5 Mistakes Women Entrepreneurs Make

Posted on February 2, 2010 by Krishanna

What common mistakes do women entrepreneurs make, and how I can I avoid them? This is a question our bankers often hear from both new business owners and seasoned entrepreneurs.

"We can all learn from our mistakes and from the mistakes of others," says Christy Schmitt, Union Bank senior vice president and small business banking executive. "Many of our most successful business clients failed at their first venture and persevered to build strong companies."

Following are a few common mistakes women entrepreneurs make:

  1. Hiring too quickly, firing too slowly. Staffing can be one of the most difficult and time-consuming aspects of running a successful business. Because making key hires can affect your entire business, many women agonize over whether they’re making the right decision, sometimes losing opportunities to hire qualified people. On the other hand, if you know you need to let someone go, don’t procrastinate. If you don’t have someone trained in human resource management on staff, work with a consultant or attorney who specializes in employee relations to ensure that you adhere to your state’s legal parameters. While firing an employee is a difficult decision, you need to do what’s best for your business.
  2. Failing to delegate. As women, we sometimes try to do it all, at home and at work. But successful business owners know that a strong leader is surrounded by an even stronger team. Train your employees efficiently and utilize their skills. Identify a strong team manager or second-in-command so you can manage your time wisely. Reconsider whether you need to attend every meeting or review every memo and e-mail. Trust your team.
  3. Not developing a relationship with a banker. Given the challenges of today’s competitive business market, it’s important to have a solid relationship with your banker. Don’t wait until there’s a problem with your business to reach out to a banker. Do it now to prepare for the future. If your banker isn’t calling you, contact him or her; trust your banker, and discuss your specific business needs and goals.
  4. Not looking into supplier diversity programs. Many major corporations and the government have special programs for woman-owned, minority-owned and service-disabled, veteran-owned businesses. Some banks, including Union Bank, also offer financing programs that provide flexible underwriting on loans and lines of credit specifically for these businesses. Work with your banker to determine what options might be available for you and your business.
  5. Not being certified. "This is probably the easiest mistake to avoid," says Frank Robinson, Union Bank’s vice president of diverse banking. "Certification as a Women’s  Business Enterprise and/or Minority Business Enterprise can open doors to government or large corporation contracts." If your company is privately held and at least 51 percent owned by a woman or minority who is a U.S. citizen or legal resident, you can apply for WBE or MBE certification. Talk to your banker and obtain this certification today if you qualify.

The foregoing article is intended to provide general information about selecting and working with a banker and is not considered financial advice from Union Bank. Please consult your financial advisor.
Martha Pineda is a priority banking manager for Union Bank in Tustin, Calif. For more information about Union Bank Priority Banking, visit www.unionbank.com/priority.

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USA Today Spotlights Entrepreneurs

Posted on February 1, 2010 by Krishanna

Source: Laura Petrecca, USA TODAY

USA TODAY asked people who wanted to start a small business to be part of the USA TODAY Small Business Challenge, a six-month series that would follow their progress from having an idea to making the first buck. Nearly 1,800 people applied; they came from every state — and a few from abroad.

For the next six months, USA TODAY will follow the chosen five groups of entrepreneurs from across the country as they navigate starting their own small businesses. Along the way, the entrepreneurs will discuss their progress, challenges and opportunities with three small-business experts and post their video highlights. The participants are not required to take the experts’ advice. On the first Monday of each month through July, we’ll update the entrepreneurs’ progress in print and online. Though no winner will be declared, you can vote for the entrepreneur you think is "most likely to succeed."

We are a nation of dreamers.

Some of us yearn for an idyllic life as a novelist, shaping a story in a quaint country house. Others hope to wake up in a swank city apartment and take a company-paid town car to a top financial firm.

Still others want to be like the millions of entrepreneurs who had the guts and drive to push their big ideas into businesses that they own and operate — beholden only to themselves and the customers they cultivate.

Remarkably, even in dire economic times, the desire to own a small business doesn’t diminish. Annual business creation in the U.S. has remained consistent for nearly 30 years, even during downturns, according to a new study from the entrepreneurship-focused group Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

"Entrepreneurs are not easily discouraged," Kauffman CEO Carl Schramm says. "In boom times and in tough times, roughly 600,000 firms are formed every year in America — about one per minute."

Even the harsh climate of the past two years, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, hasn’t smothered such aspirations. Credit has evaporated and consumers have closed their wallets, yet hordes of potential business owners still possess a can-do attitude. Even knowledge that about half of small businesses will fail in their first five years is often not a deterrent.

"For a lot of entrepreneurs, when they have an idea, it becomes a passion, almost an obsession," Schramm says. "They cannot not do it."

The push to start a business is varied. Some decide after a layoff that they never want to report to another manager again. Others want to turn their passions — quilting, genealogy research, book collecting — into full-time vocations.

Last fall, USA TODAY published a six-part series about starting a business and asked prospective entrepreneurs to submit their business ideas for the Small Business Challenge, a six-month series that would follow their progress as they moved their businesses from ideas to making the first buck. Nearly 1,800 budding business owners responded, pitching ideas displaying ambitiousness, earnestness, smarts and yes, even misguided drive and planning. Five have been selected, and their start-up journeys will be chronicled by USA TODAY starting today.

