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Signs of economic recovery: entrepreneurs are hiring again

Posted by Michael under Business Growth, Entrepreneur Resources, Leadership

The Entrepreneur’s Organization has recently collated some research that suggests economic recovery has begun. They found that:

•    Over the past 12 months, 52% of entrepreneurs (globally) increased their full-time employee base
•    More than two thirds of entrepreneurs (globally) say they intend to increase employee headcount over the next year.
•    59% of entrepreneurs reported a profit increase in the last quarter, compared to 37% in the previous one, suggesting that overall global profits are rising.
•    73% of entrepreneurs (globally) anticipate a profit increase in the next quarter, as compared to just 48% who predicted an increase last quarter.

This suggests that the more than half of entrepreneurs who are optimistic about the economy are seeing some evidence that underpins that optimism. The research also reveals that entrepreneurs may be flexible and fast moving enough to lead the field in creating economic change, two third of global entrepreneurs say they have seen their debt loads decrease in the last quarter and 63% predict that they will shed debt over the year ahead.

Capital Problems

There are still difficulties: 51% of entrepreneurs globally are still finding it tough to access capital and exactly 50% of entrepreneurs feel it will even harder to do this in the coming quarter.

Future Predictions

And what do these entrepreneurs suggest will be the growth areas in the immediate future? 70% say that Environmental; recycling; green energy; health and medical services industries are the place to be, but fascinatingly only one in ten entrepreneurs are planning to invest in those sectors.

Economy image courtesy of Duchamp

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Kickstarter – netwise, networked, business funding

Posted by Michael under Business Growth, Entrepreneur Resources, Leadership, Social Media

Kickstarter is an online platform that gives just about anybody, making, selling or designing just about anything, the opportunity to raise funds for their project.

It’s a very simple model: the ‘creator’ who has the project idea sets up a page on which he or she details fundraising goal, deadlines, and an optional set of rewards for backers. If the goal is reached by the deadline, the backers are charged by Amazon and they get the goodies offered by the creator. If the goal isn’t reached, nobody gets a thing.

Who Gets What?

Creators retain total ownership of the project but have to incentivise their backers, usually by offering some project related outcome. Kickstarter is the venue through which creators chart their progress to their goal and keep their backers informed.

Over a thousand projects have been funded on Kickstarter and they range from music albums to textile design studios to juice blending outlets. They all have one thing in common – seeing support for one-off ideas rather than long-term funding for business ventures. Each project is finite and has tension built in – will the creator make their deadline or not.

How It Works

Kickstarter isn’t intended to launch an empire – the idea is to test the potential of an idea and to give the initial traction that could lead to the development of a small enterprise.

Every project has to be approved by Kickstarter before it goes ahead, and then has to produce an outline of the idea, pluse photos, videos, and a request for pledges. The goal has to be met within an agreed time frame. If it isn’t there are no donations made and it doesn’t proceed, if the goal is met or exceeded, the funding goes ahead.

Who Can Use Kickstarter?

In theory, almost anyone, in practice, those with a well-developed online network are likely to find it easiest to meet their pledge amounts. Previous successful creators highlight the need for good video and project outlines but most say that half their funding came from people already known to them, or known to people they knew, so isolation is no likely to benefit even the best idea.

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Making business work via email

Posted by Michael under Business Growth, Email Marketing, Leadership

Mark Solon had a guest post on the CCN Fortune and Money blog which makes some good points about business introductions.

There’s no doubt that the great age of British business, when the empire revolved around the can-do and can-sell attitudes of British business magnates, was fuelled by club culture. Business empires were run by men who met in their various clubs and associations, and divided up the world, and its business opportunities, between them.

Today the business world is more diverse and time-zones make face-to-face meetings less possible, so email introductions are becoming more commonplace. But how does this sensitive process actually work?

Pretty badly, according to Solon, who says that—while it’s great to connect people who might benefit from forming an economic relationship and go on to have a lasting connection that promotes both businesses—sometimes business people just don’t know how to behave well when they are part of an email introduction.

His tips are relatively straightforward:

1. Reach out promptly. Sounds easy right? You’d be surprised at how often I see people take days to reply.

It’s a good point, but then, if you’re the person doing the introducing, and it’s important to you that things go well, you may want to check with both parties that they are actually around and able to meet up: if one has flu and the others in Gdansk on business, the introduction could linger in their inboxes too long and then neither one knows how to get the process started again.

