There has been a definite theme to my posts this week.Did you get it?
It began with the launch of the Free Special Report, “The Never Before Published Secret…” and continued through both parts of the “Step 2 -Know What You Want” exercises, and was central in the Ed Guzman story in “More Business, Business Everywhere”. It also showed up in previous posts as well.
I want to be clear on what this theme has been before we get into next week’s topics and get on with finding your perfect business.
Do you know what it is?
Let me try it this way.
Are you familiar with the story of Randy Pausch?
You may recognize him better as “the last lecture guy”, a reference he was given for the now-famous talk “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” he gave on Sept 18, 2007 at the Carnegie Mellon Universities annual “Last Lecture” series.
Randy was a CMU professor, Disney Imagineer, electronic arts expert, and co-founder of CMU’s Entertainment Technology Center (ETC).His life legacy is an extraordinary chronical of creativity and meaningful contribution.
In the midst of some of his greatest personal accomplishments, Randy was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given 6 months to live. Instead of becoming morose and pitiful, he was ignited with purpose. The lecture I referenced above (linked below), is his way of passing forward some of the greatest lessons on life and success.
Randy died on July 25th 2008, but not before, in the fulfillment of his purpose, he changed the lives of literally millions of people all around the world with this lecture.
In it he talks about:
His dreams.
Helping other people achieve their dreams
And the lessons learned about what lets you get to achieve your dreams.
The central theme of the message in Randy’s lecture is simple and relevant to each of you:
Your experience of success in life comes from the inside and is expressed outwardly in the way you live your life and the relationships you form.
Above all have fun.
Randy succeeded in achieving his vision for professional life and as a result millions of kids having fun while learning something hard.
I want you to know that neither the abbreviated (10 minute) nor the full length (75 minute)versions of the lecture (linked below), are not a bunch of esoteric hyperbole.
Trust me, you will be entertained and educated by a true master.
In this sense Randy Pausch is a great hero of my cause.
I want nothing more than to help you find your perfect life success, your bliss.It is clear to me that the experiences of my life have equipped me and brought me here and now for the expressed purpose of doing just that.
One way I can do that is by helping you find your perfect business.One that ignites your passions and delivers the life you desire. That is my commitment to you.
In an even greater sense though, Randy is a champion of YOUR cause.
Knowing he has does not have much time left to live he is giving you the naked truth about finding what you seek.
You are here because you want something more in life.
You are here because you are looking for a business that will allow you to live the life you will love to live.
There is nothing wrong with wanting things and money.
By finding your perfect business, you will have plenty of both.
But these are not causes powerful enough to deliver the experience of a successful life.
They are not why you are seeking your perfect business.
The central theme of this week’s posts is expressed by Randy:
Your success will determined from the inside out.
If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of the rest.
The dreams will come to you.
Please let me know if you have enjoyed these first 10 posts.I have a lot more information and insight to share.
Comment here and let me know what else you want to know about and I will be sure to deliver it.
Please share this blog with friends and associates.I promise you that they will thank you for it.
I am standing for all that is possible for you in life and business.
PPS- In a surprise follow-up lecture he gave to at the 2008 CMU Commencement ceremony, Randy, knowing he had already lived 6 months longer than expected declares, “We don’t beat the reaper by living long.We beat the reaper by living well.The question is what do we do between the time we are born and the time he (the reaper) shows up.”
I heard from a fair number of people today that they are still working on the first 2 steps I covered in the previous 3 posts.
So, by popular request, I am going to hold off on the next assignment for the time being.
In the mean time I have something esle to share with you.
I have compiled a huge assortment of really great ‘do what you love’ success stories that are very illustrative of some of the key principles you are learning.
I am sure you will appreciate and be inspired by them.
So, relax, enjoy, imagine, and learn how you can use this case illustration to find your perfect business.
But first I want to explain something to you.
Whenever I present the information about the importance of doing what you love, there is always at least one person who says something like, “what do I do if I can’t make enough money doing what I love” or “I love to do x, y and z, and don’t know how to turn that into a money making business.”
Well, as those of you who have been with me when this has come up, to this I say, “poppy-cock”.
The most important thing to address first is the obvious evidence of the severely restrictive limiting beliefs these kinds of comments indicate. The “I can’t”s and “I don’t”s are nothing more than some set of old memories showing up as limiting beliefs, playing in your mind like a computer program and running, or should I ruining your life.