WINE BAR: Passion for vino leads Michael Matthews to open a new business

PEANUT SELLERS: Airport bar leads entrepreneurs Hughes, Goldberg to mixed nuts

VACATION RENTALS: Layoff prompted Kathy Standage to pursue something new and exciting

HOME INSPECTOR: Threat of pink slip motivated Carl Edmunds to start a business

BOTOX PROVIDER: Dr. Susan Riegg sought less stress, more control over her life

Among the hundreds of submissions: restaurants, a tattoo parlor, an Italian ice pushcart business, a dog-poop-scooping service, an iPhone app-creation firm, a tanning salon, an Easter egg dying kit targeted to dog owners, a tourist-photography business, a line of feminine-looking gun cases targeted to women, and an "ultra-thin, liquid nipple cover" that would help prevent chafing from workout clothes. Contenders covered all ages, ethnic backgrounds and geographic locations.

The range of sophistication and — in some cases the lack of it — does not surprise experts. The entrepreneur coaching groups Score and the Association of Small Business Development Centers, which combined help more than a million people a year, say they regularly see clients who have a wide range of ideas and skills.

But it’s enthusiasm that often stands out more than any other characteristic. That’s expected among entrepreneurs, says Rick Wade, the U.S. Commerce Department senior adviser and deputy chief of staff.

In general, Americans are hopeful, he says: "It’s at the core of who we are."

But he stresses that small-business owners, in particular, "have a different kind of drive."

"They’re accustomed to overcoming obstacles," he says. "I don’t know of any start-up that didn’t have a challenge."

Meeting these challenges gives entrepreneurs the inherent knowledge that they will be able to survive hard times. It’s the mind-set of "we fall down, but we are going to get up," he says.

Up-and-down emotions

When Carl Edmunds’ division at a corporate printing company was on the potential chopping block, the West Windsor, N.J., resident morphed an interest in household repairs into a new career as a home inspector and energy use auditor.

"It’s time to take control of my own destiny!" Edmunds, 56, wrote in his submission to USA TODAY. "I will not continue to live in constant fear of the inevitable arrival of the proverbial ‘Pink Slip.’ "

Edmunds’ business, NuVision Inspections, is one of five start-up firms that USA TODAY will follow for the next six months. The others: a wine bar in Gainesville, Va.; a high-end property rental service for homes in Vail and Golden, Colo.; a Botox-provider in Mequon, Wis.; and an all-natural butter-toffee-peanut seller in Orlando.

Although each business is beyond the idea stage and through initial struggles, the neophyte owners will continue to experience the self-fulfilling highs and gut-wrenching lows that come with self-employment.

Running a business is "an extremely messy process," says Dane Stangler, a senior analyst at Kauffman.

"We may boil it down to business-plan-writing at universities," he says. But it’s not that simple. "It’s one step forward and one step back, and then some side steps."

Edmunds has been mentally taxed as he has taken six different licensing tests in two months, as well as insuring and incorporating his new firm. Tasks such as developing a company website have been placed on the back burner.

"I’ve hit a lot of stumbling blocks," he says. "I had no idea how difficult this would be."

Yet, on Jan. 12, he received some uplifting news: He passed a vital home-inspection exam. With that final license secured, he should be able to launch his business in time for the spring real estate push.

"I’ve always wanted to be my own boss," he says. "I can work out of a little 8-by-8-foot office in the back of my house and a pickup, and be happy."

A long road

Start-up accomplishments come in many forms, such as getting a website’s e-commerce function to work, creating a high-impact marketing campaign and even persuading a potential distributor to take a chance on novel new products.

But for new business owners, rejection and unexpected obstacles will come with the territory, Stangler says.

Each year, home-shopping giant QVC gets pitched hundreds of thousands of ideas from hopeful business people. Yet only about 15,000 new products will get on the air each year. (Another 45,000 products come from existing suppliers.)

The long odds also come into play at TeleBrands, the infomercial seller of products such as the PedEgg foot callus remover, Pedi Paws pet nail trimmer and Stick Up Bulb wireless light bulb. TeleBrands receives about a thousand product pitches from entrepreneurs annually but typically markets only four or five new products.

"The majority of ideas — the majority of products — do not sell commercially," CEO A.J. Khubani says. "Take Thomas Edison: He had over 1,000 patents to his name, yet how many were commercially viable? We only know of a few."

Small stumbles and all-out defeats are common for entrepreneurs. Yet, one way to work around those pitfalls, besides learning from past mistakes, is to heed advice from others.

"Everyone has a dream," says Doug Rose, QVC head of programming and marketing. "But if you’re really, really wise about how to develop it, you’ll listen to feedback from others, and you’ll welcome it, even if it’s hard to hear."

Rodney Hughes, a USA TODAY small-business challenger who is selling the butter-toffee peanuts, knows what it’s like to see entrepreneurial dreams crumble. One of his past businesses, a printing shop in Tennessee, went under in the economic downturn after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"It was one of the roughest times of my life," he says. "But I learned some lessons."

Among them: Don’t rely on one client for most of your business. Hughes had one buyer who represented 70% of his sales, and when that buyer stopped purchasing printing services, it had a dramatic effect on his business.

Hughes has a more cautious path to entrepreneurship now.

He holds a full-time job working in business development at the Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission but has invested in other firms such as a bar in Orlando.

He also took some of the pressure off himself by partnering with friend Lee Goldberg and several others to start the nut line. So far, the venture has had its share of setbacks, but the group also is proud to have created a logo and aggressively seeded online media with mentions of their brand.

Successful entrepreneurs learn to balance the good times and bad.

"The most important (trait) is resilience," says Kauffman’s Stangler. "It’s about not giving up hope."

Hughes and his peers at Poppa D’s haven’t sold their first commercial bag of nuts, but they still have confidence.

"For us, it’s just the fact that we feel in our hearts that we can make this work," Hughes says.

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10 Tips for Daily Living with Multiple Sclerosis

Posted on January 26, 2010 by Krishanna

By: Ann Pietrangelo

Sometimes it’s the little things that make a big difference in quality of life and maintaining independence.

