Understanding the Harmony of Your Business
Published May 19, 2010 | 
Understanding that the existence of harmony in your business creates a workplace where you and everyone else involved in the business love to be, is an important component in your drive to developing a harmonious 
business environment that encourages the collaboration and openness needed to maximize the success of your business operations.
Now, for you the Entrepreneur to understand and achieve harmony in the truest sense of Karma, you must develop a strong sense of “doing the right thing” with no motivation for any kind of reward, knowing that the ultimate reward is the creation and presence of a great sense of trust in everyone that is part of your business, and once you are able to fully understand this, then efficiencies in the business can be developed and once again, maximized with achievement of the greatest level success in mind.
You should also realize that the task of creating a harmonious environment is not an easy one, for harmony takes time, an openness of the heart, and bravery, along with sleepless nights when any of your staff of employees and co-workers is experiencing a rough period in their life, just trying to think of ways you might be able to help.
Cooperation, Dedication, Contribution, Collaboration, are all different terms that are used to define when you are focusing on harmony, the springboard to invaluable, priceless teamwork, which creates the energy that serves to fuel creativity.
Many Western Entrepreneurs have been successful at reshaping their mind-set to be more aware of the Zen properties of successful business, as they have reach the understanding and become enlightened to the importance of harmony in the business, and that it no longer carries the stigma of not being “macho,” and that although successful people are often lauded for being self-interested and disruptive, as well as argumentative in the western cultures, that set of assumptions is reserved for those that cheer the lone hero that leads with one ambition, as they follow him in their blissful, and harmonious state of ignorance.
A number of Entrepreneurs that have been able to maximize their success, have done so by looking beneath the surface of business in today’s CONNECTED global markets, 
at the opportunities presented by the heightened sense of value placed by the market in many qualities present in Zen like harmony, connection, relationships, simplicity, and other qualities that are very important to the customer experience, enlightenment and well-being, as what has taken place is a permanent shift in market values and perceptions, which has become the driving force in the continued development and refinement of successful Entrepreneurial Strategies.
Entrepreneurs: Prepare for Tax and Cost Tsunami
Published March 6, 2010 | 
Team Altman Important Small Business News:
Entrepreneurs: Will be Forced to do Much More with Much Less if the U.S. Congress has Its Way
Global Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses will feel the huge impact from new sweeping taxes, fees and other various costs the U.S. Congress wants to impose on the backbone of the Global Economy, and as U.S. Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses bear the brunt of the costs, the ultimate impact will have far reaching effects that could potentially change the future face of the global economies as much of the 
investment capital now located in the U.S. will be forced to move to other more friendly markets, and even more importantly, the entrepreneurial and technological talent that refuses to “do more with less” in the U.S. market, will move along with the capital to the more business friendly markets in the Global Economy as part of their entrepreneurial strategies. It is important for everyone to understand that the economic impact will be felt by all households in the economy as the increased costs to business are passed on to all consumers in the market, and the most amazing fact not many taxpayers are aware of is that the increased taxes and costs go into effect immediately, while the services won’t be available for over three years. How many people do you know that will pay for a service today and wait three years while continuing to pay, before they can use the service?
Strategies of Successful Entrepreneurs: Mastering the Markets
Published March 5, 2010 | Entrepreneurs who have owned and operated their business for very long have learned to appreciate the impact the global economy can have on their businesses, even at a local level that seems to be in relatively good shape in comparison to other niche m
arkets, and the ripple effect of negative market conditions tend to migrate both nationally and globally, sometimes very slowly, yet at times quickly depending on the initial market impact.
The track economies take always goes up in good times and then comes down in more challenging market conditions, and then back up, riding the optimism of good times followed by the pessimism of shrinking markets, and back up again, leaving the entrepreneur with greater challenges to successfully adjust operations during economic downturns, and the timing of the adjustments is critical to both lessen the effect of negative conditions, and take full advantage of positive market conditions in the most timely manner, and increase the positive effect on the bottom line profit.
The first thing global entrepreneurs need to do to master their markets is grow emotional skin thick enough to not only keep from feeling sorry when the economy slows, but also not to get too excited when the economies turn, start to grow, and begin performing at higher levels.
A realization and considerable understanding has to be developed and reached about the ebb and flow of economic conditions of the markets, as they are going to do what the markets are going to do normally in reaction to ever changing economic conditions both positive and negative, and of course there is very little that anyone can do to 
change the natural occurrence of economic events and cycles, although well-intentioned governments tend to always try and take actions to positively impact economic cycles, but too many times they only succeed in the exacerbation and extension of the negative portion of the cycles.
