Ventureweek

Posted on: womenentrepreneursecrets.blogspot.ca

Written by Kelly O’Neil: Kelly O’Neil, is the Founder and CEO of Kelly O’Neil International, best-selling author and award winning brand marketing strategist, is one of the most sought-after brand marketing and results coaches for conscious entrepreneurs and aspiring women leaders.

I believe that excellence is never an accident. This is a mantra I’ve long used in both my personal life… and my professional life. Excellence is the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction, skillful execution, and the vision to see obstacles as opportunities.
Excellence leads to extraordinary things. But you aren’t born extraordinary. You have to work at excellence — foster it, nurture it, educate it. How? One way to effectively embrace excellence and step into extraordinary is by recognizing common traits among extraordinary individuals. Over the years of working with amazing entrepreneurs, I’ve identified these 15 traits as markers of true excellence. Recognize them — and work toward achieving them yourself — and you’ll be well on your way to eliminating mediocrity and becoming a high performer in your industry… and reaping the rewards of that commitment.

High-Performing Entrepreneurs:

1. Aren’t just working for the money. They care about their company beyond the profits and take great pride in its performance, impact on society, and ability to help others through its offerings.
2. Are truthful. They do what they say they are going to do, when they say they are going to do it. People know they can count on them time and time again.
3. Embrace opportunities. They look for — and find — opportunities to improve themselves, their work, and their business. Others? They see no opportunity.
4. Are focused on solutions. They don’t bring problems to the table without recommending a solution.
5. Focus on CAN. High performers focus on what they can do rather than what they can’t accomplish.
6. Don’t blame. High performers take responsibility for their actions and outcomes (or lack thereof). When they make a mistake they own it, fix it and learn from it.
7. Are busy, productive, and proactive. While most people waste too much time planning, over-thinking, sitting on their hands or going in circles, high performers are out there getting the job done.
8. Are life-long learners. High performers constantly work at educating and improving themselves, either formally (through academics), informally (by watching, listening, asking, reading, etc), experientially (by doing, trying)… or by employing all three educational strategies.
9. Consistently do what they need to do. No matter how they feel or what curves life has thrown their way, they get it done. High performers don’t let life become an excuse and don’t allow their personal life or mood to impact their work. They work extra hours, nights, or weekends if they need to.
10. Have a desire to be exceptional. They will typically do things others won’t do. Becoming exceptional is a choice, and high performers are committed to that choice.
11. Accept feedback. High performers aren’t just open to feedback, they are more likely to act upon it.
12. Set higher standards for themselves. The result? Greater commitment, more momentum, a better work ethic and (of course) better results.
13. Are more interested in effective than easy. While the majority of people look for the quickest, easiest way, high performers look for the course of action that will produce the best results over the long term.
14. Finish what they start. While so many people spend their lives starting things they never finish, successful people get the job done — even when the excitement and novelty have worn off. Even when it’s not fun.
15. Are resourceful. High performers don’t wait around for someone to hand hold them through something. They figure it out and get it done.

August Turak, Contributor

From www.Forbes.com

I write about Service and Selflessness: the Secret to Success

But failure was not an option for Mobley, and after many a dark night of the soul he hit upon the answer that turned IBM into the fastest growing and most admired corporation in the world…

In 1955 IBM’s legendary CEO, Tom Watson Jr., gave my mentor, Louis R. Mobley, a blank check and carte blanche to create The IBM Executive School. Fresh from successfully implementing IBM’s first supervisor and middle management training programs, Mobley confidently set about churning out executives as well.

The first thing he did, in conjunction with GE and DuPont, was hire the Educational Testing Service (ETS), the same company that still does the SATs, to identify the skills that make great leaders great. Once these intellectual skills were identified, Mobley and his colleagues at GE and DuPont assumed that spitting out executives would simply mean “training to the test.”

ETS dutifully rounded up a bunch of proven leaders and tested them every which way from Sunday looking for their common skills. The results were astounding and more than a little disturbing. As Mobley put it, “No matter what bell shaped curve we drew, successful leaders fell on the extreme edges. The only thing they seemed to have in common was having nothing in common. ETS was so frustrated that they offered us our money back.”

But failure wasn’t an option for Mobley, and after many a dark night of the soul he finally hit upon the answer. Unlike supervisors and middle managers, what successful executives shared were not skills and knowledge but values and attitudes. And over time Mobley identified the values and attitudes that great leaders share.

1) Great Leaders Thrive on Ambiguity. While most of us like black and white decisions, successful leaders are comfortable with what Mobley called, “shades of gray.” Great leaders are able to hold apparent contradictions in tension. They use the tension these paradoxes produce to come up with innovative ideas.

2)  Great Leaders Love Blank Sheets of Paper. Supervisors and middle managers use a framework of policies and procedures to guide them to the proper decision. They want a plan that reduces their job to filling in the blanks or what Mobley called “following the bouncing ball.” By contrast, leaders create the blanks that managers fill in. Like some business Einstein intent on reinventing the universe, every great leader relishes the opportunity to “think things through” from scratch.

