Why Every Entrepreneur Needs a Blog
In this fast paced world, things are becoming more technical. We have entered the digital economy and most people nowadays are dealing with the largest network in this universe, the internet. Almost everybody, during week days, spend time in their offices in front of a computer, surfing and working through internet. During week ends, they are at their homes, still slumped in front of their laptops, desktops or tablets, spending their days off with what Facebook can offer them.
Gain Online Presence
At one point of your existence in the cyber world, you have ‘googled’ yourself (no need to deny it, I’ve done it myself). Google is probably the most checked site by everyone. It is fascinating that this site could know almost everything about anything.
If you want to be found by your target market, make yourself visible by putting up your website and market the products or services you offer. Make it more interesting by having a blog site as well. It is more convincing if the approach you use is on a first person basis, like talking directly to your niche. People greatly consider anecdotes and testimonials to support their decisions in acquiring your services or products.
Inform The Market
A blog site is meant to inform people. For example, you have this on-the-spot-promotion like some airlines do nowadays. You can easily do that kind of promotion to your blog site. Such announcements can be very viral that it can reach your whole market.
You can also use your blog to describe your products or services extensively. If some of the viewers would have comments or questions, you can respond to them immediately since you are the administrator of your own blog site. The Blog-Site is meant to inform both your market and you yourself as an entrepreneur. It’s a two way communication.
Co-relate With Other Entrepreneurs
One cannot grow without the help of other people. Competition is not always the case. Sometimes, an entrepreneur also needs new ideas or suggestions from some experts in the same field. Blog sites, being in a more personal approach, help entrepreneur bloggers to co-relate with each other. You can learn from them and vice-versa.
Having your own blog can help you gain more contacts, in connection, to your business or market niche. I believe everyone has the potential to be the next world renowned business tycoon. This only means that there are things that you know but others do not, sharing them through your blog will give you authority and people will look up to you for the great content that you share with them. Letting your business relationship grow helps you as a person and your being an entrepreneur. Your experiences can be a great deal of help to other upcoming entrepreneurs, or vice versa! Business people can benefit from having their own blog site. Not only they can inform their market about their products or services, but it can also offer relevant information to other businessmen who may need it.
One should not be satisfied with their current market reach. There are a lot or other mediums to reach out to potential clients, especially in the World Wide Web where people are online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Make entrepreneurship a more fulfilling experience by sharing your own experiences and ideas in your own blog site. Be an inspiration to many!
About the Author: Jessica Francisco is a cheerful 25-year-old with an odd sense of fun. The least of her broad range of hobbies include swimming, hiking and listening to the music of Michael Jackson. Jessica is also one of the editors of Luke Roxas.
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To Startup or Not To Startup? Five Things to Consider Before Launching Your Own Company
Why start your own business? After all, it may be one of the most masochistic decisions any individual can make.
To begin, startups come with financial risk, and impact of failure on one’s finances can be severe. Moreover, starting a new business is a sure-fire way to distance oneself from friends and family. Startups can be all-consuming, leaving little time for much else—including personal relationships. Finally, starting a business can take a heavy physical and emotional toll. Late nights and meals at one’s desk are not a healthy lifestyle, and the highs and lows of the startup game can drive a person mad.
Here is why I love being an entrepreneur. In short, starting a business is one of the most exciting, challenging, and rewarding ways to spend my working years. Yes, it can be hard and cruel, but six years into it, I haven’t experienced a single day of boredom.
Startups are not for everyone. Here is some advice if you are considering whether to get into the game:
(1) Get some experience first
Some recent academic literature has concluded that the ideal age for entrepreneurship is 40. This is no doubt because can help to have working experience before you start a business. For one, it provides an opportunity to save up some potential capital to invest. Moreover, you will inevitably pick up some useful skills and knowledge along the way—some of which could prove handy, even if your new business is in a field outside of your expertise. In addition, as you work, your network of contacts will grow. This can prove useful in a variety of ways, including client development, recruiting, the pursuit of capital, to name a few.
(2) Analyze your opportunity costs
If you have nothing to lose, it is easier to take the leap into entrepreneurship. If you are the sole breadwinner for a family of 5 with a limited nest egg, it probably makes sense to save up some cash first, and think very carefully about the impact that a bombed startup would have on your life. One other word of caution here in a different vein: Be aware of the risk of your opportunity cost rising too high. Although an increasing employee paycheck is generally a good thing, the higher your salary rises, the more difficult it can become to quit your job and scratch that entrepreneurial itch.
