In my family, we were always taught to be self-sufficient. While that is a good thing in many ways, it sometimes makes us slow to ask for help. If you are learning something new, it is OK to ask for advice.
People love to say that there is no shortcut to business success. However, there is a shortcut to learning how to be successful in business. The simplest way is to find the person who is already successful in doing what you want to do and then follow the leader.
Find the people who are experiencing the success you desire and learn from them. They’ve already done the research, and they already know what to do. They’ve made the mistakes and learned from them. Now they can pass that knowledge on to you. This is one reason franchising work so well. Even though they are expensive, and the fees eat into the profits, a well-established franchise almost guarantees success.
Conduct Research
Even though a quick path to success is to find a 
successful person’s step-by-step instructions and repeat what they did, it’s also important that you do a little research on your own to ensure you follow the laws and that everything is above board. Anyone can claim to be successful while not being successful. Any number of “million-dollar” bloggers mislead and even lie about their income.
Ask Others
Join groups online and offline so that you can regularly talk to real-life people who are trying to do what you do, or who have already done what you want to do. For example, if you want to open a successful hair salon, join groups of owners because these owners will know more than anyone about generating success.
Find a Mentor
A mentor’s role is to provide guidance as well as role modeling for their mentees. They can help with your business by helping you know what goals to set, what’s realistic about your business plan and what is not, and a whole host of other information that can shortcut your learning process exponentially.
Read Success Stories
It’s fun to read success stories or watch them online. While you can’t always believe everything you see and hear, success stories are great motivational tools for you. When a person you want to follow and emulate shares their customers’ and clients’ successes, it can really help you accept the possibilities you have in life. If they can do it, so can you.
Join a Mastermind
There are numerous masterminds that you can join today, both online and offline. Sometimes they are hard to find, but if you search for a mastermind about your niche or industry, you’re sure to find it online today. Check out any groups you’re joining to ensure that honest people are running them. If you can talk to someone directly who has participated in the masterminds, that will help you choose.
Hire a Coach
A more direct approach to shortcutting your learning curve is to hire a business or life coach to show you the way to achieve your goal. The coach you hire should have done what you want to do in some way and understand your niche, business, and industry.
Shortcutting your learning process so that you can catapult into success faster is a great way to become successful.
While you may not be creating a brand-new idea, the truth is an idea that has competition is going to be much more fruitful than one that has no competitors. It’s much easier to give an audience who already exists what they want than it is to find the audience to give them what you wanted to create.