In the interest of brevity tonight what I want you to get is that these are not ‘facts’ or ‘truths’.
They are just beliefs.
Your experience is because of your beliefs.
If you believe you can’t make enough money, or if you believe you are not talented or creative enough, or if you believe you never get a good break, then these beliefs show up as your experience in life.
Once you accept that your beliefs create your experience, then you can see that if you change your beliefs you can change your experience.
What you may not have known until now it that it is NOT your conscious beliefs that affect your experience.
It is the deep seated subconscious ones that do.
These can be a little hard to get-to because you can only see them experientially. In other words, you can’t know what they actually are. They are subconscious to you. But you can observe their effect on your life by observing the experiences of your life.
In a later post I will teach you how to clear the subconscious limiting beliefs that sabotage you in this way.
Once you learn to eliminate the subconscious saboteurs you can look beyond perceived limitations and re-think the possibilities that exist for building your perfect business doing what you love.
But for now, in the immortal words of the late great Bernie Mack, ‘nough-said’.
This story is a great illustration of this truth.
I met Ed Guzman at the Club-Ed International Surf Camp in Santa Cruz, CA.
There is no doubt that Ed loves to surf. In fact he has been doing it most of his life and even he used to teach a college course in it at UCSC!
Now if you ask the average person about making a living with what is normally a hobby like surfing, you will probably hear all sorts of reasons why it would be hard to make any real money.
You might hear things like:
“Only the top surfers in the world make any money.”
“You have to be young to do that.”
“It will be hard to get steady clients for lessons.”
“You can probably do ok in season. But what do you do in the off-season.”
I am sure you get the idea. Many of these are either the same or similar to thoughts you’ve probably had about finding your perfect business.
I am sure Ed heard these and many more from others as he ventured into this journey.
But by the looks of it, he was not dissuaded.
Ed loves to help others feel the joy of surfing.
Ed has taken his passion, knowledge, and experience for surfing and has created an astonishingly successful business built on one simple yet powerful success principle:
“All Club Ed students are guaranteed to stand up and ride waves!”
Think about it a minute. If you have never surfed, what would be your biggest concern?
Can you do it? Right?
Well, Ed recognized that everyone who wants to learn will only stick with it if they can get on the board and ride a wave.
From that simple intentional premise, unhindered by negative limiting belief, Ed created an amazing array of programs including individual lessons, annual group camps, and surfing excursions all over the world. I even hired him to provide lessons for an entire management team on one of our corporate retreats some years ago.
Just as he promised, everyone rode waves.
Ed Guzman knows that achieving personal goals is important, but he also understands that enjoyment of the moment is paramount to your experience of success.
In fact, you can not ultimately experience success without it.
This approach to finding his perfect business opened Ed’s thinking to the limitless possibilities that existed for him. By following the inspiration he received the astonishing success he now enjoys was virtually automatic. His business is a very lucrative and rewarding enterprise which is now enormously valuable.
I believe Ed would be the first to tell you that he never works a day in his life.
This article is not meant to be a sales pitch for Club-Ed.
I am sharing this story with you because I want you to see that you can do exactly what Ed did.
The only thing stopping you from finding your perfect business is you.
Those voices you hear in your head that tell you that you can’t, shouldn’t, don’t, or won’t are not telling you the truth.
Learn to quiet these voices and you will be able to ‘hear’ the voice of inspiration leading you to your perfect business.
Stay tuned to this blog and I will tell you how to do that.
Please let me know if you found this story relevant, inspirational , or interesting. If not, then let me know that too.
Share it with others and stay tuned for more.
What hobbies do you have that could be turned into a business like Eds?
I am standing for all that is possible for you in life and business.
If you have not yet read my Free Special Report “The Never Before Published Secret First Step to Finding Your Perfect Business” then click HERE to pick up your copy right now.
It’s worth it, I promise. Share it with friends and associates. It will help them help you find your perfect business.
Tonight I want to continue from where we left off last night with The Second Step.
Before you begin I want you to know that you will want to complete this exercise alone and completely undistracted. Any interruption or disruption will affect the quality of the outcome.
I also want to warn you. You will be tempted to either take a short cut or possibly quit this exercise completely. This is a totally normal subconscious psychological response. You will learn more about the source of this temptation later. For the time being, commit to proceed all the way to the end and do not skip steps or short cut the process.
