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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: australia, business, ideas, internet, phone, trends

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Implement a Bidirectional Lead Generation Strategy

by Paul Joseph July 20, 2011 Featured

Effectively generating leads is critical for most young businesses and entrepreneurs and the ability to execute in this area can often be a significant factor in the business successfully getting past the startup stage. One way that we can improve the probability of consistently producing quality leads is to implement a bidirectional lead generation strategy. Bidirectional? It can be common for businesses to only have one main process in place for generating leads.  For example, a business may only have a strategy in place to produce leads by cold calling.  And it is certainly good to at least be investing in one method or process to produce leads, but it can also be advantageous to implement a bidirectional strategy when focused building a business. A bidirectional lead gen strategy is a strategy that focuses on creating processes to produce leads from both outbound and inbound methods.  In this context, outbound refers to activities that proactively reach out to prospects to generate leads and inbound refers to activities that create a lure to draw in prospects so that they end up contacting the business. Outbound Lead Generation The more traditional ways of generating leads fall under the outbound lead gen methods category.  These involve activities to proactively reach out to connect with prospects to attempt to trigger interest and create leads. Cold calling: The most common method for generating leads is cold calling.  This is the simple act of having sales resources pick up the phone and make calls against a cold list of target prospects with the goal of creating interest and finding opportunities. Cold walking: Not to be confused with door-to-door sales, cold walking is similar to cold calling except it takes place in person.  This would involve stopping by an office or business where a target prospect is located and asking to speak with the target contact in person versus over the phone. Direct mail: Direct mail is act of producing marketing and advertising materials and sending them to prospects through the physical mail system.  This is one way to reach prospects but research shows that the response rate is very low. Email marketing: Email marketing is the new form of direct mail as it is a way to blast messages and promotions to prospects to stay in contact and create leads.  This is method can have a similar response rate as direct mail but able to be done at a fraction of the cost. Inbound Lead Generation With advancements in web-based technologies, we now have options to implement inbound lead generation activities.  These are where we use web-based systems and post information in places so that prospects come to you.  Below is a summary of two key inbound methods: Social media: Social media refers to all of the different web-based and mobile technologies that enable individuals and businesses to network and communicate amongst each other.  These tools provide great platforms for entrepreneurs to connect with prospects and to passively post and share information.  When done correctly, using social media can be a method to draw in prospects so that they contact you resulting in lead generation. Search engine optimization: Search engine optimization is the activity of building out or improving a business’ website so it is valued and recognized by search engines.  There are very specific things you can do to improve the value that search engines place on your site and get it ranked better than your competitors, which means you will come up higher on your prospect’s web searches.  This will increase the level of targeted traffic that comes to your site and will have a direct improvement on your inbound lead generation. Creating bidirectional traffic for your businesses lead generation, you can improve results and ensure your business will get to the next level.  Do you have a bidirectional lead gen strategy?  Share your comments below! Michael Halper is Founder and CEO of Launch Pad Solutions, LLC, a sales consulting and outsourcing firm that helps businesses to take off and get to the next level. Read more about Michael here .

Tagged as: business, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, management, phone, sales, search engines, social

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Quantity vs. Quality – When is One Person Not Enough?

