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Mar 12, 2010
Posted by admin on Mar 12, 2010 in Entrepreneur | 0 comments
Most home business opportunities are overdone and oversaturated. With most home based business opportunities that are promoted in magazine and websites the options are all the same; start a day care center, become a personal shopper, site at home and stuff enveloped and so on. While a dedicated person can make income, and sometimes great incomes, from such ideas, the market can only handle so many work at home personal shoppers. Ebooks however, are in a market that is only just starting to see entrepreneurial interest. Ebook authors are starting to be called ‘info entrepreneurs”. They compile high quality information or write their own fiction ebooks and sell them online. Some people are able to secure very comfortable full time careers from this, and yes, they do it 100% from their own home.
Ebook Entrepreneurship
Being an ebook entrepreneur is no easy feat. It will require long hours of research and writing, web design and gaining a little knowledge about ecommerce. However, the payoff could be huge. And unlike many other home based businesses you won’t be limited to your region. The beauty about ebooks is that you can publish them and then distribute them throughout the world. You could get orders from Indonesia, Canada, USA, France and so on. This global opportunity doesn’t apply to many other work at home opportunities.
Ebook Stores Don’t Open & Close
Another defining feature of Ebook Entrepreneurs is that they don’t have the regular 9-5 hours of operation. You will sell ebooks while you’re awake and while you sleep. Not bad huh? Most of the work that goes along with setting up an Ebook business is done in the beginning stages. This industry is front heavy, but after you set up your infrastructure you can continue to sell with very little daily maintenance.
Not Just For Authors
Likewise, ebook authorship is not just for authors. Anyone who has an interest in anything could write about their interest and convert in into an ebook. Some of the best ebooks are actually from unknown authors and some of the highest selling ebooks have been written by unknown authors who have a knack for online promotion.
If nothing else, Ebook publishing it is something worth consideration. Ebooks may not replace traditional paperback books, but they certainly are gaining popularity at a rate that should make all authors stop to think about how they could use ebooks to their advantage.
Mar 10, 2010
Posted by admin on Mar 10, 2010 in Entrepreneur | 0 comments
“So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.”
- Peter Drucker
Managing is often equated with controls rather than leading and developing a business. The manager feels more comfortable and secure when they are able to put in strict controls on everything that happens in a business organization. This is so especially of Senior Managements where the controls and directing becomes so severe that it erodes any creative freedom for the middle managers to work towards achieving the goals set out for them.
Here are a few simple prescriptions to get the best out of your managers.
Avoid Centralizing Decision Making
This is perhaps one of the best ways to achieve totals control. You feel by centralizing decision making you will be able to avoid wrong decisions. While this may be so to some extent who is to prevent your own wrong decisions. Unless your managers are able to make mistakes and learn from them you will never be able to develop expertise through experience. Centralizing decision making is also the surest method to kill your business growth.
Provide Working Space
The top management often entrust tasks and responsibilities to their subordinate managers. More often than not any specific time frames which are comfortable to achieve the given responsibilities or tasks are discussed. However in their anxiety or aggressiveness and sometimes over enthusiasm you start chasing your subordinate for action and results. If you do it too soon and too often you are severely limited the working space of your managers. They may be spending more time in complying with your commands rather than focusing on operational priorities and important tasks.
If you are not providing sufficient working space for your managers you are surely heading towards disaster as important tasks may be getting neglected to escape from your frequent and aggressive follow ups.
Listen to Your Managers
While experience is an asset it also makes one arrogant and conceited. Sometimes one tends to believe because he is the superior, he always right. The Boss Is Always Right principle looks good only on posters. It doesn’t work if you want to build a Professional organization.
Cultivate the ability to listen to the voice of your managers. Most times they know better as they are more familiar with the ground realities. If you decide on their behalf and just issue orders, you will have clerks in the guise of managers as you have killed their initiative.
Don’t Get Into the Nitty Gritties
Once broad goals and objectives are set with specific time frames and key results are outlined leave your managers to perform. If you get into too many details and meddle with the execution at every stage, you may be sure to mess up the entire process and ultimately the results.
The key to managing effectively is to empower people across the management structure so that they feel part of the responsibility and ownership.