Afterall, we are talking about your perfect business and your perfect life here.
Once you are certain you can focus to completion without interruption, begin.
Yesterday you brainstormed to create a list of everything you want in life and business.
As a result of you have 7 sheets of paper ‘covered’ in Post-it Notes and one sheet with the words “What I Truly Want” in bold lettering on it.
Return to the clear desk or table top you used yesterday and spread the 7 sheets out on it.
Follow the steps below and in the end you will have a crystal clear vision of the life you want your perfect business to deliver. The kind of vision that delivers outrageous success just like you watched in last nights video.
Let’s get started.
Step 1: From the collection of 7 sheets, choose the sheet with smallest number of Post-it Notes on it. If you have one with nothing on it, then you need to go back to Part 1 and brainstorm a little more. You may have a sheet with just a few on it. That’s fine. You just do not want to leave out an entire area.
Often times people end up with only have a few notes in the Community Contribution and Physical Fitness sheets.
For instance the Community Contribution sheet may have something like:
“$10,000 to name of a charity ” and
“Volunteer for name of organization 50 hours”
Or the Physical Fitness & Health sheet may have:
“Lose 15 pounds by April” and
“Work out 3 days a week”
“Swim at the Rec Center weekly”
“Eat a nourishing diet”
It’s fine to have just a few.
However if you think of others along the way, add them. It’s important to capture it all.
Step 2: From this first sheet, peel the Post-it Notes off of the sheet and place them on the table top next to it.
If there are items that that are similar, group them together on the table.
For example; “Work out 3 days per week” and “Swim at the Rec Center” are similar. They are “exercise” related within the Physical Fitness & Health category and could be grouped together.
When you have all of the Post-it Notes from a single sheet re-arranged on the table, review this new arrangement and see if you can combine the items within groups into a single present tense affirmative declaration.
For example I could combine the statements “Work out 3 days per week”, “Swim at the Rec Center weekly” and “Eat a nourishing diet” to read:
“I nourish my body with good food and exercise regularly.”
Notice I did NOT include the number of days I workout or where I exercise. The reason for this is that I want you to focus on ‘what’ you want and not ‘how’ you plan on getting it.
There will be plenty of time later for how you will get what you want. Focusing your attention on it now is a meaningless distraction.
Ok, continuing on, I could also combine the Community Contribution items into the declaration:
“I give generously to name of charity and name of organization”
Again notice that I did not include the specifics “$10,000″ and “50 hours”. These describe “how much” which is just another way of explaining ‘how’ you are going to do it.
Continue combining and consolidating through all the Post-it Notes for each of the 7 sheets.
As you do, record the resulting declarations on the corresponding sheet of paper for each. You will undoubtedly end up with several declarative statements for on each sheet.
To illustrate for clarity, if we revisit the Physical Fitness and Health illustration, the two declarations may be:
“I nourish my body with good food and exercise regularly.”
“I maintain an optimal body weight (or composition).”
When you are finished with this step, you will have some number of present tense affirmative declarations on each of the 7 sheets.
Step 3: Place the sheets in the original order I provided:
Finance and Money
The Ideal Business or Vocation
Recreation & Fun
Physical Fitness & Health
Relationships
Personal Growth & Development
Community Contribution
Step 4: Place the sheet with the words “What I Truly Want” on top.
Step 5: On the bottom of the “Community Contribution” sheet, write the words, “This or something better.”
Step 6: Now, beginning with the first page, read the list you just created aloud from beginning to end. It will sound something like this:
“What I Truly Want. Finance and Money. I have $1Million in the bank and…..and so on; reading all the way through all 7 sheets.
When you get to the end you will read the words, “This is something better.”
Pause there for a moment and consider what you just read.
Believe it or not, you will have just created a crystal clear vision of the life you want your perfect business to deliver.
Congratulations and Great work! Pretty amazing isn’t it.
Is there anything missing?
If there is, now is the time to add it. Just make sure you follow the process to do it.
As you witnessed in the videos included in the post yesterday, with this crystal clear vision you are now empowered to find a business that will deliver exactly what you just read: Your Perfect Business.
But wait, you are not done with this Second Step yet. These final 2 pieces are vital in preparation for the work we will do next.
