In this interview, Brian Tracy explains the fundamental drivers of business success. He argues that the number‑one reason for success is a genuine focus on serving other people, which naturally attracts customers and opportunities. Hard work and persistence are non‑negotiable, and keeping a written record of actions, ideas, and lessons is essential for continual improvement. Tracy emphasizes daily reading, attending seminars, and practicing new sales techniques to build skill. He shares his personal journey from physical labor to sales, describing how necessity led him to master selling, and how repeated practice and documentation turned sales into a powerful, clean source of income. Low sales are identified as the primary cause of business failure, making sales competence critical for any entrepreneur. The conversation repeatedly reinforces that helping others, relentless effort, and disciplined learning are the pillars of lasting success.
Chapters
What is the number one reason for a business to be successful?
Well, the number one reason is to serve other people. Successful people are always looking for ways to serve others, to help others, to help them achieve their goals. And help them achieve their goals faster and better and cheaper. They're always looking for ways to help others. And soon they start to become better and better at helping others, and they start to attract, like the law of attraction, they start to attract customers into their lives who trust them and open doors for them. And then they start to accomplish even more, faster, and then even more, faster. And there's really no substitute for hard work. Just work very, very hard.
Yes.
And write things down. See, if you write things down, then you have a record of what you did and what you didn't do. Read every day. Keep increasing your skills.
Yes.
And so that if you lose all the money, you have all the skills in the back of your mind.
And that nobody's going to take that away from you. No, no one can. So you are also the best sales teacher in the world, and a lot of people that want to start a business say, oh, but I don't like selling, I cannot sell, I don't want to sell. How did you fall in love with sales?
Well, I first of all, I learned how to sell because I wanted to eat, you see.
Out of necessity.
Out of necessity. And so I realized that in order to be successful, I either had to do physical work, which I did when I was younger, I washed dishes and I worked in gardens and yards and I worked in factories. I had to do that to eat. And then I found that I could sell and I could earn more money and it was clean work. And so I could earn even more money and I began to read about how to sell. I went to sales seminars. And I listened to top salespeople teach their ideas. And I listened, still remember, I listened to audio programs produced by successful salespeople. And every time I learned something new, I immediately went out and practiced it. And what I found, I said before, that in the beginning nothing works. Nothing works. So you have to try it again and again. And after trying it 5 or 10 times, if it is a good idea, it will start to work. And you will become more comfortable with it. And you'll be more effective at getting results. And so that's what you do is you keep, you write it down, you try. And I read every book. It was absolutely amazing. I found that if one idea in one book can change your entire career. It can make you rich and make it easier and easier for you to sell more and more and earn more and more money.
So now, low sales is the number one reason for business failure.
Yes.
Right?
Yes.
And still there's people that want to go into business and they go like, oh, I don't like sales, I don't like selling. How important is it for a business success to increase sales?
Well, The key to success in life is to serve other people, is to help other people achieve their goals.
Yes.
And the way you sell is you show people how your product or service can help them.
Yes.
And if you're not willing to risk the possibility of rejection or failure, then you have to go back to working at a very low level. Of income. The fact of the matter is that becoming successful is hard, hard work. And so looking to find a way to avoid the hard work is not a good idea. Be prepared to work. I remember when I began selling at probably the sales job that turned my life around, because I used to knock on doors and I would start at 8 o'clock in the morning knocking on the doors of companies. And then in the evening I would knock on the doors of employees from the companies, and I would work until 9 or 10 o'clock at night. And I remember I would knock on doors all day long, from 8 o'clock in the morning till 6 o'clock at night. And, and then I began to read about selling, and then I began to attend seminars. On selling. And then I began to ask for advice from successful salespeople. And gradually I got better and better. It was very slow. It was not an easy thing to do. It took me a year to, as we say, sort of turn the corner in selling and start to become more and more successful. It is not easy at the beginning. It's very difficult. And most people quit. Before they succeed. I've heard this said many, many times, that most people quit just one step before they could succeed. But they give up.