by Paul Joseph April 4, 2011 Featured

Every small business knows the struggle of a one-man shop. The list of things to do is never-ending, and unfortunately as an entrepreneur, often you have to go it alone. So when does quantity over quality mean error over accuracy? Managing the finances, marketing the business, analyzing performance: all in a day’s work when growing your start-up. When does it get to the point that you can’t do it all, and what do you do when there’s no one to delegate to? Most people would agree that they’d prefer quality over quantity, but what about those times where there’s nothing to de-prioritize in the quantity of things to do? While it feels good to get everything done, it doesn’t when an error is glaring back at you because you were forced to rush through. In cases like this, be honest with yourself: Is there anything you can cut back on? 80/20 didn’t become a rule of thumb for nothing. So what’s the 20% of your business that you should be spending time on? If you can’t do it all and you can’t share the responsibility, focus on the key areas that are driving the greatest success and do them accurately. Making your way through all tasks, but only half done, is far less impactful than completing the most important things well. Can you manage your time better? In addition to concentrating on what drives the value, manage the precious time you have. Being a successful entrepreneur or business decision maker often means you have to perform a variety of tasks, strong suit or not. Some people can manage their time very effectively by scheduling every meeting and task down to the minute, but this certainly isn’t a gift for everyone. So think about your work style – do you start working on a project but pick up your phone on its first ring? Maybe you have a habit of checking e-mail the moment it arrives in your box. It can be easy to let time get away, but by managing the time you do have, you’ll find you can be more productive – and ultimately need less time altogether. Is it time to suck it up and ask for help? Doing it all alone can be overwhelming, even for a seasoned entrepreneur or professional. Culture has it that asking for help can be seen as a sign of weakness, but it can also be a form of strength when you know your limits. In our to-do society, we often take on more than we can manage, and only when we are knee deep do we start to re-evaluate. At that point, it’s often too late and you find yourself just trying to complete the task at hand. If finances are a concern, there’s always an eager student looking for a mentor and an opportunity to learn. Who decides if it’s a flop or masterpiece? You certainly don’t want the second person who sees your work to be a client. Often if you’re going solo, there’s no one to review your latest effort, and your customer is seeing a first draft rather than a final result. Creating checks and balances will help to yield positive results, and having an old friend or colleague to call on doesn’t hurt. So how do you determine the right balance of quality versus quantity, and what tactics do you follow to accomplish the tasks at hand? Lisa Promise is the founder of Promise Consulting Group, a full-service marketing, advertising, and communications consulting company for small businesses. Read more about Lisa here .

Tagged as: business, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, finances, phone, small-business, success, time, work

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Young Entrepreneur Interview: Donna Fenn – Author of Upstarts!

