Entrepreneurship: Richard Branson

Richard Branson - Chairman of the Virgin Group: Richard Branson, Chairman of the Virgin Group, shares his story as a successful entrepreneur with a diverse portfolio.








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Education: Free Online Business Courses

One of the best investments that an entrepreneur can make is an investment in their own business. This investment can be training and/or education. As traditional business continue to close and virtual businesses continue to open re-education is imminent. It's best to re-educate yourself at your own free will rather than wait until your business is crumbling.

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Focus on what you’re good at, and nothing else!

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Focus on what you're good at, and nothing else! Is it me or is everyone these days trying to get rich quick? Not only am I meeting more and more people who don't want to work hard to make money, but they are starting to get into new business ventures that they are clueless on. I know the grass always looks greener on the other side, but it really isn't. Don't get me wrong, those lucrative businesses are making people millions of dollars, but it's probably doing that for less than 0.3% of the people in that industry. So before you decide to jump ship and get into a new career, just for a second think about all the things you will be losing out on. Yes you may make some extra income in the short run, but if you put that time and energy into growing what you are already good at and love, you'll do a lot better. If you want to make a ton of money in business, follow these principles: Harsh Fact #1: Focus on what you know If you are really good at something, focus on it. Don't stray away from it, but instead just do that and become the leader in your space. If you don't think you can make enough money focusing on what you are good at, then figure out what related businesses you can get into. For example, a buddy of mine, Michael Dorausch, is a chiropractor in Los Angles. Although he does very well, he wasn't satisfied with the income he was making as a chiropractor. But instead of jumping into a whole new field, he decided to help other chiropractors get more customers from the web for a monthly fee. Harsh Fact #2: Business development is the quickest way to grow If you put me in a room with a thousand people and you ask me to close a deal with all of them, the chances are, I'll fail. But if you put me in a room with one person and ask me to close a deal with them, there is a good chance I'll be able to do so. I am big believer that it is easier to convince one person to work with you than it is to convince thousands of people. The cool part about business development is that the one person you convince could have access to thousands of people or companies. For example, my friend Andy runs a TV website called BuddyTV. One way that he could try and grow his user base is to do a business development deal with other TV related companies such as TV Guide, Comcast, Timewarner, Verizon… The reason this is powerful is because if you can close a deal with someone like TV Guide, you then get access to all of their customers. Harsh Fact #3: Grow your network wisely It's hard to put a value on networking, but it can really help your business as long as you have a strong network. Networking with people that can't provide any value to you or your business is fine in small doses, but it can turn into huge waste of time because those people won't provide you with a good ROI. At first you may have to network with people who don't provide much value so you can get the hang of it, but you should shift your focus to networking with individuals who can help you grow your business. Also, you have to realize that networking is a two way street. I don't care how many big names you have in your network, it'll be useless if you don't help them out as well. Because when you need their help, they'll be more likely to help you out if you've taken care of them in the past. Harsh Fact #4: Build up your personal brand Building up your business should always be your number 1 objective, but your number 2 objective should be to build your personal brand. Now granted, you can make millions without building up your personal brand, but it doesn't hurt to have a strong one. When my business partner and I started KISSmetrics we were able to get our first paying customers by leveraging our personal brand. People knew about him and I and companies that followed us were willing to sign on for our product because they liked my business partner and I. In the long run that won't help you build a big business, but in the short it does help bring in revenue. If you build up your personal brand, no matter what business you get into, you'll increase your odds of making money. Harsh Fact #5: Expand when your growth rate flattens It's always fun to start new businesses, especially if you have ADHD like me, but that doesn't mean you should. If your current business is growing at a healthy pace, there is no reason to expand your business into new verticals. As I mentioned above, Michael decided to expand his chiropractic business by helping other chiropractors get more customers from the Internet. But he didn't start doing this until his own chiropractic business started to reach full capacity. There are only 24 hours in a day and there are only so many patients he can see in a day. Once he reached his capacity, he then decided to expand, while still maintaining his practice. If you decide to expand your business, make sure you don't neglect your current business and customers. You have to maintain it while expanding. Conclusion Don't get caught up in businesses that are sexy and hot, focus on what you know. If you are passionate and knowledgeable about a specific subject, you can make money at it. You just have to get creative. So what do you think about all these people that are trying to get into businesses that they have no clue about?   This post courtesy of Neil Patel at http://www.quicksprout.com/

