Smarter Small Business Blog

What Will You Do With YOUR Next Five Years?

2012-01-28T05:55:00.001-06:00

The Five Book Video - YouTube: ""

'via Blog this' You are an aspiring Baby Boomer Entrepreneur. What will you do with the next 5 years?

This video takes you on an inspirational tour of your mind as you explore what you will do differently over the next 5 years. It is based upon the book, 5, by Dan Zadra.

Shallie

What The Mint Taught Me About Marketing

2011-12-14T23:20:00.001-06:00

The Buck Stops Here: $1 Coins to Be Curtailed - WSJ.com:

'via Blog this'

Early this morning, I awoke to an e-mail from a friend, Ed. Ed wanted to know what I thought about the Mint stopping production of coin dollars. Of course, my friend was aware that as Superintendent of the United States Mint (Philadelphia), I was involved in the first production of the Susan B. Anthony coin dollar in 1979.

As I watched the coverage, I was transported back to the early discussion of smaller coin dollars in the late 70s.

I recalled going into my office many mornings and finding mail bags with drawings from elementary school children from across the country. Many teachers inspired their students to participate in government by sending their suggestions for who should appear on the front of the new coin. As always, the students were quite creative. Their suggestions ranged from historic individuals to pop culture icons, perhaps even their mother, father, teacher, themselves, or their new puppy. I recall that Elvis Presley was particularly popular. As there is essentially only one law limiting who can be on a coin...the person cannot be currently living...many of their suggestions were possible.

Of course the real decision required hearings in Washington where people appeared to present their opinions. There was a big battle about whether it should be the Statue of Liberty or Susan B Anthony. Then the battle shifted to what image of Susan B Anthony. Should it be her in her early life as in the case of most coins? Or should it be in her later life after the victories for which she is noted?

When the decision was made, we sighed as we came to the end of the debate. Then, the next morning, we awakened to remember that a coin has two sides...the debate was just half done.

Of course there were many decisions to be made before the official First Strike Ceremony in 1979. The next day after the first striking , the process of getting them to the Federal Reserve Banks began. Then there was another "next day" involving getting the coins into local banks.That was followed by getting them into stores, followed by getting them into the hands of people. This was followed by the first person spending one thinking it was a quarter...followed by the first reporter warning people not to spend the coin dollar thinking it is a quarter.

That battle has raged for 32 years and the discussion is still the same. This leads to what the Mint taught me about marketing:

1. People make decisions on how they feel. The decision are about emotions. Then we select the facts that support our emotions.
2. Everyone has an opinion. For the most part, individual opinions don't matter. It is the collection of opinions that determines if there is a problem that needs to be solved.
3. The fact that there is a problem to be solved does not mean that everyone wants the same solution. Many people awaken in the morning wanting corn flakes. Some of them want Post Toasties and some of them want Kelloggs Corn Flakes.That is not duplication of effort or wasting resources. We call that free market.
4. Marketing is about finding a solution to a problem that enough people want and are willing to pay for, to make it profitable for the person providing the solution. We call that a niche.
5. Business is about serving the niche over and over. Success is in finding your niche.
6. Government has niches too. We call them special interest groups. Government has no way of making every niche or interest group happy by giving them what they want. Government tends to hold it's nose and select one solution that "fits all".
7. Aren't you glad that as an entrepreneur, all you have to do is find the right niche and serve the people in it well?
8. There is always a "next day" unless you fail.

Baby Boomer - You Don't Have to Learn Entrepreneurship Blindly Or Alone

2011-10-02T12:23:00.005-05:00

A personal and educational introduction to Michael E. Gerber : ""

As an aspiring baby boomer entrepreneur, you want to convert your business idea into a reality. There is approximately an 80% failure rate of people trying to accomplish your same goal. Yet, renowned business adviser Michael E. Gerber says that no small business owner has to fail.

In this video, Gerber talks with small business coaches. He shares what coaches must understand to help small business owners bring the dream back to America...in fact to small business owners around the world. Here, you can get that advice straight from his mouth.

Gerber explains that small business owners fail for reasons other than what they think is the cause of that failure. As a baby boomer making a transition to an encore career, this is valuable information for you.

He begins with what it means to have a dream. He explains the process for converting your dream to reality and how to get clarity from the onset. If you want to understand what needs to be done...and then what needs to be done next, you want to watch this 29 minute video.

You will learn there is a road map to your journey. You will learn that there are people prepared to help you with the task of designing your baby boomer retirement business. You can increase your chances of success by looking for the people who can help you. You do not have to do it blindly or alone.

Shallie

Aspiring Baby Boomer Entrepreneur - Are You Smarter Than An Old Walrus?

2011-09-18T13:11:00.001-05:00

A number of my closest friends have received this video recently with the caption "My New Exercise Routine". And though my stomach could benefit from some sit ups, that is not what I am really talking about.

Much of what it takes to become a successful baby boomer entrepreneur involves behavior modification. You have to learn how to go from being an employee to being an owner. We often call that obtaining the entrepreneurial mindset. This is a new mental exercise routine.

Learning to make that change is a radical shift in your thinking and behavior. But if an old walrus can have his behavior shaped to accomplish new things, so can you.

Your task is to learn what behavior is required for success in the business of your choice. Then you must begin shaping that behavior a step at a time. That is the exact process the trainer used to teach an old Walrus to do sit ups. You can do it. You are smarter than an old walrus, aren't you?

Be sure to sign up for our mailing list in the upper right hand corner. I will share with you what you need to help you become a successful baby boomer entrepreneur.

Shallie

You Are Not Alone - Most U.S. workers want to be entrepreneurs - UPI.com

2011-09-11T10:10:00.000-05:00

Most U.S. workers want to be entrepreneurs - UPI.com:

'via Blog this'

If you have a secret dream of quitting your job and becoming an entrepreneur, you are not alone. UPI reports that "Three-quarters of U.S. full-time and part-time employed adults say they want to leave their job and become an independent entrepreneur..."

Aspiring Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs seem to have an edge in the effort to have a balance in life. This balance is often described as having the ability to set one's hours, spend more time with friends and family, not have to deal with office politics and/or not have to endure a daily commute. You can take this advantage by retiring from your current job and starting a semi-retired life as a business owner. This is sometimes referred to as an "encore career".

For other aspiring baby boomer entrepreneurs, the solution may be in developing a part time business. In this case, you begin developing the business on the side until it can sustain your needs.

In either case, you must take action. You must take steps to make your version of the "American Dream" your American Reality. Smarter Small Business Blog is here to help you.

Twitter - My Magic Carpet Ride

2011-07-31T20:27:00.004-05:00

My father was a born in 1899. He lived in that rare time where he was barely old enough to serve in World War I and barely young enough to serve in World War II. He did both.

Full of curiosity and adventure, he decided to visit every one of the fortyeight states that then made up the USA. He rode the rails to realize his dream, passenger cars when he had money and freight trains when he didn't. He realized his dream between the wars. In 1949 he had his first born son and began a new journey, teaching me to dream.

Having inherited his taste for adventure, I wanted to do life at a bigger scale. I wanted to visit every continent of the world. I visited some continents, but was behind the pace I had hoped.

But three years ago today (July 31, 2008) a magic moment happened in my life. I had already decided that I wanted to begin sharing my business coaching skills with aspiring baby boomer entrepreneurs. These are the people born between 1946 and 1964, about 78 million in the United States alone. Many of these people have a taste for adventure and do not want to retire in the traditional manner. Many have a passion for something that they want to share with the world in the form of a business. Many also need help in developing the skills to convert their dreams into reality. My dream is to help them them reach their dreams.

Three years ago today, that magic moment happened while listening to Ed Dale...I learned about Twitter.

Ed is the face of a free training that happens each year called The Challenge (formerly the 30 Day Challenge). He teaches aspiring entrepreneurs to use the Internet at a tool to research business opportunities, a tool to market those opportunities, and a networking process to find others with a similar passion. I couldn't travel to every continent by rail, but I had something better, Ed helped me discover a magic carpet ride.

Twitter has taken me to every continent, except Anarctica...that will happen in time. I 've learned about people's passions and shared mine. I've made genuine friends during this three year journey. Thanks Dad, Ed Dale, and Twitter. To everyone else I extend this invitation:

RIDE WITH ME

What 3 Issues Must You Master To Be A Successful Baby Boomer Business Owner‬?

2011-07-02T07:05:00.005-05:00

YouTube - ‪Behaviors of Successful Business Owners‬‏: ""

All businesses have certain things in common. Business coach Ron Finklestein suggests that you greatly increase your odds of success as an aspiring baby boomer entrepreneur if you master the three issues every business leader faces:

Making more money
Having more time
Having productive employees

He also suggests that YOU must have certain things to achieve mastery of these issues:

Attitude
Strategy
Discipline

Check out his video for more insights.

Make sure to sign up for our list to get information that is not shared anywhere else. Just give your contact information in the form in the upper right hand corner.

You Are Probably Not A Natural Born Baby Boomer Entrepreneur

2011-06-05T15:06:00.004-05:00

Should being a baby boomer entrepreneur be your encore career goal? Are you a natural born entrepreneur? Should owning your own business be the next step for you?

Many people feel that they have what it takes to be a baby boomer entrepreneur. YOU might be convinced that it is the logical next step because YOUR goals might be:

To have more freedom in general in semi-retirement,
To have better financial control over your life,
To have greater control over how you use your time,
To have more control over your intellectual or creative life.

All of these are great goals. But they don't require becoming a baby boomer entrepreneur. Plus becoming an entrepreneur has around a 90% failure rate. You are probably not a natural born baby boomer entrepreneur. You might want to explore your alternatives to accomplishing such goals.

My first suggestion to you is visiting the creators of the above video, encore.org They will show you how to think about "combining purpose, passion, and a paycheck". However, they will show you alternatives, including the possibility of becoming a baby boomer entrepreneur.

If you determine becoming an entrepreneur is still your goal,
If you decide that you are committed to developing a business that aligns with your needs, values, and beliefs,
If you decide owning a business is what you want, not what someone else wants for you,
COME BACK AND SEE ME!

You can accomplish what you want. But be sure what you are trying to accomplish IS what you want.

Shallie

Why Do Veterans Choose To Become Entrepreneurs?

2011-05-07T07:36:00.001-05:00

Veterans Often Choose Entrepreneurship | Business Wire

Can aspiring baby boomer entrepreneurs learn from veterans? In a study released yesterday, May 6, 2011, the Office of Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration published new information about veterans who become entrepreneurs following completion of military service. The study reveals that veterans are 45 % more likely than those with no active duty military experience to be self employed.

I am wondering if there is a correlation between veterans moving into civilian life and former employees moving into semi-retired life. SBA Chief Counsel for Advocacy Winslow Sargeant said, "Knowing more about the factors behind veteran's self -employment offers the opportunity to lay the groundwork for future success."

