Baby Boomer - Do You Have The Disposition To Be An Entrepreneur?

Baby Boomer - Do You Have The Disposition To Be An Entrepreneur?

My dictionary says "tendency or inclination"...perhaps a natural inclination. I wonder if you and I have a disposition toward being a baby boomer entrepreneur.

The world around us is changing

As we face the issues of retirement, many of the choices we made earlier in your lives may not support the reality we face today. Does the fact that we worked for someone in earlier times of our life keep us from adopting the solution that may work better as we face new times in our life?

Does our disposition about financing our living need to change too?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqjJGTwK13U

Many baby boomers are retiring at the end of the era of defined pension plans. They have established pensions that will meet their income needs and insurance plans that cover their health needs. May others have saved enough to cover these two big fears of baby boomers: 1) having enough money to cover their living expenses and 2) having a way to meet their healthcare needs.

The next tier of baby boomers face these same two problems and hope to cover them with an encore career. This might come in the form of working longer before retiring, working either full or part time. It might include becoming an encore entrepreneur in a more traditional business where they provide products or services that depend upon their personal efforts to meet the needs of their customers.

The third tier of baby boomers look to approach the problem differently. They look to create an income generating asset that will not ultimately depend upon them being able to be healthy to work to produce income. The asset will be able to provide for their needs. This is more typically another form of baby boomer entrepreneurship. This is creating a business that does not depend upon you to run the day to day operations. This may well be your best solution if you don't already have a defined pension plan or have not saved enough assets to cover your retirement.

This third tier depends upon developing a business where you work smarter rather than harder. You create a business as an organization apart from you that meets both your needs and the needs of the organization. The needs of the organization are basically the needs of your employees and the needs of your customers.

Many people believe this this is not possible, however we see examples of this around us every day. The most common example is that of the fast food franchise. Franchise owners do not set out planning to work behind the counter all their lives. They develop systems to run the business and hire managers to run the systems. That is how we hear about people who own hundreds of stores. Secondly, the asset they own can be sold to someone else to fund their future needs.

A second example is the corporation for which you may have been working for years. Do the shareholders, the owners of that corporation, show up to work everyday? Generally, the answer is "no". People are hired to produce the results that are defined by the shareholders.

Do you have the disposition to be that special type baby boomer entrepreneur?

Is your disposition fixed? Do we have the opportunity to change our disposition to become something we have never considered before? Can you reinvent yourself or is it too late?

This video is a Minute With Maxwell. In it, legendary personal coach John Maxwell shares his thinking about our dispositions. I think that if you watch it you will hear him tell you that you can change your disposition. Not only can you put on an entrepreneurial mindset, you can put on a mindset that will allow you to accomplish far more than you think you can accomplish as you read this post. I believe the answer is yes, you can. 

What's  the next step?

Watch the short video by John Maxwell and decide about your disposition. If your disposition is to begin shaping your entrepreneurial mindset, join our mailing list. My Baby Boomer Business Dream.

Brought to you by Shallie Bey, Founder - Smarter Small Business Blog
 ~ The Business Dream Weaver

Baby Boomer Entrepreneur - Try These 3 Brand Personas To Benefit Your Customer

Baby Boomer Entrepreneur - Try These 3 Brand Personas To Benefit Your Customer

http://socialmediatoday.com/mark-cooper/1718571/3-brand-personas-social

Your entrepreneurial mindset inspires you to make something better for your customer

Much of what we read in the new world of social media is about how to relate to our customers. We are encouraged to find the persona that represents our customer to be able to better communicate with them. However, there is an equally interesting issue that I have just discovered.

You visualize the persona of your customer so that you can address them as a person. But when a customer is listening, they are usually looking back at the person who is speaking to them. So what persona do they see in looking back at you? 

Your goal as an entrepreneur is to make something better for your customer. One way to address how you will do that is to consider the social media persona from which you want to address your customer. If you can have consistency in the way that you project to your customer, your customer may better understand you.

I discovered this principle in a post by Mark Cooper of Offerpop. He provides insights that may help you clarify the brand persona that allows you to do the best job of supporting your customer.