Entrepreneur Spotlight: Necole Bitchie-Brand Queen

 

Necole is plugged in to the web at all times

• Blog: Necole Bitchie
• Niche: Lifestyle/Entertainment/Gossip
• Founder: Necole “Bitchie” Kane
• Twitter: @NecoleBitchie

Blogging was supposed to be a waste of time. Out of work and with no roof over her head to call her own, Necole “Bitchie” Kane—whose parents and grandmother had passed—called her aunt’s couch home and fiddled around on the Internet as a way to keep sane. Figuring her niece was just “playing around on the computer” instead of looking for a job, auntie kicked her out of her Maryland house, and Necole Bitchie, Kane’s online persona, began to blossom.

With only $500 to her name, the enterprising go-getter made the move to Atlanta to network and wound up becoming the face and voice of NecoleBitchie.com, a popular gossip/entertainment blog that rivals many mainstream brands in terms of influence in the online space. Since launching in 2007, the site now draws upwards of 1.2 million unique visitors per month and stands as the hub of the Necole Bitchie brand, which has grown to include a web channel (Bitchie TV), lifestyle site (Bitchie Life), T-shirt line (Born Bitchie) and another online property on the horizon (IAmNecole.com). For her mastery of the digital space and branding power, Necole Bitchie joins BlackEnterprise.com’s esteemed list of online thought leaders as part of our first annual Black Blogger Month.

I started blogging because…

I wanted to create my own opportunities… [Initially] I had wanted to work in the music industry and doors kept slamming in my face. Every time I would send out resumes or get interviewed I would never get hired and it came to a point in 2007 where I said I’d never send out another resume and I haven’t.

I realized blogging was a business when…

I was doing research and I wandered on to Perez Hilton’s site. I wasn’t even into blogs like that and I just happened to land on his site and I saw the ad space and I clicked on it. At the time it was like $10,000 for a sidebar ad for like a week and I was like, “What part of the game is this?” I Googled him and I saw how he started his site like in the living room or something and how it grew and I studied his story and I felt like it was something I could possibly get into, so it started from there. Just seeing somebody was actually selling ad space for a week for $10,000. That just got my mind going like, “How could I flip this? How could I make this into a business?”

My biggest influences are…

Will Smith. I read all of Will’s old interviews and watch all of his interviews that he’s done on television and I think one of the things that really got me is that he said, “I will not be overworked. If I get on a treadmill with you and we’re running, two things will happen. I’m either going to outrun you or I’m going to die.” I think that you have to have that mentality to make it because it’s about not just getting comfortable. Once you reach a certain level you always have to think about getting to the next level. That’s also why Oprah is someone else that influenced me because she beat out everybody. So she was like, “What am I going to do? I’m going to go to the next step and that’s own my own network.” Those type of people inspire me to keep going.

The best piece of business advice I ever got was…

B is for brand

To know your target audience. Like, every time a new blogger comes to me and asks that’s one of the first things I say. You have to sit down and define your target audience. Like me I would look at a piece of paper and I would have my picture on it and I would say, “She’s a 24 year old female, African American, she goes to the nail shop twice a week, she reads Vibe magazine, she likes this movie…” I would have her whole profile down because once you know your target then you know what appeals to them like I was doing celebrity gossip at first, but then I thought my target audience was me, well I like nails and different kinds of designs, so I started posting some stuff on nails and the [audience] went crazy…. If you don’t have a target then you’ll try to appeal to everyone and that’s when you’ll get lost and it’ll be very hard for you to brand yourself and your site when you don’t have a specific person in mind that you’re appealing to.

The biggest mistakes I ever made in business have…

All been financial. Not planning. Not setting budgets. Just spending money, like if you told me, “I think you need this,” and it sounds okay I used to not even look to see if we have a budget for that. I really wasn’t money managing. You know, money would come, money would go. It’s not until you sit down and all of the numbers are pulled together and someone tells you you spent three-fourths of your money on expenses and that could’ve been cut in half that you’re like, okay, I need to get it together. So definitely the biggest mistake is not setting budgets and not money managing.

