Tag Archives: entrepreneur


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People Who Run Businesses Must Currently Have a Business Mentality, Correct?

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It is really an unfortunate undeniable fact that plenty of business people don’t truly own organisations. They just have an occupation and their businesses possess them. Let me give an explanation.

Your Entrepreneurial Moment

Almost all companies start with the entrepreneurial seizure. You’re sitting in your office one day and your supervisor says or does something that annoys you. Absolutely nothing new about that but this time around it’s different. This time around you’re thinking “I’ve had more than enough of this, I could do this job better than my employer could… and that is what I’ll do, I’ll start up my own company!”

This is the entrepreneurial seizure and that is how it all begins. Within weeks you have left your career, your vibrant new company is up and functioning and you really are now your own boss, working life is currently wonderful.

Maximum grades for taking the opportunity but go and sit down on the naughty seat. Why? Let’s fast forward 1 year.

The Sad Consequences

This career you were once good at, this job you typically used have fun with. You actually are still very good at it but something’s changed, It may not be like you suspected it would be.

No one said you would be working 16 hour days, six days per week just to make ends meet. Noone told you that you would be fearing each working day even more than when you had a boss. I wonder how the good old boss is doing, I wonder if he’ll take me back once again.

And that is certainly the tale of countless entrepreneurs. What on earth went drastically wrong? Just what is absent?

It Needn’t be Like This

The truth is, countless start up business owners are great at their profession, but being good at a career and making a prosperous small business out of it are planets apart and call for very different abilities. Setting up a company needs a fresh mentality, a business mindset. This is certainly what’s lacking and this is precisely what went drastically wrong.

Establish a business mindset first and this needn’t be you, the aforementioned scenario can be totally different. One year later on will not be the finish for you, it’ll indicate the start of your newly found independence, fulfilment and prosperity.

If you are currently in the 16 hour day point it may not be too late, you could turn things around but it will take work, a brand new mindset along with a perception that you have another method. You’ve already completed the initial step by reading this. So now you should find out more, significantly more and then act. You’re in the perfect place.

Therefore, to respond to the title question… actually, I believe I already did that nevertheless to summarise: there is little correlation between the bulk of business owners and the possession of a true business mindset, hence the huge small enterprise failure number.

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3 Levels Of Value, Where Should A Small Business Owner Spend Their Time

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Time is hardly ever the close friend of an business owner or small business owner. In business, there is an advantage to being the first one to market with an offering. You also do not want to delay getting to a positive income or growing. There is a useful technique for segmenting responsibilities that have to be done that helps maximize precious time.

The major challenge facing us is the limited resources readily available. These types of assets can be cash, time, individuals, etc. What we quite often find ourselves doing is sporting several hats and just working longer hours endeavoring to achieve all that we have to do.

I’d like to focus on working smarter, not harder. Obvious first steps here would be to set your goals, deadlines, etc. But I’m going to look at this challenge from a different angle in this article.

Consider that your business, like any other, probably has three tiers of jobs and value. There are the $1,000/hour jobs, $100/hour jobs and $10/hour jobs. The $1,000/hour jobs are the most vital at creating value, growing the business, creating the business identity, etc.

The $100/hour jobs are the “business framework” of your company. These jobs are dedicated to making important decisions about the details of operations, HR, working on creating marketing campaign materials, measurement, reporting, etc.

The $10/hour jobs are dedicated to keeping the equipment and lighting on and answering the telephone. The housecleaning staff, front desk staff, etc. hold these types of tasks.

Considering that you’ve started your own business, you have in all probability a few extraordinary gifts that the company is based upon. Building upon these, building the overall picture, providing outcomes, etc. are probably where you should be spending the majority of your time. Your importance in these functions is comparable to the $1,000/hour tasks and you’re making the best use of your time.

Professionals in finance, accounting, management, customer relations, etc. do the $100/hour jobs. They keep the business functioning and compliant. These jobs are critical and you need to have them done, but you probably don’t need to do them all yourself. In fact, if you have to spend lots of time learning how to do these jobs, it’s a waste of your time. Every hour you spend here is an hour lost at the $1,000/hour jobs.

The $10/hour positions are much less important for you to be spending your time on. You can engage people to do these functions or out-source all of them. You may be able to systemize many of them as well.

