients are in the door, do you take care of them? Do you practice Extreme Client Care(tm)? Do you listen to them and create the products and programs they’re asking for?

4. Trying to do too many things at once — many entrepreneurs pride themselves on being “great multitaskers”. Our brains can’t multitask, they “task switch”. . .from this to that and back to this. And, as a result, neither task gets done as quickly, or as well, as if we’d simply focused on one at a time.

5. Doing everything ad-hoc without any systems — while it’s so easy for us to say “I don’t have time to create a system, I just need to get it done now”, truth is, without systems, you’re the one “doing it” all the time — unable to hand anything over to a support team. And this creates something far worse than a 9-to-5 job.

And I’d add the following. . .

* Not having a big enough reason “why” — that “thing” which pulls you forward when you’re otherwise tempted to quit. Hint. . .it’s rarely “money” by itself, it’s usually what that money can do for you/your family.

Make It Real: My Request To You

Review the 5 bullets above and ask yourself — is your business set up for success? Remembering that this is the basis of a successful business, systems and planning will only take you so far, strategic implementation is key!

And for those days when you just “don’t feel like it”, is your “why” big enough, strong enough to pull you forward to accomplishment?

I’m known for a simple statement: “Ordinary things, done consistently, bring extraordinary AND consistent results!”

What ordinary things are you doing consistently?

Sandra Martini is an award-winning marketing and productivity consultant who helps entrepreneurs create and implement systems to achieve their visions, with services such as coaching, client systems development, consulting and Team Sandy Done 4 You Online. For more business strategies and to get your free audio series “5 Simple & Easy Ways to Put Your Marketing on Autopilot”, visit Sandy’s site at http://www.SandraMartini.com today.

If you have been looking into your credit reports and perhaps even purchased you score you will know how confusing it can be to understand them. Every credit bureau seems to record different data which results in varying credit scores results. So how do you know which one?

Credit scores have been used since the 1970s for lenders to assess the level of risk that a customer poses to their business. For this reason when a creditor is approached by a customer the company needs to know they are dealing with a trustworthy person and their money is safe. This is the primary reason for a credit report and scores. However, with different credit bureaus reporting on your reports it results in a varying credit score range.

If you have ever purchased a 3 in 1 credit report you will be aware that more often than not you have 3 sometimes very different credit results. Your Equifax report may score at 850 while Transunion may score at 790. You can immediately see the credit score range here. The reason is fairly straight forward.

When you do business with a creditor and take out a financial product or service that business may report primarily to Equifax as its preferred credit bureau for background reports. They may not deal with Transunion at all. So any data that is recorded on your credit file for this account will only show on the Equifax credit report and not other bureaus. If you have a late payment showing on the account ( otherwise referred to as derogatory report ) this will lower your score. Other credit bureaus may not be aware of this and thus will have your credit rate at a higher number.

So how do know which credit score is the one the company will use? Simply put, you don’t. You can always ask a company which bureau they will use for their credit checks but they may not give out this information. It doesn’t hurt to ask though.

Understanding your credit reports and scores are a key element to better finance deals. Getting to know the credit score range is always useful to improve your situation. http://www.creditsolutionsite.info provides the resources for you to start to improve your credit score immediately.