Julia Ross, the CEO of RossJuliaRoss, was single and pregnant 20 years ago when she decided to start her own employment (recruitment) agency.

Today, she presides over a business with annual sales of $400 million, 400 employees and many offices around the world.

Before you start saying, “Gerry, where are you going with this?”, I want to say that I don’t want to focus on the size of her business (it would be wrong of me!), but rather I want to focus on her attitude.

Julia Ross has been quoted as saying her business philosophy was to bite off as much as possible and “chew like hell!”

If you read a bit about this woman, what you begin to understand is that all the business successes she has enjoyed have come from the implementation of strong business principles and marketing ideas.

Julia Ross offers the following advice to businesses wanting to remain competitive in today’s environment:

• Create a flexible cost base using temporary staff and contract workers to help you through the peaks and troughs
• Review your operating procedures to remain cost effective and productive
• Introduce technology to provide better service to customers, inc telephone systems, invoicing, etc
• Keep staff motivated and productive

She also offers these 5 tips:

1. Listen to your instincts and believe in yourself
2. Be innovative
3. Employ great people
4. Be the best, not the biggest
5. Don’t run out of cash

I guess the purpose of this story, is that all of us have a starting point that is headed towards success…and, all we need to equip ourselves with (besides the right attitude and dreams!) are the business principles and marketing ideas  that will get us there.