by Paul Joseph March 30, 2011 Featured

Today, we’re very happy to have the opportunity to bring you an interview with author and entrepreneur, Donna Fenn. If you’re involved with a startup or ever will be, you’re going to want to see what Donna has to say. From being a Contributing Editor for Inc. Magazine and author of two previous books, Alpha Dogs and Upstarts! , to her latest Amazon Kindle book, Are You an Upstart? , Donna Fenn has devoted her writing to entrepreneurs and helping them get started right on the path to business ownership. Read the interview, check out her books, and let us know what you learned by leaving a note in the comments. You recently released a new book for the Amazon Kindle, called Are You an Upstart? Please tell us about it. I think of Are You an Upstart? as a follow-up and companion to the book I published a year ago,  Upstarts! How Gen-Y Entrepreneurs Are Rocking the World of Business. This newest e-book is really a call to action for young people who are thinking about becoming entrepreneurs. First, they should ask themselves a few questions: Do you play well with others? Are you prepared to bootstrap? Will you look for opportunities in unlikely places? Can you tap into your own generation’s market needs? Can you be flexible and agile? I talk about why these particular questions are important and, of course, the book is filled with examples of young entrepreneurs who have answered yes to these questions and who have been wildly successful. I think the current generation of people in their 20s, and even younger, are incredibly entrepreneurial, but that doesn’t mean that all of them should start businesses. In your 2009 book, Upstarts! , you refer to what you call the collaborative economy. Can you expand on what that means and how it is affecting today’s young entrepreneurs? Young entrepreneurs are naturally very collaborative, and there are lots of reasons for that. They are a very social generation, they work extremely well in groups because they’ve been taught to do that since they were in grammar school and on peewee soccer teams, and they also are not a bit shy about asking for help from teachers, mentors, parents, and potential investors. This serves them extremely well in a collaborative economy, where very little gets done by lone wolves. It’s easier than ever to start a business, but harder than ever to distinguish yourself from the pack. There’s a lot of noise out there, and it seems to me that the way to be heard above the din is to aggressively seek out the right business partners – people who can fill in your knowledge gaps, who can connect you to the right people, who have the ability to access communities of customers that might be elusive to you on your own.   Young entrepreneurs are great at building “tribes,” as Seth Godin would say.  It’s fashionable to roll your eyes at Facebook these days, but I truly believe it’s one of the most powerful business marketing tools out there. There is a lot of discussion about whether or not an entrepreneur needs a formal higher education. What are your thoughts on that? That’s such a big question!  As a parent with two children in college, I am a huge fan of higher education. But I completely understand why a young person with entrepreneurial ambitions would choose to drop out, as so many do. There are very few colleges now that offer the kinds of programs and support young entrepreneurs need to get started in their businesses. And as we know, they are an inpatient lot, and they’re quick to bail out if they think their experiences aren’t relevant to the future they envision. I think that’s a real shame.  College does so much more than prepare you for a career. It’s a place where you’re free to explore fields of study that you may not think are among your core interests, but that may ignite a spark you didn’t know existed, and set you on a path you may have never dreamed of.  There is no better preparation for life than a great liberal arts education. You may have an incredible business idea, but if you can’t speak another language, if you don’t have at least a rudimentary knowledge of world history, or have an appreciation for Bach and Picasso, then certain doors will be closed to you. That said, I think colleges and universities need to do a much, much better job of identifying and supporting their entrepreneurial students, and creating programs that keep them in college. What three pieces of advice would you give young entrepreneurs interested in starting a new business? Spend less time planning, and more time launching.  It’s fine to put an imperfect product into the marketplace, and to then refine it based upon reactions from your customers. In fact, it’s more than fine – it’s absolutely essential. Find a partner who complements your strengths and compensates for your weaknesses. Your best friend in college isn’t necessarily the perfect business partner – it’s rarely a good idea to start a company with someone who is exactly like you. And make sure you spell out the terms of the partnership at the very beginning of the relationship. Forget about venture capital. Only about 4% of all startups get it, and you’re probably not going to be one of them. I happen to think that bootstrapping is absolutely the best way to start a company. It teaches you discipline, how to manage resources, and it forces you to be very creative and innovative. There’s nothing wrong with sleeping on a futon and eating Ramen! Do you believe there is a formula for being a successful entrepreneur? Being an entrepreneur is all about rejecting cookie-cutter formulas, so I would have to say no. However, after 25 years of writing about entrepreneurs, I’ve definitely noticed some common character traits. For example, they are huge optimists and they see opportunity just about everywhere. When I was in Florida a couple weeks ago, at the Future of Entrepreneurship Education Summit, one of the speakers told a great story. It’s about an entrepreneur who makes shoes, and he travels to a remote village in Africa because he thinks there may be a market for his product there. He gets off the plane, and immediately notices that no one is wearing shoes. He calls the factory at home and says “cancel the order right away. There’s nothing here for us because no one wears shoes.” Then a second entrepreneur with the same kind of business makes the same trip, gets off the plane, and also notices that no one is wearing shoes. She takes out her phone, barely able to contain her excitement, and instructs her plant manager to double the size of the order. “There is an incredible opportunity for us here,” she says. “Because no one is wearing shoes.”  For me that story says it all. How do you define success? That question is really a head game that too many people play with themselves. No one can tell you whether or not you’re successful. You have to feel it in your gut. If you have a billion-dollar company, but your kids can’t stand you, are you more successful than the guy who lives in Vermont, and makes a modest living hand carving birdhouses and is blissfully happy? I think we need to define success for ourselves, and not be too concerned about whether others think we’re successful.  For me, success means doing work that I love, feeling that I’m having some kind of meaningful impact on others, and having a happy family to share it with. By those standards, I am wildly successful!

Tagged as: africa, book, books, entrepreneur, entrepreneur interview, entrepreneurs, facebook, phone, thoughts, writing

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6 Red-Hot Startup Trends for 2011

