Be A Better Entrepreneur: The Savvy Entrepreneur Series, Part II

If you have an inkling of an idea, you might be considering becoming an entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurs have an interesting life, without a doubt. If you want to be an entrepreneur, you'll learn many skills you might not posses from the corporate world, for sure. And, thankfully, there are wise owls willing to share their experience with us. For my part, I'll share what I've learned with you, and point out several aspects of entrepreneurialism I discovered the old-fashioned way: from the school of hard knocks!

Keys To Becoming A Better Entrepreneur

1. Your "Big Idea" is just that. Somewhere between 5 and 500 other people in the world may have had the exact same light bulb moment you did. The only difference is who will ACT on their big idea.

2. Your "Big Idea" is just a beginning. Where do you go from here? How do you create a plan? What ways might you implement your strategy? Who will you hire? Where will you base your headquarters? Who should you hire to help? There are so many questions facing entrepreneurs - start to make a list of ways you think you might need help. Then seek out resources to help you in your journey.

3. Most companies do not fail because their idea stinks. Most companies fail because their execution stinks. What am I talking about? Well, for starters, how well are you managing your money? This is the #1 place businesses fail.

(# Months) Life of business = $ in bank - burn rate per month + new money in.

This is the bottom line. Yep, cash IS king! If you're able to get your ego out of the way, you might look at this first:

a. How much money are you bringing in versus how much money are you spending?

When you can answer that question and the money in is greater than the money out, you're getting somewhere!

What's the next biggest area of execution where people fail? They go it alone. It isn't easy to be an entrepreneur. It's even harder to do it by yourself. This is why my firm, ARRiiVE Business Solutions, has two "i" letters (and why they're emphasized) -- because you no longer have to feel you're launching your product by yourself. I help you and we're now a team! i and i is the Rastafarian way of saying "we" so why not "i" and "i" doing it together?! Anyway, decide what kind of help you want on your team: marketing, legal, financial, operational, managerial, sales, support, HR, etc., and go get it. Most companies need help with either marketing or operations. The positions I've hired or outsourced have been marketing 60%, operations 25% and legal and financial the remainder. Make sure, at the least, that you have a good attorney and a good accountant. Their advice is always handy.

b. Get good help. Most entrepreneurs have a difficult time getting past their ego. If you can't get beyond your own "I think I know the answer" problem most entrepreneurs suffer from, you won't ever lift a finger or write a check to get help from people who can and will help you. I'd start with your operations. Make sure you have a solid product or service to offer FIRST, then you'll have a solid way to make money.

c. While you're getting help, make sure your marketing is in order. Most entrepreneurs skimp on part of their marketing. Perhaps they think that saving money in this area is wise, but it is the wrong place to save (I'll say more on that in a bit) but no -- make sure you spend money where you need to in order to have solid marketing.

Critical Marketing Success Tactics

1. Get A Logo. Your logo represents what you do. When I designed my first logo, I hired a graphic designer to help. (See www.AspireNow.com). My second logo, third, fourth, and fifth, I hired out help, too. Now I design logos for others whenever I want the side work, see www.ARRiiVE.com for an example of a logo I designed.

2. Professional Business Card. Hire a professional designer and use proper card stock. You'd be surprised how much more seriously people take you when you make this one simple change. If you're using the Avery ink jet printer cards, stop right now, call me. I can help you. The layout on your card is as important as the stock. I've also seen people skimp thinking they know graphic design (artists, especially) and then after I get through with their card, they always thank me for improving their card design.

3. Professional Website. Get your website right. Don't start big (like I did) start small. Keep it simple. Then focus on getting the word out and building traffic. The good news is that today you can start a website far less expensively and with much more power than when I started AspireNow.com. The bad news is that there are MILLIONS of sites you're now competing with. You'll likely need to hire an expert who knows how to get Top 10 position on Google and can teach you tricks how to drive traffic to your site (hint, hint). I have designed many websites. At ARRiiVE Business Solutions, I still offer web design as a service even though I now outsource 98% of this work. This is a good thing, because you gain extra eyeballs on the site design challenge and also gain another expert's opinion in the process, along with someone who's been there and done that and also understands layout AND sales copy. I find this useful to my clients and they're happy with the end-result.

