Archive for the 'Overcoming Objections' Category

Oct 29 2015

It’s ALL ABOUT C H A N G E !

star rainbow

R  E  A  L   C  H  A  N  G  E

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

DOESN’T TAKE TIME.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

IT JUST HAPPENS!

 

And the reason for such thought diversity between what small business represents and upholds, and the self-aggrandizing departure words of America’s Speaker of The House today has to do with the same reason small business has been under constant blindside attack by the government since 2008.

. . . our federal government is devotedly invested in management by consensus, where everyone involved must agree at least somewhat with every decision. This approach to problem-solving and getting things done has been religiously adhered to by all U.S. Government agencies. It has infiltrated the management behaviors of many if not most in funding-sponge academia, and in the upper ranks of many if not most failing lethargy-infested corporations.

Consensus-seeking management theory (like other “dead soldiers” e.g., Theory A and Theory Z and group hugs) might have solved problems and gotten things done decades ago in the “Hippy” years of the 1960s and 70s. But they simply do not work any longer in today’s world.

“Entrepreneurialism” and small business innovation –which thrive on maintaining a sense of urgency and taking REASONABLE risks– continue to be the true solution-directions that work. Yet they are consistently undermined by shortsighted government agencies that are relentlessly invested in maintaining the status quo.

Waiting for change instead of making change may have a place in history, but can no longer be tolerated as a modus operandi. There just is no time for such nonsense as waiting. ENTREPRENEURS ARE THE AGENTS OF CHANGE!

We live in a world of impatience.

Forward motion that plods

is backward motion.

snail

When small business and entrepreneurs are punished with over-burdening taxes and unnecessary government rule and regulation intrusions designed to do nothing except further the cause of interventionist government in our lives, it proves itself more inadequate and less representative of the reasons it exists every day . . . in fact, every minute.

As the government continues to prove it’s own inadequacy, misguidance, and misdirection that have led to outright thievery of freedom, to outright undermining of our very economy (and knowing our economy is literally and unarguably dependent on small business growth and development), it is indeed time for change.

But REAL change–the kind that happens now, the kind that makes a difference, the kind that underscores the life/liberty/pursuit of happiness foundation of our country must be encouraged, not squashed, not stepped on, not bidden good riddance. It must be nurtured.

Small business owners and entrepreneurs need to get their heads out of the sand and stars long enough to realize their sand and stars are being eroded by slow, gradual, plodding change fostered by years of government intrusions and restrictions on small business growth and development.

It’s time to acknowledge that staying immersed in the sand and stars actually serves to allow, actually encourage and reward long-term politicking — politicking intentionally aimed at lining political pockets and underwriting meaningless wasteful programs that create greater business, family, and individual dependency. It does this by not paying attention to what’s swirling around the rest of you while your head is focused on business growth and development.

It’s easy to pick your pocket while you’re

bent over, star-gazing through a telescope.

 

 

Entrepreneurs and small business owners can no longer afford to feign ignorance or not take action . . . even if it’s simply speaking up and out more to others. Unless some changes happen quicker, our small business-dependent economy is destined for extinction. If you rent your workspace, there surely comes a time when you need to tell the landlord about a water leak or temperature control. Responsiveness is the entrepreneurial key to success. It’s time to step up to the plate and go to bat for CHANGE.

ADDENDUM EXCERPT FROM THIS BLOG (August, 2011 !):

It means taking just long enough to visit or write a couple of letters or emails to politicians about why you think small business matters. Take just enough time to support those who support your ideas about why small business matters. Why? Because small business does matter. And because it matters that we all step up!

Imagine the impact: 

THIRTY MILLION

(Estimated Total U.S. Small Business Owners)

visits and letters and emails calling attention to the economic recovery role of small business and why government must invest in small business –not with more wasted cash handouts– with tax incentives for innovation and tax incentives for job creation.

# # #

 

Keep your head cool and your feet warm . . . and thanks for your visit!

