Do You Have What It Takes?
Archives: Daily Issues
Issue #2081
- WEALTHY: 4 industries you don’t want to invest in (Andrew Gordon)
- HEALTHY: The dietary connection to hypertension (Jon Herring)
- WISE: Peter Farrell on entrepreneurship
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- "Natural" vs. "chicken" entrepreneurship (Michael Masterson)
- How to attract customers who aren’t trying to find you (David Cross)
- It’s Good to Know… about traveling on a budget
- Add "piebald" to your vocabulary
Imagine if There Were Only 6 Numbers to Choose from When Buying a Lottery Ticket!
Wouldn’t that be great?! Of course, the less the number of choices, the more likely your chance of success, right?
How many choices are there when buying and selling shares? Errmm… a LOT! Hundreds… One of the reasons I enjoy such consistent success from trading, is because I only have 6 options to choose from! Except this is even better in a way, because the lottery is pure luck…
… I only have 6 choices AND have a VERY good idea about which choice to make because of the insider signal. Click here to learn more…
No Bargains in These Sectors
Warren Buffett – who owns a piece of The Washington Post – recently said, "The newspaper business has just got a lot tougher." Which means that, even at incredibly low valuations, this is a sector the Internet has made obsolescent in the past couple of years. You should stay away from it.
Here are some other sectors that have recently gotten "a lot tougher."
- Oil and Gas. The easy finds are history. Oil majors have had to develop expensive new technology, drill deeper, and give up more profit in deals with hardballers like Venezuela and Russia.
- Telecom. The major growth sector – cellphones – is very competitive in the U.S. Elsewhere, telecoms – like Deutsche Telecom – are still trying to figure out how to replace falling fixed-line revenue.
- Banking. The super-banks are making a killing on takeover mania. But the rest of them are squeezing out smaller profits. Interest-rate spreads are finally getting better but are still paper-thin, and the mortgage business is dicier and less busy.
There are lots of supposedly great buys in these sectors – but shop there at your own peril.
[Ed. Note: Andrew Gordon, ETR's Investment Director, has authored several books on energy markets, global countertrade practices, and the hot growth sectors of China and Russia. A former professor of marketing and finance, he is the editor of INCOME, a monthly financial advisory service that uncovers income-generating stocks that promise safety (first and foremost), along with much-higher-than-average profit potential.]
"People mix up entrepreneurship with risk-taking… An entrepreneur is a risk-minimizer, an opportunity seeker."
Peter Farrell
Do You Have What It Takes?
Many ETR readers are entrepreneurial wannabes – stuck in jobs they hate and dreaming of having their own exciting businesses. According to best-selling business author Seth Godin, entrepreneurial wannabes come in a number of varieties:
- "The middle manager who believes he can go out and make it on his own
- "The career-changer who is going to open a pet store because she loves dogs
- "The restaurant chef who is going to open up his own restaurant
- "The accountant leaving a big firm to start his own tax service
- "The technology maven with a great idea
- "The retiree who wants to buy a small store"
Most of these wannabes never achieve their dream. Rather than take the steps needed to start a successful business, they devote all their spare time to learning about entrepreneurship and preparing for the big day that never comes.
I think about PG, one of the dozens of wannabes I know. When we recently talked about this sensitive subject – why she has never taken action to start her business, even though she is well-prepared to do so – she said, "I worry that I don’t have what it takes."
When I asked her what she meant by that, she drew a blank. "I don’t know," she said. "Like if I have the right personality. Or if I have the right kind of mind for it. Or the right kind of emotional intelligence. That sort of thing."
That got me thinking: Is there such a thing as having "what it takes" when it comes to starting your own business?
In Seth Godin’s book If You’re Clueless About Starting Your Own Business, he says it’s a myth that there is one entrepreneurial "type."
"Bill Gates is an entrepreneur, but so is the single mom who runs a typing service out of her home. While the media has glamorized the macho, take-no-prisoners approach to growing businesses into billion-dollar companies, the fact is that most jobs are created by the tiny ‘mom and pop’ start-ups that are everywhere."
