Archive for August 2004
Entrepreneur Certification a Bad Idea
Jeff Cornwall: In the U.S. we equate providing education to entrepreneurs as a relatively voluntary act. Sure, some banks may from time to time “strongly suggest” a client take a class or visit with an SBDC counselor to assure that they have thought through their plans carefully. But, generally education is a free choice. If [...]
How to Do Business with Uncle Sam
Business Week: “For many entrepreneurs, an impenetrable bureaucracy and time-consuming paperwork rule out any thought of bidding for government contracts.” via Bizz Bang Buzz.
eBay Lends Hand to Dropoff Stores
NY Times: “eBay dropoff stores, which list, package and ship eBay items for people who cannot be bothered to do it themselves, have gotten a little help in their quest to find a market – from eBay itself. Anyone looking for the stores would have, until recently, found almost nothing on eBay, even though at [...]
Small Improvement Are Better And Easier
Alvin Huang: No of customers X Average Profit per sale X Repeated Sales per year = Yearly Profits While most marketers develop marketing strategies to increase overall profits. They never really stop to really think about which component of the Profit Pyramid they are actually improving. The fault in marketing this way is that their [...]
Dave Stone: “Network Marketing, or MLM, first began around 1947 in the US with a company called the California Vitamin Company which became Nutrilite which evolved into Amway (1959) and then into Quixtar in 1999. Considered the granddaddy in MLM, the popularity and notoriety of Alticor (parent company which owns Amway and Quixtar) have been [...]
This week’s Carnival of the Capitalists is up at New Dog Old Trick.
The Entrepreneur Magazine Small Business Advisor
Amazon: “Small businesses — those with fewer than 100 employees — account for over 97 percent of all businesses in the U.S. today. If your idea of the American Dream is to join this booming sector with a business of your own, you’ll need at least one easy-to-use but comprehensive resource that addresses the inevitable [...]
How to Make a Reality Television Show
Dan Sherman: Here’s the idea. Put an ad in the paper looking for people to be a part of a reality show that focuses on being scared. (People will automatically think you’re talking about Fear Factor, which can work to your benefit without actually saying it.) You rent a hotel conference room and when people [...]
David Tufte: “Did you know that produce companies in California routinely ship fresh produce east without a final destination? The shelf life is so short, and demand so volatile, that they send fully loaded semis with team drivers east on the interstates and then call them in a couple of days when they’re near (say) [...]
Jeff Cornwall: “Focus. Many of the entrepreneurs I have helped over the years have heard this word from me time after time. In fact, when you visit my office you see a picture of an island golf green with that single word at the bottom. Be clear about what you are in business for, and [...]
→ mountainmikes.com The first Mountain Mike’s Pizza Restaurant was founded in 1978 in Palo Alto, California. Its premise was simple – provide high quality, custom-made pizza using only the freshest and finest ingredients available. What started 25 years ago as a single pizza restaurant with a casual, family-oriented atmosphere, is now 95 stores strong, and [...]
Taking Care of Business is TLC’s new makeover show. PRNewswire: A new TLC series hopes to move small businesses from “in the red” to “in the money.” Taking Care Of Business, a new thirteen-episode series on TLC, tackles small business troubles in a big way, and sends a team of gurus — equipped with fresh [...]
How to Throw Blackjack and No Limit Texas Hold’em Parties
Dan Sherman: “Rent a small conference room at a local hotel or perhaps at a college… any place you can get a 50′ x 50′ room or so as cheaply as possible. Bring in 10 or 20 tables, hire a waiter and dealers for each table (the game rental place can help you there as [...]
The Morning News: “I recently asked readers for their ‘tricks of the trade,’ and was amazed by the response. It seems every profession is rich with clever little occupational secrets.” There are tons of interesting little tricks and gimmicks in the article. Here’s what the author said is a trick of the trade for photographers: [...]
Sergio Samoilovich, Ph.D. has developed a system to create unique inks, so that the ink in a signature would be as unique as the signature itself: We want to develop a complete system for producing, delivering and supporting one custom ink per customer, that will add safety to signatures and rubberstamps. This ink is obtained [...]
Law & Entrepreneurship News Previewed
Law & Entrepreneurship News, a new weblog by University of Wisconsin Law School Professor Gordon Smith and his students, will officially launch on September 1 but is already begining to fill with content.
Brain Brew Blog: “This week’s Brain Brew Radio brings you ideas for starting instructional services, making a transition from old format to new, living longer, finding star-up funds, living a more fulfilling life, making big-time money out of small-time success, selling a patent, and contesting the rising inflation rates of today’s markets. Also, our 30 [...]
