Lessons Learned in Starting a Business

By Joe J Griffith

When I talk to people about why they got started with their first business I get all sorts of answers like: I want to be my own boss, I want more freedom with my time or I want to make more money. And sometimes I hear stories like my own, a story where a business is born out of desperation and fear.

The whole thing started while I was completing course upgrades for college programs around 1992. I had this glamorous part-time job repairing water beds and it just wasn't paying the rent. One morning I woke up looked in the fridge and saw there was nothing to eat. I checked my bank account and discovered that I had less than $600, which meant I had to choose between paying the rent or eating.

I did what most scared and desperate people do...I threw my hands in the air and said, "I give up!" Then an amazing thing happened! All the stress and fear fell away because nothing mattered anymore. I found by just letting go of these feelings some kind of inner voice or consciousness took over and started guiding me (no I wasn't smoking marijuana!).

Fear and desperation can be great motivators

I woke up the next morning with a great plan. In fact it was so brilliant, I was certain I couldn't have come up with it! I decided to use the bookkeeping skills I had acquired through my college courses to get contract work as a bookkeeper. I knew that I didn't have time to look for a job. I needed money NOW not in 3 or 4 weeks. Out of fear and desperation, I mustered up enough courage to visit local businesses and ask for work. It was one of the hardest things I had ever done -

I spent 4 days calling on business owners

Day One: I talked to 25 businesses owners only to be rejected by them all. I went home feeling disappointed and concerned my *great* plan was a failure. I ate popcorn for supper.

Day Two: I barely slept the night before, I felt sick. I needed money. I went back to town early in the morning and stepped up my game plan. This time I talked to more than 35 business owners only to be told they wouldn't hand their books over to someone who just walked in off the street. At 6pm, I called it a night and just went to bed.

Day Three: I finally slept, probably just because I was feeling exhausted and stressed out! But today will be the day! Today I'm going to find just one business owner who will take me on as a bookkeeper. I headed back to town excited that today will be the day...at 8pm, I went home feeling tired and certain my plan was stupid.

Day Four: I woke up thinking that this plan just has to work. It's a numbers game. As long as I talk to enough people, surely someone will hire me. I went back to town again and really stepped up my efforts. I talked with over 50 business owners only to be told that they won't deal with me because they have never heard of me and don't know anything about me.

Creative thinking wins the day

On day five the cool inner voice came to the rescue again with another plan. I had heard "we can't do business with you because we don't know who you are" so often, that I knew I had to overcome that objection.

I used $500 of my $600 life savings and took an advertisement out in the local paper. I created a company name, JP Financial Services and along with a big picture of me, the advertisement said, "JP Financial Services is proud to introduce Joe Griffith, please welcome Joe to our community."

The following week, I took a copy of the paper with me and revisited several of the businesses from the previous week...only this time when they said they couldn't do business with me because they didn't know who I was, I held up my paper and said "I'm Joe Griffith, and see, it says right here that you should welcome me to the community."

I managed to collect more than $1200 in prepayments that week. So, I not only managed to pay the rent, but I got to eat too! It was a week of gratitude.

Lessons learned in starting a business:

1. When you just have to get started now, take inventory of what you already have. What skills do you already posses that are marketable? I had just added bookkeeping to my repertoire and felt confident I could market this skill.

2. Create a simple action plan. The simpler it is the more likely it will be that you will actually to do it. My plan was easy, talk to enough people and eventually I'd find my right people. Social media makes this faster and easier then 1992.

3. Persistence is valuable. But it's not everything. Like the old saying, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. If what you're doing isn't working, it's worth looking into to see if changes are required. Obviously, after 4 days of talking to people and getting no results, I had to reevaluate.

4. Be creative when problem solving. The main objection I received is that "the business owners didn't know who I was." So to overcome this objection, I ran the newspaper advertisement. It reassured them that I was who I said I was and that I had a legitimate business with a real Company name.