If you have relapsing/remitting multiple sclerosis, as I do, it’s easy to overlook simple things that can make life easier when in relapse. Since my own diagnosis in 2004, I have come to appreciate some simple household helpers that assist me in managing daily life with MS.

1. Tall Stool for Kitchen Work: An inexpensive solution to a big problem. If standing at the kitchen counter for any length of time is a problem, a tall stool is just the right height for kitchen duty. Get in the habit of gathering together everything you’ll need in one spot rather than making multiple trips around the kitchen. Grab the stool, have a seat and enjoy your kitchen again. Make sure the stool has firm support and no arms so you can easily maneuver. You don’t need to buy anything fancy or go to a specialty store — any tall stool will do.

2. Mobility Aids: An adjustable folding cane can be tucked away in a large purse, suitcase, or car, out of sight and out of mind until you need it. There is even a cane that folds out into a stool! They are available in lots of styles and colors, too. If you need them, lightweight, folding wheelchairs and walkers are excellent devices for people who only need them occasionally.

3. Shower Chair: If you have difficulty with balance and strength, the shower can be a little intimidating, but a small, sturdy shower chair can give you back your confidence, and can be easily moved aside when not needed. Grab bars can also boost safety. While you are thinking about the bathroom, you may want to consider investing in a blow dryer stand to relieve your uncooperative arms.

4. Handicapped Parking Placard: People with multiple sclerosis often appear healthy and strong even though they have difficulty walking for any length of time. Problems with fatigue, stamina, balance, and coordination can interfere with daily activities. If you have difficulty walking or standing for more than a few minutes, you might want to consider applying for a placard. The ability to park close to a place of business or shopping center could make all the difference in the world when it comes to maintaining a sense of independence. The information you need, along with the application, are available online from the Department of Motor Vehicles in your state.

5. Sensible Shoes: Sensible shoes don’t have to be ugly shoes. High heels and pointed toes aren’t very sexy if you teeter around on the brink of disaster all day. Opt for shoes with a low heel and sturdy construction. Shoes that have no support at the heel and do not stay put when you walk can cause trips and falls. Even flip flops can cause trouble if you have difficulty walking. For hanging around the house, lightweight slippers with flexible soles that move with your foot are comfortable and safe.

6. Cooling Products: Heat and humidity makes it even more difficult for already damaged nerve fibers to transmit electrical impulses, resulting in an exaggeration of MS symptoms (pseudo-exacerbation), which may include fatigue, dizziness, and extreme weakness. A simple rotating fan can make a big difference. Information on Cooling Programs: Multiple Sclerosis Foundation: Cooling Program, Multiple Sclerosis Association of America: Cooling Equipment Distribution Program, National Multiple Sclerosis Society: Cooling Product Information and Assistance.

7. Visual Aids: Most drug stores and department stores have magnifying reader glasses at various strengths. Magnifying screens, good lighting, and a host of options for your computer help people with visual disturbances.

8. Handy Helpers Around the House: Devices to help you reach reach things in high places, gripping tools for opening jars, and even pens made for people who have trouble with their grip make little chores easy again.

9. Yoga/Wii: Yoga is often recommended for people with MS and there are programs designed specifically with MS in mind, including exercises that can be done from a wheelchair. Wii is more than just a game and Wii Fit includes some yoga positions and a series of exercises to improve your balance and coordination. With no need to leave home, you can progress at your own pace.

10. Stress Reducers: Your spirit needs some TLC, too. Try using candles and essential oils with calming scents like lavender and sandlewood as you go about your household chores. Water fountains bring the soothing sounds of a stream or brook inside your home. Meditation and deep breathing exercises can rejuvenate in just minutes a day. Don’t neglect the mind/body connection.

Writer Ann Pietrangelo embraces the concept of personal responsibility for health and wellness. As a person living with multiple sclerosis, she combines a healthy lifestyle and education with modern medicine, and seeks to provide information and support to others. She is a regular contributor to Care2.com’s Reform Health Policy blog in Causes. Follow on Twitter @AnnPietrangelo.

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Life With Multiple Sclerosis

Posted on January 25, 2010 by Krishanna

By: Ann Pietrangelo

One of the most frustrating aspects of life with chronic illness is the constant state of flux. It is true of all types of multiple sclerosis, and relapsing/remitting MS certainly lives up to the name.

The fact that many of these on-again off-again symptoms are invisible to observers makes it a particularly difficult series of emotional adjustments, especially if you are prone to worry about what other people think.

It’s hard to be taken seriously when people see you looking the very picture of health one day and claiming to be the opposite the next. It probably doesn’t help their perceptions when we go to great lengths to hide the truth.

We hear a lot about maintaining a positive attitude in the face of adversity, and most of us work at keeping our complaints to a minimum and putting on our best face for all the world to see. Most of the time this works in our own favor, but occasionally the challenges of life with chronic illness loom so large as to become overwhelming.

Since receiving the diagnosis of relapsing/remitting MS in early 2004 I have, for the most part, managed to have more positive days than not. The not-so-positive days have been largely hidden from view, revealed only to a few friends and the closest of family members. Let’s face it, nobody wants to be considered a complainer.

I don’t want to be seen in a negative light, but as a positive person who lends kinship and support to others through my writing on the subject of MS and chronic illness. On the other hand, the bad days we all experience cannot be avoided. Addressing them openly and honestly doesn’t make me a negative person; it makes me human.

That was my thought process recently when I tentatively posted brief snippets about my latest MS relapse on Facebook and Twitter. Not complaints and not written in anger, they were instead brief and honest snapshots from a life altered by MS.