Step 7: Beginning with the Finance and Money sheet, read through the list of affirmative declarations on that sheet again.
When you are done I want you to close your eyes and visualize what it will be like to truly experience those accomplishments. Really try to experience the feeling you will have. Think about how it will feel when your balance crosses the $1M mark. Try to feel it now as if it has already happened.
I think you get the idea.
Now, it is highly likely that almost the instant that visual image appears in your mind you will be distracted by one or more negative or counter-intentional thoughts.
For instance, the instant you think of the words “I have $1Million in the bank” you may notice a negative emotional response or a little voice in your head that feels or sounds something like: “Yeah, rrright”.
Whatever response or feeling you get, right it down on the back of the sheet.
Then repeat this step with the Finance and Money sheet.
You will be distracted again, but this time it will probably be by something different.
For instance it might be a thought like, “No one in my family has ever made $1Million let alone had that much in the bank” or “What makes you think you are worth that?”
Write this distraction down and repeat the exercise again; read the list, close your eyes to visualize, record the distraction.
Continue this with this one sheet until the distraction either repeats itself or becomes roughly similar in consecutive attempts. It may take a while at first.
Step 8: Repeat Step 7 with each of the 7 sheets.
When you are done you will have created two incredibly powerful tools:
You have created a crystal clear and precise vision of the life you want your perfect business to deliver.
You will have recorded the evidence necessary to eliminate the subconscious limiting beliefs which have kept you from having that life, until now.
Ok, that is enough for today. This exercise will probably leave you pretty excited and possibly a little drained.
Just imagine what your life will be like when everything on those pages is truly in your experience. Begin to live as if they are there right now today.
I guarantee they will be if you stick with me on this.
Tomorrow I am going to show you how to disable and eliminate the subconscious saboteurs you discovered so you can get on with finding your perfect business.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts about this exercise.
Please submit and any comments or questions you might have below. I’ll respond as quickly as possible.
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And please, share what you are learning with others and invite them to join you here.
Lastly be sure to come back tomorrow for what’s step.
Thank you for visiting.
I am standing for all that is possible for you in life and business.
You have probably just finished reading my Free Special Report “The Never Before Published Secret First Step to Finding Your Perfect Business”. You now understand how vitally important knowing your purpose is to finding your perfect business.
If not, then click HERE to pick up your copy right now. It’s worth it, I promise. Keep in mind that knowing your purpose will empower you to generate a meaningful success experience with any business enterprise.
The next step in the process of finding your perfect business is to get crystal clear about what you really want.
As I was writing this article I got to thinking about how this single principle empowers people to actually have everything in life exactly as they want it.
Today is August 11, 2008. It is the 3rd day of the 29th Summer Olympic Game being held in Bejing China.
Last night, in an absolutely stunning come from behind victory, the US Men’s Swimming Team defeated the favored French team, won the Gold Medal and obliterated the world record in the 4 x 100 meter freestyle. It was an amazing race.
And one that clearly demonstrates the power of knowing with absolute clarity exactly what you want.
Or, how about Eric Shanteau , US Men’s 200 Breast-stroke contender who was diagnosed with cancer 3 weeks before the Olympic Trials and yet he still continues his pursuit of victory.
Another illustration of one man’s ability to overcome adversity in large part because of a crystal clear vision of what he wants.
”The indispensible first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want.” Ben Stein
This is actually more challenging than you might think though. You might be surprised by how many people have never pondered this question in any truly substantial way.
If you are like most people, you started out knowing exactly what you wanted. As you grew older you may have begun to hear innocent or well meaning things like:
“You can’t always get what you want.”
“Money doesn’t grow on trees.”
“Success takes hard work and sacrifice.”
“Rich people are selfish and greedy.”
“Don’t set your sights too high, you don’t want to be disappointed.”
Family, friends, and associates impart their beliefs of what is best for you by either discouraging you from the passionate pursuit of what you love or perhaps encouraging you to defer the pursuit of it until you have made ‘enough’ money.
After some number of years you begin to lose touch with your heart’s desire and instead begin to focus on doing what others wanted you to do. You learned how to act, what to do, and how to be to get their approval. As a result you now not only do a lot of things you do not want to do, but you may not even recall what you truly wanted to begin with.
