By: Donny Gamble

As human beings, it is in our nature to prepare for failure.  From childhood all the way up until adulthood, we learn that failure is part of life.  It is instilled in our minds that we must use failure as a learning experience all throughout life.  But what if we as a new culture reversed this level of thinking and actually prepared for success.  We would achieve greater things in life because we would not know what failure is simply based around the fact that all things would seem as a success in our eyes.

So what actually is success?

This is a question that gets asked quite often when determining the success of an individual.  We all know that success is not based upon the decision of man, but it is based upon the eyes of the beholder.  For example, take a look at a man like Warren Buffett.  Upon talking to 10 people who actually know who he is, all 10 of those people would probably say he is a success in their eyes.  Even though he might be the richest man in the world, is his success based off of his wealth or is his success based off of his character and what he has done for other people.  You have to start taking in consideration of what your definition of success is based upon yourself.  If you try to measure yourself up with another person, you are only setting yourself up for failure because you will never amount yourself up to that person.  Once you change your level of thinking based upon what you strive to accomplish for yourself, you will start believing in yourself rather than measuring yourself up with someone else.

How I Learned the Hard way

Growing up in a pre-dominantly white suburban area, I was seen as the token African American child because there were very few of us who lived in the area.  It was very hard for me to fit in because I didn’t understand why they did some of the things that they did.  I was molded into a person that always tried to fit in and tried to be liked by everyone.  I got taken advantage of in many different instances because I wanted everyone to like me for what they saw me as, instead of who I really was.

It took me about 8 years to change my level of thinking.  From all the adversity that I battled, to all the tears that I shed, I soon realized that I had to be myself instead of being somebody that other people wanted me to be.  I think a lot of people can relate to me with this because everyone has tried to go out of the box in order to fit in with a certain type of group.

Once you get to the point of realizing who you actually are and what it is that you are trying to accomplish in life, you will begin to set yourself on a path toward success.

So how do you achieve success?

This is another question that gets asked everyday. How do you become successful?  There are literally thousands of books, courses, and programs swearing that you will become successful by following certain guidelines or tactics.  Yes, some of these things might work, but you have to realize that everyone’s situation is different. Something that worked for one person might not necessarily work for you.  So my advice that I would offer to you is to find something that you are passionate about and implement that in some way or another towards your career orientation or goal.  The problem that must people seem to face is not taking advantage of what they are good at because it comes naturally to them and they don’t even realize it.  Once you realize what you are good at, act upon this and use it to benefit others and see what will happen.  You will be amazed!

How to prepare for success

If you ever ask someone how they prepare to become successful.  Most of the time you will get some kind of unrealistic answer that is totally unbelievable.  If you don’t know how to prepare for success when it happens, then how are you going to be successful?  Most of the time opportunities are presented to people on a daily basis and they seem to miss out, just because they were not prepared for the opportunity.  In order to be ready for an opportunity when it comes, you must take everything that is negative in your life and make it positive.  If you don’t do this, it can tarnish your level of thinking just because your brain is in the mindset for failure.  You will always have failure in the back of your mind with everything that you do.

Another thing that I would recommend is to be careful of whom you hang around with and who your friends are.  If you hang around friends who are stuck in the mindset of working a 9 to 5 job everyday for the rest of their lives, it is a good chance that you will possible be doing the same thing.  So that being said, you might want to change who you surround yourself with because it will cause you to act and think like those that you are surrounded by.

By reading this, I hope you will now change your level of thinking and change your surroundings.  Start to think of failure as a success because once you fail, you get that much closer to success.  Don’t let failure bring you done, let it bring you up.  Once you understand these simple principles that I have outlined for you, you will begin to believe in yourself and have more confidence in your journey toward success.

About Donny Gamble:

Donny Gamble is an Internet Business Strategist that focuses on Internet Marketing Plan implementation for small businesses and Internet Startups.  Visit his Work At Home Product Review site at Home Jobs Master.

5 Comments • August 5th, 2009

By: Dezmon Landers

As entrepreneurs, we have big dreams of what our startup companies could be. The nature of growing our businesses requires feedback from partners, investors, contractors and most importantly our customers. I’ve talked with other entrepreneurs about the feedback they received from the various types of people in or related to their companies. A common occurrence in all of the entrepreneurs’ company vision was describing their selves as the future market leader in their space. One entrepreneur is starting a low cost multi-product store similar to the Target stores. The other is in year 3 of his software company that is experiencing ridiculous compound annual growth and his largest competitor is Microsoft.