Feb 4, 2010
Posted by admin on Feb 4, 2010 in Entrepreneur | 0 comments
Creating a successful and profitable business is no easy task. It’s reliant on many outside factors, including competition, timing and demand, which you have very little to no control over at the beginning. Assuming all of these outside factors are in your favor, having a sound business plan can lead to having a successful business. Here are five steps to consider when you’re building your business from the ground up:
1. Determine your business. What are you selling?<br>
This question isn’t as easy to answer as you may think. For example, Nike is in the sportswear business, but the truth is that when you buy a pair of Nike shoes and a t-shirt at the mall you’re buying a lot more than sportswear — you’re buying an image, a feeling. You’re buying the Nike brand. Richard Thalheimer, the former CEO of The Sharper Image and the founder of RichardSolo.com, has worked in specialty retail for more than 30 years. When asked what business he’s in, he’ll tell you “convenience” or “innovation” before he specifies any particular industry, and he’s built one of the most powerful brands in America. Keep in mind, there’s more to a product than, well, the product. Your brand is what sets your product apart from your competitor’s.
2. Select your market. Who are you selling to?<br>
This step is a bit less interpretive as the first, though equally important. Who are you selling to? or more importantly, what do you know about this person? Understanding your consumer is a key to success. What do they do? Where do they hang out? What do they watch on television? These are just a few of the questions that you should be able to answer about your consumer. Knowing the answers to these questions can answer a lot of questions of your own when it comes to a devising a marketing strategy. Richard Thalheimer understood his market for The Sharper Image, probably as well as they understood themselves. From an article in the LA Times, Tracy Wan, who was president and chief operating officer under Thalheimer says “Richard has the amazing ability to figure out the things that people want to have.” This ability to perceive your consumer’s desire can only be a result of knowing them like your neighbor.
3. Create a marketing strategy. How do you speak to these people?<br>
This is a culmination of understanding your brand and your consumer. As mentioned in number two, understanding your consumer can answer a lot of questions concerning your marketing strategy: Where should you advertise? What’s the voice of your brand? What kind of prices are reasonable for this demographic? In order to engage your consumer, a.k.a. sell your product to them, you must know where your advertisements will be noticed, how to speak to them, and how much they will be able to spend, among many of things. Really, this step should have been combined with the last because who your market is dictates your marketing strategy entirely.
4. Learn by example. Seek advice from those who have done it.<br>
There are many books written by professionals who have already started their own business and have been successful in doing so. One that comes to mind immediately, as we’ve already mentioned him a couple of times, is Richard Thalheimer. “Creating Your Own Sharper Image” shares the story of how he grew his tiny office supply company, The Sharper Image, into the thriving enterprise that it has become today.
Remember, building a successful business in not all about the dollars and cents. Equally as valuable is you brand equity and your ability to engage your consumer, which is only attainable by understanding them. Assuming there is a demand for your product, and you can compete with the other brands, following these four steps shall guide you in the right direction.
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Jan 1, 2010
Posted by admin on Jan 1, 2010 in Entrepreneur | 0 comments
One of the hardest presentations to make is the entrepreneurial pitch. You have a great idea for a business and you want someone to give you money to make it happen. The problem is that venture capitalists, angel investors, and even rich uncles are heavily predisposed against you. Why? Because 99% of the pitches they hear sound like sure-fire prescriptions to lose money!
If you are pitching investors to give you money for a new venture, you should subscribe to the following rules:
1. Explain exactly what your business is within the first thirty seconds. Many entrepreneurs waste valuable time giving loads of data, background and other info—all the while investors are left scratching their heads thinking “What does this business actually DO?”
2. Tell your audience who your customers will be. Paint a vivid, specific picture of these people.
3. Explain why your customers going to give you there hard-earned money.
4. Explain who your competitors are. (And if you say you have no competitors, that is a certain sign you are unsophisticated and deserve no investment money!)
5. Explain why you are the ONE to make this happen.
6. Give your presentation with confidence and enthusiasm. Investors want a founder/CEO to be a chief salesperson; they want to see that you can convince the world of your dream—not just them.
7. Explain what star you can hitch a ride to. Has Best Buy or Radio Shack agreed to distribute your new product? Investors feel much more comfortable knowing you have an established player willing to distribute your wares.
8. Ask for a specific amount of money. If all you do is ask for money, then you can’t complain if an investor gives you $3.25 for a cup of Starbucks coffee.
9. Tell prospects exactly what you are going to spend the money on (hint:a trip to Maui for you and your friends will not impress)
10. Dress well, act confident, and put on the air that you don’t really need their money, but would be willing to accept it if they bring enough to the table to be a strategic partner for you. Sad but true regarding human nature, but people are much more likely to give you money if they feel you don’t really need it.
