10 Tips to Starting a Business
10 Tips to Starting a Business
If you type in start a business into Google you will find and immense amount of information on starting a business. But how do you know what to believe or know if it is accurate? Well you really don’t unless you actually apply the information and try it yourself. What 99.99% of people are saying today is that in order to start a business you have to do a business plan, raise some money or rob the piggy bank and open up your business.Well, that is just one way to do it and we think that there is a better way to do it. Wouldn’t you like to KNOW that your business is going to do well BEFORE you actually spend a lot of time and money op it? 1) Get a mentor who is supportive of your business2) Expand your extended network by 200 people
3) Prove you have a business first by researching and testing the marketplace to determine if your customers will buy from you
4) search directories like “dog toy directories” if you are in the dog toy business and talk to people in that space
5) gather and collect data on your business
6) set up a landing page and slowly drive traffic to the page (DO NOT SPEND A LOT OF MONEY) make sure your landing page is converting leads or orders or newsletter sign ups
7) Now you are building a list and you have not spent a lot of money, and you know who your prospective market is
Now you can write a business plan with some data that will support your business, make sure that the plan is a flexible and living document because it will change often
9) Incorporate your business so you can leverage the legal and tax advantages
10) Test market your product and service using several different advertising mediums
If you are looking for a more in-depth guide to start your business then you might want to consider Ultimate Business ToolBox™ which is affordably priced with a 100% money back guarantee. You can have your business started in 3 hours knowing what to do and how to do it. This program can save you tens of thousands of dollars and allow you to earn a sustainable income over a long period of time. http://affiliatename.mysucessgw.hop.clickbank.net/
Access to 2008 Candidates for Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses
Being a entrepreneur and small business and focused on the entrepreneur and small business market I wanted to reach out to the presidential candidates to see if they would be willing to comment on 2 areas:
1) entrepreneurship and small business and what they will be able to do as president to foster business success
2) we completed an interview with a Norwegian who was a Nazi Concentration Camp Survivor living here in the USA. He shared that his government is paying his medical bills and taking very good care of him as a veteran of the resistance in WWII, he too made a choice to put his life on the line. I asked the candidates to comment on what they can do as president.
The candidates is reached out to are:
Mitt Romney, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama and Rudy Giuliani. Except for Mitt Romney and John McCain (John Edwards has a standard non working voice mail) all the others do not list phone numbers. Giuliani does one better and does not even have an e-mail submit area.
What this means to me is that we are probably going to settle in for a lot more transmitting and less receiving of what is required for president. However with that said all candidates will be able to express themselves here on MySuccessGateway.com if they choose to do so.
Arne Brun Lie | WWII Norwegian Nazi Concentration Camps Survivor Podcast Interview March 26, 2007
It is not every day you can have a chat with a Nazi Concentration Camp Survivor and sailor. This is a very special podcast and exclusive to MySuccessGateway.com. It is special because Bels shared with me that he is doing this to keep the spirit of his fallen comrades alive, he feels it is his duty he told me after the podcast. I interviewed Arne Brun Lie March 26, 2007 who is Norwegian and living in Ipswich, Massachusetts. I had the opportunity to meet Arne in the summer of 2006 at his home in Ipswich. He is living in a beautiful home on top of a tree filled hill overlooking the land of Massachusetts Bay.