As many people are skeptics about anything new, the question is always “What is your plan to take over the market?”. To a degree, most entrepreneurs follow a similar model to the current market leader with a variation here and there. Even though, this is a smart way to plan the growth of a successful business, critics will respond by saying your competitor is the “Exception and not the rule”. Most entrepreneurs have heard this argument at some point in their career but no one ever tells us how to become the exception and not the rule.

Since every business is successful because of the person or people with the vision, it is extremely important to understand how you or your team can be the exception everyone refers to.

Bill Gates - Founder of the Microsoft Corporation

Everyone knows Bill Gates is the richest man in the world. What most don’t know is the work he put in before anyone knew who he was. Back in 1969, at the ripe age of 13, Gates was doing real time programming in the 8th grade at his middle school.  Later on, he found out that the University of Washington hospital had a mainframe computer that was available between 2-6 am every weekday. He would set his alarm to 1:30 am, sneak out of his parents house and walk 2 miles in the dark to program until 6 am. Remember, this is 1969 where the computers were still as big as some of our houses today and homes didn’t have them yet.

Sean Combs - CEO of Bad Boy Entertainment

Also known as “Diddy” is one of the wealthiest hip-hop businessman in the game. What’s not mentioned often is that while Sean was a Student at Howard, he used to commute from Washington D.C. to New York by train (1-2 hour ride) everyday after classes to intern at Uptown Records. He risked his degree from Howard University and dropped out to work fulltime at Uptown. He was laid off in 1992 from Uptown and instead of getting another job, he created Bad Boy Entertainment which has a corporate net worth today of $400 million dollars.

Sergey Brin - Co Founder of the Google Corporation

One piece of the Internet’s most successful tag team, Sergey Brin is a multi-billionaire and someone I look up to. I was reading the “Google Story” and there was a pivotal point in Google’s success which Sergey had a lot to do with. Google struggled for a couple years with the search algorithm they created out of Stanford University. They had a great idea but were missing one thing, direct access to all of the pages on the Internet. To most, that would be an insurmountable task but not to Sergey. He said “ Give me a week and I’ll download all of the pages on Internet to my computer”, needless to say everyone laughed at him saying that he would never be able to do that. A week later, he came back with every single page on the Internet at his disposal, from that point Google had captured the last missing piece to their model and were able to grow into a multi-billion dollar company today.

The Beatles - Legendary Rock Band

The Beatles are arguably the best rock band ever assembled. The untold story of how they became so great is still a mystery to most. Before coming to the States, The Beatles were a local band out of Liverpool, England. One day a club owner from Hamburg, Germany heard them play and invited them to play the cover at his club there. What the Beatles didn’t know before arrival was that is was an exotic strip club. Stuck in Hamburg for a couple months, they played 7 days a week, 8 hours straight for months on end. It was said that they played together 1200 times before anyone in the United States ever knew who they were.

So how do you become the exception and not the rule? It seems to come down to 4 things:

• Love - For what you do
• Vision - For your life and business
• Dedication - To developing your skill (Harvard studies conclude it takes 10,000 hours to become great at something)
• Risk - The ability to look at risk as an opportunity to be great versus an opportunity to fail

There you have it. How will you position yourself to be the exception and not the rule in your business?

5 Comments • July 22nd, 2009

By: Dezmon Landers

Have you ever lost a prospective client because they didn’t feel comfortable with your company? I have and I would argue that most entrepreneurs have at some point. Unfortunately, this happens everyday to new businesses around the world and especially in the United States. By nature, humans are risk averse and that directly correlates into their buying behavior. In more developed countries like the United States, consumers are so spoiled by the juggernaut companies with billions of dollars at their disposal that perfect product presentations becomes the standard. While this is great for any economy, it makes it harder for small businesses to compete. The question is how can you make your company look like a fortune 500 without the budget?

Like they say, the first impression is always the most important. In my experience, there are 6 things you must have to look like a credible business.

1. Get a 1-800 #

Access is one of the most important factors prospects use to determine if they are going to buy. They want to know that if they have a question, you (your company) will be there to answer. An easy way to ease the concerns of a prospect is to purchase a 1-800 #. Back in the day this used to be expensive but with modern technology, you can get a number for only $2/month.