OPEN MINDS OPEN DOORS

Make Today A Great Day For Someone!

hal@businessworks.US

No responses yet

Oct 25 2015

HOT HEADS COLD FEET

hothead

BLOWING  OFF  STEAM

 

Is For Steam Irons & Engines,

 

Man-Holes & Rock Star Stage Crews

 

 

“Hot Head” behaviors have no place in the workplace (including offices, vehicles, locker rooms, sport facilities, or military missions). Why? Because –besides the increased odds of someone getting hurt– it’s a useless waste of energy that deals with something that is in the past (longer than a second ago!) or the future (more than a second away!).

The past and the future are both fantasy.

 

This exact split second moment as you’re reading this is the only reality. If what you’re upset with is older than a second, it’s over and you can’t do anything about it. If it’s more than a second away, it hasn’t come yet and may never come. [If any of that creates commotion for your brain, you may want to read this paragraph one more time.]

This is not to say that any time, anger or upset feelings get the best of you that you need to be jacketed directly to the nearest psycho ward. It DOES mean that you need to do a better job of self-control by keeping your mind 100% in the present moment every passing moment as much as you possibly can when you do feel your tolerance level dissipating — or be prepared to face the consequences of losing your job, relationships and others’ trust.

Being a hot head is nothing to

 have cold feet about dealing with!

 

And this is experience talking, because I have done all of the above at different times in my life, including yelling in an office and banging locker room doors, and making the mistake of dismissing the idea that it mattered. Of course it matters. Leave emotional eruption behaviors to Hollywood where people are paid to pretend.

In case this line of thought strikes you as easier said than done, it’s not! Self-control –even under fire– is really quite simple to achieve in (could anything be more descriptive than what my father used to say): “Two shakes of a lamb’s tail!” if you are willing to own up to the fact that making it happen is worthwhile and that it is, in fact, your choice.

It’s useful to remember that all of your behavior is the result of your choice, or the result of a choice you once made . . . and that if you really want to change, change is a choice!

Okay, so what’s the magic answer? No magic! Just some increased awareness of what triggers your upset feelings and then doing something that you do every minute of your life in a slightly more pronounced way. That’s it. You’ve read this far and want the quick free (no-sales-pitch/no-gimmicks) steps that will work for you right this minute? TAKE THESE STEPS NOW

# # #

 

Keep your head cool and your feet warm . . . and thanks for your visit!

OPEN MINDS OPEN DOORS

Make Today A Great Day For Someone!

hal@businessworks.US

 

 

2 responses so far

Oct 11 2015

DAY 25 – 30 Days To The New Economy

Your Role In History As An Entrepreneur

H U M A N   C A P I T A L

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

people clockworks

I’ve heard some people say that they don’t like the term “human capital” because it sounds cold and impersonal. Actually, when I first heard it years ago, I liked it for exactly the opposite reason. Human “capital” describes the value of workers to an enterprise. Whereas labor is typically counted as a cost, capital describes an asset.

 

Without knowledge workers

in the New Economy,

a business has no valuable assets.

 

On DAY 23, we discussed the importance of enterprises as learning organizations since knowledge and information are growing exponentially by the minute. In a knowledge-based economy, humans are the most important resource.

The knowledge-based worker turns the idea that machines displace workers on its head. Workers who tend machines or build widgets that can be assembled by robots are underutilized. One study by the Martin School at Oxford predicts that 48% of American jobs alone will be lost to robotics in the next 20 years. This is good news because as the New Economy grows, workers grow in importance and stature. Rather than being displaced by machines, knowledge workers are freed for higher level tasks, tasks that use more of their innate abilities and engage their interests. Higher level tasks in a knowledge economy move workers closer to full actualization of their potential.

 

A 2015 Gallup Poll

 

found that 70% of

 

 Americans hate their jobs.

 

chicken cartoon

I am going to guess that statistic can be pretty closely correlated anywhere on the planet. Being freed from loathsome employment is the joy of Internet Joe and the people on his team. As the lowest, ugliest jobs disappear, the entrepreneur and his creative staff can enjoy serving a growing global online market of potential customers who will consume vast amounts of innovative human resources.

Worker displacement by machines has always resulted in raising the living standard of all despite fears of laborers during the period of dislocation. The accelerated process in a rapidly-expanding knowledge economy should be no different.

