1. Find The Obvious - Drucker looked for the obvious things in order to identify peoples greatest needs. It takes discipline to find themand will lead to tremendous opportunities in your small business.

2. Help Employees Grow - Show the employees of your small business how to learn. In the knowledge economy we have today, Drucker believed continuous learning is the key for growth.

3. Teach - To become a better learnerteach. Drucker taught American history, Japanese art, religion and statistics during his career, because teaching requires learning new concepts, not just facts.

4. Measure Yourself - Whenever you make a key decision, write down your expectations of the outcome, then go back nine months later and see how things turned out. Drucker did this regularly in order to identify his strengths and weaknesses as a decision-maker.

5. Be Curious - My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions, said Drucker. Be sure to ask your employees lots of questions to keep them focused on your goals.

6. Seek Consistency - Look for inconsistencies between what is and what ought to be in your small business. Then, set out to align things in the way you know they should be.

7. Know How Customers Think - Seek innovation, not novelty. Innovation creates value, while novelty creates amusement. To determine the difference, ask yourself not Do we like it?but Will customers pay for it?

8. Make Things Better - The test of a leader is not what happens during his lifetime, but what happens when he leaves. The only thing that matters is how leaders touch the lives of those around them.

9. Create Systems - Efficiency is doing better what is already being done. Look at all of the moving parts in your small business, then systematically determine how to do each of them better.

10. Manage Yourself - Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed. Focus on Genius Time those things that have the biggest impact on your small business.

11. Go All In - Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes... but no plans. Make sure your team commits to achieving each of your goalsand theirs.

Copyright 2005 by Success Handler, LLC. All rights reserved.

David Handler

The Coach, David Handler, is the founder of Success Handler, LLC, and specializes in helping franchisees, franchisors and business leaders find clarity and take action. He understands the challenges of running a business, because he?s been there ? as a franchisee, franchisor, business owner, corporate leader and trainer. Much like sports coaches, his coaching will show you how to compete on a level playing field in your industry.

There are two ?I?s? in accountability ? You and Me! Together we will achieve your destiny.?

David worked with ABC Sports, ESPN and regional sports programmers HSE (now Fox Sports Southwest) and Raycom. He produced more than 700 live events, including NFL football, NCAA football and basketball, and Major League Baseball. Career highlights were broadcasting Nolan Ryan's 5,000th career strikeout and two of the 15 perfect games in MLB history (Mike Witt-1984 and Kenny Rogers-1994). The second earned a national Telly Award for best sports production and was nominated for an ESPY.

In 1988, David awoke in the middle of the night from a dream and wrote down four words: "Notre Dame, football, travel." Partnering with two lifelong friends, David helped Anthony Travel become the Official Travel Service of the University of Notre Dame, Disney's Wide World of Sports? complex and several other universities. Over one five-year period, Anthony Travel was named one of the 100 fastest growing privately held companies in Dallas on three occasions.

After selling his interest in the travel company in 1998, David joined the International Center for Entrepreneurial Development (ICED) - a family of franchises with nine brands and more than 1,000 locations around the world. As senior VP in charge of marketing, he developed creative programs that franchisees used to gain new customers and increase profits.

David founded Success Handler to utilize the skills gained during his 23-year business career in a coaching capacity with franchisees, franchisors and business owners.