At this point, we know from the study that it does not appear that military training is the factor that drives entrepreneurship. Those with four years or less of service are more likely to choose entrepreneurship. However, there seems to be a high correlation of military retirees becoming entrepreneurs. It is believed that this may be the result of higher degrees of wealth and life stability. The research shows that with each additional year of age, the probability of becoming an entrepreneur increases by 7.5%.

Retiring baby boomers share many of the same characteristics of retiring veterans. Can we learn more about promoting successful transition to entrepreneurship by studying these veterans who transition from the military to civilian entrepreneurship? Take a look at the study and the research summary for yourself: Factors Affecting Entrepreneurship Among Veterans.

Shallie

Lemonade Stand Day - Inspiring Future Entrepreneurs

2011-04-30T12:05:00.001-05:00

Prepared 4 Life: Inspiring Entrepreneurs, One Lemonade Stand at a Time - AOL Small Business

For years, the lemonade stand has been the symbol of entrepreneurship. With that thought in mind, Houston-based entrepreneur and philanthropist Michael Holthouse inspired the creation of National Lemonade Day. It happens on May 1 for the purpose of teaching youth about business.

As aspiring baby boomer entrepreneurs, we can think back to our experiences with lemonade stands from our youth. We can reconnect to what we believed before we became workers. We might have been trying to buy streamers for our bikes or a new pet. We knew we could solve our problem by solving the thirst problem of those around us.

If you need to reconnect with that time in your life, click the link and re-experience the moment through the eyes of today's youth.

Shallie

How Coachable Are You?

2011-04-23T04:25:00.002-05:00

How Coachable Are You? « Ingrid Elfver

Just how coachable are you? Are you prepared to learn and expand to make the transition to being a baby boomer entrepreneur? Or, are you stuck on the situations that developed in your former career from which you are seeking semi-retirement?

Recently I became familiar with the work of Ingrid Elfver. She is a coach who works with other coaches to help them expand their abilities to serve their clients. She asked this same question, "How Coachable Are You?", in one of her recent blog posts. It stimulated me to think about how coachable I am personally and how coachable I expect my clients to be. You fan find my assessment of myself by reading my comments on her web page. Just click the title to this post and it will take you there.

Now, it is your turn. As you make the transition from being an employee to a baby boomer entrepreneurs, how coachable are you? Here is a video, Baby Boomer Entrepreneur- You Need A Guide, that may help you evaluate yourself.

How Seth Godin Helped Me Understand The Entrepreneurial Mindset

2011-04-10T14:04:00.002-05:00

Seth's Blog: Moving beyond teachers and bosses

Almost daily I find myself thinking about the meaning of "The Entrepreneurial Mindset". As I think about trying to help a baby boomer make the transition to from employee to baby boomer entrepreneur, the definition of the entrepreneurial mindset is always an issue.

Seth Godin, one of my favorite writers recently helped me bring this concept into a tighter focus. If you follow the link to his blog, you will learn how we get conditioned to please teachers and bosses. In the process we forget how to take initiative.

Grasping this simple concept shared by Seth will help you, just as it helped me. It brought me to a new level of clarity. It can do the same for you as you make the transition to becoming a baby boomer entrepreneur.

Shallie Bey

TrackBack URL for Seth's entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451b31569e20147e1e99563970b

Baby Boomer Entrepreneur - Shouldn't You Know The Top 10 Dying Industries?

2011-04-03T09:05:00.001-05:00

Top 10 Dying Industries - Real Time Economics - WSJ

As an aspiring baby boomer entrepreneur you look forward to the exciting and new opportunity before you. But are you taking time to look around you to see what is crumbling and how it may impact your plans?

This Wall Street Journal Article shares information about the top 10 dying industries around us. Does you business idea sell to, use products of, or depend upon people who work in these industries? If so, you need to know what the future of these industries will be.

In the big picture sense, the point of this article is that everything is changing around us. A few weeks ago, I drove through a community where I had once owned a small restaurant It has been 25 years since the business closed. I was amazed to see how the community had changed. I wondered what that change would have done to the restaurant if it had continued to operate. I saw corners with vacant lots where thriving businesses had once operated. I wondered ...

So as you make your plans for your business, what assumptions are you making. Do you expect the world to stand still except for the improvements your business will bring to the market? Think and think again!

Shallie

What Will Happen As Baby Boomers Hit Retirement Age?

2010-12-25T08:52:00.001-06:00

Baby Boomers Approach Age 65 - Glumly - The Philadelphia Bulletin

The "Age Wave" is about to hit retirement. Baby boomers, from the very beginning, have changed the world as they hit various stages of life. Some describe this as sort of like the bump a pig makes as it is being swallowed by a python.

We saw this Age Wave prompt the building of hospitals, baby food, elementary schools, and sports shoes. Nearly everything you can think of has been touched by the expanding demand of the baby boomer age wave.

In just a few days, the first baby boomers will turn 65, the traditional retirement age. Many things about how baby boomers think will make a mark on retirement as well. According to this research by the Pew Research Center, one week from today baby boomers will start turning 65 at the rate of 10,000 a day for the next 19 years.

Answers to questions in this study point us to some of the changes we can expect in the future. Baby boomers don't think 65 is old. Baby boomers want to have more control of their lives. These are some of the factors already pointing to the emerging trend of baby boomers quitting their "day jobs" and becoming entrepreneurs. This is resulting from a desire to have a change from traditional retirement.

If you are a baby boomer, if you are someone who wants to sell to baby boomers, you may want to read this report. It is likely to point you to needs that will have to be filled over the next two decades. Filling needs is the sweet spot in life for entrepreneurs. You might even be inspired to join the baby boomer entrepreneurs.

Shallie

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Baby Boomer Entrepreneur, Would You Let Your New Business Play In Traffic?

2010-09-25T08:04:00.003-05:00

If you had a new puppy, how would you protect it? Would you let it play in your front yard alone? If there is a 95% chance that it would get killed within a year if you just let it do what it wants, would you let it run free?

If you met the love of your life and decided to get married, would you forget to tell them every day that you love them? Suppose research proved that 95% of people who don't tell their spouses every day that they love them have a divorce within a year? Wouldn't you take action to protect your relationship?

When your child gets big enough to play outside, would you let it play in the street if there is a 95% probability that it would get hit by a car within a year?

These are the same odds that a baby boomer entrepreneur faces, that something will hurt or kill her business within the first year, with a 95 % certainty. This is true for all entrepreneurs, from baby boomer entrepreneurs through Gen -Y. I suspect that it even applies to kids with lemonade stands, but I haven't seen the research.

What we can see in the research is staggering. In the United States alone, a business started today has a 95% probability of not surviving for twelve months. Next month 500,000 businesses started across America will produce that same result. And next month another 500,000 businesses will have the same fate...and then the next month...until six million businesses are started in the year. And every January 1st a new year starts the cycle all over again. If you knew this, wouldn't you do something different to make sure your business is among those that survive?

When you have a child, you want them to learn to walk, go to school, graduate , and eventually become a responsible adult contributing to the world. Though you have the lofty vision of their life, you first immediate goal is to keep them alive until their first birthday. As they grow, you will protect them from the new set of age appropriate set of dangers.

If we know businesses have a 95% infant mortality rate, why do we wrap our beloved new born businesses in a baby blanket, set it in a basket in the street and ignore the traffic? Would YOU do that and expect to be a successful baby boomer entrepreneur?

Shallie

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Image: Tom Clare / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Baby Boomer Entrepreneur, Do You Want A Worthless Business?

2010-07-05T13:03:00.004-05:00

If you are like most entrepreneurs, you are building your business primarily to give yourself a job. This is true not only for baby boomer entrepreneurs, but entrepreneurs of all ages. If you are currently, or hope to be, one of the owners of the 23 million businesses in the U.S., and don't want to explore being able to build a business you can sell to someone else, this book is not for you.

However, if you want to maximize your options, this is the book you seek. If you want to be the 1 out of 100 business owners who have something of value that someone else would want to buy, this could be the book for you. If you are tired of the typical chaos of small business or you are tired of the business practices that make most service businesses unsellable, you may want to look over the shoulder of Alex Stapleton, the owner of the business discussed in this book. Learn why building a sell-able business might be your best option.

Following Alex through this fictional account as he learns how to build systems and a management team will expose you to new options. Even if you are already a fan of E-Myth's Michael Gerber, you will gain new insights on how to “work on your business and not just in it”. Through his story, author John Warrilow shares the benefit of much experience in actually doing what he teaches you to do in the book. You will learn what to do, how to do it, why to do it, when to do it, and how to handle situations with conflicting priorities. He even gives you an “8 Step Model For Selling Your Business” in the recap of what you should learn.

As baby boomers, a new business may be the best bet for a comfortable retirement. If you are already a baby boomer entrepreneur looking to downsize and form a different business, this book may help you. If your goal is to get freedom with your time, I recommend you take a look. You might even only want to sleep better knowing that you could sell your business if you want to do so.

READ Built To Sell if you want to know:
1. How long it will take you to prepare your business for sale.
2. How to find prospective buyers.
3. How to avoid being taken advantage of by your advisers or your prospective buyers.
4. How to reward your management team for helping you build a sell-able business and make them willing to stay with the business when you leave.

If you are a baby boomer entrepreneur, you will be delighted to learn how to turn your business into one you can sell. Of course, this is true for entrepreneurs of all ages.

For more videos and more information, see my Squidoo Lense: Baby Boomer Entrepreneur, Do You Want A Worthless Business?

Shallie Bey

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Do You Really Have To Pay To Play, Aspiring Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs?

2010-04-17T15:51:00.003-05:00

In the old era, you had to pay to play. But today's aspiring baby boomer entrepreneur has a new edge. In the old model you had to buy attention. But today, corporations are discovering that big budgets don't produce results the way they once did.

So, if big companies are spending less on social media and getting better results, doesn't it make sense that you can make it on a low or perhaps no budget too?

You can't buy attention anymore.
Having a huge budget budget doesn't mean anything in Social Media.
The old media paradigm was PAY to PLAY.
Now you get back what you authentically put in.
You've got to be willing to PLAY to PLAY.
------- Alex Bogusky, Co-Chair, CP&B

The following video shares with you a glimpse of how Social Media is completely changing the nature of the game.

You can do market research on social media. You can serve your customers through social media. Social media is the doorway to your success as a baby boomer entrepreneur.

One very exciting example of market research is the new use of Twitter to predict customer response to a product.

Two researchers at HP Labs have established that they can use Tweets to predict how well a movie will do - research that can be applied to all manner of events including how well a product or ad campaign may perform.