4. Off-line Promotions. Are you going to trade shows? Are you going door-to-door? Are you speaking publicly about your services or related topics? (Speaking drives a considerable stream of revenue to my business). Have you created a nice 3-part brochure that showcases your product(s) and service(s) properly? Again, hire it out, do it right. But once you have the material to hand someone, you have to take ACTION and get out there. Go to networking events. Leave them with something but always ASK FOR SOMETHING in return. How can they help? Who do they know? Can THEY use your service?

5. Hone your Sales Skills. Entrepreneurs must learn to sell or they will fail - period. You must be a good salesperson. Right now, I offer a lot of sales advice at the ARRiiVE: Innovations In Business blog. You can browse around there, although sign-up for the blog on email because in the future I'll be offering video training to help you improve your sales techniques and grow success.

6. Improve Your Marketing Pitch. When you can say what you do in 20 seconds and people get excited and ask you to meet with them, you've got your pitch refined. Seriously, that's the essence of it, right there. Test it, test it, test it, practice saying it BEFORE that important contact at the mixer you attend, so you have it right on target there and capture what you need from those vital interactions.

There's so much more to being an entrepreneur... if I could leave you with one super-valuable piece of advice I learned the hard way: downsize your expenses immediately. Many entrepreneurs only give themselves 6 months worth of money to make it. We all read how it takes entrepreneurs up to 5 - 10 years to succeed, but then why would we only allow our self only six months? This is stupid. It is ego. Take out your ego and downsize immediately if you are serious about making this dream a reality. Sell your house, drive a less-expensive car, get rid of HBO, do whatever it takes, but downsize your bills. Figure out how to give yourself a 5 year money plan and then spend your money wisely.

If I had done this one step of advice I just gave you, I would have incurred zero debt during my first five years of business. Instead, I continued to live in an expensive house, drive a nice truck, and kept the cable bill on. Be smart with your money, and then figure out how to make more money quickly, and build, and improve, and learn, and improve. Notice I said "learn" not fail. I don't view failure as failure unless I failed to learn from it. So, I say learn, build, improve, learn, build, improve... it's a multi-part process. We will take a step back once in a while. But learn and then go two or three steps forward.

Take a deep breath... exciting days are ahead of you!

Coming soon:

Be Different: The Savvy Entrepreneur Series, part 3 of 10.
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Copyright © 1999-2008 by ARRiiVE Business Solutions. All Rights Reserved. SUBSCRIBE.

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Can I Make Money Blogging?

Ask people like ShoeMoney.com, who has made six figures blogging, and he'll likely say, "Yep. It's possible to make money blogging."

ShoeMoney, a site where a geeky blogger racked up a check from Google for over $100,000 (and continues to rake in the bucks), simply offers ways to make money online through blogging, marketing, and so forth.



Ask Steve Pavlina. He has a site, http://www.stevepavlina.com/, where he boasts that he made over $10K a month from his Adsense off his blog.

Ask Darren Rouse. As of the time he posted this article, he claimed that "AdSense is how I earn around 35% of my income" and knowing that he also has claimed to earn over $250K a year blogging, that means he's scoring over $85K a year from Adsense, alone.

These bloggers are all making money from the flagship blog approach, where one giant blog in a market niche draws enough traffic to warrant significant advertising opportunities.

Other people have quit their day job to be bloggers:

Labnol shares how he makes money from adsense and also some numbers from other blog-related sites.

Learn more about a guy who quit his day gig to blog full-time here: ZenHabits.com story.

You can create programs for affiliate income off of your blog, too. Here's a printout of the money CashForBloggers.com made from an affiliate program:

$1,910 just from one month of promoting a model dating site.

Sure, there's other ways to make money from blogs, whether guest posting, creating multiple niche affiliate blogs, Splogs (automated blogs), or even maintaining blogs for other people. All of these are ways to make money from blogging. In addition, the voice of the blog may lead to consulting agreements or other contractual work in the off-line world that could develop into a healthy income for you, too.

Blogs also help you create e-books and books about various subjects.

There's many benefits from blogging. But, in case you haven't seen the numbers before, I just thought it might be worth sharing a few examples of people who are making a ton of money blogging.