(3) Build a detailed financial model for the business and test your assumptions thoroughly
Once you begin reducing the business to a spreadsheet, the realities of the numbers will begin to emerge. Taking into account all of your expenses and revenues, as well as when they should occur, will give you a sense of whether the business can make money. It will also give you a sense of how much capital you will need and by when. While there are always financial surprises in the startup experience, waiting to build your projections until after you commit to a business is a dangerous proposition.
(4) Speak to potential clients
Treat your new venture as a sophisticated investor would treat a new potential investment and determine whether your idea can be monetized. Do some due diligence and explore whether there is interest in your product or service. Ask client prospects whether they like your value proposition. If you are entering a competitive industry, ask what it would take for clients to switch providers. Knowing what potential clients want and need is critically important to know if there is room in the marketplace for your business.
(5) Ask yourself whether you have the right DNA
Jumping head first into a startup is not for everyone. If you are the type who needs others to motivate you, or who has trouble staying focused when times get tough, starting a business is probably not be the right move. But if you have self discipline, a fair amount of confidence, passion, and a good deal of intestinal fortitude, you may well be the perfect fit for entrepreneurship.
Keep in mind that starting a business is not for everyone. But for those who have what it takes, becoming an entrepreneur may be the most fulfilling professional path.
About the Author: Paul Mandell is a Founder and the Chief Executive Officer of Consero. In this role, Mr. Mandell provides strategic leadership for the company with a rigid focus on excellence at every level of the business. Prior to founding Consero, Mr. Mandell founded and was the President of a national legal support company that was acquired in 2007. The successor entity was recognized as one of the world’s top legal process outsourcing companies during his continued tenure as President the following year. Prior to entering the business world, Mr. Mandell practiced law at Arnold & Porter LLP and Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in Washington, DC, and New York, New York, respectively, where he focused primarily on antitrust and pharmaceutical litigation. Prior to his law firm experience, Mr. Mandell clerked for the Honorable K. Michael Moore of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
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What an MBA Won’t Teach About Starting a Business
There is much discussion about how beneficial an MBA education is for entrepreneurs starting a business. The debate is about whether the skills required for success as an entrepreneur can be taught and whether the current MBA curriculum allows its graduates to succeed in today’s business landscape. Entrepreneurs must decide whether to invest in a top Online MBA as a prerequisite for starting a business, or rather instead to invest that money directly into a new business.
According to the article, “Seven Essential Qualities of a Successful Entrepreneur” published in the Wall Street Journal, having a vision and being passionate about pursuing that vision are believed to be key requirements for entrepreneurial success. Given that most entrepreneurs accept this driving force as a critical component for entrepreneurs, the question germane to the MBA debate is whether you can teach a student how to think in an innovative manner and to come up with a new idea that they are willing to pursue with an intense and ongoing commitment. Considering the enormous commitment and sacrifice that most new companies require, if an entrepreneur does not make a business dream a top priority in the beginning, it will be very difficult to stick with it when the big challenges arrive.
Education Cannot Teach Passion or Innovation
Considering the large number of highly successful entrepreneurs without formal MBA training, a persuasive argument can be made that entrepreneurs do not need an MBA to succeed when they have a good idea and are willing to pursue it against all odds. Some of the better-known entrepreneurs who are recognized as high-profile contributors to society without an MBA include Bill Gates, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft. Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple computer is another entrepreneur that must be recognized as one of the most celebrated entrepreneurs without an advanced education. These visionaries created technologies that have directly impacted the lives of most people in technology-savvy cultures. The problem with MBAs is that its curriculum teaches students what’s worked for businesses in the past; it doesn’t teach them what being innovative and determined are.
People Skills
While many innovative entrepreneurs in the technology industry have not suffered from a lack of people skills, in many other industries this lack could prove a block to success. We’ve all heard the saying that it is not what you know, but whom you know that makes you successful. If this is true for most entrepreneurs, then it is easy to understand why so many people who are well liked do so well in business.
Networking is promoted as a plausible way to find business partners and key employees. An entrepreneur must be able to depend on talent and commitment to make up for a lack of other resources to compete. This is where leadership and charisma play a key role in recruiting the talent necessary for success.