Joe Griffith

It is my mission to guide business builders into action through education and empowerment. learn more about how I can get your business rolling, visit me http://www.theactiondude.com

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Distractions - How To Avoid Losing Your Focus In Your Business

By Joe Fuller

It's amazing how many people think that once they have a website of some sort, that they have a business. Of course, it could be or develop into one. But mostly they're attempts at money-making sites. In themselves they're a dead end. To grow a business you need to keep focused over time.

1 If you don't have goals, you have no purpose or direction. Whatever method you use to generate and keep goals in the front of your mind, they are a means to decide what actions to take and be involved in. In other words, if an action isn't helping you to achieve your goals you should decide not to do it. In this way you're kept focused on long-term success rather than jumping around from action to action which might or might not help you.

2 Deadlines for tasks to be done keep you focused. Everybody has basic jobs that need doing, perhaps on a daily basis, and unless a time is set for those they'll easily slip out of your attention and be replaced by irrelevant ones. So, a daily, weekly or monthly map of your time needs, and tasks within those times, are necessary to keep you on track. Again,they can also be a decider as to whether some interesting ideas or project fits with what you're doing.

3 But what if an idea or project comes up that looks like a possibility. Then you must control it and not let it take over what you've already decided on. Do this by limiting the time you will spend on it - set a deadline for finishing looking at it and deciding whether you're going to use it. There's really no excuse to be distracted if you've planned ahead as to how you'll deal with these sorts of situations.

Do you want to learn the 7 secrets to building your own profitable online business? Download my new free ebook here: http://www.computer-home-business.com

Get your FREE 247 page The Information Profits Report valued at $97 at my new website: http://www.GoldVaultMembership.com

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Becoming a Successful Businessman

By Jackie Reyno

Have you quit your job to be your own boss? Well it is a commendable decision. Being on your own means managing your life on your terms and choosing priorities.

How far your can court success in your business, depends upon your risk taking ability. Risk taking does not mean taking chances blindly, but taking calculated risks. This is the hallmark of successful business entrepreneurs. Read these guidelines and you can be better prepared to be on your own.

How successful and how far you will go in business will depend a lot upon your attitude towards failures that your will counter. Any business will have failures and short terms losses with very few successes. These are inevitable part just like the darkness around light. You should always have a positive attitude and not get beaten down by failures. Look at it as an opportunity to learn from and correct yourself and then forget about it.

A successful businessman is also a shrewd finance expert. He keeps a tight control over budgets, cash flows and knows where every penny is going and needs to be spent.

A businessman who has control over his business knows where from every penny is coming and has total control over where he has to spend how much money. Besides he evaluates every transaction from a point of view of the profitability.

A very important point to be kept in mind all the time while you pursue new opportunities and run your day to day business is to keep in mind your vision and objectives with which you have started the business. Periodically review your business and align it back to your vision. Many people deviate from their line and often court disaster while pursuing new opportunities.

Every business and every entrepreneur needs to have a business vision and goal. This is what is the guiding principle that helps him grow and expand the business venture. Without a vision it would be like a rudderless ship. Keep the vision always in you minds eye and check all the time to ensure your are guiding your business as per your vision.

A successful businessman is one who knows the art of making and retaining friends. He values relationships and business transaction then becomes incidental. You will always find that relationships and friendships pay and help you grow your business. No business transaction can be just a interaction between two unknown entities. The pleasure of business is to have a win win approach, which is possible only when you learn to enjoy relating to people.

To grow you business, you will need to be ahead of your competition and always be aware of the changing trends and future of your business and the markets. Keep scanning the environment around you and be flexible to change your business model to suit the fast changing environment and keep ahead of the race.

A career in accountancy can lead you to become forensic accountants or staff accountant jobs.

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Speakers, Is It Time To Plug Up Your Leaking Profits?

By Maria Marsala

One of the strategies I created to market my advising/coaching business was to speak internationally. But what I didn't take into account, until year 7 in business, was that speaking IS a business. Actually, it wasn't until I created two web sites just for my speaking business that I realized how much time and effort went into speaking.

