Seventeen Ways to Avoid Failure

Seventeen Ways to Avoid Failure!

“Failure is an event, not a person,” according to an old saying.  More appropriately, according to sales trainer and author, Joe Gitomer, failure is a hard lesson and it is avoidable.  Paraphrasing his “Seventeen and a half Reasons that Failure Occurs” I came up with the following Seventeen Ways to Avoid Failure” specifically as they apply to your success. (I have used each of these points to grow my Reliv business!) See what items on this list mean something to you.

1.  Don’t defeat yourself.  Tell yourself why good things will happen, not why they won’t.

2.  Believe in the company the products and the opportunity that you are marketing.  If you don’t no one will listen to you.

3.  Do what it takes to become self-confident.  Learn to like yourself.

4.  Develop a personal sense of urgency so that you can create it in others.  Use it to overcome laziness.

5.  Prepare! Get ready emotionally before every presentation.

6.  Do your homework. Know what you need to do and how you are going to do it!  Learn about the person you are presenting to.

7.  Do not procrastinate!  Do it now, not later.  Tomorrow may not bring the same chances to succeed.

8.  Allow for timing in others lives.  The right time is more important than the right words for most people.

9. Say the right things. You will only lose respect and trust if you bash the competition, the industry, other people, or yourself.

10.  Put help ahead of money. Speak to their need not your own.

11.  Be sincere!  Come from your heart not your head, 

12.  Gain trust through likeability and believability…Follow through and keep your word once you give it.  Act and speak with integrity.

13.  Work your butt off!  Don’t be complacent or you will be out hustled by someone else whose product is inferior and whose company will ruin your center of influence.

14.  Make a plan and follow it!  Don’t cut corners or take the fast or easy way instead of the right way.

15.  Get help!  Stong people ask for the help they need.  Think of yourself as a pathway to success, not an answer man or woman. 

16.  Make sales, not excuses!  Take responsibility for your own success and stop blaming the situation, other people, the weather,

17.  Do your best!  Work hard and work smart to give your best.  Commit and focus!

17.5 Love what you do.  “Nothing assures failure more than a lack of passion." for your work or your product.


Failure is an option.  You get to choose what you will do and how you will think.  If you choose to ignore the seventeen and a half items listed above, you may as well turn them around and use them as excuses! 

One of a series of articles on personal success.

For more information on how to apply these principles in your life, contact

Joyce Ferguson

joycereliv@woh.rr.com