3)   Great Leaders are Secure People. Successful executives thrive on differences of opinion. They surround themselves with the best people they can find: people strong enough to hold a contrary opinion and argue vociferously for it. Great leaders crave challenges, and this means hiring the most challenging people they can find with no regard for whether today’s challenger might be tomorrow’s rival.

4)   Great Leaders Want Options. Long before it became fashionable, Mobley was a huge proponent of diversity. However his definition meant a diversity of opinion rather than the kind we usually associate with political correctness. Mobley’s great leader constantly demands diverse options from his team, and uses these options to produce creative decisions.

5)   Great Leaders are Tough Enough to Face Facts. At heart Mobley was a spiritual man who valued the Truth for the Truth’s sake. Successful executives face facts, and this means being open to the truth even when it is not what we want to hear. One of the most successful executives I know offers cash rewards to anyone in his company who can prove him wrong. Great leaders have a nose for B.S and abhor it.

6)   Great Leaders Stick Their Necks Out. It is a natural human trait to fear being evaluated. We crave wiggle room so we can deflect blame and get off the hook when things go wrong. In business what is often passed off as a collaborative effort is actually just an attempt to avoid individual accountability. Great leaders want to be measured and evaluated. They continually look for ways to measure things that may seem immeasurable, and they cheerfully accept the blame when they are wrong or fail to deliver. The old adage that success has a 1000 fathers while failure is an orphan does not apply to great leadership.

7)   Great Leaders Believe in Themselves. While great leaders crave advice, options, and strong colleagues, they all share a profound belief in themselves and their judgment. Mobley described great leaders as “people stubbornly following their star who don’t know how to quit.” Holding this stubbornness in tension with a willingness to be wrong is perhaps the greatest trick that every great leader must perform.

8)   Great Leaders are Deep Thinkers. Managers get things done. Executives must decide on the things worth doing in the first place. Though very difficult to quantify, great leaders are deep thinkers. They constantly dive below surface “facts” searching for new ways to knit those facts together. Great leaders are generalists not specialists driven by an omnivorous curiosity. They know that the answers they are seeking will probably emerge from outside business and from disciplines that may seem utterly unrelated.

9)   Great Leaders are Ruthlessly Honest with Themselves. Self-knowledge is perhaps the most critical trait that all great leaders share. Leaders question assumptions and disrupt complacency by relentlessly asking the question: “What is the business of the business?” This exercise develops and refines the organization’s mission and purpose, and it is little more than the age old question “Who am I?” applied collectively. If you are not clear about the purpose of your own life how can you provide a sense of organizational purpose for others?

10) Great Leaders are Passionate. They may be loudly charismatic or quietly intense, but all great leaders care deeply about what they are doing and why they are doing it. Perhaps most importantly they care about people. Every business is a people business, and passionately caring about people whether they are employees, customers, vendors or stockholders is an essential leadership value.

Once Mobley compiled his list, he was faced with another even more difficult problem: How do you instill values and transform attitudes? He discovered that unlike supervisors and middle managers, executives shared another trait: They were constitutionally untrainable and reacted with hostility to any effort to “brainwash” them with “training.” Worse, Mobley discovered that values and attitudes are not only impervious to typical training techniques, but hectoring people to change often had the unintended consequence of hardening existing attitudes instead.

As the result some deep thinking of his own, Mobley eventually realized that what was needed was “a revolution in consciousness” rather than the kind of step by step curriculum that leads to a single “right answer.” Taking a leap of faith, he decided that the values and attitudes he was looking for could only be brought about as a side benefit or unintended consequence of what almost might be termed “spiritual work.” Rather than converging on a super set of skills, the IBM Executive School fostered the divergence that values uniqueness and individual authenticity.

The risk of failure was real, but if Mobley was going to produce people willing to stick out their necks he had to stick out his own first. He abandoned lectures and books in favor of games, simulations and other experiential techniques designed, not to “train,” but to “blow people’s minds.”

As for the personal accountability and measuring results, Mobley’s record speaks for itself. He ran the IBM Executive School from 1956-1966. It was his students that turned IBM into the fastest growing and most admired corporation in the world in the 1960s and 70s…

From: topsalesmanagement.com

by: Linda Richardson

Over the past few decades, selling has changed. The changes have been incremental, giving salespeople time to adjust. Not so today. The degree and speed of change in the sales world over the past two years is revolutionary – in how, why, and when customers buy and, therefore, in how you sell.

Selling has been turned on its head, and sales organizations are trying to catch up. If you have any doubts about the magnitude of change, just think about your level of control over the last major retail purchase you made and multiply that by twenty, and you will have a sense of the revolution in buying that is going on with your customers. The revolution has created a shift of control – away from you as a seller and toward your customer.