Once Entrepreneurs are able to gain greater control of their emotions it becomes easier to focus on the many processes of operating the business in the most efficient way in relation to economic conditions, with the goal of maximum efficiencies that directly translates to not only maximum profits, but maximized positive cash-flow as well. Also, when focused and clear thinking is developed, the easier it is to maintain greater focus and the more creative one becomes, the more success Entrepreneurs experience in making the correct, yet sometimes difficult strategic decisions at the right time, especially when there is some level of discomfort.
The focused mind set of the successful Entrepreneur always looks for ways they can use poorly performing economies to their advantage, making “lemonade out of the lemons” they have been handed, and they succeed through innovation, which is wh
at the true Entrepreneurs are best known for. Not only are customers, products and services viewed and thought of differently, but promotional strategies are viewed with an emphasis on regular adaptation and modification based on challenges of shifting and evolving market conditions, or “lemons” the economic world has thrown at the Entrepreneur.
It is critically important to keep in mind that when the local, national and global economies improve, the fruits of innovative mindset thinking remain in the form of new ideas and concepts within the business, and the Entrepreneur has developed and put together a bigger bag of new market strategies, systems and processes that ultimately pay great dividends during both growing economies and recessions.
Entrepreneurs collectively with the other millions of small business owners throughout the world are the global economy’s backbone and ultimate solution to moving it towards any economic turnaround, whether locally, nationally or globally. Together, the collective entrepreneurial mind set of Small Business moves from pessimism to optimism, and as people become more optimistic they in turn spend money, and jobs are created.
The greatest advice to remember is to “think globally and act locally”, take the “lemons and make lemonade”, and always be part of the solution as the markets grow and recede, and economic struggles are fought, won and lost, and people go back and forth between optimism and pessimism.
Unexpected events and tragedies will always have an effect on the economy, but how the Entrepreneur views their business and markets, reacts to challenges and quickly develops innovations, will determine their ultimate survival and the level of success achieved, which is why any of us make the choice to become Entrepreneurs in the first place.
Entrepreneurs, Market Strategies, Global Economic Recovery
Published August 2, 2009 | 
It is impossible to explain and project what to expect with one recession by looking at the causes, affects and methods of recovery of another and come up with a magic formula for stimulating the current global economy back out of the recession or depression, because there are so many different moving parts that might play a significant role in one recession and be non-existent in another, but what we can say with certainty is that economic conditions are typically worse than what is seen on the surface.
Although thorough analysis of the real economic conditions shows continuing erosion in many sectors of the U.S. and Global economies and despite shrinking markets, new and innovative Entrepreneurs are entering the global market in increasing numbers each day to take advantage of new identifiable opportunities present in the market, and it is these global entrepreneurial strategies and spirit that will be the driving force of the global economic recovery.
When examining the entrepreneurial market strategies in general, the hardest task facing Entrepreneurs that are planning to start a business is building a loyal base of customers, since many potential customers already work with other more established businesses, and they are not interested in risking developing a new relationship working with a new business, and this is just one of the many challenges that are typical and to be expected in any start-up situation that Entrepreneurs need to be keenly aware of, along with the tasks of meeting and overcoming the challenges while building the businesses reputation at the same time.
As an Entrepreneur, you always need to put yourself in the potential customer’s mindset: If you were to consider giving your order for services or products to a new business, then ask yourself what are the most important business factors you would use to make your decision, and what would have to be part of the conversation in the way of statements and promises needed to persuade you to commit to trying a new business or firm, and by focusing on development of the most solid answers you can to these questions, the better your new business will perform in the most critical initial start-up stages.
What all this means is that you have to do your homework and put together solid facts from your research, an important point that can’t be overemphasized, and a simple way to begin is investigating your competitors by looking at their websites, Facebook pages, Twitter usage and activity, as well as MySpace and other social media platforms, as this has the potential of freely giving you access to a lot of detailed information, from their mission and vision statements, to what they think their product and service attributes are, possible testimonials, geographic areas served, and other important insightful information. Study the results of your research and adopt techniques and practices that work for them, all the while developing business strength and associated customer leverage with positive practices that compare very favorably to their negatives.
As part of developing market strategies for competition, don’t hesitate and forget to ask potential customers about their personal experiences with your competitors, since they are general forthcoming and will be able to give you some insightful information about what they like, and especially dislike, providing you with extremely valuable 
feedback and information that can be incorporated into your mission and vision for the business, and remember, it is critical for you always to either match or exceed the services of your competition, anything less is unacceptable, since potential customers won’t do business with your new business without a powerful incentive that causes them to take the action you want them to, and not only start doing business with you, but become loyal to your business.
To instigate the customer feedback that you gather, start by adapting their responses to your marketing strategies, for example, if you determine you may need to tailor your operational hours to when the majority of customers would use or visit your business, or require service, and this might be a courtesy you can implement and use in your initial marketing message that shows you value what the customer’s think, and it matters in terms of building your customer base and keeping their business.