You are here now, reading this article for a reason and I assume that reason has something to do with wanting something other than what you have experienced up to now.
So for the time being I want you to forget about all those limitations.
What I want to do now, is get you laser-focused on what you truly want.
To be clear:
I do not want you to focus on what you think you can have;
I do not want you to focus on what you think would be good-enough or that you could get by on.
I do not want you focused on what other people think you should want.
I want you to get really clear about what you really and truly want.
For the time being, forget all about any limitations you think exist. Begin from the assumption that you can have do and be anything you want.
I am going to give you and exercise that is modeled after work that I learned from a great friend of mine, Steven Feinberg. Steven applies the study of human behavior to help senior executives in key leadership positions create winning organizational strategies. I worked with Steven extensively in several of my technology ventures. His methods are extraordinarily effective.
Even though you may not be running a large corporate organization at this point, there is a brainstorming technique we used frequently in those efforts that will be particularly useful to you now.
Before you begin, you will need 8 sheets of loose-leaf paper and 2 new packages of small Post-it Notes, or something similar. The small square ones will do fine. They are available in most drug stores and certainly any office supply store.
You will want to complete this brainstorming exercise on a large flat surface with no obstructions. A clear desk-top, kitchen table, or counter top will do.
Once you have your Post-it Notes and clear workspace, this is what you do:
Step 1: Take out a blank sheet of paper and write in bold letters the words:
“What I Truly Want”
Place that sheet of paper in front of you face up on the cleared desk or table.
Step 2: On a single Post-it Note write one thing you want. It can be any singular item, principle or circumstance. For instance, on the first note you might write something like “A new Maserati sports car” or “$1Million in the bank”. Alternatively from a different perspective you might write, “A great relationship with my son”.
It does not matter what it is, just write the first thing that pops into your head. When you have the first one written down, peel the Post-it Note off the pad and stick it anywhere on the table. It does not matter where.
Step 3: Repeat Step 2 until you either run out of things to write or run out of Post-it Notes.
Just continue recording each single thing that pops into your head, peel the Post-it Note off the pad, stick it anywhere on the table and then write the next.
When you are done, you will have a mess of Post-it Notes all over the table top.
If you have any Post-it Notes left, keep them handy. During this next part, you may think of something to add to the current collection.
Step 4: Take out 7 individual sheets of paper. Label them in bold letters as follows:
Finance and Money
The Ideal Business or Vocation
Recreation & Fun
Physical Fitness & Health
Relationships
Personal Growth & Development
Community Contribution
Lay them out on the table top so they do not cover up any of the Post-it Notes.
Step 5: Pick up a Post-it note from those arrayed on the table top and assign it to a particular group by sticking in to the appropriate sheet of paper.
For instance, the new Maserati Sports car might be fixed to the “Recreation & Fun” sheet, the “$1Million in the bank” would be fixed to the “Finance and Money” sheet while the “A great relationship with my son” would be fixed to the “Relationship” sheet.
Step 6: Continue grouping the Post-it Notes on the table into these 7 groups until all of them have been assigned to a group. It’s completely ok if you cover some of the Post-it Notes up along the way as you fill the paper. Just get them all grouped accordingly.
It is likely that you will think of other things you want as you begin the grouping. That is no problem. Just peel off a blank Post-it Note, write the item on it and stick it to the appropriate group.
Ok, GREAT WORK.
I am going to stop here for today and continue tomorrow.
Gather the 7 sheets of paper, place them in a stack, and place the sheet with the words “What I Want” on top of the stack and leave it for tomorrow.
If you think of other things you want in the next 24 hours that is GREAT. Peel off a Post-it Note, write the thing on it and stick it to the top sheet for now.
Tomorrow you are going to learn a really cool technique for refining this mass of spurious thought into a clear and concise vision of the life you want your Perfect Business to deliver.
If you have any questions or comments about this exercise thus far, please share them with me.
I am 100% committed to helping you find the perfect business for yourself and would love to hear how I am doing so far.
I am standing for all that is possible for you in life and business.
Steve
PS - If you want to se what it is like to get what you want, check out this video. It is a blast to watch.
PPS - BTW, if you want to learn more about Steve Feinberg and his great new book, The Advantage Makers, check out http://www.stevenfeinberg.com/
It is a special free report called “The Never Before Published Secret First Step to Finding Your Perfect Business”.
