Your Role In History As An Entrepreneur

A D V E N T U R E S O M E N E S S

Adapted from the book 30 DAYS TO THE NEW ECONOMY written and published by Peggy Salvatore

Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. Actually, leadership of any sort is not for the weak-kneed, and taking this trip into the new frontier requires stamina and hard work. Risk-taking is at the core of starting a business and putting your time, resources and reputation on the line. To move forward taking resources and reputation along for the ride certainly requires an adventuresome spirit.

A Master Key to successful business

is to take calculated risks.

Taking calculated (reasonable) risks means both your experience and your instincts kick in when you make a decision. Like Indiana Jones when he stepped off the cliff into thin air, entrepreneurs have an instinct–a sixth sense–that when they take that footstep into the sky, a footbridge will appear.

Internet Joe [See DAY 5, DAY 6, and DAY 9 in this series of posts] understands the difference between adventuresomeness and foolhardiness.

He is adventurous. He is willing to spend enormous amounts of time and money (often investor money) to initiate and implement his creative vision. He is building a business and making promises to customers that he will be there to deliver on his promises. He is also promising employees they can count on him and that it is safe to bet some of their life and livelihood participating in his vision.

Internet Joe is not careless, though.

He is backed by a good (though probably not “formal”) business plan . . . it may just be scribbled on the back of an envelope! But he will for sure have at least a professional grounding in what he is doing.

As I mentioned earlier in this blog-adaption series, Internet Joe probably landed on his own after a stint at a major corporation. He has a finely-honed sense of quality and what it takes to build his vision. The adventure is taking on both planned and unforeseen opportunities to execute it in a whole new way — serve new markets, create products and services, and uncover new revenue streams where none existed.

If he has venture capital or crowdsourced income, people have already vetted his credentials. So the risk may have a stronger likelihood of an upside for investors than backing a relative unknown venture or creator, but working with other people’s money invested because they believe in someone or the idea puts stress on entrepreneur shoulders.

Regardless of whether a venture is investor-backed or self-funded, it is critical to regularly step back from the idea workbench to execute good judgment and seek the advice of close associates moving forward. Successful business development always reduces itself to being an authentic boss!

In either case, at the core, Internet Joe is taking some risk. Many ventures are well-vetted by professional investors, many people build businesses based on solid skills, and yet the annals of business are littered with failures within the first two years. More than half fail in the first five years according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics . . . and this is likely understated.

Soooooooo, “The Force” may “be with you,” but the odds are not, and your success is clearly not guaranteed . . . at least the first time around.

BEST BET: Pepper your adventuresomeness with

calculated, educated, realistic, well-advised

moves to increase your chances for success.

But don’t let all that practical good sense dampen your adventuresome spirit. Hey! Who knows where you’ll end up?

# # #

C’mon back TOMORROW 9/25 for Day 14 —

ARE YOU CONFIDENT ENOUGH TO MAKE IT ALL WORK?

# # #

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

Sign up NOW for NOVEMBER 29th (Sunday Night after Thanksgiving for 2 hours) $99 LIMITED SEATING COACHING WEBINAR: “Accelerating Your Business Growth and Development.”

Get fresh, informed, proven insights geared specifically to your business market, your biggest problems, your biggest opportunities.

With Hal and Peggy’s wealth of business coaching experience, you’ll learn what successful entrepreneurs need to be thinking and doing NOW. Simply call 931.854.0474 Central Time: 11AM to 4PM Monday-Friday for details and to reserve your seat!

———-
For more information on Peggy Salvatore’s book: 30 Days to the New Economy [© Peggy Salvatore 2015. All Rights Reserved.] click on ENTREPRENEUR NEWS or visit ow.ly/RysnP for the E-book

 # # #

Hal@Businessworks.US      Peggy@Businessworks.US

Open Minds Open Doors

Thanks for your visit and make today a GREAT day for someone!

SEE SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT IN RED AT END OF POST

Your Role In History As An Entrepreneur

C R E A T I V I T Y

Adapted from the book 30 DAYS TO THE NEW ECONOMY written and published by Peggy Salvatore

Many entrepreneurial thinking-and-doing hardliners are justifiably quick to distinguish between creativity and innovation! They say ANYone can have creative ideas, but the true measure of success in entrepreneurland is innovation–taking a creative idea all the way through to the point of completion.

 

Just dreaming up a new behind-the-knees deodorant, for example, means nothing without also being able to produce accurate cost estimates, ingredient and package testing plans, financing and manufacturing sources, liability issues, distribution/warehousing arrangements and costs, marketing and branding strategies and tactics, etc., etc. etc.

 

That said, we need to be reminded that all of these, and other innovation-based issues, nonetheless begin with a single creative idea . . . the adopted child of every entrepreneur!