http://www.mysuccessgateway.com/guru/podcasts.php?id=44#
Arne is in his 80’s and has suffered a stroke about 2 years ago however he has not let that slow him down. He is still a yachtsman and owns his own yacht which he sails to Maine every summer. He is able to steer his yacht however he has crew who assist in the deliveries. Sailing is not only a passion for Arne but a life blood, literally. It was the visualization of sailing that allowed him to endure the time he spent in the Nazi Concentration Camps during WWII. He shared other coping skills including belief, attitude, persistence, letting go and living life to its fullest.I must admit that I know as much about history that you can fit into a thimble. One area I forgot to ask Bels was the “Norwegian Heavy Water Sabotage Project,” and if you don’t know what that is check the Wiki here and find more information about how the Nazi’s tried to acquire nuclear weapons from the Norwegian power plant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway_heavy_water_sabotage This is an exclusive My Success Gateway, LLC 31 minute long interview unedited. I had a little trouble hearing Bels and repeated back several of his comments just so I could be sure that I was listening. Bels has a book out and a video documentary which we are providing links to here at MySuccessGateway.com.Bels is sitting in his wheel chair and he is very happy at home in Ipswich, Massachusetts. It was in April of 1940 in Oslo, Norway when the Germans invaded and the Norwegians fought a hopeless campaign. 3 Months later Norway surrendered to the Nazi’s. Having only 3.5 million Norwegians who declared war on the 18 million Germans it would be difficult to win. The Norwegians managed to save the gold from the Nazis and transport to England. He joined the Norwegian special forces on 1943, like a James Bond thing. He met his comrades behind a church for the beginning of the underground. He started his weapons training that every guerilla saboteur must know. In May 1944 he has instructions to destroy certain archives from London. He was arrested in Norway and was detained for about 4 weeks in Norway before transfer to France.He was tortured by the Gestapo in Norway with 2” ropes and they beat him up for 2 hours because he did not salute a picture of (non discernable). He broke and said he murdered his father. He signed a confession. This stopped the beatings when he signed the confession and saved him from his execution. Bels has 3 classmates who were killed and they are the big reason he feels he must speak out to the world so that their spirits live on. (My Success Gateway, LLC will get their names and remember their spirits) The first of the 3 camps he was assigned to was 3,000 feet in the mountains was Natzweiler-Struthof http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natzweiler-Struthof in France. He had his name painted on his back. He was specially treated. One thing he was very proud of was the red sign above his door which said, “very dangerous prisoner,” Bels is the one laughing now. The Nazi’s were scared and afraid of Bels.
He was in Natzweiler for 2 months then was evacuated to Dachau which was a Nazi German concentration camp located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory near the medieval town of Dachau, about 10 miles northwest of Munich in southern Germany. Opened on 22 March 1933, the Dachau concentration camp was the first regular concentration camp established by the National Socialist (Nazi) government.
In Dachau he and the other prisoners were fed only 600 calories per day and the Nazi’s worked them 16 hours per day, burning more calories than taking in. Many people were starving to death and lost a lot of weight and were very sick. He was sent back to the main camp where 85% of the prisoners who got Typhus died which is a disease from lice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhus . They had a lot of lice in their hair and clothes during the War.
Bels talks about his bouts with dysentery where that caused him to shit in his pants as much as 17 times per day. He had to keep his pants on for 2 months thereafter. There were 80 people transferred and 60 people perished. He was saved by an English friend from the carcasses in the container.
He was 100% certain that he was going to make it, he made that decision in his mind. Bels had the belief of survival. He had the belief and visualization that he was going to be sailing again. He admits that his great luck and the belief that he was going to survive. His spirit is in his core in his gut and does not know where it comes from, but he has it. It was like an electric motor in his stomach. There were several others who had his same core spirit who were not as lucky.
One morning he was called out and they thought that they were going to be executed and in came 16 Swedish Red Cross persons that brought them to another camp. Then he was put in Danish camps where they asked him if he wanted one egg or two? He was free.
The Norwegian Government is still taking care of their soldiers and paying Bels bills here in the United States and receiving and the 24/7 care. He requires extra services. He has to have his yacht, he cannot walk on the boat but he can steer his boat and sail it to Maine every summer. He enjoys every day of his life.
Letting go and healing. Bels talks about his encounter with a German captain on the seas and how he was able to let go of his hatred towards the Germans. He went out to dinner with the German captain who he became friends with and realized how stupid it was to harbor hatred in his body towards the Germans.
Enjoy every day you can. You never know. Life is short and enjoy every day is Bels advice. It sounds simplistic but it is the truth that you must love everyday. If you want to contact Bels you can reach him by US Mail at:
Arne Brun Lie (Bels)
5 Highland Ave
Ipswich, MA 01938
USA
Or send me an e-mail and I will print and mail to Bels if you are out of the USA.
jim@mysuccessgateway.com
http://www.newfilmco.com/pasbook.htm book
http://www.newfilmco.com/paspage.htm video
Arne Brun Lie (Bels)5 Highland AveIpswich, MA 01938USAOr send me an e-mail and I will print and mail to Bels if you are out of the USA. book video
About “Bels” Arne Brun Lie
In 1940, Arne “Bels” Brun Lie was a young Norwegian with a passion for sailing. When Hitler invaded Norway, the sailing stopped, and Arne and his friends joined the Resistance. Still in training, he was arrested by the Gestapo, and at age 18 began a journey that wound through the horrors of three German concentration camps. His friends were executed, leaving Arne with only his dreams of the open ocean, his will, and luck to sustain him till war’s end.