But Godin does believe that successful entrepreneurs share certain traits. And he provides a 25-question quiz to determine how many of those traits you have. The most important, he says, are:
- A positive, committed attitude so you can stick with it through the "change, insecurity, and indecision" that buffet every new business
- A natural love of challenge so you will have the energy and enthusiasm to handle the demands you will inevitably face
- The ability to manage a lot of stress and work at a high energy level
- The willingness to take responsibility
- A preference for being in charge rather than following orders
- A sense of excitement and urgency about growth and change
- The ability to sell yourself and your business
All of those characteristics seemed sensible to me, so I took the test. Considering how many profitable dollars the dozens of businesses I’ve started are raking in, I expected to score 100. But, in fact, I scored 79.
According to Godin, my 79 means that it’s very risky for someone like me to start a business. "You possess some entrepreneurial traits," he says, "but probably not to the degree necessary to buck the daunting odds. If your score on the last 15 questions was 15 or below (which it was), your risk is even greater. Keep working for someone else."
Interesting, don’t you think?
A colleague of mine – the guy who recommended Godin’s book to me – scored very highly on the test. And he is, indeed, a "natural" entrepreneur. However, he has not been able to build businesses that last. He starts one and, because he is smart and aggressive, it works well for a time. Then something happens and it falls apart.
While I admire his many talents, I can see that being a natural entrepreneur – the personality that Godin’s test is looking for – is in many ways his biggest barrier to success.
The natural entrepreneur is good at coming up with ideas, but not so good at following up on them. "I’m an idea person," such entrepreneurs will tell you. "I’m not good with details."
In saying that, these people are suggesting that the ability to come up with ideas is more important than the skill of implementing them. But as Robert Ringer says in Action!, no idea has any value until it is carried out. The secret of success in business is the ability to combine innovation and implementation.
If, like my friend PG, you have been putting off the decision to strike out on your own because you don’t know if you have "what it takes," consider the case I am making here: If having what it takes means having the classic entrepreneurial personality, you may be better off with the personality you have.
Embrace the fact that you like security and regularity and order, because later on, when you do get your business going, you will be able to use that to build a stable business for yourself and your employees.
"Okay," you say. "But how do I get out of this cycle I’m in? This cycle of dreaming and reading and planning my business but never actually jumping into it?"
Here is a quick outline of what you should do:
- Accept the fact that you are not a "natural" entrepreneur. Be happy about that, because your fear of taking risks and your instinctive desire for stability will work in your favor.
- Get someone to act as your mentor – a successful business owner who is willing to encourage you to take the steps you have to take.
- Don’t even think about quitting your job until your business is proven and profitable. That’s not your nature. Instead, plan a strategy that makes sense for the "chicken entrepreneur" that you are. That strategy should include the following:
- Make a final decision about which business you want to start. Recognize uncertainty as a way to avoid action. Don’t fret that you might pick the "wrong" business. Just pick something.
- Get a full- or part-time job in the industry you want to be in, in the marketing department if possible. Learn everything you can about how that business sells its products.
- Once you understand how the marketing works, see if you can start an Internet-based version of your business. If your business doesn’t have an Internet application, come up with another way to test the waters – maybe by selling your products at flea markets or offering your services through related businesses.
- Read Ready… Fire… Aim, my next book on entrepreneurship. That will give you the details of exactly what you need to do to take your business from inception to $100 million and beyond.
Most important, take action. A lot of things related to starting your own business may scare you (which is perfectly fine), but you won’t accomplish anything if you don’t move forward. Even if your first step is a small one – like setting up a simple website or scheduling an informational interview with a bigwig in your field – do something to get your new venture off the ground.
[Ed. Note: Learn how to turn your passion, background, or expertise into a profitable, Internet-based, information-publishing business at ETR's upcoming 5 Days in July Internet Conference.
You can walk in with nothing - no product, no marketing skills, no technical know-how - and walk out with your own online business. If you even think you might be interested in this opportunity, you must sign-up for the 5 Days in July Conference today.]
In the Past Five Years He Has Closed Out Dozens of Gains Like:
3,851%
2,912%
2,445%
Now, This Ultra-Successful Private Speculator Has Agreed to Lead a Select Few to Riches…
Keep reading to learn how you can join him
A "Real Simple" Way to Get Your Customers’ Attention
By David Cross
If you have an online business, a highly effective (and free) way to attract your customers’ attention is to supply information – articles about your product, service, or industry – to multiple websites.
