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?
Global Entrepreneurial Strategies and Creating Economic Value
Published July 26, 2009 | 
Another important global entrepreneurial strategy more specifically focuses on changing economic characteristics of the markets, as the strategy itself becomes the innovation, since the product or services the business carries may have been around for quite some time, the strategy converts the old product or service into something new. It changes the utility value and economic characteristics, while physically there is no change, economically there’s something different and new.
Keep in mind that all the strategies that have been discussed have one thing in common, that they each create a customer, which is the ultimate purpose of any business, and of course, all economic activity. They do so in four 
different ways including (1) by creating utility, (2) by pricing, (3) by adaptation to the customer’s social and economic reality, and (4) by delivering what represents true value to the customer.
Creating utility adapts new ways that enable customers to do what serves their purpose with the product or service, for example, the old idea of a “bridal register” has been adapted by many product manufacturers, to allow customers to give what the bride needs instead of what she already has, and thus this innovative opportunity was created and adopted to give customers the utility they needed to accomplish their gift giving, and a vehicle by which the business can focus customer’s buying on it’s specific products only.
Creating utility through pricing is another innovation that allows manufacturers and businesses to sell their products, such as, computer printers that are priced very low, in fact so low sometimes it seems they’re being given away, which for all practical purposes they are, since the replacement ink cartridges are priced higher than the original printers, thus the utility is created that sells ink cartridges with higher profit margins, and greater value in the mind of the customer.
So what successful Global Entrepreneurs know, and always remember, is that the customers do not buy a “product “, 
but what the product does for them, and how much the customer pays for each item depends on what the product does for the customer, how it fits his or hers reality, and what the customer sees as value.
Now creating true value to the customer might seem at times to be the most elusive and difficult task, since it is the customer who ultimately determines the value for services and products, and whatever the customer buys must fit the customer’s realities for value to be established, and the better the fit the higher the value.
Truly successful Entrepreneurs know their customer’s realities, and the realities of the market that shape and influence the customer’s value systems, can identify changes in the realities that ultimately affect the value customers place on the Entrepreneur’s services and products, and quickly adapt and make the necessary adjustments and changes in the services and products to maintain the level of reality needed to support the economic value needed for success.
Understanding Global Entrepreneurial Strategies
Published July 23, 2009 | 
It is an indisputable fact that Entrepreneurs make up the backbone of the global economy, and they will be the ones who bring the economy out of any global recession, so when examining Entrepreneurs and their natural inherent strategies it must be noted that some are purely deliberate, and some strategies purely evolve with changes in the market, and of course, the real world inevitably involves some well thought out planning ahead, as well as the ability of timely adaptation to change along the way.
Entrepreneurial innovation has never been part of the institutionalized systems, and of large corporations, as these systems have never been able to reproduce the thoughts and passions of “Genius Entrepreneurs,” or even the most ordinary and competent 
Entrepreneurial Strategist, and in almost all cases they never will be able to, because large corporate systems and institutionalized processes aren’t designed to encourage the creative and innovative thinking that comes from the vision and passions of true Entrepreneurs.
So when we look at the requirements of entrepreneurship, we know that good entrepreneurial management is part of the formula alongside real entrepreneurial strategies, and the strategies for entrepreneurial success are surprisingly few and simple, but yet difficult to develop and master, since it takes true entrepreneurial insight and vision to identify the real market opportunities which present themselves, especially during times of recession, which is the time for Entrepreneurs to do what they do best.
Recognition of global market trends and conditions that create new opportunities is a strong trait that identifies successful Global Entrepreneurs, along with additional traits of Entrepreneurs that include innovativeness and creativity, the willingness to take risks for their new ideas and innovations, the ability to anticipate future needs and problems, willingness to work independently with self-direction, and a strong sense of competitiveness that comes from the passion inherent to the Entrepreneurial Spirit.
