kids

The 4 Universal Approaches to Entrepreneurship

by Paul Joseph July 29, 2011 Featured

In an increasingly homogenized world, entrepreneurship is being defined by a common set of global principles. Although, what we discuss today, in not how to achieve entrepreneurial success in a global village; we attempt to understand the universal principles that make any entrepreneurship successful, no matter where in the world you are. Learn to recognize an opportunity A successful entrepreneur is one who sees a gap in demand and supply or one who thinks he can supply the best in a market crowded with supplies. The 2010 Forbes Richest Man in the World, is an entrepreneur who pounced on an opportunity. An immigrant in Mexico, Carlos Slim Helú started off with a dry foods store, made money from his real estate investments and then went on to grab the government-run Mexican Telecom Business when it was being privatized in the 1990s. Today, he’s valued at $53.5 Billion, ahead of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, who, incidentally, also made their riches by learning to recognize opportunities. There are entrepreneurial lessons to come out of the British Royal Wedding too. Catherine Middleton’s mother, Carol Middleton, a stay-at-home mom noticed a huge opportunity in the Kids Party segment in the 70s. The wife of a flight dispatcher, she set up a hugely successful home business that made the family wealthy, propelling them into social circles that would eventually lead to the Royal union. The company, Party Pieces, is currently valued at 30 million pounds. Have you learned to recognize an opportunity yet? Recognize the potential of your idea If you haven’t seen ‘The Social Network’, you’re probably detained in Guantanamo. If you’ve seen it, you’ll definitely remember the bit where Sean Parker talks to Mark Zuckerberg about Roy Raymond. The Stanford Business School grad who wanted to buy lingerie for his wife, was too embarrassed to buy it in a mall where everybody could see him and came up with the idea for Victoria’s Secret, a high-end lingerie store, where men could buy lingerie without feeling like perverts. Unfortunately, he sold his company, and jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge a few years after. While introducing Mark to Victoria’s Secret models, Sean makes his point to the future billionaire – recognize the potential of your business idea. Universally, if there’s one thing that sets successful entrepreneurs apart from would-have-been success stories is this simple skill to know where an idea can take you. Roy Raymond sold the company he created for 5 million and died when it was worth 500 in a few years, because he failed to recognize the potential of his brainchild. Sean Parker received 7% of Facebook’s stock and is worth $924 million, when he didn’t even come up with the idea. His networth is the result of his genius in being able to recognize the potential of Mark’s idea. Stay Foolish, Stay Motivated If you look at some of the biggest entrepreneurial success stories of our time – Apple, Microsoft, Dell, Amazon, Google, etc. – these were all begun by crazy guys, dropping out of college, setting up small businesses in garages and setting out to do ridiculous things like compiling the entire data of the internet and writing algorithms to make it easy to sift through this data. But these were men who stayed motivated and stayed foolish. Jeff Bezos started Amazon after a comfortable stint as Vice President at a well-paying Computer Science job. Indeed, not all IT Czars became billionaires at 25! He kept the fire in his belly alive and thought of the Amazon business plan on a cross country drive from New York to Seattle. After working in the plush offices of Wall Street, he risked it all for setting up a company in his garage. Present day billionaire entrepreneurs who started from scratch follow the simple universal approach to entrepreneurship, they stay foolish and motivated, which Steve Jobs put so beautifully in his Stanford graduation speech to deafening applause. These entrepreneurs have defined what it takes to be successful – all you have to do is have enough belief in yourself and continue to put in the effort and work it takes. These guys wouldn’t be at the top of their game, if they weren’t constantly motivating themselves. Follow your passion Jerry Seinfeld is an inspiration to all those artist-entrepreneurs out there. Whether, you’re a writer, a painter or a stand-up comic, Seinfeld shows you that if you’re really good at what you do, there’s no need to trade money for following your passion. Currently valued at $800 Million, Seinfeld retired from television more than a decade ago but continues to rake in the moolah by syndicating his show, Seinfeld. After landing a small role in an HBO series, in the 80s, Seinfeld was fired over creative differences, showing streaks of a classic entrepreneur who doesn’t get along with people. Let’s not forget Steve Jobs was fired from the company he created! He went on to create a pilot for Seinfeld, along with Larry David, and sold the show to NBC. He refused to extend the show by another season, even for 5 million per episode, or take up a Hollywood career after the show ended and instead he continued to be a stand-up comic, making more millions through his shows. The four approaches to entrepreneurship described above are so universal in nature that they can be applied to any business, in any part of the world. They are simple as philosophies, strong as ideas and enduring as steps to entrepreneurial success. Preetam Kaushik is a freelance writer/independent columnist and an avid blogger. He is a web 2.0 expert and writing consultant serving a wide array of clients. Read more about Preetam here .