Don’t believe me? Check this out - http://www.kall8.com

2. Open A Virtual Office

A virtual office is a service that allows your company to rent a prime business address in your area, without the lease. In addition, some virtual office services allow you to use more services like receptionists, meeting rooms and they’ll forward your mail to your real address, normally first class.

Open a virtual office - http://virtualoffices.regus.com

3. Incorporate Your Business

This is probably something you’ve already heard but I’m telling you for a different reason. One thing I’ve noticed about more savvy consumers is they ask questions to see if you know what you’re doing, even outside of your service offering. One question, that I’ve been getting lately is “Are you incorporated? LLC, S-Corp, Partnership?”. If you even hesitate with this question it can be a deal breaker. Incorporating early forces you to understand the different types of corporate entities and discuss (from a high level) to your prospect why you chose that type and that you are officially registered by your secretary of state’s office.

Georgia Secretary of State - http://www.sos.ga.gov/corporations/

4. Develop A Quality Website

I think this is a given but I still see small businesses damaging their brand by having a crappy website or not having one at all. A website is meant to be the virtual extension of your offline business and consumers are using their impression of your site to decide if they will do business with you. The most important thing with your website should do is be able to effectively communicate your core offering in less than 10 seconds. A strategy used to do this is called the “billboard strategy”, simply it’s a graphic layout of your website’s homepage that includes a billboard like graphic when the consumer first lands on the page.

A site that perfects the “billboard strategy” is here: http://www.insuranceagents.com/.

To design your site cost effectively, do the following:

- Find 3 of your top competitors sites
- Research how much they spent to get their site done
- Determine how much you can spend (it’s ok if it’s only $200)
- Create a spec sheet (tells a web designer/developer what the site does)
- Put your project on a freelance marketplace like Elance or Guru with your budget
- Watch people bid on your project, choose a winner and get it developed!

5. Create Business Cards

Business cards are one of the least expensive items on this list but arguably the most important. People really gauge just how serious your company is based on you having business cards or not. Even though I know that not having business cards doesn’t necessarily mean that a person may not be professional, I still question the seriousness of the person subconsciously. You don’t have to spend a lot of money on cards but make sure they contain the following:

- Name of your company
- Your name
- Your title
- 1-800 #
- E-mail Address
- Virtual Office Address
- Summary of what you do on back (i.e. “Affordable Plumbing Services”)

Like most others, I use VistaPrint for my cards.

6. Testimonials, Testimonials, Testimonials

Like I said before, consumers are risk averse and want to do business with proven companies. A lot of small business owners think that “proven” means years of past client history. Proven just means that you’ve done the work for clients in the past and they were satisfied. Also, one important note is that a client doesn’t always have to be someone who has paid for your services. It can be someone that you offered the services to for free and then they gave you a testimonial about their appreciation for your work. The paying clients that you engage after getting these testimonials don’t have to know that you weren’t paid for the work and normally they never ask unless you tell them

This is how to look like a Fortune 500 for a fraction of the price.

3 Comments • June 8th, 2009

By: Dezmon Landers

Partnership is one of the most beautiful things about entrepreneurship. Like marriage, you are supposed to work together as one unit, offset each others weaknesses and step in when the other is unable. Unfortunately, no business runs perfectly forever and when times become hard the partners need to make uncomfortable decisions about carrying the business through or dissolving it.

Conflicts

There are a couple different things that yield partner disagreements and conflicts. The most common is company goals. Company goals vary widely and can be anything from human resources, financial  planning to company expansion. Many partners have different styles of management, communication and levels of commitment to the business. If these are not aligned, conflict can arise almost instantly. Another popular disagreement partners sometimes have is that of the exit strategy. An exit strategy is the act of transferring ownership of a company over to another entity through a merger, acquisition, IPO or even dissolution. Many partners disagree because one may want to sell the company to cash out and the other may want to hold on to the company and expand it.

Death is an area that no one ever wants to talk about but it is just as important and creates as much confusion for partners. When a partner dies, they leave their ownership of the company behind. Unless there is proper planning, even in death the ownership belongs to the individual or the successor. The problem is most business don’t have succession planning documents in place which freezes the surviving partner from making any other decisions. In some cases the company has to be dissolved or the partner has to deal with the successor. In most cases, the successor doesn’t have a working knowledge of the business, and is probably a relative of the deceased partner. All the successor knows is they want (financially) what has been transferred to them. Inherently, this is a major problem for any partner.