At the very heart of entrepreneurship is innovation, which is the effort to create purposeful, focused change in economic or social potential, which includes three kinds of innovation. The first kind of innovation is “technological innovation,” which is innovation including new products, ideas, and technologies. The next kind of innovation is “economic innovation,” which includes entrepreneurship and the execution of turning those things into new businesses and industries. Finally, cultural and social innovations, which include the ability to envision, develop and invent new ways of thinking, new art forms, new designs and concepts that identifies trends in the marketplace, and fully develops associated opportunities.
These different identifiable components of innovation can share the same thought processes of the Entrepreneur as they reinforce each other and overlap, and many times the genius of the Entrepreneur is noticed and identified because they are able to apply all three kinds of innovation at the same time to the same problem or opportunity.
The Global Entrepreneur Nation will eventually spur economic recovery, but timing of the recovery is dependent upon what kind of problems or barriers Entrepreneurs encounter with governmental systems and institutions, and regulations and taxes, that ultimately affect how quickly they can adapt their innovations to the marketplace.
The Entrepreneur’s Future is Now
Published July 14, 2009 | 
Team Altman Interesting News:
It is impossible to say one recession is like another and here’s the magic formula for stimulating the 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 one can say with certainty 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, for innovative Entrepreneurs the future is now and new Entrepreneurs are entering the global market 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 any global economic recovery.
The Rest of the Story: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124753066246235811.html#mod=djemEditorialPage
Global Entrepreneurial Strategies 2009 Part 2
Published June 21, 2009 | 
“Nobody talks of entrepreneurship as survival, but that’s exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking.“–Anita Roddick
One important global entrepreneurial strategy aims at market leadership if not dominance, and is an aggressive strategy from the start, planning to have a permanent leadership position. Before any entrepreneur undertakes this bold strategy they must realize it is the strategy that represents the greatest gamble and there is very little room for mistakes and no room for second chances. It is important to understand completely that everything has to work out correctly for this strategy to succeed, and it requires significant amount of time for thought, careful analysis and preparation of the business plan, and in addition, the strategy demands substantial and continuing efforts to retain a leadership position, or all the work simply creates a market for a competitor to take the position as the leader.
Indeed, many feel like this strategy is so risky that other strategies have been developed as a result of the notion that the leadership strategy will fail more often than it can possibly succeed, which leads us to another important entrepreneurial strategy that takes what has been developed by somebody else, making improvements that create a better product or service than the innovative entrepreneurs that first developed it.
Basically, the concept is to simply let someone else innovate, and then run with their idea and give the consumers of “what they really want” and are “willing to pay for,” and a perfect example of this is IBM creating the PC after Apple created the market with its leadership strategy, and within two years it had taken over from Apple leadership in the personal computer field, becoming the fastest-selling brand and the standard in the market.
The main point here being that IBM chose a much less risky entrepreneurial strategy, and succeeded at it, and although Apple Computer has been a great success, as the original innovator it might have failed to fully understand its success in the beginning.
This type of simple entrepreneurial strategy starts with markets, is both market-focused and market-driven, requires a rapidly growing market, satisfies a demand that already exists rather than having to create one, and is likely to work most effectively in high-tech industries for one very simple reason, and that reason is that high-tech entrepreneurs and innovators are least likely to be market-focused and naturally concentrate on the technology and product.
The strategy of imitation requires a high degree of innovation, as it is not good enough to offer same product or services at a lower cost to the consumer who is “looking for greater innovation” in addition to “competitive pricing.”
Openings in the global markets are created by “habits and mistakes of market leaders” including arrogance of believing that something cannot be any good unless they thought of it first, focusing entirely upon one segment of the market such as the high profit segment and ignoring the volume of the larger market, and the “misunderstanding of quality” which is not what the innovator puts in, but “what the consumer is ultimately willing to pay for.”
A market leader also tends at times to eventually price products and services too high, which is significant because it always results in creating openings for competition, while failing to adapt to different segments of the market as it remains focused on one market segment.