Peter Diamandis, President of Singularity University and Founder of the XPrize, is known for promoting “moonshot thinking,” as are the people at Google X. Moonshot thinking, as Diamandis describes it, doesn’t seek to achieve 10% sales but rather 10X more sales. Moonshot thinking is at the heart of the entrepreneurial spirit driving our culture into the New Economy. It is a creative kind of boundlessness that sees where nothing is and imagines what can be, full blown, in color, in 3D.

Entrepreneurs who will succeed well into future decades have a 360-degree view of the world, and it is magnified by a high-powered telescope. When the world was more linear, it was enough for an entrepreneur to see around corners and make an educated guess about where the world, his business and the two were going together. But today, an entrepreneur who merely sees around the next corner isn’t seeing far enough to guide a business into the New Economy.

SUCCESS calls for the kind of vision and creativity

that combines what we know now with what we are

working on– and what we haven’t yet figured out!

It calls for the kind of disciplined creative genius that birthed the light bulb, the airplane, the automobile, the Statue of Liberty, and Superman. It requires the kind of creativity usually associated with the arts . . . creativity that calls into being, something that has no grounding in the present and can’t be imagined by the minds of others . . . David, Mona Lisa,The Sistine Chapel, The Beatles, the pyramids, the Ferris Wheel, space travel, comic strip character Dick Tracy with a 2-way, video wristwatch in 1946 — long before television became a common household device, and very long before cellphones.

Creativity calls forth the left brain (which dictates outgoing, communicative right-side-of-the-body activities and associated analytical, practical, methodical thinking) in concert with the right brain (which dictates introvert-ish, artistic, left-side-of-the-body activities marked by free-spirited and unencumbered out-of-the-box thinking) a rare combination of thinking and behavior not often associated with business decision making.

Internet Joe [See earlier posts] can typically make cross-brain connections. He is wired to think out of the box (“Box? What box? I didn’t see any box!”) and yet to organize it in a way that his imaginings are usable and replicate-able. Viable businesses, after all, aren’t built on one-of-a-kind products or services.

Because creativity pulls in so many different skills and types of intelligence, great products and services are mostly built by cooperative teams. Creativity can and should be managed to result in something truly valuable. Great project managers who understand the creative process and can corral moonshot thinking are essential members of these teams, and every entrepreneur needs a good PM if they aren’t one themselves.

Creativity is a team sport.

Creativity isn’t as lone an enterprise as it might be romantically portrayed, a baggy-eyed, frizzle-haired Einstein sleepless and obsessed. Yes, creative entrepreneurs need to be very creative to envision what’s possible. But speed is often the key to success, and acceleration happens when teams multiply their vision geometrically and when project managers assemble the pieces into viable products and services.

Dream, be agile and connected. And then once the idea is born . . . then: innovate!

# # #
C’mon back TOMORROW 9/24 for Day 13.
Find out if YOUR sense of adventuresomeness measures up!
# # #

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

Sign up NOW for NOVEMBER 29th (Sunday Night after Thanksgiving for 2 hours) $99 LIMITED SEATING COACHING WEBINAR: “Accelerating Your Business Growth and Development.”

Get fresh, informed, proven insights geared specifically to your business market, your biggest problems, your biggest opportunities.

With Hal and Peggy’s wealth of business coaching experience, you’ll learn what successful entrepreneurs need to be thinking and doing NOW. Simply call 931.854.0474 Central Time: 11AM to 4PM Monday-Friday for details and to reserve your seat!

———-
For more information on Peggy Salvatore’s book: 30 Days to the New Economy [© Peggy Salvatore 2015. All Rights Reserved.] click on ENTREPRENEUR NEWS or visit ow.ly/RysnP for the E-book

# # #

Hal@Businessworks.US      Peggy@Businessworks.US

Open Minds Open Doors

Thanks for your visit and make today a GREAT day for someone!

Your Role In History As An Entrepreneur

I  N  T  E  G  R  I  T  Y

Adapted from the book 30 DAYS TO THE NEW ECONOMY written and published by Peggy Salvatore

First of all, without integrity, you can stop reading right now. Don’t waste your time trying to lead an organization—or even yourself—because if you do not have integrity in all you do, you cannot perform any of the necessary actions required to grow and lead a successful organization.

INTEGRITY. Is it more than not cheating on your expense account? More than not pocketing stuff in a retail store? More than lying on your taxes or to your partner or associates? Your landlord? Your family?

Integrity is all-inclusive. Maintaining integrity half the time is like being half-pregnant. Integrity has to do with your treatment of all people all of the time.

It includes all of your communications and the commitments you make – written (including texts, emails, blogs, and site content) and oral (including personal meetings, telephone calls, and electronic transmissions).

If you say one thing to one person and another thing to someone else, don’t expect anyone to listen to you or follow you. They cannot follow you because you have proven that you cannot be trusted; if they follow you, they don’t know where they’ll end up.

If there is any incongruity in your actions or words, you will lose the respect and trust of your employees and everyone else who knows you, including importantly (especially if it’s your own business) your customers.