The response took me by surprise. Friends, acquaintances, and complete strangers sent me emails of support and understanding. Those who also live with MS or other chronic illness were, of course, able to see beyond the few words I’d written — I had struck a nerve. As far as I could tell, no one saw it as complaining or that I was passing on negativity. It was taken for nothing more than the truth that it was.

I have no less faith in the power of a positive outlook on life, but more faith in the people around me to accept the hard truth once in awhile. I’m not saying that anyone needs a play-by-play of our lives any more than we need one of theirs. What and how much of ourselves we choose to share is very much a matter of personal preference.

In a previous article on the topic of positive thinking, I wrote, “I wonder if, by keeping my bad moments private, I have contributed to the pressure to keep up appearances and if by putting my best face forward, I’ve given the impression that I’m always full of sunshine and roses… let it be known now… I have moments when no matter how hard I try, I cannot fight the frustration. So I acknowledge it, deal with it, and purge it. It’s not particularly pleasant, so I generally get myself back on track rather quickly. It is what it is.”

I would like to add something more to that statement: There is no need to keep these feelings to yourself. It is possible to share the bad as well as the good and to do it without wallowing or complaining. It is simply stating the facts of life. If they can’t handle it, that’s not your problem, but people just might surprise you.

Writer Ann Pietrangelo embraces the concept of personal responsibility for health and wellness. As a person living with multiple sclerosis, she combines a healthy lifestyle and education with modern medicine, and seeks to provide information and support to others. She is a regular contributor to Care2.com’s Reform Health Policy blog in Causes. Follow on Twitter @AnnPietrangelo.

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Quick And Dirty Business Promotion When Your Website Stinks

Posted on January 22, 2010 by Krishanna

Ok, so you’ve decided to start using the Internet to promote your business more actively and most people you talk to who know about the web tell you the same thing … you need to redesign your website. The problem for many small businesses is that getting to the point when you actually have the budget or manage to get the right help to do it may take some time.

In the short term, this leaves you with an interesting challenge that there just isn’t much advice for – the moment when you realize that you still need to promote your business despite having a website that you hate and which you know is less than ideal. Can it really be possible to use the Internet effectively for marketing without a good website?  Yes, definitely.  Here are a few ideas on how to do just that.

1. Announce a non-existent redesign. The first thing you need to do with a subpar website is to give customers the impression you are working to improve it. The only thing worse than a bad website is one that seems like it will be bad forever. So put a note on your homepage in some way sharing that your redesign is “coming soon.” If you think about it, this is exactly what retail destinations do when they hang those signs saying “please pardon our progress.” Progress takes time, but the first important lesson is that your customers need to know that it is coming … even if you have no idea when.

2. Create other homepages. The nice thing about the web today is that you can get up and running on a host of other sites to create a branded presence for your business in less than an hour. What this means is that your website doesn’t need to be the only place that you share information about your business.  Need a page telling people where you are located? Populate that information into Google Maps and use that link. Want to tell people about your business and share some images? Create a Facebook fan page for your business. There are lots of sites out there where you can share information about your business without needing to just point people to your site.

3. Fix your homepage first. The homepage of your site is the gateway to your business and the first impression someone is likely to have. While a full redesign may be some time away, getting some help to recreate your homepage can be a good investment to start people with a positive experience of your site and then potentially drive them to other homepages as mentioned in #3.

4. Use more direct communications. When you can’t rely on your website to reach your customers, you may want to consider a more direct model. Email marketing certainly fits into this category – but starting a Twitter account and sharing updates directly can also be a way of offering a more consistent stream of content or information without relying on your website to do it.

5. Leverage your other materials. I have seen more than a few small businesses struggle to create a quality website while at the VERY SAME TIME they have an expanse of good printed materials such as brochures and other collateral they use in the real world to promote their business. If you have these kinds of materials, work with someone (or buy a relatively inexpensive scanner yourself) to digitize some of the best of your content. Then you can upload to your site or post it online in another location to make it available for customers and prospectives.

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Managing a Small Business While Working Elsewhere

Posted on January 21, 2010 by Krishanna

 By Trent Hamm

Source: Open Forum

When I was in the process of launching my internet business, The Simple Dollar, I was under a great deal of stress.  I was working a full time job while at the same time giving a ton of my time, emotion, and energy to making my new business take off.  On top of that, I also needed time for my wife and my children.

For more than a year, I was a complete overstressed wreck.  I didn’t sleep enough.  My anxiety level was quite high, causing me to overreact to every little thing.  I got sick several times, causing me to both miss time at my full time job as well as vital business startup time.  I also often felt like I was letting someone or something down in my life because there simply wasn’t enough hours in the day.

That period taught me several vital lessons about the dual difficulties of launching a business while still trying to maintain some semblance of personal finance security and a normal home life. 

First, recognize that you can’t do everything.  The more you try to take on everything, the more likely you are to begin letting people down – and letting yourself down.  That can be a downward spiral of failure and overcompensation that becomes difficult to escape from.

What can you do instead?  Spend some time honestly figuring out what the real priorities are in your life.  Many people will tell you that their family is a priority – and they may even believe that – but they’ll find themselves making other choices when it comes to crunch time, letting their family life suffer at the expense of a business.  If your true priority is your business, admit it to yourself and focus your energies there.  If your true priority is your family, admit that as well and accept that you may have to let your business lag a little.  If your true priority is maintaining your full time job, accept that your business will probably grow very slowly at first.  Once you have your priorities straight, it becomes much easier to determine which elements of your life deserve priority over others.

Another key step is to reduce your personal spending and financial burden.  Many people, when their lives are overfull with demands but their wallets are flush with income, will choose to commit to a much more expensive standard of living because of the convenience.  It’s easier to go out to eat – where you can relax for a bit before eating your meal – than to prepare something at home, right?  It’s also more expensive, which means that you’re more attached than ever to the very difficult personal balancing act you’re taking on.