What You Can Do

So how do you split up ownership unequally with someone you are starting a new business with? Well first you have to determine what each partner brings to the table. From there, determine who adds more value to the business, now and into the future. Use some of these factors to determine who gets majority and minority ownership:

• Whose idea was it first?
• Who is investing the most time to the venture?
• Who is investing the most capital into the venture?
• Who has the most connections to help the business realize it’s goals?

Once you’ve determined whose going to get more or less of the pie, it’s time to get specific. There are a couple of different structures you can use:

60/40 (Most Common)

Don’t pay attention to the numbers exactly, it’s really a figurative way of saying someone should have more and the other less. You could just as easily have 51/49 or even 80/20. The point here is that someone has the deciding vote in a conflict.

49/49/2 (Less Common)

This structure requires three people. It allows for 3 partners to have equal ownership while the other has minimal ownership. This allows conflicts to be resolved easily because the majority will always rule. This is used in cases where the minimal owner may be important to the business but not providing as much value or dedication to the company as the other two.

Partnership Ain’t All Bad

Like I said before, partnership is a beautiful thing when done with diligence and future planning. The excitement of starting a business can be joyfully overwhelming at periods which makes us entrepreneurs want to get everyone involved. Remember that when you are getting someone involved, make sure it’s less about the excitement you’re experiencing and more about their values and what they bring to the table.

8 Comments • March 17th, 2009

By: Dezmon Landers

One thing I’m starting to see very clearly as an adult and entrepreneur is that there is not much help around when you need it. Maybe I was way off but I thought that there was some compassion in the world of business. I thought that if you showed someone that you have potential to be great and worked hard at it, they may cut you a break. Well, if you believed that myth like I did a couple of years ago, dismiss it IMMEDIATELY cause it just ain’t gonna happen.

Once I realized that HELP just didn’t exist in the world of business, I was much better off and you will be too. I learned that people are extremely SELFISH. Some are this way because they have been wronged by others in the past, they are scared of giving too much and coming up short or the economy isn’t working in their favor. I’m not saying that everyone who doesn’t help another business is selfish but it explains the majority of actions by people in business and out. Everyone has the W.I.I.F.M attitude also known as “What’s In It For Me?” attitude.

So how do you change the W.I.I.F.M attitude of people you need help from most? It’s simple, start acting with 3 principles in mind:

• Trade
• Incentive
• Persuasion

As entrepreneurs we need to make money and we need to make it now. Depending on the type of business you run, you need different inputs to generate revenue. For an internet company, you need a website and targeted traffic, for a brick and mortar you need a building and a prime location. All businesses need these inputs but most of us just don’t have access to all of them, which results in us needing to reach out or partner with a company that does.

Trade and Incentive

The next time you need to partner with a company, take some time out to determine what the company needs. Could the company utilize your promotional skills? Could they utilize the technology you’ve built for your company? Could they use a referral to an inexpensive attorney for a legal battle they’re facing? The whole goal is to try and provide as much value to the potentially partnering company as you can.  I guarantee the conversation will go a lot smoother if you can figure out what problem you can solve for the other company. Emails will be replied to, phone calls will be returned and appointments won’t be cancelled.

Persuasion

Arguably the most sought after and challenging skill in life is that of persuasion. I’ve just started reading a classic book on persuasion entitled: “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” written by Robert Cialdini Ph.D. The book talks about seven principles that are paramount in understanding how to persuade and get someone to take favorable actions, they are:

• Reciprocation - We all know this, give some to get some.
• Commitment and Consistency - Continually demonstrate why your better and get people to agree, once openly agreed you can do business. People don’t like going back on their word.
• Social Proof - People don’t like to feel left out, the more people engaging in something, the more we rationalize it’s viability.
• Liking - C’mon, don’t you do business with people or brands you like?
• Authority - We have been trained to obey authority, become the authority in your space and politely demand favorable action.
• Scarcity - People don’t like missing out on things, create scarcity, increase demand.

These are just high level summaries of the explanations and power of the principles in this book. I highly recommend that you go buy it immediately.

Realizing that the world operates with people and businesses that are only out for themselves gives you an advantage on your startup competition. While they are failing, looking for a handout, you’ll be evaluating the true value you can provide to a partner, getting deals done quicker and making money faster!