Although the researchers, Sitaram Asur and Bernardo Huberman, have only applied their methodologies to Hollywood movies, the accuracy rate of their tests is startling - essentially it was more accurate than the current gold standard, the Hollywood Stock Exchange, which the industry uses, writes Fast Company.
You can click here to get the full story. http://www.marketingvox.com/twitter-as-a-predictive-tool-046619/?utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_source=mv&utm_medium=textlink

Fellow baby boomer, we are blessed to be living in the most exciting of times for entrepreneurs. If you know what business you want to be in and how you want to serve your customers, you can PLAY TODAY.

Shallie Bey

Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs Gary Vaynerchuk Explains The New Opportunity

2010-04-11T14:06:00.003-05:00

Gary Vaynerchuk explains what he sees as the new opportunity for entrepreneurs. It is the ability to build a business focused upon your personal happiness and your personal range of opportunities. This is wonderful news for everyone, but especially for aspiring baby boomer entrepreneurs.

He explains that we are in a sea of culture shifts. These shifts create opportunities that did not exist: five years ago, a year ago, even days ago.

Gary Vee believes that the Internet is the single most under-rated aspect of society today. It is the open door to the "Thank You Economy" that places word of mouth on steroids. It is the opportunity to create real relationships in new ways.

Winning this battle requires living in a world where content is King and marketing is Queen. It opens the opportunity for "Tag Team Partners" where a content producer can partner with a marketing partner. The team can produce results that neither could produce alone.

Now, in the spirit of disclosure, Gary is about passion. In the midst of his excitement, that passion shows up in the form of a word that you might not use in polite company. But, if you can overcome that, Gary Vee has a word for you about becoming a baby boomer entrepreneur.

Shallie

Shallie Bey
Smarter Small Business Blog

Note: The video is about an hour and eighteen minutes long. The first thirty minutes are presentation with the balance being Q & A. You can find the direct link at:

Crush It.

Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs Seth Godin's Linchpin Has Been Out For A Month

2010-02-25T14:32:00.002-06:00

Well, baby boomer entrepreneurs, Seth Godin's new book, Linchpin, has been out for a month. What are we seeing about it's impact so far?

As for me, it has been a wonderful month. I've read Linchpin a couple times. I've shared it with many of my friends. I created a squidoo lens called Become A Linchpin. That is exactly what I want to do, be a linchpin. What have you decided? Why don't you tell me in the comments below?

Shallie Bey
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Baby Boomers - Especially Entrepreneurs - Seth Godin's New Book Linchpin Is For You

2010-01-24T18:42:00.009-06:00

How can I make such a statement to you baby boomers? After all. Seth says:
- I didn't set out to get you to quit your job
- or to persuade you to become an entrepreneur
- or merely to change the world.

Yet, he also says: ...fearful employees are in pain. They're in pain because they're overlooked, underpaid, laid off, and stressed out.”

“You weren't born to be a cog in the great industrial machine. You were trained to be a cog.”
“ You were promised: Follow these instructions and you don't have to think”

Now I ask, who can he be speaking to other than baby boomers. Who has lived under this training longer than any other generations? All of our lives, we baby boomers have been “pushed to produce, to conform, and to consume”. That is why 77+ million of us are looking to end our work careers. That is why many of us are seeking an alternative to traditional retirement and searching for advice on how to start your baby boomer business. We don't want anymore “attendance based compensation”.

We want the choice to be indispensable and to make a difference. As consumers, employees, and business owners - we do not want to participate in the old model “of racing to make average stuff for average people in huge quantities”.

As baby boomer entrepreneurs, we are starting baby boomer businesses at an amazing clip. We are already half of all the self employed business owners in America. Baby boomer women are leading the way at business formation at about twice the rate of men.

Seth doesn't promise you a map. What he does provide is a compass to point you in the right direction. He does advise you to focus on the audience you choose. He advises you to listen to them to the exclusion of all others. He advises making these customers happy. “Let the other guys pound sand”.

Baby boomers, especially entrepreneurs...this one is for you!

Baby Boomer Entrepreneur, What Is Your Problem?

2010-01-01T19:38:00.004-06:00

Roman Ross and I met for breakfast at a truck stop in Dallas. It was a great way for old friends to begin the new year. We like the buffet at the truck stop, having met there for breakfast before. It has good food and lots of variety, all at a reasonable price.

We were greeted by a very gracious server who seated us and brought menus. Roman asked her if there would be a buffet. The server told us the buffet wouldn't be open for about thirty minutes. Or, we could order anything we wanted from the menu. Roman told her we would wait for the buffet. The server brought us coffee. While we waited, we began to discuss the problems of the world, especially the new ones that have unfolded since our last visit.

New Year's Day is always a good time to discuss the topic of change. Change influences options. For many of us baby boomers, change seems to have reduced our options. We are older. For many of us, our problems are health related: vision, mobility, high blood pressure or diabetes.

Perhaps our problem is from our history. We might have issues lingering from earlier in life. We might not have the "right college major". We might have dropped out of college. We migh not have gone to college.

Perhaps our problem is from our present. We are getting a divorce. We don't have a job. Our industry that we have worked in all our life is dead, downsized, or outsourced. Our car isn't running.

The key to our future is recognizing and understanding problems. This is not about problems in the since of our personal sources of vexation and perplexity. We must understand the problems of people around us. We must think of problems in the sense of being a question raised for consideration or a solution.

All around us, people have problems that require solutions. People are eager to find solutions to their problems and will look upon you as a hero if you can show them effective solutions. They will pay you to help them find solutions when they don't know how to solve their problems.

Just as I was sharing my point about the word "problems" having two definitions, I noticed the servers were opening the buffet. Before I could suggest to Roman that we head over, I realized that people were getting up all over the restaurant. They were making their way to the buffet in mass.

Roman and I just sat and drank a bit more coffee. We watched the people serving themselves. The buffet became our case study on solving problems of people around us. We saw how the restaurant manager became the hero for 25 - 30 people by opening the buffet...by providing what the people wanted.

Though it was not obvious when we first arrived, it looked like nearly everyone in the restaurant was waiting for the buffet. Presumaby, we were all hungry. We could have ordered from the menu pretty much anything that we would have taken from the buffet. But we all wanted the buffet.

The solution to our hunger problem was not just food, but food delivered in a special way. The buffet gave us a package with options under our control. We could have what we wanted, with any combination we wanted, and as much as we wanted. As one of the hamburger commercials promises, we could have it "OUR WAY" and we had control of the maximum price.

Having once been a restaurant owner, I enjoy referring to delivering your product or service in such a special way as your "special sauce". YOUR special sauce is what makes your solution different and...to the taste of your customer. A hamburger can be a commodity like a light bulb if there is no way to tell one from another. A hamburger becomes special when your special sauce gives the hamburger a taste that makes your customer drive across town...to get a hamburger that tastes exactly the way they want it to taste.

So the way we create opportunities or options in our future is not to study the problems that limit us. Success is in studying the problems limiting those around us. We want to offer solutions to their problems. Our problems must have our "special sauce"...the way that not only fills their hunger, but in a way exactly according to their taste. Our special sauce makes it impossible for anyone else to solve their problem our way. Your problem is to find solutions to things vexing and frustrating those around you. The solutions to the problems of others are your doorway to new opportunities.

So, baby boomer entrepreneur, look around and discover the problems of health, the problems of the past, and the problems of the present...the problems that limit and vex those around you. Be the leader in solving a problem or some aspect of the problem, so you can help those around you. We call that a niche. What problem of others will you adopt for the purpose of finding solutions? To whom will you be a hero? So, baby boomer entrepreneur, what is your problem?

Shallie
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PS...Do you need help with your baby boomer business? Do you want to develop your special sauce? Join our free mailing list. Just fill on the box in the top right corner of this page. I will share with you some of the best business building tips available for free on the Internet. We can help you find your problem, the one that will solve the needs of your customers and will make you their hero.

About InCouraged- Because Courage is Contagious

2009-12-06T16:49:00.005-06:00

Who is Megan? Honestly, I don't have a clue. But Megan encouraged me today with a blog post.

Her blog is called InCouraged. The sub caption is..."Because Courage Is Contagious".

Megan shares a series of five posts this month that I have really enjoyed:
Dec. 1 - Being A Better Decider
Dec. 2 - Liberating Your Emotional Real Estate
Dec. 3 - Rounding Out Your Inner Circle
Dec. 4 - Adding Structure to Gain Freedom
Dec. 5 - An Open Letter to Aspiring Entrepreneurs

If you are considering becoming a baby boomer entrepreneur, I encourage you to check out InCouraged.

On her blog, Megan talks about an epiphany she had one day in the shower. She shares the story behind the birth of the blog. Let me just share with you this part of the story:

So why are we doing this? Because it takes courage to look fear in the face, embrace it, learn from it and convert it into a positive force that only you can create. And in this day and age, we need more of it. A lot more.

I hope you will be encouraged by InCouraged. Let's prove that Megan is right...that Courage Is Contagious.

Shallie
Follow me on Twitter

Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs, What "Blank" Are You Trying to Sell?

2009-08-02T11:55:00.005-05:00

Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs, what "BLANK" are you trying to sell? Will your customers be able to find you because your BLANK is clearly available through all the important channels?

Will all the right sources tell your potential customers that your BLANK is the best BLANK available? Will people see you as the guru of BLANK? Are you the world wide leader of the BLANK Tribe?

If you struggle with getting the word out about your BLANK, you might want to know about MY FREE BLANK, Join The Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs.

Thanks to Ben McConnell at the Society for Word Of Mouth for the video:
http://www.theswom.org/profiles/blogs/when-people-talk-about-blank

Shallie
follow me on Twitter

Entrepreneurship At Any Age - So What?

2009-07-11T18:18:00.004-05:00

Does age matter if you are an entrepreneur? The answer is "no" according to 18 year old Houston based entrepreneur, Keith J Davis. He makes his debut as a book author with "Young? So What!" (K. Jerrold Publishing, U.S. $15.00).

He lists 10 steps to becoming a successful entrepreneur. He shares that the common question is "What can an 18 year old tell me about achieving success?" ReShonda Tate Billingsley, a national best selling author answers. "I recommend 'Young? So What!' to anyone looking for greater clarity on how to achieve success as an entrepreneur or in life period."

Davis' top ten list begins with having the right mindset. He credits his parents for leading him in the direction that helped him develop his mindset. "They instilled in me that there are no excuses for not attaining your life goals and no certain age for when a person should begin to leave a mark in the world."

Though Davis has targeted sharing his message with other kids his own age, he has a message for us baby boomer entrepreneurs as well. "Over 50" So What?"

You can find more about Keith Davis at http://www.keithjdavisjr.com/index.html

Shallie Bey
Follow me on Twitter

Track back http://www.cnbc.com/id/31852748

Baby Boomers, Listen To “The Next Iron Chef” Winner's Recipe For Entrepreneurship

2009-06-27T05:56:00.003-05:00

Small Business Stories - Michael Symon

Michael Symon, 2007 winner of The Next Iron Chef, has recipes for food and for business success. Learn how he starts new projects. Learn why national hotel chains are giving him offers to design and operate new restaurants. Learn his concepts that apply to any business strategy. Learn what you can do to effectively get your business started.