The reality of  this thinking applies not only to all your business dealings, but all your dealings in life.

 You cannot effectively be one person in your public life and another person in your private life.

Without integrity, you have (or will likely end up having) nothing.

An individual with Integrity is one who is wholly integrated. All pieces of that person’s life line up and make sense. A fully integrated person acts from the same core of values in her or his actions, at work with employees, at home with family and friends, at the gym, in the restaurant, on the phone . . . standing in line.

Integrity is about trust and consistency.

When others let you into their world, whether on a screen, or through a product or service, deserve a certain basic level of trust. And people with Integrity are honest in all cases, which is a demonstration of respect for others.

People who are used to treating others with respect can be expected to treat customers with respect, too. It’s a behavior that comes naturally.

People with Integrity have nothing to hide.

What you see is the actual sum of the man or woman. This is important for several reasons. Generosity tends to accompany Integrity. People who are fully integrated are free to be open and that means they are free to share their ideas, their friends, their lives and their resources.

As a corollary to generosity, people with Integrity usually have an abundance mentality. They aren’t hoarders. This openness is a prerequisite to have a giving personality, one that believes there is enough to go around. An open hand gives and receives in a virtuous cycle.

Another quality of people of Integrity is their outward focus. The natural integration of their lives means that their business is a member of the community it serves. In the Internet world, some entrepreneurs have a global focus, so that community can be near or far.

An Internet entrepreneur may be the leader of a company of one as a solopreneur, or may lead a company of hundreds. But the same rules apply. As the leader of your organization, Integrity is the make-or-break personal quality.

Integrity is the foundation of success in any
venture and is particularly critical to
long-term successful leadership
at any level. Entrepreneurship is no exception.

Let’s close this discussion by pointing out that this is not a sermon. None of us is perfect. We are, after all is said and done, humans. That requires us to each have faults. The intent of this post is to serve as a reminder that—as motivational guru Brian Tracy so aptly paraphrases: “We become what we think about most of the time.” Thinking more about integrity helps us to gain more of it. And that’s as good for our businesses as it is for ourselves and for those around us every day.

For more information on Peggy Salvatore’s book: 30 Days to the New Economy [© Peggy Salvatore 2015. All Rights Reserved.] click on ENTREPRENEUR NEWS or visit ow.ly/RysnP for the E-book

# # #

Hal@Businessworks.US     

Open Minds Open Doors

Thanks for your visit and make today a GREAT day for someone!

SEE SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT IN RED AT END OF POST

Your Role In History As An Entrepreneur

CHARACTERISTICS OF 

THE NEW ENTREPRENEUR

Adapted from the book 30 DAYS TO THE NEW ECONOMY written and published by Peggy Salvatore

Many long-standing entrepreneurial success characteristics remain on the front-lines. Reasonable risk-taking and possessing of some mysterious instincts are but two examples. NOW, as we approach the 2020s, other “quieter” ingredients are gaining traction and emerging as higher level success characteristics. Today, Peggy leads us to four of these: Nimble. Flexible. Responsive. Personal.

About 10 years ago, when my three kids were all in high school, I decided to go back to school to fulfill a dream of earning an advanced degree in economics. Okay, geek alert! Yes,I know that not every girl’s dream is to study what most people have always seemed to consider such a dismal science. But it was mine.

A for-profit online university called Cardean University advertised an MBA with a specialization in economics and strategy. The curriculum was developed by professors from The London School of Economics, the University of Chicago and Stanford. And I reasoned that they couldn’t advertise that fact if it weren’t true.

Yet, I still wasn’t sure of the value of an online degree in the real world. I phoned a friend I thought would know the answer. When I asked her if an online MBA would be akin to getting your degree on the back of a matchbook cover (ah, you do remember matchbooks, yes?;).

Okay, so my friend said the credibility issues I was concerned with were no longer the case, and that in the real world, virtual degrees counted just fine. (Eventually, Cardean was sold so my degree ended up being from a bricks-and-mortar school anyway.)

Here I was, attending classes and studying online, and learning real stuff that I still use.

I had classmates all around the globe — many from private sector corporations like General Motors and others from federal entities like the U.S. Army — which had a value all by itself.

I share this here because the Internet has become and remains a legitimate business and educational channel. Unlike the fly-by-night money order, cash-for-gold side street vendor-type people who open their virtual doors with the intention of fleecing the public or churning cash, and whose daily email bombardments we all readily block or delete, I suggest they will not ever gain credibility among credible people. In fact, it’s unlikely they will ever even get as far as the cash-for-gold fleece-master.

The Internet is designed for integrity. Internet Joe needs to have valuable wares he is exchanging for income. If not, he’ll be sniffed out and escorted out of town. So if integrity is the bedrock of business, the Internet is the place where it is most solid. After all, who among us wants to do business with the fleece-master? On the Internet, you probably have less chance of that happening than you do of winning some big-time cash prize at the carnival coming through town.