1) The Helper

The helper helps the customer solve problems and inspires positive change. Here at Smarter Small Business Blog, it is primarily our purpose to be your helper by making your life easier through being a baby boomer entrepreneur as the solution to the challenges of traditional retirement. As the encore entrepreneur, it is similarly your task, from a helping perspective, to make the life of your customer easier.

2) The Insider

The insider is more about inspiring the customer. As an entrepreneur, you might want to be inspired by the lifestyle of encore entrepreneurs that have tamed the fears of retirement. Similarly, you want to help your customer be inspired by seeing the lives of  people who have become successful by accepting your solution to the problem.

3) The Confidante

The confidante is the best friend of your customer. You put your customer at the center of all that is going on. You might be posting about your customer in public. Or perhaps, you might be at the opposite end of the spectrum. You might be the quiet place that your customer comes to share their most intimate thoughts and concerns. You might be their mentor or coach.

So, what's next?

Mark Cooper asks "Which persona suits your brand?" See his post for more details and more examples of each persona.

If you would like more thoughts on developing your entrepreneurial mindset, join our mailing list. My Baby Boomer Business Dream.

Brought to you by Shallie Bey, Founder- Smarter Small Business Blog.
 ~ The Business Dream Weaver

The Baby Boomer Entrepreneurial Mindset - The Six Rules of Personal Success

http://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2012/02/11/the-six-rules-of-personal-success/

"Getting Your Priorities Right" may well be the master rule for the entrepreneurial mindset.

Of all human abilities, one stands out, the ability to see the Big Picture, the things that are important in life, and not to be distracted by small, trivial, and irrelevant things; the intelligence to separate the message from the background noise.

‘The Big Picture’ is about the grand goals; the big dreams and aspirations people treasure in every stage and aspect of life. But how can you grasp and hold on to the Big Picture? What does it take?

Making Intelligent Choices - The Details of the Other Five Rules

Probably more than any other phrase, "making intelligent choices" echoes directly or indirectly in nearly every paragraph of Panos Mourdoukoutas' article in Forbes where he discusses his new Kindle book, The Six Rules of Success.
As aspiring Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs we make choices about how to live our lives. I think this is where the details of the other five rules come into play:

• Use Resources Wisely

• Stay Focused

• Develop Right Relations

• Don't Be Greedy

• Don't Be Complacent

What Is Unique Here for the Entrepreneurial Mindset of Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs?

Dr. Mourdoukoutas has a distinguished background as Chair of the Department of Economics at Long Island University. He is also a contributor to Forbes on such topics as Global markets, business, investment strategy, personal success. The message here is that these six steps apply to anyone who wants to be successful, not just entrepreneurs. But entrepreneurs are about implementations...taking action. They seem to be especially adept at taking action on these six steps in massive ways. They see the big picture in ways that inspire them to take action rather than waiting for instruction...The Entrepreneurial Mindset. Are you ready to take action?

If you would like more info on developing your entrepreneurial mindset, join our mailing list. My Baby Boomer Business Dream.

Brought to you by Shallie Bey, Founder - Smarter Small Business Blog
 ~ The Business Dream Weaver

Why Your Baby Boomer Business Needs To Be "You Proof" (Encore Careers)

http://stories.dlvr.it/story/175196

Why Your Baby Boomer Business Needs To Be "You Proof" (Encore Careers)

As baby boomers one of our biggest fears as we face retirement is whether we will out live the money we have for retirement. That is a question for everyone, regardless of how much we have been able to save.

The Solution to the biggest fear of baby boomers facing retirement

As a boomer considering retirement, one of the best suggestions for us is to find ways to continue to generate income during retirement. That advice commonly comes in three forms:

• Delay retirement so that the money you have saved can continue to grow.
• Create an encore career that allows you to continue to work but in a way that gives you more flexibility to enjoy a form of "semi-retirement".
• Create a special form of encore career where you start a business that will allow you to continue to earn an income in retirement. This is often called becoming an encore entrepreneur or an "encorepreneur".

The Solution to the second biggest fear of baby boomers facing retirement

With all of these options, the big problem is that they don't directly address the second big fear of baby boomers facing retirement. That is whether their health will deteriorate or consume their savings in a faster then normal rate.

Of course, we can do all the things that increase the odds that we will continue to be healthy. We can eat well, exercise, and manage our stress. Yet there is not guarantee we will be successful. So the next challenge is to find a way to continue to have income even if our health deteriorates.

