Archive for advice
Thinking outside of the Box
Posted by: | CommentsIt drives me crazy when I see businesses in Israel conduct business like everyone else. Meaning just doing what everyone else is doing. There is a severe lack of creativity and of “metooisms”. What’s meetooisms? Metooisms is creating a business like someone else because they are already doing it. I was thinking about this rescently when I heard that yet another candy store is opening up in Bet Shemesh.
Now I wish the owners success, but do we really need a new candy store? There is already two of them in Ramat Bet Shemesh and a big one in the industrial area. So does that mean they can’t succeed? Of course not, they can succeed if they decide to think out of the box! Make themselves stand out. Be different!
One idea I had is to be in touch with all the schools in the neighborhood and offer big lollipops with a ribbon around it for teachers to give out to kids who learn the best each week or for when finishing a book of the Torah or many other reasons. Or even smaller treats to hand out. Just make sure that each ribbon has the name of your store and these 2 words “10% Off”.
Now you will stick out! Now you are creating incentives for kids to do well and the schools/teachers are happy with the free gift to give out and you get parents that now have two good reasons to come into your store. The first is because they feel appreciation for the free gift and second because they now have a 10% off coupon to use.
So will the new store do this? Unfortunately I doubt it. It’s hard to break out of the box of Metooisims.
How We Defy Common Sense and Overcomplicate Our Business Lives
Posted by: | CommentsSee if you recognize this treacherous
thought pattern because like ants in the summer,
it finds a tiny opening, squeezes in and takes over.
This is the first in a series in which we’ll
look at the many ways we unwittingly
over-complicate our businesses – and how to stop
and SIMPLIFY.
—
AND – since you registered for the 10-90 teleseminar recently,
there’s a special offer for you below.
—
“The medicine doesn’t work in our house.”
My 3 year old daughter complained that her ear hurt.
My wife dripped some drops into her ear and gave
her some Tylenol. “It still hurts,” she said
after swallowing the medicine.
“Give it some time,” said my wife.
An hour later, while at a neighbor’s house, my
wife asked how her ear was feeling. “Now it’s
better,” she said. “The medicine doesn’t
work in our house.”
One of those precious “from the mouth of babes” moments.
And yet that’s a mistake we often make in our
own businesses: We draw conclusions that REALITY
will refuse to support.
—
Here are some random examples:
An important prospect doesn’t reply to your
email and you worry he’s not interested.
Maybe. Maybe not. All we know is that we
didn’t RECEIVE a reply. We can’t even be sure
he didn’t reply. Perhaps his reply was snatched
as a tithe by the great cyber email-eater. Or,
thanks to the email program’s autocomplete
feature, it sped off to someone else who shares
your first name without your prospect realizing.
When we look at the EVIDENCE – the cold, hard
facts – all we see is that we expected a reply
and it hasn’t come. If we start ADDING MEANING
to the evidence, we abandon common sense and
distort reality.
—
Consider this scenario: Did you ever hire
someone you HOPED would do the job? You knew they
could to part of the job, and you HOPED they’d
do it all. But you really didn’t have a good
reason to believe it.
This is just another example of over-complicating
what really is simple. We don’t have evidence to
support what we want to believe and yet we march
forward in hopes that we can defy a natural law.
—
But WHY do we do this?
The first reason is we’re under a LOT of
pressure. Stress and pressure dumbs-down your
innate intelligence. We have an urgent need to
add an employee to our team. And so we let the
ants march right in…
The second reason lies at the STRUCTURAL level.
You need to train your mind to SEPARATE ISSUES.
Yes, you may have a desperate need for a new
employee. But that is one issue. Whether or not
you should hire THIS employee, is a decision of
its own.
—
The bottom line is that when you permit yourself
to only worry and fear things supported by the
cold hard facts, your business life will simplify.
That’s just REALITY.
—
DO THIS NOW because it’ll save you at least an
hour today. Think of a worrying situation and ask
yourself:
- “What conclusions am I tempted to draw?”
“What am I afraid will happen, or has
happened?” List them.
- For each item listed, ask: “Do I have
OBSERVABLE EVIDENCE to support this conclusion?”
- If the answer is “yes,” plan appropriate
preventive and contingent steps. If the answer is
“no,” then REFUSE to worry about it and
continue as before.
This five minute exercise will probably save you
days or weeks of worry and indecision.
And the medicine will work – also in your house.
—
As always, I invite you to reply with your
reactions.
Dov Gordon
dovgordon@gmail.com
+972-2-992-0396
www.DovGordon.biz/the-10-percent.htm
Time – An Entrepreneurs greatest asset
Posted by: | CommentsWhen you think about the one thing you are limited on its time. Time is the one thing you can never get more of and can never get enough of. As an entrepreneur one of the skills you will need is how to manage your time correctly, how to utilize the time you have in the most profitable way.
