Starting a business is fun. Planning a business is not as fun. So how do you take your fresh idea and turn it into a viable business without sacrificing your enthusiasm in the process? Here are some ways to get started now.

Plan well, but plan quickly.

You know you need a business plan. (You do know that, don’t you?) You also know that business plans are long, scary, and mind-numbingly boring. They tend to take a lot of time, time which you might not have.

The most important part of your business plan is your SWOT analysis. This is where you identify your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. The SWOT analysis is your new best friend. Run one on your business, on yourself, on your business partners, and on your competition. Figure out what’s helping you and what’s hurting you. Do not fall into the trap of shoving your head into the sand and thinking you have no weaknesses. Think about this. Write it down.

Since this is for your own use and doesn’t have to be prettied up for a banker’s benefit, there’s no reason this should take more than a day.

Identify your Unique Selling Proposition.

Once you know your own strengths and your competitors’ weaknesses, you can figure out what makes you different from them. This is your Unique Selling Proposition, or USP. It will be the driving force behind your marketing campaign.

What makes you unique does not have to be something earth-shattering. You don’t need to redesign the wheel. It could be as simple as actually listing your prices on your website, or offering 24 hour a day phone support. The only requirement is that it has to be something your customers actually care about. Pretty packaging on your plumbing parts is not a USP. Same-day delivery might be.

How are you going to market this thing?

You’ve identified your USP. Now you’re going to have to let people know about it. Sounds obvious? Apparently it isn’t. How many times have you been actively trying to spend your hard-earned money on a product or service, and all the companies looked the same? These companies are lazy marketers. They are telling you about all the fancy gizmos that every other competitor has, too.

You need to take your USP and beat your potential customers over the head with it. They should know why you’re different than The Other Guy before hiring you even crosses their minds. Do not make them think. Make your USP the most readily available piece of information to your customers. If you do that, the details of your marketing plan don’t matter as much. Since the thing that makes you better than your competition is now wildly obvious, whether you advertise in Text Link Ads or AdSense is just not a big deal.

Figure out your funding.

Unless your competition is Coca-Cola, the amount of money you have to start with is actually pretty unimportant. What is important is that you know how much you have, and that you allocate it wisely. Whether you have $500 or $5 million to start with, spend the most you can get away with on marketing. You need to get people to buy your product or service. Once they do, you can spend all the money you want on a new fax machine or 30-inch monitor or thicker stationery.

Start sooner rather than later.

There is a point, generally a lot earlier than most people think, when you have to stop thinking and start doing. It’s easy to sit back and ruminate on the absolute perfect way to launch your business. What’s hard is understanding that a not-bad business launched in a not-bad way makes a lot more money than an amazing business not launched at all because circumstances are not perfect. Make your service good, make it easy to buy from you, hang your shingle and prepare for a crazy ride.

Naomi Dunford writes for IttyBiz, a blog for entrepreneurs, freelancers, and other work-from-home types. Come by for marketing tips, small business advice, and the occasional very bad joke.

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FoundRead: We like Harvard Working Knowledge, and today we picked up another quick post by marketing guru, John Quelch. It’s billed as “How To Build a Global Brand,“ but we think his five simple rules for how to brand effectively are applicable to any startup trying to establish its name and image — globally or not. The good news here is that Prof. Quelch is cutting down your workload — in branding, it turns out that what matters most in the message are simplicity and consistency.

Professor Quelch compares the (lately) poor branding practices at Ford with the highly successful practice at Toyota to illustrate “the power of a single global brand” and how to get there.

1. The same positioning worldwide. (For F|R: this means in every market.) This provides a combination of functional product quality and innovation with emotional appeal. Think Coca-Cola.

2. A focus on a single product category. Think Nokia and Intel.

3. The company name is the brand name. All marketing dollars are concentrated on that one brand. Think GE and IBM. (F|R: Hewlett-Packard learned this the hard way!)

4. Access to the (global) village. Consuming the brand equals membership in a global club. Think IBM’s “solutions for a small planet.” (F|R says: replace “global club” with social network.)

5. Social responsibility. Consumers expect global brands to lead on corporate social responsibility, leveraging their technology to solve the world’s problems. Think Nestle and clean water. (Or F|R might say: think Google.)

5 Simple Rules of Branding [FoundRead]

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Business Know How: There are several ingredients that go into a winning business, including a great idea, a great team, great passion, and great leadership. All are important, but great passion can be the fire that helps fuel the success. It can also destroy the business when it is misguided.

Like all fires, passion can spark other flames and become contagious, igniting the passion of investors, business partners, and customers, as well as employees. If left uncontrolled, passion can consume, destroy, and leave a business with an empty dream. However, when controlled, directed, and focused, it can boost a business's chance for success. Nonetheless it isn't the only important ingredient. A great business idea alone will not make a business profitable, but a passionate team that has the vision and the ability to execute the idea, even if the idea is only pretty good; can help a company achieve success.

Therefore, in order to be successful in business, you don't have to come up with the most ingenious and creative business concept. However, you must have a solid concept that satisfies a need, and you must be able to properly funnel your passion to execute the plan. The failure to fuel your passion can cause you to skip or dismiss basic business principles. In fact, that's where you see really smart business people with good intentions make fatal errors in judgment.

Passion as a Strategy, Plus Other Marketing Tips To Boost Your Bottom Line [Business Know How]

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It's been 3 weeks since we launched the new GetEntrepreneurial.com Experts' Network to contribute small business advice to our community of aspiring entrepreneurs. The network has received positive responses from you, our readers, and we're very glad to have signed up 9 small business experts (as of today) to share with us their expert opinion on issues which entrepreneurs face everyday.

