BornEntrepreneur

Why is it that when people talk with someone else they discuss events, rather than feelings? Yesterday this happened, and then we did this, and it was cool, and then we went here, etc, etc. Are we so secretive as a species that it is a faux pas to mention feelings in conversation with an acquaintance? Why are topics of conversation so bland as to be a laundry list of what they other person has done recently?  Or will be doing in the future?  Is it because we’re all so focused on ourselves, on our own lives that we each want a chance to talk about us, that it’s an understood that after you’re done talking about you I get a good chance to talk about myself?

Why is small talk about insignificant things?  Why can we not have deep meaningful discussion in casual conversation?

After all, it is this talk that helps people to grow closer together, to feel more emotionally aligned, it seems like the most evident solution.

This is your call to action: I challenge you to try and share a meaningful moment with someone—force it even—when you realize the conversation has turned into simply useless filler.

Popularity: 49% [?]

I’m getting older.  I say this a lot, but what do I mean by it?  I do not have the urge to listen to loud obnoxious music, except at certain times.  I no longer like to drink very often—hardly at all actually.  I do not even really like to drink period.  I do not like the loss of control that alcohol does to my body.  I do not like the way it makes me feel to a certain a extent.  Not the loss of control, but rather the loss of intelligence.  I take life a lot more serious now because I feel that I know who I am and where I’m seeking to go in life.  I am becoming more direct with people and insist they are with me too.  I’m growing up to the point where others who are not grown up annoy me.  I’ve done a good job at minimizing this, though, realizing that everyone, no matter who they are, has a valuable influence on me, and can help me through certain situations.  This I learned from the teachings of Og Mandino.  I love everyone I meet because they are of value to me and I am of value to them.

Popularity: 19% [?]

Being an entrepreneur is a solo experience.  It is…  It isn’t…  We could go into a long discussion about it.  None the less, you spend a lot of time alone, very few people understand what goes on in your mind, so eventually you begin to distance yourself from people—realizing you’re a bit weird.  All of us entrepreneurs are weirdos in our own right—we’re crazy passionate people.  Obsessive, perhaps. And we want to do huge things—but we hate waiting for it.

Yesterday I worked with a bunch of other solo-ists out there.  And it felt good.  So, if you’ve cast off the company of others, I encourage you to check out a co-working event in your area.  My experiment was with my Jelly – Casual coworking.  Good times.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Entrepreneurship is about leadership, risk, and follow-through—-confidence! Building your confidence is a combination of many different things. Much to the chagrin of the already self-assured people out there, confidence and self-empowerment are not in-born characteristics. It is a skill and a way of life that can most certainly be taught! I learned to become more self-confident and so can you.

Increasing self-worth is not just about what to do and how to think, but just as importantly, what not to do and how not to think. Below are a few behaviors you should work to eliminate in your life in order to build confidence and self-empowerment.

Stop Exposing Yourself to Self-Deprecating Humor

If you are in the beginning stages of building your self-assured mindset, then it is very important not to engage in situations where you make fun of yourself in front of others. Once you reach a certain degree of confidence, it is okay for some self-deprecating humor, but if you are a novice, this humor is one of the easiest ways to make your wall of confidence start to crumble. After all, confidence is a mindset that you create yourself. Does it make sense then, to question your mindset and ridicule yourself in front of others? Most certainly not. This type of humor is used by two people: the extremely confident, and the extremely weak. If you do not consider yourself “extremely confident” then don’t even think about it. You’re just hurting yourself.

Avoid Uncomfortable Situations. Be Prepared.

A smart solider always knows what to expect on the battleground before they move forward. If he/she expects conflict beyond his/her ability to handle, then reinforcements are called. Whether you’re a solider or an individual learning to grow confidence, it’s stupid to jump into situations you can’t handle. You’re just asking to get hit hard by opposition and go through a lengthy process of recovery. This can be applied to so many different scenarios. From approaching people of the opposite sex in a bar, going unprepared to a business networking event, to getting lost on your way somewhere because you didn’t have good directions, these are all instances where it is important to either “call for backup” or simply do your homework.