by Paul Joseph March 16, 2011 Featured

Need a recession-proof business idea? Look no further than the following list of 2011 startup trends: Mobile Commerce With smart phones as ubiquitous as they are – and growing in use – it’s only natural that mobile commerce should take off in 2011. NFC (Near Field Communication) technology creates a secure connection between the phone and another phone with NFC. Some manufacturers will even offer mobile wallets in the next year for small purchases (Sprint already released a version in 2010; AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon will launch theirs this year.) Even more promising is the fact that, in 2010, Mobile venture capital investment made up 34% of all tech investment in 2010, totaling $6 billion. IT Consulting Old business is changing. Web 2.0/social media, cloud computing, and web security are hot (and becoming more and more important to the survival of businesses) but not all business owners know how to implement these. ( ComputerWorld also predicts that business intelligence, rich business applications, richer graphical user interfaces, better service level agreements, and software lifecycle management are other “trends to watch” in 2011.) There’s no shortage of businesses with lackluster or ancient technology practices, and as the industry is always changing, it’s almost never a bad time to get into it. “Popup” Restaurants & Food Trucks Food trucks have big advantages over brick-and-mortar establishments: low investment costs, no rent, low utilities, no real estate costs, and low marketing costs. The biggest indicator of their success? International restaurant consultants Baum and Whiteman report that restaurant owners are pushing for laws restricting them, and in some cases winning (Los Angeles is an example). Not only that, food truck rodeos, where giant groups of food trucks congregate in a festival-like atmosphere, are becoming more popular. Social Shopping Social shopping is exploding. Sites like Groupon and LivingSocial are hugely popular, and up- and coming- businesses like Blippy and Schwowp (which both allow sharing of purchases among friends — like “Facebook” for shopping) are certainly making their mark. VentureBeat , in its “Five Payment Trends to Watch in 2011″ article, writes: “Among the key drivers of this trend are micropayments and digital goods . Along the same lines of merging physical world experiences with digital activity, the ability to make quick, small purchases for online content represents a huge opportunity for both content producers and providers.” Social Gaming Social gaming – web-based games that can be played with others – is currently a $1 billion industry. Social networking has pushed gaming into the mainstream with addictive games like Farmville; research by Econsultancy shows that 20% of social gamers are female and 18% are males, with the majority being in the 16-24 age range. Even tech trendsetter Apple is getting involved: its Games Center launched last year, signaling a massive wave of new games. Green Consulting In 2010, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced that it would accelerate “green tech” inventions into the patent fast-lane in order to encourage more growth in the industry. Fuel cell development, smart building and new energy codes, and leaner construction practices are on the horizon, which means that businesses will need to know how to keep down costs and increase efficiency – the green way. This would be a good time to start up that green consulting business. About the Author: Mitch Thompson is a freelance writer who specializes in personal finances and small business. From auto insurance to taxes, Mitch educates readers so that they can achieve success.

Tagged as: apple, become an entrepreneur, business, business-ideas, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, gaming, industry, phone, real-estate, startup

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Stop Marketing… for now, and Start Brand-ing!