That’s why a fresh commitment to personal frugality can be so vital as you balance full-time work and the launch of a business.  The less you require for your own personal spending, the easier the transition to a full-time businessperson can be.  Look into ways to reduce your personal spending without much pain.  Install a programmable thermostat and program it to have your air conditioner or furnace not run when you’re not at home.  Hold off on upgrading that car.  And, yes, eat at home as often as you can – learn how to prepare simple, tasty meals with inexpensive ingredients and remember that the slow cooker can really be your friend.

What finally happened with my own situation, you might ask?  Eventually, I made the difficult choice to walk away from my full time job, even though I was earning more from that job than I was from my business.  The reason?  I realized that my family was the highest priority in my life, more than my job or my burgeoning business.  This put my business and my full time job into conflict and I chose the one that made family choices easier for me.  Of course, the path to that decision was made much easier by a strong commitment to reducing my personal spending.

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3 Questions That Can Improve Your Life

Posted on January 20, 2010 by Krishanna

improve By Matthew Solan, Experience Life

Who among us hasn’t searched for solutions on how to live a happier and healthier life? Little do we realize that in order to discover the answers, we must first learn how to ask the proper questions. Naikan (pronounced NI-KON) is a Japanese word that means “inside looking” or “introspection.” It’s also a structured method of self-questioning and self-reflection that helps stimulate a renewed sense of appreciation and insight about our circumstances.

Yoshimoto Ishin, a devout Buddhist of the Jodo Shinshu sect in Japan, developed Naikan in the 1940s. His strong religious spirit led him to practice mishirabe, an arduous and difficult method of meditation. Wishing to make such introspection available to others, he developed Naikan as a method that could be more widely experienced.

Three Easy Pieces
Naikan is quite simple. The entire practice revolves around three questions that engage strategically with your attention. Similar to logs that make up a raft, each is strong on its own but provides even more support when tied together with the others. The three questions are:

  1. What have I received from ______?
  2. What have I given to ______?
  3. What troubles and difficulties have I caused ______?

What’s special about these questions is that they provide a foundation for reflecting on our relationships with others. Whether it’s a parent, friend, teacher, sibling, work associate, child or partner, focusing on someone else enables you to develop a more holistic, realistic view of your conduct. It helps you appreciate the give-and-take that occurs in daily life.

Let’s take a closer look at each individual question and how they function within the practice as a whole.

What have I received from _______?
This question requires you to look beyond your troubles and perceive the ways you are supported. “People who are very self-focused and self-centered have greater difficulty answering this question because they are typically not paying much attention to what is going on around them,” says Krech, who serves as executive director of the ToDo Institute (www.todoinstitute.com), an education and retreat center near Middlebury, Vt., that hosts Naikan retreats.

If, for example, you go out for dinner with a friend and you constantly talk about how bad you feel or how terrible your life is, you’re probably not going to notice that someone cooked your dinner, served it, and provided water when your glass was empty. All these actions support you, yet you are oblivious because you are primarily focused on your own inner experiences.

What have I given to ______?
The second question grew out of Yoshimoto Ishin’s business practice. Each month he sent out statements to his customers that indicated what products his company had provided and what payments had been received. Yoshimoto believed it was useful to conduct a similar examination of one’s life in terms of debts and credits. “Question two gets you to check out whether, in fact, the world owes you,” says Krech. You may find that the world owes you because you’ve given more to the world than you have received in a concrete way. Or you may come out exactly even. Perhaps you realize that you owe the world and are in debt to other people and the world itself. Most people relate to the latter and that tends to trigger a sense of gratitude. And guilt.

While gratitude is often viewed as a healthy emotion, guilt tends to be seen as something that should be eliminated. But Krech insists that guilt can be a positive tool for promoting one’s overall well-being. “This kind of guilt is healthy,” he says. “It’s an awareness that you have received a great deal from certain sources and given little in comparison. That spurs you on to want to give something back — often to the planet, the community, and your family.”

What troubles and difficulties have I caused ______?
The third question requires you to look at the impact you have on the world and the people with whom you interact. “It is considered the hardest one because it’s not something we do naturally,” says Krech. To illustrate, he offers this example: Someone cuts you off in traffic and you have to swerve to avoid an accident. For the rest of the day, you tell people about how some jerk almost killed you. However, when the roles are reversed and you cut someone off, you usually just shrug it off. You tell yourself that you weren’t paying attention or mouth “sorry” as you speed by. In other words, you rationalize your action and don’t give a second thought to how you may have affected that person.

“People put so much energy into how much trouble other people have caused them,” says Krech. “And almost no energy into how they impact others. This question makes you turn your attention completely around. That’s not an attractive thing to do — but on a spiritual level it is very profound.”

What a person learns from this question is how to recognize the need to funnel one’s energy toward situations that can be better managed. “If someone lies to me, I can’t keep him or her from lying or require that they tell the truth,” says Krech. “That’s their responsibility. But if I lie to someone else, that’s my responsibility. At a common-sense level it is more important to focus on what you might be able to control and change. It will only cause you suffering to focus on that which you have little or no control over. You can almost define poor mental health in that way.”

Finding Higher ground
People usually approach Naikan for specific reasons. Some seek spiritual sustenance; they may not be religious in a traditional manner, but they believe it’s important to have some kind of foundation that provides an opening to understanding things on a higher plain. Others turn to Naikan for help they are not receiving from standard therapy, such as mental health counseling or addiction treatment.

Naikan is also an ideal way to improve relationships. The practice can inspire couples to do more for each other, or enlighten them about ways they could each offer more to the relationship. On a similar level, Krech has successfully used Naikan in business environments to strengthen team-building among employees.

