The way it always works for me is to get a great product or service, market it well, then reinvest a good portion of the profits into more good marketing. 

I've seen over 10,000 articles on the Internet about business; like why businesses fail, how to start a successful business, or how to market your business.  The problem is 50% of these articles are all text book articles written by someone who's never actually run a business, and most of the other 50% who did run a business, didn't make much money with their own advice. 

Here's an excerpt from one article I read, "The business you build needs to be established to support the long term vision of what you want the business to be. This doesn't mean investing in huge computer systems at the start of the business. It does mean that you think, act and react on a business model and plan that takes a long term perspective. Start as you intend to go with sound business processes and making choices that weigh the trade-off between what you can afford to do now and what you need to do to grow the business and its systems."

WHAT? 

This is true but so "textbook."  I guess in plain English this means, "Slowly grow your business, plan for the future using sound business practices, and don't immediately invest in expensive unnecessary items like a huge computer system (because this burns up all of your capital)."

And I hear so much about the "business model."  I made $5,000,00 before I even knew the definition of the "business model."

You know what my "business model" is?  MAKE A LOT MORE MONEY THAN IT COSTS YOU TO MAKE IT.  Make more money each month selling your products and/or services than your monthly expenses are. 

You do this by: Having a viable product or service that people either want or need; selling it for a price they will pay; properly market it so they know you are selling it; and you must be able to deliver this product/service to the customer.  This all has to be done at a low enough cost (business expenses) so that you still have a profit left. 

Product/services, pricing, marketing, and low enough business expenses, that's the basics of business.  

Pitfalls like bad location, over expanding, vendor problems, employee theft, poor customer relations, etc. which can hinder or stop your business all together, are all extra factors in business that we will cover in other member articles.  In some way they all point back to product/services, pricing, marketing, and low business expenses.  So does a bad location and poor customer relations which hurts marketing because any customers you gain from marketing, you might lose them from the poor customer service.  Over expanding and employee theft raises business expenses.  Vendor problems could mean lower quality of your product or not receiving your product to be able to sell it, which means you no longer have a viable product that people want.