For Internet Joe, this is good news. The foundational principle of all business is that the owner must have integrity to conduct business successfully and continually. Nowhere is this more likely that in the place where one star versus five stars. Comment boxes and the online star and thumbs-up reviews are available to everyone.

So, if like me, you are concerned that perhaps a virtual business might be less legitimate than a storefront on Main Street, my friend’s “take” on virtual classes was right. The Internet business playing field is for real, and that means you must be, too.

Besides integrity, Internet Joe has a few other characteristics that ideally suit him for success in a rapidly unfolding New Economy.

Internet Joe is:

• NIMBLE: He assembles the pieces necessary to build an online presence.
• FLEXIBLE: He is working his way around obstacles and making adjustments as the terrain changes daily. Updates that change the way his online meeting service functions? He’s on top of those.
• RESPONSIVE: He is always “on alert” for his customers. Customers get answers from his smartphone on the road, his tablet on vacation, and his home office on a 24/7 global schedule. Internet Joe responds with spontaneity!
• PERSONAL: When his name is out there, his Facebook, Pinterest and far more private information is just a click away. Customers know that.

RETURN HERE TOMORROW 9/22 FOR DAY 11

AND THE TRUTH ABOUT INTEGRITY

# # #

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

Sign up NOW for NOVEMBER 29th (Sunday Night after Thanksgiving for 2 hours) $99 LIMITED SEATING COACHING WEBINAR: “Accelerating Your Business Growth and Development.”

Get fresh, informed, proven insights geared specifically to your business market, your biggest problems, your biggest opportunities.

With Hal and Peggy’s wealth of business coaching experience, you’ll learn what successful entrepreneurs need to be thinking and doing NOW. Simply call 931.854.0474 Central Time: 11AM to 4PM Monday-Friday for details and to reserve your seat!

———-
For more information on Peggy Salvatore’s book: 30 Days to the New Economy [© Peggy Salvatore 2015. All Rights Reserved.] click on ENTREPRENEUR NEWS or visit ow.ly/RysnP for the E-book

# # #

Hal@Businessworks.US      Peggy@Businessworks.US

Open Minds Open Doors

Thanks for your visit and make today a GREAT day for someone!

Your Role In History As An Entrepreneur

Internet Stardom

Adapted from the book 30 DAYS TO THE NEW ECONOMY written and published by Peggy Salvatore

In that relatively innocent new era of radio and television, 1960s, pop art hero Andy Warhol was credited with saying that “Everyone gets their 15 minutes of  fame!” [Below: Andy Warhol self-portrait poster]

At times–for a population that mostly grew up, with “noses to the grindstone,” laboring at survival jobs–Warhol’s quote seemed both outrageous and yet almost true. After all, we all know (and probably knew even in those days) people who’ve been interviewed by the media. Even your sister might be approached by a reporter holding a microphone while she’s walking her dog in the park.

But before the Internet–when Warhol made his assumptive prediction (predictable assumption?)–you still had to get through a few filters, no matter how thin, before grabbing your 15 minutes! Those filters might be a newspaper reporter covering a fire, a television producer looking for contestants or a book publisher searching for the next Gone With The Wind.

Contrast all that with today. INTERNET JOE***is not subject to filters . . . except his own. Under his own volition, Internet Joe can get a URL with his name.com, put up a video on YouTube and publicize it to the world on Facebook and Twitter. Internet stardom is wholly within one’s personal discretion. And except for the $5 a month for the cost of a website, all this stardom is free.

***[See series posts from Day 5 and DAY 6 to get better acquainted with “Internet Joe.”]

For the average self-absorbed teenager or aspiring garage rock band, imagine the possibilities. No, even better: activate the possibilities! Surf Instagram, Facebook and YouTube to see what the unfiltered masses look like and how they behave. Then ponder for a moment the value of filters (professionals with judgment) and decide what is realistically worthy of public attention. Might educated, critical judgment have a place in this cacophony?

Just for fun, turn that last paragraph on its head. Go ahead and surf Instagram, Facebook and YouTube to see what the unfiltered masses consider valuable. But then stop for a moment and ponder the hurdles that professional filters create. By appointing themselves moderators of public taste and morés, the professionals with judgment (corporations and governments) had the pre-Internet power to determine the direction of humanity. People were driven into moral and cultural cattle chutes. The cows are free.

             Marilyn Monroe by 1960’s pop artist Andy Warhol

Big-time TV and movie stars were the people who made it through the process, whatever that was. Internet stars are people who choose to put themselves out as a brand. In the areas of business, entertainment and even just average-Joe-dom, people who are branding themselves and their names are having massive success making themselves Internet stars. The personal face and name as a brand exudes trust that has great value in the oceans of information out there.

People who are willing to put their smiling visage on their emails and website create a sense of trust among customer and strategic partnership prospects, as well as referral bases and networkers. (Would you do business with a social media ghosted silhouette profile image instead of a real face?) Trust breeds business. It always has and it always will. Internet stardom means success for Internet Joe.

