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January 19, 2006

Why The Key To Succeeding In Business Is Inside Of You And Not In A Success system

If you're in a Vicious "loop" looking for a success system that will transform your situation this could be the best news you'll read all year.

I received this article from a guy who is 100 per cent down to earth and rock solid when it comes to helping people with their business. There is something about the tone of his language that you might find some encouragement in. If you're looking for answers to the question such as how to be successful, this article could help you to finally start stepping in the right direction.

By Perry Marshall

When I was in my 20's I was loaded with ambition and roiling with energy. "Full of vim and vinegar" as they say. Which led me to both my greatest failure as a young man and most profound lesson of my 20's.

At the time I was, like, totally drinking the motivational Pink Koolaid. I drove all over the country in my little green
Toyota Tercel with a stack of motivational tapes on the passenger seat and empty tape cases crunching beneath my feet, and I was becoming Mr. Sales Machine. I had a chip on my shoulder from all the no-show appointments (4 hour drive each way, I'd get there and call the guy, he'd say "Oh sorry, I forgot, can we reschedule?) and I was going to change the world with will and brute force.

I even had a little sign in my office that said "Massive Action Solves Every Problem" (a phrase I'd picked up somewhere, I thought it sounded good) and I actually believed it was true.

Ah, the foolishness and conceit of youth.

Funny thing, reality has a way of eventually fixing those misconceptions. Doesn't it?

When I was about 25 I went to a little workshop and this guy was talking about giftedness. He was explaining that there are some things we're naturally wired for, naturally gifted for.... and there are a whole bunch of other things we shouldn't be attempting to do at all.

He said that if you design your work around your gifts, talents and passions, life will be vastly more rewarding, easier, less stressful and productive. He said if you try to "force it" in a non-talent zone, you'll just frustrate
yourself.

I really liked this idea. In fact I liked it so much I got some extra training to teach this to other people.

But... I didn't actually believe it applied to me.

What I thought was, all I need is passion. If I've got enough passion and motivation, the gifts and talents will sort of take care of themselves.

So on I went, rolling down the road, saying my positive affirmations with the pedal to the metal.

Fast forward about 3 years...

-I've got NOTHING to show for my efforts, except about $40,000 of debt.

-I've just gotten demoted in my job, from sales to office manager, I've taken a pay cut and I'm swimming in a sea of humiliation and disappointment.

-My resume looks horrible because I haven't accomplished hardly anything in the last couple of years

-I've got a wife and a baby girl at home, mounting debts, and deep concerns about the future (deep concerns, in fact, about how we're going to buy the next set of diapers)

-Laura (nothing short of a saint) is patiently waiting for me to bash my head against brick walls enough to finally start to 'get it.' And she's wise enough to *not* say, "Perry, I've been putting up with your silly schemes for about 5 years now and it's time for you to pull your head out of...." But believe me, the lesson is finally starting
to sink in.

-One day she looks up in surprise as I walk in the door at 9:15am on a Tuesday morning.

"I got fired today."

I go down in the basement and get out my notes and exercises from that workshop. It's got a list of gifts and talents I've been completely ignoring for the last few years. I begin to sketch out what the right job, the right business, the right career would actually look like for me. Based on what I'm really good at. Based on what people close to me observe, what I uniquely contribute to the world.

Other people are usually better at recognizing our talents than we are.

After years of trying to bash through brick walls with the soft skin of my nose, I have finally woken up and begun to approach my work in a sensible way.

A year later my career has made a complete 180, I'm feeling great about what I'm doing, it's working, I'm making more money, and there's light at theend of the tunnel.

There's been no looking back since.

OK, so why am I telling you this story?

Because there's no such thing as THE success formula, as though there were just one. Now yes, there are unchanging eternal principles of relationships and business. But I'm not talking about those things. I'm talking about finding YOUR unique place in the world.

See, everyone's selling success systems and what not and that's fine. I sell those too. But those are not the thing. Success systems, marketing systems,marketing techniques, business strategies, those are not the real key.

The real key is finding YOUR unique, God-given talents, gifts, abilities and passions, and matching them to unmet needs and desires out there in the world.

When you do that, your life becomes SO much easier.

The most important thing I ever talk to people about in phone consultations and 1-on-1 sessions is their USP, their Unique Selling Proposition. USP is square one on the marketing game board. You get USP right, everything is easy. You get USP wrong, everything is hard.

The tricky thing about USP is that nobody can hand it to you on a silver platter. Nobody can dictate to you what it should be. You have to discover it for yourself. In fact it's something that grows and develops over time, just like you do.

If I could tell you anything about succeeding in business, it would be to stop trying to fight your own limitations, stop trying to "fix" your weaknesses, and start working in your strength areas. If you spend your life strengthening your weaknesses, all you end up with is a bunch of weak strengths. If you spend your life strengthening your strenghts, you are strong. You are mighty.

I can absolutely promise you, you have talent zones where you really shine, things completely natural to you, yet seemingly impossible for most people. Skills people want and need. These are the skills you most take for granted.

And That - that's the business you should be in. Not the business you hear some motivational speaker talking about.

The cool thing about that is, every day when you get out of bed, your gifts energize you instead of depleting you. And you're also more competition proof, because you've designed your world around your talents, and nobody else is like you.

Posted by David at 1:42 PM | Comments (0)

January 18, 2006

News! USA Small Business Internet Sales Tax Exemption

Mandatory collection of internet sales tax from internet retailing looks like becoming law in the USA later this year.

