bizthreads.net: Business Information for Entrepreneurs by an Entrepreneur

The other day I was on the phone with an entrepreneur. Less than 4 years ago he was in a business relationship that soured and he was financially ruined. Now, he owns several successful businesses again and has amassed a brand-new 8 figure fortune. He really is a rags-to-riches-to-rags-to-riches story!

I asked him what he thought were the secrets of his success and this is what he told me:

“Buzz, I build on each success and each failure. After the last ‘adventure' I had to re-evaluate and chart a new course. I sat down and listed many of my experiences, both good and bad. I wrote down what skills I developed from each experience as well as contacts I had made in that area. Then, I looked at the list of my skills and identified common groupings among the skills. From that I was able to springboard into several business ideas using those skills… and at the same time had a list of contacts to help me get my start.”

After our call, I tried doing that, too. As he hinted, I created a list of skills that included some I never realized I had. Try it yourself and see if you get some great ideas to take your business (or a new business) in a different direction.

E-business owners spend a lot of time, energy, and dollars on implementing online search engine strategies. And I hear quite frequently from entrepreneurs about the rising cost of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads, especially ones like Google that use a bidding system to determine placement rather than a flat rate. (I think Miva — www.miva.com — is headed in that direction eventually). Rising PPC costs are a problem, but this article suggests some solutions.

This article talks about the creative ideas some marketers are using to find ways around the high cost of popular keywords. Honda Element, for example, bids on low-priced keywords that are rarely searched. In some cases, offline ads support the online searches.

If you find PPC costs are hammering on your bottom line, think about some ways you can get cheaper ads.

If the sign outside your office door says “President” and “Janitor,” then you're probably kept pretty busy with your workload: satisfying customers, balancing the books, and mopping up at the end of the day. For many people, when you're doing all of the jobs yourself, your door also says “IT department” which may mean that you're designing and maintaining your own website.

Websites can be built from scratch with good knowledge of code or they can be built with some of the good programs out there like Macromedia's Dreamweaver or Microsoft's Frontpage.

Those programs may be enough for you. But if they're not, I've just been recommended a great program at http://www.evrsoft.com/. They have a free version and a paid version. I've just been trying out the free version lately and am really impressed by it. I'm not a coding master by any means but I know my way around html and I've actually had a lot of fun designing websites with it. And what I like about the program is that you can design them in html or you can design them in WYSIWYG (“what you see is what you get).

If you're looking to expand your web design know-how, check out Evrsoft's program for yourself.

Learn More: Website Builder Web 2.0 website design software and easy website builder for building a website today.

Whether you've got a new or growing business, you know the value of your time. It's precious! There are so many things that pull you in different directions all the time!

That's why you should make it a point to avoid doing the same thing over and over again. If you find that you've done the same thing more than two times, you need to turn it into a system:

For example, if you (or your employees) are answering the same questions on the phone from prospects, add that question to your FAQs on your webpage and create a quick sales-oriented script to distribute to your staff.

If your sales staff is continually coming up against the same objections, give them a checklist like the one found here: http://www.morebusiness.com/templates_worksheets/checklists/communicating.brc and spend time with them developing scripts to deal with the objection.

If you are creating the same kinds of documents again and again, stop writing them from scratch: create a template and re-work it each time you need to create a new letter.

Templates, plans, scripts, and systems will help you get control of your time.

I picked up Keith Ferrazzi's book Never Eat Alone recently.

I tend to prefer books that outline the tried and true ways that business is done or books that gather together many different ideas. I admit to being fairly skeptical when I see books that claim to promote one person's successful way to do business. Someone who is naturally successful at something tends to write books by looking back on their experience and systematizing it.

Ferrazzi, though, does a good job of developing ideas in his book without developing overt systems.

Throughout the book he talks about building relationships and the types of things you can do to create meaningful relationships in your life and business. I found the book to be like Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People but with a modern twist. He talks about “pinging” people (to keep in touch with them periodically) and the art of making small talk. And, what I like about this book — more than a lot of similar books — is the focus on business.

I love business so much I watch it on TV, too. I'm talking about a little-known genre: the “business movie.” That is, movies in which work, jobs, and business play a key role in the story.

In every other Hollywood production, work doesn't seem to be that important to people. Somehow (often in romantic comedies, it seems) people are able to fly to the other side of the country — or the other side of the world — at a moment's notice; without regard to how they will pay for the flight or what happens to their job or their business while they're gone. (Perhaps they are amazing entrepreneurs with a huge business base and have automated the processes so thoroughly that they can do that!)

The movies I like to watch are about business or involve business-people in some way. My top 3 favorite business movies are…

Glengarry Glen Ross

Boiler Room

Wall Street

Although there's not a lot of action in these movies (car chases and gun fighting), there is plenty of drama (and some language… especially in Glengarry Glen Ross).