What I learned from that was…

That going through every year, even every month, you should definitely make a budget. I only want to spend this much on graphics. I want to spend this much on supplies or marketing or whatever. It’s just very hard to have a successful business and not have a good business structure and cash flow; knowing what money is coming in and going out, especially when it’s time to look into investors or other partnerships and then they want to know how have you been spending your money in the past.

I measure my success by…

How many people I inspire and motivate everyday. When I first started working with my publicist Christina one of my main things was even if I did interviews and get in magazines I don’t want to get into them just to say, “Hey, look what I did with my blog.” I really wanted the person reading to know the back story and the struggle and the obstacles I had to overcome to even get here in three years, so every time someone comes on Twitter and says, “Girl, I just read your story and you inspire and motivate me,” that’s how I measure my success, not by how much money I make or how many people read the site.

None of my success would be possible if not for…

My aunt. By kicking me out of her house she took the crutch from underneath of me that I wouldn’t get comfortable, so without her I wouldn’t be here.

 

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How did you get started..? The blog post version...

Image by Brande Jackson via Flickr

When I tell people that I'm an entrepreneur and a webmaster they usually have a lot of questions. I find it extremely hard to tell them about being a webmaster or an entrepreneur without also telling them about my start in adult entertainment. Sometimes I do manage to skip over talking about adult entertainment when explaining although I'd much rather tell it like it is.


 My interest in computers started in one of the grammer schools I attended in the englewood community. I was placed in "gifted" glasses and we were allowed to use the computers as another way of improving our test scores in whatever areas we needed it most. While I didn't find that I enjoyed the idea of doing math anymore than before I did love the computer. I was in 4th grade when the idea of working with computers begin to grow. Computers weren't booming then facebook and myspace didn't exist. The cell phones weren't in the hand of every man, woman and child. The only way I could use the computer was at school.


I had already been exposed to the art of photography, drawing, and painting. I was attending every craft class they had after school. When asked what did I want to be when I grew up I'd reply a veterinarian, or pediatrician or an artist and sometimes I'd say all three.


By the time I reached the age of twelve years old I had decided I did not want to be a pediatrician. At the age of 14 watching the devastation that death left made me lean towards pursuing a career as a Mortician to eventually buy my own funeral home. I read as much as I could about death, dying and grieving.


So at the age of 18 while taking classes to pursue my career in Mortuary Science I could not stay off the computer. I was so addicted to it ten mins. would turn into one hour and one hour would turn into two. One day one of the staff members asked what I was taking classes for and I replied Mortuary Science and he replied "right" in a sarcastic tone. He paused and said you might want to think about that a little more. I didn't want to hear that of course. Time rolled on and life kept throwing curve balls and road blocks. I moved on working in fast food then the transportation industry before getting a second job which was seasonal and required me to work on a computer.


I was in and out of school determined to be a Mortician until 2004. That's the year I bought my second computer jumped online and begin to embrace the internet as a way of  life. I had a page on blackplanet when I begin to experiment with coding before moving on to geocities. After I out grew geocities I moved on to yahoo hosting where I fell in love with phpnuke and bought my first domain lovelyd.com.


My first website was nothing more than a collection of my favorite poems and a few pictures. I didn't know anyone who knew anything about websites. I kept reading and practicing. My site evolved and as I learned more I knew I wanted my own pay site.


In 2005 I came across a website looking for models so I completed the form and got a phone call. The next thing I knew I was outside letting a stranger photograph me. I enjoyed the photoshoot so much that as soon as I got back to my computer I was looking for more websites in need of models.


Modeling and marketing go hand and hand although some really don't make the connection. One thing I can tell you is that the adult entertainment industry has a lot of professional people that get results. They are some of the most hardworking and driven people. I have a tremendous respect for their professionalism. The content producers, webmaster's and administrators you don't see or barely hear about are absolutely wonderful. The thing about adult entertainment is that you don't find a cluster of people who absolutely hate their job. Since i've spread my wings a bit I've found that to be true for other area's of entertainment as well.

