Do Business Better

Build your best life by forging your own path to business success

After speaking to companies such as Merck, Land O'Lakes, and Cargill, and to over 2000 audiences across the world, Damian Mason, successful businessman, agriculturalist, podcaster, and writer, wants to help you achieve your entrepreneurial goals and live a better life. While other business books claim to tell you how to reach success, they fall short because they don’t address the fact that success is different for each of us. Do Business Better helps you define success on your terms, then shows you how to achieve it.

You’ll learn the Four Unwavering Traits of Entrepreneurial Success and how to discover the differences between routines and habits, then implement your changes through meaningful actions that create permanent improvement. Along the way, you’ll learn from real-world examples and relatable stories, and discover a wealth of applicable advice on starting, managing, and growing your own enterprise.

• Discover your best life, then build a path to achieve it
• Learn how other entrepreneurs have adapted their lives to achieve their goals
• Find out what’s really standing between you and your dreams
• Rid yourself of ineffective thinking patterns and develop habits that actually help you

Do Business Better is the go-to guide for business people, entrepreneurs, and the self-employed looking to jumpstart their journey and build their dreams into reality. If your goal is prosperity, longevity, and a life and business on your terms, this book is for you.

Foreword vii

Introduction xi

1 Success Defined. By You. 1

2 Get Better 5

Section 1 Traits 9

3 Four Unwavering Traits of Entrepreneurial Success 11

4 Risk Tolerance 13

5 Drive 25

6 Resilience 37

7 Vision 47

Section 2 Habits 59

8 Success Is a Habit, But It’s Not a Routine 61

9 Pull the Trigger 67

10 Treat Time Like Money 71

11 Be a Goal Setter 77

12 Be Relevant 85

13 Be Critical 95

14 Be a Promoter 103

15 Sell, Sell, Sell! 109

16 Know Your Position 121

17 Stop Making Excuses 129

18 Know Money (Or You’ll Have No Money) 135

Section 3 Actions 153

19 It’s All About You 155

20 Get Past What’s Holding You Back 157

21 Your Business Personality 171

22 Exploiting Your Talent Stack 181

23 Manage Your Emotions 195

24 You Are Not an Island 205

Do Business Better 217

Life and Business by Choice 223

About the Author 225

Index 227

DAMIAN MASON knows how to create a life and business by choice because he's done it. From scratch. At age 25, he chucked his sales job with a Fortune 500 company to pursue greater compensation and creativity. It worked. Then his business struggled mightily. Damian reinvented. After several iterations and multiple setbacks, his business thrived once again.

Damian speaks to corporations, associations, trade groups, and agricultural organizations. He delivers business insights, information, and inspiration in an entertaining package.

When he's not traveling for work, Damian can be found on his Indiana farm with his wife, Lori, or escaping from winter at their Arizona residence. Damian loves the outdoors, his wife, his dog, his beer, and his independence.

Connect with Damian at www.damianmason.com

Facebook: @DamianMasonProfessionalSpeaker

LinkedIn: Damian Mason

Twitter: @DamianPMason

Typical business books offer complex answers to simple problems and furnish a one-size-fits-all solution for attaining success. Lucky for you, Do Business Better isn't a typical business book. In these pages, Damian Mason lays out a no-nonsense guide for people who are ready to create a life and business by choice.

Based on Mason's years of business experience and peppered with a healthy dose of his trademark wit, Do Business Better reveals what it takes to start, manage, and grow one's own enterprise. Mason outlines the 4 Unwavering Traits of Entrepreneurial Success. He explains the critical difference between routines and habits. Short exercises throughout the book will help you enhance your success traits, establish positive habits, and take action for long-term prosperity.

Do Business Better is filled with real-world examples and relevant stories that are both informative and entertaining. If you've had your fill of self-help speakers and authors pushing platitudes and passion, this book is for you. Do Business Better is straight talk and practical information guaranteed to help you succeed. This book will save you time, make you more productive, make you more money, and consistently make you smile. Are you ready to Do Business Better?

Define success on your terms . . . and discover how to achieve it?

Do Business Better is a user's guide to creating a life and business by choice. Damian Mason walks you through the process of defining your picture of success, then reveals the traits, habits, and actions required to attain it.

PRAISE FOR DO BUSINESS BETTER

"As an entrepreneur who retired before age 50, I know a thing or two about starting and running a successful business. If I'd had this book in my 20s, instead of having to learn these lessons the hard way, I might have been able to retire by 40." —Geoff Cubitt, Former CEO of Leading Digital Agency Isobar, named one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies

"If you want no nonsense, real world ideas about how to make it in business, buy this book. Damian Mason skips the usual (and usually useless) 'school of business' chatter and gets straight to what it takes to succeed in today's hyper-competitive world. Damian has been there and done that and has the scars and the success to show for it. If you're serious about your success, get this book." —Joe Calloway, author, The Leadership Mindset

"Damian Mason melds stories of real entrepreneurs with the building blocks of any successful business. Expounding on the characteristics that embody the heart of these risk-takers, Mason takes the reader through the stages of building one's business. This book will save the aspiring entrepreneur the miscalculations and missteps we veterans have experienced." —Barry Aycock, PhD, CEO/Owner, AgXplore International, Inc.

"If you want a friend, get a dog. If you want to Do Business Better, read Damian Mason's book of the same title. Then do exactly what Damian says. Do Business Better is packed full of practical and proven ideas you need to succeed." —Bruce Turkel, Branding Expert and Author of All About Them

"My dad is a seventh-generation farmer. I'm a business consultant. What I learned from Damian's book is that my dad and I do the same thing. We grow things. This book shows you, step-by-step, how to plant, grow, and harvest a better business and life. Not only does it teach you the needed habits and traits, but it inspires you to be better because you deserve it and the world does, too." —Suzanne Evans, Business Consultant and New York Times Bestselling Author of The Way You Do Anything is the Way You Do Everything

"My clients are business owners and my employer is the dream creation of every entrepreneur. Do Business Better clearly identifies the required habits of success and the personal traits that will make YOUR business the dream of aspiring entrepreneurs." —Joe VanMeter, Google