From the things to consider before starting a business to generating more profits from on-going small improvements to your business, our Experts are working hard to share with us more tips and advice on entrepreneurship. Let's show our appreciation for our nine experts who have come on board the GE Experts' Network:

Abe WalkingBear Sanchez
Abe WalkingBear is an international consultant on the subject of sales enhancement and business knowledge organization. Founder and President of www.armg-usa.com, WalkingBear has worked with numerous companies in a wide range of industries since 1982.

Recommended article: More Profits From On-going Small Improvements: Part 1 | Part 2

Jim Donovan
Jim Donovan, is the author of several critically acclaimed self-help and business books, published in 22 countries, a highly sought after motivational speaker, and the President of Jim Donovan Associates, a peak performance consulting company that offers programs and services
to help companies grow and prosper in today's competitive marketplace.

Recommended article: A Crystal Clear Vision Ensures Success Throughout Your Organization

John Bittleston
John Bittleston blogs at TerrificMentors.com, a site that provides mentoring for those who wish a change in career or job, wanting to start a business or looking to improve their handling of people (including themselves).

Recommended articles:
Prepare For Your Career
The Way To Success

Klaus Wiedemann
Klaus Wiedemann is Founder and Managing Director of Daisho Blacksmith GmbH, a product and consulting company dedicated to support todays professional with software and methodology to sharpen their competitive edge. Klaus has more than 19 years of experience in Project Management and Business Development.

Recommended article: Things to Consider before Starting a Business

Lorraine Cohen
Dr. Lorraine Cohen, President of Powerfull Living, brings more than 25 years experience in personal and business coaching, psychological counseling, and sales to thousands of spiritually minded business owners, entrepreneurs, and leaders from a wide range of industries.

Recommended article: Business Success Tip #1 - How To Declutter Your Computer

Maureen O’Crean
Maureen O’Crean, MBA, is an international business strategist and CEO of Maureen O’Crean PR. An award winning Internet consultant, her work has been featured on Good Morning America, Entrepreneur Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Grace Magazine, radio and newspapers.

Russ Lombardo
Russ Lombardo is President of PEAK Sales Consulting, LLC and an experienced CRM and Sales consultant, trainer, writer, speaker and radio show host. Russ works with businesses to help improve their customer acquisition and retention for increased revenue and success.

Recommended article: Fighting the Saw-Tooth Effect

Stan Spector
Stan Spector is the author of “Baby Boomers’ Official Guide to Retirement Income - Over 100 Part-time or Seasonal Businesses for the New Retiree”. The book's website can be found at StanSpector.com. He presents seminars for financial planners and other organizations working with baby boomers to try to instill the entrepreneuring spirit.

Recommended article: 101 New Business Ideas for Retirees: Festival Businesses | Focus on your Writing Skills

Terri Zwierzynski
Terri Zwierzynski is a self-employed business strategist and marketing consultant to solo entrepreneurs, and a grassroots promoter of the solo entrepreneur lifestyle. She runs Solo-E.com, the resource website for the self-employed which attracts thousands of solo home business owners monthly.

* * *

Would you like to be a part of the GE Experts Network? We invite you to email us to join the network and share your small business expertise with us. We look forward to your application!

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Fighting the Saw-Tooth Effect

Months ago you thought you were such a huge success, pulling in a large deal involving huge revenue for your business. How were you to know that at the same time you were destroying the very business you were trying to build? If this, or something less dramatic yet similar, has ever happened to you, then you could be experiencing the Saw-Tooth Effect. What’s the Saw-Tooth Effect? It’s all very simple to understand. But not many businesses realize it until it is too late.....

Continued in BIZNESS! Newsletter Issue 55 >>>

- Beer Brick
- Handvertising
- Metal Refreshing Lollipop
- New Life For Old Photos
- Frisper Freshkeeper
- Garden Water
- Sharkah’s Organic Jeans

Continue reading these top stories in the BIZNESS! Newsletter >>>

- Things To Consider Before Starting A Business
- How To De-clutter Your Computer
- Prepare For Your Career
- Festival Business
- Tell Them About Quality
- Be An Eagle Entrepreneur
- Positive Workplace Relationships

Continue reading these top stories in the BIZNESS! Newsletter >>>

Can't stand your demanding boss anymore? Start your own business! Before that, be sure to subscribe to our free informative newsletter. BIZNESS! is jointly published by CoolBusinessIdeas.com and GetEntrepreneurial.com What you get in BIZNESS! - the latest new business ideas, small business advice, business tips and info and entrepreneur resources. Everything you need for your brand new business!

Free 145-pages PDF report (worth $75) - "2006's Best Business Ideas" - included with your subscription. Learn more here.

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In a sales economy where up to 62% of sales people don't go for the close, how is a sales person supposed to succeed? First, they need to use a sales process that helps them manage the steps in a sales cycle in the right order. Second, they need to learn, or re-learn, basic selling skills. These skills include how to cold call, qualify prospects, ask the right questions, listen, handle objections, negotiate, close and retain customers.

The problem lies with finding the time to learn these skills, or at least get a refresher course in skills that were learned long ago and since forgotten. PEAK Sales Consulting now offers inexpensive, on-line sales training that helps new and experienced sales professionals learn basic skills such as cold calling, listening skills, qualifying, value-added selling, handling objections, negotiating, closing, and more.

Called "Sales Snippets", which range from 10 to 20 minutes each, these on-line training modules are Internet-based sessions that allow a sales person to get quick, concise training sessions on various selling skills. All ten Sales Snippets cost only $29.95.

"Our Sales Snippets are derived and summarized from our full sales training courses. They are brief training sessions for both new sales people for getting up to speed on basic selling skills as well as veteran sales reps to review sales techniques that have long been forgotten and to learn new skills required in today’s economy," said Russ Lombardo, President/Founder of PEAK Sales Consulting, LLC and instructor on the Sales Snippets programs.

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BusinessKnowHow: Thousands of new home businesses start in North America every day, many of which never see their fifth anniversary.