For more than forty years, the memory and meaning of the events of his youth were buried, living only in his nightmares. At age 65, prompted by a near fatal heart attack and his emigration to America, Arne decides to revisit the camps and then sail his beloved boat to his new home.
About Night and Fog the book, the journey.
When the Nazis controlled his native Norway, Arne Brun Lie was arrested by the Gestapo for resistance activity. He was sixteen years old. Imprisoned in a series of camps where filth, silence, and torture were ever present, he watched while his friends weakened and died at the hands of the Nazis. Arne was one of the few to survive until the British came.
For decades, that past haunted and blighted Arne’s life. Even emigration to America failed to put the horror of the war years behind him. Then, with two young friends, he set out to sail a small boat from Boston to Norway. At sea he told his companions the story of his wartime past. By the time they reached Norway, he had come to terms with his life. He would marry the American woman he loved and make peace with the past, perhaps even with the German people.
Told with a moving simplicity and clarity, and with a sanity and goodness of emotion that must have come from courage, this is an inspiring and captivating story.
About the Interview with Danny Flamberg, Ph.D. (Piled Higher and Deeper)
About the Interview with Danny Flamberg, Ph.D. (Piled Higher and Deeper)
March 23th, 2007 http://www.mysuccessgateway.com/guru/guru.php?id=43
This is an interview I did with Danny Flamberg and it is distinct and different from all my others because I have never met Danny and did not know who he is nor did I have any information on him other than what was in his bio on his blog. Well guess what? This is one of my best interviews to date.
I must confess that I too had a Direct Mail Madison Avenue background so it was easy for me to strike up a conversation with Danny and keep it going. Keep in mind that this interview went from a cold call e-mail and materialized in a matter of hours, “a really seat of the pants interview.”
Danny has lead several big Madison Avenue Ad Agencies including Amaritti & Puris and has experience working for some of the biggest brands in the world including BMW & SAP. Today Danny is a strategist and consultant managing over 27 different vendors managing several B-to-B lead generation projects. Hold on to your seat because we cover a lot of ground on this interview. Danny is smart, articulate, seasoned marketer and opinionated when it comes to some of leaders in the Madison Avenue Advertising World, he does not hold back on this interview.
What Danny can provide many of the small businesses and entrepreneurs is his insights and marketing principles hold true for big companies as well as small companies. “Agencies are like the dinosaurs, they are dead, they don’t have the good sense to lay down and die.” He calls it one neck to choke for the clients and one check to write. The alternative is to use several vendors and manage them. It is easier for the client. Creative services have been commoditized. The bigger the organization the more bland and conservative they become.
We talk about Apple and expect Apple to be creative the expectations are high for Apple and they are low for i.e. Ford and GM and Blockbuster. Fundamental thing that drives marketing is repetition. Danny talks about his radio career and the repetition of Top 40 Radio to create familiarity. The radio programmer learned that in 3 seconds the listener was gone. Personalities cut through the clutter like Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh, you have to stick out.
Danny gives his honest opinions on TV personality Donny Deutsch of The Big Idea. Donny Deutsch even takes comments from school kids at Danny’s kids school. We go into list brokerage services and how some of the simple services are not being delivered in a timely fashion. Arsenal Digital Solutions is one of Danny’s clients whom he is managing the branding and the marketing for.
We go into the Web 2.0 platform and he learned how people use the feedback loops and what people say and what people do are two different things. There is much more to this interview. Danny gives a great interview you will probably get a few ah ha moments from Danny’s wisdom and I look forward to speaking with him again in the near future.
Referral Marketing’s David Frey Audio Interview of Marketing Best Practices
David has a big company consulting background and he is now focused on helping small businesses with www.marketingbestpractices.com. His current passion is what he calls instant referral systems. He covers the different elements of referrals with a warm relationship within your network and how to manage the relationships and why it is so important.