We do business with people, not pixels, but

 photos of faces start us on the right track.

Have you branded yourself? Do people know what you look like? And do people know your story? Do they know what you think? Or do they at least think they know what you think? Can they “hear” your voice?

If your answers are yes to these questions, you are a brand . . . and you are well on the way to Infinity!

# # #

C’mon back MONDAY 9/21 for Day 10 to see if you match up with the 4 critical characteristics of successful entrepreneurs!

When you need some personal, one-on-one coaching beyond the Internet offerings, give us a call. (Direct line numbers on masthead above.) In the meantime, follow us HERE for FREE for the next 21 weekdays to see what others think, and discover some of the surprise findings we have in store for you—new and proven “mental apps” to apply to your own entrepreneurial and business development!
———-
For more information on Peggy Salvatore’s book: 30 Days to the New Economy [© Peggy Salvatore 2015. All Rights Reserved.] click on ENTREPRENEUR NEWS or visit ow.ly/RysnP for the E-book

# # #
Hal@Businessworks.US           Peggy@Businessworks.US

Open Minds Open Doors

Thanks for your visit and make today a GREAT day for someone!

Your Role in History as an Entrepreneur

To Infinity And Beyond

Adapted from the book 30 DAYS TO THE NEW ECONOMY written and published by Peggy Salvatore

Can you grasp the fact that we are living on the cusp of incredible opportunity? The amount of information available to us instantaneously is staggering, and we have come to take it for granted.

Let me contrast today’s mobile app world to just 20 years ago when I did health policy research. Before writing a white paper, I had to write physical letters or make a landline phone call to Washington DC to the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) to request government documents.

Then, guess what came next? Right. I would wait a week or two until some diligent librarian gathered the documents and sent me a bulky yellow envelope stuffed with the precious statistics I sought.

• Since I did a lot of government-related policy work at that time, most of my contact was with the U.S. GPO. The GPO was arguably one of the most responsive organizations I encountered. In those days, for data and studies not conducted by the U.S. government, gathering information was—believe it or not—actually more challenging.

• Non-government-generated research required me to spend time at local public or university libraries, getting to know the research librarians, hunting through dusty stacks and filling out paper request forms to be sent into the library system to look for information.

Imagine the limitations

Linear indexes. No embedded links. No Google. No social media. Books, studies and reports were listed in sets of thick, hard-backed tomes lining the research shelves of local libraries. Legal and medical research required similar effort.

That linear aspect of gathering information first required that you had some clue about what you were looking for. Nobody was pushing information to your inbox because you expressed an interest in a topic.

You were of course also limited in the ways that knowledge was built. You only knew the information that you specifically sought, so your research would have a defined trajectory from a specific point.

Today, global consulting firms like Deloitte and IBM make white papers available for download in my inbox literally every day. I can’t begin to consume all the information that is interesting to me. And guess what? I now know to look for knowledge that I could not have even imagined existed two decades ago.

My research now has multiple starting points and can take me in an almost limitless number of directions. Knowledge indeed has become exponential. After all, anyone can edit a Wikipedia entry, all 3 billion of us with an Internet connection.

In 1995 (yes, just 20 years ago!), less than 1% of the world’s population had an Internet connection. I had one, but connected to what? We hadn’t really begun to explore the potential of what would reside online.

[Accessed 6/3/2015 at www.internetworldstats.com]

This evolutionary process repeats itself for everything.

Not too long ago, if I wanted new shoes, I walked to the shoe store, looked at a limited selection of colors, styles and sizes and either settled for whatever was in my size or ordered something more to my liking through the retail store and waited for delivery.

Some online catalogs have delivered products directly to consumers since the early 1900s, but—with a few notable exceptions like LL Bean—catalog purchases were considered low quality and provided even more limited selection than the venerable old department stores.

You may think I am belaboring the obvious.

You may even be yawning…?

Realize, though, that I describe life only 20 years ago, when today’s college graduates were teething. The speed of knowledge has grown exponentially, so much so that I saw a statistic yesterday that stated 90% of the data available today has been collected in the last two years (!). Phenomenal or what?

What are the gems hiding in that data? How much more will we know by next year? What other assumptions and paradigms will be smashed next year, next month . . . next week?

Your ability to collect and process information makes you part of this surge toward a future none of us can fully grasp, although some futurists have come very close. Raw data has no inherent value but the interpretation of that data is priceless.

Boiled down to its simplest essence: Economics is the trading of value among individuals, corporations and nations. We are accruing a mind-boggling amount of value in transactions involving information, goods and services occurring in milliseconds simultaneously among billions of interconnected humans today, right now . . . as we speak . . . as you read . . . as I write.

The New Economy is just breaking out.

To quote that great “Toy Story” character Buzz Lightyear, we are headed “To infinity and beyond.”

Are you ready? Are you on the way?

