It is one of the most frustrating events in being an entrepreneur. You take valuable time to develop a relationship with a new company; you get to know the personal, the company, the product. Then when it's time to move the ball forward, the company that had a great idea and talked up their process does not have the ability to facilitate the transaction.

You ask for further information, and the answer is, 'I don't know' or 'that had never come up before?' or even worse, silence. It becomes clear very quickly the company has not really done its homework. It does not have the structure or the personal to fulfill the sales pitch. Obviously this leads to frustration, and is always costly in both time and money.

It has been critical to my success, and every other successful person, to have a specific plan, organization and constant attention to policy and procedure to move a company and project forward. Whether you are talking about marketing, product development, implementation, or making a sale, you have to pay attention to all aspects of the transaction and make decisions quickly and effectively.

My personal experience in both successful business ventures, and those that bombed, always has two fatal flaws. Either the project or company was underfunded, or the people responsible for the implementation where not clear on the intended outcome. Both of these fatal flaws are directly linked to the failure at one of the levels listed below. None of these steps can be skipped, shortened, or ignored; failure to obey these laws will inevitably end in failure.

Four Laws to completing a successful project:

1.Get a Clear Target - This is clich; however, you cannot hit a target unless you know what and where your target is. Life and business are 95% course correction; one has to see the target and make corrections while traveling towards it. Think of yourself as a Tomahawk missile, you are traveling very fast with a heavy payload, make sure you hit your mark or suffer the collateral damage.
2.Get the Critical Information - After you have clearly defined your target, get the information necessary to make the informed decision. Put yourself in your client's shoes, ask others not involved with the project what you are missing, and then go get the answers.
3.Make the necessary decision - Napoleon Hill, one of the greatest success coaches ever, writes: successful people make decisions quickly and are slow to change; unsuccessful people make decisions slowly and change the decision quickly.
4.Execute - If you are the business owner, it is you and only you who end up being ultimately responsible of the outcome, make sure you don't drop the ball. Stay focused, review the goals, achieve the checkpoints, and keep open communication in case of adjustments, when, no it, they happen.
Granted, there are hundreds, if not thousands of tasks that go into operating a business or completing a project successfully. However, the bottom line is without a being specific about what you are attempting to accomplish, without having clear intentions of the desired outcome, and without obtaining the right information before you start, there is little chance of having happy customers or successful projects. Follow these rules, and you will be successful.