The best answer to that comes from becoming an encore entrepreneur in a specifically defined way to be able to have your business run whether you are in good health or not.

The task is to build a business where you own it but it does not depend upon you having to do the work for it to operate day by day. This is beyond the concept of being an absentee owner. It is more about having systems in place to do the business and a team to manage the systems. Ultimately, your job is to train and develop the team.

This may sound like a dream. Yet this happens in reality. There is already documented evidence that businesses designed around this concept sell better than businesses that depend upon the owner being constantly present to operate the business. You probably don't think about this, but you come in contact with this daily. The most common and visible place is in dealing with franchised businesses.

My favorite example is a McDonald's restaurant. When have you ever gone into a McDonald's and depended upon knowing who the owner is to make sure you get your order? Have you ever seen an owner in a McDonald's? You don't really know...do you?

So how is this possible? They have systems that define the work and a management team to oversee the systems. The result is that teens do the daily work to generate multi-million dollar businesses, not only in your neighborhood, but in "identical" businesses around the world. These are teens wearing clean uniforms, smiling at senior citizens, and keeping the place so clean that it will pass most any health test. Is this your mental image of the average teenager?

How can you create a systems designed business for your encore business?

The first step is decide that this is really possible. One way to convince yourself is to read the work of Barry Neighbors and what he calls the "hit by a bus test". Follow the link in this post to his great article called Is Your Company "You Proof"? Can it Survive the "hit by a bus" test? He advocates making your company sellable by improving your systems. He lists why companies that pass the test get higher valuations from prospective owners. It is only a small step to realizing why such a business is of higher value to you as a baby boomer in retirement.

If you want more tips on how to develop your entrepreneurial mindset, join our mailing list. My Baby Boomer Business Dream.

Brought to you by Shallie Bey, Founder - Smarter Small Business Blog

~ The Business Dream Weaver

Aspiring Baby Boomer Entrepreneur- Are You Frozen In Time?

Aspiring Baby Boomer Entrepreneur- Are You Frozen In Time?

Aspiring baby boomer entrepreneur, from where you stand it may seem that you are frozen in time, unable to see a bright future. But that is merely an illusion. You can build a future by having a business as the foundation for your encore career. The key is in developing your entrepreneurial mindset.

Your entrepreneurial mindset lets you see the world with a different set of eyes.

• It lets you spot needs in a special way.
• It lets you see opportunities in solving those needs.
• It lets you plan solutions to realize those opportunities.
• It helps you to execute your plan.

In this video, magician David Blane freezes himself in time, within a block of ice. He exposes himself to great risk and manages to survive. He saw a need for people to be entertained. He saw an opportunity to create a special way to address that need for entertainment. He developed a genius plan to deliver upon that need. He executed his plan. Not only did he survive, he added to his fame and fortune.

What will your entrepreneurial mindset do for you? Can it keep you from being frozen in time? 

What you should do next.

Please play the video and see how the magician got unfrozen. Then work on your own entrepreneurial mindset to create your own magic.

For more tips on developing your entrepreneurial mindset, join our free mailing list. Go to My Baby Boomer Business Dream.

Brought to you by Shallie Bey, Founder - Smarter Small Business Blog

 ~ The Business Dream Weaver

Baby Boomer Can Your Mindset Beat 'Infant Entrepreneur Mortality'?

How to Reduce 'Infant Entrepreneur Mortality' - Sramana Mitra - Harvard Business Review:

Baby Boomer Can Your Mindset Beat "Infant Entrepreneur Mortality"?

Can the middle of society be taught the entrepreneurial mindset?

Most of the entrepreneurship that we hear about in the media is about companies being formed with massive growth rates through the assistance of "VCs", venture capital companies. This actually accounts for about 1% of start-up businesses. The other 99% do not meet the requirements of the 300 percent annual growth that is the target of these high flying business financing companies.

The high growth companies have access to some of the best of the consulting and coaching that comes with high growth business incubation support. Can this same knowledge be shared with the aspiring entrepreneurs who are not trying to build billion dollar companies? Can this knowledge be shared with entrepreneurs who can't afford to pay what the highest tier business developers must pay?