Now you can learn the easy way.

Speakers as 2nd Class Citizens

Many organizations will not pay speakers to speak; but they do pay for tangible items! Local chapters of organizations, from the Rotary, Kiwanis, Elms, Lions, etc. to maybe an organization you're a member of wouldn't think of asking one of their members to give them supplies for free; but the do not pay speakers.

So types of groups are good for one thing -- for you to practice speaking.

IF you choose to speak to group for free, as I do from time to time, what you want to do is 1) determine what your speaking fee would have been had they paid you and 2) decide what they can give you "in-kind" to make up for the fee you are loosing. I provide them with a list of 5 must provides and then they get to pick from a longer list of "in-kind" items that are important to me. If they don't do it; I don't speak. PERIOD. If they are not going to value your services from the start, what makes you think their members will in the long run?

Speakers as 1st Class Citizens

You should consider many things when creating a proposal or talking about your speaker fee. Below is a list of the basic elements of what you deserve to be paid for (one way or another) These are "add-ons" and "value-addeds".

• For your experiences on the topic -- the good, the bad, and the ugly. In fact use it all when you speak.

• Number of travel days and hours. Include the time it takes you to travel to the airport, from the airport to the venue, etc.

• The amount of time and the cost of printing any materials (cost wise it's better if you get them to print anything you need, but if you want it done perfectly, do it yourself.)

• The number of people in attendance.

• Is it a non-profit or for-profit and does that make a difference to you.

• The length of time you'll be speaking and the number of times you'll keynote, do a workshop, be on a panel or moderator of the panel of speakers over a day or days.

• The marketing you may need to do.

• Is it 60 days prior to the event (if so you'll need to add a rush fee for all you have to add to your work).

• If you pay for the hotel and meals, add these fees.

• If you pay for airfare, add this.

• If they are taking photos, add this.

• The time on calls or emails to: whomever is organizing the event, or other management professionals.

• The times on calls or emails to survey or talk to at least 3 potential audience members in advance to build your talk around their immediate concerns and priorities.

• The internal or external distribution of audio or video taping they plan on doing.

• Your possible 30-day follow-up in mail or via teleconference to the participants.

• The number of articles they want to produce on your subject in their newsletters or for the participants.

• How many of your booklets, CDs or books will they be purchasing.

Let's not forget about one more money making concept - Back of the Room (BOR) sales. BOR sales allow you to sell your products and make even more money than your "basic pay" Some organizations/businesses want a percentage of sales, find out up front what they expect.

Protect Your Important Intellectual Property

When you speak, you're selling your time, talent, and expertise on a subject. Read the fine print on any contract you sign. Make sure that you keep the copyrights of any materials that are yours. If someone is buying the use of your talk in an audio, know how they're providing that information to others. Is it behind a password protected area of a website? Are they selling it for a fee (and what is your cut on that fee)? Are they putting a note on the site that the materials are owned by the speakers? OR are they just posting the links somewhere with no notices of any sort?

If your materials are used in a way that has not been previously agreed to and/or paid for, you as a speaker need to speak up! Recently after seeing how my materials were being used, I wrote to an organization and asked them to include some legalize on a page so that visitors who downloaded my information know 100% that the information was for their personal use and NOT for use professionally without written permission from me. Ask for what you need.

Plug Up Those Leaky Profits

Now that you have the real story about what you should be getting paid when you speak; it's time to determine how much of your profits you've been leaking each and every time you speak.

(c) 2009 Maria Marsala is a strategic business coach, consultant, ispeaker, author, and former Wall Street executive. Her company, Elevating Your Business help business owners increase their company's profit, value, and performance quicker than they can do on their own.

