LIVE LIFE UP HIGH

photo credit: aloshbennett

Recently I was looking in the blogosphere and found 4 very interesting posts for you my entrepreneurial friends. These bite-size posts help you as an entrepreneur to stay updated on important developments that can move you further towards success. As a fellow entrepreneur, I  want to share this information with you to help you be more successful and productive on your entrepreneurial journey. Please check out these informative posts and let me know what you think.

Small Business Success Index Highlights (Estimated time to read: 2 mins)
http://growsmartbusiness.com/small-business-success-index-highlights/

Small businesses are succeeding desipte the ecomonic downturn. According to the Small Business Success Index, small busineses are fairing quite well. For example, it shows that 69% of small businesses made a profit in 2008. This is good news.  Check out this article, get encouraged and get going.

Top 10 Business plan mistakes.(Esitmated time to read: 5 mins)
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/267696/Top-10-Business-Plan-Mistakes

The type is small on this post but this post addresses some important issues (right click and zoom in to enlarge the type). If you are planning to write a business plan for your business or if you are currently in the process of writing a business plan, read this first. It has some good points that many of us overlook when writing business plans.

Top 10 Social Networks for Entrepreneurs (Estimated Time to Read 3 mins)http://mashable.com/2009/03/12/entrepreneur-networks/

No one can deny the importance of social networks. Well in this post Dan provides a list of social networks designed with the entrepreneur in mind. No need to join all of these social networks. Find the one that best fits your needs and join. Spend some time there and then if you want to join another one go right ahead. You will get the best results if you take time to learn each network that you join.

The Best Entrepreneurs Fail Fast (Estimated tim to watch 4.5 min)
http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2009/04/the-best-entrepreneurs-know-how-to-fail-fast.html

In this post, Brad Feld, does a repost of Mark Pincus’s interview about lessons Mark has learned from his Tribe entrepreneurial endeavor. Very interesting information. The idea of failing fast is so critical for entrepreneurs to learn. I have learned this lesson from my business ventures as well. Don’t miss this 4.57 minute video.

As always I welcome your comments.

photo credit: markwgallagher

Do you want to fail miserable as an entrepreneur? Well in this post I will share with you 22 things you can do if you want to fail miserable as an entrepreneur. Follow these steps I can almost guarantee you will be a big failure.

1.Neglect cash flow and cashflow management. Don’t even create an Excel spreadsheet to show your daily, weekly and monthy expected cash inflows and outflows. Who cares about cash and the timing of those flows anyway as long you have profits right?

2. Forget about marketing and personal selling. Don’t even bother to create a marketing plan. Who needs to do all of this work. If you build it they will just come right?

3.Don’t bother to setup and document systems for your business. Run it by the seat of your pants. Who needs all of these structures?

4. Listen to no one. Don’t seek advice from those who have gone before you. Just go it on your own. You are smarter than everyone else anyway. Or even better, pretend you are listening to them and then do your own thing.

5. Don’t build your financal intelligence. Don’t learn about financial ratios that affect your business. All that matters is that you are making some money.

6. Spend no time talking to your customers. Or if you do talk to them don’t ask them questions about the business. Just shoot the breeze all of the time.

7. For goodness sake don’t spend time analyzing the metrics of your business. Who needs to know how many new customers are coming in and where they are coming from anyway? You don’t need to know why they chose you instead of your competitor. Stuff like that is useless.

8. Don’t write the vision plan for your business. Just work it everyday like a job. A business is just a glorified job right?

9. Don’t focus on a particular niche. Try to do it all even if you don’t have the budget for it. Be all things to all people.

10. Make sure you think of the glass as half-empty all the time. Don’t be tricked by those who think optimistically and implement realistic plans. You want to be as negative as possible so if something positive does happen in your business then great. At least if you don’t expect great things you won’t be disappointed.

11. Neglect your customers and focus only on the mechanics of your business.  Your customers are a nuisance anyway. They are always asking for something different. Can’t be just be satisfied with what you give them?

12. Work in the business but don’t spend time working on the business. It is the day to day that matters anyway, forget building the business for the long-term.

13. Do not waste your money on educating yourself and learning more about your industry and your business in general. Who needs the extra expenses? You already know everything you need to know about your business. What worked in the past will continue to work. All this talk about change is just that, talk.

14. Don’t bother to work on your leadership skill and your sales skills. Who needs the headache? You are good just like you are. Anyway, who wants to a bunch of people following you.

15. Don’t change with the times and please don’t anticipate change and try to get ahead of it. This takes too much time.

16.Don’t spend time growing your employees. If they want to grow they have to do it on their own. That is not your problem.

17.Don’t delegate. Try to do everything yourself. You are a one-person show anyway. Who needs other people?

18.Don’t take the 80/20 rule seriously in terms of your work. Don’t even spend time determining what the 20% activitives are in your business that brings you 80% of the results. What’s the use of that anyway?

19. Don’t take the 80/20 rule seriously in terms of your customers. Treat them all exactly the same even though about 20% of them provide about 80% of your profits. Don’t even identify these people.

20. Isolate yourself. Who needs to network with others who are in the same line of business or others who can provide critical services.

21. Don’t read. Spend all of your time working on your business and don’t bother learning new material. If you do read, only read about your industry, don’t bother expanding yourself to see if something in other industry can help you.

22. Forget being creative. That is for the artsy types. Don’t even learn anything about creative problem solving.

Ok. I know you know that I am being sarcastic. I don’t want you to think about failing as an entrepreneur but I do want you to take these things seriously. Obviously you want to do the opposite of what is suggested here. Take a good look at this list. If you are an entrepreneur, you may be doing some of these things. If you are, you may want to make a change. If you have not started on your entrepreneurial journey yet, please look at these items and avoid them like the plague. On Wednesday I will give you another batch of these items. Happy entrepreneuring.

Suggested Additional Resources

One of the professors I had while at the Wharton School of Business (Professor Eric Clemons) recently wrote an article where he argues that the Internet will destroy all forms of advertising.  Apparently this article has invoked some strong feelings and has drawn some sharp criticisms. I have presented a link to this article for you, my readers, to get your feedback. I am looking forward to reading your comments.

Why Advertising Is Failing On The Internet

photo credit: timsamoff

As an entrepreneur in today’s highly connected and collabrative world it is extremely important to have a social media marketing strategy. In this post I point you to two important resources to help you understand what social media marketing is and how to use it effectively in your business. Enjoy.

Online Marketing Blog - since December 2003, TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog has provided insights, resources and commentary on a range of digital marketing and public relations topics including:

• Search engine marketing and optimization
• Social media marketing
• Business blogging and marketing
• Online public relations

This blog has many contributors and has tons on information on both social and search engine marketing. Check it out.

Web Digest for Marketers -another great resources to stay on top of trends in Social media marketing is Larry Chase’s Web Digest for Marketers. This is a weekly email newsletter that delivers short reviews of marketing-oriented Web sites right to your In box. When you subscribe to this newsletter you get the opportunity to subscribe to other great resources dealing with online marketing.

No matter what business you are building having an effective online strategy is critical. Please check out these resources and let me know what you think.