That is the million dollar question almost every business owner asks whether your a start-up or you have been in business for 30 years. From my experience the answer is very simple, Leadership and Employees. Leadership should be the solid foundation of every company, whether it be a leadership team or a single owner. As we all know without a solid foundation, the bigger you get, the harder you fall. By this I mean instead of trying to grow too fast make sure what you have is running smoothly and efficiently. Without a productive platform for your company, you can hire all superstar employees and make no or little progress. Why is this you ask, in order for anyone to do their job they need direction. Without a proper foundation for them to stand on they will just keep running the race with no finish line in sight, what this produces is a hard worker that is non productive. Second, is the employees, yes we all know that a superstar employee is rare and hard to find but, when we do find them, how do we keep them? The answer is simple, keep them happy. I am not saying you have to pay them more or give them special privileges or more time off; although we would all love that.... You keep them happy by recognition or by just keeping a happy work environment. After all, we spend more time with the companies we work for and our co-workers than we do our actual families at home. Most of us have seen 3 different types of employees in our experiences, the hard worker, the average worker, and the bad attitude employee. ( notice I didn't say worker ) The hard worker comes into work early everyday to get their affairs in order for the day or week, they complete their jobs on time and they are always looking for ways to better not only themselves but, the company they work for and the people they work with. This is the employee that every one wants or needs at their company. Then you have the average worker, most of us have or had a lot of these people work for us. They are the bell to bell workers that gets their job done and go home, they are happy or content with their position or their responsibilities but, they do not go above or beyond to better themselves or better the company. While this is not a bad employee, in my eyes any employee that does not contribute to a companies success has no business being with that company. Finally, we have the bad attitude employee. This person could have been a superstar, an average worker, or a poor worker but, something inside them changed. Whether it have been not getting recognition for that big account they acquired or maybe management singles them out all the time, maybe they just feel unappreciated, whatever the reason, they now have a bad attitude. A bad attitude employee is very dangerous to your company. Not only do they work with no enthusiasm, they bring down the morale of the company quickly. You will notice things that never bothered employees are now front and center as the worst things about your company. Don't think it stops there, if an employee is complaining about your company while at work, what do you think they are doing at home? They are telling their friends and family about how bad your company is or how bad you treat your employees. Now before the days of the internet all businesses knew the best marketing was word of mouth, the successful companies today still understand that. Everybody knows that bad news travels a lot fast then good news, it also reaches more people. I will tell you it takes a long time to establish credibility and a good reputation but, it takes a fraction of the time to destroy one. So, having a bad attitude employee is probably the worst employee your company can have and I have seen them in multiple positions from entry level up through executive level; it's a lot worse the higher their position because that gets passed down the chain of command. So again I ask, what makes a good company great? The answer is simple a great foundation and happy workers will help advance your company to the next level, again, whether your a start-up or a fortune 1000 every company always has room to progress. So make sure your business model is correct and make sure you have happy employees, and you will see the results speak for themselves.