In this Free Special Report I teach you everything you need to know about the critical first step to finding your perfect business.
I call it “The Never Before Published Secret First Step to Finding Your Perfect Business” because the information you are going to learn…the secrets and techniques you are going to learn…have never been included in any business school text or entrepreneurial training book or program published to date.
This report will change the way you think about finding the perfect business for you and the way you make money… immediately.
Read this report immediately then come back and leave me a comment below to let me know what you think of it!
I am standing for all that is possible for you in life and business.
I recently read an article about Imari Harvard, CEO and the way he came to conceive of and create Timeless Entertainment Concepts who almost by accident, tapped into a timeless truth: Nostalgia sells..
Harvard reports to Entrepreneur.com reporter Robert Jones, “My wife and I just wanted to put together an event where folks could come out for some nostalgic games, cocktails and conversation.”
The story goes that 80 people showed up to play board games from their childhood. Games like Chutes & Ladders, Candy Land and Twister. The following month there were 150 and a new business Play Date Atlanta was born. Not long after Harvard expanded his business to four other cities using a licensing model and is projecting a whopping $250,000 in sales this year.
Imagine “800 well-dressed, middle-aged adults are sipping cocktails, listening to jazz . . . and playing Candy Land or Twister.”
Is there any reason this could not be you?
I was sharing this story with my wife at dinner and she reciprocated with one she picked up from our veterinarian:
She had taken our 2 year old Shepherd/Chow to the vet for some shots. While speaking with him he was telling her about the book about nutrition for dogs he had just written. Sure we all read and listen to the antioxidant adds for dog food, but this is different.
Did you know that way back when, before humans got involved, dogs, which were then more closely related to wolves I guess, did not eat beef. Sure they ate meet, but not beef.
Can’t you just see in those early years of existence, the ‘prehistoric cows’ grazing away with no concern whatsoever as a pack of canines wandered through. Well, whatever.
The point is, here is this veterinarian with a very successful animal care practice which he absolutely loves. He writes this great book about something he is sincerely passionate about. And he is creating an internet information publishing business in his spare time.
A business that will probably end up paying him for than his primary vocation and guarantee the retirement he desires. Just by sharing something he is interested in.
Is there any reason this could not be you?
If you think there are, then you want to be absolutely certain tune in to my next post. You need to tune in to the next post to learn what I have to share with you.
FACT: The real reason you have not yet found the perfect business for yourself is not what you think it is.
Just imagine what it will be like to get paid for sharing something you love.
I’ll make a deal with you.
If you will share with me the one thing you believe you would love doing as a vocation more than anything else in this world, whether hobby, vocation, recreation, or past-time, I will help you break through everything that is keeping you from doing it for a living.
In fact, I’ll do one better than that.
If you will share ANY business idea, I will help you determine whether or not it is right for you and if it is I’ll help break through everything that is keeping you from doing it.
Just share your idea in the comment section below.
Don’t forget to check back for my big announcement!
I am standing for all that is possible for you in life and businesss.
I have been supporting and coaching professional people a long time. Nearly 25 years. In that time I have made a number of observations about the characteristics that distinguish entrepreneurs, intrapraneurs, and small business proprietor.
As you begin the process of finding the perfect business for yourself, understanding these distinctions will be important to you. While you can certainly create astonishing success as any one of them, knowing which appeals to you and aligns best with your goals will help you understand the business systems and processes you will want to plan on implementing.
The Entrepreneur
A widely held definition of the entrepreneur includes the idea that they assume the risks involved to undertake a new business venture. This is not an entirely accurate characterization however. While it is true that entrepreneurs do assume risk to establish, own and operate new or emerging business ventures, they are, in fact as risk averse, if not more so, as anyone else.
A more accurate distinction is in how the entrepreneur interprets the creation of value in the market place. They are successful because they are able to effectively organize the available resources of land, labor, capital, intelligence, knowledge, and creativity into new, more valuable ways to help people solve problems. In other words, the entrepreneur builds value in the market place by leveraging the skills and assets of others, not through his individual technical contribution.
It is this strategic and coordinative capacity that unique demarks the contribution the entrepreneur makes to the success effort. The more efficiently a person can manage these resources and add value to the market the greater the margin of success.
Perhaps a better representation of an entrepreneur is that of a passionate expert as opposed to a renegade or gambler.