Business movies are more about the main character struggling with ethics and what it means to be in business without selling out or giving in. Some characters succeed, others fail. And business-loving viewers are along for the ride.

If you love movies about business, here are two more interesting sites:

Forbes has put together a top ten business movies list on their site. Two of my top three movies are listed there, along with (interestingly enough) Godfather II and It's a Wonderful Life. I haven't seen all of the movies on their list, but I admit that their top movie, Citizen Kane, was one that I mostly snoozed through.

Movies for Business sells learning guides to regular movies (the Wizard of Oz is mentioned on the first page) and you can watch the movie and go through the guide and learn about leadership and management principles. It's an interesting idea and much broader than watching strictly business movies.

Many entrepreneurs spend a good portion of their day on the phones… it seems like we've all reverted to being teenagers again! Although this time, instead of talking about the person we like or the party on the weekend, we're making deals and building our customer base.

Being on the phone that much is good for business, but not so good on your phone-holding arm or your ear. And if you're like me and you have to scrawl notes to yourself while you're talking, the “shoulder-holding” method isn't that effective.

Enter the hands-free phone. You need two.

Get a hands-free cell phone. That way, you'll keep both hands on the wheel while you're driving. And, when you're sitting around waiting, you can make your phone deals while thumbing notes into your Personal Digital Assistant (PDA).

Get a hands-free desk phone. There are a couple different kinds: the conference call phone is good for when you have several people in the room, but it can be hard to hold a conversation on a conference call phone. If you don't have to make sure that 10 people are listening in on your call, consider getting a desk phone that has a headset. This will let you do the typing or writing you need to do while you're talking on the phone.

Who knows, you may spend more time on the phone!

If you don't have Entrepreneur.com bookmarked, you should. It's a fantastic resource for… entrepreneurs.

Recently they reported an interesting story at:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/0,4621,327016,00.html

They report about a 19-year old kid who made a lot of money on eBay ($30,000 in one month alone) by selling strollers.

I admit, I thought eBay's ship had sailed. Lots of people are selling on eBay and the big companies have moved in and (I felt) were slowly eroding the “little guy.” I knew there was still some opportunity left but this article surprised me.

Now I'm re-evaluating my position. After all, this kid is 19-years old and has no marketing experience.

What's his secret? He sells a good product to a specific niche. He literally became an expert in that niche before branching out into other niches.

That's a smart business move.

He does on eBay what every business owner should do.

I didn't know there was a name for it. But it's called “Parkinson's Law.” Parkinson's Law states, “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

C. Northcote Parkinson discovered this by observing government employees. I think he could have noticed it by looking at my day planner.

But I know I'm not alone here.

Many of us are guilty of assigning work to ourselves and blocking out time to get the work done. The problem is, we probably block out too much time.

• Half an hour to return phone calls (when the calls we need to make can realistically be done in just a few minutes).

• Two hour meetings seem to take two-and-a-half hours, but I can often summarize them in 2 and half minutes to the person who couldn't make it.

These are the two areas I'm guiltiest in practicing Parkinson's Law.

Years ago — before starting as an entrepreneur — I spent some time in retail. Busy retail… busy retail with demanding bosses. (Not surprisingly, those were some of the motivating factors for me to turn to entrepreneuring in the first place). In those times, when the mad rush would literally last for 12 hours straight, I learned what could be done in short periods of time: Two minute phone calls could be made in one minute without sacrificing quality. Thirty minute meetings became stand-up, on-the-fly discussions and the proverbial ball was never dropped.

I don't work in that environment anymore and in the years between I've started to relax my time management structure. Partially it's one of the rewards of working on your own… but we should all keep Parkinson's law in our minds when we're planning.

I'm going to start by shaving fifteen minutes off of each scheduled task. (Wow, I just gained a couple hours in my day!)

The Ultimate Consulting Series by Alan Weiss 

I've been thinking a lot lately about consulting and its impact on every kind of business. After all, every entrepreneur (like every consultant) is often a “lone wolf” trying to build a brand by developing expertise in a highly competitive market.

As a result, I've been reading many books about consulting and considering how the techniques and ideas for consultants boil out into other types of businesses. In my local library, Alan Weiss's book Million Dollar Consultant has my name stamped in the card several times since it was published in 1992.

Lately, while browsing the consultants’ section, I found a series by Weiss that I've really enjoyed and I'd recommend all of them to you. I read the book with a pen and paper nearby and it's usually full of ideas by the time I'm done. In the book I just finished, How to Establish a Unique Brand in the Consulting Profession, he gives so many great ideas about branding that I think the book should be required reading for any entrepreneur.

I try to give a balanced view of the books I review so I'm sitting here trying to think of something slightly more critical to say. I'm drawing a blank. The books are practical, easy to read, and easy to implement. I can't think of anything better than that. I wish he wrote more and I would have liked to see these less focused on consultation and more focused on entrepreneurs in general. The ideas wouldn't change, but more people would read them.