Learn why in a volatile business like restaurants, 75% of his initial staff still works for him. Find out what he means when he says his first goal is to figure out how to do it the right way, and then how to make money.

This is a 27 minute video by an amazing and entertaining entrepreneur. See if he can get you to “drink the koolaid”.

Shallie Bey
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Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs, What Are The Behaviors of Successful Business Owners?

2009-05-31T08:34:00.003-05:00

Would you like to know the three issues that every business owner must deal with regardless of the size of the business?

Would you like to learn a three step process to successfully address those issues?

Do you know why you must evaluate your success based upon the success of the people you hire?

Do you know why beginning with the One Page Business Plan can be the foundation of your success?

If those are interesting to you, you want to watch Ron Finklestein's video, Behaviors of Successful Business Owners. Ron is a business coach. He is also an expert author at www.evancharmichael.com. This site is promoted as the Internet's #1 resource for small Business motivation and strategies.

Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs of all ages, five minutes invested in this video could give you the leg up to success that you are seeking.

Shallie Bey
follow me on Twitter

Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs, Does Business Incubation Improve The Odds of Business Success?

2009-05-24T18:48:00.003-05:00

As the economy continues to be weak, it is important for baby boomer entrepreneurs to know about business incubation. Business incubation in a formal program may be the key to business success as you form your new enterprise. If you can't join a business incubation program, you may want to simulate one of your own.

The National Business Incubation Association says that business incubation programs provide entrepreneurs with a guiding hand to help them turn their ideas into viable businesses. Since the first incubator opened in Batavia, N.Y., 50 years ago, incubation programs around the world have been providing client companies with business support services and resources tailored to young firms to help increase their chances of success.

Does Business Incubation Improve Odds of Success?
The U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration validates that incubation works. Their research says that business incubators provide communities with significantly greater results at less cost than do any other type of public works project.

Researchers found that business incubators are the most effective means of creating jobs – more effective than roads and bridges, industrial parks, commercial buildings, and sewer and water projects. In fact, incubators provide up to 20 times more jobs than community infrastructure projects (e.g., water and sewer projects) at a Federal Government cost of $144 to $216 per job compared with $2,920 to $6,872 for the latter.

In another EDA-funded study in the mid 1990s, it was found that 87 percent of all firms that had graduated from NBIA member incubation programs remained in business – and about 84 percent remained in the incubator's community.

It is estimated that in 2005 alone, North American incubators assisted more than 27,000 start up companies that provided full-time employment for more than 100,000 workers and generated annual revenues of more than $17 billion. Many thousands more jobs were created by companies that had already graduated from these business incubation programs and now operate self-sufficiently in their communities.

If a strategic focus on innovation and entrepreneurship makes the difference in businesses started in business incubators, a similar focus will work for you.

Find out more about business incubation by visiting the National Business Incubation Association at www.nbia.org.

If you can't find an incubator, you may be able to simulate the incubation process by participating in a structured process. See our suggestions on doing this by visiting Join The Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs.

Shallie Bey
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Shallie Bey Joins New Twitter-based Question and Answer Resource for the Baby Boomers

2009-05-10T09:00:00.007-05:00

Baby Boomers, gain access to a community of over 80 professionals and organizations for free timely advice!

If you are a baby boomer looking for help with career choice options, beginning an encore career, or launching a new business venture, there is a new resource available to you.

Shallie Bey of Smarter Small Business Blog, dozens of other professionals and the Baby Boomer Knowledge Center (TM) are contributing to the improvement of communications and relationships between professionals and you, the baby boomer consumer. This new initiative is called @BoomerAuthority. Shallie Bey will serve as one of the authorities on baby boomer entrepreneurs and other business issues.

You can submit questions to @BoomerAuthority through Twitter. It doesn't matter whether you need help with an issue, have a question, seek an opinion, or simply want a recommendation. You just send a public message on Twitter to @BoomerAuthority. The twitter message will be monitored and directed to a person with the appropriate expertise to help you. You will get a direct response back to you in your preferred method of response.

For more information on how to use this resource, go to Baby Boomer Knowledge Center
Or, go directly to @BoomerAuthority to ask your question.

Shallie Bey

Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs, Michael Gerber Says There Is A System To Create What You Don't Know How To Create (Part 3)

2009-05-07T18:08:00.005-05:00

In Part 3 of this interview on The New Millionaire with Kean Wong, Michael Gerber continues his discussion on how to create the system to create what you don't know how to create. He shares his new thoughts on the role of dreaming as the missing ingredient that kept him from inspiring entrepreneurs to the level he wanted to inspire them.

Listen to the concept of the entrepreneur incubator. This incubator is not the incubator of your business but the incubator of your mind.

And please see our free directory of other information about Michael Gerber and the E-Myth Revisited. If you missed Parts 1 and 2 of the interview, you will find them there.

Shallie Bey
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Michael Gerber Says There Is A System To Create What You Don't Know How To Create Part 2

2009-05-05T18:13:00.003-05:00

In Part 2 of this interview with Kean Wong of The New Millionaire, Michael Gerber takes up the issue of how to create a world class business operating system. He shares how he used that concept to build his company and to have his company train other business owners to do the same thing.

And please see our free directory of other information about Michael Gerber and the E-Myth Revisited. If you missed Part 1 of the interview, you will find it there.

Shallie Bey
follow me on Twitter

Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs, Michael Gerber Says There Is A System To Create What You Don't Know How To Create (Part 1)

2009-05-03T20:23:00.006-05:00

Baby Boomer, as you stand before the task of creating a new business, to join the entrepreneurs, you have a problem. The problem is that you have to create something that you have never created before, a working business. Further, you have to do that and you probably don't know how. Even worse, the majority of people who have tried what you are doing have failed.

Michael Gerber says that does not have to be a problem for you. The author of the E-Myth Revisited, the man who has explained why so many small businesses fail, says there is a system that you can follow to achieve success. In an interview by Kean Wong of The New Millionaire, he begins to explain the system to you. Please take a look.

And please see our free directory of other information about Michael Gerber and the E-Myth Revisited.

Shallie Bey
follow me on Twitter

Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs Jailbreak Your Life Not Just Your Phone

2009-04-25T09:59:00.002-05:00

Imagine you have this great new phone, with all kinds of wonderful applications. There is just one little problem, there is one important application that you need and your phone doesn't support it. Do you learn to just live with what the manufacturer gives you? Or do you have options? For many, the solution is to “Jailbreak your phone”.

Though I am very proud of my degree as an electrical engineer from Purdue University, I don't know much about jailbreaking your phone. However, there is a very interesting blog called “What Do You Know” that recently spoke to the topic. It got me to thinking about us baby boomers who want to become entrepreneurs but haven't taken the step yet. What Do You Know...about Jailbreaking Your Life?

The Pwnage Tool & Jailbreaking an IPhone is the title of the post by Robert Bockenkamp. In all fairness, I need to start out by saying that Robert does not advocate jailbreaking your phone. He points out clearly that he is only explaining to you what it is.

I, on the other hand, not only want to explain to you what jailbreaking your life is, I want to encourage and possibly even help you in taking the step. But let's begin with Robert's definitions:

Pwnage Tools is a program that facilitates the jailbreaking of an IPhone or Ipod Touch.

Technical Definition of Jailbreak: The iPhone and iPod touch hack that allow users to gain access to the entire Unix file system. In Unix terms, this refers to changing the root of the directory tree to /.

Understandable Definition of Jailbreak: A hack that gains access to areas of the iPhone or iPod Touch that users aren’t supposed to mess with. Typically, this is an immediate prelude to either installing cool programs, unlocking the handset for use with another cellular network, or both.

Through jailbreaking, you are able to add additional applications to your iPhone or iPod Touch. It allows you to do so by adding an application called Cydia (firmware 2.x) or Installer (firmware 1.1.4 and below) to your iPhone or iPod Touch. It also also modding (changing) of your iPhone/iPod Touch application icons, wallpaper, dock, status bar, chat bubbles, weather backgrounds, keyboard

On to Jailbreaking your life

So, do words like the following interest you:

Ending the pawn age (pwnage)
Controlling parts of your life that you aren't supposed to mess with
Installing really cool programs into your life
Are you tired of having to accept what is given to you?

Then it is probably time to begin thinking about how to Jailbreak Your Life. Many people us entrepreneurship as the tool to bring freedom into their lives.

Among baby boomers, entrepreneurship is fast becoming an alternative to the traditional retirement path. Americans aged 55 to 64 are starting businesses at a higher rate than any other age group.

But mooding, as in changing the mood of your cell phone, is also necessary for jailbreaking your life.

You have to change your thinking, your mindset, from that of an employee to that of a business owner.
You also have to learn new skills that might not have been used in your last job description. One of those key skills that you must introduce is how to master marketing. You can have the best product or service in the universe but you can't sell it if people don't know about it.

Plan Your Jailbreak

You can consume many resources in the process of starting your business. Let me recommend to you that you use the many free and low cost resources that are available on the Internet. I have become particularly interested in social media marketing as a free tool to help with marketing. You can find more about that at: The Secret Recipe...

http://businessrebirth.blogspot.com/2009/04/baby-boomer-entrepreneurs-use-twitter.html

I have also created for you a free resource directory at:

Join The Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs

and a video for you Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs You Need A Guide

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzSVLQUTxYs

Now - Click the links and check out the resources I have for you. Make a good plan to Jailbreak Your Life!

Shallie Bey

follow me on twitter

Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs - The Story Lady Has A Story About You

2009-04-16T18:58:00.001-05:00

In the beginning, you were not having the life you wanted, but in the end you lived happily ever after.

If you like that story, you want to read some of the work of The Story Lady.

Quoting from her bio on Amazon:

Ronda Del Boccio unknowingly began her path to becoming The Story Lady as a tot when she invented skits and stories with her stuffed toys. She was born with an eye conditions that mean she will never drive or see "normally," so she lives every day with added challenges that she calls "speed bumps."

All her life people have opened up to her and shared their lives in the safe space she innately offers. Recognized globally as The Story Lady, she teaches authors, business owners, entrepreneurs, and visionary individuals just like you to reach your ideal customers, readers, and associates through the power of your story.

Along with Bonnie Tesh, she co-authored the inspirational book I'll Push You Steer: The Definitive Guide to Stumbling Through Life with Blinders On.

Her new book The Geometry of Success comes out soon. She is an award-winning author, transformational speaker and mentor who teaches you how to connect with anyone through the power of storytelling and live from your power.

"When you share facts, you touch a mind, but when you share your story, you touch a life. And when you touch one life, you touch at least a thousand lives." -- Ronda Del Boccio, The Story Lady.