Finally, make each pitch presentation serve as a focus group for your next presentation. When one group of investors asks you a series of questions after you pitch, write down all of those questions and make sure most of them are answered in your next pitch so that the next group doesn’t have to ask them. Keep pitching and keep improving your pitch and eventually you may get funded.
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Dec 8, 2009
Posted by admin on Dec 8, 2009 in Entrepreneur | 0 comments
In the immortal words of Emmerson, “all I need is one idea” Overnight wealth has a certain stigma that “sensible” people seem to be resistant to. The idea of the get rich quick variety is an object of ridicule and derision in alot of peoples eyes. However, with a little focused action and the right knowledge, rapid wealth is not only possible for you, but inevitable for the determined.
The first thing I want to do is qualify the above by saying “quick” means several years…
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In the immortal words of Emmerson, “all I need is one idea” Overnight wealth has a certain stigma that “sensible” people seem to be resistant to. The idea of the get rich quick variety is an object of ridicule and derision in alot of peoples eyes. However, with a little focused action and the right knowledge, rapid wealth is not only possible for you, but inevitable for the determined.
The first thing I want to do is qualify the above by saying “quick” means several years not overnight. Sure, you could write a hit song or contemporary book but these have alot to do with chance. People with determination generally don’t like chance because control is a solid aspect of wealth generation.
Anyone can have an idea. By that I mean virtually any idea can become workable unless its just totally “out there” What matters is that you act. But more then that, before you act, you must know how to make it work. Thats really what most people with a good idea lack.
So knowledge again is where the central workability comes from. So let me give you some knowledge right now. The knowledge of the wealthy. There are many ways to get rich very rapidly but I offer you an example below and some insights about what the wealthy know and have known for centuries.
Arbitrage is a concept that you should learn more about. Its a word that circulates in financial circles and is therefore obscured to the average person as just some odd french word that the stock market people use.
The truth is that arbitrage is the single biggest idea about wealth that you should understand. Doing an arbitrage deal is literally this……..If I offered you 70 cents for your crisp clean dollar note would you take the deal? What if you had $100,000 and I had $75,000 and I said look, let me deposit this money into your account in exchange for your money? Straight swap. How would you feel about that?
Well I imagine you’d say no. I wouldn’t blame you, its hardly a fair deal. Arbitraguers do this all day long. But this is the difference.
We deal in value and perceptions not numerical currency like cash. Or we deal wholesale and sell retail. There are hundreds of ways that I can swap my 70 cents for somebody elses dollar.
The wealthy have practiced arbitrage for as long as currency existed because arbitrage is the secret road to wealth. A secret that will never be openly talked about because it is so tightly held. My little contribution here will do nothing to change that balance, but consider yourself fortunate to learn about this and maybe it will spurr you on to a new life.
Here is a real world example of arbitrage that I practiced many years ago, when I was starting out broke, dejected, but hopeful.
It wasnt long ago but seems like centuries ago. Its pre-history now. One form of arbitrage is the concept of economies of scale. This arbitrage strategy relies on a single fact. An irrefutable reality about fiscal life on the planet earth. Here it is. When you buy something (of anything) in bulk, you are entitled to and more often then not get a very large discount on your purchase. When this bulk amount is “split up” and re-sold in traditional more popular chunks, your investment will return a decent profit.
So here is a get rich quick idea. One you can use right now to establish an income stream to replace your daily job. It can be reproduced and systemized to manufacture a very healthy income indeed.
When you look at newspaper and local journal price lists, you will notice they are very yielding to this concept of economies of scale. Simply a small ad may cost $140 for example. But buy a full page and you only pay say $900. Why? because its less work for the publication. Well my idea was to start a weekly page called “Martins Market” I approached 200 business owners face to face and told them they can get a small ad in my one page spread “Martins Market” for just $90 a full $50 cheaper then if they bought their ad from the paper directly. Do you think this offer interested a good percentage of the business owners I approached? You bet! Not only that, but they got a further discount if they paid up 6 months in advance.
I could fit 40 ads of that size onto my page. Being filled up, I made $3600 every week for an outlay of $900 for the page. I added value with nice graphics and the page got quite well recieved as my clients reported good returns from their ads. This was reproduced 20 times around the country, with 2 sales staff for every “Martins Market” I was netting close to $20,000 per week for a fairly lengthy period.
You will need a few dollars to try this, but its inevitable that if you do your research properly you can make this work and get exactly the same results.
My very best to you
Martin Thomas CEO opportunity investor.com
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