ABestPost

You are probably one of the millions of Americans who enjoy their
professions and who actually do not mind working for someone else. Sure, the
American Dream has always been to set out for yourself into the world of
business, make a name for yourself with a product or service that only you
have thought of, and then turn your life from rags to riches. Yet
considering that many Americans have families, mortgages, and bills to pay,
the number of people who manage to successfully quit their jobs and become
self employed is small. Granted, many try it and quite a few have moderate
successes. Yet by far greater is the number of people who will go through
their life’s savings, and in the end stand to loose their homes in order to
meet financial obligations that went by the wayside and suddenly seem to
pile up.

Perhaps you have sat in traffic time and again, bemoaning the fact that you
are wasting two or more hours of your time each day simply getting to your
job – the kind of time that could be put to good use! This is probably also
the time that you remember the many articles you have read on telecommuting,
and you are wondering if you have what it takes to take this step. After
all, if you were to approach your boss with a well thought out plan, the
odds are good that she or he would most likely give you a chance to prove
yourself.

Yet telecommuting is not for everyone who wants to do it. First and foremost
you will have to still consider yourself employed and thus bound by a
schedule. While it is tempting to procrastinate on work related items just
until you finish that last load of laundry, mow the yard, or groom the dog,
you do have to remember that you are on the clock. Additionally, you will
still need to meet deadlines and also work so as to accommodate the work
schedules of others in your company. This means that working in the middle
of the night so that you can accompany the kids on a field trip the next day
might not work.

Secondly, you will need to have adequate equipment. While almost everyone
owns a personal computer, there are a myriad of software programs out there
that may not be compatible. Test it out before you go to bat with your boss!

Additionally, make sure you have all the little peripherals you need to
work from home. Will you need a fax machine or a scanner? Maybe you need to
change your long distance plan to accommodate long distance calls? It is
important to have all your ducks in a row before you start!

Curt is a successful business owner and internet entrepreneur who developed an easy 3 step process to make money online. http://www.3-Easy-Steps.com

A while back, while living in New York City, I became acquainted with this guy named Harry Vincent. He was something else. Vince liked to show off a lot, as shown by his daily food regimen of booze and loose city girls. It was pretty tough on the ego hanging around him; I had recently started my so-called writing career and the cash wasn’t rolling in like I had planned. When Vince and I would go to the local bistro, he’d usually surround himself with a sensual panorama of mouth-watering full course treatment. I, on the other hand, stuck to the crusty French bread, topping it with cold, unspreadable butter. He’d drink some of the finest grape nectar your palate could ever reach, while I would stick with some tasty tap.

Ok, maybe he was a bit of a jerk, I’ll admit to that. So why did I stick around him so much? Well, he wouldn’t really rub things in, so he wasn’t a complete butt head. But the allure of being in his company was that I learned something new EVERY time.

See, Vince was successful. Pretty damn successful. And I’d love to say there was a secret to his success, but there wasn’t. He would never tell you if you’d ask him, but all you had to do was pay attention. It wasn’t even really what he did; he would do the same things most people in his field did. It was how he did it. His style of doing it. Let me try to explain.

It was guy’s night out and we were at a pretty high class ‘bar’ of sorts. A few friends, some women we had met, and of course, Vince. We were having a good time, having a few drinks, and pretty much enjoying our bachelor status. Then, right in the middle of conversation, Vince gets up, winks at us, and says “Opportunity knocks.” Everyone was left confused. Me, on the other hand, knowing how Vince works, just kept my cool. I figured he had found someone that caught his eye, more than likely a woman. So we all eye him. And to my surprise, it wasn’t a woman he was after, but a man. Vince had the guy positively enthralled in his conversation. After a few moments, Vince pats him on the shoulder, smoothly palms a business card into his hand, winks with a sly smile, and then walks back toward us. He saw the look on our faces as he sat. All he said was “Just business.” And that was that.

Alright, he probably did have some sort of secret. Charisma or something. But everything he did that night fell on one thing. It wasn’t his alcohol level. It wasn’t the smile. It wasn’t even his persuasive conversation. It was his business card.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that a card made a difference between sale or bail, but all that talk, all that smile, and all that swagger, would have been to waste if it wasn’t closed by the exchange of a business contact card. It didn’t even dawn on me how important it was until I noticed how many people do exactly what he did, sell themselves, and then say “Here, let me call your cell phone so you can get my number.” Business cards are free, what’s so hard about carrying them around?