Conclusion
The debate will continue about whether an entrepreneur needs an MBA to succeed as an entrepreneur. Some questions that any new entrepreneur must consider is whether they can commit for the long-term, and whether they can withstand the pressure to compete under duress. Some of the considerations to think about are financial demands and a support system. Entrepreneurs’ challenges are often not limited to business competition, but also include family concerns. Having a spouse or partner who is also committed to an entrepreneur’s dream can make a substantial difference in whether an entrepreneur succeeds.
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Three cost-effective ways to market your start-up in 2012
Friends sneered at you when you said that you are going the entrepreneurial way. You quit your job in that MNC to build this dream product. Now the product is finally out in the open but how do you find takers for your product.
Needless to say, being a startup you always have this financial question mark staring blankly at your face. Keeping in mind the limitations, startups can easily use these three tools to market their product. It is working for us and if you do it right, it will work for you too.
Social Networking might be passé but networking is not :
Start by using your own personal contacts and their contacts. Ask your friends to try and use your product. Talk about your product when you meet each other during social gatherings. You somehow have to ensure that the optimism you have for your product, gets communicated around. And all said and done, Facebook and Twitter are still one of the best ways to talk about your brand online.
Data Visualizations:
A picture is worth a thousand words. People might not be interested in your 1000 words article but they would love to see a nice graphic communicating the same idea. Try exploring infographics to market what your product stands for, what problem it seeks to solve, industry trends in your market, etc.
Blogging:
This is an effective way to make yourself heard online. Post articles that you think your target market would be interested in. Try and establish yourself as the thought leader in your industry. Encourage the idea of blogging within your organization. Ask employees to contribute their own take on things.
All the best and have a rocking year!
About the Author: Shilpi Choudhury is an Inbound Marketing Specialist and Business Blogger based out of Bangalore, India. She is currently working for DiscountPandit, Bangalore, which is a deal search engine that provides users a faster, simpler and a comprehensive deal search experience.
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Guide to Renting Desk Space for Small Business
When you’re starting out in business, or even if you’re already up and running, then the cost of office space is often one of the biggest headaches facing any venture. Little wonder then that so many people simply decide to work from home, because this can be a great way to cut costs and keep overheads to an absolute minimum.
However, for anyone who has even gone down this route, or who is thinking of giving it a try, working from home comes with a whole array of cons that stack firmly up against the pros. Sure, there’s no commute, you’ve got creature comforts all around you and it’s cheap and easy.
The downsides can soon pile up though, because working from home can be solitary. There are also the interruptions that you’ll probably get from well-meaning loved ones. And working from a spare bedroom, study or even the garage soon loses its appeal. In fact, when you weigh it all up, the working from home scenario can be a double-edged sword.
Moving on up
It’s not suprising therefore to find that many small businesses are biting the bullet and moving into rented desk space locations. This can actually be a great way to go, and if you’re already leasing an office, then it makes sense to consider this angle too. One of the main benefits is that contracts are invariably on a short-term rolling basis and highly competitive.
With landlords keen to maximise profits from their dead space, you’ll find that many locations in inner cities and prestigious business parks are often way more affordable than you might have ever imagined. Of course, if you enter this desk space rental market with just a desk and chair option then there will be precious little in the way of frills. But, if you’ve got a desire to keep it simple and dip in and out of the office, then this may be all you need.
Saving cash
Cost saving will be instantaneous, because the landlord takes care of all the upkeep, the cleaning and all the rest of it. Desk space rentals often come with broadband internet but almost everything else will be absent. But the plus side to that is you just need to turn up, plug in your laptop and get working. Then, at the end of the day, simply unplug and head off home.
The added benefit of all this is that it’s highly flexible and you can be in and sitting at your desk in a matter of days or even hours. There’s certainly none of the protracted legal stuff to go through when you’re considering something like a traditional office lease. The same goes for when you want to leave or move on, with those rolling contracts providing much more freedom for people who don’t want to be tied into a contract or lease for years on end. With the current business climate proving to be tricky to say the least, then this sort of flexible working approach suits many people, both start-ups and those in an existing venture.
About the author: Rob Clymo writes on behalf of office space site www.officegenie.co.uk, the online marketplace for serviced offices and shared office space in the UK.