Is this inspiring to you? It was to me!
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Copyright © 1999-2008 by ARRiiVE Business Solutions. All Rights Reserved. SUBSCRIBE.

How To: Better Business Plans

How to write better business plans

Are you starting a new company? If you are, it won't be long before someone asks you if you've written your business plan. This is especially true when you seek funding of any type. Gone are the dot-com wild-west days when snotty-nosed Stanford students could sit in a VC's office and mumble "We don't have time for a business plan" and still receive $20 Million Dollars.

Business leaders, today, ought to have their act together. And, part of having your act together is having a good plan.

What are the keys to writing a successful business plan?

Here I'm going to describe 12 Keys to Writing Better Business Plans:

1. Know your weaknesses and address them.

2. Make an impact.

Use a video, use a demonstration, anything to show why your product or service is superior.

3. Compete.

What type of competitive environments are you submitting your offering? Are you entering contests? Are you willing to put your name on the line? Are you submitting your ideas against the pack? Bill Gates would never have succeeding with Microsoft had he never got his basic disc operating system in front of IBM. Success often starts with the early competitive moments that define us.

4. Tell a story.

You have to tell a story. If your story isn't compelling, people won't buy from you.

5. Be doggedly determined.

Are you committed to making it work no matter what obstacles get in your way?

6. Make it fundable.

Great ideas aren't the only thing that matters. Often, the most fundable project that may get you funding. Set your business up with enough punch to attract funding.

7. Refine, refine, and refine your pitch.

A better elevator pitch - have someone catch you in an unsuspecting moment and ask: "Why you?" See how you answer... then refine it. Rinse, repeat, etc.

8. Management team ought to know.

What is your management team's record related to what you are doing? There ought to be a long-tail of related history tying what you did in the past with what you're doing now.

9. Determine your market, then sell to that.

If you can determine your market early, the better for you. The more you narrow your niche to the people who truly have the money, power, and desire to buy from you, the more you will win.

10. Put some of your own money in your company.

Do you have skin in the game? An entrepreneur who hasn't invested any of their own money probably won't be as committed. At least, that's the prevailing logic used by VC (venture capitalist) investors.

11. Know your risk.

What's your risk? In addition, are you aware of the risks to your business? Many investors want to know the exact risk of investing in your business. You ought to know your risk before and test your strength against it PRIOR to going after the money, if possible.

12. Know both break-even and ROI points for investors.

What's the projected gain? If you can't show a reasonable ROI (return on investment) within a reasonable period of time, you won't get the money you need to grow your business. As my Dad likes to remind me, "Cash Is King" and if you're getting cash you must realize there WILL be an expectation that you'll make MORE cash in a short amount of time. This will increase the pressure on you to succeed. So, have your act together when you ask for money.

When you design your business plan, consider these twelve steps to success. I probably could have added: 13. Know your exit strategy, because that will come up, too. Many business leaders don't understand that if they don't have the background for their company, they either need to hire it (get better managers) or sell their idea. Otherwise, they may be facing years of struggle.

If you need help, ARRiiVE's business planning team has an incredibly strong track record of writing business plans that get funded. In fact, ALL of the business plans we've written in the past seven years have received the desired funding.

Make sure you identify your strengths and weaknesses. And, if you don't need money now, still keep in mind that you may in the future. Raising money is often a part-time job for many new entrepreneurs. Get good at it, and you'll succeed much more wildly in the early years of your business launch.
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Copyright © 1999-2008 by ARRiiVE Business Solutions. All Rights Reserved. SUBSCRIBE.

Bootstrapping 201: Problems & Solutions

Join the ARRiiVE: Innovations In Business Show, Wednesday, February 13, 2007, at 2:15 PM PST.

Show Topic: Bootstrapping 201: Problems & Solutions

Host: Scott Andrews, CEO of ARRiiVE Business Solutions

WEDNESDAY - 2:00 PM PST / 5:00 PM EST (duration ~ 1 hour)Call in and talk live:
Call Phone Number: (724) 444-7444
Enter Talkcast ID: 37798 then enter # key.
Enter 1 then #

Join via Internet CHAT (cool, because you can text in Q's!):
http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/37798 to join the talkcast at the show time.
Click here to visit/follow the show: http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/37798 (select "follow the show" box).