A few days later, I meet Vince for lunch. I figured that while splurging on restaurantal delights I’d be able to get the full story on the other night’s events. As I pull up, I see Vince leaning on a nice little whip of a sports car. As I open my door, he pockets his cell phone in movie star fashion, putting up his sly smile in the process. I say, “You’re kidding.” He says “Would I?” That’s all I needed to know. Son of a gun closed a sale guaranteeing him a nice upfront chunk along with recurring commissions through to the next seven months. The guy at the bar bought in. Vince now drives faster. I asked him what he did. His exact words: “He liked my card.”

Vince built his career on the design of his business card and style of his exchange. It was his trademark repertoire.

Ever since realizing that, I’ve been able to pull off writing contracts a lot smoother than I ever thought. The business cards work, but few people understand their potential. That’s why I carry a few with me all the time. And if you still haven’t gotten any, or wanted to get a new one but hesitated, now is the best time. Check the link at the bottom. That company is offering free business cards, so there’s no excuse. Now, carrying a card won’t guarantee you anything, but it sure helps seal the deal.

Michael Brookes is a prominent business writer based in Miami, FL.
For free business cards and free business supplies, visit http://www.businesscards-free.com/

Women entrepreneurs make up one of the fastest growing sectors of the business world today and there are as many expressions of entrepreneurialism as there are the kinds of women who choose this route; however, whether your idea of being an entrepreneur means running your own part time consulting business out of your house where you employ 1 or 2 other people or you are running a multi-million dollar company and manage hundreds of employees, the 7 keys to success remain the same.

What follows are the 8 key success principals that will allow you to take your business to the next level:

1. Dream Big

Do not limit your dream. Make it big and spend your time identifying the steps to get there. There is no limit to what you can achieve when you set your intention and keep moving every single day toward your goal.

2. Create a Vision Statement

What do you want to achieve? How would you like your ideal day to look? How do you want to feel? Write it out. Be as detailed as possible and create a picture that you carry with you every day. Keep your vision statement accessible and read it every day. You will achieve what you put your focus, energy and attention on.

3. Invest in Yourself

Never stop learning. Take classes, go to seminars, connect with those in your industry who have experienced similar situations and have succeeded. Find a mentor and pay attention.

4. Create a Mastermind Group or Success Team

This is one of the greatest practices you can have. Get together either in person or over the phone on a weekly basis with other women entrepreneurs in your field. Do not worry about the competition. You get what you give. help others and they will help you. Imagine the power of 10 minds!

5. Do Not Let Failures Stop Your Progress

You are going to run into obstacles and some ideas may fall flat. Some initiatives will fail entirely. That is okay. Learn from it but keep moving ahead. Do not waste time focusing on the failure. If you do, you are taking away from time that could be spent planning your next step.

6. Be Real about Who You Are and Where You Are in the Process

One of the things I see most often with new entrepreneurs is that they do not want to admit the struggles. They want everyone to think everything is great, they have all the business they want, and the money is rolling in. They do not realize how putting this out there can prevent them from really learning and it may even prevent people from offering their help. be real about your situation. If it is going great, be proud of it and find someone who may benefit from what you are doing. If things are not going so great, lose the ego and be honest about it. There may be those that will be thrilled with your lack of success, but most will reach out to you and help you if they can. Take advantage of the success of others by picking their brain. Ask questions and be open to learning. You will get much further faster.

9. Do not Compare Yourself to Others

Many people waste a lot of time comparing themselves to others who may be making more money, finding greater success, or who appear to be doing it all with ease. This practice will not serve you and it will often only increase frustration or stunt your growth. Everyone has a story and I assure you your story is just as valuable as theirs. Instead of thinking about them and comparing yourself to them, learn from what they are doing and apply some of their principles to your own unique situation. You have the opportunity to share your ideas, vision, and expertise with the world. Take pride in your own unique approach and in the gifts only you alone can give.

8. Go After the Dream, Not the Money

If you ask anyone who is really successful, 9 times out of 10 they will tell you they were out to do something they loved and something they felt passionate about. They were not going after the money. Go after what you love and if you make a lot of money in the process, consider it a great bonus.