With a 90 percent failure rate in the first five years, most hopeful entrepreneurs wind up feeling discouraged and beaten, thinking they don't have what it takes to make their dream of home business come true.

One of the biggest reasons home businesses fail is because the new entrepreneur not only lacks the required marketing and sales skills, but chooses a business with a tremendous learning curve.

The energy, time and financial commitment required is significant because everything is new and undeveloped. Overwhelm and confusion set in, mistakes accumulate, frustration grows and finances dwindle as you work your way through the steep learning process.

If you are new to or considering a home business, you can flatten the learning curve and start generating income immediately by beginning with something you are already good to great at.

How to Turn Your Start-Up into an Instant Cash Cow [BusinessKnowHow]

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AllBusiness.com: Can you outsource your life? David Davin thinks so.

Davin is COO of DoMyStuff.com, a Beverly Hills-based online community where busy people can find someone else to do their chores and errands. Need someone to fix a dripping faucet? Just post your task on DoMyStuff.com, wait for the community to bid, and pick your assistant.

"Our lives are supposedly getting simpler with the advent of technology, but most people find themselves busier than ever," Davin says. "Everything comes together to form a white noise that distracts you from what's important."

The site started as a joke between founders Darren Berkovitz and Stacy Stubblefield. "Berkovitz said he wished he could outsource finding a girlfriend," Davin says. "He and Stacy had a good chuckle but when the laughter subsided, they thought, 'Why not?'"

A DoMyStuff.com member can be an employer, an assistant, or both. Employers can choose based on price, location, expertise, satisfaction rating, or the assistant's job history. Once an assistant is chosen, the employer puts money into an escrow account so the assistant knows it's there. Then work can begin. Afterward, the employer releases the funds from escrow to the assistant's account and employer and assistant can rate each other. DoMyStuff.com takes a percentage of each transaction.

DoMyStuff.com: Let the World Be Your Assistant [AllBusiness.com]

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Continued from Part 1 of the article More Profits From On-going Small Improvements by Abe WalkingBear Sanchez.

Twenty two years ago my younger son, Andres, was seven years old and one night he was doing some school homework. He was sitting at the dinner table with a sheet of paper and in the center he drew a box. Inside the box he wrote "A boy and his dogs". Then he drew a line from each corner of the box toward the edge of the paper and at the end of each line he wrote about something that had happened or been done, and by who. He then numbered these "actions" in sequence of events or priority. He then took a second sheet of paper and "A Boy and His Dogs" became the title and the "actions" became paragraphs...he was organizing and writing a story. A couple of weeks later while working with a distribution company on their Credit and A/R Management, the CEO asked if I could help organize and improve on how things were done in the warehouse...not knowing anything about warehouse operations I said "sure".

I thought the best place to start learning about the warehouse and about areas of opportunity for improvement was to ask the experts, the warehouse guys. Not having a flip chart or white board available we broke down a box and put it up on a warehouse wall. I then drew a box in the center of the box and I drew lines from the center box toward the edges of the flattened box...and then we called in the experts.

"Every business function must have a clearly stated purpose that addresses the costs associated with the carrying out of that business function.", I said to warehouse experts. They then led me through the costs involved with the warehouse function: inventory, heating/cooling, buildings, their paychecks, taxes, equipment and shrinkage/obsolescence. "So why incur the costs?, I asked. And of course one guy answered ,"To make a profit.". "What's the best way to "earn" a profit?", I asked. We finally came down to "meeting or exceeding customer expectations" as being the best way to earn a profit and for the warehouse function that meant having "an acceptable on time fill rate". In the box at the center of the flatten box I wrote "On-time Fill Rate".

The next step in organizing the "warehouse story" was to break it into "actions" or major components. We came up with receiving, shipping, truck maintenance, and inventory control, in sequence of events. The last thing we accomplished that day was to establish a goal for each of the major components: receiving...take in right and put up right, shipping...take down right and send out right, truck maintenance ...get what suppose to be where it's suppose to be when it's suppose to be, and inventory control...know what you need, what you have and where it's at. In a follow up session we establish how the goals would be accomplished...the steps needed to be taken in order to achieve the goals, and we also established who would do the work. The management team and I were then able to establish "Performance Measures" based on the ''goals."

Over the years I found that this method for organizing and documenting the knowledge needed to do things as right as possible the first time worked with any business function.

The Five Organizational Ps

Purpose: Every business function must have a clearly stated purpose which answers the question, "Why incur the costs that go with the function?"

Policies: Goal driven guidelines for each major component within the function.

Process: The step by step method for achieving the goals established by the policies.

People Requirements: The right people for the job based on the process.

Process Monitoring and Performance Measurements: Monitoring key steps in the process to ensure quality and measuring against the goals established by the policies.

If the established goals are not achieved either the process is wrong or you have the wrong guy in the job.

Financial profit is necessary for any business to stay in business and the best way to improve on profit is to do things as right as possible the first time. We will never achieve perfection because things keep changing and that's why Policies and Procedures are never done and we need to place a cover sheet on them that says "UNDER CONSTRUCTION".

One Size Does Not Fit All

Every person on the planet sees things differently, His Holiness, The Dali Lama says that there are six and a half billion of us and six and a half billion versions of reality and if you're married
you know what the Dali Lama is talking about...it's the same with companies. Businesses are a collection of many different people, none of whom define the business but collectively they make up the business. And what works at one company may not work at another... every company and it's people are unique . The process for best business practices must be based on each company's understanding of what is... is.

In Closing

It was time to rotate the tires on the pick-up and for an oil change and lube, I knew it was time because of the sticker on the corner of the windshield. I've learned it's best to make an appointment rather than just show up at the tire place and have to wait if they're busy...guess what? ...no phone number on the sticker. This is a national tire chain and yet I had to wait and remember to look up their phone number when I got home. If I had been able to call them from the pick-up at the time I'd noticed the sticker I'd might have been able to get in sooner, and at my age they were lucky I didn't space it out altogether. I mentioned all this to the asst. manager when I was checking in and he got it at once...he pulled out a note pad and wrote it all down
saying as he did so ,"This is one for corporate, we all use the same stickers." Good for him...now lets see if Big O corporate gets it.