Maria's clients achieve success though her proprietary programs such as Corporate Secrets Home Study™, the money generator; Millionaire Business Mastermind groups, where leaders get results; and 1:1 business development and action phone sessions where she offers new insights, templates, workbooks, resources, ongoing support, and training in the areas of business (operations/administration), general marketing and the Internet. Rate Your Business using our Business Check-up and get other no-cost business tips at http://www.ElevatingYourBusiness.com

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Understanding Supply Chain Collaboration

By Jeremy P Stanfords

The management of the flow of materials and services needed to make a product and deliver it to customers is termed Supply Chain Management (SCM). It is a part of a companies overall strategy for meeting customer demand for their product. The first part of SCM involves the choice of suppliers for the goods and services needed to create the product. Next, supply chain management services develop processes with suppliers for pricing, delivery and payment.

It is at this point that the potential for, and perhaps today the necessity of, supply chain "incoming" collaboration comes into play as SCM managers must manage inventory, verify shipments, authorize payments and transfer goods to manufacturing. Next, SCM managers schedule production, testing and packaging. Finally, the SCM manager is responsible for the logistics of delivery of the product to fill the customer's needs and provides an opportunity for "outgoing" collaboration.

Supply chain collaboration is a business to business (B2B) concept initially thought of as the relationship between manufacturers and retailers, but has now been extended to the relationship between the raw materials supplier and manufacturer. Successful collaboration means that two or more companies are working jointly to develop shared information, develop joint plans based on that shared information, and consequently execute their businesses with greater success than when acting independently. Such collaboration often is never attained within a company let alone between companies.

A model for supply chain collaboration is included in Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR) that is a business model considered by many the standard for direct material planning and fulfillment through collaboration. CPFR is intended to eliminate uncertainty in demand and supply by exchange of information, including demand signals, forecasts, inventory and transportation with chain partners. Integrated information systems assist in collaborative forecasting and replenishment processes, increased sales, and reduced inventory and cycle time. Successful partners exhibit mutual trust and believe that both sides profit equally when both supplier and customer are responsible for using inventory efficiently and keeping it as low as possible.

Even new product development and commercialization should be a process in which suppliers and customers collaborate to reduce time to market. With today's shorter product life cycles, the new products must be developed and launched with ever-shorter time schedules to remain competitive. In the product development and commercialization process, customer needs must be known, materials and suppliers must be identified and through collaboration integrated into the best supply chain flow for the combination of product and market.

For large business, there is SCM software that supports CPFR standards. For enterprises that have invested time, resources, and money over years in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) projects to standardize their internal operations, their systems often lack the functionality, scalability and security needed to address collaboration within a multi-enterprise supply chain. However, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) hosts can provide an attractive solution.

Author writes about a variety of topics. If you would like to learn more about Supply chain collaboration, visit http://www.tradecard.com/.

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How to Choose a Data Entry Company?

By Bea Arthur

Every year, the field of data entry is becoming bigger and bigger. It is reaching worldwide and cross countries for better solution. There is no surprise if you get the quote from numerous data entry companies around the word for a simply typing task. Such companies have facilities and professionals to meet with kinds of requirements.

If you are very hasty while choosing a data entry company, you may not get appropriate typing solution for the requirements. So it is advisable that you must be unhurried while choosing a typing company. You must learn to evaluate the offering of the various service providers.

How to choose a data entry company?

As every body knows, first step is to start searching for the company. Do not hesitate for selecting offshore companies. Do you have a list of large number of firms? Check out for each one, there are considering numbers that are the scams.

Now, it is the time to check out details about remaining companies. Do not go just haphazardly, there are numerous points that must have to take care for selecting company. The popularity of company is one of the points. Select a company which has high experience and superior popularity for delivering better solution.

The organization does have data security and privacy norms and following those strictly. Data confidentiality is one of the big issues. There is very rare chance for data theft because big entry firms are using biometric authentication system as well as limited access to particular document for typing professionals.

Another thing to take in consideration is the facilities/resources. The companies have enough employees or not? Are they using upgraded systems for faster solution? Do they have huge infrastructure to store lakhs of documents? Are they following proper possess to deliver high quality output? Do they have technical staff that take care of database connection and don't let the project down for more time?