Scott Andrews, host of Innovations In Business, discusses the the challenges, pratfalls, opportunities, and more, related to bootstrapping your dream and launching a blog, business, organization, or other venture.

Rave Reviews: "The breadth and depth of material here is outstanding. I look forward to hearing more great interviews." -- Andrew Long, CEO of Critical Pathfinders

"Thank you for answering my question and providing such insightful information." - Jeanette M., caller on recent show.

Visit http://www.arriive.com/arriive_liive.htm to learn more about this exciting, fun, and educational show.
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Copyright © 2008 by ARRiiVE Business Solutions. All Rights Reserved. SUBSCRIBE!

ARRiiVE helps you grow traffic and money from blogs. Visit: Profitable Business Blogging.

Want To Stop Getting Treated Like A Number?

1324FU#4. Is that how your company sees you?

This article is aimed at employees, as well as employers, to help do something about employees getting treated like a number, rather than a fully-functional, smart, loving, spiritually-based human being. I'm writing this to share that I've been there and I care about changing how business is conducted in the world around me. Here's the burning question nagging at me:

Have you ever worked for a company and felt like you were just a number to them?

Examples of how companies make employees feel like a number include:

1. Your ideas are put-down, stolen, or put aside by management.
2. The company only utilizes you for one core function (sales, HR, engineering, operations, administration, etc.) when you have more expertise and many more talents to contribute. Why can't they see you for who you really are?
3. All the company ever asks you about is numbers.
4. In an annual employee review (if you ever got one), your general contributions were overlooked. Instead, "highlights" focused on how you could improve numbers.

I could go on. I've had each of these things happen to me as an employee. Frankly, it's one of the reasons why being your own boss is pretty cool. Of course, on the flip side, there's the numbers. Being your own boss is great, but you have to make money and often deal with the pressure of bootstrapping to be able to sustain being the boss. So, maybe you're not as excited as others about taking the path of the entrepreneur. And, you know what? That's okay. Entrepreneurialism isn't for everyone. If that's you, what can you do?

QUESTION: How do you make a difference in getting the company you work for now to treat you more as a valuable PERSON than a NUMBER?

ANSWER: By suggesting innovative structure and value of contributions through collaborative teams.

One need I've determined is that we need to build databases of our strengths, and then build teams based around those strengths.

Another problem I've magnified is that top-down management is going to become more and more archaic as people start to grasp the concept of SQ (Spiritual Quotient) in the workplace. When I founded AspireNow in 1999, I was a pioneer in the concept that we are spiritual beings AT WORK and not just AT CHURCH or in our spiritual discipline.

SQ Matters, as much as EQ matters, as much as IQ matters. In fact, to me, SQ means more. Why? Because when CEO's talk about how they made their greatest decisions, most of them will talk about a "gut feel" above the numbers. The numbers mattered, but the GUT mattered more. Q: What is our gut? A: Our body's physical tie to our spirit. We come into the world through our belly button.

A formula to help overturn being treated like a number is to suggest to managers implementing the following mantra in the workplace:

Success = IQ + EQ + SQ.

If our SQ (Spirit) is most important, then we ought to build organizations similar to how we, ourselves, are organized. Gut (spiritual core) in the middle, Heart near the gut, eyes and ears (field, sales, customer service, website, etc.) touching prospects, arms and legs touching customers, and so forth. In other words, we need to build organizations that are INSIDE-OUT, rather than TOP-DOWN. And, sometimes, people who are NOT the C-Level are the heart and soul of a company. Those people ought to be tapped as part of the SQ collaborative team, to make sure more opportunities and challenges are discovered and addressed most efficiently.

I am bringing a model to organizations to help them implement INSIDE-OUT Structure and help create collaborative organizations that recognize the ability to move, shift, and go to the hot-hand in order to capitalize on opportunities and the challenges facing the organization. This type of model will turn Top-Down problems over and demonstrate added value in structuring to capitalize on cross-functional skill sets.

What are your thoughts on this matter?

I believe the time is now to get the word out. If you agree, share this article with as many people as you can - especially those in Human Resources and Upper Management. Let them know they'll have MORE success by being real than by treating you like a number.

Once more people see the light, the shift will take form just as the as the snowball gains momentum down the hill until this concept hits critical mass.