Tagged as: amazon, british, business, data, entrepreneurship, facebook, game, government, kids, microsoft, success, time, wife

0 comments Read the full article →

The 4 Universal Approaches to Entrepreneurship

by Paul Joseph July 29, 2011 Featured

In an increasingly homogenized world, entrepreneurship is being defined by a common set of global principles. Although, what we discuss today, in not how to achieve entrepreneurial success in a global village; we attempt to understand the universal principles that make any entrepreneurship successful, no matter where in the world you are. Learn to recognize an opportunity A successful entrepreneur is one who sees a gap in demand and supply or one who thinks he can supply the best in a market crowded with supplies. The 2010 Forbes Richest Man in the World, is an entrepreneur who pounced on an opportunity. An immigrant in Mexico, Carlos Slim Helú started off with a dry foods store, made money from his real estate investments and then went on to grab the government-run Mexican Telecom Business when it was being privatized in the 1990s. Today, he’s valued at $53.5 Billion, ahead of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, who, incidentally, also made their riches by learning to recognize opportunities. There are entrepreneurial lessons to come out of the British Royal Wedding too. Catherine Middleton’s mother, Carol Middleton, a stay-at-home mom noticed a huge opportunity in the Kids Party segment in the 70s. The wife of a flight dispatcher, she set up a hugely successful home business that made the family wealthy, propelling them into social circles that would eventually lead to the Royal union. The company, Party Pieces, is currently valued at 30 million pounds. Have you learned to recognize an opportunity yet? Recognize the potential of your idea If you haven’t seen ‘The Social Network’, you’re probably detained in Guantanamo. If you’ve seen it, you’ll definitely remember the bit where Sean Parker talks to Mark Zuckerberg about Roy Raymond. The Stanford Business School grad who wanted to buy lingerie for his wife, was too embarrassed to buy it in a mall where everybody could see him and came up with the idea for Victoria’s Secret, a high-end lingerie store, where men could buy lingerie without feeling like perverts. Unfortunately, he sold his company, and jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge a few years after. While introducing Mark to Victoria’s Secret models, Sean makes his point to the future billionaire – recognize the potential of your business idea. Universally, if there’s one thing that sets successful entrepreneurs apart from would-have-been success stories is this simple skill to know where an idea can take you. Roy Raymond sold the company he created for 5 million and died when it was worth 500 in a few years, because he failed to recognize the potential of his brainchild. Sean Parker received 7% of Facebook’s stock and is worth $924 million, when he didn’t even come up with the idea. His networth is the result of his genius in being able to recognize the potential of Mark’s idea. Stay Foolish, Stay Motivated If you look at some of the biggest entrepreneurial success stories of our time – Apple, Microsoft, Dell, Amazon, Google, etc. – these were all begun by crazy guys, dropping out of college, setting up small businesses in garages and setting out to do ridiculous things like compiling the entire data of the internet and writing algorithms to make it easy to sift through this data. But these were men who stayed motivated and stayed foolish. Jeff Bezos started Amazon after a comfortable stint as Vice President at a well-paying Computer Science job. Indeed, not all IT Czars became billionaires at 25! He kept the fire in his belly alive and thought of the Amazon business plan on a cross country drive from New York to Seattle. After working in the plush offices of Wall Street, he risked it all for setting up a company in his garage. Present day billionaire entrepreneurs who started from scratch follow the simple universal approach to entrepreneurship, they stay foolish and motivated, which Steve Jobs put so beautifully in his Stanford graduation speech to deafening applause. These entrepreneurs have defined what it takes to be successful – all you have to do is have enough belief in yourself and continue to put in the effort and work it takes. These guys wouldn’t be at the top of their game, if they weren’t constantly motivating themselves. Follow your passion Jerry Seinfeld is an inspiration to all those artist-entrepreneurs out there. Whether, you’re a writer, a painter or a stand-up comic, Seinfeld shows you that if you’re really good at what you do, there’s no need to trade money for following your passion. Currently valued at $800 Million, Seinfeld retired from television more than a decade ago but continues to rake in the moolah by syndicating his show, Seinfeld. After landing a small role in an HBO series, in the 80s, Seinfeld was fired over creative differences, showing streaks of a classic entrepreneur who doesn’t get along with people. Let’s not forget Steve Jobs was fired from the company he created! He went on to create a pilot for Seinfeld, along with Larry David, and sold the show to NBC. He refused to extend the show by another season, even for 5 million per episode, or take up a Hollywood career after the show ended and instead he continued to be a stand-up comic, making more millions through his shows. The four approaches to entrepreneurship described above are so universal in nature that they can be applied to any business, in any part of the world. They are simple as philosophies, strong as ideas and enduring as steps to entrepreneurial success. Preetam Kaushik is a freelance writer/independent columnist and an avid blogger. He is a web 2.0 expert and writing consultant serving a wide array of clients. Read more about Preetam here .