by Paul Joseph March 10, 2011 Featured

When most think of the term Branding they often associate it with the function of Marketing or in some cases a traditional branding iron and a cattle ranch. When they think of the term brand, generally an image or a symbol such as a logo, or a tagline come to mind.  In fact, none of these associations are truly accurate.  This is one of the most confused issues in business today, but knowing the difference can translate to exponential growth in your industry. Marketing vs. Branding Marketing is the act of communicating or disseminating the message you want your audience to perceive as your brand.  Marketing is about ‘getting a message to market’ using a plethora of  creative vehicles to leverage it locally, nationally and/or world-wide (e.g. electronic or print advertisements, PR, tradeshows, websites, networking, collateral pieces, videos, Twitter messages, Facebook posts, blogs, etc.). Marketing is executed in ‘event’ scenarios, generally from 3 to 18 month cycles that start and end with expected metrics and analysis that help prepare for the next ‘event’ campaign. Brand-ing, on the other hand, is the process of first defining what the message is representing and then creating ways to live and be congruent to the message of your brand.  You can think of your brand message as delivering a specific PERCEPTION. What is the PERCEPTION you want your brand to evoke in the minds of your market? When your message isn’t clearly defined with consistent, supporting processes in place that reflect and affirm it, then your marketing dollars will be wasted and squander valuable budgets in the process.  This happens when your brand doesn’t walk your brand talk, meaning your marketing is saying one thing (making a perceptual promise) and the experience is ‘other’ than what is perceived. The process of building your brand starts at the internal level of the business, (i.e. how your employees/culture cultivates the message and ultimately serves the client) not in an external focused marketing advertisement.  It is a function of identifying your brand’s Dimensional Nucleic Assets (your DNA) so that you can then build on those detailed attributes that make you distinctive. Hence, our advice…?  Stop marketing , at least for now.  And, start brand-ing. Your challenge: Make a conscious effort to get crystal clear on a specific message you want to convey to your customers and train and empower your staff to deliver it relentlessly. Think about all the facets of your business; from your values and behaviors, your brand promise, to how you deliver your products and services. All of these are integral to morphing a good brand into a great brand!  To show up in a conscious way that builds and sustains your brand, three key attributes must be in place: Consistency, Distinctiveness, and Engaging . Consistency = Trust Brand CONSISTENCY is showing up the same way every time, walking the talk and being true to your brand promise. Why is ‘consistency’ so important to sustaining your successful brand?  What it boils down to is one simple word: Trust. Consistency builds Trust, Trust creates History, History forms Traditions, and Traditions become Rituals. – Martin Lindstrom, author of Brand Sense Becoming a brand ‘ritual’ like Starbucks, Harley Davidson, Apple, and Google became possible because of their relentless focus on the consistency of their brands’ deliverables, visuals, and experiences. Think about how you show up consistently within the many facets of your business…from how you answer the phone, to what customers see, hear, taste, touch, smell and intuit must be congruent with your brand’s promise, day in and day out. Oprah is the “Queen” of consistency.  Thirty million people+ totally trust her.  One initiative through Oprah’s Angel Network generated $12.1M in donations for children in South Africa.  No one would donate that kind of money if they did not trust Oprah and expect that she would consistently follow through on her promise. Carving Out Your Distinctiveness. What is the one word you ‘own’ in the minds eye of your market that distinguishes your brand from others? This is one of the hardest questions to answer if you haven’t done the work to discover your own DNA. But it can also be one of the most insightful and thought-provoking exercises in building branded perceptions around that one word. Brand DISTINCTION means you stand out uniquely and unequivocally different than your competition both internally and externally while being congruent with your Brand Promise. FedEx literally ‘owns’ OVERNIGHT in the market space of the shipping industry. What makes FedEx so distinctive in their industry is their “unrelenting commitment” to deliver overnight requests.  UPS, DHL, or USPS are harder to categorize what word represents their brand. Google ‘owns’ EMPOWERMENT (customer control) in the browser market space, and hence, has transformed the experience of internet searches – delivering on its promise of innovation. Apple continues to ‘own’ INNOVATIVE in the computing space, and finally, Disney ‘owns’ FANTASY in the theme park industry. They have carved out a specific ‘way of being’ and elevated their distinction. What word does your brand want to own? Being ENGAGING is MEMORABLE! Engaging brands enlist, equip, and empower stakeholders through traditional and emerging tools (i.e. email, 800, chat, social media, etc.) which build and sustain community advocacy for the brand. How is your brand engaging your customers? How does it engage your employees? Check out how Harley Davidson is pointedly going after the female market by creating powerful dialogue and community-building platforms through their website and social media. Notice how Tom’s Shoes has built an extremely loyal following through their website by enlisting and equipping their customers and employees to deliver on the brand promise “for every pair of shoes sold, a pair will be given to those in need.” Stop being a commodity and start creating meaning behind what your brand stands for, and engage, first and foremost, your most valuable assets – your employees! Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For are primarily on that list because of their internal attention to the teams of employees that make it all happen. Consequently, these companies are among the strongest and economically healthiest in the nation. So, Stop Marketing (for now) and Start Branding! Make sure your brand’s DNA speaks to your desired perception and is ‘messaged’ with clarity which helps your customers understand what ONE word your brand ‘owns’ in the market. Enlist, equip and empower every employee to understand and live your brand’s DNA through their unique talents and expertise – help them understand how they contribute to the brand’s success. Assess your current customer touch-points and capitalize on creating CONSISTENT, DISTINCTIVE, and ENGAGING customer experiences. You can do this through personal interaction as well as through powerful social media tools that enhance the experience. Get creative! So, build the PERCEPTION/Brand you want to become ingrained in the minds of your stakeholders (customers/employees/vendors, etc.). That is the first critical step to building out your actions and behaviors so they are congruent with whom you say you want to be. Creating and living the brand message cannot be overemphasized.  Unfortunately most businesses go straight to the marketing function prior to identifying their unique Brand DNA. Approach your brand in a conscious, strategic and holistic way to show up consistently, distinctively, and engaging in every way!  Now go, spread your DNA! Suzanne Tulien is Principal and co-Founder of The Brand Ascension Group, a multi-faceted consulting and training firm specializing brand perception. View her full profile here .

