Archive for August, 2009
There is nothing to be ashamed about asking for help with your business or startup. In fact, it would be pretty foolish not to. As the founder or owner of a company it is not expected for you to know everything and if you assume you do, you can assume you will fail.
The true entrepreneur knows his strengths and limitations. Being an entrepreneur means being a leader and knowing how to succeed. Knowing that you need advisers as well as putting in the time to do proper research. One of the real secrets to success is in building your team, which is a lot easier said than done. It’s not just about getting a bunch of resumes and choosing people to perform tasks. You need to be able to guide them and not be afraid to hire those that are more knowledgable than you or more experienced than you. In fact, you should always hire people that are smarter than you are, you just need to be smart enough to lead.
Watch this video below, I give her points for not giving up, but she should have asked sooner.
The #1 Secret to being a Successful Entrepreneur in 1 word
Posted by: | CommentsI was skyping with a young entrepreneur that I have been coaching on a start-up and I told him that I felt he was missing the #1 secret to being a success in his start-up. So then he started guessing what it was and a couple of times every hour throughout the day he would skype me another WRONG answer.
Here is a list of some of his answers and while they are all good and important, he was missing the key ingredient to start-up success.
- determination
- confidence
- money
- faith
- persistence
- vision of the goal line
- knowledge of the market
- patience
- attitude
- positive outlook
- concentration
- skills
- an energized outlook
- motivation
- guts
- ability to take risks
- momentum
- instinct
- willingness to go against coventional wisdom
- focus
- adderall
- getup and go
- knowhow
- character
- discipline
- ambition
After 8 hours I finally told him. While all the above is great and important, there was one thing he was missing. The one ingredient that separates the deadpool from the successful start-ups. That one ingredient is…
PASSION
PASSION – You must be pationate about your product or business! You must eat, sleep, and drink your company! It is not good enough to be passionate about making money or being an entrepreneur! You must be passionate about your business!
That is the secret to being successful. That is what gets you up early in the morning and keeps you up till 2am every night. It is what lets rejection bounce off your chest as if they were bullets and you were Superman. It’s what can get you through a year or more without a salary and having to borrow money just to keep the electricity on. Without passion, you just won’t be a successful entrepreneur.
Now this doesn’t mean you won’t be able to open a clothing store or some other small business, but if you want to be a game changer, if you want to make a real difference in the world, without passion it’s not even worth starting.
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Great Video about the Israeli Tech Industry by Sharon Weshler
Posted by: | CommentsNeed some extra cash to pay the bills? Why not sell the rights to name your baby?
Posted by: | Comments
Ok, you are about to have your 7th child and your down on your luck and can use some extra cash. Why not auction of the right to name your baby on eBay?
Well that is exactly what one women from Arkansas has decided to do to help get her out of her economic nightmare.
YOU CAN READ THE STORY HERE ON FOX
YOU CAN SEE THE AUCTION HERE ON eBay
As of this post the auction still has almost 4 days to go, has 59 bids and is holding at $1325.00.
This reminds me a bit about when my son Yitzy was born two years ago and his Bris was going to be on the Shabbos in between Tanis Esther and Purim and so I sent a baby naming contest email out to the emsil lists as a pure Purim Joke and to announce the birth. I got a lot of responses. Everything from how can you do such a thing to people begging me to name the baby after a relative that died and has no one named after them. It was so successful that I did it again for my 5th child who was born on Tu’B’shvat. Both times I thought it was pretty funny and yet both times my wife didn’t seem to agree. Below is the email I sent out for my latest child who we named Emuna.
Dear Friends,
With tremendous Hodah and love to Hashem we are happy to announce the birth
of a baby girl this past Monday on Tu B’Shvat!
We will be naming the baby B”H this Shabbos morning at KSY and hosting a
kiddush at our home at Nachal Katlav 12/1 starting at about 10:30am. Please
come and say Mazal Tov!
Our last baby was almost 2 years ago a week before Purim and for those that
remembered we had a baby naming contest! This year you can vote for one of
the ones below and we will tally up the vote before Shabbos.
Let us know which you think is the best name!
- 2B or Tooby
- Ananas Mish Mish (my Mothers favorite)
- Tuti
- Tamar D’vash
- Buxerina
- Ilana
- Tzippy
- Orangina
- Rimony
- Raisinal
- Qoofy
Personally I think naming a child should be a very serious undertaking and while I would never sell the rights to name one of my kids, after reading this womans story I can see how it would make sense.
No-Risk Leverage for All Your Marketing Activities
Posted by: | CommentsOne simple way to gain quick leverage in your marketing is to focus the right message to the right customer. Consistently.
I know that sounds very obvious, but look around you and at your own company: Is it done?
A useful tactic is to create a handful of customer profiles, or ‘sketches’ of different types of customers. You can then articulate the right messages to the right people in the right way at the right time.
How do you create customer profiles? Use the following three questions as your guide:
- What are the REASONS that people buy your type of product or service? What are their desired results? Make sure you understand the logical reasons as well as the emotional and psychological satisfactions people want.
- When people think about your products and services, what are some common CONCERNS they have? Assumptions they make? Misconceptions? Fears? Worries? Questions?
- The third question helps you add dimension to your answers to the first two.
Think of factors such as geography, age, past experience, price range, how they found you, marital status and so on. Which of these or similar factors may influence either the REASONS someone would want to buy from you and or the CONCERNS they are likely to have (beliefs, worldview) about buying your products and services?
Once you’ve answered these questions, you should be able to create four or five common customer profiles.
Now that you have the profiles:
- It’s likely that one or two of them represent more value for your company than the others. The old 80-20 rule. Separate those out for special attention.
- For each profile, but especially for the one or two that represent significant opportunity, ask: How can we optimize our marketing and sales processes to better appeal to the hearts and minds of customers within this profile?
Let me know your results.
Reply if you have any questions.
Finally, answer a short survey and get a free 15 minute consultation as a thank you: http://www.dovgordon.biz/more-customers.html
Dov Gordon
+972-2-992-0396
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Video: Really Great mocumentary on a startup called Flutter, The New Twitter
Posted by: | CommentsI always love a great mocumentary, but especially for ones on startups. This is a great one about a startup called Flutter. Watch and enjoy!
What do you want from me, I just work here?
Posted by: | Comments
Was just reading this post by Seth Godin and it reminded me of one of the big attitude problems you often find with businesses in Israel.
And that is that workers tend to treat their job as their job and nothing more. They don’t look to go the extra mile and they for sure are not interested in the “brand” they are working for. Of course their are exceptions to this rule as with every rule, but I the attitude is not just with businesses here in Israel, but with government offices as well.
If the store closes at 6:00pm, the worker has the lights off and is locking the door at 6:00pm. And if someone tries to come in they will here the excuse that the register is shut off. This even happened to me recently with a pharmacy when I needed medicine for my wife who was sick. The guy was sitting there and it would have taken him 2 minutes to get the medicine and take the money, but he refused because he was “closed”.
The problem is that the client is not as important to a worker here in Israel as he is to the boss. The boss/owner will almost always make exceptions ans try to take care of a client. This may be because it is good business practice, but then again it could be because of a Power Trip that comes with being the owner.
I think one of the underlining reasons for this stems from the boss/owner. It is his responsibility to create the culture and atmosphere that will make his workers feel like they are part of something special and that they are all building something together. Now I have not really ever worked for an Israeli boss, but somehow I get the feeling that the way the bosses in Israel treat their workers is similar to the way the workers treat their customers.
