4 Entrepreneurial Strategies

By: Peter Drucker

• Being "the Fastest and the Mostest" – the "greatest gamble", aiming from the beginning at permanent leadership... More

7 Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurial Firms

By: NBIA

• An effective management team that works cooperatively and consists of members selected to provide a range of knowledge and skills... More

Finding a New Business Idea

Look into yourself. What qualities account for your greatest successes in life so far? What personal qualities and abilities have gotten you to where you are? And how could you apply those qualities and abilities to starting and building a new business?

Look for a product or service about which you can really become enthusiastic. Sometimes people become wealthy by translating or transforming their hobbies into a business. You will be most successful doing something or marketing something that you really love... More

Five Rules for Business Start-Ups

By: Brian Tracy

Entrepreneurship is the art of finding profitable solutions to problems. Every successful entrepreneur, every successful businessperson has been someone who's been able to identify a problem and come up with a solution to it before somebody else did. If you want to start a business, read these five tactics for finding entrepreneurial success:

1. Find a need and fill it. When Ross Perot was working for IBM, he saw that his customers who were buying IBM computers needed help processing their data. He went to IBM with this idea, and they said they weren't interested, so he started his own business. He eventually sold it out for $2.8 billion dollars. He found a need and he filled it.

2. Find a problem and solve it. A secretary working for a small company began mixing flour with nail varnish in order to white out the mistakes she was making in her typing. Pretty soon, her friends in the same office asked if she could make some for them. So she began mixing it at her kitchen table. Then, people in other offices started asking for it, and she eventually quit her business and worked full time creating what is today called Liquid Paper. A few years ago, she sold her company to Gillette Corporation for $47 million.

3. Look for solutions. Find a way to supply a product or a service better, cheaper, faster or easier. Clemmons Wilson saw that there was a need for hotels that could accommodate families that were traveling, and he started Holiday Inns. And Holiday Inns has now become one of the most successful hotel chains in the world.

4. Focus on your customer. Become obsessed with your customer. Fixated on your customer. Think of what your customer wants, what your customer needs, what your customer will pay for, what your customer's problems are. Thomas J. Watson, the founder of IBM, built his company on this principle. See yourself as working for the customer.

5. Invest sweat equity in your business. Most great fortunes in America were started with an idea and with personal effort and were started with the sale of personal services. This is called sweat equity. In other words, instead of cash equity, put in sweat equity. Put in the sweat of your brow to begin your business. Once you've come up with a product or anstart to invest your time, talent and energy instead of your money, to get started.

Action Exercises: Here are two things you can do immediately to put these tactics into action:

1. Find a need and fill it. Look around you and search for needs that people have for products or services that are not being met. One small idea is enough to start you on the way to business success.

2. Find a problem and solve it. Look around you for problems that you or other people have that are not yet being solved. Look for solutions that nobody has thought of and give them a try. One good solution could change the direction of your life.

Two Rules for Business Start-Ups

Entrepreneurship is the art of finding profitable solutions to problems. Every successful entrepreneur, every successful businessperson has been a person who has been able to identify a problem and come up with a solution to it before somebody else did. Here are the five rules for entrepreneurship... More

Seven Simple Steps to Small Business Success

Many businesspeople achieve their greatest successes in unexpected areas. They begin a business and then they find that it isn't as profitable as they had anticipated, so they change direction, using their experience and their momentum, and strike paydirt in something else. The most important thing is to begin. To take action. To move forward one step at a time, learning and growing as you go. There is enough information available in virtually every field for you to become knowledgeable enough to achieve success. But action is necessary.... More

The Art of Innovation: 9 Truths

By: Guy Kawasaki

• Break down the barriers. The way life should work is that innovative products are easy to sell. Dream on. Life isn't fair. Indeed, the more innovative, the more barriers the status quo will erect in your way. Entrepreneurs should understand this upfront and not get flustered when market acceptance comes slowly. I've found that the best way to break barriers is enable people to test drive your innovation: download your software, take home your hardware, whatever it takes.... More

Steve Jobs' 12 Rules of Success

4. Make SWOT analysis. As soon as you join/start a company, make a list of strengths and weaknesses of yourself and your company on a piece of paper... More

DOs and DON'Ts of a Successful Innovator

By: Peter Drucker

DOs

Start small – try to do one specific thing...

DON'Ts

Don't undershoot, or you will simply create an opportunity for competition... More

The Four C's of Commercial Lending

• Cash Flow:  Prove that there is cash available to repay the loan.  Prepare a business plan that shows an equal balance of equity from principals, equity from outside investors and equity equivalents (build out allowances, supplier financing or flooring, etc.) in place.  Then have your business plan always have a coverage ratio for interest and principal of 1.3 or greater... More

Guidelines for Getting Funding in Today's Market

• Be realistic. Don't waste your own time or the time of others by seeking funding that doesn't fit. Do go after funding that does fit... More