Ronda Del Boccio tells us to serve before we sell. And that is exactly what she does on her blog

http://profitablestorytelling.com/blog/2009/03/15/the-story-lady-shares-guarded-twitter-tactics-for-business-success/

Please check her out to get the story of your happy ending.

Follow her on twitter at http://twitter.com/thestorylady

Shallie Bey

Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs - Use Twitter Secret Recipe to Develop Leads and Cashflow for Your Business

2009-04-04T19:47:00.009-05:00

What skills do you need to develop if you plan on going into semi-retirement as a baby boomer entrepreneur? New business owners tend to suffer from lacking three skills:

Lack of knowledge about business development
Lack of knowledge about marketing
Lack of knowledge about building positive cash flow

Interestingly, if you are planning on becoming a baby boomer entrepreneur, there are some shortcuts to help you with building those skills. One way is to use the highly popular social networking platform, Twitter, as a learning exercise. As you develop a marketing project on Twitter, you develop all the skills you need to design and market a larger business. It doesn't matter if that business will be on the Internet or the more traditional bricks and mortar.

If you are not familiar with Twitter, you can get a good overview at the free directory I have prepared for you Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs You Need To Know Twitter.
You will find videos and a directions that will help you understand it quickly.

Like most things that are really effective, Twitter is pretty simple. The challenge is not in how to use Twitter, but in knowing how to craft a strategy to use Twitter to develop your business skills.

Some months ago, I shared with you what internet marketing guru Ed Dale calls the Symphony In Four Parts. If you missed it, just click on the link. It points out the four parts of the symphony:

1. Market Research
2. Traffic Generation (Lead Generation)
3. Conversion (Sales)
4. Product Development and Delivery

A conservative estimate is that 95% of mistakes are made in the MARKET RESEARCH stage. This is because most people don't do the MARKET RESEARCH.

Following this universal pattern can't guarantee a success every time. The beauty is that it will help eliminate the stuff that will not work.

Whether you are doing a traditional business or an Internet business, the MARKET RESEARCH capability of the Internet opens new roads to success in starting a new business or growing an established business.

A low budget business that lets you develop the required skills is an excellent strategy as you transition from employment to business ownership. In addition to building the skills, it can help you fund the business development effort by generating cash flow.

A friend recently introduced me to a fully developed system for using Twitter, a Twitter Secret Recipe, for for building any kind of business. It pulls all the pieces together and gives you the exact recipe to follow. As you use this system to promote your followers on Twitter, you will understand how to do market research, how to develop leads, how to convert lead to build customer lists, how to use the customer list to make sales, and how to deliver your product.

By following this recipe, you will have rapid growth in your skills, an increase in your entrepreneurial mindset, and a great boost in your confidence that you can build a successful business. Please go watch the free Twitter Secret Recipe video.

Shallie Bey

Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs, What Is The Right Size For Your Business?

2009-03-29T09:54:00.005-05:00

If your goal for being an entrepreneur is to enjoy the life style you want without having to fully retire, how big should your business be? What are some of the things you should think about?

Seth Godin recently commented that he had been doing a lot of thinking about issues of scale and units of measure. He concluded: “Many businesses that are in trouble are in trouble for a simple reason: they’re the wrong size”.

If you are the typical Baby Boomer Entrepreneur, looking for a business as an alternative to full retirement, what size fits your life goals? What are the units of measure you should consider? Here are a few to start:

How much of your time should your business consume?
How much of your financial resources should be invested in the business?
How much personal cash flow should your business produce for you?
When do you need that cash flow?
How big a geographic scope should you serve?
How many employees do you need to deliver on the promises you are going to make to your marketplace?
Are you delivering a full scale system solution to your customer’s problem or a piece of the entire system?
If you are successful, can you scale the business up and still enjoy the quality of life that is your goal?

The folks at Small Business Labs continued the discussion by commenting in their blog and sharing some of their research.

They observed that most industries are moving towards a barbell shaped industrial structure with a few global giants on one end and lots of small businesses on the other. Mid sized firms are being acquired by the larger firms or squeezed out.

Their second major observation was that variable cost business models allow small firms to be competitive with large firms in an increasing number of market spaces. New technologies have reduced the cost of starting and operating a business.

So, baby boomer entrepreneur, what is the answer for you? What combination of size and agility will allow you to compete in your market while still allowing you to live your desired lifestyle?

Shallie Bey

Back track URL to Seth’s post:

http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451b31569e2011279821f8d28a4

Back track URL to SmallBusiness Labs:

http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8345675df69e201156f52f46c970b

Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs, Would You Like A Free Pass to the Classrooms of the Top Scholars In Your Field?

2009-03-14T13:32:00.005-05:00

Could you benefit from hearing the key issues in astronomy, biology, chemistry, or our beloved topic of entrepreneurship? Would that help you find and develop your business ideas?

In our topic of entrepreneurship, there are 737 free guest lectures on such issues as why you need a business plan -- to The 5 Essential Skills that Entrepreneurs Need.

This is the work of Richard Ludlow. Richard is a 22 year old Yale University student. He is also a finalist in Business Week’s 2008 competition for America’s Best Young Entrepreneurs.

Richard felt that many people could not have access to the top lecturers in fields of interest to them. The barriers might be money, location, or time. So he found a way to bring Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford and Yale to the students. As a Baby Boomer Entrepreneur, you get to benefit by being a fly on the wall. You can look for business opportunities, build your knowledge, or simply increase your skills in entrepreneurship, all for free.

Thanks to young entrepreneurs Xavier Lur for bringing this to our attention. Xavier blogs at

http://techxav.com/2009/03/10/academic-earth-features-video-lectures-from-the-worlds-top-scholars-for-free/’ .

Go visit Academic Earth at : http://academicearth.org/ . I recommend to you Five Critical Skills That Entrepreneurs Need by Jerry Kaplan: http://academicearth.org/lectures/five-critical-skills-that-entrepreneurs-need . If you want an alternative view to Jerry Kaplan, you might want to see http://www.slate.com/id/2712/ .

Shallie Bey

Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs, What You Can Learn About Twitter From Teen Entrepreneurs

2009-02-22T12:59:00.003-06:00

Are you confused about how to use such social media platforms as twitter and facebook? Are you wondering how to keep your friends easy to follow and yet looking to follow and make new friends, then let me introduce you to Stanley Tang.

Stanley is a teen entrepreneur who has some insights on these subjects. He recently found a video by another teen, Min Xuam, that he thought was so good he decided to share it on his blog. It is called “How Twitter changed my life”. It isn’t the only strategy for how to used twitter and facebook, but it is a great strategy. This slide show, How Twitter Changed My Life, is well worth the time.

I was most impressed with the suggestion that you tweet not about what you are doing but what has your attention. This is a massive revelation for me. It really helps me understand why I love reading certain tweets and why others do not capture my interest.

Twitter is probably not a fad. Even if it is a fad, we baby boomer entrepreneurs must learn to effectively communicate with our markets. Teen entrepreneurs are creating new tricks for us old dogs to learn. Let's keep on learning so we can stay on the porch with the big dogs.

You can follow Stanley on twitter at @stanleytang, Min Xuam at @minxuam, and even me at @
ShallieBey. You can get a free twitter account by going to www.twitter.com .

Shallie Bey

A Reply to: Is Gladwell Right About What’s Most Likely to Make You Successful?

2009-02-14T12:12:00.005-06:00

Some weeks ago, I wrote a review of Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, Outliers. One of the places I posted the review was on my blog page for the Society for Word of Mouth.

Kare Anderson, a fellow member of the Society for Word of Mouth and a blogger, shared with me her blog post about this book and some "cautionary concerns" about Gladwells conclusions.

I want share with you, dear reader, some of the magic that comes with the world of blogging. I wanted to take some time to give her a thought out response. I would like to share that with you here.

The following are excerpts copied from Kare’s post. I want to encourage you to see her full post and share a link at the end of the excerpts.

It took me awhile to finally decide to write this post as it runs against the tide of most readers’ opinions. And many feel strongly as I discovered at dinner last night with friends, but here goes. Outliers purports to reveal the real reason some people — like Bill Joy, the Beatles and Bill Gates— are successful. Yet what Malcolm Gladwell finds is, as Michiko Kakutani notes, “little more than common sense” – except when he draws conclusions about what’s most important for success.

I admit that my summary of the book is not as fascinating or sticky as the

vignettes in it, yet see if Gladwell’s conclusions surprise you:

1. Talent alone is not enough to ensure success.

2. Opportunity, hard work, timing and luck are also essential.

3. Poor children are less likely to succeed than those raised in rich or middle-class families.

4. It takes 10,000 hours of practice to become successful.

The first three seem blindingly obvious yet I disagree about what’s most important. And he over-generalizes. While it’s also obvious that mastery improves one’s chance for success, his conclusion that there’s a magic amount of practice time cannot be substantiated by the studies, interviews (Bill Joy, for example) and stories he offers…

…As Isaac Chotiner concludes, Gladwell “dislikes attributing individual accomplishment to the accomplishing individuals. He has set out to prove that people with social advantages do better than people without social advantages, and so the really wise thing for society to do is to arrange for more advantages for more people.” In fact Gladwell never really defines success.

Here’s my problem. He plays up the power of cultural background, timing and economic class and downplays the role in success of talent and perseverance...

You can read her full post at http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2009/01/29/is-gladwell-right-about-what%e2%80%99s-most-likely-to-make-you-successful/#comment-2125

This is my response in turn:

Kare,

Thank you for your kindness in sharing your "cautionary notes" about Gladwell's conclusions. I agree with your topics of caution to varying degrees. I think that is exactly the issue, that we do not have mathematical precision on how to measure some of the points. I visited your blog and enjoyed not only your comments but those of your readers as well.

I posted a rather long response there that I would like to elaborate on here. I think Gladwell did take into account personal responsibility and perseverance and such things as deliberate collaboration. He lumps them under what he calls "meaningful work".

He says: "Those three things -- autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward -- are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying...work that fulfills those three criteria is meaningful...hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning...once it does, it becomes the kind of thing that makes you grab your wife around the waist and dance a jig...the most important consequences of the miracle of the garment industry, though, was what happened to the children growing up in those homes where meaningful work was practiced...a lesson crucial to those who wanted to tackle the upper reaches of a profesion like law or medicine: if you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world."

Just as I pieced the run on sentence from pages of discussion on meaningful work, I think meaningful work is the tread that holds it all together. I suspect that it is not that Gladwell ignores the concept of purposeful effort that he focuses upon the cultural issues. I think he makes the point that people flounder until their culture gives them the opportunity to discover purposeful effort. So, my conclusion is that if you were to sit down with Mr. Gladwell, he would agree with your cautionary concerns, except perhaps about the 10,000 hours. It is the combination of advantage, however it is produced, with meaningful work, that ultimately marks the path of the outlier.

For the convenience of readers to this blog, I will share below my more detailed post to your blog.