Perhaps Naikan’s greatest asset is the fact that it doesn’t offer a quick-fix solution. Instead, Naikan asks you to look honestly and sincerely at the reality of how you are living. The next step is yours. “Naikan doesn’t tell you whether to stay in a relationship or get divorced, or change jobs or stay where you are,” says Krech. “However, it will give valuable perspective and information that often helps people find clarity about what they should do.”

Daily Naikan

Gregg Krech encourages those new to Naikan to begin with “Daily Naikan.” It is the simplest method of reflection and requires 20 to 30 minutes before bedtime.

Here’s how it works: Sit in a quiet place, without distraction, and write down the answer to the three questions in relation to the day’s events: What did you receive from others today? What did you give to others today? What troubles and difficulties did you cause others today? It is important to be specific. For example, rather than write that you received food, specify the actual food you ate. Don’t leave items off because they seem trivial or because you receive them every day. Use a single journal to keep your thoughts organized.

Try this daily practice for a week. Once you are comfortable with this format, take it to the next level by choosing someone in particular — a partner, a coworker, a friend — to reflect upon using the three questions. Krech suggests increasing your time to at least 50 minutes, and to focus on a specific period of the relationship. “You don’t want to do it for the entire relationship, because there is too much there to cram into one sitting,” he says. “Instead, you might choose the past three months or just the past month, a week, or even a day — especially if you are going through a troubling time.”

Eventually, you will develop the presence of mind and wisdom to step back from your anger and look at a conflict in the broader context of the entire relationship. “It doesn’t mean you forgive the person or resolve that what he or she did is okay,” says Krech. “Rather, you see a particular incident in the context of everything else that’s happened; in the context of the love and support you’ve received from this person. Naikan reflection has a tremendous ability to help people soften their hearts and melt the anger and aggression that can ignite during fights among people who love each other.”

Resources:
Naikan: Gratitude, Grace, and the Japanese Art of Self-Reflection by Gregg Krech (Stone Bridge Press, 2002) and http://www.todoinstitute.com.

Experience Life magazine is an award-winning health and fitness publication that aims to empower people to live their best, most authentic lives, and challenges the conventions of hype, gimmicks and superficiality in favor of a discerning, whole-person perspective. Visit www.experiencelifemag.com to learn more and to sign up for the Experience Life newsletter, or to subscribe to the print or digital version.

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25 Social Media You Should Be Reading

Posted on December 1, 2009 by Krishanna

Source: Freelance Folder


 Most of us agree that social media is valuable — but keeping up with the latest trends can be difficult given the speed at which social media is growing and changing.

The big sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are easy to folllow, but there are many others that often get ignored such as Docstoc, Scribd, Slideshare. With all the different platforms, it’s hard to be able to keep up with everything that is new.

In this post we’ve listed 25 of the best social media blogs out there. Read through some of these blogs and you’ll quickly find yourself getting an edge in the social media world.

 

25 Social Media Blogs You Should Read

Here are 25 social media blogs that you should read. Some keep you current on new trends and others give you advice on how to leverage social media to your advantage.

I’ve included an excerpt from each blog’s about page to give you an idea as to what to expect from them. This list isn’t a ranking of social media blogs, so these are listed in no particular order.

  1. Mashable – Founded in July 2005, Mashable is the world’s largest blog focused exclusively on Web 2.0 and Social Media news. With more than 12.5 million monthly pageviews, Mashable is the most prolific blog reviewing new Web sites and services, publishing breaking news on what’s new on the web and offering social media resources and guides.
  2. Social Media Explorer – Social Media Explorer is the online home and blog of Social Media Explorer LLC, of which Jason Falls serves as principal. Falls has established himself as one of the leading thinkers in the social media, public relations and communications industries.
  3. Social Media Today – Social Media Today LLC helps global organizations create purpose-built B2B social communities designed to achieve specific, measurable corporate goals by engaging exactly the customers and prospects you most want to reach.
  4. Chris Brogan – Chris Brogan is a ten year veteran of using social media and both web and mobile technologies to build digital relationships for businesses, organizations, and individuals. Chris speaks, blogs, writes articles, and makes media of all kinds on his blog. His blog is in the top 10 of the Advertising Age Power150, and in the top 100 on Technorati. He is co-author of the book Trust Agents.
  5. Dosh Dosh – Dosh Dosh is a blog offering internet marketing and blogging tips, alongside social media strategies. Best consumed by bloggers, entrepreneurs, web publishers, marketers, freelancers and small business owners.
  6. 10e20 – 10e20 is a New York-based Internet marketing company specializing in Social Media Marketing and Search Engine Optimization. Founded in 2002 in Brooklyn, NY by Chris Winfield and Danielle Lanzillo.
  7. PR 2.0 – Brian Solis is Principal of FutureWorks, an award-winning PR and New Media agency in Silicon Valley. Solis is globally recognized for his views and insights on the convergence of PR, Traditional Media and Social Media. Considered one of the original thought leaders who paved the way for Social Media and PR 2.0, Solis is co-founder of the Social Media Club.
  8. Conversation Agent – Valeria Maltoni is a professional marketer with 20 years of real-world corporate experience, 10 of which online, across a broad array of mid-to-large sized companies. Hands-on work at a Fortune 500 technology company, a technology start-up, in health care, chemical manufacturing, risk management consulting, and the non-profit sector have provided her with a wealth of experience and insights.
  9. Scott Monty – Scott is a marketing and communications professional focused on the digital industry — specifically on social media. His career spans a number of industries such as healthcare, pharma, biotech, travel, automotive, tech, and communications, and includes a wide range of clients, from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies.
  10. Chris G – Chrisg.com is where Chris posts daily (or thereabouts) thoughts and advice on the business of new media, blogging and online marketing. The aim is to teach you ways you can create compelling resources, provide your audience more value, build trust and loyalty, and generate more rewards for yourself.