Tagged as: amazon, british, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, facebook, family, game, kids, real-estate, success, time, wedding

0 comments Read the full article →

How To Keep Your Finger On Your Market’s Pulse (And Why You Have Probably Already Fallen Behind)

by Paul Joseph July 27, 2011 Featured

Keeping “your finger on the pulse” is a phrase I use to describe how entrepreneurs should keep in touch with their niche markets or keep up-to-date with market trends in general. This is vitally important especially if you are working online. At times, when we work online, it is very easy to get caught up in your own little bubble and forget what the rest of the world is doing. That is a big mistake . If you are operating in a particular niche, you may not realize how quickly you can lose touch with your target audience. You get so caught up with running your business, and if you are not dealing with customers on a daily basis, very soon you can lose touch with their core values and forget who you are speaking to. This can be disastrous because if you lose touch with your target audience’s dreams, wants, needs and desires, then your whole marketing approach has just gone out the window. The John Carlton Mentality Famous marketer and copywriter, John Carlton , has often said when he is researching to write copy for a company he never talks much to the head people in charge of the company. He knows they are way too far removed from the target audience. Their focus is often concerned about what they want, how they think they should be promoting the product and what they think is important. You may remember from one of my previous articles this is classic thinking like a fisherman and not like a fish mentality . Carlton would commonly go searching way down the company ladder to get a better insight about the product. He wanted to talk to the people taking the phone call orders or dealing with product returns – more grassroots level information. He always knew he had written a good piece of copy when the top company people did not want to run the piece because it made them uncomfortable. He knew he had bombed and had to go back to the drawing board if they loved his piece and it was exactly what they wanted. I’m Not Shopping – I’m Doing Research! Last weekend I went to the shopping mall with an entrepreneur friend of mine who sells physical products. This type of “people watching” is great market research for two reasons: To keep a finger on the pulse of the current physical product niche To keep a finger on the pulse of society and general trends for new product ideas (physical or digital). My friend wanted to make sure they were still in touch with their niche market because they had been busy running their business. They wanted to see how the competition was promoting, packaging, pricing and marketing their product. Was there anything new or that had changed in any of those areas? For example, a new marketing angle, different price point, etc. Most importantly, we paid attention to what people were buying in the niche. If you have been living in your online world, don’t underestimate how quickly you can lose touch with your target audience, especially if you are no longer a member of your target audience. If you were once a poor university student and you design cheap and trendy clothing for students, but since then your company has gone crazy and this is now your full-time job and has been for the last year and half. And long gone are the days of cramming for exams, getting no sleep and surviving for a week on half a bag of rice, two cans of tuna and a celery stick. Then you may need to get back in touch with your target market, because you have lost touch with your target market . People Watching To Find A New Product Or Niche While people watching is great to keep up-to-date with a current niche you may be in, it is also great at stimulating new ideas . Your ideas can come from what you see people buying, how you see people behaving or the types and groups of people you may notice. You can gather your new ideas and come home and do some keyword research and market research on them and investigate the market online. Is there possibility for an information product? Are their affiliate products? Could you release your own product? Look At Trends One trend I noticed was that of stationary. Within the shopping mall there were three individually branded stationary shops. Keep in mind that you can also buy generic stationary at the grocery stores, department stores and newsagents within the mall. One stationary store, Kikki K , has exploded in Australia. I remember walking past these stores and I used to think: “How on earth are they making money? How many notepads would they have to sell to pay rent?” Obviously they can do the math, because Kikki K is the 18 th top female owned business in Australia earning $30 million a year . That’s a lot of pens and notepads! Getting A Piece Of The Market Obviously, some other “people watchers” saw that the stationary market was booming and jumped on board. Now if you went head to head with Kikki K you would get slaughtered. You need a unique selling proposition ( USP ). The other two stationary stores had their USPs sorted. One had a grungy, more edgy feel to it. From the look of the store, to the music they were playing, to the stuff they were selling, it screamed “coolness”. In fact, so cool, I nearly didn’t go in to the store cause I didn’t think I was cool enough! Talk about a barrier of entry and only wanting to speak to your target audience. These guys had it down pat. The last stationary store had aimed its niche at the kids market. Selling fun and brightly colored stationary sets of everything imaginable. Although as an adult male it didn’t really tickle my fancy, I saw many a father pulling out his wallet for his young daughter. And the funniest thing, the upsell potential is huge and the staff probably don’t even have to do it. Why wouldn’t you want a whole matching set of stationary? I can imagine the young daughter saying to her dad, “Well Dad, now that I have the hot pink pencil case, you know I will need the matching hot pink pencils, pens, notebook, diary, eraser….” It’s Time To Go Shopping! So turn off the computer for a few hours and get back into the real world . You will be surprised at what you can learn and the ideas you can get. Leevi Romanik Get your bonus copy of my book “How To Start An Internet Business & Make Your First $1,000 Online” Download Here