We need to use the fundamental principle of capitalism — the creation of value that people are willing to pay for — and apply it to the middle of the pyramid on a global scale. In other words, we need large numbers of entrepreneurs who are willing and able to build products and offer services that address demand from certain specific segments of customers. We need to teach them how to build businesses that can become sustainable — profitable — and create jobs. We need to also teach them to grow by applying the same kinds of methodology and discipline that, traditionally, a venture-funded company may use. -- Says Sramana Mitra in her Harvard Business Review blog post: How To Reduce 'Infant Entrepreneur Mortality'

What needs to be done?

The role of small businesses in creating jobs and growing economies is constantly discussed. What is not so commonly discussed is that 600,000 small businesses die each year in the U.S. alone. Mitra contends that the owners of these businesses can be taught to have their businesses become sustainable -- Profitable -- and to create jobs. She contends that it is a lack of understanding of the task that makes such tragic losses.

It is developing the entrepreneurial mindset that I call this training. For us aspiring baby boomer entrepreneurs, seeking to find our encore careers, we must have effective ways to develop that knowledge at a reasonable price.

The plus for us is that we live in the best of all times for learning at a low cost. As far as business is concerned, we can learn and be incubated over the internet. We can do research and build a brand over the internet. We can learn, as Mitra says, "...we digitally teach and incubate millions of online businesses over the next few decades". We baby boomer entrepreneurs can be the front line in this new battle.

Where do you begin?

Develop your entrepreneurial mindset. Mitra says start with the fundamentals, like:

Entrepreneurship = Customers + Revenue
Financing is optional
Exit is optional

If you would like more hints on developing your entrepreneurial mindset, join our free mailing list. Go to My Baby Boomer Business Dream

Shallie

Brought to you by Shallie Bey - Founder, Smarter Small Business Blog

 ~ The Business Dream Weaver

 

Baby Boomer Entrepreneurial Mindset _ When Was the Last Time You Thought Something For the First Time?

Baby boomer, do you have the entrepreneurial mindset? You think so? Well, let me ask you John Maxwell's question:

When was the last time you thought something for the first time?

Among other things, success as an entrepreneur requires us to be curious. And how do we become curious? John Maxwell says "we have to think new thoughts":

What are new thoughts?

• As opposed to old thoughts
• As opposed to no thoughts

How do you get new thoughts?

• By asking new questions
• By being asked new questions
• By having new experiences
• By meeting new people

What do I do next?

• Watch the featured video by John Maxwell at http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nTTl-aS8N88
  
• Get more tips on the entrepreneurial mindset by joining our mailing list at My Baby Boomer Business Dream

Shallie

Brought to you by Shallie Bey - Founder, Smarter Small Business Blog

  ~ The Business Dream Weaver

Baby Boomer Are You Ready To Take The Leap To An Entrepreneurial Mindset? (Encore Career)

Are you a baby boomer considering making the switch to an encore career? Are you possibly considering becoming an entrepreneur to build your bridge into your future? Do you have a baby boomer business dream? Then it is time to take the leap...

The leap involves embracing the entrepreneurial mindset. This excellent video gives you a visual sense of what it means to change your way of thinking.

It all begins with freeing your mind to think like an entrepreneur. We call that "having the entrepreneurial mindset".

If you would like more free resources on developing your entrepreneurial mindset, subscribe to the Smarter Small Business Blog. Click this link :My Baby Boomer Business Dream

Brought to you by Shallie Bey, Founder of the Smarter Small Business Blog
 ~ The Business Dream Weaver

Link to featured video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6-Dgu250Do Produced by RockThePost.com

Baby Boomer: What Does Being An Entrepreneur Mean To You?

As an aspiring Baby Boomer Entrepreneur, you probably know what you want to be. However, it is interesting that what you want to be may be very different from what I want to be as an entrepreneur. In fact the definition and the implications of "entrepreneurship" have changed radically over the years. We may be on the brink of yet more changes.

Entrepreneur Magazine editor-in-chief Amy Cosper talks with Mondelez International vice president of global media Bonin Bough about what the word "entrepreneur" means today. Once the term conjured images of snake-oil purveyors and out-of-work scamsters. In the popular lexicon, entrepreneurs have become known as people who create businesses in markets where there were none before.