Thanks for taking time to both read my original post and to share with me your observations. As a blogger, you know how precious a gift that is.

Shallie
____________________________________

Kare,

Thanks for a very thoughtful set of comments about Outliers. I do believe you are correct to say that the ideas should not be accepted unchallenged. Like many things around us, this is a story of trends and probabilities. There is no exact science that we can develop at this point that describes everything perfectly.

I tend to agree with your challenge of the 10,000 hour rule, for example. I have heard it said that one can become exceedingly knowledgeable about many things with 1,000 hours of study. One thousand hours for you and I as newbie bloggers will leave us much more talented than we were at hour five. The same is true for learning to drive a car, learning a foreign language, or playing softball.

I do believe that Gladwell is right about building upon successions of advantage. Small advantages can grow into large advantages. As a former venture capitalist, for example, I did some research on the probability of someone getting financing from a venture capital company. The odds are small that you will get any attention at all, perhaps one in 100 at the time. But if you could get attention to your idea, the investor began to help you think it through and your odds went to one in five. Similar numbers apply to getting your book published or even finding the perfect date with an on-line profile.

In my own personal life, I can see much of the trend that Gladwell discusses. People often ask me how I got from being a minority kid from a low income family in a steel town to the point of being visible to the President of the United States and appointed to be Superintendent of the United States Mint Philadelphia, the world’s largest Mint.

I can assure you that I did not start my youth with that as an aspiration. However, after a couple close scrapes with death, I did know that I did not want to be a steelworker all of my life. I had above average academic skills and was named a National Achievement Scholar by National Merit Corporation. That lead to a degree in engineering from Purdue University, which lead to sharing an office with an engineer who worked on a taskforce doing operations research, sort of a combination of engineering, operational planning, and finance in a refinery. When he was temporarily moved to fill another critical role, I was assigned to step up to fill in for him because we had become friends and I had been interested in what he was doing.

We discovered that I had a talent for this stuff and I was nominated to fill a position as a financial analyst in a new division that was being formed to train some oil people in understanding non-oil related business as a possible diversification strategy. I assumed a managerial role and officer title in a very small subsidiary of a very large corporation. This created eventually an opportunity to back up my trial and error education in business by going to a little school down the street, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

So when the head of the search team looking to fill the position of the President’s appointee to Superintendent of the United States Mint Philadelphia came to town, he and his team talked with engineers, and oil company executives, and bar association chancellors, and bankers, and the Dean of Wharton. One of the things they asked was if they knew any minority person who might be a good candidate for them to interview since the President wanted to make some non-traditional appointments of minorities.

I was not on the top of anyone’s list, but I was on everyone’s list. That got me the first interview. And that interview was much like the eye to eye meeting with a venture capitalist or the endorsement of a literary agent for your book. It changed my odds.

And interestingly enough, my advantage was I had been a steel worker as a kid. I had worked on the bottom rung as a laborer in exactly the same type of heavy industrial environment as the Mint. My ultimate advantage was the disadvantage that got me started on my course of self-improvement.

Surely there is much more detail to how finally getting noticed led to my selection, nomination and ultimate Senate confirmation to become the 16th Superintendent, the youngest in the history of the United States and the first African American. Yet, the point is clear to me that my life correlates exactly to Gladwell’s hypothesis. I worked hard in one way or another every day of my life, but working hard was not sufficient to make me step into a small place in history. Everyone around me worked hard.

Shallie Bey

Smarter Small Business Blog

Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs - Don't Expect To Build Your Business By Accident

2009-01-26T19:19:00.004-06:00

Baby Boomers who are becoming entrepreneurs have serious intentions of building businesses that go beyond being hobbies. Research shows that they expect to build businesses that will support and fund their desired lifestyles rather than opting for the traditional path of retirement. Unfortunately, many are depending on building the business into a success without being willing to plan for success.

Regardless of the industry, most new entrepreneurs start with a common problem. As an entrepreneur, you face the challenge of establishing a complex business with limited resources and limited time. You have very little room for big mistakes. Because the challenge is bigger than what you can do by yourself, you have to involve others: employees, independent contractors, investors, and possibly even partners. And of course, your ultimate success is based upon how you are received by customers.

As a professional entrepreneur, it is your job to set the expectations for the business, for all aspects of the business, for everyone associated with your business. People often refer to this as having the entrepreneurial mindset, being willing to accept responsibility for what you are creating.

People often think of the business plan as a tool to raise money. Your business plan is far more importantly your tool for designing and operating your business. Writing your plan does not have to be as complex and time consuming as most people expect that it must be to produce results. One very good resource comes from Jim Horan, a skilled writer dispensing advice to entrepreneurs and author of The One Page Business Plan: The Fastest, Easiest Way to Write a Business Plan.

It is in accepting the responsibility for creating your expectations for your business and seeing that they are properly aligned with the expectations of your customers and employees that you avoid the trap of depending upon things to come together by accident. It is in defining and aligning expectations that you differentiate your business in the marketplace. This is what makes you stand out from the commodity businesses.

The overwhelming majority of business owners either fail to establish expectations or to communicate the expectations they hold locked in their minds. They think that common sense should tell people what to expect. They fail to establish specific systems that explain to customers how they will be served. They fail to establish systems and procedures that employees follow to make sure that customers get exactly what was promised to them.

People so often depend upon everything to come together by accident. What people fail to understand is there is no such thing as common sense. What we call common sense is actually an agreement or alignment of our expectations that results from dialog over time. By establishing the expectations on how you will serve the market, what promises you will make to your customers and how you will keep those promises, you make your business stand out from the many that lack direction and only do the same thing twice in a row by accident. That is how customers develop the common sense to come to you rather than other sources in the market, you are consistent in meeting your promises. Customers can feel in control because if what you promised is exactly what they want, they know exactly where to go to get what they want. They come to you.

Don’t assume your serious intentions are automatically built into your business. Take specific calculated steps to: 1) create the vision; 2) document your vision; and 3) find a way to express it to others so they can join you in delivering on your promises. Delivering on your promises cannot depend upon everything coming together by accident. Build your business on the solid foundation of a plan that honors the needs of everyone, you, your customers, and your employees alike. Make your plan. Make your promises. Deliver on what you promise. Expect it to all come together by plan, not by accident.

Shallie Bey

Andrea Stenberg, blogger for Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs, was one of the first to report on the Bank of Montreal study about the serious intentions of baby boomer entrepreneurs. You can see her post at:

http://thebabyboomerentrepreneur.com/28/ipsos-reid-study/comment-page-1/#comment-852 .

For more insights on The One Page Business Plan, see the free resource directory I have created on How To Write A One Page Business Plan at:

http://www.squidoo.com/One-Page-Business-Plan

Career Renegade - A Book for Entrepreneurs

2009-01-13T19:04:00.005-06:00

Are you a young person looking to make your mark in life? Or, perhaps, are you a Baby Boomer looking to redefine your life as an entrepreneur? Are you wondering how to live a life of fulfillment and joy, and a life with a proper work life balance?

So many people begin their life wanting to make a difference and find themselves side tracked along the way. They begin by asking what they want to be when they grow up. And then they discover that they are grown up and they still don’t know what they want to be.

Jonathan Fields saw that happening in his own life and in the lives of so many people around him. He saw people running faster, working harder, climbing higher, sweating more blood, and pushing through stifling fatigue. Most importantly, he saw that usually they were no freer or happier.

He saw people trapped in their fear that if they tried to do anything about it they would become poor or a failure…or even worse, perhaps both.

He decided to find the solution to the riddle of actually doing what you love for a living without leaving your life behind. Not only did he succeed, he discovered that part of what he loves is sharing the solution with others. Jonathan wants to share it with you in Career Renegade.

He describes his intent as wanting to deliver something that is not only fun and inspirational, but insanely useful. Once again, with the clarity brought by intense focus, Jonathan has another success.

Discipline is required for success in every pursuit. Part of that discipline is acquiring the fundamental information, as he calls it, that is required to participate in any activity. He will give you a lot of information and will point you to other sources to help you learn the fundamentals: the rules of the game, the knowledge of systems, wisdom, cheats, hacks, and secrets you need to know.

In Career Renegade, Jonathan moves what information marketers call the free line. He will give you for free what could cost you hundreds of dollars to learn in other courses. In addition to sharing with you for free his take on ropes to know, he points you to other useful free resources available on the Internet that you might not find easily by yourself.

One of the things you will enjoy is that Jonathan provides complete information. Unlike what so often happens, he won’t just tell you what to do, leaving you in the dark about why or how. He will even talk about how to explain what you are doing to your friends and family so they won’t think you have gone crazy.

So if you want to understand work life balance, if you want to pay the bills while pursuing your passion, whether you are a prospective young entrepreneur or one of the fast growing segment of the population composed of Baby Boomer entrepreneurs, talk with Jonathan Fields. Career Renegade is a good place to begin that conversation.

If your answer is yes, you want to know about Jonathan Field’s new book, Career Renegade. I have created a Squidoo Lens at http://www.squidoo.com/Career-Renegade. This site gives you a quick tour of the book and the thinking that will show you how to make a great living doing what you love.

Shallie Bey

Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs – Commit To Taking The First Step

2009-01-11T10:54:00.004-06:00

Unwritten, the song performed by Natasia Bedingfield ( click here it see her perform the music video on YouTube), has a message for would be Baby Boomer Business Owners.

I am unwritten,

Can’t read my mind

I’m undefined.

I’m just beginning

The pen’s in my hand

Ending unplanned.

This is where many aspiring Baby Boomer business owners find themselves, undefined. And this leads us to the very first step defining what being a Baby Boomer Entrepreneur or Baby Boomer business owner means to you? Is this something to which you are committed? At the very minimum, are you committed to finding the answer about your level of commitment before you spend your money and your life on the task of starting a business?

Are you willing to test out your role as a business owner? Are you sure you really want to be a business owner or is that just the next trendy thing to do because everyone else is doing it? Is this a life you really want to live?

Staring at the blank page before you

Open up the dirty window

Let the sun illuminate the words

That you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance

So close you can almost taste it

Release your inhibitions

Are you willing to release the inhibitions that come from years of working for someone else? Are you prepared to set aside the fears associated with being in the driver’s seat? Are you willing to go from a fuzzy generality to a specific commitment to be an entrepreneur? Are you willing to confront how you can define a work/life balance that works uniquely for you?

Feel the rain on your skin

No one else can feel it for you

Only you can let it in

No one else, no one else

Can speak the words on your lips

Are you ready to take the first step? Are you ready to commit to being an entrepreneur or business owner? If so…

This is where your book begins…

For more information to help you make that first step see: Join The Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs (click here ).