The bottom line is this: There is a need to increase your preparation and knowledge so you can bring more to the table. Today’s customers want and need business advice around your customized product solution. What does advice look like? How do you deliver it? Advice comes in the form of a point of view, shared experience, resources, expertise, insights, new ideas, and new ways to look at old problems, research, and contacts. Giving advice requires confidence, and having it acted on demands credibility, commitment, and solution co-creation.

In my work at Richardson and at Wharton, I have identified seven essential changes in selling in this new sales world:

1. Intensify Your Preparation – Conduct deeper preparation and leverage the internet, research, and your team to gain a deep understanding of your customer’s business and anticipate the customer’s business challenges and opportunities. Learn everything you can about your competitors. (Your prepared customers know a lot about them and will test you.)

2. Question Differently – Leverage your preparation and expand your thoughtful and strategic questions to get under the skin of the needs and challenges you uncover or assume. Use questions to refine your customers’ thinking. Probe why, why not, and what else.

3. Control With – Increase your assertiveness by executing a sales process that defines activities and measurable outcomes for each stage. Exert control with, not over customers.

4. Expand Access – Map the customer organization, get to executives, and sell across the decision-making group to gain consensus and support and cultivate a coach. Gain consensus among your team.

5. Get Smarter – Build your business acumen and develop industry, market, and customer specific knowledge. Leverage all team members, keep abreast of research, and tap into experience with other customers. Learn from customers as much as they learn from you.

6. Co-create Solutions – Build solutions with your customers. Collaborate with customers by providing business advice, listening to them, and refining how they think about their challenges to build winning solutions.

7. Boost Your Bravery – If you are doing it, kiss any semblance of order-taking good-bye. Dig in by asking why, why not, and what else. Ask the tough questions. Introduce and champion alternatives you believe in. Take an equal place at the table. Be persistent in helping customers think outside the box. Be passionate about solving business problems.

The speed of change is unprecedented. The Beatles got it right in the song, “Revolution,” when they said, “We’d all love to see the plan.” Join us in 2012 to execute the plan and win.

Linda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales effectiveness organization. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence for 2006 and in 2007 she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Read more

Written By: Marty Zwilling

From:Startup Proffessional Musings

Every dark cloud has a silver lining. Driven by the recent recession, smart entrepreneurs of all ages are jumping into the fray with new ideas, new recovery strategies, and discarding outmoded business models. I see it most in the newest generation of entrepreneurs (Gen-Y), who were shocked out of entitlement into action by the recession.

Donna Fenn, in her book from a while back, “Upstarts! How GenY Entrepreneurs are Rocking the World of Business,” seems certain that Gen-Y will lead the charge, bounce back from the recession, and be big winners. She describes a new generation of entrepreneurs that is highly collaborative, quick and alert when it comes to new technologies, and hell-bent on changing the world in general.

Upstarts! examines and analyses this entrepreneurial revolution to reveal critical lessons every Gen-Y entrepreneur and marketer must learn. But the insights I see from her book and elsewhere are equally applicable to startup founders of all ages, and businesses of all ages. Here are five key recession recovery strategies that both of us recommend to all of you:

1. Pursue repeat business. It’s far less expensive to nail down repeat business from your existing customers than it is to land new ones. Now is the time to reap the benefits of those good customer relationships that you’ve been cultivating. Viral marketing campaigns to lure new customers will cost you big money.
2. Focus on your core competency. Examine every cost center in your business. Maybe it’s time to outsource that call center operation, or complex manufacturing setup. Look for operations that are hogging resources without generating significant revenue. With a concentrated point of focus, your company might be well positioned for growth this year.
3. Snap up top talent. Past layoffs at big companies mean that there’s a surplus of great employees on the market now. Examine your pool of higher-paid contractors and freelancers. Now is the time to bring on board those people who would have been inaccessible in a better economy.
4. Respond rapidly to market shifts. The economy is almost certainly having a profound impact on your customers: they may have altered their purchasing habits, or found themselves with entirely different needs. It’s your opportunity to respond to those shifts. These are chances to broaden your product line, change distribution, offer new services.
5. Look for hidden sources of revenue. Sometimes your best source of new revenue is right under your nose, like services revenue in support of your products. One entrepreneur in Fenn’s book had a proprietary technology to efficiently manage vendors which works so well that she is now marketing it to other companies for a transaction fee.

Most companies I know agree that the recession has taught them the art of laser-like focus, and compelled them to make better decisions, to become more frugal, and to initiate systems and procedures that will help position them in the economic recovery. Simply deciding to lay low and “tough it out” was never a winning strategy.

I agree with Donna that this recession has actually been a good “wake-up call” for many in the new generation – it has forced them to face the reality of hard knocks. Similarly, it should be a wake-up call for the rest of us, or we will be overrun by young entrepreneurs with their burning desire to control their own destinies.