You can see the video at : http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UtZVrbsmPkg

My favorite definition of entrepreneurship comes from the writing of Harvard Business School professor Howard Stevenson. He wrote it nearly 40 years ago. Forbes has called it "The Best Answer Ever".

Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled.

Eric Schurenberg, editor-in-chief of INC. wrote a fascinating article about this definition. He makes several points:

• Entrepreneurship is a process.
• Entrepreneurs are used to making do without resources.
• Opportunity is the only real resource you have.

You can read more at: http://www.inc.com/eric-schurenberg/the-best-definition-of-entepreneurship.html

As we baby boomer entrepreneurs, face new life challenges, we have to find ways to do things without having control of resources. We have to make a way. We have to seize the OPPORTUNITY.

Cearmease Bey, my wife and an entrepreneur for many years, sums up the Entrepreneurial Mindset  in a word...GUTS.

What is The Next Step to YOUR Baby Boomer Business Dream?
Join our Smarter Small Business Blog for more insights: My Baby Boomer Business Dream

Get free resources to help build your Entrepreneurial Mindset.
Click this link: http://mybabyboomerbusinessdream.weebly.com/

Shallie

Brought to you by Shallie Bey - Founder of Smarter Small Business Blog
-- The Business Dream Weaver

Can Owning A Business Help Your End Of Life Experience? (Encore Career)

Can Owning A Business Help You Prepare For A Good End Of Life? (Encore Career)

Do you have a plan for how you would like to live to the end of your life?

Baby boomers have many concerns about their future as they approach retirement age. Most of those concerns can be summed up in three questions:

1. Will I run out of money?
2. Can I maintain my quality of living?
3. Can I maintain good health?

The challenge is that one unasked question must be answered to know the answers to the other three questions: How long will I live?

So the reality is that we can do things that increase the probability that our answer will be "yes" or "no" to the first three questions, but it is not a certainty.

Some people try to resolve the money and lifestyle questions by saving a lot of their earnings. Sometimes that works...if you have good capital markets and wise investment choices.

Some people delay their retirement by continuing to work as long as they can. Sometimes that works...if your employer is prosperous and does not force you to retire.

Some people take on new jobs...commonly called encore careers, to reduce the amount of time they have to depend upon savings to fund their retirements. Unfortunately, health seems to force many to retire sooner than they expected.

So, is there anything we can do to increase our odds of success? Yes, the indications are that a special form of encore career may well be the answer. You can become a business owner as an encore career.

How can becoming a business owner help you solve your retirement fears?

The answer is that owning a business gives you two things that are not always present in having a job.

First, the business gives you an asset that can earn and grow that does not have to depend upon you doing the work.

Secondly, the business gives you leverage. It can give you a bigger return than what you can accomplish by just working alone. The leverage can come from having employees, business systems, or a combination of those.

In our featured video Judy MacDonald Johnston gives us a case study. She helped ranchers, Jim and Shirley Modini plan for the end years of their lives. She manage assets for them as their caregiver and health advocate. She managed the people needed to provide daily care and to run the business of the Modinis. 

Click here to see the video: http://www.ted.com/talks/judy_macdonald_johnston_prepare_for_a_good_end_of_life.html

Granted, the Modinis had a good head start. But the principle is still true at any age. The challenge is to begin building the asset, your business.

What is your next step?

Building your business requires having a vision, just as the Modinis had a vision for their lives and for their wildlife preserve beyond their lives. You can build that vision by understanding the basics of business development. Business development is the process of consciously starting and intentionally growing a business.

Business development is more about developing an entrepreneurial mindset than about being an expert in the details of business. It is about being able to pay attention in a way to spot business opportunities. Next, after spotting the opportunity, it is about learning how to take action to make the opportunity a reality.

By understanding the process of developing an entrepreneurial mindset and acting through that mindset, you greatly reduce the risk of failure that is the experience of so many people who start businesses without a plan.

If you would like more information on developing that entrepreneurial mindset, please sign up to be on our Smarter Small Business Blog mailing list. We will share with you more information on the resources that will help you build your entrepreneurial mindset in a smarter way. Just click this link: http://mybabyboomerbusinessdream.weebly.com/
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Brought to you by Shallie Bey -- The Business Dream Weaver