He points out that we miss a lot of opportunities because we don’t have systems in place to manage the referrals that produce predictable, consistent and repeatable results. David covers 3 different types of referrals and their attributes. A) transactional referral systems are based on rewards, i.e. coupons and incentives, no relationship involved. B) joint venture referral system – used with complimentary businesses which cab be a challenge to keep them engaged. Lastly C) relationship based referral systems – relationships
with customers, friends, and prospects tend to last longer so you get more referrals and it results in a much higher quality referral which can spread virally.
The system David is using is the Send Out Cards System. This is a web based form where you can set up a mailing of a personal card to an individual or individuals. It is a 100% relationship building system. There is a lot of flexibility of creating your own cards with photos and messages for about the cost of a $1.00 per card. You can send out individually or in a group.
David brings up several examples that we working and delivering results. David emphasizes that it is the multiple contacts with customers that really make the relationship stronger and there is no better way to do this than a physical card in someone’s hands.
Living in the Age of Refinement and Innovation by Jim Peake
Living in Age of Refinement and Innovation
By, Jim Peake of www.mysuccessgateway.com . Having completed a podcast with Darrell Zahorsky of About.com and Lauren Freedman of e-Tailing.com and Daniel Lehrer of Work.com, a few things are coming up for me that I would like to share. Darrell shared that we are in the innovation age, having come out of the agricultural age, into the industrial age, then the information age and now the innovation age. I think he is 100% on the money. For example, if you take a look at www.work.com they are a hybrid business model offering an immense amount of value in a content format that is like very few.
I think that Work.com’s closest similar format is www.webmd.com a content rich site with medical information. Work.com is exclusively designed for action driving the user to solve their business problem with creditable professionals offering their time. At Work.com the distinguishing factor is that there is an information template or format which the guides publish the information in order to keep it consistent and readable.
Work.com is a perfect place for folks who aren’t satisfied with the information overload and disorganization that Google is offering. We are MySuccessGateway.com are also doing something similar to Work.com by focusing in a specific niche and providing user feedback. I kept trying to categorize Daniel Lehrer of Work.com into a Wiki, E-Zine or Blog category but he solidly demonstrated that Work.com is none of these but the best of these at the same time. This is a very innovative site.
We at My Success Gateway, LLC do not provide the format as structured as Work.com but as I write this blog I am thinking that it is something we might want to do since many of the seminars that folks offer on our site can be as high as $20,000. So getting better formatted information out of the participants to report back might be valuable for the reader.
In speaking with Lauren Freedman she is heavily focused in on “refinement” of existing sites and increasing e-commerce performance out of the existing traffic. This is a big category and there are several people doing this including David Bullock and Dr. James Kowalick. Refinement can be increasing conversions from the existing customers and increasing size per order or repeat visitors. With software and reporting tools allow for sophisticated tuning and tweaking of the marketing vehicles to be modified for full optimization. Work.com is also all about the “refinement of content.”
So what does it mean to be in the “Age of Refinement and Innovation?” What it means is that we will have more, better, faster and more relevant information and people coming into our lives which at the end of the day can only lead to more productivity, happiness and fulfillment. Maybe we can all find what we are looking for.
Christine Kloser Conscious Business Coach | Christine Kloser Leading By Example
I’m going to stick my neck out and make a prediction that Christine will become one of the top 10 coaches within the next 5 years. Christine adds value, she is a coach, leader and she is a student and she is coachable and trainable. Women seem to be attracted to her however she has many men following her lead and many of which are already business owners and 6 and 7 figure students.
She fell into the world of coaching from being a yoga instructor. She started working with women who have been in business for a few years and who are looking for so much more to take their businesses to the next level. She gives an example on how she is able to enable others to see a point of decision in their lives.
The moment that one makes the big commitment that is where and you’ll see the change on every level. She does intensive one day coaching programs and has a continuing coaching program called the Conscience Business Circle. She interviews a guest expert every month. She interviews the experts and records the interviews. She provides weekly Monday messages every Monday which helps every week. She sends guided meditations and planning tools and other tools to her members of the Circle. It is easy to get into and cost effective.