I don't know about you but I don't want to work with a bunch of folks who hate their job. I want to work with people who are passionate about what they do. When I talk about websites and social media I get excited because I love this. 

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ECorner: Entrepreneurship By the Book

What's New Now

Video: Collaborative Innovation and a Pull Economy [Entire Talk} John Seely Brown, Deloitte Center for Edge Innovation - 55 min. 26 sec. What can extreme surfing and World of Warcraft teach the enterprise? Independent Co-Chairman of the Deloitte Center for the Edge and former Xerox PARC Chief Scientist John Seely Brown holds them as examples of the power of frequent benchmarking and full industry info-share. He also uses them to show how the core ecosystem can be made stronger by sharing knowledge gathered from learning on the edge. In addition, Seely Brown touches upon his theory of a monumental economic shift from a push to a pull economy as outlaid in his 2010 book, The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion.

Entrepreneurship By the Book

Even in the age of lightning-fast digital communication, the printed page still has tremendous impact on innovation and entrepreneurial theory. The following three authors have delved deeply into the modern age with very successful - and yet, old-fashioned - tomes.

Video: Are Business Plans a Work of Fiction? Randy Komisar, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers - 2 min. 6 sec. Can one truly develop a business plan before having a product or a customer in-hand? Not very successfully, contends KPCB partner Randy Komisar. In this clip, Komisar discusses the premise for his book, Getting to Plan B, in which he points out how often the theory of a start-up succumbs to its execution. Komisar goes on to point out that thinking of Plan B as part of the process can change the way we think about constructing and managing the start-up. Video: Products for Life, Customers for Life William McDonough, William McDonough + Partners - 1 min. 20 sec. McDonough + Partners lead William McDonough points out that manufacturers can utilize the same resources repeatedly, and build a lifetime buying relationship with their customer in the process. By closing the product cycle - that is, designing goods with their deconstruction and reconstruction in mind - product developers are uniquely poised to deepen their customer relationship. McDonough cites a case study of a carpet manufacturer that employs Cradle to Cradle design. Customers "lease" the carpet, and are offered financial incentive to return it after its term of use, where the manufacturer can strip it, reuse the backing, and replenish the fibers into new design - keeping toxic chemicals out of the environment, and unwanted product from the landfill. Video: The Rise of the Superclass David Rothkopf, Author - 7 min. 12 sec. We can't legislate against historical trends in the global age, but we can look more closely at the well-networked superclass - those who have broad influence across international borders on a regular basis. The Superclass has money, power, and influence - but it's woefully short on ethics in the global interest. Author David Rothkopf (Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making) describes this influential core of the global power structure and stresses that economic prosperity can't be the only metric of a civilization's success.

Entrepreneurship Corner, a project of Stanford Technology Ventures Program at Stanford University, is a collection of recordings from hundreds of Silicon Valley's most practiced entrepreneurs and thought leaders. The collection offers over 1,600 videos and podcasts, freely available to the public.

Please send us an email if you have any comments.
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Paper Back Dreams

The birds are singing, the sun is peeping out and I am sitting on my bed with a mud mask on my face thinking of you and your future. I'm also thinking of me and my future as a successful entrepreneur who uses the internet for nearly everything !!


The internet isn't going anywhere and the sooner you claim your piece of it the better off you'll be. I believe that, I preach that and It's evident. So, I'll share with you the link to the program I just watched on wttw prime. Yes, I watch wttw prime and now that I'll be 30 in a few months I'm no longer ashamed to admit it.


You can learn a lot from wttw. WATCH !!














http://www.filmbaby.com/films/3389

Enterpreneur Spotlight : Thias Mills

I first came across the profile of Thias Mills on myspace about two years ago and instantly I was impressed and inspired. 

Thias Mills is the founder, voice, and columnist of Lipserviceink.com a hip and fresh radioshow full of exclusive celebrity interviews. She is someone that every writer, youth advocate and entrepreneur should know. Whether you are a writer, avid reader or a youth advocate with a mission take advantage of the opportunity to spread Lub and Literacy with Thia's Mills Lub (love) Literacy Campaign.