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Crowdfunding Your Startup [INFOGRAPHIC]
In a down economy, it’s difficult for entrepreneurs to access the capital needed to build their venture from the ground up. Luckily, projects can now be funded by a powerful combination of the social Internet and generous networks of friends, colleagues, and communities. This model is called “crowdfunding” and is sweeping the startup nation by storm. It seem s to be an entrepreneurs dream,. bit are there problems in the way?
Check out the below infographic on how to navigate the new crowdfunding landscape (click image for larger view).
Click for Larger View
infographic source: drawing a crowd
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Is There Ever a Bad Time To Start a Business?
Do you dream about starting a business, but don’t know if it is the right time? Are you concerned that the economic recovery still has a long way to go, so now might not be the right moment? Are you letting fear stop you from following your dream of owning a business?
Starting a business is something that can be done, no matter the economic climate. You may have to adjust your plan, but if you are savvy enough, you can find the customers your new business needs.
You cannot wait for the perfect time, or you will always be making an excuse as to why now is not the right time. The fear will always be there, so embrace it instead of running from it. Harness your fear and direct it in a positive way to ensure you are making smart decisions and thinking before acting.
The Right Frame Of Mind
The one thing that you need to have before starting a new business is the right frame of mind – the right attitude. If you are not mentally in the game, then don’t even bother. Conceptualizing, forming, growing, and running, a business takes a lot of time and energy, and creates a lot of stress and uncertainty. If your head is not in the game, then your business is doomed to fail from the start.
A great mental attitude can trump your lack of business knowledge. You can always gain knowledge, or hire someone smarter than you, but without passion, you lack the drive to be able to have a successful business. Having the right mindset is something you need before becoming an entrepreneur. You have to believe in yourself, and you have to be willing to sacrifice a lot while you build your company.
The Right Idea
However, the right frame of mind will only get you so far. You also need to have a great concept for a business. This doesn’t mean that your idea for the perfect business has to be something that nobody has heard of before – it just needs to be unique.
While there are probably plenty of unique businesses that have yet to be thought of, you don’t have to be a pioneer in order to be a successful business owner. What you do need is to bring something original to the table. If you are going to compete with existing companies in the marketplace, you have to have your own unique selling point. What makes you different from the other guys? Why would consumers (or businesses) choose you over your competition?
Take The Bull By The Horns
You can analyze yourself to death and never take the first step to realizing your dream of being an entrepreneur. While it would be foolish to throw caution to the wind, quit your day job and devote all of your energy to starting a business, there is nothing to say that you can’t commit to moving forward as quickly as you can, under your current circumstances.
Figure out what type of business you want to start, and assuming it isn’t a totally unique concept that the world has never seen, figure out how your business is going to be able to set itself apart from the competition. Commit to yourself that you are going to actually become a business owner sometime in the foreseeable future.
Don’t procrastinate any longer thinking now isn’t the right time to move forward. You have the power to convince yourself the time is never right. You also have the power to take control and move past your fears. Working for yourself is like nothing else. Why would you want to delay this opportunity any longer?
About the Author: Marshall Davis runs Business Service Reviews, a website where small business owners and budding entrepreneurs can learn about products and services to help them become more successful. Read his blog and learn more about becoming a successful entrepreneur.
Photo Credit: milos milosevic
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Are you clear about your Business Idea?
Having worked with a startup since quite some time now, I have realized that one does not need to know rocket science to be an entrepreneur. You just have to plan and plan well. Right from the ideation stage to the execution to the allocation of your resources, all your activities should be planned well. Your idea need not be revolutionary in order for you to start; it just has to be in place!
Do You Lack Clarity?
One key reason why most startups fail is due to the lack of this clarity. ‘What do you want to achieve through this endeavor? What solution are you attempting to provide? Who are your target customers?’ – these are some crucial questions which need to be answered before you venture out.
These questions might seem redundant at the beginning but eventually you will realize that the answers to these questions hold the key to your success. As your venture grows, there would be different teams pulling and pushing this idea in different directions- your marketing team will have a different understanding of your product/service, your product team will have a different approach. At such a juncture your vision of the product/service is important to bring everybody on the same plane. Each team might be right in their own way and (without sounding too skeptical) might be thinking about the good of the organization, but there is only so much that can be achieved with the resourceson hand.