When I started this blog it was to cut down on one on one time I was giving entrepreneurs and business owners. I love helping people and I love talking about business and great ideas. The problem is there is only so much time in the day. So I started this blog as a way to reach more people with advice at one time.
This lead to me giving some seminars at Nefesh B’Nefesh. Attending a live seminar is more powerful and has a greater impact then writing a blog post.
And so I spent more time over the last six months preparing and giving seminars then writing useful blog posts. Sure I still post from time to time and usually with some great content that I found that I want to share with my readers, but not the longer more in-depth posts that I have written in the past.
One of the best books I have read on time management and the one that has the most positive effect on me is “The 4 hour Work Week” by Tim Ferris. A new and updated edition is coming out on the 15th and if you never read the first edition, or even if you did, I strongly suggest getting this new edition when it comes out.
One of the things that Tim stresses is cutting out unimportant emails. This for me is a huge challenge since I am pretty much addicted to checking my email, but I am trying and doing better.
One of the things I did was I had all my community newsletter emails go straight to a folder in my email box. Sure I never read them and I know less about what is going on in the community, but I must have saved myself a couple of hours a week and feel less stress of having to read them or I might miss out on something. So far the really important things in the community I find out from other sources and I no longer have the need to read each one when it comes in.
I have also started to opt-out of other types of email newsletters and blogs and only stick with the few that I find really valuable.
What about you? How do you save time? Any tricks you want to share?
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=e27ceb80-8424-4615-a9c2-6f45db6f3737 "Time An Entrepreneurs greatest asset")
5 Key Elements to Constructing a Dynamic Website ~ Guest post from Esther Ohayon
Posted by: | Comments“What’s new, what’s next, what’s up,” is the arena that you need to tap into.
Website “stickiness” can be described as the ability to engage the visitor with original and exciting content that keeps them coming back. The latest news, breakthroughs, ideas, and interesting tips just to name a few.
There are many ways websites can meet the demands of insatiable customers.
- User Contributions: Encourage your customers to provide feedback about their experience with your products, your company, and your service. Provide a way for them to rate products, preferably with a simple one-click rating mechanism. Industries that do this quite well are the following: Cell Phones, Books, Movies, Restaurants, and Software
- Periodic Updates: To maintain the relationship with existing customers and to encourage new relationships, include: company news, corporate events, executive hires, conferences, speaking engagements and industry news (like technological breakthroughs, or even tax and regulatory changes, to cite a few examples).
- Video: Video on your site increases engagement with your customers. WebProNews stated, “Nearly 70% of Internet users view online video during the day and night with similar spikes occurring both at home and at work. People across all demographics are watching online videos consistently. 28% visited an advertised brand or product’s website after viewing a high engagement video versus only 10% for low engagement video.” Besides being a source of information and hopefully entertaining, the video should have a call to action.
- 4. Audio/Visual Presentations and Interviews: Many companies have presentations about their products, their industry, speaking engagements, overview of the industry, trade shows, etc. If they are not company secrets share them with your readers. The more information populating your pages the better the world will know about your company. Someone might even quote the material and provide a link back to the website if they find the information interesting. It’s a helpful way to share information, and greatly improves your SEO score with search engines to boot!
- 5. Customer Surveys: The popular blogger, Chris Brogen, did a successful job turning his book launch into a customer survey. His book is about running your business like life and creating invaluable relationships along the way. Here’s what he wrote to me. “I believe that lots of situations in business feel a lot like relationships, and vice versa. What do you think about that? Does that make sense to you? I had a few thoughts about how to run one’s business like a life, and vice versa, and I want your feedback. Just reply to this email, and we’ll talk about it. Good?” This is personal, engaging, and I am confident that when I reply he will get invaluable information on how to sell better to his target market, while making his readers feel good that their opinion is important. Excellent.
Readers have a natural curiosity to check “what’s up” so let your website satisfy them with interesting, relevant, dynamic information. Think about it as if you are building a community and servicing it.
Esther Ohayon is Director of Business Development at Gavoah Marketing, a web marketing company that specializes in assisting entrepreneurs assert themselves as leaders in their field. She guides her clients to bring their vision to life by creating and optimizing their online presence with search engine optimization strategies, social media tactics and viral marketing initiatives Spending most of her career helping companies and non-profits succeed in sharing their unique message with their target markets, both online and off, Esther zeros in on new trends, building brands and creating strategic partnerships. An expert communicator, both written and oral. www.gavoah.com
How to Speed Up Your Company’s Progress
Posted by: | CommentsSales take longer expected. New employees, software and equipment all take too long to get up to speed. Isn’t that your experience?