When people are told that on-going small improvements are desired and that they will be measured on coming up with them, they become different people. They find that they are capable of thinking outside the established box and that it gives far more meaning to their work lives, than just a paycheck.

Abe WalkingBear Sanchez is an International Speaker / Trainer / Consultant on the subject of cash flow / sales enhancement and business knowledge organization and use. Founder and President of www.armg-usa.com, WalkingBear has authored hundreds of business articles, has worked with numerous companies in a wide range of industries since 1982 and has spoken at many venues including the Shakespeare Globe Theater in London.

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This is Part 1 of the article More Profits From On-going Small Improvements by Abe WalkingBear Sanchez.

Save a step here and a penny there and then repeat it a hundred times, a thousand times, a million times and they add up. Now use/invest the time saved and the money saved to do something productive like looking for further improvements and it really starts to add up. And along with enhanced profitability, people's lives are changed for the better.

The Japanese have a word, "Kaizen". Kai means on-going and zen means better...the Chinese word Gaisan breaks down to gai, to correct and san, to benefit. These folks have a history of struggle in order to survive and tend to be pragmatic. We Americans, in our collective memory, believe that there's always a new virgin forest to be exploited over the next hill. Our mindset about there always being "excess" makes us wasteful in our private and business lives and is a OBSTACLE to on-going improvements.

This is my 25th year of avoiding a real job by conducting seminars and training for CEOs and top business managers and I'm still taken aback to hear business executives say that the purpose of being in business is to make a profit, without any further explanation. There are many ways to make a profit, you can rip the employees off for their retirement plan or fail to fully fund the plan...sound familiar? A company can also make a profit by cheating customers and suppliers or by pulling an Enron. A better way to "earn" a profit is by "Meeting or exceeding customer expectations...at a profit".

On average 25% of the Total Cost of Doing Business is tied to inefficiencies...the waste of time, energy or materials, and I've had many CEOs tell me that 25% is on the low end ...that's a bunch. Nobel Prize winner Ronald Coase , of Coase's Law , says that there is friction/costs involved with being in business. There is the original friction or cost of finding suppliers, employees and customers. There's the on-going friction or transactional costs, and then there's the greatest friction of all... the friction of failure.

Prior to entering the training field in 1982 I had a real job as the corporate credit manager for a regional company based in Denver. My duties as the credit manager included the approval of new credit customers and the management (not collection) of past due A/R. I soon found that on average 70% plus of all past due customers had not paid on time due to "something going wrong somewhere." In the process of fixing things that had gone wrong I found that I could identify areas of opportunity for improvement throughout the entire supply chain thus driving down everyone’s cost of doing business.

The New Guy Learns From the Old Guy Who Learned From The Dead Guy:

It may not be so in some companies, but all too often employees and business managers still operate from a "They don't pay me enough to think." mindset...like automatons they repeat how they do things over and over again until it becomes engrained. And all too often CEOs and top management are complicit if not directly responsible. If you are a business manager pull out your job description, if you're a CEO pull out your managers' job descriptions and check to see if it/they say anything about "Constant Improvement". A business manager not focused on improvement becomes an administrator at best and a bureaucrat at worst.

Before improvement/change for the better can take place two thing must happen; first there must be an acceptance or acknowledgment that a business doesn't have to be sick in order to improve, there is always room for improvement. Then there must be a commitment made as to who will do what when...and the efforts must be tracked and measured.

Change always generates resistance; expect it in others and in yourself. Tell the affected employees of the changes to be made and then ask why the changes won't work...take notes for this will become a "to do" list. Keep changes small so that people can succeed, but once they mastered a change introduce the next small change...no stress no change. And of course pay people for doing what you want done...like thinking and coming up with improvements.

An old axiom says that "People respect (do) what is inspected (measured) not what is expected". Can you imagine the chaos that would result if traffic cops were pulled off the roads? In much the same way business managers need to be told that a primary function of their job is to think, to always be looking for ways to save a step, a minute or a penny...and then they must be measured.

Continued in Part 2 of the article More Profits From On-going Small Improvements.

Abe WalkingBear Sanchez is an International Speaker / Trainer / Consultant on the subject of cash flow / sales enhancement and business knowledge organization and use. Founder and President of www.armg-usa.com, WalkingBear has authored hundreds of business articles, has worked with numerous companies in a wide range of industries since 1982 and has spoken at many venues including the Shakespeare Globe Theater in London.

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AllBusiness.com: I remember as a young college kid (yeah, I'm old enough to say that now), I worked in a ski and patio furniture store (it was the Midwest so skiing in the winter, patio furniture in the summer). What I learned quickly in selling the goods was that most people had no working knowledge of skiing or patio furniture and it came down to a price game with our competitors.

So I educated them first and foremost about patio furniture. I explained why an aluminum frame was better, how powder coating lasted longer than any other finish, and why the manufacturer felt comfortable offering a five year warranty.

So customers weren't given the hard sell, but an education. And that invariably turned into customers checking out the competition and then almost always coming back to us to buy (even if another store was selling the same thing). Here are a few ways you can better educate your customers.

Touch each customer while they're in your store - spend a little time explaining why a certain product or brand is unique or better than everything else that's out there (or teach about the entire category (biking, skiing, patio furniture, etc.)).

Host a special event - It doesn't have to be sales-oriented. Create educational events and the sales will follow.

Use your database and email - I'm a big proponent of emails that aren't about selling something, but about educating someone. What's relevant to your customer base? Speak to that and include the selling part as a mention at the end. For instance, you may want to educate your customers about sunscreen and the importance of wearing it. And then at the end just add, "here are three products we recommend."