Shallie Bey

New Video for Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs

2008-12-31T00:24:00.004-06:00

Baby Boomer business owners and Baby Boomers wanting to start businesses, we have a new video for you. It shares some of the key things you must consider to avoid the treacherous water with hidden dangers for new businesses. Topics include:

Are you looking to join the alternative retirement trend?
Are you starting a business to remain active?
Do you want to establish a new work/life balance?
What you need to build into the design of your business to make it work for you.
Why you must slow down to get it done faster.
Some things your life experiences will not prepare you to do.
Where do you look to find the right tools?

I hope you enjoy it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzSVLQUTxYs

Shallie Bey

Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs, You Must Do More Than Just Buy Yourself A Job

2008-12-14T18:58:00.005-06:00

Baby Boomers, the generation born between 1946 and 1964, are starting businesses at amazing levels. Though Global Entrepreneurship Week and similar efforts are focused upon getting young people to explore entrepreneurship, it is the Baby Boomer business owners who are answering the call at unprecedented levels. And if they don’t start right, they will experience failure at unprecedented levels. That is why you, as a Baby Boomer Entrepreneur, want to start smarter.

One of the key factors driving this trend is a change in the way people in this age group seem to view retirement. A recent USA Today/Gallop poll says that 63% of non-retired adults in the United States plan to work into retirement. These polls were taken during sound financial times and most people say they made the choice for non-financial reasons. Most say they get enjoyment from work. They just want to work for themselves rather than their current boss.

The vast majority of people who start businesses do so because they want to work for themselves rather than for someone else. This practice, often referred to as “Buying a Job”, is probably the underlying cause for most small business failure.

They jump into a business where they do the same type of work they were doing for someone else. So cooks open restaurants. Auto mechanics open repair shops. Pharmacists open pharmacies. And technically trained people become consultants. The problem is that knowing how to do the work in a business, knowing how to manage the work of that business, and knowing how to own that type of business are three different roles. If you are not working on all three roles, the odds of success are small.

People who do the work of the business, often open the doors thinking that people will beat a path to their door because they are the best at what they do. But the problem is that though you may be the best, people have to know you are out there before they can do business with you.

Excited that a few people stumble upon them, business owners often sell the service or product at attractive pricing, usually close to the amount you would have gotten paid when you were working for your old boss. But you now have overhead that your boss had to cover that was above a beyond what he paid you. You have telephones, electricity, and perhaps even some help that you never had to consider before. So how do you price what you are doing to make sure your can make money at this business?

And if you get lots of customers because word does get out that you do a good job, how do you avoid working longer hours than you worked before to serve your customers and make enough money to enjoy your “semi-retirement”. After all, that was the plan wasn’t it? You just wanted to do a little something to keep your mind alert while enjoying this new form of retirement, right?

With proper planning, these and other problems that tend to cause business failure can be overcome. And yes, they can be overcome much more easily than you expect. We hear about the high rates of business failures, but the failures are not 100% of businesses started. You want to know what the successful people are doing differently.

Three Tips For Getting Started At Something Bigger Than Buying Yourself A Job

First – There are many resources available online for free that will help you get the lay of the land. In response to the Baby Boomer Entrepreneurship trend, the US Small Business Administration has created a special web site to support Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs. Do a web search on Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs and you should find this site and other free resources.

Second – Get a good grasp of why businesses fail and what to do about it. Probably the best resource on this is the work of the author Michael E. Gerber. His book, The E-Myth Revisited: Why Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It, is probably the best reference around. It is an easy reading book that will get you pointed in the right direction. A search under Michael Gerber’s name or for the book will give you a number of free resources including information from the book and interviews of Michael about how to work smarter rather than harder.

Finally – If you want to get going faster and to improve your odds of success, get some personal coaching from someone to help you apply the principles specifically. This can help you get off to a good start in understanding the entrepreneurial mindset, the ways you have to think differently to be successful as a business owner.

If you follow these principles you can experience the success that is being sought by Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs. You can have a profitable business that continues to fund your lifestyle. You can have a lifestyle with proper work/life balance instead of a life consumed by your business. You can join the successful Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs.

For more free resources on Baby Boomer Entrepreneurship, go to:

http://www.squidoo.com/Baby-Boomer-Entrepreneurs

Shallie Bey

Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs - What's It All About?

2008-11-26T09:25:00.002-06:00

Baby boomer entrepreneurs are starting businesses at unprecedented levels. Is this a new breakthrough in gracefully aging and making contributions to society, a new form of work life balance? Or is this another fad like the hula hoop that marks the progress of Baby Boomers into a new set of distractions?

Many of the comments from surveys suggest that Baby Boomers enjoy their work but simply don’t like the place where they work. So the solution is to start a business.

This sounds remarkably like what the sage of why most small businesses don’t work and what to do about it, Michael Gerber, calls the Entrepreneurial Seizure. Is it about not having a boss? Is it about finally being the boss? Is it about being free from the limitations of working for somebody else? If it is, get the baby aspirin before the full seizure comes on. You are about to create “a business” with a mind of it’s own and that plans to enslave you.

If all you do is to start a business so you can create a place to work, will your dreams of work life balance come true, Baby Boomer Entrepreneur? Will you find happiness or yourself working for a new slave driver?

As the sub title to Michael Gerber’s great book, The E-Myth Revisited suggests, we know why most small businesses don’t work and what to do about it. A good place for you to start will be the free directories I have compiled for you on Michael Gerber’s work and on issues relating to Baby Boomer Entrepreneurship.

Join the Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs
http://www.squidoo.com/Baby-Boomer-Entrepreneurs

Michael Gerber and the Book The E-Myth Revisited
http://www.squidoo.com/Entrepreneurship_The_E_Myth_Revisited

Baby Boomer Entrepreneur, my fellow Baby Boomer, if you are going to do this, and I hope you will, make sure you know what it’s all about.

Shallie Bey

Seth Godin on the Number One Secret of the Great Blogs

2008-11-14T11:44:00.006-06:00

Seth Godin wrote a very interesting blog post this morning. He says that the number one secret of the great blogs is that every one of them leads a tribe. The function of the blog, he says, is to be the standard bearer, the north star that tribe members can point to as a place to meet or for ideas to circle around. The blog isn’t about the writer, it’s about the readers.

Since reading Seth’s new book, Tribes, I have been trying to define in my mind the specific tribe for which the Smarter Small Business Blog is written. Of course, it is written for owners of businesses or people who want to become owners of businesses. Yet, it is not written for just any owner, but those who are or want to be true entrepreneurs. Even among true entrepreneurs, there are people who want to do things the hard way and those who want to be smart about what they are doing so that they can have a better work – life balance. I believe that is the tribe to which this blog is directed. It is written for the Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs who are forming new businesses at a rate that exceeds every other age group. It is also written for the young people who are responding to the challenge of Global Entrepreneurship Week to explore entrepreneurship as their way of making a mark on the future.

I guess that to lead this Tribe of Entrepreneurs, this blog must be about helping entrepreneurs find the Tribe that they will lead in the marketplace. We shall focus upon this in upcoming posts.

For now, if you would like to know more about this concept of Tribes, please see the Squidoo lens I have prepared for you. And if you want to see Seth’s direct comments on The Number one secret of great blogs, go see him at
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/11/the-number-one.html

Good luck at finding your Tribe. And if you are a member of that tribe of smart entrepreneurs who especially want a proper work – life balance, I hope you have found a home.

Shallie Bey

Track Back: http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/2123/35710502

Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs

2008-10-18T10:03:00.007-05:00

Baby Boomers, the generation born between 1946 and 1964 are participating in Baby Boomer entrepreneurship at amazing levels. Though Global Entrepreneurship Week and similar efforts are focusing upon getting young people to explore entrepreneurship, it is the Baby Boomers who are answering the call at unprecedented levels.

In recognition that Americans aged 55 to 64 start small businesses at a higher rate than any other age group, the U.S. Small Business Administration has decided to focus upon making resources available to this sector. A new site, http://www.sba.gov/50plusentrepreneur offers help to explore the benefits of business ownership at this age. The site seeks to offer helpful information to make choices about business ownership.

One of the key factors driving this development is a change in the way people in this age group seem to view retirement. A recent USA Today/Gallup poll says that 63% of non-retired adults in the United States plan to work into retirement. Most interesting is that this poll was before the current economic collapse and that people were making this decision for non-financial reasons. Most were saying they made the choice for the enjoyment they get from work. Most certainly, with the impact of the drop in the financial market, this group will swell due to people having financial concerns.

One smart entrepreneurial idea may be helping Baby Boomers who want to become entrepreneurs. The SBA site includes an Experience Corps comment that the number of Americans age 55 and older will almost double between 2007 and 2030 - from 60 million to 107.6 million. That certainly sounds like a niche market opportunity.

This is not a new trend. Nearly half the country's self employed workers - 7.4 million - are so Baby Boomers according to the U.S. Department of Labor. And a recent AARP study conducted by RAND Corporation discovered that one in three self-employed workers age 51 to 69 made the transition to self-employment at or after age 50. See the SBA site for more facts. Also see our directory on Entrepreneurship for New Entrepreneurs.

Shallie Bey

Books for Entrepreneurs - The Back of the Napkin

2008-10-11T13:42:00.007-05:00

When Dan Roam wrote The Back of the Napkin, he probably never thought he was writing a book for entrepreneurs. But that is exactly what he did. The book is about discovering ideas, developing ideas, and selling ideas. That is the entrepreneurship process. That is the way to develop entrepreneurial ideas and the foundation of the entrepreneurial mindset.

When Dan Roam wrote this book, he did have in mind presenting you with a set of visual thinking tools to help you learn how to tackle problems by looking better, seeing sharper, and imagining further. He does a marvelous job of accomplishing this task.

I have developed for my readers a Squidoo lens (Internet Directory) that takes you on a tour of the Internet on the topic of The Back of the Napkin. This site has excerpts from the book, YouTube presentations by the author and practical examples of how entrepreneurs have used this method to implement their entrepreneurial ideas. This is a great place to start if you are a young entrepreneur seeking to participate in Global Entrepreneurship Week.

Here is a quick sample of one of the videos you will find there.

Shallie Bey

Global Entrepreneurship Week Is Almost Here

2008-09-29T18:40:00.003-05:00

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Is Global Entrepreneurship Week making you curious about how good an entrepreneur you can be? Well, the time to test yourself is coming closer and closer.

In November of 2008, during the week before Thanksgiving, the first ever Global Entrepreneurship Week will occur. It will encourage young people from around the world to explore entrepreneurship as a way of resolving many of the great challenges of the world.

In an effort to support Global Entrepreneurship Week I have scoured the Internet to collect some of the best advice on entrepreneurship that I could find. It is all organized on a Squidoo Directory to get you started.

This directory, called a lens by Squidoo, will 1) monitor the events leading up to Global Entrepreneurship Week, 2) Share insights on entrepreneurship, and 3) follow the progress once the event occurs.

Shallie Bey

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Entrepreneurship In A Word: Part 3 – Advisers

2008-09-15T17:23:00.005-05:00

No matter how experienced you are as an entrepreneur, you depend upon growing by having good advisers. The challenge is making sure that your advisers are supporting your goals and dreams and not just selling you their own.