The Intrapreneur
An intrapreneur is someone who practices the skills of entrepreneurship within an established organization or business system. The intrapreneur may be an employee who is engaged in a special project and behaves as an entrepreneur even though he has the resources and capabilities of the larger firm to draw upon. While he captures the nature of entrepreneurial management, he follows the goals of the organization.
Alternatively he may be self employed and operate within a set of established business policies and procedures such as with a franchise or network marketing business. These business models offer a low risk alternative to creating a standalone business while allowing the entrepreneurial spirit to be expressed.
The majority of people investigating new business opportunities frequently begin here.
Both the entrepreneur and intrapreneur are principally focused on finding innovative ways to use the available resources to provide greater value to the market.
The Small Business Proprietor
While both entrepreneurs and intrepreneurs are often business owners, there is an important distinction to be made between the businesses they build and those of the small business proprietor.
The small business proprietor builds his business around himself. Be it his individual talent, a unique product, or his personality, he weaves himself into the fabric of the business often to such a degree that the business would not function without him.
He often relies in large part on what he accomplishes as the ‘technicians’ of his trade for the growth and success of the business and may tend to be less strategic with regard to engaging alternative resources as a source of increased value.
Independent shop owners, non-franchise restaurant owners, tradesmen, free lance writer, and sometimes medical professionals are a few examples of small business proprietors.
Don’t be misled by the word ‘small’ however. It refers to the business structure and number of employees (usually less than 100) and not revenue or profitability. Many small business proprietors do extremely well financially, especially in this day and age of the internet.
As you consider finding the perfect business for yourself, you should be very clear about these distinctions and know which best suits you and your desires.
Do you pride yourself and measure your accomplishment by how much you individually produce or contribute to growing the business in a day, a week, or a month?
Are you more interested in applying your unique passions to following somebody else’s business system than creating one of your own?
Or
Are you always scanning the way things are done looking for something better? Do you often find yourself seeing things that could be done differently and so, improved?
Are you an entrepreneur, and intrapreneur, or a small business proprietor?
What information will you find most helpful in actually finding and starting your perfect business?
Let me know and I will put it together.
Next post I will share one of the 8 secrets to finding the perfect business.
I am standing for all that is possible for you in life and businesss.
In my previous two posts I referenced to a few key trends that are catalyzing the explosion of the business opportunities that exist for you.
After you have finished reading this article you will know exactly how these trends are doing this.
By researching dozens of sources I have determined 7 of the most explosive opportunity sectors being created by these macro trends.
They are:
1. Virtual assistant staffing agencies - In the ‘old days’ staffing companies originally specialized to support the expansive growth of larger enterprise-scale companies which needed the best and the brightest people to remain competitive with a relatively small number of big competitors. During the tech boom of the 80’s and 90’s the demand for talent expanded to a large number of smaller companies and the job of the staffing agent became more like that of the high paid super-star athlete recruiter.
With the pervasive availability of high speed internet access to the home, the maturity of the internet itself, and stratospheric commuting costs due to increased gas prices, we have witnessed an explosion in the population of home-based internet entrepreneurs who choose lifestyle careers over corporate titles.
This explosion in popularity of the “microbusiness”; a business formed around one or two key principles who are supported by a dozen or so virtual agents with specialized skills, has created a corresponding demand for recruiting services and system which can match talents with needs.
If you are a good networker who knows a lot of talented people, there may be an opportunity for you to leverage this asset into a successful full or part time recruiting business.
2. Internet Information Products - Everyone knows something about something. One of the virtues of the online world is that it lets you create digital products that can be made once and sold an infinite number of times.
With the availability of so many virtual service providers (mentioned above), you don’t even have to be a very good writer, editor, or product developer. For instance, I have witnessed hundreds of instances in which an enterprising entrepreneur recorded interviews with a half a dozen others about a particular topic of interest, had the interviews transcribed and edited into an ebook by a professional editor hired on line for $500, had a simple web site built and 6 months later is earning thousands of dollars a month.
Is it a big business? Some are and some aren’t. It depends on what was done next. At least one of them I know of has built a $20M+ per year business from an ebook he wrote about how to double your dating.
So, think about what you know. Think about hobbies or things you are interested in. Observe problems or challenges you experience. When you find yourself thinking or saying things like ‘there should be a better way to….” then consider that others may want “a better way” too.