Another important point to remember is about human nature and prospective customers, as they like nothing better than getting something for “free” (Even FREE has Important Value), and what you might receive in return, like the customer’s business, will pay off with interest in the long run, for example, if you are starting a barber shop business, offer a free haircut for every ten paid haircuts for the first year, and this can be a relatively small expense to you, but prove to drive both a lot of new business to build your customer base, and keep existing customers returning while strengthening customer loyalty.
It is also critical for Entrepreneurs to remember that without money there is no business, and to get a new business started you need to make sure you have adequate funding, which includes how much money you currently have available to you and how much you need to raise, as statistics show that businesses with less than $50,000 in funding have a higher failure rate, since many times they don’t have a solid capital foundation to build from, and find it extremely difficult to overcome additional unforeseen capital expenditures that always seem to occur.
Entrepreneurs should include everything addressed so far in a formal business plan, which is an extremely critical entrepreneurial tool that should be developed before you start the business, and updated annually to maintain maximum effectiveness. 
Effective and well thought out business plans include a thorough analysis of both the Entrepreneur’s and businesses strengths and weaknesses, and plans to overcome any weaknesses identified, with clearly defined strategies for marketing and production or services.
A proven fact throughout history is that the Entrepreneurs with the most realistic outlook and strategies will have the best survival chances for their start-up business, and remember, a clear, concise, and above all, honest vision of expectations, along with a backup plan for any weakness is best, and it can make the difference between entrepreneurial success and failure.
Entrepreneurs: Innovation is the Key to Creating Wealth
Published July 27, 2009 | 
“Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship. The act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth”–Peter Drucker
To be an effective business, Peter Drucker correctly observed the business must always innovate, and once any business failed to perform the task of innovation over a period of time it would fail to be successful (i.e. General Motors, etc.), and yet most executives are marginally satisfied if at all with their businesses current levels of innovation, and of course many are disappointed with the level of improvements that result from their efforts.
In the course of developing innovative ideas successful Entrepreneurs stay keenly aware and very careful that they aren’t just innovating for the mere sake of innovating, since this never results in very profitable endeavors, or it might seem that actually current levels of innovation aren’t really innovations, rather just only small incremental improvements on existing ideas, products and services.
Profitable innovation happens most frequently within well defined parameters of problem solving, and without these parameters the innovation would simply be about creating just new ideas, and yet we must realize that innovation, or at least commercially successful innovation is actually more than that, it is about creating new value, and with the new value the potential for the creation of new wealth.
In taking the innovation one step beyond the creation of new technologies one has to determine why many innovative creations don’t work right away, but sometimes take many years and multiple efforts before success is achieved, and when we focus on what was missing in the process, many times it’s as simple as getting the idea to spread and become viral to a point where the innovation becomes very successful when finally combined with another different innovation.
This is true and has been repeated many times when Entrepreneurs are able to create networks that are able to combine different innovations that together synergistically exploit results that solves real problems, meets critical market needs, and therefore become successful as a group called a value network, or a value chain, which is usually taken for granted or purely neglected by many managers and executives, but changes here can result in profitable, innovative solutions for both entrepreneurial organizations and their customers.
A businesses value network is the collection of business functions, systems, and processes that are designed to deliver the greatest value to its customers, and the value network becomes a critical mechanism for the process of innovation, and also becomes a key part of the business strategy because it creates systems that include the creation of a natural barrier to 
entry for competitors, make the business more competitive in the marketplace, insure profits and good economies, and most importantly insulates the business from losses in a bad market similar to the current state of the global economy.
Instead of building a value network, many businesses look only to marketing its traditional 4P’s (Product, Price, Place, Promotion) to navigate the through hard times or to squeak out an extra dollar of profit, and while the 4P’s are a useful tool, by themselves they frequently do not go far enough, so the creation of a value network serves not only much the same basic function as the 4P’s, but actually takes it several steps beyond, and the good news is the 4P’s can be fairly easy to replicate, however replicating systems and processes are much more complex, as such, the value network becomes intertwined with overall corporate strategies.
Entrepreneurial Strategy is a combination of the many things Entrepreneurs do, for example, for Wal-Mart, McDonald’s or Southwest Airlines to compete on price, all of their 
processes have to work together and all the small details have to exist to support their one driving goal, which is to provide the lowest prices for their many customers, and of the features of these three companies, part of their 4P’s including the warehouses, and the airplanes, are all fairly easy to replicate. Yet, the way their processes, capabilities, and personnel integrate and execute is what makes each of these extraordinary companies unique and very successful, even in the worst of economic environments like the current global economy.
Finally, a clear understanding of entrepreneurial innovations and how when taken in and of themselves they do not function to solve problems and create new strategies for entrepreneurial success, but when combined with other innovative ideas and processes they create value, success and wealth beyond anything that could be accomplished with the single innovation by and of itself.