# # #

When you need some personal, one-on-one coaching beyond the Internet offerings, give us a call. (Direct line numbers on masthead above.) In the meantime, follow us HERE for FREE for the next 22 weekdays to see what others think, and discover some of the surprise findings we have in store for you—new and proven “mental apps” to apply to your own entrepreneurial and business development!

See you here tomorrow 9/18 for Day 9.

———-
For more information on Peggy Salvatore’s book: 30 Days to the New Economy [© Peggy Salvatore 2015. All Rights Reserved.] click on ENTREPRENEUR NEWS or visit ow.ly/RysnP for the E-book

# # #
Hal@Businessworks.US       Peggy@Businessworks.US

Open Minds Open Doors

Thank you for your visit and make today a GREAT day for someone!

Your Role in History as an Entrepreneur

The Virtues of Internet Joe

Adapted from the book 30 DAYS TO THE NEW ECONOMY
written and published by Peggy Salvatore

It takes a lot of hustle to open your own business.
I recently met a young married couple starting a boutique brewery. Location. Licenses. Equipment. Employees. And some real hassles. A lot to consider. But it was worth it to them. They’ll end up making their own beer.

Internet entrepreneurship requires the same kind of hustle. He might not be cleaning vats or hoisting foamy mugs, but Internet Joe does his own version of cleaning and heavy lifting. Think about it. He will integrate years of expertise (could be 2, could be 50) to come up with a product or service that will provide value to people somewhere, anywhere on this planet.

That’s a pretty wide swath to cut, so Internet Joe (and maybe you too?) needs to build his pursuits on the following ESSENTIAL 7 TRAITS:

1.  CONFIDENCE: Internet Joe has enough confidence to believe he has something to offer and is willing to put in the time, effort and money to offer it.

2.  KNOWLEDGE: He has a defined skill set that he may have used or is using at a corporate job, but he has acquired other skills and knowledge that he did not use in his tightly defined corporate role. He is anxious to use these skills and knowledge in his new Internet business.

3.  DEPENDABILITY: He opened the business for a few reasons, including but not limited to the need for an income. By taking the chance of investing both time and money in developing the Internet business, Joe has already proven that he is a go-getter and is responsible. Customers can depend on delivery from Internet Joe.

4. CREATIVITY: Internet Joe has the energy and creativity to build a business online from scratch. He also has the ability to put that kind of thinking to work for customers. And all those skills that weren’t used by the last employer? Now’s the time to figure out how to integrate his interest in fine art with his sales and marketing expertise.

5. REASONABLE RISK-TAKING: Joe took a risk by putting himself and his products, services and ideas out for sale to the public. That investment of time, money and creativity to build the business came at the risk of not doing something else with those resources. It also came at the risk that his endeavor could meet with crickets.

6. INTEGRITY: This is the core requirement for any business person online and offline. Your word is your bond. You can be trusted and you respect yourself as well as everyone you come in contact with. Without integrity, you have nothing in business. Internet Joe is putting himself in the public eye and subjecting himself to levels of scrutiny heretofore impossible without investing in private investigation services.

7. ADVENTURESOMENESS: The Internet is new. Even if you are following a proven model in your online business, you are bound to uncover some new ways of doing things and improving upon the existing system. Because Internet business is in its infancy, Internet Joe is learning along with everyone else. Internet entrepreneurs are learning together and there is a lot of room for innovation.

Certain personal qualities are essential for success in any business. With an industry that is new, people who succeed will be among the first to find effective ways of operating in this environment.

Businesses and products have a life cycle. The business cycle is traditionally divided into four segments:
• Early Adopters
• Pragmatists
• Conservatives
• Skeptics

“The Chasm” is the space between the innovative early adopters and the majority of early pragmatist entrants when a majority of people jump on to a new idea.

I reproduce this graph here to suggest that we have not crossed the chasm but we are rapidly approaching it.

The Early Adopter phase is the place where

history is made. It is where you are!

The seven traits I list above are essential for success at the Early Adoption phase. I will dedicate the next seven weekdays talking about them . . . the Success Traits of Internet Joe.

There are lots of Internet Joe’s in the new economy. Are you one of

them? Are you one of the “Frontier Pioneers” staking your claim?

C’mon back TOMORROW 9/16 for Day 7
to find out how you and Joe compare.

When you need some personal, one-on-one coaching beyond the Internet offerings, give us a call. (Direct line numbers on masthead above.) In the meantime, follow us HERE for FREE for the next 24 weekdays to see what others think, and discover some of the surprise findings we have in store for you—new and proven “mental apps” to apply to your own entrepreneurial and business development!
———-
For more information on Peggy Salvatore’s book: 30 Days to the New Economy [© Peggy Salvatore 2015. All Rights Reserved.] click on ENTREPRENEUR NEWS or visit ow.ly/RysnP for the E-book

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Hal@Businessworks.US      Peggy@Businessworks.US

Open Minds Open Doors

Thanks for your visit and make today a GREAT day for someone!