Tagged as: advice, apple, business, companies, dna, entrepreneur, facebook, marketing, phone

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Junior Achievement is Making a Difference for Young Entrepreneurs

by Paul Joseph March 8, 2011 Featured

Just as in past generations, you hear a lot of talk these days about how “the youth of today” are lazy, unmotivated, and generally headed in the wrong direction.  If you want to see proof of just the opposite of these negative stereotypes, you need only talk with one of the thousands of Junior Achievement success stories.  Recently, we were fortunate to have the chance to ask three such superstars about their current and future entrepreneurial endeavors, and their interviews are below. The interaction with JA and these young entrepreneurs reminded me of the many students we’ve encountered while speaking at high schools about our book, Kidpreneurs .  Sure, there are a lot of lazy teenagers out there.  Guess what – there are a lot of lazy people of every age out there!  But whether through interviews like this or interacting with high school classes, we know our future is in good hands. About Junior Achievement: JA is the world’s largest organization dedicated to educating students about workforce readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy through experiential, hands-on programs. Junior Achievement programs help prepare young people for the real world, by showing them how to generate wealth and effectively manage it, how to create jobs, which make their communities more robust, and how to apply entrepreneurial thinking to the workplace. Students put these lessons into action and learn the value of contributing to their communities. Hilary Sadler Age: 18 School: Beachwood High School Company Name: The Green Dream Your company, The Green Dream, is a great idea. How did you come up with the idea? The idea was formed in 2008 by a former JA student who posed the idea “instead of marketing a product to benefit us, why not market an idea that benefits the public and aids awareness of environmental issues and sustainable businesses.” How important was it for you to have a “green” or socially responsible company? Why? The entire idea behind our classroom and individual projects revolved around being “green” in as many ways as possible. Therefore, the social responsibility almost fell into our laps. The Green Dream would not have come to existence without the importance of being both environmentally and socially responsible. It was more than a product; being “green” is a complete lifestyle and bringing that lifestyle together with businesses produced passion for sustainable business and paved the way for the future. Believe us – going green is never going to go out of style! The awareness that our project, The Green Dream, could produce was so powerful, reaching out to thousands of people directly, it drove us farther to make clear what being green was all about AND how easy it is! What are your entrepreneurial plans for the future? I am currently in the process of transferring colleges but I was directly enrolled into the business school here at Suffolk University in Boston, MA. I plan to carry out my business career into my next college as well. Whether through owning a business or working within a large corporation, I would be equally as happy, as long as I know I’m making a difference in the world. What advice do you have for teenagers who are interested in starting their own companies? The one bit of advice that I learned in my time with JA that encourages me to take risks in  aspects of life is, when you’re proposing an idea, the worst possible thing that can happen is they say “no” and you move on to the next one. Don’t let one “no” keep your dreams and ideas from becoming realities. How do you personally define success? I personally define success when you find yourself in a point in your career where you are so happy to be doing what you’re doing, you would continue to do it even without getting paid. Blake Engelhard Age: 17 School: Riverwood International Charter School Company Name: Take Charge Your company, Take Charge, produces the E-Power. How did the idea come about? The product came about as follows: Our company acknowledged that in previous years, people were not truly interested in buying our JA products, but they wanted to support our company, so they spent the $5-15 as a donation, so to speak. In investigating products that people would purchase and actually use (i.e. the way the real world works), we thought that we could take advantage of the new wave of technologically advanced smart phones by selling a product for a wide variety of consumers.  Almost everyone has a cell phone, and due to our product’s multiple adapters, most people fall within the range of our product.  We chose the product because it is a product of our modern world. What challenges have you faced in building your company? How have you overcome them? About three weeks after our first purchase of products, we (Take Charge) ran into a predicament. Our supplier had run out of our product and would not be restocked for two months. We had a dilemma on our hands. We already had numerous pre-sales and many customers were expecting a product that we could no longer supply to them. We could not make customers wait too long, nor did we want to go back on our word and simply return money to the customers. Instead, we pulled together all of our resources to find another product in the same price range. Luckily, we ran across a very similar product. Not only did we find the same type of product we were originally advertising, the phone charger we found was of much better quality and had more advanced technology than the original product. On top of all this, it was the same price. We were selling again by the next week. Another problem we faced was a lack motivation and attendance. I devoted an entire meeting agenda to finding out exactly what the other Take Charge employees thought the problem