Don’t Be Led Astray
With new technologies coming up and new segments joining your target group, the lure to deviate from your core idea will be very strong. You will always find a better website, a better team and a better technology in the similar field of business and you would be tempted to incorporate their ideas into yours. This might be detrimental to your core idea. I am not suggesting do not take inspiration, I am just saying do not lose out on your key focus.
The clearer you are about your product/service, the easier it will be for you to steer your team in the right direction. Remember you cannot be everything to everybody but you can always be something to somebody!
About the Author: Shilpi Choudhury is a SEO, Social Media and Business Blogger based out of Bangalore, India. She is currently working for Vavia Technologies, Bangalore, specialists in developing Web and Mobile Applications.
Photo Credit: rachaelvoorhees
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5 Reasons Being Your Own Boss Makes You A Better Person
We are a culture that celebrates leadership. We glamorize generals who lead men into battle, and admire the entrepreneurs that built Silicon Valley. There is no question that being the one in command has its appeal as well as its perks.
On the other hand, people in leadership positions also have to make tough decisions, and at times are not looked upon fondly by the masses. In the corporate world the boss is a pejorative term, the very word associated with a draconian taskmaster who will flog an employee for every second they are late returning from break.
So the question is, does being the boss make you a better or worse person? Does the anchor of responsibility make you more mature or more of a jerk? The following are 5 reasons why being your own boss ultimately makes you a better person.
1. Leadership
As your own boss you are responsible for the direction and hierarchy your business assumes, including everything from the marketing strategy to the delegation of duties. You will have to make tough decisions and have the conviction to exercise them.
2. Expanding Your Creativity
As a company drone you are nothing more than a tool, following the orders given to you. The brain goes on auto-pilot the second you clock in. As your own boss, you must think creatively to expand your business and stay ahead of the competition. You must fight ways to be more efficient and
3. Dealing With Pressure
Owning your own business means dealing with the pressure of success and failure. A salaried employee whose income is not tied to the bottom line has little incentive to care. At times it may not feel as if it makes a difference if he or she shows up at all. As the proprietor, however, your livelihood depends on the growth of your business. Exposing yourself to the crucible of business makes you more equipped to handle the pressures of everyday life.
4. Learning to Motivate
In addition to learning how to handle pressure, making your business thrive also represents a challenge. Regardless of whether it’s sports, education, or business, setting a lofty goal and attaining it provides a valuable experience and helps you grow as a human being. Furthermore, as your own boss, not only do you learn how to succeed, you learn how to stay on top. Finding ways to stay ambitious and motivated are key components in keeping your business growing. Finding the energy to keep customers and employees motivated will help you grow to become a more pleasant and affable person.
5. Empathy
Being your own boss means you are responsible for the satisfaction and safety of both your customers and your employees. You must handle disputes amicably and foster strong relationships with your client base. As an employee, the courtesies you extend to customers are perfunctory, a rote phrase spoken to appease a manager with no authentic enthusiasm. For a boss, however, these customers are the arteries of their business, and learning what they think is critical to improving the product or service they provide. Being a boss makes you a better listener, a more gregarious person, and teaches you the empathy required to be an effective manager of people.
In the end, the qualities that make a good boss are the same traits we admire in all human beings. As your own boss, you will find that as your business grows, so does your character.
About the Author: This article was written by Joan Evans of PublicLiabilityInsurance.org, Joans writes on a wide range of business topics including employers liability insurance.
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The Safest Small Business Startup Strategies Are Virtual, Guerrilla, and Flexible
Our continually struggling economy, at least on ground-level, is sending aspiring entrepreneurs mixed messages. On one hand, there’s enormous incentive to stake your claim at a time when competition is low and human resources are high.On the other hand, the still-unknowable future state of our national and global economies is enough to intimidate even the most ardent of entrepreneurs.
While we often can’t make up our minds as to whether to invest our capital into budding businesses or stow it away in StorageMart lockers for fear of an economic Armageddon, there are ways to make your enterprising dreams come true while minimizing the risk of these uncertain times:
Virtualization
The lingering frailty of the real estate market means that at any moment another crisis could lead to rising rent as mortgages skyrocket. For start-ups renting office space, this could devastate the budget for monthly expenses. In addition, the cost of furnishings and supplies takes their toll on limited income too. Considering the prevalence of cloud computing and mobile Internet connectivity, start-ups should forgo a centralized work environment in favor of a remote operation. The benefits of an office fail to apply to young small businesses in an age when the Internet is the primary means people research goods and services.