Post by Scott Andrews, CEO of ARRiiVE Business Solutions and host of the ARRiiVE: Innovations In Business radio talk-show. ARRiiVE helps executives improve sales, launch products and services, and build dynamic, cross-functional collaborative teams. For more information, contact info (at)ARRiiVE (dot) com.

Bootstrapping 101: Get It Together, Then Get The Word Out

It amazes me that out of all the companies started each year, less than 1% are backed by a venture capitalist or angel investor. Yet, out of all the entrepreneurs I've talked with over the past year, when asked about their biggest problem, over 80% of them will say either "funding" or "raising money" for their enterprise.

Is it possible most of them are wrong? I think so.

Here's why: not that lack of money is not a problem, because it is. But, many entrepreneurs start out their organization before they fully realize what they're into. Hey, I did, I ought to know. They think to themselves, "well, I've got enough money in my bank account, or with stocks, and a last resort, with credit cards, to pay the bills until this thing takes off." What they don't realize is that their timeline might be off: by YEARS. And that is when they get into the money scramble game of trying to pay bills and trying to keep their company going.

How do you stay out of this dangerous lack/fear game with money?


First of all, start by taking the amount of time you think it might take you to launch your firm, and triple it. Or, take the amount of money you think you need, and triple it. Either way, you're probably closer to reality with this new budgetary figure for cash (lifeblood) than the number you first assumed would cover your start-up.

Second, get your act together. Most executives starting their venture are so blinded by what they know that they don't realize what they DON'T know. Their business plans suck. They lack marketing. Their products are a mess. They aren't selling properly. And so on. So many entrepreneurs I've talked to know they need help, but when you say, "you need help with this aspect of your marketing, or your logo, or.." they'll turn right back around and say "oh, no, we've got that covered." But, just two days earlier they had admitted, in writing no less, that they did NOT have that covered. What gives? The problem is our inate ability to bullsh*t ourselves. Seriously. The only way to cut the bull is to get real and realize that we DON'T have it all together. A ship cannot sail if it's leaking too much water. For our business ship to sail, we need the next step, finding help for where we have holes.

Third, find professional help. An example of this is with patents, trademarks, and copyrights. There's no way I am going to recommend to you that you do your own trademark from a box. Get professional help. Do it right. There's no way I'm going to tell you that you can buy Quickbooks and you'll have your own built in accountant. No, hire a professional and meet with them on a quarterly basis. Pay them for their time. It is worth it to have your financials in order. Not only that, but how many executives consider getting outside professional assistance to help write sales scripts, website copy, structure teams, build sales presentations, and develop ways to market to their clients outside the norm?

Wait - let's take a step back. Are you making any money? If not, you need to look at why not. Most people are not making money for one of the following three reasons:

1. Product/service poorly defined: you have not fully created what you do.
2. Product/service poorly articulated: sales pitch, graphics not professional.
3. Product/service poorly marketed: not enough people know about what you do.

It's almost always one of these three blunders. If your problem is money, as in making any money, then you need to examine these three critical areas of your product lines and MAKE DAMN SURE you have your act together on these, or you've got a partial company, at best. (To me, I see holes in the hull of your sailboat.) I made this mistake when I first launched AspireNow (http://www.AspireNow.com). Rather than get one product really well articulated, with tight sales copy, dynamite graphics, packaged right, priced right, and then communicated through the various channels of marketing, I missed an opportunity to make money earlier by focusing on an online service and networking. And, it cost me a lot to run my business without that income coming in.

Mistake made = lesson learned. Fill the holes, right the ship.

So, I've been there. Don't do what I did. Do it smarter. Get your act together with your products and services. Don't skimp on product design. I've been redesigning all of my products to include classier pictures of people enjoying the product or solution. We buy from emotion, justify with logic. Don't skimp on sales copy. I've been selling and marketing long enough now that I can offer sales copy expertise to people who need it. Is your sales copy written to dig into people's guts and make them thirst for what you offer them? Good copy will provoke the curious prospect to buy. How complicated is it? Many products are now sold on the web with three page websites. Do you know why? One of my websites has an average page view statistic of 1.5 pages per visitor. That means, that if I don't get an order by page two, I'm not going to get an order from that visitor. And, although they MIGHT become a repeat visitor; then again, they might not. So, I figured out that I need to sell on the FIRST page they visit. Not *hope* the visitor decides I'm so wonderful to just click on over to the products page and buy all my stuff. It just doesn't work like that.