Joan Magretta, strategy editor of the Harvard Business Review during the 1990s and author of the delightful book, What Management Is: How It Works and Why It's Everyone's Business, has an interesting insight. She calls it “advice without context”.

She observed that the number of books and major articles on management has grown to over two thousand per year. Most of these focus upon a single idea in isolation and often out of context. But the practical reader wants ideas they can quickly use, so most literature is full of lessons learned and concrete to-do lists – the ten things you can do today to be effective or savvy.

The problem is that 10 things from each of 2000 sources suddenly turns into an overwhelming twenty thousand suggestions to you each year. This doesn’t even include the advice from friends, relatives, business consultants, customers, other successful entrepreneurs, and in today’s age the Internet. This is the problem of advice without context. Every piece of advice must be placed in the context of your personal goals and your business plan. This is the reason that you design your business plan to be your tool for designing your business. You must know not only what to do but why the advice supports your goals. So, as an entrepreneur, make sure you understand the motives of your advisers.

Entrepreneurship In A Word: Part 2 – Discipline

2008-08-16T17:22:00.001-05:00

Entrepreneurs, regardless of what industry they are in, tend to follow similar patterns as they establish and grow their businesses. If you want to be successful faster than normal or at a greater scale than normal, you will do well to understand the patterns that lead to problems and the patterns that lead to success.

Discipline…control gained by obedience and training…is the key to putting the knowledge of patterns into play. After all, successful development of your business depends first upon having a good strategy and then upon good implementation.

Many business owners approach starting a new business as though it is an instinctive skill. They think that if they know how to cook chicken, they are fully equipped to open a chicken restaurant. It is this pattern of following your instincts, flying by the seat of your pants, that causes so many people to run into the same problems.

The discipline of starting a business begins with the fundamental three planning questions:

Where are you now? This is about getting oriented to your current situation. If you have never owned a business before, you have a bigger learning curve ahead of you than the person who is opening their third business. If you have vast financial resources, you face a different starting point than the person who is already in debt.
Where are you going? This is where you define your objective? Do you want a solo opportunity that will grant you a few hundred dollars extra income or are you looking to be at the top of the INC 500 in five years? What is it that you want to build?
How are you going to get there? You might think of this as the bridge that you must build to cross the chasm between where you are now and where you want to be. You might call this your strategy.

Slow down to act with discipline. Begin by answering these three questions. You are likely to accelerate your overall success.

No one embodies the concept of discipline more than Marines. Look at how their discipline inspires us to think of them as super humans.

Talk with a drill sergeant. Ask them about recruits getting off the bus on day 1 of Boot Camp. Do you think they achieve becoming…one of the few…one of the proud…flying by the seat of their pants? Are you ready to begin your training? Will you inspire the people who must do business with you… your employees, your vendors, your lenders, your customers?

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Entrepreneurship In A Word -- Identity

2008-08-11T07:56:00.006-05:00

Entrepreneurial success begins with knowing who you ARE. Unfortunately, many of the success formulas that will be dangled before you will be based upon HAVE/DO/BE.

These advisors tell you that you must HAVE stuff to be able to DO the right things. And if you DO the right things, you will BE a success.

The true formula works exactly in reverse: BE/DO/HAVE. If you will BE who you are in a genuine way, you will DO the right things. If you DO the right things, you will HAVE genuine results.

The best advisors to entrepreneurs focus upon having you plan your life before planning your business.

Michael Gerber, famed author of The E-Myth Revisited, calls this finding your Primary Aim. He puts it this way:

"I doubt that by now you’d be surprised to find out that I don’t believe your
business to be the first order of business on your agenda.

You are.

Nor will you be surprised to hear that I don’t believe your business is your life, though it can play a significantly important role in your life.

But before you can determine what that role will be, you must ask these questions:

· What do I value most?

· What kind of life do I want?

· What do I want my life to look like?

· Who do I wish to be?

Your Primary Aim is the answer to all these questions."

Startup Nation has the same message: “Plan your life, then your business.”

See their excellent discussion of how to make this plan at:

http://www.startupnation.com/steps/55/
3751/1/1/create-life-plan.htm

Look for the download templates of the sample life plan and the template to create your own life plan.

A Symphony In Four Parts...The Art of Starting A New Business

2008-08-05T05:48:00.001-05:00

Every business idea has to begin with a thought. That thought has to be developed. Regardless of the type business, there are certain universal principles that apply.

The 30 Day Challenge is designed to help an entrepreneur focus upon those principles to test the potential of a new idea. Ed Dale, the face of the 30 Day Challenge, shares the key concepts that he describes as a symphony. Like a symphony, it depends upon blending the right parts, in the right amount, in the right order, with the right timing.

Ed introduces the 30 Day Challenge and describes the four parts of the symphony:
1. Market Research
2. Traffic
3. Conversion
4. Product

A conservative estimate is that 95% of mistakes are made in the MARKET RESEARCH stage. This is because most people don't do the MARKET RESEARCH.

Following this universal pattern can't guarantee a success every time. The beauty is that it will help eliminate the stuff that will not work.

Whether you are doing a traditional business or an Internet business, the MARKET RESEARCH capability of the Internet opens new roads to success in starting a new business or growing an established business.

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Ed Dale's Free 30 Day Challenge In Marketing Training

2008-08-02T10:40:00.001-05:00

The past 24 hours have been amazing to me as a lifelong learner. I have added a tremendous amount of marketing wisdom due to an absolutely free resource.

Ed Dale is a marketing leader who specializes in the Internet. He is offering his 4th 30 Day Challenge. This is a way of using Internet resources to market a business that is either online or bricks and mortar. It assumes that your total level of computer skill is to be able to open a browser and to use e-mail.

As a business coach, I spend a lot of time researching marketing issues and helping my clients. In the past 24 hours, what I have learned has at least doubled my efficiency.

Though the program began officially on August 1, you can still join. There are an amazing number of resources, particularly videos, to make it easy for you to catch up and work at your pace.

To get more information, follow this link:

http://www.ThirtyDayChallenge.com/challenge/25809

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Sir Richard Branson Knows Joe Polish…Joe Knows…

2008-07-30T16:21:00.000-05:00

Early this week, I received a surprise gift box from Amazon.com containing a DVD and a note:

Enjoy the DVD!
Best, Joe Polish

Some advice givers say, “It’s not what you know, but who you know!”

Others say, “It’s not who you know, but who knows you!”

Still others say, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”.

Regardless of which advice rings true for you, you need to know what Joe knows. Joe is one of the world’s leading advocates of relationship marketing: the concept that people like to do business with people they know, like, and trust. And Joe proves the principle by investing in relationships, often by giving gifts like the DVD about the life of a famous man that he thought I would find inspiring.

Joe is one of the kindest, most generous people that I have ever met. Over the past three years that I have known him, he has expanded my horizons significantly.

Through such generosity in the form of charitable contributions, he came to know Sir Richard Branson. Not only personally benefiting from that association, Joe has opened doors for friends and clients of his company, Piranha Marketing, to gain access to that wisdom. He even recently arranged for a group to spend a week on Necker Island, Branson’s private island, to meet and talk with Sir Richard.

If you doubt how valuable an opportunity that can be, you need to know of the book, Millionaire Upgrade, by Richard Parkes Cordock. The book is inspired by the true story of an eight-hour flight with Sir Richard Branson. It describes the principles of success that a frustrated employee learned about becoming an entrepreneur when he was upgraded on a long haul flight and finds himself sitting next to a self-made billionaire.

The book shares eight principles and a “magic ingredient” that ties the principles together. Though I won’t share the details of the “magic ingredient”, I will share one portion of it:

“Never think you can do it alone – you can’t”

That is why I am thankful that Joe knows me!

Thanks Joe!

For more information on Joe Polish and to see him interview Sir Richard Branson, go to
http://www.joepolish.com/.

EXIT STRATEGY - The Small Business Owner's Ideal Outcome

2007-05-29T12:37:00.000-05:00

Business exit strategy…"What is that?", you might ask. It is the general direction that you want to follow that will prepare the business for you to leave when your objective is achieved. If you are like many small business owners, your strategy might be simply to provide you with income until you reach the point that you want to retire.

You might want to pursue the strategy of building an asset, that will appreciate in value, you can sell in the future. For some that sale might be through a public stock offering. For others, it might be a company that operates smoothly enough that it can function without you, making it something worth buying by a future private owner.

A third popular strategy is to create a business that will run effectively without you that you will continue to own. Many business owners are beginning to recognize the value of this strategy.

If you currently draw $100,000 per year from your business to support your lifestyle, you have a couple options. If you sell your business and invest the principle at a 10% return, you must have $1,000,000 to sustain a $100,000 a year income contribution. On the other hand, if you can design the business to require a minimum amount of your personal time and attention, you can continue to draw the $100,000 from the business for as long as you want.

Perhaps, one of the most exciting examples of the third strategy being explored in the business community today is Tim Ferriss’ discussion of the 4-Hour Workweek. He explains how he went from Working 80 hours per week to earn $40,000 per year to earning $40,000 per month working 4 hours per week. His book titled “The 4-Hour Workweek” describes his journey.

If you would like to hear Tim live, he will be interviewed by famed business marketing expert, Joe Polish. You can listen in on your phone for free:

*The 4-Hour Workweek: Secrets of Doing More with Less in a Digital World*

Date: This Wednesday, May 30
Time: 10 a.m. Pacific/1 p.m. Eastern
PHONE: 620-294-4005
PASSCODE: 0530#

Make sure you hop on the call early!
You're about to find out what a world-record holder in tango, a national champion in Chinese kickboxing, and the owner of a multi-national supplement business have in common...and how he has so darn much free time!

If you read this message after that date, you have a couple other options that I can suggest. John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing did a great podcast recorded interview dated April 23, 2007.

Or see Tim's Blog.

Doing Small Business In A Smarter Way

2005-03-08T22:51:00.000-06:00

Small business owners face some of the toughest challenges on the planet. Like many of the top performers in various works, small business owners need executive coaches to help them polish their game.

Unfortunately, many small business owners are not aware of coaching and the value it offers. For others there is the fear that the cost of coaching will be more than they can afford. Business Rebirth is about making a place where you can get information to help you better understand coaching and get some help in a financially feasible manner.

As a small business coach, I am constantly searching for ideas that can help my clients. Business Rebirth will be a place to share some of my best findings with my virtual clients. We will discuss ideas on this blog and will flesh them out on the main web site www.businessrebirth.com. That site only has a place holder for the moment and will be constructed soon. In the mean time, share with me your questions about your biggest challenges as a small business owner. I will respond to those questions that have the widest appeal. Given time, I will also respond to you by private e-mail. You can e-mail me at shallie@businessrebirth.com.

See you soon!