Educate Your Customers to Increase Sales [AllBusiness.com]

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Each month, on the first Friday of the month I meet with my mastermind group. It’s a small group and we’ve been together for about 5 years. We begin each month writing down our list of promises - what we intend to take action on in the next 30 days.

Well, I just couldn’t get my arms around what I wanted to focus on this month. It’s not that I can’t think of things to do, I’ve got plenty. Nothing felt particularly inspiring - no passion, no real juice!

Then I realized that my focus has been divided by things I’ve been meaning to follow up on. My email inbox is filled with more red flag on emails that need follow up and each time I read my emails I am reminded that I still haven’t gotten to them. The flags keep multiplying and they have really piled up.

Not only that, I have tons of reports, ebooks, music audios I’ve received from free promos as well as things I’ve bought that I haven’t even looked at or listened to. I have no idea of their real value because I haven’t made the time to go through them. And I am constantly receiving invitations for more stuff!

Now, I’m pretty good at decluttering and I can see I’ve let things pile up that are affecting my ability to focus on what I really want to do for marketing and growing my business. So, I am dedicating the month of July to clean up my computer files NO EXCUSES.

If you’re feeling a lack of focus, ask yourself if you need to do some computer decluttering.

This includes:

1. Emails that require a response. I recommend staying on top of your emails by responding within 48 hours max.

2. Creating email folders with common themes and sorting through your files to organize them into new folders (great for both your email and computer files). Remember to declutter the folders regularly too. Moving them out of your inbox can invite clutter accumulating in your folders.

3. Weeding through your emails and deleting the ones you no longer need.

4. Backing up important folders and files regularly. I do this each time I add something new. Organize them into themes (Marketing, business development, client resources) so you can find them!

5. Reviewing your cache of reports, pdfs, and audios you have been meaning to read and listen to. Schedule time each day or each week in your calendar to sift through the materials.

6. Dumping whatever materials you know you won’t use for yourself or clients.

7. Staying alert to adding more stuff that you really don’t want or need. I know the tendency is to grab material especially when it’s free. Ask yourself, “Is this really info I need and will make use of?” If not, let it go. I guarantee you that opportunities will keep comin around for you to find material you need if you start having buyer’s (or keeper’s) regret.

I recommend decluttering your computer at least once per month to stay productive and focused.

Well, gotta go. Have some decluttering to do. Leave me a comment. Tell me what you think of this post!

Dr. Lorraine Cohen, President of Powerfull Living, brings more than 25 years experience in personal and business coaching, psychological counseling, and sales to thousands of spiritually minded business owners, entrepreneurs, and leaders from a wide range of industries. Learn more about Lorraine’s services, success products and programs.

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I’ve analysed what is happening and begun to point the way for those who want to pre-empt the changes rather than wait until they are overtaken by them. Now is the time to decide which category you come into.

Those willing to plan will be rewarded; those not willing to do so will have to take potluck. There are six essentials for your new work life:

Be a specialist in one area but make sure you are more widely qualified and trained than just for your specialisation.

Understand yourself as thoroughly as you can.

Doing this is not a ‘one-off’ operation. We all change as we learn more and grow. Now is the moment to find out what you really want to do. Those who are ambitious to make money have a chance to get themselves equipped to take advantage of the new workplace. Those who want to help socially can prepare themselves for the new needy. They will be quite different from those we think of as ‘poor’ today and their requirements will be much more challenging. Those who seek to advance science or enjoy an academic life will have to be closer to the application of their studies and teaching.

Write a career plan.

It doesn’t have to be a major document, bound in silk. One page should be enough to tell you where you are heading and how you are going to get there. But it has to be a well-thought-out page. You should take stock of your career at least once a year, however well you are doing. You wouldn’t leave your money unattended for any longer. Why leave your career to find it’s own way.

Based on your career plan, equip yourself with the qualifications you need. You don’t have to leave work to do this. There are many courses you can take outside work hours. Select the ones that will benefit you in the portfolio of jobs you will most likely be doing to which I referred previously.

Train and re-train so that you keep your skills up to date.

Just as a building needs retrofitting quite frequently, so your skills need honing and polishing, especially when they are concerned with the new technologies. Sales personnel who don’t know their products are going to the wall. Surgeons who don’t keep up with the new developments are going to the courts.

If you are not already equipped to handle the main new technologies, remedy this failing without delay. You are going to need all the resources you can muster. I already notice people who can’t or won’t understand the new communication technologies falling well behind their rivals – and that applies at the top of the organisation as well as at the bottom.

Prepare the family to be part of the work team.

Yes, even the young children should understand that the breadwinners are working for them and they must help in their own ways. You couldn’t prepare them better for their working lives.

Establish and cultivate your network.

Networking is already important – we all know that. In The New Work World it is going to be even more so. This aspect of your preparation for dealing with The New Work Revolution is so important that I am going to devote the next article exclusively to it.

John Bittleston blogs at TerrificMentors.com, a site that provides mentoring for those who wish a change in career or job, wanting to start a business or looking to improve their handling of people (including themselves).

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Small Business Buzz: The number one rule for advertising quality in your product or service is to not use the word “quality.” Because this word is overused by the general business public, consumers ignore it. In fact, using the word “quality” can often invoke suspicion, much like when a business uses the phrase “you can trust me.”

Here are some tips for effectively conveying quality to potential customers:

Alternative Descriptions

The word “quality” in general is a limiting term, despite the negative connotations that it’s overuse has produced. It’s hard to do (I just caught myself using the term in my own advertising for my photography services), but instead you should go with alternatives like these:

premium, unparalleled, superior, impeccable, exceptional, unmatched, excellence, distinguished

Also, keep in mind that, the more expensive your product/service, the more sophisticated your “quality” word should be.

Speaking of Price. . .