There’s nothing wrong with going up to someone of the opposite sex and getting turned down. It happens. In instances like this, though, support from your friends is a necessity. Say you’re walking around a bar by yourself and you go up to someone and they shoot you down. You walk away feeling a little bit less of a person. Your confidence is down and you start to doubt your attractiveness and your charm. However, if you go with a bunch of supportive friends, then after you get turned down you have a support group to go to that will reassure that the other person isn’t worth it. They’ll also encourage you to keep trying and not get down. Without these friends, there would have been no reassurance and no encouragement. Supportive friends are great for confidence building—find them and hold on to them.

Getting lost may seem insignificant, but to me it’s a big deal. Self confidence is all self. That means avoid situations where you may end up doubting yourself. Getting lost and subsequently being late is a small confidence killer that can be avoided. Before traveling to a place you’re not familiar you should have backups to ensure you find your way flawlessly. Use Google or Mapquest to print a turn-by-turn map. At the top of the printed map, jot down the phone number of the establishment (if you’re meeting at a restaurant, etc.) so you can call on your cell phone to get directions. It does not look good (and is embarrassing) if you have to call the person you’re meeting to get directions. It’s takes you out of control and automatically puts you down. Don’t fly blind. Always have a plan. But here’s the key, make it look effortless. Make it seem like no big deal. “It was easy to find the place…no problem.” (Even if you had a hard time.) Confidence is as much a perception as it is a reality. When other people perceive you as confident, it starts to rub off on you.

So, remember…

Don’t put yourself down. You are intelligent, funny, and good looking. Don’t ever give anyone a reason to hear otherwise—especially from you. And finally, be prepared. Sometimes it’s as simple as doing an online search so you know what to expect before you jump in. Going to a new restaurant? Read the reviews online so you know what others before you experienced. This will ensure you make confident and smart decisions.

Popularity: 33% [?]

Winning Retail by Willard Ander & Neil Stern

1. Display your lamps like Pottery Barn. Show your lamp in a mock up of a living room. “Here’s how to make your living room beautiful.” This allows Pottery Barn to sell the complete solution rather than just a product. Selling the benefit rather than just the commodity.

2. If you’re truly going to have a customer-comes-first approach to retailing, then you have be ready to hire a team that’s knowledgeable and highly motivated to provide solutions and help make shopping easy and enjoyable for customers.

3. Do little things that show the customer that you truly understand them and that you’re putting them first.

4. To win over the long-term stores must be best at something—not just good at everything. They have to meet the min standards in ALL areas, excel in SOME areas, and be best in ONE area.

5. Beware that customer perceptions may be totally different that management’s perceptions. Ask your customers to be sure.

6. Customers are very focused when they shop—they typically do not care about most of the messages we are bombarding them with.

7. Management needs to realize that in order to sell more products, the company has to become more relevant in customers’ lives. This means selling more products to existing customers and reaching new customers as well. Introduce new product designs, new colors, and experiment with new materials. This will help you move from being a seller of products to being a lifestyle brand.

8. Live a customer-centric business lifestyle. Customers are becoming less patient. They don’t want to wait for floundering stores to improve. It’s more important than ever for stores to be constantly adapting and testing new prototypes.

9. Hot Topic’s splashy merchandise grabs lots of headlines, but what really makes the company revolutionary is its speed-to-market capabilities. They don’t’ operate a massive central warehouse. They don’t bother with things like vendor rebates or ad planning so there’s no need to order merchandise far in advance. Within days or just a couple of weeks of seeing certain trendsetters wearing something, Hot Topic can have a version of that style on its sales floors.

10. Put your customers in control. Empower them. Trust their intellect. Make your store easier to shop by providing key information. Giving them power makes them come to see a retailer as an advocate rather than an adversary. Let the customers help themselves. Provide them with the tools to answer their questions.