But I’m convinced that you don’t need to be an “Upstart!” to capitalize on the recession. Use your experience and your expertise to lead the way, or you will be left in the dust. The first step is to execute your own recession recovery strategy. Or don’t you even have one?

From: under30ceo.com

Jaime is a business coach and speaker and has been featured on CNN, MSNMoney, Success Magazine, Fortune.com, Yahoo’s homepage and more. Each week she interviews self-made millionaires for their business tips, advice and stories. You can sign up for the Top 10 Tips from millionaires or check out over 50 of the free self-made millionaire interviews.

Everyone has had fear. It’s human nature to be fearful of a tiger. But why does it tend to get in our way in business so much? I’ve had the chance to ask millionaires and experts about their fear and how they pushed past it. Google defines fear as:

“An unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.”

Fear is just an unpleasant emotion. That’s it! There are a ton of other unpleasant emotions, but for some reason this one can stop us from really becoming what we want to in life. It stops us before we start. If you want to have an amazing 2012 and beyond you need to find a way to fight your fear. Below are action items for you to do to get past the fear you have in your business. Choose at least one today to fight your fear.

You Don’t Have to Be Fearless

Earlier this year I was able to ask Seth Godin a question about fear. I asked:

“Do you use excuses because of fear? How do you recognize them and get past them?”

Seth Godin:

“Oh yeah, all the time. And the fact is, in our highly-leveraged world, where anyone can write a book on Tuesday and publish it on Wednesday, if I wasn’t using excuses I’d be a master of myself and would be producing tons of stuff. I ask myself, ‘What’s important enough to be afraid for?’ In those areas I’ll strip away the excuses. I’ll focus so much energy to do the things that I think are important enough. And in other areas of my life I will succumb. No one is Clark Kent and fearless. You don’t have to be Clark Kent to do what you want to achieve.”

You don’t need to be fearless! You just need to overcome it just enough to take action in spite of it. Millionaire Frank McKinney, who calls himself a real estate daredevil and creates $30 million dollar dream homes, said this about fear:

“The first emotional reaction to the thought of undertaking a risk is fear. So we’re afraid. That’s normal. That’s natural. Then we go and do our homework with that fear firmly embedded in the back of our minds, and as we’re researching, we are subconsciously looking for a way to say no. Realize that. Don’t let it happen. Realize there is a force at work subconsciously in your mind that is tempting you to say no. That’s the primary difference between my career and most others, especially in real estate, that I don’t let the fear that is there stop me. I’m afraid every day of my life. I admit it–I’m like an alcoholic that admits he’s an alcoholic. I admit I have fear every day, but I don’t let it stop me. That is the primary difference.”

Over and over again I hear it. You don’t need to be fearless! Frank also says you should exercise your risk like a muscle, and I think you can do the same thing with fear. Once you start to face it using the techniques below, you will get better and better at facing it.

Recognize the Fear

Before you can get past that fear, the first thing you need to do is recognize it. It’s very easy to ignore fear. Have you ever started thinking about public speaking and then automatically thought about something else? It’s as if it’s a hot oven and we can’t even get close enough to touch it! If you have tried to recognize it yourself and can’t seem to make your head go there, ask a friend for help. Ask them to pay attention and see if they can figure out what fear you have, in general conversation or when they are asking you questions about it specifically. Getting to the root of that fear–and realizing it is there–is the first step!

Putting Your Fear in Perspective

One millionaire said their mentor shared a story to put fear in perspective. He told the story of a woman who had her children kidnapped, and the kidnappers were going to kill her children. Now that is true fear. Most of the time in business we fear things that might come true. Or we have fear because we need to step out of our comfort zone and risk something. But that is not TRUE fear. True fear is life or death. So the next time you are feeling fear, replace it with feeling grateful that you don’t have a life or death situation. Your business risk is not life threatening for you or those you love. Bankruptcy is not life threatening. I’ve interviewed millionaires that lost it all and came back to succeed. Another thing I love to do to put fear in perspective is to look at this: http://scaleofuniverse.com/There you can compare the size of you to the size of the universe. How big are your fears now?

Action Item: Put Fear in Perspective

The next time you feel that fear, put it in perspective in your mind. Imagine how small your issue truly is in the world. It seems big to you right now, but it’s not as big as you think.

Lean on Your Mentors

Another great tip I’ve heard from many millionaires is to find a mentor. Mentors have been where you are and faced the fear you are facing. It’s easier to get past it with their support, and expertise. Armando Montelongo, host of Flip this House on A&E, said:

“To say that I did not have fear would be an inaccuracy. To say that I have doubt would be a lie, right? I had total fear. I had total disappointment in my life prior to that and I had feelings of anxiousness. I had the question, Can I really do this? Can this really happen? Is this pie in the sky? But I looked to my mentors for advice and started doing exactly what they told me. It helped me to almost immediately overcome the fear. I did have doubt but I listened to what they said.”

Armando had a belief in his mentors, that they knew how to get past it, and therefore he was able to get over his fear quickly.