One way to get your articles published all over the Internet is to submit them to sites like ArticleCity or EzineArticles. But you can also spread your articles around the Web by taking advantage of Real Simple Syndication or "RSS" feeds. This tool is used frequently to automatically notify Internet users when, for example, their favorite blog has a new entry or the content on a particular website has been updated.
Most website and blogging systems now offer RSS to individual users, as do many e-mail list management programs. But you can go one step further and inform the entire Internet (including sites with similar content to yours) that you’re posting a new article by registering the address of your RSS feed with a service like FeedBurner. These services will freely distribute your content through RSS to many content syndication services on the Internet. Just make sure you include the URL for your website on every article you submit so that people who are interested in the topics you write about can find out more about you and your business.
A major advantage of RSS is that it not only spreads your content throughout the Internet, it allows you to share content in relevant ways. For example, if your article is on trout fishing in Montana, it will tend to be syndicated to similar sites (like MontanaTrout.com or TroutNut.com) or sites where that topic is relevant (like FunOutdoors.com or MontanaLiving.com). But even if you don’t want to use RSS, you can still spread your articles around the Internet. Just contact the editor or webmaster of sites you deem relevant to your subject matter, and ask if you can submit articles to their site or e-zine.
[Ed. Note: David Cross is Senior Internet Consultant for Agora Inc. in Baltimore.]
High Blood Pressure? Up Your Omega-3s
By Jon Herring
Yesterday, I highlighted a study which showed that even very modest weight loss can provide a substantial benefit to those with high blood pressure. But shedding a few pounds isn’t the only way to get your blood pressure under control. Diet is also important – and I’m not just talking about cutting out salt. In numerous studies, omega-3 fatty acids have been clearly shown to improve hypertension.
In a study published early this month, researchers carefully examined the diet and blood pressure of more than 4,000 men and women, ages 40 to 59. The subjects were from Japan, China, Britain, and the United States. After adjusting for age, gender, weight, salt intake, exercise, and other variables that can influence blood pressure, the researchers discovered that, on average, those who consumed the most omega-3s had lower blood pressure.
When it comes to lowering your blood pressure, every little bit counts. Dr. Hirotsugu Ueshima, one of the researchers on this study, said, "If you can reduce blood pressure a few millimeters from eating less salt, losing a few pounds, avoiding heavy drinking, eating more vegetables, whole grains, and fruits (for their fiber, minerals, vegetable protein, and other nutrients), and getting more omega-3 fatty acids, then you’ve made a big difference."
The best and most convenient sources of omega-3s are fish oil, naturally raised grass-fed beef, wild salmon, and sardines.
It’s Good to Know: Traveling on a Budget
Do you have thirst for travel but can’t afford a hotel room? Several online organizations – like Couch Surfing International, The Hospitality Club, and Free-Stay – link travelers with a network of people who offer free accommodations around the world. Membership is usually required, and precautionary measures (like requiring passport numbers and full names and allowing members to post comments about other members online) have been implemented to help ensure safety.
The idea is that by staying with a local you get a more authentic and rewarding experience than the typical tourist. In return for a free place to stay, you are asked to help out with chores or other tasks.
(Source: CouchSufing.com, HospitalityClub.org, Free-stay.com)
“The Broke, Lazy Man’s Way To Quick & Easy Internet Riches…”
Today, it seems there’s no shortage of ways to make money online. Problem is some of these programs can be pretty complicated
I hate complicated… I like quick, and easy.
Well, right now… this very minute… there are 3 people in the world using an almost secret method that is just raking in the dough, day in and day out.
They’ve allowed us to take a peek, and we’re gonna spill the beans on what we saw.
For example how one fellow took $10 and turned in to a $500,000 empire.
This method is so simple and so effective, it’s almost scary.
- Patrick Coffey
Word to the Wise: Piebald
Something that’s "piebald" (PIE-bald) is (1) composed of incongruous parts or (2) mottled with patches of black and white or other colors.
Example (as used by Jan Dalley in Diana Mosley): "She remembered the piebald hair of a convicted woman, with brown roots growing through the crude bleach."
[Ed. Note: Become a more persuasive writer and speaker ... build your self-confidence and intellect ... increase your attractiveness to others ... just by spending 10 VERY enjoyable minutes a day with ETR's new Words to the Wise CD Library.]
Michael Masterson
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2007
Comments