A single bill that supports the collection on Internet sales tax from selling over the internet is being forged, but some important issues have yet to be agreed, such as the exemption limit for small businesses.

A sticking point is whether small businesses should be exempt at all and if they should be exempt, the threshold for exemption. The ultimate decision for setting the threshold exemption will rest on the Small Business Administration (SBA).

So far the sales threshold being talked about is $5 million. Below this limit, small businesses will be exempt from collecting the tax.

There are concerns about the impact on start-up businesses for collecting the Internet Sales Tax. Onther concerns relate to destination sourcing, software for collecting and administering the process and the burden of collection.

The House of Representative looks set to introduce Internet Sales Tax later this year.

David
Small Business Resource

Posted by David at 2:36 PM | Comments (0)

January 17, 2006

Raising Funds For Small Business Schemes

Small business owners find it hard to raise money before they prove their product but there are ways around this

Small companies require capital. Small companies’ starting up especially innovation-based companies that present high risk and reward frequently need considerable more capital than the founder's wallet holds. This means that small business entrepreneurs have to seek other investors - and the success of the business will be heavily influenced by the extent to which they take account of the needs of these investors when drawing up a business plan.

Investors need a return on their investment. The return they can expect is largely governed by the amount of risk the investment presents: the greater the risk, the greater the reward.

Investors usually measure return using based on IRR or internal rate of return. This shows the return in terms of the annual percentage over the lifetime of the investment.

Oversimplifying slightly, an IRR of 60 per cent means investors receive the sum of the original capital for each year of the investment.

Smart investors do not rely solely on IRR, though, because it contains assumptions that can be misleading. Also, and much more importantly, most of the variables upon which IRR depends are hard to know in the early stages of investment - especially how long the investment will last and what the selling price will be.

It’s important to realize that investors are never merely making an investment in your company. They are building a portfolio of investments, which they view as a group. They know that the vast majority of the small companies will fail, that some will succeed and that only a few will be very successful. So every small company in a portfolio has to be potentially a big winner, because those big winners are covering the losers.

Some simple arithmetic illustrates the investor's hurdle. Let's say an investor intends to put £1 million into each of 10 companies for five years. The investor requires a return equal to the average return for early stage investors in venture capital in the USA, which is an IRR above 20%. That means his total fund must double in size in five years. Assuming six of ten companies fail and two companies achieve a 20% IRR, the other two must each return IRR of 140%. In other words, they must be worth £8 million in five years. That is breathtaking growth.

While smart investors may not depend on IRR, smart entrepreneurs will ensure that their proposition shows the potential for an IRR of the sort that investors want to see.

In the UK, the difficult for start-up small business entrepreneurs is compounded by the fact that the types of capital available for investment are variable, and not necessarily targeted at them. There is, for instance, an abundance of low-risk capital, such as bank loans.

There is also an abundance of funding for the purchase of companies or for management of an established division of a large company to buy the division. Once again, the risk of such a transaction is lower because the business already exists and can be analyzed.

There is a third category of capital available for innovation companies that establish themselves. They have already built a product or service (thereby diminishing technical risk), they have made some sales (diminishing market risk) they have an effective management team (diminishing people risk), but have not yet hit the fast-growth curve. Although these companies are still put in the high-risk category, they present an attractive balance of risk and reward from the investor's point of view.

It is very hard to find investors for start-up small companies that do not have the finished product or service, have not sold anything and have not hired the people who will be critical to running the business. It is harder to find investors when they are most needed.

In this situation, the only way for a small business start-up to get capital is for the entrepreneurs to focus their attention on demonstrating to the investors that they understand the risk factors, and present a robust business plan with whatever data they can find to show that the risk will diminish.

Not having the finished product should not stop a small business entrepreneur from illustrating what the likely demand for it will be when it is ready to sell. Prospective customers can be approached; their problem or need can be analyzed, the cost of the problem can be measured, and their willingness to purchase a product that is designed to solve it can be properly established.

In short, although there is not easy way to get venture capital for small business start-ups, it can be done. Those entrepreneurs who succeed are those who can empathize with the investor - they understand and support the investor's needs as well as their own.

Summary of Wooing Investors:

1. Try to empathize with prospective investors: if you understand what they want, you are more likely to succeed in the long run.
2. Ensure that your business can deliver investors with a good internal rate of return. That means an IRR of 20%.
3. Make clear to investors that you understand the risk factors of your business
Prepare a robust business plan showing how the risks will diminish over time.

Posted by David at 2:29 PM | Comments (0)

January 8, 2006

USA Small Business Tax in 2006 By President Bush

USA Small Business tax cuts in 2006

In his speech on the economy in Chicargo on 6 January 2006, President Bush briefly mentioned small businesses. His reference to small businesses related to tax cuts. Here's what he said about small business tax:

"We cut taxes on small businesses. Most small businesses pay individual income tax rates -- sole proprietorship or a limited partnership or a subchapter S corporation. So when you reduce individual rates, you're really increasing the amount of capital available for small businesses to expand. And that's important because 70 percent of the new jobs in America are created by small businesses. And when you couple the tax -- reduction in tax rates with incentives for small businesses to invest in new equipment, you can understand why this economy is strong. The small business sector of the United States of America is flourishing. The entrepreneurial spirit is widespread, and more and more Americans are starting their own company."

See comprehensive extract of his speech here:

President Bush Speech On The American Economy For 2006

Posted by David at 8:05 AM | Comments (0)