Practice these 8 steps to achieve certain success in your entrepreneurial endeavor.

To find out if your career is aligned with your body and mind go to http://www.coachmelani.typepad.com/. Melani Ward is a career coach and the founder of Career Fitness. She helps people create balance in their body, mind, and work. She works with yoga practitioners and athletes on career discovery and development, resume and interviewing strategies, setting and achieving goals, and uniting who they are with what they do.

In an article I recently came across, the author spun a tale of how to conceive and sell good ideas for software based on inspirations for better ways to accomplish tasks. What the article did not include were the real difficulties involved with going from being a hobbyist working with home spun ideas, to achieving a viable commercial software product for sale.

One common misconception that most non-developer users have is that someone with a good idea can start by partnering with an existing large software firm to bring their idea to the market. The current giants in the software industry have been known to work together with other companies in a potentially lucrative market, but this potential rarely extends to a viable relationship with individual entrepreneurs or hobbyists to turn a concept into a multi million dollar deal. Even when larger firms negotiate for cooperative development contracts, one party usually figures out a way to legally short change the other by taking the functional concept and developing a code stream to accomplish a similar task without infringing on the copy rights of the company who originated the idea for the process. Since there are no patents issued for software concepts in the United States, the flexibility of programming languages allows anyone to take a crack at writing programs to accomplish tasks. In actuality, the commercial software business is highly competitive and one of the most cut throat tactical storms anyone can have the misfortune to engage in. To succeed in building a software business from the ground up requires much more than a simple program idea.

If you go to any computer store today and look at the brand names of the products on the shelf, you will notice that Microsoft is the overwhelming leader in offering consumer software products available for sale, with the exception of companies engaged in creating computer based video game products. Other brand names are available, but if Microsoft is not competing with these alternatives, then they exist because the company has developed a niche product market that Microsoft is not interested in, or they have a technology that has not yet been emulated by other producers.

The best way for a talented developer to start a software business on their own is to have lots of financial resources, a great business plan, and a killer marketing plan for getting the brand name implanted into the minds of the market they are trying to reach. For the would-be software mogul, there is probably not enough money in the bank to get a new successful software line off the ground. Even with the best plan available on the planet, any new idea offered to the public for sale will be instantly subject to scrutiny and potential competition from an existing company with more resources to counter the idea, and a more popular and credible brand name than your own.

Software development is still a big frontier, so it is possible for the right person to come up with the next big thing in the industry from their garage, but the cowboy days of realizing that kind of dream is rapidly closing. Brilliant and talented developers may be able to spot a weakness in the armor of the industry, and find a way to exploit it, but they will not do it successfully by running a shade tree mechanic business on their own. There are simply too many marketing dollars available to the big guns to keep individuals from likely becoming the next Bill Gates of software. To the individual who wants to throw caution to the wind and raise their flag anyway, the best path to building a business on software development is to stay under the radar of large firms, and to find a niche market that today’s large firms are not interested in exploiting. This means that new ideas must have a clearly defined target audience that can be reached with a well planned marketing campaign, and this will not come cheaply. Variations from the functional standards established by the giants will likely weaken chances for success rather than help. Standards dictated by the industry have invaded the realm of user and developer expectations for how a product should work, and what methods will be employed in making it work. If a new idea varies from this path, the battle for user interest and development skills in delivering the product will be daunting at best.

If you are a hobbyist or developer looking to make your next million by blazing new trails in software, you will not achieve your goals by jumping into the stream without a life jacket and trying to swim upstream. Careful consideration of the current and how to swim with it are your best hope for moving your ideas off your personal computer and into the minds and hearts of others who can benefit from your talent. No matter how far off the mainstream you are able to get with your own ideas, chances are good that you will have to settle on doing it with the tools available to you from the giant firms that already hold the throat of the industry in their hands. These companies will constantly be using their large organizations to ensure that your money is forwarded into their pockets due to changes in programming languages, operating systems, new hardware technology, and competitive alternatives to your own methods for accomplishing tasks. As an entrepreneur, do not count on getting rich overnight with any of your software inspirations. Use your software ideas to give you an edge over the competition for what they help you do better than someone else, and not purely on the basis of software titles alone.

John Dir
LittleTek Center
Check out our information channel and free softtware at http://home.earthlink.net/~jdir/