Don’t get me wrong; all 3 levels of jobs are valuable, as are the individuals that conduct them. The problem is to find people who are fulfilled at those levels or whose career is at that stage currently. But you don’t desire to devote all of your time in these functions; you want to focus on creating and expanding your small business. As you concentrate your time on the higher-level job, you’ll be making more positions overall at the same time, that may enable you to serve even more people.

Take the time to sort out roles in your business and how you spend your time. Are you maximizing your talents or are you spending too much time in activities that others could do (probably better too)! When you find yourself doing less valuable work, try to brainstorm a way to remove it from your responsibilities. You can hire support firms, like CPAs to help with your accounting, virtual assistants to help with phones and busy work, professional managers to run the firm when it is the correct size, etc.

Remember, time is a finite resource. Don’t think that just because you have the time to do something, that you should be doing it. Every activity you do means that you can’t be doing something else. If the activity you put off is critical to your success, you may want to consider ways to free yourself to do the most influential tasks in your firm.

Michael Nelson is an dedicated business coach who is focused upon bringing big business strategy, marketing, and leadership to entrepreneurs in a practical and results oriented way. He is devoted to bringing the best small business ideas to his clients.

Multi Level Marketing Duplication Can Be Elusive Without Correct Mentorship

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Have you ever ever had that perfect prospect that you simply just knew was going to affix your MLM enterprise, and she or he just disappears into the night? The following day you are calling, driving by their home, knocking on their door, harassing their neighbors, ok maybe not that bad.

When something like this happens, network marketers find themselves left wanting, relatively than fulfilled. A majority of these emotions frustrate, sting, burn, and agonize. The network marketing business teaches us to only sponsor three, who will sponsor three, who will then sponsor three and ‘Kaboom!’ your bank account will explode. If I had a dollar for every time I heard that, I would have extra money than Tiger Woods and Invoice Gates combined. This virtually by no means happens as a result of people change into so puffed up, that if there don’t make a substantial sum of money within a certain period of time they give up; thus, you get no duplication.

The network marketing industry has gotten so out of hand with all the hype and get wealthy fast speak that it is now in a form of self-destructive mode. When folks hear MLM they think pyramid scheme or they can not recognize when an organization really is legitimate. The actual fact is that the individuals on the top didn’t get there by chasing humans within the supermarket. Generally I’m wondering why they don’t simply tell the truth.

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Mentorship performs a significant function within the success of a network marketer. A mentor does not necessarily need to be one individual. It may be a support group, a training tutorial, a e book, or perhaps a university. Mentors information you and teach you the ins and outs of a system. Hundreds of MLMers may use some steering infrequently and their conversion charges would soar dramatically. The thing is, individuals do not wish to ask for help. I suppose you might say it is a delight thing. In search of instruction shouldn’t be a shameful act though. When you purchase a brand new pc and watch tutorials on the right way to use it, you’re asking for help. Whenever you take a golf lesson to improve your game, you’re asking for help. It is a very oblique manner, but it surely’s nonetheless a form of guidance. This precept must be utilized in network marketing as well.

A purpose why mentorship plays a major role is as a result of it allows MLMers to recognize totally different methods and concepts that they might not have thought of. Everyone has heard the expression, ‘There’s more than one method to pores and skin a cat.’ That is one hundred% true in anything and everything. It’s simply not logical to consider that duplication will occur without some kind of instruction or self education. I would like to close with one last thought. “An A scholar will get into Harvard earlier than a C student will.”

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A 5-Step Formula For Achieving Any Goal

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As you may recall in the June 20, 2011 article entitled “Finding My Tooth Brush”, I wrote about how my home was totally destroyed by a lightening strike.

The good news is that my home is still standing but everything else we own was destroyed by soot, fire damage, water damage, or smoke damage.

Then a few days later as I was walking through the home again trying to find anything critical that I could still save, or for items that I wanted to buy again, I saw it. One of my favorite books – wet and a little charred was peeking out at me through the hundreds of books in my library.

That book, “The Creative Entrepreneur”, is absolutely one of my most favorite books to use for goal setting. It sets out for you through overview on how to use images and words that you write or paste into a journal to help you map out and achieve your business goals.