Today’s New Entrepreneurs Shun Brick and Mortar
NY Times: Mr. Mohrer, a 2004 graduate of a joint degree program at Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary, decided to continue building a company that primarily sells Ralph Lauren Polo shirts and other designer clothes on eBay and its own Rationalfashion.com Web site. What he says he will never do is run his [...]
USA Today: “About 27% of self-employed workers did not have health insurance in 2002, up from 24.6% in 2001, according to new data from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Figures for 2003, expected this week, will likely show another jump, Kaiser says. Overall, 18.1% of all workers lack insurance.”
Designing A Better Yellow Page Listing
Marketing coach and the author John Jantsch recommends that you only let the Yellow Page salesperson design your listing if you want it to look like all the other listings: “big, with a border, with color with, your name big and bold at the top.” If you’d rather that your listing stand out, follow his [...]
A VC: I had lunch yesterday with a friend who is a running a growing startup business. He is the upstart in a two company market. The established company is starting to notice his company. And apparently the established company is “giving away” their service in certain situations in an attempt to stop the upstart [...]
Barry Moltz: The price we charge customers for our products and services is a lot less elastic than we think – that is, as we raise prices, we lose a lot less customers than we fear. If you build value in your product, people will buy it within a large price range (unless, of course, [...]
All Business Schools Directory: “Whether you’re searching for part-time MBA programs, full-time MBA programs, or online MBA programs — or looking to get your bachelor’s degree in business or associate’s degree in business — All Business Schools makes it easy to find the programs that interest you. Search for business schools by location, program type, [...]
Adrants: “If you’ve ever seen an online campaign and wanted to see it again you are usually out of luck. Tari Akpodiete’s BannerReport is here to help. Boasting 15,000 images, BannerReport allows you to view and search for banners based on size, type, style and keyword. Try it.”
Steve Bayle: “The key to negotiating any contract is leverage and the advantage you have as a reseller is that there are probably multiple products you can choose from, and if you have a desirable market segment, the product vendors should be willing to negotiate with you in order to get access to your customer [...]
Franklin Mint Business Opportunity
Leah Taylor with The Franklin Mint is looking for new ways to promote their merchandise. If you’re interested in selling their diecast cars, contact her: Leah Taylor Product Coordinator The Franklin Mint Tel: 610-497-4831 Fax: 610-497-4956
Dan Sherman: “I feel entrepreneurs are the ones responsible for our entire world as we know it. We create value where nothing existed prior. Every massive leap in technology can be traced back to an entrepreneur with a vision of just how it can change our world. We are the ones that fuel the economy [...]
Howard Aiken: Don’t worry about people stealing an idea. If it’s original, you will have to ram it down their throats. via Brewed Fresh Daily.
Brown Bag it for a Bigger Retirement
Dana VanDen Heuvel: “Dining out for lunch everyday is a quick way to chew a hole in your wallet, especially if you work in an area where the cost of living is high. By brown-bagging lunch, you could save thousands over just a few years. Think I’m kidding? This lunch-savings calculator shows how swapping your [...]
Brian Tracy: “Entrepreneurship is the art of finding profitable solutions to problems. Every successful entrepreneur, every successful businessperson has been someone who’s been able to identify a problem and come up with a solution to it before somebody else did. When Ross Perot was working for IBM, he saw that his customers who were buying [...]
Om Malik: “Michael Dell may not be much loved in Silicon Valley for his super-efficient model and promoting the concept of Moore’s Claw, but he is clearly inspiring a generation of dormitory entrepreneurs. Associated Press chronicles the start-up experiences of college students who have started their own businesses. Lance Larson who graduated from San Diego [...]
Inc.: Good Home’s problem was plain enough: For small companies, bringing on a full-time chief financial officer can be an awfully big step to take. The salary alone–generally between $100,000 and $150,000 a year–often is more than what the CEO takes home. Then there’s the matter of control. Obviously, hiring a CFO means giving up [...]
This week’s Carnival of the Capitalists is up at The Mobile Technology Weblog.
→ tildencarcare.com Since 1923 Tilden has been providing quality automotive services with the highest degree of customer satisfaction. The Tilden Franchise Program is a great opportunity – carefully planned – already successful – and available to qualified people ready to travel the road to success, by opening a Tilden For Brakes Car Center. You benefit [...]