Your Role in History as an Entrepreneur

HISTORICAL BUSINESS

PIVOT POINTS

Adapted from the book 30 DAYS TO THE NEW ECONOMY

written and published by Peggy Salvatore

Yesterday, we touched on the idea of Internet business      opportunities being the new $390-an-ounce gold   . . . . . . . and concluded it’s going to go way higher
for “Frontier Pioneers!”

I likened the technological frontier to early Americans who joined a wagon train to head into the Western American frontier in the middle of the 19th Century looking for un-mined opportunities.

All of this set the stage for today’s ancient question:

How can you know where you’re going
if you don’t know where you came from?

In a virtual world, un-mined opportunities are virtual too. If you think about the history of business over the last 500 years in a linear way, it is clear that we are heading into a third revitalization of the world economy as people adapt to new opportunities that technology has opened.

Some have referred to this epoch as “The Third Wave.”

In the first wave of opportunity, after sailors dramatically proved to mapmakers (by not falling off the horizon edge) that the world was not flat, global business opportunities opened up.

A merchant class emerged and dislodged the traditional power centers built around the kings and kingdoms of antiquity. Global tradewinds—in essence—democratized business. Wealth spread to a whole large new group of people willing to take risks.

The establishment of American colonies on a large, undeveloped land mass created yet more opportunities for new political and economic models to be tested safely away from the established old controls of entrenched power.

Merchant mentality spread to the previously disenfranchised masses and –VOILA!—the small business owner was born.

Mom and Pop shops proliferated beyond the old world butcher-baker-candlestick maker paradigm.
Mom and Pops opened banks.
Mom and Pops built all types of small businesses to support the growing manufacturing base built on bigger dollars funded by oil, coal, lumber, railroad and textile tycoons of the late 19th century.
A few Mom and Pops became franchises, and birthed their own corporations as well.

In the 20th Century, opportunity spread down to Everyman. It spread the same way that technology and genetics spread throughout human history–mostly through war–but now more frequently aided by commerce.

Progress through commerce became the late 20th Century model. It started to appear that the world economy would advance by peaceful means. War, it seemed, was becoming an outdated method of trans- ferring knowledge, wealth, power and genetics.

Then in the first decade of the 21st Century, something went horribly awry. War overtook commerce as the global force for economic power.

As we look at the trajectory of history, however, war no longer appears to be a sustainable model for economic power and growth. Let me suggest—crossed fingers behind my back—that war is having its last stand, albeit a very nasty one.

The unrelenting wars of today, threatening huge swaths of humanity and the land on which they live, seem more like the last gasp of a dying paradigm in the face of the Internet and the connectivity of Everyman, everywhere, as the new economy.

How dare I say that? Tune in here tomorrow!

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For more information on Peggy Salvatore’s book: 30 Days to the New Economy [© Peggy Salvatore 2015. All Rights Reserved.] click on ENTREPRENEUR NEWS or visit ow.ly/RysnP for the E-book

See you here tomorrow 9/11 for Day 4.

———-
For more information on Peggy Salvatore’s book: 30 Days to the New Economy [© Peggy Salvatore 2015. All Rights Reserved.] click on ENTREPRENEUR NEWS or visit ow.ly/RysnP for the E-book

# # #

Hal@Businessworks.US  Peggy@Businessworks.US

Open Minds Open Doors

Thank You for Your Visit and make today a GREAT day for someone!

Your Role in History as an Entrepreneur 

TWITTER FEED FROM SYRIA

Adapted from the book 30 DAYS TO THE NEW ECONOMY

written and published by Peggy Salvatore

Remember the Arab Spring? What was that, anyway?   People protesting for freedom, I think. People

    throwing off the shackles of oppression —
as portrayed by the press. That was the official meme.

Like King George issuing an edict to America’s colonies, the official meme was received with a jaundiced eye by the people in the middle of the action and their Internet friends around the globe.

Let’s face it. People are playing video games with other people all around the world, all the time. And global business ties keep everyone in close proximity to every-one else via Skype or a short jet hop.

Like never before in the history of the world, people get to know each other (or at least a little ABOUT each other). And it gets harder each day for an official story to go unchallenged. So it was with the Arab Spring.

As tumult rocked the Middle East, video gamers texted each other across and between continents. They started Twitter feeds. People talked about what was going on.

This dynamic affects business. At the same time as global corporations are capable of spreading influence instantaneously, so is the small on- line entrepreneur. If knowledge is power, power is no longer hierarchi- cal. Power is flat. It is matrixed. It favors the nimble.

Global corporations may be SEO and Google search engine masters. But today’s Internet entrepreneur has a real shot at reaching customers in her/his space using various networking opportunities in his/her field — darting around, past, over and under the global giants.

The average Internet Joe can connect with other Internet Joe’s and Jane’s in small to medium sized businesses and make an excellent living working for individuals who need his expertise.