If the data entry company has all the facilities, have a look over the cost. You can ask for sample task to check the ability of the company. After analyzing all such steps, you must choose a company which meets your requirement in budget.

Bea Arthur is a quality controller at Data Entry India, a well-known firm, accepting data entry projects, data conversion projects and data processing projects. They are having more than 17 years of experience in outsourcing data typing.

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How to Make Your Business Profitable

By Val McQueen

Selling and making a profitable business happen is not rocket science. All that is required is a strong vision, good strategy, never say die attitude and the ability to go on against all odds will certainly get you there and have the cash registers ringing. You do not need a huge advertising budget for doing this.

Depending upon your product or service, you have to first identify and detail your customer profile and segment. For example if you are selling vacuum cleaners, obviously teenagers would not be your customers. If you are selling online music, you could have all sorts of people lining to buy the music.

Make sure you capture the profile, the lifestyle, income, age group and buying behavior etc of your customers in detail. The more details you gather would be better for your marketing exercise. If you are targeting to open a fashion boutique for women, then zero in on the women's group that is likely to be the target customer.

Even from amongst the general segment like for example ladies, you would have to specify the age group as well as their income, past buying records etc. If your boutique is going to stock only formal wear in a particular size, then obviously you would target only those women who fit into the size and who are working.

Whether you are a small business enterprise servicing your local town or an online company targeting global or national markets, knowing your customer profile, where he is located is required for you to be able to reach across to him through advertisements.

By knowing your target audience you can spend the advertisement budget wisely to reach only to them. What is the point of advertising T-shirts and shorts for teens in a magazine meant for elderly citizens? On the other hand if you can advertise your products in the fashion style magazines, which caters to the teenage audience, you will certainly hit the target.

You can be very innovative and creative with your advertisements. One of the catchy ideas you could use would be to offer a discount coupon through the advertisement. You will most certainly be able to get customer response and build a pipeline of leads for conversion. A bold advertisement with the free discount coupon is bound to attract the target audience.

All the above activities and other sales generation activities will surely help you build a customer base with which you can work to convert them into sales for your product. Further more you can invest on building customer relationship management to ensure your customer base keeps increasing and they remain loyal to your products.

Blu Ray disc player has CD and DVD burners function as well.

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When Business Relationships End

By Mitch Mitchell

I have a friend that just had a business contract go badly and end abruptly. When she asked what the problem was, she couldn't get a straight answer from the people other than to say they weren't happy with the direction things were going.

At the same time, even though she was upset at how things had ended, she wasn't totally depressed. In fact, she felt as though a big weight had been lifted off her shoulders, because, for some reason, the pressure was now off. Not that she wasn't up to the job, but she'd been feeling a strange sort of stress while working for these people.

It's never good for a business relationship to just end without someone coming up with a reason why. Yet, the reality is that, sometimes, people really aren't sure why they're not a perfect fit with each other. I've worked with people who have irritated me for some reason I can't explain, and I'm sure some may have felt the same about me. As independents, that's fine.

However, if you're a real employer, it's inherently unfair not to tell an employee what they may or may not have done that's gotten them discharged. It's especially unfair if the behavior, or possibly lacking skills, weren't mentioned to the person during a probationary period, or even during a counseling period with an existing employee, so that person has a chance to correct the error or behavior. In some states, it just might be illegal if mitigating circumstances can be proven.

Still, sometimes personalities just don't match up, which is one reason to have a probationary period. People can usually feel discomfort with each other, and sometimes it really is just best to move on. Of course, if you're the one who's been let go and you need the money, you may have mixed emotions. But the universe may be telling you there's a better opportunity for you elsewhere; you just have to keep the faith.

Mitch Mitchell is president of T. T. Mitchell Consulting, Inc, a company dedicated to changing attitudes and perceptions for unlimited growth in both one's personal and professional lives. You can learn more about him by visiting http://www.ttmitchellconsulting.com.

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