was and how we could fix it. Unfortunately, this method made very little progress and was of little success. I decided to take another route: make people enjoy themselves at meetings. I wanted the company to bond enough that the weekly meetings stopped being looked at as business meetings and started being seen as learning something new and making friends. In order to accomplish this, I tried to lighten the mood of the meetings by creating a break in the middle of the meeting to just “hang out” and I even changed the color of the agenda each week to make it seem more inviting. On top of this, I added an activity to start the meetings called Connections. During Connections, the company splits up into groups of four or five and each employee is given the chance to discuss what is going on in their life. This tactic proved to be very effective. The employees bonded on an emotional level and the company became stronger from it. What are your entrepreneurial plans for the future? Next year I plan to attend the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. I have not yet decided on a concentration, but I am considering Entrepreneurship and Innovation and Business and Public Policy. After getting my degree from the University of Pennsylvania, I would like to work for an already successful, technology-related company to learn the “tricks of the trade.” This is all speculative, but I would then like to start a company to fully use the tools I have learned in the JA Fellows program. What advice do you have for teenagers who are interested in starting their own companies? What advice do I have for teenagers wishing to start their own companies? Do it. There is no better time to learn from your mistakes – and there will be mistakes. Also, make sure to protect the friendships you bring into the business environment by enjoying what you are doing and doing it for the results and for the process. You will not regret it. How do you personally define success? Success is not a business term. It is not a financial term. And, it is especially not a quantifiable term. Success is achieved with something to love, something to do and something to hope for. For some, entrepreneurship can be a large part of that, even if the business is “unsuccessful.” Jasmine Clay Age: 17 School: Positive Learning Academy Company Name: Classy How did you come up with and develop the idea for Classy? Our present company, Classy, went through a long process before it was officially decided as Class of Memorabilia. We wanted a new way to represent our graduating class opposed to the same memorabilia that only offers t-shirts and mugs. With our new idea of selling glow-in-the-dark, biodegradable wristbands it will provide a new trend within our peers that allows them to fashionably represent their graduating class. After doing more research and presenting surveys to our peers, it showed instant success. Thus we became Classy. You commit 10% of your profits to organizations that support the growth of global education. How important is it for you to create a socially responsible company? It is very important to me to create a socially responsible company because I feel that a company should always contribute to making the world a better place. By donating 10% of our profits to global education we are assisting in the growth of new jobs and educating people who will possibly serve as our future leaders. Not only will our efforts help impact others positively, but it also gives us encouragement to help others by reaching out. What are your entrepreneurial plans for the future? I have currently established my own Teen Cafe. I plan to expand on it and hope to create a larger concept that will reach out to many communities. My most important goal is to help my community by helping others. Since I am a teenager I saw it as great opportunity to start with my peers. In the future, I plan to elaborate and expand the idea. I would like to open my own center that can assist teens by helping them overcome obstacles. I plan to do so by not only giving them a positive environment but providing them with a service that can help them feel inspired to make an impact on someone else. What advice do you have for teenagers who are interested in starting their own companies? Always have a clear goal. If you know what your goals are and how you want to establish your company, you will be able to work through the process and make it. You should believe in your company and what it stands for. Some of the greatest ideas and corporations that you see today were thought of as impossible. Always believe – you’ll be amazed how far you go. How do you personally define success? I personally define success by setting a goal, believing in it, and striving to make that goal come into existence. I feel success is when you look back and see all the wonderful work you’ve done and say, “I remember when it was just a goal.” After all, before it was a flower it was a seed. We’d like to send out a big thanks to these three outstanding young entrepreneurs for their time, and to JA for introducing us to them!

Tagged as: book, business, career, entrepreneurship, innovation, life, modern, phone, project, university, young-entrepreneur, youth

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Hitesh Dhingra, CEO & Founder, LetsBuy.com – An e-commerce destination for gadgets and gizmos

by Paul Joseph March 2, 2011 Featured

We live in a world where it’s increasingly acceptable to gauge a person’s worth based on the phone that they carry or the laptop that they own. Today, we have more gadgets than ever before and we buy new ones almost every other day. So, it’s only extremely appropriate to feature LetsBuy.com, an e-commerce startup specializing in gadgets and gizmos. Started by entrepreneurs Hitesh Dhingra and… (Visit Yourstory.in for full news, other content, and much more!)

Tagged as: content, frontpage, laptop, other-content, phone, yourstory-in

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