2 Comments • February 8th, 2009

By: Dezmon Landers

I talk to ALOT of entrepreneurs and for some of them it seems as if they can’t make progress where they are. For some, their idea needs more work, for others their not focused, but for a few, they’re simply not in an environment that understands their vision. It saddens me to see an entrepreneur feel locked into the confinements of where they grew up or what they know. Business is about RISK and if you really plan to be successful then you must be uncomfortable oftentimes to get the results you want.

What does a conducive environment contain?

In order to get to a place where you can be most successful, the environment must contain the following things:

• Similar Ideas
• Capital
• Skilled Workforce
• Strong University Base
• Social Activities

There is a reason that certain places are more likely to produce a certain type of professional. They have people there with similar ideas, investors with access to capital, a skilled workforce, universities with similar interests and social activities to relieve you from your business.

Silicon Valley

Many people don’t even know this but the valley’s technological entrepreneurial revolution started way back in 1937 with William Hewlett and David Packard. Today the valley is packed with technology companies large and small. There are investors all over Sand Hill Road waiting for the right idea to come along and all of it revolves around Stanford University. I had the pleasure of working out in this area for a short while and I can tell you that even at a bar on a saturday, people are talking about and starting internet companies.

Wall Street

The financial capital of the world is one of the most highly concentrated places in the world for all professions financial. Investment bankers, portfolio advisors, hedge fund managers and the like all populate this area immensely. People on Wall Street understand and love finance. The New York Stock Exchange is there and all the world’s top investment banks. Columbia University which is an Ivy League institution is right up the street as well. I’ve worked here as well and even on a Thursday night out on the town, bankers are talking about money and how to make more of it.

Hollywood

“Tinseltown” as they call it has been the center of the motion picture industry since it’s very existence. The majority of the companies out there including Miramax, Sony and Dreamworks all are headquartered and employ thousands of people here. Even though competition is steep, a good actor has a much higher chance of getting a break because they are around industry coaches, other actors and big companies who pay already  successful actors. It doesn’t hurt that USC and UCLA have some of the top film schools in the country.

So What Am I Saying?

The point of this posting is to simply state the fact that just because you’ve called somewhere HOME, doesn’t mean that it’s the best place for you or your business. Look to see if home has all the things you need to be successful, including positive people that actually know your industry.

If the answer is YES then continue to make yourself at home. If the answer is NO, then get out while you still can!

4 Comments • February 5th, 2009

By: Dezmon Landers

As an entrepreneur, I’m always in a hurry to get things done and to move on to the next challenge. I often hear things like “Slow down” and “Take your time, you have a whole life ahead of you”. While I understand the importance of being patient, it doesn’t really seem like the people giving the advice are actually taking it for themselves. When is the last time you’ve ever heard someone say “I’m just going to take my time getting into work today.”? When is the last time you’ve heard an entrepreneur say “I’m just gonna take my time with payroll this week.”? Most likely never and the reason is this, as patient as any of us say we are or want to be, we have no choice but to be impatient and rush.

Your Job

To continue to be competitive and employed in this fast paced, global workplace, the natural behavior is to rush. In the morning, most people travel to work by foot, car or carpool all in a race to get to work on time or earlier. In some cases, people catch cases of road rage when in traffic or held up on their way because they know the consequences of being late, which inherently make them rush.

Your Company

As a business owner, every second of everyday counts substantially when trying to solidify your business in the market. Most entrepreneurs can’t afford to push back revenue generating activities, projects or paying bills. All of these activities require a sense of urgency or they just won’t get done and the company won’t succeed.

Managed Impatience

So you may ask, what is the solution? I call it Managed Impatience, which in my opinion is the ability to have a sense of urgency about everything you do, while calculating the negative effects of making the decision without enough thought. For example, in which situation would you have more problems if you made the wrong decision? Not raising money or not completing an internal business development project as well as you’d like to? In my experience, it will always be raising money because investors prey on those who rush and are in need of their money and they use that as leverage to get a more lucrative, one sided deal for themselves. In the case of the internal business development project, it’s still very important but if there is potential for the project to be only 75% complete and the ability to generate revenue now, think less about that decision, if you really have to choose.

So, the next time someone tells you to “Slow Down”, look at them and evaluate where they’re coming from. Do they have your best interest in mind, or is your pace just faster than theirs?

If you find out the latter, keep it moving and be successful!

3 Comments • January 29th, 2009