Action Item: Lean on Your Mentors

If you already have a mentor, be honest with them about your fear. They have probably heard it before. It might feel a little vulnerable at first, but that is a good thing.   If you don’t have a mentor yet, find one! You don’t have to pay for one either. I interviewed Derek Sivers and he gave me a step-by-step plan on how to find a mentor. Plus most of my mentors (even millionaire mentors) I have found for free.

Taking Action with the Fear

It’s not the fear that is the problem; it’s the inactivity that is. So focus on just taking whatever action you need to take in spite of the fear. The inaction will end up costing you a lot more in the long run than the “safety” you received from not doing it. Ren Carlton said:

“Fear is a very expensive trait to have. It’s a dangerous emotion to deal with and you have to put it aside. If you don’t, it will kill you. Inactivity is the worst thing you can do in the business world. You have to be out there mixing it up.”

Ren admits that he has had fear too. It’s not about the fear. It’s about doing whatever it takes to move past it. Here are a few actions you can take to get past the fear RIGHT NOW:

Action Item: Commit in Advance

One technique to use to get past your fear is to make it feel farther away. For example, let’s say you know public speaking could be really great for your business but you are scared. One thing you have always wanted to try was a webinar, but you don’t know how and you don’t want to look like a fool. Look at your calendar and pick a date that seems like a far away date. It might be a month for you or even three months. Something that makes it seem so far away you might not pay attention to it. Then tell a few people. It’s far enough away that it doesn’t seem that scary. But once you commit to it and tell others you will feel obligated to do it. You don’t want to look like a fool if you don’t do it! So you do it anyway, even with the fear. (I’ve used this before myself and with clients and let me tell you, it works!)

Action Item: Logically Counteract It

Another action item you can try is to logically counteract the fear. Imagine you are listening to a great friend of yours talk about their fear. What would you say to them? I like to do this exercise on paper so I can really get an idea of what will logically counteract it. Ask questions like, “What is the worst that could happen?” or “What would your contingency plan be if that happens?” Then immediately following this exercise take the first step towards the fear. Your brain will be in a better place to take that first step. You aren’t going to be perfect in this. And that is OK! But choose one of these action items to start moving past the fear in your business. Your bottom line will thank you! Which one did you choose? Tell me below what you are committing to doing!

Hailo, is a UK  mobile network that matches passengers and licensed taxi drivers to help keep them busy. It is similar to popular mobile service Uber but Hailo focuses on taxi cabs.

The Hailo Driver Network can be accessed via iPhone or Android apps and allow drivers to accept credit cards and factor in tipping options.

Launched five months ago, the service has acquired 3200 drivers and 200,000 passengers in London, The app makes money by taking a small cut of a Hailo-enabled cab ride. . Hailo just received a $17 million round of Series A financing. The company is quickly going to  expand into the States, starting with New York, then Chicago, Boston, Washington, DC., and Toronto and Montreal in Canada.

From Mashable.com

By: Rusel DeMaria  who is the author of more than 60 books, and currently runs the High Score 3 Kickstarter project. Follow him on Twitter @DeMaria.

Double Fine, the game developer, raised $3.3 million for its adventure game, Double Fine Adventures. InXile, a game development company, made $500,000 in 17 hours for its role-playing game, Wasteland 2. Both did it on Kickstarter, the world’s largest funding platform for creative projects. Naturally, it would be easy to think of Kickstarter as a virtual Gold Rush. That would be a mistake.

1. Do Your Research

Not every project will work on Kickstarter, and even fewer will create a feeding frenzy. So do your research. Observe, for example, what has worked and what hasn’t for other project creators. To find successful examples, look at sections of the site such as “Staff Picks” or “Popular.” To find projects that have not hit their goals, look at some of those under “Ending Soon.” Obviously, projects succeed and fail for different reasons, but researching examples of each will help you get a feel for what to do and what to avoid.

2. Define Your Goal

Decide exactly what you want to accomplish and how much money you need to do that. Remember, if you don’t meet your goal, you get nothing. Better to ask a reasonable amount and then work hard to exceed that goal. Double Fine initially asked for $400,000, but blew that out of the water. If possible, have at least a group of friends who will support you with pledges from the get-go. That will help you build momentum. And remember, you cannot change the amount after you launch.

Also, think about how long your project should run. Kickstarter recommends a maximum of 30 days, but some people have succeeded with longer cycles. Consider your audience and how long it will take to get the word out when making this decision. As with the funding amount, you can’t change your project length once it’s set.

3. Consider Your Rewards and Costs

You’ll quickly learn that people want something in exchange for their pledges. Create rewards, gifts to backers based on the amount they pledge, starting at low values, like $5. That way you can reward even small-time backers. Double Fine is a good example of a project that created great rewards tailored to their audience. Their lowest reward was a digital copy of the game for $15. The highest was a private party with the developers for $10,000.