Tagged as: ideas, kids, music, online, trends, young

0 comments Read the full article →

Why Keeping It Real Is Your Best Selling Tactic

by Paul Joseph June 20, 2011 Featured

Greetings once more fellow entrepreneur, this week I have something quite unique and extraordinary to share. Yesterday, I interviewed Shaune Clarke , and what began as a 45 minute interview spilled into nearly two hours as we took a free fall into the mind of one of the most uniquely gifted entrepreneurs I’ve encountered. Because Shaune shared such a wealth of information, I’ve had to edit the interview into several parts, so today we’re looking at the first part, in which Shaune shares with us his insights for entrepreneurs about creating your own game , the 1/2 step away market , unwarranted sales resistance , and the art of graceful persuasion as it relates to building trust through authenticity and our unique giftedness. Phew! And all this in under 20 minutes! You can just imagine what we covered in two hours! So, let us begin, come and join me at the edge to take a leap into the farthest reaches of the unique genius of Shaune Clarke Creating Your Own Game One of the comments that  people consistently make about Shaune Clarke, is that he’s not like anyone else they’ve met in the business he’s starring in, whether it’s Speaking Training , Copywriting , Internet Marketing , Interviewing or Natural Health . Shaune explains that most people will often compare themselves to competitors and try to compete with them, when really, there’s no reason to do this. Shaune learned from his experience as an extremely successful copywriter, that having something different equates to having something valuable, providing there is a market for it. Shaune says that 95% of the time, there is a market, and there are already people in that market spending money. After Shaune had hired one of the top gun copywriters to write sales copy for him and it flopped, he thought, “You know what? I didn’t like that style of sales copy, I wouldn’t respond well to it, so there must be others who would feel the same.” So he invested time and money into learning about how others wrote sales copy, then set about writing in his own unique style that was more aligned with his own values and preferences. This turned out to be so successful, that within 6 months , he couldn’t keep up the demand for his work and he was asked to train other copywriters. Shaune realized two things through this experience. One was that bringing his unique gifts to his work was extremely valuable and lucrative , and training others to emulate his style would not work either. For his clients in his trainings, learning to find their own unique style and inner giftedness and bring that to their work was going to be far more valuable and lucrative to them as well. The Half A Step Away Market Shaune explains that the market is always changing and evolving, and doing so rapidly. The established players are often not able or willing to adapt or change to the market as it evolves, so when we come into the market with something new, there are clients already in the market who are going to resonate with what we’re offering. He also speaks about the 1/2 step away market , which is the people who are at the very edges of the market. These clients have a problem that needs solving, but there’s currently no one in the industry that has communicated to them in a way that resonates with them, and therefore draws them from the edges of the market into it. Everyday, someone who has not spent money in an industry will begin to invest their money in it. There are people both in your market and right at the edges who will resonate with your unique style and gifts that you bring to your business. Unwarranted Sales Resistance Shaune explains further that all clients will experience something he calls unwarranted sales resistance . This is because all of us have had an experience of spending money before on products and services and not getting our problem solved. This means someone’s previous bad experience is going to be projected onto us when they are considering buying from us. This is unwarranted sales resistance because it has nothing to do with us , it is related to a previous experience our client has had, and it is being projected onto the current situation. Our role