So, “human capital” it is.

 

 Hiring Knowledge Workers

smart workers

Internet Joe is building his online empire on the shoulders of knowledge workers. Deep knowledge workers. Highly specialized people who may be in his employ or may be supplying services as a vendor.

The human capital resources needed by the entrepreneur in the New Economy are the best available in the world, literally in the world, serving the world. Knowledge workers as human capital are always learning because growth is joy.

As an entrepreneur, you will be supporting workers who find fulfillment in what they do. That kind of leadership will require a different brand of guidance than leadership in the past that was focused on motivating workers to perform repetitive or onerous tasks. Entrepreneurial leadership in the New Economy is more about clarifying the vision than motivating your employees.

Knowledge workers on your team will sometimes lead you, and that is a perfectly acceptable turn of events when you are working with highly valuable human capital.

 

# # #

C’mon back TOMORROW 10/12 for Day 26  —

You got the spunk. You got the ideas. You got the

money. You got the marketing. You got the contacts.

But do you “Got The People”?

# # #

 SPECIAL   A N N O U N C E M E N T

Sign up NOW for NOVEMBER 29th (Sunday Night after Thanksgiving)

LIMITED SEATING COACHING WEBINAR:

“ENTREPRENEURS ARE AGENTS OF CHANGE… Accelerating Your Business”

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 how YOU match up with what successful entrepreneurs are thinking and doing RIGHT NOW. Get ideas you never imagined. Gain the traction you need within 2 hours — not days or weeks or months. Simply call 931.854.0474 Central Time: 11AM to 4PM Monday-Friday for details, to explain your business pursuit focus and to reserve your seat! $99 total for 2 hours. Satisfaction Guaranteed.

 

———-

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!

No responses yet

Oct 08 2015

DAY 24 – 30 Days To The New Economy

Your Role In History As An Entrepreneur

R E V E N U E

(As in “Department of YOUR Internal”)

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

At the outset, most people will start their business with investor or personal financing. In short order, a viable business in the New Economy will generate revenue.

upsidedown coin shake

Revenue generation is the money you bring in from customers for your products and services. While you won’t necessarily run your business from customer revenue from Day One, you should be able to do so within a few months.

With a:

  • Global online business, you need to find a way to validate payment in a form that is recognized on both sides of the transaction. Because your business is global and virtual, your revenue will ideally be global and virtual too. The issue of valid payment for revenue generation is part of building the infrastructure for the New

Economy. This issue begat payment forms like bitcoin.

 

Ultimately, the New Economy will form the basis for a global currency simply because it makes sense. When global business was conducted only among large corporations or a limited number of globe-trotting individuals, currency exchange was somewhat cumbersome but manageable. In a commerce system where individuals are trading among each other constantly, a common global currency makes common sense.

  • Global currency is one of the hot potatoes that causes governments and political interests enormous discomfort for reasons that go beyond our scope here. But let me suggest here that, just as commerce led the way to break down barriers among different people as merchants set sail for spices in India and silk in China, global Internet commerce will trump parochial interests as the new entrepreneur needs to find a way to receive payment from customers.

green $ jigsaw

  • Global pricing is a tangential issue to global payment. Pricing (a function of marketing) is often locally controlled and regulated especially in certain industries. Products and services on the Internet eventually will create an environment where value is rationalized across economies as the world merges into one seamless trade opportunity.
  • Global trade does not have to be a hot potato, either. But for the reasons that are beyond our discussion here, the opportunity to expand commerce and increase opportunities for human beings everywhere will eventually defuse those issues. A global currency doesn’t have to be a painful dislocation but rather it can occur as a slow, organic and natural progression of the growth of human knowledge and potential. Forays into bitcoin and similar ideas demonstrate the process.

As noted earlier in this series, war is historically the way that humans have expanded their influence. The emergence of a global merchant class slowly but constantly changed the tools of influence expansion from blunt-edged brute force power to soft economic power expanding among individuals. The individual entrepreneur with access to global markets and interconnected billions of people will complete this transition.

The need for a medium of:

  • Global exchange among individuals trading on a global basis will have effects far beyond the practical solution of making value connections using a common currency.