11. Try to avoid talking too much about creating a wonderful “customer experience.” Some customers feel that an experience is “what you get when you don’t get what you expect.”

12. Be sure to help the customer figure out what to buy.

13. The winning retailers in the future will be master of technology, able to effectively use these tools to streamline costs and better server customers. Retailing is still a combination of art and science though. Developing balance between merchants’ instincts and the vast array of technological advances will further separate winners and losers in the future.

Popularity: 38% [?]

The Power of Six Sigma by Chowdhury

1. The goal is not simply to improve quality for the sake improving quality, but to make customers happier and add money to the bottom line.
2. Most companies think improving quality costs money, so it’s a trade-off, a tug-ofwar between your customers and your accounts. They ask themselves, How much quality can we afford to give the customers and still make a profit? But Six Sigma companies flip that.
3. Focus more on people that are already IN your store, or are current customers. Don’t just spend lots of money getting people in there. Make sure it’s worth their time. Spend money on that. If you keep THAT guy and get his friends you don’t need to advertise nearly as much.
4. Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what you want done and they’ll surprise you with their ingenuity in getting there.
5. Pick the problem that’s giving the most trouble, the one that’s costing the company the most, the one that’s making customers unhappy—the one that will reward you the most if you can fix it.
6. Be sure to assign very specific jobs to the people on your team. This eliminates confusion and lack of direction. Guarantees that the job gets done. Even the Red Cross advises rescuers on the scene to point to a specific member in the crowed to get a blanket, to another call 911, and so on. Otherwise, everyone just stands there. Finally, put it all in writing and pass it around. If everyone can see who’s doing what and when, that breeds accountability.
7. The main thrust of Six Sigma is to reduce errors and waste in every kind of business endeavor to please customers and fatten the bottom line. You do that not simply by cranking up quality control, but by taking a step back, defined where the underlying problems—within the business process, or operation—and eliminating them. The key do doing all that, is measuring where you are and where you want to go, analyzing the data, improving trhe situation, and controlling the activity after you fix it to make sure you don’t slip. And you do that by giving everyone on board very specific jobs and rewards—recognition, promotion, bonuses—for doing them well. The Black Belt, especially, needs to be given all the resources necessary to focus solely on making the Six Sigma projects a success. The power of Six Sigma is that everyone throughout the corporation is speaking the same language.
8. Six sigma is the answer to the old phrase, “we just need to do things better.” Six Sigma is about doing better, but with an actual measureable process.
9. The DMAIC methodology breaks down as follows:

a. Define the project goals and customer (internal and external) requirements.

b. Measure the process to determine current performance.

c. Analyze and determine the root cause(s) of the defects.

d. Improve the process by eliminating defect root causes.

e. Control future process performance.

Popularity: 22% [?]

11 Immutable Laws of Internet Branding by Laura Ries

1. Brands are cold, silent, lifeless. Be the Donald Trump. Be the Steve Jobs. As the CEO you can make your brand famous if you become famous.
2. When building an Internet brand, you have to think category first and brand second. Customers are not primarily interested in companies, in brands, or even in websites. They are primarily interested in categories.
3. If you want to be the leader in a category, you first have to tell the prospect what the category is.
4. Be a global brand. Amazon means books in all countries. Books.com means books in only English speaking countries. But it is still important to have a national identity as well. Ex. Rolex is a global brand with a Swiss identity. Volvo global brand with Swedish identity. Maybe be the global brand with the Austin, TX identity.
5. Divergence is consistent with nature—nature tends towards chaos. All-in-one (convergent) type products/brands will always be there, but it makes more sense to go with nature. Convergent solutions drive like a boat and floats like a car.

Popularity: 36% [?]