2. Move the person making the introduction to Blind Carbon Copy (BCC). There’s no need to spam that person a dozen times as you and the third party make plans to meet for coffee. Moving me to BCC ensures that A) I see that the connection was made and B) takes me out of the loop of follow-on correspondence.

Hmm… I tend to think it’s better to do this upfront, saying in your message ‘Dear X, now that Y has put us in touch with each other, I’m just going to BCC him on this so he can stay in the loop.  It’s a bit creepy not to know if your new acquaintance is keeping the introducer in the picture.

3) Save the person you’re being introduced to some time and effort. If there’s something they can read to help them prepare for meeting or talking to you, attach it in your reply, and make sure it’s brief.

Totally agree.

4) If they offer to meet or talk, bend over BACKWARDS to accommodate THEIR schedule. Remember, you’re the one asking for something. Don’t ever say something like “I’m available next Thursday at 9:30.” The only proper way to address this is “Please send me a few dates and times that work for you and I’ll be sure to make one of those work.”

Totally agree again. I’m amazed how often people looking for a contract try to set the terms for an initial meeting. Perhaps they think it makes them look busy and important. I tend to think that somebody who won’t accommodate themselves to my needs on a first meeting probably won’t have the flexibility and commitment to my company that I’m looking for, and I’ll go elsewhere if I can.

5) Same thing for location if it’s a face-to-face. Don’t ask them to come to your office or suggest a place to meet. Ask what’s most convenient for them. You’d be amazed at the chutzpah I’ve seen in these requests…

No I wouldn’t. I suspect that this is most common in people who are new to business who just don’t have a sense of location and its importance to achieving a successful outcome on a first meeting.

6) Use spell check. Seriously.

But not on names. Seriously. From time to time an email turns up where names have been spell-checked and you don’t want your new contact getting ‘Dear Steelpan’ when you typed ‘Dear Stephen’.

7) Remember that once you’ve engaged, you’re no longer just representing yourself, but the person who made the introduction as well. Be prompt and well prepared for your follow up call or meeting and take the time to write them a thank you note.

I wonder how many people actually do this? Perhaps some UK business people feel uncomfortable about saying thank you, but I find it’s much more common for US business meetings to be followed up by a thank you than for European ones.

Solon’s points are all good, and if you’re lucky enough to have somebody willing to effect a business introduction for you, then steps 1 – 7 will ensure you don’t mess up the beginning of what could be a profitable relationship.

email icon by Fletcher Prince

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Disruptive thinking and new business models

Posted by Michael under Business Growth, Entrepreneur Resources, Leadership

Disruptive thinking, defined by economist Joseph Schumpeter as the ‘creative destruction’ of established businesses by entrepreneurs has led to many new business models in recent years. This pattern, also called ‘intrapreneurism’ requires competition within a business as well as outside it, to challenge agreed ideas of purpose, process and product and some of the most disruptive thinking has been around new models for business behaviour.

Take PatientsLikeMe.com – a place where 70,000 patients share their medical records with others, peer to peer. It’s a free service and it causes 10% of those sharing their experiences to change their GP.  So it’s a community platform, and an information exchange on democratic principles – but behind that is a business model that—with full informed consent—mines the peer to peer information for data that can be sold for large sums to pharmaceutical companies. The disruption is twofold: first to the belief system that medical information belongs to the medical profession rather than the individual and second to the belief that people wish to keep their medical history secret: it turns out that many people are keen to share!

Then there’s Groupon, the group based coupon mart where a daily offer is taken up, or not, by registered individuals. This city-based system ensures that the businesses offering the deals only have to provide the cut price goods or services if an agreed number of registrants sign up for them. Not enough takers, no need to offer the price drop! There’s a guaranteed take-up level that protects the deal-offering company from loss and a sense of urgency about the process that gives consumers the feeling they’ve really nabbed a bargain. The disruptor here is about coupon-clipping, an attitude that is considered low-class and cheapskate, compared to the ‘hunt’ for a bargain which is considered savvy. By making the deals time-limited to a single day, consumers feel they are in a situation of choice, not one of saving money, and that stops them feeling cheap.