Remember DAY 4? The Arab Spring in Syria? Humans connected with humans who connected the dots. With the incentive of global markets for individuals, expect global currency and further breaking down of barriers among humans. Stay the course. It will take courage!

 

# # #

C’mon back MONDAY 10/12 for Day 25  —

You got the spunk. You got the ideas. You got the

money. You got the marketing. You got the contacts.

But do you “Got The People”?

# # #

SPECIAL   A N N O U N C E M E N T

Sign up NOW for NOVEMBER 29th (Sunday Night after Thanksgiving)

LIMITED SEATING COACHING WEBINAR:

“ENTREPRENEURS ARE AGENTS OF CHANGE . . . Accelerating Your Business”

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 how YOU match up with what successful entrepreneurs are thinking and doing RIGHT NOW. Get ideas you never imagined. Gain the traction you need within 2 hours — not days or weeks or months. Simply call 931.854.0474 Central Time: 11AM to 4PM Monday-Friday for details, to explain your business pursuit focus and to reserve your seat! $99 total for 2 hours. Satisfaction Guaranteed.

———-

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!

 

No responses yet

Oct 07 2015

DAY 23 – 30 Days To The New Economy

Your Role In History As An Entrepreneur

F I N A N C I N G 

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

money island

We already explored the potential of the effect of the changing financial realities of the New Economy on your Internet business. Some of the old gatekeepers of investment capital have been supplanted by the ability to reach out directly to potential investors.

 

For small entrepreneurs, you may only need a few thousand dollars. With the amount of free and low-cost resources at your disposal, you can start a substantial business with little startup cash. That means many people can build their business out of pocket.

There are many benefits to funding your own enterprise. You have no debt except to yourself. You retain control of the business and you own it 100% outright. And you spend your time on your business, not court- ing potential investors. If you can do it, self-financing is the way to go.

If you need to attract investors for a larger idea, you can go directly to individuals. Wise investors (which is what you want) will vet you and help you by making sure your idea is viable and you are able to execute it professionally. Consider wise investors another advantage that you take into your venture.

You may be the person who imagines the concept, but you don’t want to go it alone. Wise investors will look at the credentials of your support system as well as your own ability to execute your ideas. The more advisors and team members you have in your corner, even those part-timers and professional friends, are very important to your success.

financial mgmt

You want others to help you hone your ideas, promote your products and services, and be your cheerleaders on days when you need one. When you are looking to attract capital, that team will make or break your ability to do so.

Be strategic about your partnerships. A geek with sales skills might be able to sign up customers and design websites but not write content. A strategic partnership  with a content writer (who may even be in a different country!) who has no site design or sales skills, can accomplish more than either can working alone.

And there’s no legality (besides perhaps a dated, mutually-signed “letter of understanding” to set forth what’s agreed) involved, and no complicated financing involved. What there needs only to be is separate skilled businesses or individuals with mutual trust and ambition. It can work like barter with a split-fee arrangement.

 

Build bench strength where you have weaknesses

bench press

Make sure the human resources you have on board support your mission and can conduct all the internal business processes required to operate legally, ethically and with solid financial plans.

Finally, be realistic about the amount of financing that you need. If you overestimate, you will spend your time raising money for things you don’t need or could easily and more quickly do yourself. If you underestimate, you will get only partway to goal.

A great realistic plan is to start your business in small and manageable chunks with the resources and financing at your disposal, and when the marketplace responds with interest and orders, you can raise the stakes.

 

# # #

C’mon back TOMORROW 10/9 for Day 24 —

Are you your own Department of Internal Revenue?

# # #

 

SPECIAL   A N N O U N C E M E N T

Sign up NOW for NOVEMBER 29th (Sunday Night after Thanksgiving)

LIMITED SEATING COACHING WEBINAR:

“ENTREPRENEURS ARE AGENTS OF CHANGE… Accelerating Your Business”

 

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 how YOU match up with what successful entrepreneurs are thinking and doing RIGHT NOW. Get ideas you never imagined. Gain the traction you need within 2 hours — not days or weeks or months. Simply call 931.854.0474 Central Time: 11AM to 4PM Monday-Friday for details, to explain your business pursuit focus and to reserve your seat! $99 total for 2 hours. Satisfaction Guaranteed.

