Category Archives: An Entrepreneurs Guide To

OCT
03

Handling Requests for Favors & Freebies in Social Situations

From Doctors to Architects, from Artists to Car Mechanics, everyone who provides services for a living has friends that ask for expensive favors and members of professional and personal networks that make saying “No” awkward.

If you find that business discussions in social situations routinely end up with you giving your services away free, the following advice will be useful.

You’ll find our suggestions particularly handy if you are just starting your business and many of your customers will necessarily come from...

SEP
26

Entrepreneurs Guide to Brand Advertising

Long before people actually take out their wallets to buy something, they begin making their purchase decision. Through exposure to social media and mass media they become familiar with products and services that are consistent with their identity and lifestyle.

For example, someone interested in purchasing a motorcycle will become aware of brands like Kawasaki, Harley-Davidson, Suzuki and Yamaha. They will, over time, begin to choose the brand that is most consistent with their requirements. When it is time to buy...

SEP
14

An Entrepreneur’s Guide to The Fastest Way to Build a Good Business

Want to have a successful business? Want it to be relatively quick and easy to build? Here’s what you do.

First, look around and identify the largest group of people you can reach easily. If you are a member of the chandler’s union and you know how to reach several thousand candle makers free, they’d be a good group to start with.

Second, study those people and figure out what one thing they want most. For example, your candle makers may need...

SEP
12

Sales & Marketing: A Primer for Artists

Every great artist who has ever lived has redefined the media in which they work. Ralph Waldo Emerson said “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” Picasso said, “Anything new, anything worth doing, can’t be recognized.”

For artists who need to find a way to eat as well as do their best work, and for those who want to support artists by helping them sell what they create, this...

SEP
07

An Entrepreneurs Guide to Value: Intellectual Property, Physical Property & Services

If you look around the world it may seem as if there are many different kinds of businesses making money in millions of different ways. But the truth is that the vast majority of businesses can be grouped, meaningfully, into three broad categories.

Enterprises Based on Intellectual Property Licensing & Sales: Publishers, film producers, engineers with patents, programmers, and anyone who creates information that is trademarked, copyrighted, patented then distributed to others in return for payment somewhere along the line.

Enterprises Based...

AUG
17

An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Deciding What to Name Your Business

To do really well, a business needs lots of things. A smart owner, a good market, a great product…But one thing it really needs is a great name. Name your enterprise badly and you’ll be running up hill for the rest of its existence.

Hard to believe that a company name matters, isn’t it? Especially when some big ones have some really lame names. What’s an Exxon? Why is O2 called that? What on earth does Lady Godiva have to do...

JUL
29

Selling Products & Services through Google Adwords

As many of you know, Google Adwords is probably the single most effective, trackable and targetable method on earth for putting your products and services in front of thousands of people in a matter of hours. You can set up a Google Adwords account in 5 minutes, create a campaign in under 30, and have your ads seen by tens of thousands the same day in most cases. The only delay you may encounter in using Google Adwords to reach...

JUL
25

Entrepreneur’s Guide: When to Let a Business Go

Doug Richard is famous for saying that “not all businesses are created equal”. While many entrepeneurs can find a way to make some kind of revenue with their enterprise, that revenue may not be sufficient to justify the cost of running it. When that’s the case, it may well make sense to let the business go so they can invest time and effort more wisely elsewhere.

If you are wondering if it’s time to let your business go, the following questions...

JUL
08

Hi-Tech Startup Mentor Jonathan Earle

Jonathan Earle, a senior marketing executive for O2, is becoming an active mentor for high-tech startups in the UK. In this interview he discusses his interest in startups and small businesses.

Question: Why do you choose to support high-tech startups?

I have an extensive background in marketing leading in all aspects of the marketing mix from P&L leadership, to customer management and managing through the line advertising budgets to deliver best in class campaigns – I also lead sizeable teams of 50+...

JUN
20

An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Being Easy to Give Business To

One of the most important things an entrepreneur can do to ensure significant success in their enterprise is simply to be easy to refer business to. Given that most entrepreneurs, theoretically, are in business to make money and need customers in order to achieve that goal, you would think accepting leads would be a relatively easy to master “business development” technique.

This just isn’t so.

The following tips will dramatically increase the number of referrals you get from business and personal contacts...