Spotify offers a free music service with a simple upgrade – pay the premium and cut out the adverts that run between your chosen songs. It’s become such a hit that it’s claimed to be making its owners more money than iTunes! The disruptor here is obvious: if you don’t want your music interrupted, pay a little and have seamless playlists. If you can’t afford to pay, advertisers get to enter your ears in between your favourite sounds. Win-win for Spotify.

New business models can be found in the business-to-business sector too and I’m going to write in depth about kickstarter, which I think is one of the most innovate entrepreneur models around, right now, but it’s worth thinking about which new business models you’re using as a consumer, and whether there’s something applicable there to your business before getting into the b2b arena.

spotify by sorosh

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What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: Business Book Review

Posted by Michael under Business Growth, Entrepreneur Resources, Leadership

Marshall Goldsmith is a super-coach. He teaches the best to be better in business.

While his book contains a lot of tools, some of the best elements are not tools but guidances, for example, he teaches people how to let go of their old habits which may have led to their current level of success, but which will prevent them from reaching any higher. Such habits, in business, are withholding information; telling the world how smart we are; not listening; refusing to express regret and having an excessive need to be ‘me’.

In the last year we’ve seen this kind of behaviour on public show in the wider world:

•    redaction in documents made public is withholding information (MPs expenses, Iraqi civilian casualties, projections of risk in deep sea drilling are just three examples);
•    telling the world how smart they are is a fault of many a football club manager and look at how that comes back to bit them!;
•    not listening (where to begin with that one: bankers perhaps?);

•    refusing to express regret (police for kettling protestors; MPs for expenses behaviour; some business moguls for not paying tax in the UK);

•    an excessive need to be me – the clearest examples I’ve seen this year were the late Malcolm Maclaren, Sex Pistols manager, a brilliant impresario who could have been so much greater if he hadn’t insisted on centre stage all the time and John Terry, former England football team captain, whose behaviour cost him that captain’s armband.

These are the habits that impede greatness, and while it’s easy to pick them out in others, it’s more difficult to spot them, and deal with them, in our own business lives. Goldsmith aims to give readers a an ‘inbuilt GPS mechanism’ that allows them to have a map and an internal compass that orients them automatically so they ‘get where they intended via the most economical route…[via] an exquisite sense of who they are, which translates into perfect pitch about how they come across to others.

And wile that sounds easy, it’s not. Changing leadership behaviour requires everyday vigilance, the book reveals. While it’s down to each reader to determine which flaws are most detrimental to their interpersonal relationships, Goldsmith makes clear that such flaws are often unrecognised by the individual and so feedback from friends, family and colleagues is essential.

He also points out that many people are either unaware of their faults or unaware of the extent they are resented by others, hence the importance of continuous feedback from family members and business associates.

An easy read but not an easy book to put into practice, but even small achievements along this route will readily lead to business success, I believe.

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Entrepreneur ‘All Rounder’ award

Posted by Michael under awards, Business Growth, Entrepreneur Resources, Leadership

Together, the Standard Chartered Private Bank and the Entrepreneurs’ Organization have created an award for entrepreneurs who are not only successful at running their own enterprises, but active in supporting other entrepreneurs in their business development.

It’s called the Entrepreneur All Rounder and it’s a substantial test of entrepreneurial skills, passion and acumen. Those entering the award will need to demonstrate:

1.    success in their own business(es)
2.    passion and ability in building a community of entrepreneurs in the UK.

As the Entrepreneurs’ Organization said that it believed entrepreneurs would drive the engine of recovery for the UK and the government confirmed that it expected to see economic growth being driven by the small and new business sector, this award is timely. It means being able to demonstrate that not only can you increase market share and spearhead rapid growth, with excellent customer service, but support others in doing the same, and that can only be good for everybody.

The Entrepreneurs’ Organization is for entrepreneurs only: a dynamic, global network of more than 7,500 business owners in 38 countries, it is the catalyst that enables entrepreneurs to learn and grow from each other, leading to greater business success and an enriched personal life.

How To Enter

Entrants for the award can self-nominate or nominate others, you can find full details here and the deadline for entries is Friday 14th January 2011.  Shortlisted entrants will be invited to attend a ceremony at the Saatchi Gallery on January 26th 2011.

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