Guerrilla Marketing
Guerrilla marketing tactics center on the idea that the modern public responds better to seemingly off-the-cuff promotions and brand awareness. It’s also a conveniently cheaper way of executing large-scale marketing campaigns than traditional means such as television and radio. Guerrilla marketing takes some serious creativity, because, in essence, its got to be a purely original approach to spreading awareness about your goods and services. It does, however, keep you from having to invest large volumes of cash up front for more mainstream campaigns through pricey marketing agencies.
Flexibility
The main objective is to make your business practices elastic in their necessity. Young businesses need the ability to change pace or strategy without the added expenses of increases in marketing and further investment in company assets. You’re going to want to change some of the things you do because every small business start-up makes mistakes. You want to make sure these inevitable mistakes don’t result in major setbacks due to the added cost of fixing them when your business model is set in stone.
Don’t hold back on a great small business idea at a time when the best thing you can do for yourself and for your country is to do your part to help get the economy’s wheels turning again. But at the same time, don’t set yourself up for potential failure by investing large amounts up front when you can succeed just as easily by practicing a Spartan business lifestyle. Offices and expensive marketing can always come later.
About the Author: This article was contributed by Riley Kissel.
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So You’ve Got an Idea – Now What? 8 Foolproof Steps from Idea to Implementation
If you’re reading this blog, you probably had the realization at some point in your life that you could do it better. Maybe you were working for someone, and realized that there was a better way to run the business. Or maybe you were using a product and had a flash of insight about how to improve it. Or perhaps you had a brilliant idea for a product that could change the world.
But you’re realistic. You know things are never as easy as they seem. You’re willing to gamble your time and money on your idea, but what’s the first step towards realizing your dream? And how do you make sure you don’t lose all your money on a business that ends up failing?
Where to Focus?
The answer is to focus on the customer, not the product. It’s easiest to demonstrate this approach by example. Let’s say I have an idea for a new kind of recipe site, designed specifically for professional chefs. Before spending thousands of dollars building the site and creating all the content, I would go and talk to chefs and ask what they would like to see in a recipe site. I’d look for forums or Facebook groups for chefs and ask for ideas. I’d put my vision out and try to get feedback. And I’d do all of this before building the product at all.
Testing, Testing…
So now I’ve got a sense of how to build this amazing recipe site. My instinct might be to build out a huge site now and have a big release party in 6 months. But what if everybody was excited about it on forums and interviews, but nobody wants to pay? Or what if, when the site is actually built, it turns out to not really work the way people want it to? That’s where the idea of a minimal viable product comes in. Once you feel like you have a basic handle on your customer, create the minimum experience you need in order to test if you’re on the right path. For my recipe site, I might just create a site for desserts, with plans to expand into other meals if it goes well. I might have a very rudimentary billing system, and only the most important of my site’s future features.
Crowdsource and Improve
Once you’ve got some people using your product or service, you’ll have a better understanding of where to go. So far, I haven’t spent too much time or money on my recipe site, so if it turns out it’s a flop, I haven’t lost everything. I can talk to my customers and find out what’s going wrong: Do they have a hard time finding the recipes? Do they like the site but not want to pay as much as I’m charging? Or is the whole idea just not something they’re interested in?
If the answer to the last question is “yes”, it’s a disappointing day, but at least I haven’t wasted a huge amount of time and money. But otherwise, I’ve learned a lot from talking to our first customers. Now I can make changes – changes I probably never would have thought of myself, or changes I thought were unimportant but that my customers really value.
8 Foolproof Steps from Idea to Implementation
The process in its entirety looks like this:
1. Have an idea.
2. Talk to potential customers about the idea.
3. Build a minimal viable product or experience.
4. Get customers.
5. Learn what they like and don’t like.
6. Make changes.
7. Repeat 4-6 until you have a business people are steadily buying from.
If you get to 7, congratulations! It’s time for:
8. Scale out your business and grow like crazy.
The fallacy that too many entrepreneurs fall for is thinking that step 8 comes before step 3. They think (and I’ve thought this, too!) that, if they could just build the perfect product or service, the customers will come. In fact, you need to have the customers in order to know what the perfect product even is.
If you’d like to read more about these ideas, check out Steve Blank’s Four Steps to Epiphany and Eric Ries’ The Lean Startup.
