‘Success’ means different things to different people, but generally the interpretation tends to revolve around obtaining monetary wealth. But true wealth isn’t just about money or material possessions, but rather about time, security, quality relationships and health. Money and material possessions can form a part of this package of wealth, but they’re limited to being exchangeable for material things – they can’t buy you time or happiness. Of course, it’s understood that misery must surely be more comfortably experienced in luxury than in poverty, so let’s get real – despite what should be interpreted as the true meaning of wealth, most of us do equate ‘success’ to making money…so let’s address that.

I often ask people at Workshops whether they have ever dreamt of winning the Lotto, and if so, what they would do with their winnings. When their answer is paying off debt, I joke with them saying that this wouldn’t be their first choice if it wasn't such a large sum of money. Winning say, R50 000, would tempt most people to perhaps buy something, but winning R10 million would surely allow you to pay off all debt, and would make you feel vastly relieved and really good. You could buy a house for cash, cars for cash and invest the rest to live off as well! WOW – wouldn’t that feel amazing? And I do mean feel amazing because when you day-dream about something vividly enough, your physiology can actually produce the chemicals that give you the psychological feeling you would get just as if it were really happening.

How about if you personally earned R10 million this year? Would that make you successful? Damn right! So why don't you dream about that? Why don't you day-dream about earning R10 million, and then develop a plan to actually make it real? As an entrepreneur, you should behave like one - visualise, plan and act. That is what it is all about. The problem is we don't think like that; we dream about winning the lotto rather than believing we can make the fortune ourselves.

You see, the problem with believing that you can make your own fortune is that you need to KEEP believing. Sometimes things happen that make you lose hope and then you stop doing and stop producing.

We at Entrepreneur.co.za want to change that. I know that our interventions in the form of Vision 2007 and Virtual Coach will assist you in obtaining true wealth…and by this I mean making a lot of money as well as everything else that true wealth is all about.

You will only obtain what you set out to obtain. If you think you will make R200 000 this year, then you may well make that amount...but you definitely won’t make more. You need to keep believing, keep learning and keep improving. You need to take massive persistent action towards obtaining what you want, and then you will. So how about making R2 million this year?

Soon after she turned 16, Poppy King searched in store after store for lipsticks in the rich colors of the 1940s. She came up empty-handed. Nowhere in her native city of Melbourne, Australia, could she find those nostalgic shades.

As she hunted, King kept hearing about other customers searching for the same look. "I was getting a consistent reaction. Salesgirls in department stores said that a lot of people were asking for matte lipsticks," she says. "This really did set some alarm bells ringing."

King figured that a demand so obvious to a schoolgirl would soon be met by one of the big cosmetics companies. She waited three years, but nothing happened.

So at age 19, King left school to found Poppy Industries Inc. Four years later, she is selling her cosmetics line through hundreds of exclusive outlets in countries all over the world, including Australia, the United States, Singapore, India, and Pakistan.

King began her entrepreneurial journey by finding a mentor. Knowing that she needed business advice, a friend introduced her to the son of a prominent Australian businessman. The man was so impressed that, along with advice, he supplied $31,000 in seed money.

In a frenzied, yearlong odyssey, King developed the company's first lipstick line. She worked with a manufacturer to develop seven colors, designed the packaging, and hired an accountant to assist with the business plan. She also spent time brainstorming names for the colors, settling on unusual, eye-catching ones like "Ambition," "Inspiration," and "Integrity." Then she turned her energy, to finding vendors.

King trekked door-to-door, calling on boutiques in the chic enclaves of Melbourne and Sydney. The store owners listened to King, despite her lack of business experience. "If I were talking about a wonderful new hammer or screwdriver, or about wanting to construct some retirement village, people would think, `What experience do you have?'" she explains. "But when you're talking about cosmetics, people think it's fairly understandable for a young girl to have knowledge in that area."

By the end of her first month in business, Poppy Industries had landed 40 outlets in those two cities. By the second month, Australia's largest retailer, Myer Grace Brothers, was knocking at her door.

Six months into the operation, King contacted the American fashion retailer Barneys, seeking to boost Poppy Industries into the international arena. "I was perhaps a little bit overconfident," she says of that trip to New York. "I rung up and explained that I had a small range of lipsticks and asked if it would be possible to send them the product." Instead, they invited her to come in for a meeting.

"They loved the whole concept," King says. "The story behind it, the packaging, the look, the colors, the names - the whole deal." She was asked to supply product for the much-hyped launch of the chain's Madison Avenue branch.

As that opening approached, King and her line were profiled in Vogue, Mirabella, and Elle. Thanks to the buzz those stories generated, 800 Poppy lipsticks were snatched up on the store's first day.

King is now pulling up roots and moving her operation to New York to lay the groundwork for future expansion. Growing an international company in Australia, with its small base population, isolated location, and limited worldwide media exposure, is an uphill battle. This is especially true in media-dependent industries like fashion.

"Once you have made a name for yourself in the United States, you're much more able to make a name for yourself in the East," she explains. "It's very rare that a fashion brand is launched in the East and then goes to the West. It flows the other way."

Poppy Industries has prospered, despite daunting competition from the giant cosmetics companies, by establishing a focused identity that offers an alternative to status-quo styles. This strategy brought in $8 million in sales for 1996. And even though King has expanded the line to include more cosmetics and accessories, she intends to stick to this formula. "We're never going to have hundreds and hundreds of products and colors," King insists. "It's a very tight and focused little brand."