Another critical factor to consider when creating rewards are related costs. For example, if you’re going to send your backers something by mail, calculate the postage and packaging you’ll need. Don’t get blindsided and discover that your costs will cancel out a part of your funding.

4. Prepare Your Pitch

How you introduce your project can make a huge difference. On your project page you’ll describe your project, goals, and rewards. Be specific and include engaging images of your work. Kickstarter recommends that you also create a video. Make it fun, natural, and compelling by including key elements like people talking about how great or important the project is. Remember, your pitch should pump people up about your project and show both your enthusiasm and your ability to follow through.

5. Market the Hell Out of It

Once you’ve pulled the trigger and published your project, it’s time to promote via social media,friends, family, even strangers. Any updates you post will automatically be sent to your current backers, but urge them to re-post and re-tweet. If you can find a way to make your work newsworthy, pitch popular websites and newspapers.

6. Keep It Alive

Your initial marketing may bring you some early success, but you need to keep feeding the fire. Find ways to update the project. Add new and fun rewards as you go. Keep people informed about your progress, and definitely share any good news or milestones like “We’re halfway there!”

7. Listen to Your Backers

Many of your backers will offer advice. Listen. Some of them have backed many projects and know what works. Others just have an opinion, and even if you don’t agree, consider how many other people — potential investors — may think the same way.

8. Be Patient

There will be times when pledges seem to flow in steadily, and times when it seems that nobody cares. When this happens, you’ll need to stay positive and re-engage those who got you this far. Start by letting your biggest supporters know it’s time to step up and spread the word. If they’ve backed the project, then they also want it to succeed.

9. Be Flexible and Creative

Be prepared to do things you never anticipated doing. You hadn’t considered a special T-shirt as a reward? Maybe you should. A supporter offers to create limited-edition rewards to help your project? Why not? Bottom line: Be open and flexible.

10. Have Fun

This is going to be a crazy ride so enjoy it. And remember, if at first you don’t succeed

From Mashable.com

Nick Hughes is the CEO and co-founder of Seconds, a mobile commerce platform that provides text messaging and mobile payments for local commerce. In his spare time, he inspires entrepreneurs to build meaningful and enduring companies through his writing. Follow him on Twitter @jnickhughes.

Startup founders are fascinating creatures. They have to be multifaceted and dynamic, yet laser sharp and narrowly focused. During the early days, they must wear many hats and perform a variety of foreign duties, such as HR, PR, sales, marketing and product design. Above all, they have to be just a little bit crazy to even think about stepping into the roller coaster lifestyle called entrepreneurship.

As crazy as they may seem, the entrepreneur’s many duties create a uniquely talented individual. Yet subtle differences in personality and perspective can determine success or failure.

The talents listed below are detailed in the book Now Discover Your Strengths, a great read for anyone looking to improve on his or her unique talents.  In the book you’re introduced to the StrengthsFinder metric, which measures the presence of 34 different categories of talent. According to the StrengthsFinder, “Talents are people’s naturally recurring patterns of thought, feeling or behavior that can be productively applied. The more dominant a theme is in a person, the greater the theme’s impact on that person’s behavior and performance. ”

Some talents are essential to a startup founder. Without the presence of these five specific talents, it would be very difficult to start and grow a new venture.

1. Activator

According the the StrengthsFinder, “People strong in the Activator theme can make things happen by turning thoughts into action. They are often impatient.”

If there is one talent all founders must possess, it’s the Activator. Activators find ways to simply get things started and make things happen, which is synonymous with the definition of a leader. Activators build out the core founding team, establish the general “idea” and strategic direction, line up legal representation, find office space, organize meetings, etc.

An Activator jumps up and say to his friends “Hey, let’s start a new company!” Some people have a hard time breaking from their ruts in life, but not Activators. They never fall into ruts because they are always starting something different or recruiting others to join them and their new pursuits.

Take for example Jason Jacobs, co-founder of the fitness app RunKeeper. While training for a marathon in 2007, he was using Nike+ and realized the world needed a simple, independent, open health metrics platform. As an Activator, he formed a company and convinced others to join. Another truism of entrepreneurship in action? You usually have no idea what you are doing, but you just learn as you go.

Do you have what it takes to make the jump, knowing you’ll be learning as you go?

2. Adaptability

According the the StrengthsFinder, “People strong in the Adaptability theme prefer to ‘go with the flow.’ They tend to be ‘now’ people who take things as they come and discover the future one day at a time.”

Nothing in a startup ever goes as planned, and thus, startup founders must be able to adapt to changing circumstances. Successful founders go with the flow of startup culture, where markets change quickly, funding seems both eminent and impossible, co-founders come and go, and products evolve.

Pivoting (i.e., adaptability) is essential to today’s startups. Smart founders should initiate the process not with the “dream company concept” in mind, but rather, with the commitment and pursuit of solving a consumer problem.