To speed up your progress, install more systems.
One client followed this advice when he hired his last two employees. He had the old and new employees write down everything you need to know to do the jobs well. Checklist, systems, schedules and so on. One of the new employees suddenly needs to leave, but their documented systems will help his next hire get up and running in days – not weeks or months.
Your company’s systems are like a railroad track. Make them solid, clear and straight and your business will speed along.
Here are five steps for developing solid systems:
1. Write your outcomes. What will be different once this system is up and running? Focus on results, not activities.
2. Write out the steps. What must be done to move from A to B? WHO will be responsible for doing WHAT by WHEN?
3. Where’s the danger? Look at each step and ask yourself “What could go wrong here?” Think ahead and identify all the possible problems.
4. Add preventives; things you can do to prevent those problems. Add contingencies in case the problem crops up anyway.
5. Monitor your progress. Who will be making sure things are “on track?” How often? I what manner?
The biggest reason companies don’t do this is because they fool themselves into believing they don’t have time. A second reason is they don’t have a process like this to follow. So here’s a gift in the form of a more detailed template you can use for systematizing, and speeding up, almost any area of your business. Go to www.DovGordon.biz/systems.html to get it.
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.
Who Cares? That’s the first question you should ask before you launch an idea
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Time and time again it pains me to see people launch businesses, websites, events and the like and as soon as I see the announcement I shake my head and say this is not going to work. How do I know that they are going to fail and why are they going to fail? Because they forgot to answer the one question that needs to be answered.
Who cares? Just because you think it is a good idea and you think it is a service you would like does not mean that everyone or even anyone else would share your passion or even pay for it.
People today are loaded down with so much going on in their personal and professional lives that time has become the greatest commodity.
Why should they spend time getting to know your product, site or to attend your event? What makes it worth spending time with you instead of with their children?
Before launching you MUST speak with your target market. Ask them if they like your idea, product or service. Ask them if they would pay for it and if so for how much. Don’t be afraid that someone is going to “steal” your idea. They won’t. It is not so easy to just hear about an idea and then do it yourself since passion is what will make you a success and it’s hard to become passionate about someone elses idea.
So before you go out and so whatever it is your going to do, go out and ask others if they care. A lot of times you may get some great feedback on how to make your product more valuable. You can findout that people would not care about your product unless… Unless what? Well you won’t know unless you ask!
Has any of my readers succeeded because they did some research before launching or failed because they did not ask? Please place them in the comments below.
Before you start your business, know what your business model is
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Now here is a crazy thought! How about knowing how your going to make money before starting a business? Crazy right? I mean what does making money have to do with business?
And that is why the majority of start-ups become finish-downs.
I know, I know. Just build it for the sake of building it and see what happens. That’s great if you don’t need the money and have a lot of time on your hands, but if you are going to start a business you best know how you are going to make money.
Now before we go into some of the different ways to make money I think it is first important to see that you have multiple ways of making money. If you are going to be putting blood, sweat & tears into something make sure you have many avenues of success while still maintaining focus on your core business. Note: When you launch your company you don’t need to launch every revenue stream, just make sure you have a few as you grow.
The easiest example of this is a Restaurant. A retaurant can have the following revenue streams:
- The basic: People coming in and eating in
- Take Out
- In house catering/parties
- Catering in other locations
- Selling Packaged food through other locations
- Selling a specific product commercially (ie: Our Special Bar-B-Q Sauce)
- Party Planning Service
- Gift Baskets
- Frozen Pizzas
See what I mean? Now mostly I would like to focus on internet businesses since I think it is pretty obvious what your business model is when you are running a retail outlet of any kind, but online we have been brought up with the idea that it is a numbers game and as long as you have a lot of “eye balls” you can figure out the rest later. Now that is a great thought and if you became an internet sensation like Twitter, then that’s great, but for the 99.9999% of the rest of internet start-ups you really need to have a clear business model in order to raise funds and of course to succeed.
Now the problem I have with the “eye balls” theory is that the main business model that people are shooting for is an advertising model and that is a very dangerous place to be for many reasons; the fist being that if advertising revenue dollars were to suddenly drop, so will your revenue. I know of many companies that have gone under in the current recession specifically because the ad revenue dropped by more than 50%. If your going to build a business, build it on a need, something that people want and not something that you are going to annoy them with. That’s just my opinion.
A recent article on Mashable titled “5 Business Models for Social Media Startups” points out some of the main ways to earn money online and can even be used for non social media startups. Let me know what you think!
