I recently attended a Microsoft event at their corporate headquarters in Redmond, Washington. This event was a fantastic opportunity to meet with fellow leaders in the Microsoft partner community from around the world and spend quality time with each one of them. The event was held over four days and we had a very tight schedule and the importance of timeliness was critical to its overall success.

The timeliness factor really didn't hit me until I was ready to head back to the airport for my trip home. My town car arrived a few minutes early to collect me and I noticed that the driver was there waiting so I signaled to him that I would be ready in the next few minutes. I collected my personal belongings from the hotel concierge and met the driver for the trip from downtown Seattle to SeaTac Airport.

When I was seated in the car and we were on our way, the driver looked in his rear view mirror and thanked me for being on time. He continued to say that "successful people are always on time". This got me thinking about the importance of timeliness in everything that we do.

There is truth to this town car driver's statement about successful business people being on time for everything that they do and truth to the fact that those who are struggling in their business are usually late for everything that they do or even worst, never show up. Successful people understand that time is a valuable commodity and they are driven to maximize every possible second to their advantage. You can see it everywhere you go, they are the types that have their laptops on and being productive while they wait for their flights, they hire the right people to take time consuming tasks off their plates to free them up to invest their time where it is needed the most and they also maximize every possible second for productive tasks.

Business people that struggle are the ones that let time get away on them with their full knowledge that this is happen and usually turn a blind eye to this happening, this is truly an indication that they do not value their time as money. In business, time is truly valuable, so why not put a dollar figure around it. Are you late for meetings? Do you think that starting fifteen minutes late is acceptable? Do you think that accounting for your time is a waste of time? If you answered yes to these questions you may want to re-examine how successful you really are in your business.

What is your time worth? To the average entrepreneur, President, CEO or business owner their time is worth hundreds of dollars per hour. Would you throw hundred dollar bill out the window as you drive? So why do struggling business owners throw their money away doing non-revenue generating activities or doing tasks that they can pay someone $25 to $50 an hour to do for them.

Here are some basic principles on the value of time in business:

• Be on time - Timeliness when dealing with others is critical to your success overall in life and business. When you are late for meetings or events, you are wasting other people's time. It is important to think about how your tardiness or lack of caring about the other person's valuable time is effecting your business success. There will always be exceptions to the rule and elements in nature that you cannot control, however still in the this day of cell phones and other mobile devices, a high number of people still disrespect their colleagues, clients or even worse, prospective client's time by not contacting them to make them aware that they are a few minutes late.

•Respect - You need to respect your time just like you would other people's time. Television is the biggest time waster in the today's world. Successful people see this as being disrespectful of their time by not being productive. You must be respectful of your own time, so that you can maximize your opportunities with your own time and be respectful of other people's time.

•Don't wait until the last minute - Successful business owners and executives never wait to the last minute to complete a task. They leave themselves adequate time to ensure that the job is completed successful and all bases are covered. Business owners who struggle in business are always rushing at the last minute to finish projects or squeeze it in at the last minute. Successful business owners and entrepreneurs plan their time in meetings to maximize all time that they have with others in business.

•Use technology to your advantage - Successful business owners keep their phones and mobile devices on, so that they do not miss any opportunity that comes their way. Struggling business owners turn off their mobile devices during non business hours or even worse during the business day. Don't get me wrong, it is important to have balance in life, however, if you truly want to be successful in business keep your mobile phone on at all times. Be readily accessible and then delegate out the work.

•Hire the right team - Get the right team around you. When you surrounded by the right team things get done. Do not keep people around on your team that waste your time or waste the team's time. Time wasters can kill the productivity of any successful team.

•Learn to delegate effectively - When you learn to delegate effectively, you keep your time free to do the activities that create the highest return for your business. Licking envelopes is not a good use of your time, meeting with your best client for a cocktail is. Delegate the activities that need to be done by someone on your staff. Normally they are better at that particular activity and they also enjoy it.

Understanding the importance of time is critical to your success, maximize every second of your day, complete all tasks in a time fashion and have the right people around you to free up your time so that you can concentrate on the important items in business. What are these important items? They are very simple; important items in business are any task that creates revenue for your business. If it doesn't make money or even worst - costs you money, dump it or delegate it. Do not get wrapped up in non-revenue generating activities. Today's business owners always need to be marketing, selling and maximizing theirs and others time.