Top 4 Traits of Successful Entrepreneurs

by Carmen

 

Do you think you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur?  Becoming an entrepreneur takes a specific type of personality.  Fortunately, it’s the type of personality you can develop by working on yourself, growing, and learning how to express these traits.  Focus on the four top traits below and you’ll find yourself ahead of the pack.

An entrepreneur is a problem solver

An entrepreneur looks at a problem and knows it’s an opportunity.  That’s not a cliché talking.  A problem is literally an opportunity to get paid if you can be the one to solve it. Successful entrepreneurs make their name identifying problems without solutions, and providing those solutions. Every good product solves some sort of problem.  Even video games solve a problem—they provide a way for people to unwind after a stressful day and fulfill a fantasy.

If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, your natural response to any given problem should always be to ask yourself how you can solve that problem.  Not who is to blame, not how that problem came to be—just how the problem can be solved.  Problem-solving becomes a habit.  As you become alert to problems with no solutions, you become alert to new ways to create, grow, develop, and innovate new products.  If you can marry this alertness to calculated action you will develop the instincts that you need to be an outstanding entrepreneur.

An entrepreneur takes calculated risks

Risk-adverse people don’t make very good entrepreneurs—but neither do extremely reckless people who leap first and look later.  Real entrepreneurs evaluate their potential risks.  They also know how to minimize the risks they need to take through hard work, dedication, and strategic planning.

When a risk goes bad an entrepreneur doesn’t waste a lot of time looking for someone to blame.  Instead a true entrepreneur analyzes what went wrong, learns from it, and moves on.

An entrepreneur is self-motivated

This is about more than simply being your own boss.  This is about more than simply being able to get up in the morning and get to work.  An entrepreneur is always capable of seeing a tomorrow that’s just a little bit better than today.  He’s not satisfied to just sit on his laurels and enjoy the fruits of his success.  He’s constantly looking forward—creating plausible plans to create more opportunities and find his next point of success.  An entrepreneur is also willing to push himself.  Last year’s success was fine, but this year’s success should reflect his growth.  He’s always coming up with some new project and looking for ways to make that project succeed.

An entrepreneur is confident

There’s not much room in the business world for self-doubt.  Fear can make you back away from projects that could be the key to your ultimate success.  Furthermore, the entrepreneur has to be in the business of convincing other people that his ideas are good.   Partners, investors, financing, creative structuring—it all depends on the entrepreneur’s ability to convince other people that they’re making a good bet when they team up with him.  If the entrepreneur isn’t sure about himself, how can anyone else be sure of him?

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Tips for Starting a Successful Business Website

by Leo Sun 

 

In this day and age, a business website is a prerequisite for even the most basic of services. It also serves as a valuable first impression to potential customers – sloppy website designs lead to negative assumptions about the professionalism of your business. Overly designed, memory-intensive flash websites filled with background music and tiny text frustrate visitors with haughty pompousness. How can you decide which approach is the best for your company? What are the steps necessary to establish a coherent, appropriate website?

Getting Started

In the late 1990s, most website design only required a simple knowledge of HTML and Javascript. Since then, websites have evolved greatly, and a working knowledge of Flash and HTML 5.0 are required for the most professional of websites. Most website designers use publishing software such as Adobe Dreamweaver to simplify tasks considerably. Fortunately, most publishing suites have simple templates for a basic site and may prove enough for most small businesses seeking a simple web presence. At the bare minimum, your website should consist of the following:

• Contact information – your phone number, e-mail and address clearly visible on the first page.
• For eCommerce sites:
• A clearly designed product catalog, with your most current, news-worthy products on the first page. Promotions should also be clearly visible on the first page.
• An online shopping cart system.
• If pertinent to your products, you should add downloadable content – such as software or PDF manuals.
• For corporate or events sites, a clear company calendar with upcoming events, which can also be synced to the iCal standard or Google Calendar.

There are also some common pitfalls to avoid.

• Garish or common clip art – these make your website appear unprofessional and outdated. Use made from scratch graphic designs, if possible.
• Tiny text in an attempt to create a minimalistic look. This can often be unreadable on some smaller displays.
• Overly extravagant Flash introductions with background music. These often slow down older computers and frustrate customers who are only seeking basic information about the company. Create launch pages which give the user the option of selecting a HTML or Flash version of the site.
• Poor frequency of updates. When a visitor to your site sees the last update occurring half a year ago, what does that say about your response time to customer issues?

Upgrading a Basic Website for the New Web

Now, with a basic foundation, your website should be spruced up further. Visitors these days expect a certain degree of interaction with the website. These are some things you can add to your website to enhance the user’s experience.

• Real-time tech support – many websites now offer Java or AJAX based web chat with tech support. Of course this means you need to have several members of your staff assigned to field these questions. These can be connected to their work stations. Some websites also offer real-time chat via Windows Messenger.
• Social networking integration via Facebook or Twitter. These allow your company to bring your customers closer without the use of old-time mailing lists.
• A wise use of multimedia. For example, Apple’s website uses Quicktime VR to allow the user to grab and rotate the product in any way they desire to mimic a physical shopping experience.
• RSS feeds, to allow users to subscribe to your company’s posts or updates.

Tweaking Your Design Sensibilities

Bear in mind that websites should be designed to reflect their businesses. Hotels and restaurants should not look like electronics websites, and vice versa. If your staff lacks the artistic eye for cohesion, it may be wise to hire a contract web designer in order to achieve this. However, here are some simple tips to maintain a clean design.