Accept the fact that, if your product or service is truly of the best quality, then it won’t be the cheapest on the market. It takes money to provide a worthwhile product, which means that you will have to charge your customers a bit more. But, if you do things right, your customers will understand that they are getting what they pay for. So be careful. Saying that your product is “inexpensive” or cheap implies poor quality to the consumer. You cannot use the two concepts together. Instead, try words like “affordable” or “reasonable.”

Advertising Quality in Your Product [Small Business Buzz]

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During the summer months, every large city in America is filled with hundreds of festivals. If you are an entrepreneur looking to get into a retail business, these festivals can be an inexpensive way to test out your products to see if it will really attract a large enough customer base to warrant a year around business. But remember when you are writing your business plan; you have avoided a lot of the costs of a permanent location by having a festival business.

You pay a small fee to the festival and have not encountered rent and utilities, which are some of the high expenses for a fixed location. You have also not had to do much in the way of advertising. The festival had done advertising and has a client base that will show up. You only need to have an attractive booth to entice the customers over to your location. Make sure your signage looks professional and is viewable from major traffic centers for the festival.

But many people get into festival sales as their business instead of a trial for their business. With a number of calls you will find a listing of the festivals in a newspaper calendar or an on-line calendar of the festivals for the year. You will see that you can find festivals going 30 weeks in some of the northern climates up to every week of the year in some of the moderate climates. You can work as much or as little as you want or whatever season you want to work by starting a festival business.

There is a lot of work in these businesses that everyone should consider. With a store, you just open the door each morning. But with a festival business, you will have to unload and set up your merchandise every morning and put it away every night. Make sure all of your display methods are bought with this in mind. Items on wheel that you can move along a rough terrain are great. Make sure you have an adequate vehicle to carry all of you set up and merchandise and that you have an easy way of loading and unloading it.

Unsure if you want to get into this business? Go to a festival in your area. During some of the slack time, ask some of the booth owners a lot of questions about their business. Also you may fine one that is willing to hire your for a nominal fee or as a volunteer to help them with the next weekend’s festival. Work a few festivals unloading and setting up each morning with the owner to make sure your really want to do that many weekends during the year.

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This new weekly column, 101 New Business Ideas for Retirees, is compiled specially for GetEntrepreneurial.com readers by Stan Spector. View all articles in this column by Stan Spector.

Stan Spector is the author of “Baby Boomers’ Official Guide to Retirement Income - Over 100 Part-time or Seasonal Businesses for the New Retiree”. The book's website can be found at StanSpector.com.

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Quite often, when I talk to potential founders, I hear them say: "I have an idea. I guess, now I need a business plan." Yes, right.

But before jumping straight into such an exercise (which most people by far underestimate in terms of time and effort required), there are a couple of completely non-business questions to be answered. Whenever you have trouble answer them, make sure to get them resolved before continuing, as they have a huge impact on any business plan:

Why do I want to do this at all?

A lot of aspiring founders are stumbling on that one already. To make a living? To get rich? To improve the world? To become famous? Just out of curiosity to see whether it would work? To earn some money on the side?

This question alone has some implications for your business plan: the aggressiveness of the plan, or the underlying business model (it's not that difficult to make a living out of a one-person consulting business, but probably it will not make you extremely rich).

What price I am willing to pay?

Everything in life comes attached with a price tag, although not necessarily a monetary one. The price one has to pay while founding a business can be high. Reduced spare time, long working hours even on weekends, reduced time available for friends and family, financial uncertainty. The higher the price you are willing to pay, the better your chances are for succeeding.

What do my family and friends think about it?

This question has two aspects:

- What do they think about the business idea?

This gives you a first feedback from the market, at least on a high level (at least if you plan to have some kind of consumer business in mind). If all your friends and family tell you "Founding a travel agency selling trips to Mars is stupid" - you should at least evaluate their feedback. If they just don't understand your business because it is some highly advanced biotech concept, you should seek feedback from people more familiar with the particular area you plan to start your business.

- What do they think about the fact that I want to start a business?

This is an important fact as you will need at least their understanding or - even better- their support in the upcoming months or years. It can be quite annoying when you hear every time you meet friends things like "Did I tell you already the story of the guy who went bankrupt when trying to start a business?"

Honest feedback is important, but it is much better to receive it with a "You can do it" rather with a "You are doomed" attitude.

How much risk can I bear?

This highly depends on your current circumstances and your financial resources. If you are single, just out of university and little monthly running cost, you probably can take a higher risk than somebody who has to earn money to support a family of five. But if the later has already made a fortune, the situation might be just the other way around...

Can I do it alone or not?

In general, I highly recommend to not start a business alone (unless you plan just a one-person consulting business). But whenever your idea gets more complex and goes beyond freelancing, sharing the burden with enhances the chances for a successfully start. If - you partner with the right person:

Do I partner with the right people?

I always say that starting a business with one (or more) partners is like marriage without a separation of property: You stick together for a major part of your time, a "divorce" is not easy and is usually painful. So, make sure you team with the right people.

Some criterias are:

- Although tempting at the beginning, partnering with friends is not always the best idea. Friendship can make you blind for some important aspects to consider.

- Diversity of skills: Does your team has all the necessary skills you require? Business, marketing, technical skill, whatever is required. Chances are that your friends have similar skills if you know them from studying or former work.

- Same level of risk tolerance and same motivation: Make sure the people you partner with share both your willingness and ability to share risk( e.g. live of from savings for some time) and the same motivation. If one of you wants to build the next Google, while the other juts wants to do something next to his regular job, a major clash is just a question of time.

What are my No-Go criteria?

My last (and probably most important) advice is to clearly define No-Go criteria even before you start, and make sure that everybody on the team subscribes to them. This could be a deadline for a agreed business plan, for getting funding, for a technical proof of concept. Not every idea is as bright as it seems at the beginning. More often than not, founders find out during business planning that their concept does not support a company, has too little room for growth or faces high technical risks. Have the courage to pull the plug early on. When you willing to do that, based on clear criteria, you can be sure you continue building your business on a good foundation.