You’ve probably heard of Instagram, the breakout photo sharing app that has attracted more than 27 million downloads. But you might not have heard of Burbn, which was what the founders built before changing to “Instagram.” Co-founder Kevin Systrom explains how they launched the service primarily as a checkin, social geo-location app, on which users could quickly upload photos and share them with friends. Burbn had attracted a core following of users, but was not exactly taking off. Upon further evaluation the founders noticed that photo uploading was the strongest and most used feature. Going with the flow, they cut all other features and moved forward with the newly minted Instagram. Twenty-seven million users later, I think they made the right choice.

Do you have the guts to cut 95% of your existing product and redirect its focus if necessary?

3. Strategic

According the the StrengthsFinder, “People strong in the Strategic theme create alternative ways to proceed. Faced with any given scenario, they can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues.”

Acute pattern recognition, finding alternative ways to succeed, spotting signal and relevance from all the noise — this is strategic thinking. It’s what separates the idea-and-fail group from the execute-and-succeed group.

Strategic thinking names the company, defines what makes you unique, finds where in the market to position your product, determines how to best orient the value proposition, discovers how users will find your service, and figures out who will ultimately become a strategic partner. This requires a founder to see the entire competitive landscape, to understand where the holes are, and to align the company in the appropriate position for success.

Steve Jobs was probably the best strategic thinker we have encountered in recent history. It’s no coincidence Apple has risen to become the most valuable company in the world; Steve Jobs realized computing was not just about productivity, but that people wanted to be liberated, creative and entertained. Jobs determined to create a computing and entertainment ecosystem around the entire consumer.

How did he recognize this potential? Jobs turned the corner when he decided to make a better portable music player and integrate iTunes into the computing experience. He noticed that consumers wanted a hub, one place to access all their music and entertainment. After taking the music industry by storm, he made computing mobile with the iPhone and the iPad, again reinventing computing for the post-PC era. Finally, the advent of the App Store opened an entirely new market for millions of entrepreneurs, and has already generated billions of dollars in less than five years.

Although we lost him late last year, Jobs may not be done transforming our world. Apple TV has the potential to change how we interact with digital content. Jobs did all this by seeing around corners, observing the how and why of the consumer, and using strategic thinking every time he made a decision.

Do you see and understand all angles of your market, and have the ability to spot patterns or counterintuitive trends?

4. Discipline

According the the StrengthsFinder, “People strong in the Discipline theme enjoy routine and structure. Their world is best described by the order they create.”

Entrepreneurship has an entropic feel to it — each day is totally different. Roles and responsibilities can pull a founder in so many directions that he can feel lost in the chaos. Therefore, establishing routine and structure is essential to moving a business forward.

Discipline is what forces a founder to fill his calendar with customer discovery interviews each week to help uncover the problem they are trying to solve. Discipline is also what keeps foundering teams together, often when founders are working two jobs and struggling to make time for the business. Discipline keeps the startup lean, efficient and moving forward.

The “lean startup movement” can be loosely defined as a focus on discipline. Eric Reis and other lean startup proponents teach principles such as “fail fast,” “iterate quickly,” and “release, test, evaluate, toss out what doesn’t work and stick with what does.” Validated learning — or the constant search to establish your market, value proposition and ultimately your initial customer segments — is all about discipline for the early founder.

Based on the teachings of people like Reis, we have finally determined startups aren’t all built on lucky breaks, but rather on a methodical and disciplined approach to finding a sustainable business.

Do you have the daily discipline to methodically test your value proposition, product and customers to find a sustainable and repeatable business model?

5. Focus

According the the StrengthsFinder, “People strong in the Focus theme can take a direction, follow through, and make the corrections necessary to stay on track. They prioritize, then act.”

You have 100 things to do today, but you only have time to accomplish three. Which ones do you get done?

You may have all the talents described above, but if you cannot focus on the right things, you will not succeed. Focus takes your discipline, narrows it down on the essential few things that are important, and makes sure you get them done. How many people do you know who have said they are starting some new venture only to tell you six months later they just couldn’t get going and are already doing something different? These people might be an Activator and even excel in strategic thinking, but if they cannot focus in on what’s important each day, they will never get to the next level.

Launching a successful company can be one of the most challenging experiences in your life. Don’t make it any harder than it needs to be. Focusing on the critically important and dismissing all other distractions will make all the difference.

Noah Kagan, chief Sumo of AppSumo, explains how focusing on the important tasks will not only improve daily efficiency, but will significantly benefit business as well. He describes it as “maximizing the best use of your time.”

Ask yourself, which are the most important tasks on which your business depends?  Now, focus on those and only those tasks. Evaluate all the other stuff on your plate and delegate accordingly. Trying to do everything will result in getting nothing done.

Startup founders are indeed uniquely talented individuals. Do you think you have what it takes to be a successful founder?