• Fonts – many websites are created with the simple Times New Roman font in garish colors over clip art backgrounds. These are ugly and discourage customers from purchasing your products. Professionally made banners and cleaner fonts such as Lucida Grande or Arial reflect well on your business.
• Use CSS or AJAX in order to keep your site looking lean and modern; without these your website will appear clunky, loading like a 1990s website being viewed on Netscape.
• Use cross-browser compatible standards which can be viewed on the widest assortment of browsers and operating systems. Many designers make the mistake of making fancy websites without the consideration that many customers may be using outdated browsers without Flash.

Finishing Touches

The important thing to remember about starting a business website is that design should be clear, to the point and informative. Cross-compatibility is much more important than aesthetic beauty. Each customer who can’t load your site or find the pertinent contact information is a lost customer. Here are some final things to consider.

• Does your website have a mobile version? With the increasing adoption of smartphones, mobile-optimized websites can help widen your company’s exposure and promote a forward-thinking image.
• Has your company launched mobile applications, as many companies have done, to allow easier, one-click access to your website and services?
• Is your website search engine optimized? There are many articles instructing web designers in the proper way to phrase search terms to increase hits from major search engines.
• Will your website use advertising as a means to gain revenue? If so, you can consider using Google AdSense as a free way to gain extra funds from page views and click-thrus.
•  

These are some ideas to help you get started. In business web design, your first impression upon the customer can often be your last if your website is poorly designed, so be sensible with your approach.

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Starting a Home Business

by Leo Sun

 

Many of us dream of working from home, setting our own hours and being our own bosses. Often times we see advertisements online and in print media, claiming thousands of dollars per week for stay-at-home jobs. These, of course, are scams which want you to order some fairly redundant, freely available information for a hefty price. Real home businesses start small with realistic profit expectations. They often fail, but with the proper discipline and acumen, they can succeed. After all, Steve Jobs started Apple (AAPL) as a home business out of his parent’s garage. People often consider home businesses for a variety of reasons. Common ones include:

• Supplementary, side income to a primary job for a spouse
• Inability to leave the home (injury, pregnancy, etc.)
• Desire to become an entrepreneur
• Having a marketable idea, and enough free cash flow to explore it

Home Businesses are Lemonade Stands

You can start a home business selling anything. The range is only limited by your imagination and state laws. Let’s take the simplest business model for a home business, a lemonade stand. A lemonade stand has no additional real estate costs, as it is set up in your own front yard. You are responsible for controlling the production of the lemonade, and you are clear on the profit margin – what you make between the cost of a pitcher of lemonade and your asking price. You are aware that any changes to the weather – the main variable – will affect your supply and demand. You know that if you can’t sell your product in time, your product will go to waste and equal lost profits, or at least cause a surplus in your inventory. As simple as it is, this classic example has all the components of a small home-based business.

How should we go about starting a home business? Here are some things to do to prepare:

• Know your own talents
• What are you good at?
• Do you have a marketable skill?
•  Know your strengths and weaknesses
• Focus on your strengths
• Find other people who can help you complete tasks which you are weak at. These can include remote employees also looking to work from home, or your family and close friends.
• Organize your ideas
• Decide which ones are feasible
• Write down a comprehensive business plan

If you are focusing on an outsourced contract service, you may need to build a work portfolio to advertise your previous works. For example, graphic and web designers need comprehensive portfolios to show clients. Virtual assistants need testimonials and free consultations for clients.

If you wish to focus on a product based business, such as making quilts or gift baskets, you need to have a realistic production bottleneck based on your current capabilities. Assess the base cost of your product and the profit margin. If you are a one-man operation, it is not realistic to meet 100 orders daily. Start small, and don’t bite off more than you can chew. Grow slowly, and hire more people to help if you have steady orders coming in. Set order limits to avoid being swamped with orders and losing punctual credibility.

Reviewing your Business Model and Cash Flow

Now you have to see if your business model can actually be profitable. If you were previously living paycheck to paycheck with little cash savings, then starting a home business can be an incredibly stressful venture. If you have substantial savings, however, this can be far easier and allow more clarity in your decisions.

For example, if you decide to sell small handmade gifts for $20 each, and you are able to produce and sell ten per day at a materials cost of $15, you could theoretically earn $50 per day, and up to $1,500 per month. That’s an extremely optimistic example, and even working without a break 365 days through the calendar year, you would only make $18,000 annually. That seems like a lot of work for a mediocre paycheck. However, if you ramp up your production capabilities and hire some assembly line workers, you could easily double or triple your salary. Even better, you could hire on a team manager to oversee the operations and be able to take some time off as your venture runs itself. The time and effort needed to make a product is a key variable in the survivability of most home businesses.

A low-margin, high-volume approach, like the example mentioned above, is bound to be more successful than a high-margin, low-volume approach, which many home businesses attempt. For example, if you are able to produce homemade pottery for $10 each and customers are willing to pay $100 for each piece, but you are only able to produce one per week, then you would only make less than $360 monthly, or $4,320 annually, which would be impossible to live on. This is a huge obstacle for many entrepreneurs attempting to start an art-based home business such as sculpture, painting or photography, since your choice of helpers would be limited by skill and their impact on your product’s signature style.

If your home business is meant to supplement your primary income, it may be a much less stressful venture; after all, if it falls through you still have your regular job. However, if you plan to devote all your time to your home business, you have to make sure you have enough savings to make it through some rough patches, especially at the beginning, when initial setup costs, especially advertising, can be staggering and send your monthly balances deep into the red. While there are no shortcuts in home businesses, as many advertisers claim, hard work and persistence can pay off big in the long run.