Klaus Wiedemann is Founder and Managing Director of Daisho Blacksmith GmbH, a product and consulting company dedicated to support todays professional with software and methodology to sharpen their competitive edge. He blogs regularly at Not For Slaves, focusing on the working environment of the 21st century and its implications and opportunities for the individual.

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YoungEntrepreneur: She never wanted to run her own business; she just wanted to be the best mom she knew how to be. But today, what began as a single children’s educational video that she filmed in her basement with a friend’s camera and her cat as a prop, has morphed into a billion dollar company that continues to be an industry leader.

According to Aigner-Clark:

“About a year into my daughter’s life, I started thinking about the whole idea of making a video for babies. Something stimulating and positive. I wondered, ‘Why isn’t there a way to expose her to the arts and sciences?’ I found the marketplace completely lacked what I was looking for.

I started this company because my children are at the age when you start to worry that they know about stranger safety, especially when they are on the Internet. I wanted a video that would be fun for them to watch as well as teach them. I am passionate about this and I am optimistic in its success.

I knew my baby. I knew what she liked to look at. I assumed that what my baby liked to look at, most other babies would, too.

The first Baby Einstein video took off because it was a completely new concept. It was an entirely new idea. No one else had videos for babies.

There was nothing on the market that I felt was any good, so I decided to make something myself.”

To be successful as an entrepreneur you need to sell a unique product or service. If you are selling the same product as everyone else you are unlikely to break through and create a successful company.

Is your product or service really something that is unique and valuable?

Find Something Nobody Else Is Selling [YoungEntrepreneur]

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Entrepreneur: "Why can't we all just get along?"

Rodney King's 1991 plea has become part of our nation's vernacular. While the dialogue on diversity has led to passionate conversations about what it means to be civil, we still struggle with the essence of the question: Why can't we all just get along?

At the core of "getting along" are rules, obligations and norms that, when shared, provide the foundation for strong, stable relationships and flourishing communities. Through such conventions of civility, we learn about what polite behavior and manners mean to the community. Some might say these rules provide a sense of order; others would suggest that civility fosters feelings of well-being and positive relationships.

So, what can we do to foster workplaces that are more civil and respectful? First, we can have conversations about what being civil means for different people. This would provide some sense of shared norms, with the ultimate goal of creating respectful, valued relationships, strengthening communication, and fostering interpersonal and team collaboration. Some simple actions that we can all take include:

- noticing your point of view, particularly when you're holding tight to it, and making a point to seek out and truly listen to perspectives different than yours;

- being curious about and interested in others;

- choosing to speak with someone face-to-face if you think there may be room for miscommunication via e-mail or over the phone; and

- speaking up when others are excluded.

Being civil means being constantly aware of others and weaving restraint, respect and consideration into this awareness. Civility is attending to the community at large in our everyday interactions. The goal is moving beyond politeness, tiptoeing around conversations so as not to offend, or saying what you think you're supposed to say, to more authentic sharing.

The Unwritten Rules of Civility [Entrepreneur]

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Entrepreneur: They say that wisdom comes from experience and experience comes from making mistakes. How true. This article intends to help you gain wisdom from the experience of others rather than having to pay the cost of learning from your own mistakes. These mistakes can represent real dollars--and avoiding them can make a big difference in the total investment you need for your new business and ultimately how profitable the business becomes.

Franchise companies will almost certainly have manuals, training programs and other support documents and services designed to help you avoid making costly mistakes. The challenge is that most new franchisees are trying to learn and execute many new things at once and sometimes make what they feel are logical decisions without remembering or consulting all the advice provided by the franchisor.

It's always a great idea, during your due diligence conversations with existing franchisees in the system, to ask them if they made any expensive mistakes when they were first building or operating their new business. A good form for this question is, "Knowing what you know now, what would you do differently if you got to start all over again in building your business?"

Expensive Mistakes to Avoid as a New Franchisee [Entrepreneur]

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“Caller tune Advertisement” is all about publishing advertisements as caller tunes on user’s mobile phones, so that the callers will listen to the advertisement until the user picks up the phone. In a nutshell, this idea is all about the mobile users trading their ringtone airtime for monetary benefits, which can be used to publish advertisement.

This concept is all about publishing advertisement as a replacement for caller tunes or in-conjunction with caller tunes in user’s mobile phones. In return, users will get monetary benefits like free recharge coupons, discounts in bills, partial reimbursement of bills, free talk minutes, free value adds like free SMS, etc. These kinds of freebies will attract users to allow users to give up their ring tone airtime to place advertisement. Gaining publisher base will be a challenge. A good publisher base means a huge market potential. The success of this advertisement medium will be determined by the publisher base.

This new business idea is patent-pending and its owner, TarryOnline is looking for interested investors.

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Is this a familiar scenario? You’re this close to landing the biggest deal you ever encountered. The solution you are pitching is nearly one hundred thousand dollars and will keep you busy the better part of the long Winter months ahead and possibly into the Spring. You planned about 4 months worth of consulting and are eager to begin. Now, at the final meeting with your client, you are about to get the sweet answer you’ve been working hard to get for months. There’s not much else that compares to the excitement of getting a signature on a huge deal you’ve been working on for what seems like forever. But here you are, actually watching the client sign your order.

You’re set. You go out and celebrate that night with your spouse and talk about how much you deserved this and what it meant to your income and, of course, your business. The long hours. The pressure. The sacrifices. But now that’s all over and you got what you deserved. A huge contract that will yield a lot of consulting dollars for your relatively small operation.

The next day you order the products or materials from your vendor. It arrives in a couple days and having already set up the first meeting with your client, you set out with everything you need to begin work. The first few weeks would include discussions and interviews for the discovery analysis. Then the planning phase. And finally the customizations, implementation, training, and roll out. The plan is perfect and you are the right man, or woman, for the job.