Like the video game friends texting real-time human concern during the Arab Spring, personal networks have a flexibility and humanity that allow them to reach people on a level that the major players cannot.

The Internet offers small service and product providers the same, if not better, opportunities for personal service and connection to many poten- tial customers around the world as those exercised by huge multi-national corporations.

Customers benefit from low cost, high quality and personal service using Internet Joe businesses operating in the new economy.

This democratization of knowledge and power has leveled the business playing field. It has also leveled the political playing field which is, if not the same thing, something very highly related and correlated.

Just as politics attempts to control who gets what, and who decides, the proliferation of information puts control into the hands of the aver- age Internet Joe. He is the customer and the provider as the flattened power matrix envelopes everyone with an Internet connection.

From this vantage point, new products and services are being develop-  ed in a way that is not just close to the customer, but are being develop- ed in conjunction WITH the customer!

And with Internet Joe now everywhere, all the time, the New Economy transcends borders, nations and politics.

C’mon back MONDAY 9/14 for Day 5 to find out
how this impacts commerce.

When you need some personal, one-on-one coaching beyond the Internet offerings, give us a call. (Direct line numbers on masthead above.) In the meantime, follow us HERE for FREE for the next 26 days to see what others think, and discover some of the surprise findings we have in store for you—new and proven “mental apps” to apply to your own entrepreneurial and business development!

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For more information on Peggy Salvatore’s book: 30 Days to the New Economy [© Peggy Salvatore 2015. All Rights Reserved.] click on ENTREPRENEUR NEWS  or visit ow.ly/RysnP for the E-book
# # #
Hal@Businessworks.US    Peggy@Businessworks.US

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Thank you for your visit and make today a GREAT day for someone!

Your Role in History as an Entrepreneur 

INTERNET ENTREPRENEURS

A FRONTIER MENTALITY

Adapted from the book 30 DAYS TO THE NEW ECONOMY written and published by Peggy Salvatore

Building an online business in the new economy? So you’re a “frontier pioneer.” You’ve figuratively hitched your horse to your wagon and joined the wagon train.

Can you imagine yourself in 1840 America, heading west to the new frontier, searching for gold? Time and space have changed, but the challenges remain.

When I started my consulting career 20 years ago, I took a small pro- ject assignment at the University of Pennsylvania helping the develop- ment office build its first website. I took some html classes there as part of the job to write the website content. The Penn Development Depart- ment built the first donor recognition site in the world. In the world. The first.

• As part of the job, I had to investigate whether we could get digital rights to legendary opera singer Marion Anderson’s recording library. I discussed the intellectual property challenges of this endeavor with the Music Department of Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, one of the places where these questions were first considered.
•  I talked with attorneys who were still working out how much of a copyrighted work we could republish online before violating the owners’ rights. Seriously. Lawyers were just beginning to entertain those ideas in the late 20th Century.
•  Then sometime around the end of that assignment, we got wind of some amazing new software that allowed me to build the website without inserting the html coding. I saw Windows for the first time. Since we were rounding the last bend of that project, I never actually benefited from these new technologies but we saw the changes coming.

The point is that, at times, I’ve watched the development of the Internet as more than just an innocent bystander. I’ve had some hands-on glimpses of where we started not that long ago. From that vantage point, and considering where we are today, I believe that—as the old song goes—“we’ve only just begun” to develop the new economy.

Are you here? Or are you there?

In the last few years we’ve hit an inflection point that is allowing the Internet to take the world economy in a new direction. People far more Internet savvy than I am are talking about this in much more sophisticated ways.

My purpose here is to encourage.

The online small business entrepreneur needs to go get her or his horse, hitch up, and join the wagon train. Getting into the Internet wagon train business space now is like buying gold at $390 an ounce… you think it can’t go any higher, but you’ll be wrong!

If you are weighing whether to offer your products and services online to a global marketplace from your own virtual storefront, consider it $390 an ounce gold.

Or step back one more historical notch

to where we began this DAY 2 article:

Close your eyes a minute, take a deep breath.
Can you “see” yourself panning for gold from
the back of your Conestoga wagon while your
happy horse camps out by the river?

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When you need some personal, one-on-one coaching beyond the Internet offerings, give us a call. (Direct line numbers on masthead above.) In the meantime, follow us HERE for FREE for the next 28 weekdays to see what others think, and discover some of the surprise findings we have in store for you—new and proven “mental apps” to apply to your own entrepreneurial and business development!

See you here tomorrow 9/10 for Day 3.

———-
For more information on Peggy Salvatore’s book: 30 Days to the New Economy [© Peggy Salvatore 2015. All Rights Reserved.] click on ENTREPRENEUR NEWS or visit ow.ly/RysnP for the E-book

# # #
Hal@Businessworks.US      Peggy@Businessworks.US

Open Minds Open Doors

Thank you for your visit and make today a GREAT day for someone!