Associated Press: Retired Louisiana pharmacist George Boudreaux hasn’t needed Madison Avenue pitchmen to get the word out about his concoction to treat diaper rash. He just lets the name do it for him. Boudreaux’s Butt Paste. “Would you be talking to me if it was called George’s Diaper Cream?” Boudreaux recently asked a reporter. Probably [...]
Entrepreneur Confidence Surges
Business Wire: “Entrepreneurial confidence increased 13% in the second quarter of 2004 as compared to the first quarter of 2004 and an impressive 33% from the same quarter a year ago, according to the Entrepreneurial Confidence Index (ECI) from vFinance, Inc.” via Jeff Cornwall.
A movie theater in Utah is now hosting video game tournaments on it’s four big screens. The competitions are played starting at midnight on Friday nights and cost $60 for teams of four to enter, and $3 for spectators. MSNBC has more.
HDTV, DVD, Hard Drives and the Future
Mark Cuban: I love looking for ways to screw up conventional wisdom. Right now in the entertainment world, the conventional wisdom is that both sides on the HD DVD vs Blue Ray DVD will battle it out and a standard for HD on DVD will emerge. No one is trying to rush to a compromise [...]
Business Lessons from Star Trek
This is interesting and perhaps even inspiring whether or not you’re a Star Trek fan: The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition. If you’re not a fan, you only need to know that the Ferengi are an alien race and have a culture which is based entirely upon commerce. The Rules of Acquisition are their code of [...]
Anita Campbell: “The smart small retailers know they can’t beat Wal-Mart at Wal-Mart’s game. So they change the game. Increasingly small retailers are becoming niche-focused. They strive to create a memorable, pleasurable experience for the customer. They offer levels of personalized service that the Wal-Marts simply can’t match.”
Entrepreneur Magazine Starts Weblog
Entrepreneur Magazine now publishes a weblog called Entrepreneur Almost Daily. Unfortunately, it doesn’t include an RSS or Atom feed, comments, trackbacks, or easily accessible permalinks. But, it’s definitely better than not having a weblog. Good job guys! via Radiant Marketing Group.
Selling Oil Changes Door to Door
Dan Sherman: This is how it worked, in a nut shell. He went around to some local car maintenance garages and got them to agree to give a free oil change to anyone presenting his coupons. (Limited to one, per customer, per month or something like that.) When he got 10 or so garages to [...]
IdeaBook.com is a website, not a book. Chuck Green, author of The Desktop Publisher’s Idea Book and site creator, describes it as a “place to learn how-to design and market just about anything with honesty, clarity, and style.” Lots of really great stuff there, including: How to create a logo Rethink your business card How [...]
19 Year Old Serial Entrepreneur Launches 11th Company
PR Newswire: Johnson’s entrepreneurial spirit was awakened at age 9, when his parents gave him his first computer, $50 and a checking account to help him learn about managing money. “I wanted to put more money into that bank account,” says Johnson. “Things just expanded from there.” While most 10-year-olds were riding bicycles and playing [...]
If my calculations are correct, this is post number one thousand and five this year. Thank you for reading. I couldn’t (and wouldn’t) do it without you.
Forbes: “In these 60 small towns, medium-sized cities and larger metro regions, you can live well and your dollar will go far. Of course, the ‘live well’ half our claim is shot through with subjectivity. It will be highly dependent on who you are, and what you want out of life. There are plenty of [...]
Russell Roberts: “I just checked with the Bureau of Labor Statistics to get the latest data. In 2003, using data from the BLS’s household survey, there were 138 million people working of which 73 million were paid by the hour. Of that number, 2.1 million, or 2.9% were paid the minimum wage or less.”
Can the Soup Nazi Be Duplicated?
Franchise Law Blog: “That’s the question raised in a New York Post article about the soup purveyor who was the inspiration for the Seinfeld character, the Soup Nazi. Al Yeganeh has announced plans to franchise his Soup Kitchen International. He will also partner with International Gourmet Soups to market canned soups. Yeganeh has never capitalized [...]
Better Invoices for Better Business
A List Apart: “Invoices that obfuscate information, incorrectly state terms or arrive incomplete can be a massive headache for all parties. These mistakes will only delay the payment process, so it is critical you produce invoices that clearly deliver information your client (or their accounts payable department) will need. Strategic timing and attractive presentation are [...]
J.D. Power and Associates surveyed American cell phone users across the country and ranked the qualities of the providers by area. The big loser was my carrier, AT&T Wireless. Money/CNN has the complete results. via Professor Bainbridge. This was the 1,000th post I made here this year!