———-

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!

 

No responses yet

Sep 30 2015

DAY 18 – 30 Days To The New Economy

Your Role In History As An Entrepreneur

Side note: In editing Peggy’s book chapters for blog adaptation, I’ve found her style to be surprisingly (for an economist leadership expert, itself, to me, an oxymoron) engaging. Today’s topic, however, encompasses the object of my business teething and career so I feel compelled to spotlight a bit of the professionalism of marketing. Factoids (such as the components of marketing and the distinction between creating and stimulating desire, for example) are seldom addressed or positive-ized in economic treatises or website meanderings. Thank you. Enjoy the journey! Hal

Imagine Marketing

 

MARKETING CONCEPTS

One of the great advances of the 20th Century was the development of the field of marketing. As industrialists were able to mass produce clothing, cars, homes and candy bars, they sought a method or methods to promote those things to a public who may not have known that they needed or wanted them.

 

 

Psychology and sociology combined with imperatives to maximize business profitability and the science of markets was born. Where markets existed, they were maximized. Where markets did not exist, they were created. Yet marketing is not a creator of society wants and needs. It is simply a reflection of society–a mirror of what already exists.

You know you need a home but you probably didn’t know you need or want a certain type or brand of kitchen appliance or configuration of closets until marketers educated you about the differences in price, performance, design, function, impressions, and longevity.

You know you need a car to get to work, but marketers let you know which models and styles were available so you could choose those that would best serve your practical functional and budget needs as well as those that best meet the conscious or unconscious emotional wants you most closely identify with (e.g., power, status, sex appeal, safety/service focus, family/parental focus, environmental/energy focus, etc.).

PSYCHOLOGY

Marketing attaches meaning to the products and services we consume. Think of marketing as a big umbrella over a broad spectrum of marketing functions, which include sales, advertising, branding, pricing, packaging, promotion, merchandising, public relations (news releases, events, media communications), and more. Marketing also raises life necessities to luxury levels for a price.

Marketing does not create desire because humans already possess desire. Marketers stimulate desires that already exist. Marketing sometimes prompts us to purchase or consider purchasing products and services we didn’t know we needed or wanted until subliminal interests are created for them, and our desires are stimulated.

By the mid-20th Century, mass production meant that businesses could create enough products to satisfy the desires of mass markets. Mass communication through a mix of limited channels (using television, radio, magazines, direct mail, and outdoor and transit billboards) standardized desire for mass produced products.

The Internet changed the whole world of marketing. The Internet is a personal communication device. What comes through my computer is as different as what comes through yours as we are. No two computers deliver the same content because the content is a reflection of the fingerprint of the user. One user accesses religious content, another pornography, and yet a third spends most of her or his time surfing the net for the best price on handbags, shoes, or on hunting and fishing equipment and gear.

MARKETING - White Board

How do you market to EACH individual on his or her personal communication device?

Like finance, we’re rewriting the discipline of marketing while we’re practicing business in the New Economy.

 

As an Internet entrepreneur, you find your markets by searching for people who are interested in buying what you are selling. You contact them through social media using list serves, groups, email blasts and subscriptions, blogs and connectivity/referral platforms . . . following where each thread leads. When you pull on a thread, it will lead to a tapestry of related interest groups. As a business person, the end of each thread is a potential customer.

The hardest job of Internet Joe is to refine his product or service to meet the needs of a specifically defined target market within the potential of a global customer base. Expect that it could take time to refine your approach. You will go through several iterations before you hit on exactly what specific flavor of what you offer appeals to which specific individuals.

In the New Economy, your customers are in New Zealand and Newfoundland. Get to your keyboard and go find them.

 

# # #

C’mon back tomorrow 10/2 for Day 19 —

It’s all about SALES, SALES, SALES, and more SALES.