22 Immutable Laws of Branding by Laura Ries

1. Good things happen when you contract rather than expand your business. Become a category killer, here are the steps:
1. a. Narrow the focus.
1. b. Stock in depth. A typical Toys R Us carries 10,000 toys versus 3,000 toys for even a large department store
1. c. Buy cheap. Toys R Us makes its money buying toys, not selling toys.
1. d. Sell cheap. When you can buy cheap, you can sell cheap and still maintain good margins.
1. e. Dominate the category.
2. Good things happen when you narrow the focus. Dominoes started out selling pizza and sub sandwiches. Little Caesars sold pizza, friend shrimp, fish and chips, and roasted chicken. Papa Johns sold pizza, cheese steaks, sub sandwiches, friend mushrooms, fried zucchini, salads, and onion rings. Then they contracted the menus and became category killers.
3. The best way to create news is to announce a new category, not a new product. Examples:
1. a. Rollerblade -first inline skate
1. b. Samuel Adams- first microbrewed beer
1. c. Saran Wrap – first plastic food wrap
1. d. Tide – first detergent
1. e. Time – first weekly news magazine
4. Quality, or rather the perception of quality resides in the mind of the buyer. If you want to build a powerful brand, you have to build a powerful perception of quality in the mind. Contracting your brand will allow you to do this—conveys you as a specialist.
5. If you’re in a category with a lot of competitors deliberately start with a higher price. Then ask yourself, what can we put into our brand to justify the higher price?
6. Run up a red flag whenever you hear the words, “why should we limit ourselves?” You should limit your brand. That’s the essence of branding. Your brand has to stand for something both simple and narrow in the mind.

Popularity: 34% [?]

Truths I have discovered through my journey towards enlightenment.

1. Actions can be completed with exact delicacy and focus. Actions created in that matter prove to be more meaningful.
2. When time goes slower, you will learn to appreciate the slight occurrences of life. The sound of drinking your tea. Your fingers on the keyboard. The feel of objects on your skin. The slower and more deliberate your actions, the more you notice them. The quicker, and more automatic—the more they are erased.
3. It is not necessary to go back over tasks that have already been completed to 90% accurate. Value your time more than that, and put it somewhere it can help another task grow from 0-90%.
4. Never feel rushed. Time is of your own creation. If you rush any aspect of life, you not only create less meaning in your action, but you are allowing your own imagination to dictate your existence and state of mind.
5. Hunger and pain are sensations of the physical self. Do not allow your physical self to control your real self. When these sensations approach you, tell them, “Hello hunger. Hello pain. I see you. I understand that my physical self has created you. However, my physical self does not govern my existence. Goodbye hunger. Goodbye pain. Now I will let you go.”
6. To find the answer, ask yourself the question. And then meditate for 1-2 minutes. The answer will enter you upon awakening.I asked myself the questions below and then meditated to find the answers.How to make more money (quickly and easily)?
   
   Do more.How to accomplish doing more when I already seem so overwhelmed?
   
   Can still work the same amount of hours, but always focus intently and individually at the matter at hand. Make sure to spend your time where it creates the most impactful results.

   What do I do when I get behind in my tasks and start to feel behind the ball and so overwhelmed that I do not want to even start?
   
   Pick 2-3 tasks and plan out the days you will complete them. It is not necessary to complete them all in 1 day, so just spread them out. No longer will they feel daunting.

Popularity: 27% [?]

101 Home Office Success Secrets by Lisa Kanarek

• Have a one page fact sheet available. When a reporter calls Alan Caruba, public relations counselor, editorial consultant and lecturer, he has a one page, up to date and accurate fact sheet ready to fax. He uses the sheet as a pre-interview piece, to give the reporter a feel for his background and expertise, or as a post-interview piece to provide the repeater with additional information. Caruba always offers to send the sheet, even if the reporter hasn’t requested it. Make sure it faxes well! Recommend to include information ranging from your company’s history, to what you are selling or doing. Also include your credentials.
• Follow the 13-13-12-12 Cold Call Plan.With the odds in his favor, Joe Charbonneau, president of Presentations Inc., and a master speaker, plays a numbers game to increase his sales. He knows that although he would like to, he and his staff will not close every sales call they make. To increase his company’s closure rate, he devised a comprehensive sales method that he calls the “13-13-12-12 Plan.”