 

clipped from: www.lipserviceink.com   

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When her world was unexpectedly erased by a devastating storm, what else could fiery Columnist / Poet / Artist / Entrepreneur Thais Mills do but pick her pencil up to INK the next chapter.

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Thais's first dot-com venture, Enticing Objects emerged spotlighting her hand painted crafts which today have expanded to include Office Art, Craft Magnets, Photo Clips and The Little Canvas Collections with charity beneficiaries attached.  Developing her already savvy writing skills at Southern University in New Orleans, Thais began transposing her words in three prominent publications, Data News Weekly, Offline and Sisterhood Magazines in columns spanning from romance to entertainment. She now utilizes those skills on LipServiceInk.com an eclectic portal which fuses her custom column creations with innovative celebrity interviews music and literacy education. 

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LipServiceInk.com smartly uses bookmarks as its marketing tool and to date more than 4 million bookmarks have been distributed across the globe.

Motivation

Yesterday, I saw a man on the corner peddling and I knew that he wouldn't be interested in any of my services but I felt at the very least I'd get some practice with my "sales pitch".

So, being who I am and doing what I do. I stopped to talk to him and immediately noticed all the illegal activity of his business. A peddler on a city street of Chicago selling cigarettes, boot leg porn (evasive angels, black market), t-shirts, boxers, socks, and nice Coach bag knock offs for $30.00 and he had the wrong license. He said he worked for the state and he most likely wouldn't be interested in my services but he knew someone else that might be.

Aww, another "NO". I never let the No's make me feel defeated. They make me tired but never defeated. After I made it back home I sat down and thought about the moments when I had his interest and the moments when I lost his interest. He had boot legged porn "Pinky" and I asked him did he go see her at Mr's G's. Now of course I knew he didn't and No he didn't. I asked him who was his favorite porn star and he said "I don't really watch that" there is no point in watching something I can't get.

Now, that struck me as being kinda odd. But It shouldn't have because there are a lot of "businesses" that don't use or support the products they sell. They simply supply what is demanded that's it, that's all and the products sell themselves.

While I was talking to him a woman walked past talking to herself and she stopped to look at his merchandise. She picked up some socks and his eyes locked in on her but she put them back and continued on talking to herself and walking. He went over to the orange crate to straighten his merchandise out and came back complaining about how people put his stuff back any kind of way.

Wow, I just couldn't believe it. There was something way deep down in the pit of my stomach yelling dude your selling socks on a corner out side of a currency exchange on a public street with a "Junk peddlers licenses". These are the small business owners that desperately need an upgrade but are most likely to refuse one.

Should I view peddlers as business men and women or just hustlers trying to make ends meet..?

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but the fact is they are acknowledged by the city of Chicago as small business owners and their license is a business license. There are thousands of peddlers throughout the city of Chicago and some of them are making money.

Spending 5-10 mins talking to him or anyone that is out and about is important.
I walked away feeling that the whole experience was a gain he even confirmed what I was thinking about his Coach bags. He got them from the same place most people do.

He's getting a pretty good deal on them but there is a way to get them even cheaper. Had he been interested I would have discussed more affordable suppliers.

Since I've been researching merchandise suppliers I have learned so much more about business. I feel as though a veil has been removed from my eyes.

The late "Otis Chandler"

This morning I caught a program on channel 11 about the chandlers publishers of the Los Angeles Times.This was the first time I'd ever heard anything about and their journey to success. I thought the story was absolutely heartbreaking. It seemed as though the late Otis Chandler had been betrayed and he never wanted to lose his position at the company nor did he want the company his family worked so hard to build to be bought by the Tribune company here in Chicago. However, the channel 11 special did seem to make one thing extremely clear the late Otis chandler did not what his undeserving family to control the company either.

After watching the special on channel 11 I turned to google looking for more information about what the late Otis Chandler truly felt. Watching him in the video below I do no see any sadness, regret of disappointed in his face and I don't hear it in his tone. It appears to me that he in fact may have initiated all of this including his firing and ultimately the Tribune Company buying the Los Angeles Times. In this video he does not express any disatisfaction with the Tribune Company quite on the contrary he appears pleased, and hopeful.

I'll have to do some more research about another business man we all should know.