As I was reading through this book again, I was reminded of how I used it before to help plan out various projects – including this newsletter — and how important it is that we all chart out goals for our business and personal lives.

After all, how can any of us think of achieving a goal if we can’t think through it clearly, identify the actions to take, and then begin taking those steps accordingly?

So in this article, I will share with you my very own five-step process that I personally use for achieving any goal, while providing you with an example of how I taught this process to my daughter Victoria while on vacation last year.

Sadly, we were not able to take our normal vacation this year because of my home burning down – but I’m so grateful that we’re still alive and will have more family getaways in the coming years when the dust settles, so to speak.

But this 5-step process is timeless, and can be taught to your children too if you have them.

Step 1 – Make Sure Your Goal Is “SMART”

The first thing you should do is figure out what you want to accomplish, at least at a high level. Start by just writing down what your goals is, such as “I want a new car”. Don’t worry about it being perfect. You just want to capture the essence of the goal.

Once you’ve written down a rough draft of the goal, re-write your goal to make sure it is SMART, which stands for “Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely”.

For “Specific”, your goal needs to be more than just a broad statement like “new car”. A more specific goal for “new car” would be “a new Lexus ES 330″.

Once you have re-written your goal to be specific, it’s time to see if the goal is “Measurable”. In other words, will you know exactly when you have reached it? The example “new Lexus ES 330″ is very measurable, because you will know exactly when it has happened. Revise your goal until it is measurable.

You next evaluate the goal to see if it is “Attainable”, and revise it accordingly. Attainable just means whether you can ever really achieve it. If your goal was “fly using my bare hands”, then it wouldn’t meet the “attainable” test, because it is something that just isn’t possible.

Next, you need to confirm that your goal is “Realistic”. Realistic just means whether or not it is feasible for you to make it happen like you’ve stated, such as in a certain time frame. For example, if you had a goal to buy the Lexus ES 330 tomorrow when your bank account was empty, it would not pass the realistic test either. If your goal is not realistic, then re-write it until it is realistic.

The final element of the SMART test is to make sure your goal is “Timely”. In order to ever feel like you’re making progress, your goal needs to be short term in nature, such as one week, one month, or one quarter.

With my daughter Victoria, the goal we set was to win a new DVD player as a prize by the end of the Carnival at the 4th of July at the Grand Hotel where we were on vacation last year. That goal is certainly specific. It is also measurable, because we would know we reached it by redeeming enough tokens to “win” it.

At first, the goal didn’t seem like it was attainable or realistic, because it took 500 tokens to win the DVD player. After all, it was the grand prize out of hundreds of prizes.

But my daughter, husband, and I calculated that if each of us played the carnival games together (and not just my daughter), we could rack up 3 times as many tokens, and could still win enough before the day was up. So we refined it to be attainable, and also realistic.

And it was definitely timely, because we set the goal for just one day, before the carnival ended. So we refined our goal until it met the SMART test.

Step 2 – Figure Out The Series of Steps that Will Get You There

Once you know that your goal is SMART, you can then break it down into a series of steps that will allow you to reach that end result. For example, we figured out the exact steps we needed to take to win the DVD player from the carnival, down to how many games we needed to win in order to get the right number of tokens, and how fast we would then run to the prize counter.

And while my example is just for a simple goal, even the most complex goal can be broken down into a series of basic steps.

Step 3 – Envision What It Will Be Like To Achieve That Goal

In this step, you should envision what it will feel like to reach that goal. You can talk about it out loud, picture it in your head, and/or write it down on paper. This is important because once you can actually envision what it feels like to reach the goal, it makes it so much easier and fun to actually take the steps to get there.

In my example, my daughter and I talked about what we would do with the new DVD player, and how it would be so nice to play all her favorite movies on it and carry it everywhere.

Step 4 – Take Action One Step At A Time, But With Passion

Once you’ve broken down the goal down into a series of small steps, and have envisioned what it will be like to achieve it, you should start taking action. Start working on those steps that you wrote down, and follow them, step-by-step.

This is where so many people get hung up. They just do it at 50%, and fall off track, and just give up. If you’re going to set a goal, give it your 100%. And then during those times when you fall off track, just get back on track as fast as you can, and pursue the goal with renewed passion. But the key is to just keep taking action, in the right direction toward your goal.