We go into meditation and she says that getting our minds not going into 1,000 different directions is what meditation can do for us. She says that guided mediations can help and it radically shifts mindset to how we physically feel in our body. Christine is a masterful meditation coach.
Christine is authentic and she shares her soul in her “former life” she was on the verge of bankruptcy. She is a solo entrepreneur and she is a mother of a 2 year old toddler. She has a great life and a family. She was a yoga fitness studio owner and she was always good at yoga but it was not her passion. She made her point of decision that she was going to make her way through it without knowing exactly what it was.
Today she is doing extremely well and helping others. Enjoy this interview and get to know Christine.
Tom Butler-Bowdon Audio Interview 50 Success Classics and 50 Self-Help Classics
Tom has focused in on how people think and has studied human nature of humans. He has written four books that are relevant to MySuccessGateway.com. Tom has come to the field of self-help and personal help field as a skeptic. He starting writing information for himself and realized that he could begin writing books himself. He covers many of the common themes of his 50 Self-Help Classics book.
He says that we can change our life by changing our thoughts and our mental habits. He provides several examples. There is room to choose your thinking and shape your emotions and you can charter your own destiny and choosing the person you are.
Success leaves clues and that is why modeling has worked so well for so many people. He has learned from his mentors that the number one key is to spend time with a mentor. He says that many people have done this over history. In his book the 50 Success Classics Tom goes into the characteristics of successful people. He also talks about prolific reading and how people who want to be successful can find the insights while reading a book. He also talks about repetition of the personal development on a daily basis is a very important aspect for success. It does not matter what you read but you can take out the nuggets from anyone.
Tom goes into several different books including Anthony Robbins “Awaken the Giant Within,” Jack Welch’s book and Sir. Richard Branson’s book “Loosing My Virginity.” He goes into the struggles during of Branson’s process of becoming successful. The banks were chasing after him and he would have to make people redundant. He made a decision to go the opposite way to expand instead of conserve his business. He was out site his comfort zone all the time. He contrasts the different styles. This interview is excellent and is packed with success tips and clues.
Interview with Susan Solovic of SBTV.com Small Business TV
Susan is a true pioneer in the small business information and media network. She has the first and only small business news and television network. She provides critical information transfer and advice for small businesses. She helps small businesses become recognized. She is working on MySBTV for users to register their own content and upload video similar to MySpace.com and YouTube.com
SBTV is a collaboration site where small businesses can find resources for their requirements. Susan says 52% of her visitors are women business owners. About 50% of women business owners have $50,000 in revenue. Women start their businesses for many different reasons than men. You will not hear the word money as one of the top reasons that they are starting their businesses.
Women are different than men when making decisions in their business and we go into some of the details on why women do things a little differently than men. Susan also says that the Hispanic small business community has grown substantially. She has registered HSBTV.com to cater to the Hispanic market. A lot more younger people, baby boomers, immigrants, women and Hispanics are becoming small business owners and the middle aged while male is going to loose their share.
Susan has seen that traditional methods of reaching customers are changing which is a trend for small businesses. We cover several different ways that small businesses are reaching out to customers. She talks about the mobile media program that was delivered by Messagebuzz.com for Moveon.org that we highly effective. Key message to small businesses is to reevaluate the marketplace and you have to be innovative. She is a champion of word of mouth marketing for the small businesses.
SBTV has great partnerships with the many small business associations. SBTV is in the forefront of the minds of the small business communities especially the associations. The traction and visibility of the associations gives SBTV recognition. SBTV is plugged into the lawmakers and influencers that effect the small business community and we need to pay attention to what is going on in Washington. We talk about Susan’s experience in Washington with Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts and Missouri Senator Kit Bond. SBTV is a great resource for any small business.
How to measure your DRTV Media Expenditures
I was a consultant for a DRTV Media Buying Firm in NYC Chief Media. DRTV measures returns on Ratio’s. Media Dollars spent to actual revenue generated. For example if a company selling hammers spends $1,000 in DRTV media they would want to see a $3,000 revenue return in hammer sales. This is known as a 3:1 ratio. Different 800#’s allow for measurement of markets easily. Typically the smarter firms run PPC campaigns alongside the DRTV as well as have an e-commerce site tracking traffic and orders based on media buys.