Last, if you're not getting the word out properly, you've set yourself up to fail.

What are you doing to get the word out? I'm joining professional organizations, cross-linking, blogging (to create backlinks and position my expertise), hosting a radio show, speaking as an expert on professional panels, speaking in person at professional events, and more. Notice I didn't say that I'm flooding the market with press releases boasting about what we can do? I didn't say pay for an expensive advertising program. Hey, you're boot-strapping, right? But you've got to find creative ways to get the word out and not drain your bank account.

One sales tool worth spending money on is gifts.

One of my philosophies in sales is that *you have to gift your prospects* much like a man ought to gift a woman when they are dating. Frank Sinatra said "you gotta gift 'em." From a man who once had a drawer with 200 toothbrushes stacked in it, he would have known, right? Anyway, if you're not gifting your prospects, you're not seeding them to like you. I have one company I'm helping get in the door of a major distribution center right now. My approach: gifting. I'm gifting each of their top managers, the product tester, the buyer, and several distribution center managers with a generous amount of product. I will include a simple one page letter explaining the virtues of partnering with my client's firm. And, I'll include a packet of marketing brochures to show the glossy material to back it up. Last, I'll include a page or two of client references, with testimonials.

Do you think I'll get in?

Many companies are now approaching ARRiiVE Business Solutions to serve as an "Acting VP of Key Accounts" to enable them to get into their top prospects. Now, they have a team of 10 salespeople who can't do it. But we can. Why is that?

Because we GIFT. Not only that, but we also have a strategy and structure to the process of the approach, the pitch, product demonstration, company demonstration, financial demonstration/trial-close, relationship implementation that wins business. But it never happens if we don't get the word out, first and then gift, second.

I recommend you utilize this approach to your marketing:

Blast small freebies to your mass marketing approaches.
Seed larger groups with a trial, but inexpensive gift.
Gift larger gifts in larger ways to your top prospects.

What I mean is when you run a press release, post a new blog article, send an email newsletter out, those types of marketing methods can be blasts that have a small hit but are large blasts of targeted people. After all, a blog may be hit by thousands of people. Put up a post at Squidoo and thousands may see it. Send out a press release, thousands my see it. You could even run an adwords campain, and thousands of impressions will see it. Offer people a free report to come to your site or to call you and learn more.

But when you're targeting your initial prospect list, where you could actually name the companies or individuals you want to do business with, seed them with something larger. For example, a website may not know who this prospect is, but they know they are on a website page. They could seed with a free workbook, white paper, or small product for visiting a page that creates interaction. That's what I mean by seed larger. If you're trying to sell to The Gap, maybe the first thing you want to do is send a sample of the fabric you use, complete with intricate stitching, to their top executives and buyers. You've got the list, right? So, seed larger, with a small gift, that shows your capability. Or, perhaps, make it more fun, send them the seed, but let them know that you'll create a free patch for them with their kids name, spouse's name, friend's name, or slogan, with your material as a fun way to see how well you can respond to their demands. Different, huh? Be different. Add value. Be personable. These things help you get their attention.

Then when you have their attention, gift larger, with product they can try and possibly even sell to their client-base. Put it in their store. Make it easy for them. And, when it sells (because you've already tested that it will sell, right?) then you can ask for the price you want, because you've built a relationship that fostered trust.

If I were to do it all over again, I'd follow the advice in this article like a Bible. If only I could go back, right? Well, I can't, but you can. You have the opportunity in front of you to launch your dream, and create success. Bootstrapping doesn't have to be ultra-stressful. It can be a lot of fun. And, you can make a lot of money, if you do it right. Go after your dream, but get your act together, then get the word out the right way. Don't forget to gift 'em. And watch your sales skyrocket, too.
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Scott Andrews, CEO of ARRiiVE, heads up professional panels, offers keynote speaking, and leads professional services helping executives start a company, launch new products and services, improve sales and marketing, and empower teams through dynamic collaboration models and tools. Find out more at http://www.ARRiiVE.com.