In my example, my husband and daughter and I played over 50 carnival games that day to collect our 500 tokens. We played game after game after game. And we had so much fun doing it.

We created our plan, followed it, and accomplished it. We were so proud of ourselves, and I was so excited to see Victoria go redeem that grand prize from hundreds of other kids. And that leads to the last step, which is to “Celebrate” your accomplishment.

Step 5 – Celebrate

In this step, take a moment to celebrate what you just accomplished. Don’t be too quick to just mark it off the list and move on.

Pause for a moment and reflect on what you just did. Pat yourself on the back. If it is your child, pat them on the back or give them a high five. Tell them they are a winner, and that they can accomplish anything they set their mind to.

That’s what I did with my daughter. I recapped our entire day to her and said something like this: “Victoria, I’m so proud that we worked so hard to win that DVD player. We set our goal, and we figured out how to reach it, and we did it. See, I told you that you can do anything you set your mind to, and we just proved it, together.”

And even a year later, our daughter (now 5) still talks about how we won that DVD player at the carnival. The DVD player didn’t even work after we won it, but that didn’t stop her excitement about how we worked so hard to achieve the goal – and how we accomplished something we set our minds to.

So there you go – a complete process you can use for setting and achieving your own goals. Now it’s your turn. Have fun, and share your stories.

To learn more about business growth and increasing your sales, download my free 47 page “Business Thrival Blueprint“. BusinessThrival.com is a site dedicated to helping business owners achieve a thriving business and life.

The Top 5 Secrets To Building A Business With The Right Foundation

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It often happens. Life throws you a curve ball without warning even though you think nothing can go wrong in your life or business. You are immediately faced with a lawsuit, or even a personal disaster such as your home totally lost by fired.

To protect yourself in business from the most common causes of failure, fines, or lawsuits, there are a number of things you can do in advance. Over the years, I’ve seen a common theme among clients, and in the reasons that prompted them to engage my legal services to assist them.

My clients each had a lot in common, and almost all of their problems could have been avoided if they had just put some simple processes in place to grow and protect their businesses.

So that you don’t make the same mistakes as my clients, I’d like to share some of the most important strategies with you.

1. Establish a Company With Limited Liability Protection

Prior to running out to start a new business, you first want to have vetted your ideas and concepts to verify they are worth pursuing. Assuming you have already don’t this and your business is worth pursuing, it is always good to operate the business under some type of limited liability shield so you can shield your personal assets.

Examples of business forms that provide limited liability protection are LLC’s and corporations.

No matter what you do, you should really think before you ever operate as a sole proprietor, because that opens you up to endless personal liability. For example, when you operate as a sole proprietor and your business ever does something wrong or gets sued, a creditor could attempt to seize your personal home, savings, car, or other personal assets.

If for example you operate your business under a limited liability shield, such as a corporation or LLC, then the only assets the creditor could attach to are the assets of the business.

Normally, when you elect to file a new corporation or LLC, you submit the proper formation documents with the Secretary of State in the state where you want that company formed. A lot of Secretary of State web sites have online forms that you simply download and then submit interactively.

2. Choose The Right Name For Your Business and Products

It is always a good idea to do some initial research before you incorporate. Specifically, when picking a name you want to make sure someone else is not already using to sell similar goods and services as you. In essence, you do not want to kick off your new business with a name that could cause you to be sued for trademark infringement because you chose a name that someone else already owns. You may want to think of this as “having all your ducks in a row”.

Trademarks identify the source of that product or name. This is why trademark law has been created to protect consumers from any potential confusion between different companies.

Basically, this means that any time you pick a company name, product name, or slogan, it is critical that you do some basic research to make sure that someone else is not already using that name or a very similar variation of it in a way that would cause confusion among consumers between your two companies.

It is usually not a problem for companies in two totally different industries to have the same name, because most people would not get them confused (unless it is a famous trademark, where that company retains rights across all industries). But if you use a product or company name that is confusingly the same or similar to another company who has a superior interest in that name, they could initiate a lawsuit for trademark infringement and possibly obtain money damages.