# # #

 

S P E C I A L    A N N O U N C E M E N T

Sign up NOW for NOVEMBER 29th (Sunday Night after Thanksgiving)

LIMITED SEATING COACHING WEBINAR:

 

“ENTREPRENEURS ARE AGENTS OF CHANGE . . . Accelerating Your Business”

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 how YOU match up with what successful entrepreneurs are thinking and doing RIGHT NOW. Get ideas you never imagined. Gain the traction you need within 2 hours — not days or weeks or months. Simply call 931.854.0474 Central Time: 11AM to 4PM Monday-Friday for details, to explain your business pursuit focus and to reserve your seat! $99 total for 2 hours. Satisfaction Guaranteed.

———-

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!

No responses yet

Sep 30 2015

DAY 17 – 30 Days To The New Economy

Your Role In History As An Entrepreneur

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

Imagine Finance

Money flying from wallet cartoon

 

Financing in the New Economy has two radical differentiators from the old days. One is the way in which you attract investors and the second is how much it actually costs to start up your Internet business.

 

Direct Access to Investors
Remember the good old days (say the first decade of the 21st Century) when prospective entrepreneurs seeking funding would schlep their slide decks into a startup incubator and make presentations to veteran investor gatekeepers who doled out wisdom about business plans, management teams and boards of directors?

  • Gone? Not quite. Still the #1 startup funding path? No longer!

With crowdsourcing and crowdfunding ideas like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo, you can fund your idea by throwing it out to the Internet and letting the investors come to you. You can raise a little money taking donations and small sums from interested Internet friends and advocates, or you can raise serious millions using more structured funding mechanisms that require investors to meet certain criteria.

  • For an entrepreneur in the New Economy, this simply means that Internet Joe can bypass more traditional and restrictive funding mechanisms and go straight to the public. Or combine them both and aim for Shark Tank!

 

Startup Investment is Minimal
As an entrepreneur in the New Economy, Internet Joe has nearly limitless and cheap/free resources at his fingertips – those fingertips tapping on the keyboard. You can start up a business idea with minimal capital. And you can get world-class advice for the price of an Internet connection.

  • I will explore some of these resources in greater detail in the next book, but for now suffice to know that there are brilliant people sharing their startup knowledge for nothin’. The saying “you get what you pay for” does not hold in this case.
  • This rich vein of Internet resources is the exception that proves the rule. In fact, the incredible free startup advice and business acumen, market research and tools to reach a global market cost close to no money at all. Remember the more you chase money, the less time and energy is available to make your business work!

 

In his program, Product Launch Formula, Jeff Walker shares the secret that you can actually sell products that you haven’t yet developed. You sell the product then develop or produce it in response to buyers. The only catch–the big asterisk–is that you better know what you are doing so you can deliver when the time comes. Selling lamps? You’d better be able to produce them when the orders come rolling in.

 

  • The idea is not sleazy; it’s actually excellent business advice that has been around for decades: Develop your prototypes and first generation iterations of products and services in cooperation with your customers.
  • By designing products as you sell them, you are developing products the marketplace actually wants and needs.

Fistful of cash

Transactions: Global, virtual, no boundaries
A favorite New Economy guru is Ray Kurzweil, the innovative genius who wrote the seminal work regarding all things future, The Singularity is Near. In his 2005 epic work, he straightened out my main misconception about the global economy. I had been stuck in the idea that all money and value is tied to concrete productivity. I was just plain wrong.

  • Kurzweil perceived that the value of the Internet changed the definition of value. Money has changed because it is now a fluid concept based on the nearly limitless possibilities of the global computer mind which creates exponential relationships that expand past our individual ability to make connections.
  • Given that premise, he predicted the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) would triple in ten years. In 2005, it stood at a then-unprecedented 10,000 and, to some, was wildly over-valued–the stock market tripling seemed ludicrous.
  • Then in 2008, the global economy crashed and bubbles like the real estate market burst. Also, the dry bulk index hit an all-time low, indicating that global shipping crashed. What did the DJIA do in response? It rose, and continues to rise.

VALUE

Traditionalists scratch their heads. But futurists just sit back and wait because they know that the measure of value has changed and the DJIA reflects latent value as the economy rearranges itself. In 2015, the DJIA stood at 18,000 and traditional watchers shook their heads saying it continued to be overvalued.