Reality Hits

Did you ever wake up out of a dream and have no idea where you are or how you got there? Well, that’s how you feel months later when you realize that your project is coming to a close. It is a great success. Your client loves you. The users are getting on board with the project and are very enthusiastic. The program works like a charm. Everything is coming together. Except for one thing -- Your Business! You suddenly realize as you finalize this long-term project that your business is totally stagnating, and you have no idea how you got to that point.

As if you were a prisoner being paroled after a 20 year sentence and seeing how society has totally changed in your absence, you emerge to find that you have absolutely no opportunities lined up to pursue. Worse than that, your vendors thought you went out of business. You lost all your status as a premier reseller or buyer, which means you lost all the privileges from your vendor’s reseller program; such as leads, special promotions, co-op dollars, attention from their local field representatives, and most important, a higher discount rate that is based on volume sales. You also shot yourself in the foot by not generating any leads yourself through marketing activities you could have been doing over the past several months. So your pipeline is dry, no one in the area knows of your business any more, and you are back to ground zero.

Has this ever happened to you? If it hasn’t it could. In this example, months ago you thought you were such a huge success, pulling in a large deal involving huge revenue for your business. How were you to know that at the same time you were destroying the very business you were trying to build?

What To Do?

If this, or something less dramatic yet similar, has ever happened to you, then you could be experiencing the Saw-Tooth Effect. What’s the Saw-Tooth Effect? It’s all very simple to understand. But not many businesses realize it until it is too late. Here’s how it works. Draw a horizontal line. Above the line are marketing and sales related activities. Below the line are technical and implementation related activities. In the beginning of your sales cycle you spend all your time above the line marketing your business, generating leads, and closing a sale. Then you “disappear” for a finite amount of time below the line implementing the solution you just sold. When that job is completed, you go back to the above-the-line activities and start all over again. This up-and-down process repeats itself until something breaks – usually your business.

While below the line, you do nothing above the line. And, when above the line, you do nothing below the line. Pretty simple and quite binary – you do one or the other. But the problem is, when you’re below the line, no one is above the line generating business and finding your next opportunity for when you rise above the line again, or re-emerge from your project implementation.

Recommendation

This scenario is a classic example of what happens to smaller businesses who haven’t staffed up properly. To resolve this self-defeating situation you, as the business owner, may need to do a lot of soul searching to decide what it is you are really good at versus what you really like to do. You may realize that you really enjoy selling solutions and would benefit most by concentrating all your energies on the sales and marketing activities (above the line) that your company will need to do to succeed.

Let’s say that is the case and you decide to focus on sales and marketing. You’ll then need to hire staff to do all the technical work. Now, you shouldn’t go overboard and hire more people than you could initially put to work. Let’s say you remember how important it was to do the up-front planning and discovery analysis, not to mention the on-going project management. So you first hire a project manager who is experienced with doing the planning phase. Next, you hire a technician who would concentrate on implementations. Your project manager, or even you, would do the training initially until you have enough business to sustain a full-time trainer. But first things first.

Your plan will be to spend your time marketing, selling, and running your business, all above-the-line activities, while your technical people spend all their time below the line. While they are doing the implementations, you’ll be generating new business for them to implement. You will build and feed your “Pipeline”.

You have to go out and catch the lion. Then you bring it back and throw it into the tent where someone else skins the lion while you go back out and catch the next one. The question is – Do you want to “catch” the lion or “skin” the lion?” This will, and should, have a dramatic effect on your business; specifically its growth and success. In time, as your business continues to grow you can start hiring sales people, which will allow you to focus more on running your business, or even taking some well-deserved time off.

Summary

You have undoubtedly looked at a saw and noticed how the teeth go up and down and up and down and so forth. But, have you ever noticed a similarity in how your business might be following the same pattern? Sales go up for a while, then down, then up again and down again, repeatedly. If you haven’t noticed, you might want to take a closer look.

One telltale sign that you suffer from the Saw Tooth Effect is your purchasing patterns. Do you purchase a lot of products or material every other quarter, for instance? Or, is there some sort of pattern that has you purchasing something now, then nothing for a while, then something again, then nothing for a while, and so on? These are signs that you might be going through a specific mode of operation of buying product, implementing it, then buying more, and implementing it, over and over again, instead of having a consistent and perpetual flow of selling and implementing on a continual, parallel, and steady basis. You cannot do both selling and implementing. You never see a NASCAR driver get out and change his own tires, do you? If he did, he’d lose the race every time. You need a team of specialists who focus on their own aspect of the business.

The Saw Tooth Effect is not a healthy business model for your company since it doesn’t allow you to sustain a consistent revenue flow. The scenario discussed earlier was perhaps an exaggeration of what is happening in your business, although I have seen this happen to various sizes of business. Even if it reflects only partial reality, it is something to be concerned about. It’s all a matter of balancing resources. Some resources should be dedicated to marketing and selling, while others should focus on installing and implementing. Using the same resources to do both can cause the Saw Tooth Effect and result in inconsistent revenue and growth for your business, which can lead to a variety of negative effects including poor customer retention and harmful relationships with your vendors, not to mention your accountant.

As you plan your business’ future, be sure to take into account the Saw Tooth Effect and how you can avoid it. It will truly liberate you from the prison of inconsistent business growth.

Good luck and good selling!

Russ Lombardo is President of PEAK Sales Consulting, LLC and an experienced CRM and Sales consultant, trainer, writer, speaker and radio show host. Russ works with businesses to help improve their customer acquisition and retention for increased revenue and success. Russ is author of the books, "CyberSelling", "CRM For The Common Man" and "Smart Marketing". He can be reached at 702-655-5652 and emailed at russ@peaksalesconsulting.com.