By Deborah Shane

From smallbiztrends.com

Here are 5 ways to grow and build trust using email marketing:

1) Create a monthly Newsletter with specific themes and content that is thoughtful and highly targeted to what your followers need and want from you. Get to know who is on your list and why they joined it in the first place.

2) Be consistent with sending your message and campaign out monthly and find the best frequency and timing. Do not over kill your list with too many daily emails. More and more people are tuning out and unsubscribing  to those that over email, regardless of how popular they are.

3) Offer content especially for this community that other people do not have access too that are NOT on the list. Let your community know how exclusive they are to you and how much you want to serve their specific needs.

4) Integrate your email marketing campaign into all your other platforms. Unify the message across your social media, blog, websites, podcasting, video and mobile. Make sure your visual logo, look and feel are consistent over all your platforms.

5) “Serving is the New Selling’ should be your approach and mantra. Giving lots of FREE WHY, then SELLING the HOW is a perfect formula. We are in it to make money right? Yes, but earning the business by building strong relationships and using the trust to sell your products and services is why they choose you and ensures more longevity in customer retention.

Make a commitment to one of the professional email marketing systems like Constant Contact, which has been mine since 2007, or several other great choices like IConnect, Aweber and Mail Chimp.

Email marketing has been one of the top platforms that I will continue to use. My list grew over 30% last year nationally and internationally. It has allowed me a more personal, direct and exclusive way to communicate to and with “my tribe” and serve them.

From under30ceo.com

One of the scariest things to do is drop your day to day nine to five. The paycheck is steady and it comes with a nice health-care package. Lunch with co-workers provides time to unwind and talk about what’s going on in the world. The hours are steady and while it may be demanding, there isn’t much mystery to what you can expect from work.

Venturing out of the workplace leaves a fear of uncertainty. Working for yourself day in and day out is nothing like being in the steady work force. The paychecks are scarcer and health benefits will be coming directly out of your pocket. Lunch consists of only you. And the hours, let’s just say, are not set in stone and work is way more demanding. Starting your own business/career comes with a lot of mystery.

The common misconception is that once you work for yourself, things become “easier”. On the contrary, working for yourself is actually more involved than working for someone else. And truthfully when you are the commander of the ship you call income, you must work for others in order to establish yourself in the niche in which you are diving into.

Do not fret. Below are some tips if you’re ready to take that step out of the office.

Come up with a plan.

You can’t start ANY new venture without a plan. Take time to make a detailed plan of action, which includes ways to achieve your goals. You should map out time frames and any other relevant information to know exactly where you want to go. Keep in mind that a house can’t be built without floor plans.

Build a routine.

If you want to seriously get where you would like to be you must plan your day. Yes, this is another planning exercise. You have to have the day in order so that you remain organized. Also, work in the chores and other duties that consist with your day that are not a part of your work. Maintaining a routine will allow you to be more focused on the tasks at hand.

Only leave if you can.

If you cannot manage to leave the workplace, DON’T. Use the employment that you have to save up so that you can remove yourself from your job without putting extra hardship on you or your family. There are discounts and coupons all over the web to help you save more. Remember, you can begin your dreams while still working. You just have to split your time productively.

Be productive with all your time.

Use all of your time wisely. Even if you do have a routine, it doesn’t mean you are confined to it. Take a pen and pad where ever you go. You never know when an idea will hit you. The worse things you can do are run your errands or do other chores and an idea comes to you, but your computer or planners are no where around. All your time is precious and important to being successful.

Never fold to failure.

No business jumps off the ground as soon as you start. If you get rejected just chalk it as a learning experience and move on. Don’t dwell on the things you cannot change. Focus on what comes next and use your knowledge to lessen the failure and aim to succeed.

Never give up.

Keep pushing no matter what. No matter how hard or discouraged you get, keep moving. It will get easier with time. If you are consistent things will get better. Just think, what would life be like if the makers of companies like Apple or networks like FaceBook gave up?

Don’t judge yourself through others.

Do not judge your capabilities by what others are doing. So what if a person is doing better or at a level that you would like to be? Don’t be discouraged by their work ethic. Just work your way to a status that is comfortable for you. Also, keep in mind that what works for someone else may not work for you.

Read and Research.

Stay on top of what is going on in the industry you are heading into. Research ways to reach your goals and apply what you learn to your work. Read about trends in your niche as well as best practices of those at the top in your niche. You never can know everything about a business because industries are constantly changing.

If you have the gumption to leave the norm of the workplace and start your career/business, you get kudos from me. It takes a daring and driven individual to do such a thing. I commend each and every person who does it. That’s not to say anything against those who are okay with the workplace. Everyone is different.

Please remember it’s not for everyone to walk out on their nine to five. Only the most determined ones succeed in the long run.

Trina Lynne is a freelance writer whom writes for blogs with promotional codes and coupons such as Sierra Trading Post Coupon and Rock Creek Coupon. These Sierra Trading Post and Rock Creek coupon codes can help you save on outdoor gear and clothing.