You can research is the Internet search engines to see if another person is already using your preferred name or a similar name in a similar industry. However, the best place to begin your research is to search the United States Patent and Trademark Office trademark database.

To designate that you are claiming an interest in the brand/name, you will want to mark your trademarks with (TM) (the TM sign). If you then later obtain an actual federal trademark registration, you will want to use (R) (the circle R designation).

3. Secure and Obtain the Necessary Licenses

Another step that you should consider in establishing your new business is whether you need to obtain any special licenses in order to operate.

Some businesses require a special license to operate, such as a daycare, insurance agency, law firm, or doctor’s office. If you are a business that requires a special license, you are more than likely already aware of that through the licensing process that you already went through in order to obtain that specialty. You definitely should spend a few minutes to do extra research to double check that your type of business doesn’t require any additional licenses.

The sales tax license is the most commonly overlooked license. For example, if your business is going to sell products, then you are more than likely required to collect sales tax for any of those products that you sell to consumers in your state. Many states do not require you to collect sales tax on services. Nonetheless, you should always check with your state’s Department of Revenue to verify what exactly you are required to collect sales taxes on, if anything.

4. Use Proper Written Agreements with Contractors and Employees You Interact With

The absolute most important practice you should put implement for your business is to use the proper written agreements with the employees and contractors who you work with.

If you disregard this step, you may not even acquire ownership/title to the very thing you paid someone else to create for you, and you may even end up owing that person royalties later. Or worse case yet, you could end up in a disagreement with the other party because of unclear terms.

The agreements do not need to be complicated because there are tons of products that you can purchase that have simple agreement templates you can utilize with employees and contractors, such as our BizShield product.

It is so important that you get a written agreement with contractors and employees because of the way the intellectual property laws work. It’s a little complex, but to put it simply, the contractor/creator owns the copyright in the work that you compensate them to produce, unless they transfer that copyright over to you in a written agreement.

So simply put, this means that a web developer or graphic designer or other type of contractor who you engage will retain the copyright ownership in the work you compensate them to create, unless they execute an agreement transferring those rights over to you. This may sound backwards, but that is the way the copyright laws work.

With your employees, you do automatically own the copyright interests in the work you pay them for. But, you do not automatically obtain their patentable ideas. Thus, you should always get a written agreement with your employees.

Here are the most essential terms that you should include in your contracts with employees and contractors.

This is an approach that you should be AWARE of. It can save you from the many common causes of lawsuits and damages later in your business.

5. Follow Solid and Proper Accounting Principles To Keep Your Business In Good Standing

This accounting principle is one that people rarely like to follow, but is just as important to state as the others covered so far.

It is critically important that you follow solid and proper accounting procedures to keep your business in good standing. Below are a few examples of what those accounting procedures include:

1. Separate your business records from your personal records.

2. Never pay personal bills from your business checking account. An example of this is making a house payment from your corporate checking account.

3. When you pay for something personally with cash or on a personal credit card that is business-related be sure you submit an expense report, along with the receipts to your business for reimbursement.

4. If feasible, utilize an electronic accounting system to enter your income and expenses as it occurs during the year. This will make preparing of your taxes a lot simpler, and also will make it a lot easier for you to organize financial statements for your bankers whenever you are requesting loans, etc.

Below are the most common consequences that can arise if this is not done correctly:

1. You may lose the shield offered by your limited liability company, if you established one, by co-mingling your personal and business funds together.

2. If you disregard this and do not follow good accounting practices, it will make organizing your tax returns and financial statements for bankers tons more time consuming. Without an electronic accounting system, it could take numerous days or even weeks to prepare what would take only minutes with an electronic accounting system.

If possible, you should work with a bookkeeper or CPA to handle the accounting tasks for you. It is rather inexpensive.

But some individuals choose to do the accounting internally, and that’s alright too. Either way, please just make sure you follow the proper accounting principles that are stated above.

So that’s it. Those are the 5 most critical steps you should take to set up a solid foundation for your new business. And if you put into practice these in your business, you will save yourself from some of the biggest pitfalls that could have caused you major problems.

To learn more about business growth and starting a business, download my free 47 page “Business Thrival Blueprint“. BusinessThrival.com is a site dedicated to helping business owners achieve a thriving business and life.