Read the rest…

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How To Go Confidently

Posted on November 18, 2009 by Krishanna

By Leo Babauta, Zen Habits

So you’ve followed the Short But Powerful Guide to Finding Your Passion, and have chosen something you’re passionate about.

Now you need to make it a career — but are perhaps a bit lost.

I have to admit I was there, only a few years ago, and three years later I’ve successfully done it, even if I’m a bit battered from the attempt.

It’s not easy — I’ll tell you that up front. If you hope to make a quick buck, or a fast million, you’ll need to find another guide. Probably one with lots of flashing ads in the sidebar.

So you have your passion picked out? Here’s how to turn it into a living.

1. Learn. Read up on it, from blogs to magazine articles online to books to ebooks. Look for the free stuff first. Don’t use this as an excuse to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars. Most of the important stuff is available for free. Find a mentor, talk to others doing it, ask questions. Go on forums and ask questions there — from experienced people. Find others who are doing it well and study them closely.

2. Do. Do not put this step off for months and months while you learn. You’ll learn most by doing. Start doing it for free. Do it for friends, family. Find clients who’ll pay a small amount. Start a blog and write about it. Put it online and let others try your products or service. As soon as possible, go public — you’ll learn the most this way. Continue to do step one as you’re doing this step.

3. Get amazing at it. This is just more doing and learning. Read this post for more.

4. Start charging. As soon as you can do it well enough to charge, do so. You can start low — the main thing is to keep getting experience, and to get clients who can recommend you to others. You want to work hard to knock their socks off. Slowly raise your rates as your skills improve.

5. Keep improving. Never stop learning, getting better. Use client or reader feedback to help.

6. Build income streams. This is where the money starts coming in. You can start this step at any time — don’t wait until you’ve done all the other steps. Build as many income streams as you can, one at a time. Some examples:

  • Regular consulting gigs.
  • Freelance jobs.
  • Ads or affiliate income from a blog or website. Ebooks teaching people how to do something you know how to do.
  • A membership website that charges a small monthly fee (say, $9 or $20 a month) that will help others learn something you can teach them. This could include a forum, articles, videos, live webinars, other resources.
  • An online course, similar to the membership site, but not requiring you to do live stuff or have a forum. Course could include ebooks, workbooks, videos, audio, online articles, other tools. Software or other downloadable products.
  •   erchandise such as T-shirts, books, coffee mugs, etc.

There are, of course, many other types of services and products you can offer. Each income stream might only bring in a portion of what you need to survive, but if you continually build more income streams, you can eventually live off your passion. Congratulations.

Equipment and office? For most passions, you can probably do it from your home with minimal equipment (often just a computer). Avoid having to pay for office space or having any overhead that will make it difficult to start up or put you in debt. Start small, expand only as your income expands. Buy as little equipment as you can get away with at first.

Quit your job? If you can possibly afford it, yes. This might mean living on savings for a few months, or living off your spouse’s income, and cutting back on expenses. If this isn’t a possibility, make time to pursue your passion — before work, after work, on weekends.

Work for a company? If you get good at something, you’ll be in demand. You can then work for a company if you like. I recommend you try doing it on your own unless you need equipment you can’t afford or get an offer you can’t refuse.

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20 Must Click Tools For Entreprenuers

Posted on November 6, 2009 by Krishanna

Source: Mashable

By: Ben Parr


Let’s face it: as an entrepreneur, the odds are stacked against you. Most businesses fail after the first few years, and even if you do manage to survive, that doesn’t mean your business will redefine an industry, become profitable, or change the world. Getting off on the right foot is essential to navigating a startup from its infancy to profitability.

Luckily, there have been countless entrepreneurs that have gone through the same toils building their own businesses, and most of them are happy to share their experiences to better prepare you for the journey ahead. In addition, there is now an array of social media and web apps that no entrepreneur has ever had access to before. Together, these resources can give you the edge in a fast-changing business world.

While we can’t highlight the thousands of resources at your disposal, we have put together twenty of our favorite guides, web apps, and tools that can help you build and launch a startup. This guide is divided into six sections, covering everything from coming up with the right idea to the steps you need to take and tools you’ll want to have to secure funding for your early-stage company. In total, you will find that this guide is a comprehensive resource for anybody who’s trying to realize his or her entrepreneurial dreams.

Guides To Getting Started

Before you dive into your startup (or maybe after you’re neck-deep), you should get yourself a crash course education in starting a business. There is no education like doing, but reading up on incorporating, collecting some checklists, and understanding just what it takes to get your specific business off the ground will save you plenty of headaches later on.

1. The Entrepreneur.com Startup Kits: Entrepreneur Magazine’s website has a gem for entrepreneurs: startup kits. There are kits for everything from starting a restaurant to a consulting firm, complete with articles, guides, marketing tips, and more.

2. eHow’s Introduction to Entrepreneurship: Collaborative knowledge resource website eHow has hundreds of thousands of great articles, including a strong set of guides and resources for how to open a business, how to incorporate, raising money, and bookkeeping.

3. About.com Starting a Business Hub: Another resource you should not miss is About.com’s Entrepreneurs Hub. They’ve curated some of their best content for starting a business, including checklists, a small business startup kit, and detailed articles on naming and calculating the cost of your startup.

4. Library of Congress’s Entrepreneur’s Reference Guide: Yes, the U.S. Library of Congress has an entrepreneur’s reference guide, while it’s dated (1999), it also lists a lot of great books that are updated yearly. It covers practically every topic related to starting a small business.