For those who are stuck in the worlds of the dry bulk index and the movement of tangibles in the market, the stock market ascent appears to be smoke and mirrors. When I read Kurzweil I understood, finally, that my attachment to things like physical products and national monetary systems were outdated.

Finance in the New Economy is global and virtual, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t real. Quite the opposite. The inherent value in the instantaneous transmission of knowledge and the ability to transact with anyone, anywhere, anytime has reinvented the basis of the financial system.

As Internet Joe builds his business on this very solid foundation of the virtual New Economy, he is plugging into nearly limitless abundance.

The new rules of finance have yet to be solidified. Entrepreneurs are writing them AS they build the New Economy.

# # #

C’mon back TOMORROW 10/1 for Day 18.
YOU think great MARKETING that works is simply pulled out of a hat?

# # #

 

S P E C I A L    A N N O U N C E M E N T

Sign up NOW for NOVEMBER 29th (Sunday Night after Thanksgiving)

LIMITED SEATING COACHING WEBINAR:

“ENTREPRENEURS ARE AGENTS OF CHANGE . . . Accelerating Your Business”

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 how YOU match up with what successful entrepreneurs are thinking and doing RIGHT NOW. Get ideas you never imagined. Gain the traction you need within 2 hours — not days or weeks or months. Simply call 931.854.0474 Central Time: 11AM to 4PM Monday-Friday for details, to explain your business pursuit focus and to reserve your seat! $99 total for 2 hours. Satisfaction Guaranteed.

———-

 

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!

 

No responses yet

Sep 29 2015

DAY 16 – 30 Days To The New Economy

Your Role In History As An Entrepreneur

 Imagine Leadership

leadership

and Management

 

The traditional organizational chart is a construct left over from Alfred Sloan’s leadership at General Motors in the early 20th Century. That, my friends, is 100 years ago.

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

 

In the 1980s, the hierarchical organizational chart was challenged by enterprises that found products were better built when workers had ownership of their production. The philosophy of pushing decision making down to the employee flattened the organizational chart somewhat and relationships became “matrixed.” In other words, people sometimes had multiple layers of reporting and responsibility as well as accountability and all those layers were spread throughout the organization.

The shift away from top-down thinking has been gradual. It paved the way for entrepreneurs in the New Economy to be comfortable spreading responsibility, accountability and rewards across the organization — based on performance, not role.

Leadership and management in the New Economy is about vision— and goal-setting.

 

It’s about being able to get out in front of the parade with a baton while respecting the fact that without a parade, Internet Joe is leading no one.

orchestra leader

And here is where the distinction between leadership and management takes a leap.

True leadership isn’t conferred as much as it is earned.

True leaders are people who others follow, in fact emulate, for their innate qualities. This harkens back to our first and most important quality of leadership, and that is integrity. People naturally follow someone they trust; they know they will wind up somewhere worth going. That requires a bit of a track record.

Management skills can be learned. Management is about the ability to align and assign resources to achieve goals. Managers don’t require the kinds of rigorous traits of a true leader but they do require consistency, persistence and organization.

Managers don’t need to be leaders.

But great leaders get nowhere without great management of resources. If an entrepreneur is not a great organizer, it is critical she or he hires one.

A great idea, even with enthusiastic followers, goes nowhere without someone to arrange the resources in straight lines, all headed in the same direction.

Leadership and management don’t have to be embodied in the same individual. They do, however, need to be together at all times for efficient allocation of resources. An entrepreneur in the New Economy needs efficient organizational alignment with wise distribution of responsibility and accountability — even though your business map will not resemble, even remotely, Alfred Sloan’s hierarchical organizational chart at GM.

A successful Entrepreneurial Leader today

is not at the top of her or his organization.

He or she is in the lead, and that is a very different position.

# # #

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!

 

No responses yet

Sep 24 2015

DAY 13 – 30 Days To The New Economy

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

SKYDIVERS

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!

No responses yet

Sep 17 2015

DAY 9 – 30 Days To The New Economy

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]

Andy Warhol self-portrait

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

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!

No responses yet

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