as business people is to just be aware of this, and to maintain our certainty of the value and quality of our products and services and communicate this elegantly to our clients. It doesn’t involve pushing or comparing. It’s a matter of understanding that there is an element of risk involved in spending money, and the biggest thing is not to try to sell somebody on our products or services, but to build trust. The Art Of Graceful Persuasion Shaune goes on to say, “We don’t need a sales formula, we need a formula for imbuing authenticity into our work which inherently builds trust .” Shaune is acutely aware that his speaking training clients experience a far greater degree of competence, confidence and authenticity when their presentation is imbued with their own unique gifts. He says, “Speaker training should adapt to you, you should not have to adapt to speaking training.” The more our unique giftedness is allowed to be present on our work, the more authenticity there is to it, and the greater the level of certainty and trust we can build with our clients. “We’re all very good at persuasion when we’re self motivated, like persuading our partner to go to a particular restaurant or holiday location or getting the kids to do their homework,” Shaune explains. But when it comes to exchanging money for goods and services, we can get tangled in an uncomfortable and encumbered selling process, when it really doesn’t have to be like that. The art of graceful persuasion is being aware the combination of unique skills, insights and information that you bring to your business, and using these to bring authenticity to your work. This inherently builds trust with our clients so that they understand that we are going to give them quality goods and services, and they will have their problem solved. Shaune’s speaker training is really a method for gaining a greater depth of understanding and self awareness of your unique giftedness and learning how to communicate this to your clients. This builds trust and moves clients through unwarranted sales resistance gracefully and with understanding and empathy . When he was considering taking on the task of training others to speak, he told his partner, Clarinda, “the world does not need another speaker training, what the world needs is a training that shows people how to bring their authentic self to their work and demonstrate this value to others. ” Luckily for those clients like myself, who were seeking to bring more awareness to our unique combination of skills, insights and information and then learn how to communicate this value to our clients, Shaune has put together exactly this, and the art of graceful persuasion is no longer an enigma. There is, however, a lot more to learn from Shaune, but we’ll have to wait for another article to find out as this one is has reached critical mass for the quantity of insights I can fit into my head in one go! I would love to hear your comments at the end, thanks for watching or reading. Cheers, Neroli. Get your bonus copy of my book “How To Start An Internet Business & Make Your First $1,000 Online” Download Here

Tagged as: article, business, client, clients, kids, marketing, money, sales, unique

0 comments Read the full article →

Emu for Health and Wealth

by Paul Joseph April 30, 2008 Featured

Emu is supposed to contain very low fat and helps lowering cholestrol. Emu oil is known as magic oil for its ability to cure pain quickly. But, I am not advising you to eat emu or use the emu oil. I am asking you to look at the opportunity of Emu farming. Emu is supposed to be having a good demand in India and the future seems to have good growth potential. With Indians making more and more money, they need a way to spend the same. One of the major ways Indians spend is on food and health. And, Emu meat is both tasty and good for health. Check google for articles on Bangalore Emu and you can get many articles with details on price and cost of rearing. Every part of the emu is sold commercially. It has high returns from its oil, meat, skin, feathers, nails and even its huge eggs. Let me know when you start your emu farm, so that I can get my kids to play with them…..

Tagged as: autumn, bird-flu, chinese, cricket, food, housing, ideas, images, india, indian, kids, yoga

0 comments Read the full article →