I was reading an entrepreneur Q & A site today and a person asked the site’s advisor/host about re-branding his business. A former employee violated a non-compete agreement and was going into business for himself with almost exactly the same name and logo as his former employer. The business owner asking the question felt he now had to change things about his own company to achieve success.

The advisor pointed out that a company’s brand isn’t simply their name and logo; it’s their entire modus operandi regarding client interface. He also suggested that if the owner of the initial company did a better job than the new competitor, it could actually be to his advantage to have a similar name and logo. But he qualified the new competitor as a “giant” company.

I tend to agree with the advisor. First, the initial business has been open for five years. That’s a big mailing list, a lot of customers, a lot of goodwill, and a lot of branding. You don’t just throw it away because someone else opens up shop.

Second, and even more important, the new competitor/company is likely to be doing a lot of promotion, marketing and advertising to get up and running. They’ll be getting people interested in the general product or service and, if you play your cards right, you can steer those people in your direction when they want to buy.

Many companies achieve success that way. Millions of dollars are made from the efforts of the competition. In fact, figuring out how to do that is an entrepreneurial skill that can help your business weather any storm.

The general subject is called positioning. If you want to achieve success, it’s a subject in which you should become an expert. Start with Trout & Ries’ Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind. This book created a huge impact when it was first released and its message is still applicable today.

Boy, if only I had/hadn’t …… Life would be so different now.

If I were ranking emotions and mental activities in terms of usefulness, regret would be right near the bottom of the list. We all recognize that things would be different, i.e. better, had we done or not done certain things in the past, and some of those things can have pretty strong emotions attached to them. But there’s a big difference between that and the almost chronic hang-dog state of “if-only”. In fact, living in the past with “if only’s” is a primary reason people do not achieve success.

Regret is an interesting emotion: the person apparently feels bad about something they did or didn’t do. Some individuals feeling regret manage to make you feel bad in the process. So bad, in fact, that you go out of your way to make them feel better. You can definitely help some individuals, but you also come across individuals who never feel better no matter what you do.

To achieve success you have to look forward. Learn your lessons from past mistakes, and then let them go. And while you’re at it, let go of the mistakes others have made, too.

Learning how to let the past stay in the past is a vital entrepreneurial skill.

Over and over again I hear about parents who start their own business so they can work from home and have more time with their family. However, working at home can sometimes backfire; you’re at home, but you’re not getting much work done and you still don’t have the extra time. Here are a few entrepreneurial skills that will help you make working from home really work for you.

- Create and stick to a schedule. If you don’t designate certain times of the day for work, you’re not likely to get much done. With the rest of the family home and all the pleasant potential distractions, it can be hard to stay on track. Figure out the best work hours, and stick to them.

- Include your family and other personal things, like exercise, in your schedule. And stick to those as diligently as you do with the work end of things. If the time designated for family and personal things is ‘what’s left over,’ that will be reflected in your quality of life.

- At the beginning of every week, and every day, plan what you’re going to do. Write the items on a list, and check things off as they’re done. This is a key entrepreneurial skill – it buys you time.

- Set aside a time for phone calls and meetings. If you let them happen ‘whenever’ you’ll be interrupted so frequently it will take you four times as long to complete other things on your list.

Nothing is absolute in this world, including schedules; there will be days when nothing goes as planned. But the more diligent you are about entrepreneurial skills such as planning and scheduling, the smoother things will go.

Many people achieve success at the expense of their personal life, but it’s an empty victory. Success is much more enjoyable when you can share it with those you love.