Inspirations For The Idea

There are few things more important to the success of your startup than having the right idea and continuing to be innovative with your product as it gets built and released to your customers. Ideas don’t just come in cans from the store, though. That’s why we’ve brought together some resources that should help inspire your creative juices and help you nail down the next big idea.

5. Vator.tv: A play on “elevator pitch,” Vator.tv is a place where entrepreneurs can upload short video pitches about their startup. Not only that, but you can follow industry news and specific companies. Watching these pitches will certainly jolt your brain’s creative juices. Also check out VentureBeat Profiles (formerly TradeVibes), which also has a great database of startups and a community discussing each one.

6. Alltop Startups: Reading the latest news and opinions in the startup world can only help jolt your brain and keep you current. Alltop has a great list of blogs and news websites dedicated to the subject (including my personal blog). Take a read, subscribe to the blogs that interest you, and you’ll be guaranteed to be reading about great ideas soon enough.

Start Up Web Apps

While there is an array of great web tools for entrepreneurs (10 of the best we previously highlighted), there are some tools that just make your life easier when you’re trying to bring order to the chaos of launching your startup. Consider these tools when you’re in the early stages of building a company:

7. Evernote : Information is king, and there are few web apps that do a better job of collecting information in front of the computer screen or on-the-go than Evernote. The service simply helps you remember everything. You can take pictures of your receipts for easy organization or save key info while you browse, for example, among many other ways to organize and catalog the things you need to remember for your startup.

8. Zoho : Zoho is a suite of online collaboration tools. Not only does it include email and spreadsheets, but it includes, wiki, chat, customer relationship management (CRM), and web conferencing as well. While it is similar to Google Apps, it is built specifically for businesses.

9. PBWorks: Wikis are amazing for organizing ideas and sharing them with team members. There are few better suited for business than PBWorks, which is not only a wiki but a collaboration tool, document manager, and project management tool.

10. FreshBooks: If your business is client-based, you need to track invoices, teams, and payments constantly. While there are many choices, Freshbooks is one of the best due to its mobile apps, integration with Basecamp, and reasonable pricing.

Social Media For Startup Success

Social media is about connecting with people. Interestingly enough, so is business and entrepreneurship, which is perhaps why there is so much overlap between the two. If you want to get your startup off the ground, you have to network, build up your social circle, and reach out to the right people. These social tools are adept at that task:

11. Plaxo: There are few tasks more important in business than maintaining and organizing your contacts. You never know when someone you meet will lead you to a big business deal, venture capital, or a new team member. Plaxo acts as a digital address book that efficiently organizes everyone you meet. Plus, it integrates with Outlook, Thunderbird and the Mac OS X Address Book to make importing contacts a snap. You have to be diligent about adding contacts, though.

12. Google Wave : Google’s  experimental real-time communication platform not only has a consumer version, but also comes in a corporate flavor for users of Google apps. Having your team collaborate on projects through waves is a unique experience, one that we have used with success over here at Mashable. No other social tool has the same collaboration features.

13. LinkedIn: This one may be obvious, but its importance in business cannot be overstated. It is the world’s most popular business social network for a reason. Its business features, especially those connecting you to friends of friends, are unmatched, and with over 50 million users, it’s a social media tool you need to be using constantly.

Social Media For Start Up Success

Bringing your startup to the next level takes more than willpower, determination, and grit. In most cases, you need startup capital to build the product, hire the right team members, and maintain the product after it launches. That’s why it’s vital to do your homework on how to effectively raise money.

These are a few resources that will give you a crash course education in venture capital and raising money to grow your startup:

14. Introduction to Venture Capital: If you’re clueless about how venture capital works (most people are), this short presentation by Will Price, former venture capitalist and the current CEO of Widgetbox, explains all of the basics. It was given at Stanford University in 2007. 

15. TheFunded: This entrepreneurship community is very unique in that it is focused on helping you raise money. How? By giving you ratings and inside details of the practices of countless venture capital and angel investor funds. The information, once you’re in, is invaluable to choosing the firm that will help propel your business to the next level.

16. How to Fund a Startup: This guide by Y Combinator co-founder and early-stage investor Paul Graham is shockingly detailed on the different ways to raise money, the disadvantages of each approach, how venture capital firms operate, and the reality of bringing investors into your company. A must-read for any startup founder before raising capital.

Social Startup Communities

You cannot and should not build your business alone. The world’s greatest entrepreneurs not only had co-founders, but they had friends, family, and a community of entrepreneurs and advisors that helped them with difficult decisions, overcoming adversity, and fixing mistakes.

With the rise of social media and the web, a crop of incredible startup communities have popped up, each one with a unique character but with a wealth of community knowledge that you’d be crazy to pass up on your journey to build a great company.

17. StartupNation: The recently redesigned startup community network has extensive and active forums, useful knowledge hubs, community groups, and plenty more.

18. Hacker News : The seed investment firm Y Combinator has built a thriving and active startup community known as Hacker News. Users add relevant and interesting stories on the topics of programming and startup entrepreneurship and consistently hold thought-provoking discussions. It’s an incredible place for insight and advice on startups.

19. Young Entrepreneur: Focused around discussion forums, Young Entrepreneur is a great place to ask any startup question on your mind or just to read the over 240,000 posts made over the years on the site.

20. PartnerUp: PartnerUp is a community that really focuses on one thing: helping you find business partners. In business, finding the right co-founders is often the difference between stellar success and a quick, painful startup death. PartnerUp is a community ideal for finding and networking with people that will shore up your weaknesses and help you answer those nagging questions about the partnership side of business.

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