Posted in Starting a Business on March 4th, 2010 by Rieva Lesonsky – Be the first to comment
By Rieva Lesonsky
Jen Groover, inventor of the Butler Bag, is an innovative entrepreneur who’s a real inspiration to others. If you’re thinking about starting a new business but your fears are holding you back, pre-order a copy of her forthcoming book What If? & Why Not? How to Transform Your Fears Into Actions and Start the Business of Your Dreams.
Groover knows that the biggest roadblock to startup success isn’t the outer obstacles like getting a license or even finding financing, but the inner obstacles that keep you stuck in the status quo. “This is a book about overcoming self-doubt and the fear of failure so that you can take action,” she writes.
The book’s chapters are structured around specific fears, such as, “What if everyone tells me I can’t do it?” or “What if I’m terrified of selling?” In each chapter, Groover addresses the fear and offers a series of “Why Nots” to help you overcome it. She also includes anecdotes from real-life entrepreneurs who share how they overcame fears.
There are many business books that will tell you the nuts and bolts steps to startup, but Groover’s edge is in addressing those inner steps that are often the biggest and hardest to take.
Related Posts:
Posted in Uncategorized on March 3rd, 2010 by Karen Axelton – Be the first to comment
By Rieva Lesonsky
Do you want to learn more about using social media tools to build your business? (Doesn’t everybody these days?) My friend Ronan Keane, co-author of my e-book Startup Success: Boost Your Chances for Business Success With Web 2.0, is partnering with SCORE to conduct four webinars on social media each Thursday in March.
The first seminar will be held tomorrow, March 4. Titled “Social Media Road Map for Your Business Success,” it’s a practical guide that will show you how to start and maintain successful social media accounts with Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook. It will also explain the importance of establishing a blog for publishing content and how to distribute your content so that it reaches hundreds and even thousands of people. Ronan will also talk about how to get your content near the top of the rankings on search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing.
“Social Media Road Map for Your Business Success” is tomorrow at noon, EST–and it’s free. Sign up at this link and get ready to learn!
Related Posts:
Posted in Uncategorized on March 2nd, 2010 by Rieva Lesonsky – Be the first to comment
By Rieva Lesonsky
SmallBizDaily is giving away a free HP iPAQ Glisten. I’ve been test-driving this new smartphone for several weeks now, and there are lots of cool features for small-business owners. One thing I love about the Glisten is its long battery life. It’s also got a great browser—clear and easy to see. But what you’ll really like about the Glisten is it comes equipped with Windows Mobile 6.5, so you can use Excel, PowerPoint and Word on the fly.
The Glisten has a full QWERTY keyboard as well as a touchscreen. It’s got multiple connectivity options, built-in Wi-Fi and GPS, advanced mobile e-mail capabilities and rich multimedia features. To find out more about the Glisten, visit AT&T’s site.
Sounds pretty smart, huh? To win your Glisten smartphone, share a “smart trick” you use to run your business better. We’ll share the best smart tricks on our blog. Just e-mail your tip (100 words or less, please) to editor@smallbizdaily.com with the subject line “HP Glisten.” Remember to tell us your name, your business’s name, and your business’s physical mailing address and phone number.
Tips must be received by midnight PST on March 22, 2010. See official rules for more details.
Related Posts:
Posted in Management on March 1st, 2010 by Karen Axelton – Be the first to comment
By Karen Axelton
Harvard Business Review posted a thought-provoking look at the future of work that has some key implications for how you manage your employees.
The recession has accelerated changes that were already happening in the work force, writes Tammy Erickson. It’s worth reading all of them, but if I were to boil the 5 trends Erickson pinpoints down to one word, I’d call it “detachment.” Employees are less and less confident that employers will provide benefits, stability, a regular paycheck or all of the things that used to be part of the deal. As a result, they’re giving less and less of themselves to the job.
Some aspects of detachment are good – like what Erickson calls “adult arrangements.” Simply put, this means treating employees like adults, such as letting them choose their own benefits or hours from a menu of flextime options. At some point in the future, she suggests, we might even give employees the freedom to set their own pay levels or take responsibility for their own performance reviews.
But others are bad—like the fact that increasingly, you’re competing with a host of other priorities for your staff’s “discretionary energy.” Already, Erickson says, holding multiple jobs or starting a side business is starting to become the norm—driven in part by the current trend toward employers cutting back hours to save money. Employees who are being told to only work 4 days a week naturally start to assess their work in a “by the hour” fashion, unwilling to give more hours than necessary to the job.
As employees start to become clock-watchers, you’ll struggle harder to engage them. But engage them you must. “More and more of the work in today’s economy cannot be done rotely — success requires a spark of extra effort, creativity, collaboration, and innovation,” Erickson writes. Ironically, removing employees’ incentives to spend their discretionary energy on you could sap their innovation just at the time when you need it most.
What are you competing with to get your employees’ discretionary energy?
Related Posts:
Posted in Uncategorized on February 26th, 2010 by Rieva Lesonsky – Be the first to comment
By Rieva Lesonsky
Have you missed any of my blog posts around the Web this week? Here’s what I’m writing about:
Last week I heard one of the most inspiring business speakers ever, Seth Godin, talk about his “Linchpin” theory, why your lizard brain is holding you back and how to create a business that matters. Get more on my AllBusiness.com blog.
With big-bank lending drying up, community banks could be a lifeline for small business. Read more about President Obama’s plans for increasing local lending in my blog post on Anita Campbell’s Small Business Trends site.
There’s a whole generation growing up in the shadow of this “Great Recession.” Learn how the economic meltdown is changing their attitudes—perhaps forever—and what that means to your business in my post on AT&T’s SmallBusinessInSite.
Thinking about buying a franchise? Before you do, find out what that company’s franchisees really think of it. I’ll tell you how on my AllBusiness.com franchise blog.
Related Posts:
Follow Rieva on Facebook
Follow Rieva on Twitter
Rieva's Radio Show