About the Author: Michael Kaiser-Nyman is the CEO and founder of Impact Dialing, an easy to use power dialer and hosted predictive dialer for small businesses, call centers, and political campaigns.
Photo Credit: Roomic Cube
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Start Up Don’t Shut Down
As people have lost their jobs and struggled to find employment, many of the more spirited professionals have struck out on their own to create the jobs that they cannot seem to find. Read more
3 Tips for Startups to Survive
No matter how good the idea is or how much money startups have, they have to first think of survival before they entertain thoughts of success; it’s not that easy to float a company today, simply because the competition is fierce and most spheres of business are saturated and overcrowded. Read more
Tips for Small Construction Business Owners
If you are interested in construction, starting your own business may sound like a dream. However, running a construction company is not as easy as you may think. In order to create a successful business, it is essential you develop a strong business plan, secure financing and make sure that your company is properly licensed and insured. Luckily, you don’t need a construction management degree to accomplish these tasks. Simply follow the tips below, and you will have your construction company up and running in no time. Read more
Running a Small Business From Your Home: 8 Ways to Make it Work
‘Start small’ has always been my mantra in my years of coaching start ups and emerging entrepreneurs. It may feel unambitious to run a business from your home but it has many dividends. It helps you have time to ‘test the waters’ without racking up unnecessary overheads as a start up. It also allows you time to make your mistakes and fine tune that business model you had all nicely painted in you business plan or executive summary.
So go ahead and try to work from home and if you are already at it, lets take a look at how to excel at it.
Get Dressed and Go To Work!
‘But I am at home and besides no one can see me through the telephone ‘, you may say but the very act of getting up in the morning and getting ready to sit in your work area and do some uninterrupted work will boost your work morale and get your innovative juices flowing.
One of the mistakes home based entrepreneurs make is being too informal about their work ethic; that is one robber of time and MONEY.
Look The Part
Remind yourself often the reason why you left paid employment or college, for that matter, to pursue this dream of yours. Don’t allow yourself come across as slouchy and unprofessional. When you are meeting leads or prospective clients, you want them to register some trust in your ability to do what you say you do. ‘You are addressed by the way you are dressed’, one of my mentors always said.
Create A Sanctuary
It may be a desk in the dining area or a cleared out space in the garage, designate a place where you can work on your computer, write down ideas and keep revolving documents. Let other people in your home know and respect this place as your thinking spot. Even the children can understand this, just let them know.
Obey the Routine
Write out your daily schedule and use that to create a roaster which will form the blue print of how you operate. Everything from time for follow up phone calls to time spent online or days and times for hitting the road for some networking etc. Whether your a service provider or manufacturer this can work for you. An entrepreneur has told me he works a mandatory 14 hours everyday and that’s any 14 hours! You can try that if it suits your lifestyle, some personality types work better that way.
Tone Down the Distractions
No need fixing the conference call with your manufacturer and accountant at a time when, for instance, the children are back from school or the cleaning lady is hoovering. Keep the distractions at bay when you are working or better still work from a nearby coffee shop when there is work being done in the house or other similar one off distraction.
Meet the Clients!
Although some traditional professions like accounting and law frown at it, going to meet your client rather than them coming to you may just work very well for entrepreneurs, even ones who have ‘big’ offices. I find that it helps bridge the formality gap and it helps you see your client in his own environment and often helps to meet his need better, given the extra feel of his personality you may be getting from such visits.
Be Honest
If you are a start up and this company is just you for now, say so. It is absolutely unnecessary to say ‘we’ when speaking about your business. You should say ‘I’. If you are good at what you do and deliver on your promises you won’t need to amp the capacity of your business by saying ‘we’.
Also ‘underpromise and overdeliver’ has been said for years and it still holds true. The customer is always delighted when results are delivered earlier than stated.
Be Memorable
Because there are many other event planners, web designers or software developers everywhere you turn, it should be a priority to make yourself memorable …… in a good way that is.
You are the face of your start up, even where a prospect does not end up an actual client, let them remember the experience of interacting with you. They may just call you again. Being respectful, personable or playing the charm card is not a sign of a lack of confidence, on the contrary it shows you know who you are and what you can deliver.
About the Author: Cynthia Obioma Ezeani has worked extensively in Nigeria coaching start ups and emerging entrepreneurs since 2006. She currently resides in Massachusetts.
Photo Credit: Roland
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