Use theperfectbizfinder system and consider ways in which you could make your information interesting to others. There just may be a multi-million dollar company lurking within you.
3. Content aggregators. - Firms like Amazon.com, Apple ITunes, and Rhapsody have found phenomenal success in aggregating movie, book, and music content to help the first wave of online shoppers locate merchandise more easily. These mainstream content aggregators, continue to expand their reach into other segments. For instance, driven by consumer interest in finding ‘one stop online shopping’ Amazon, first recognized for book sales, has expanded their business to include other retail products, like clothing, sporting goods, electronics, and computers and at the same time have created whole new book venues like their Kindle system for virtual book sales.
The explosive growth of internet information publishers has created an even larger opportunity for applications that help the confused Internet user navigate the bewildering wealth of niche information products available online. For instance, people searching for information about homeopathic health care remedies would be overwhelmed by the shear volume of information they would have to sift through to find that one nugget of data they need. A content aggregator can alleviate this problem and provide great value to an enormously large population of people just my pre-sifting and presenting the information available in a structured form.
Combined with the prolific availability of fully automated affiliate marketing services, you can literally create a wildly successful business without creating a single product of your own.
Identify the right niche for yourself using theperfectbizfinder system, locate the product providers that help address issues in that niche, enroll in their affiliate program, build a web site or a blog and start a pay-per-click or other traffic generation campaign and you just might make millions.
4. Business and personal coaching - Most of us were educated to be employees. We were taught to go to school, get a job, work 40 years or so and then retire. It is clear that this program does not work. And, as I outlined in my opening post, 71% of you want to own a business but fear failure because you don’t know what you don’t know.
Consequently, many struggle with a broad variety of issues associated with the independence and self-employment.
This has created an enormous wave of opportunity for business and personal coaching services along with a plethora of coaching certification programs, many of them online.
People who have a passion for teaching and leading others may find this trend offers them a way to fully express themselves and realize the accomplishment associated with helping others.
If you are this kind person, you may find multiple venues for assisting this wave of millions into the future they desire. It might be one on one coaching, group teleseminars, books, audio, or video programs marketed online. Using the perfectbizfinder system will help to zero-in on how you should go about serving this need.
5. Business services - One of the key advantages of this new microbusiness climate is that the business owner is afforded the opportunity to focus his attention on his core competencies and outsource other business functions to independent contractors and/or other microbusinesses.
This has created a large and growing market for all sorts of (virtual) business services, particularly specialties like bookkeeping, advertising, marketing, web design and development, computer support, and administrative support. This only makes sense when you think about it. Utilizing virtual, or contract suppliers to provide these business services is ultimately a far more efficient alignment of resources to demand than any alternative. Many upstart businesses that are just getting started, don’t have the financial resources necessary to hire full time staff for these specialized disciplines.
By leveraging a skill or talent you command, perhaps partnering with or hiring others who have skills to offer. you can take full advantage of this blossoming microbusiness trend to build your own business success. The possibilities are endless.
Once you have a clear vision of the perfect business services business for yourself, entire online infrastructures now exist to help you match your individual skills with projects available in the market.
6. Fitness, wellness, and health care service providers. - 79 million baby-boomers are aging. The first of them just filed for social security benefits in October of 2007. The unique attribute of this trend is that, on average this population of people are living longer than any previous generation; 20 years longer.
The number one concern for this trend setting generation is that they will outlive their money in poor or failing health and become a burden to children and others.
There are explosive opportunities available in every business discipline associated with fitness, nutrition, homeopathic remedy, preventative medicine, home health care and various forms or non-medical therapy. There are also enormous opportunities in helping patients and their families navigate the administrative maze of long term care, insurance and various benefit programs.
Whether your perfect business is to provide these care services yourself, sell nutritional products, homeopathic remedies, or exercise equipment, create ebooks or instructional videos, or leverage virtual staffing opportunities, this particular niche has at 40 years of growing demand.
7. Personal services - All of the trends mentioned thus far create an extraordinary market for personal services ranging from the traditional housekeeping/cooking to child care to house-sitting to shopping to social organizing and more.
As people get busier and busier, they are becoming more willing to farm out bits and pieces of their lives to the hired help.
A good friend of mine is a pretty good all around tradesman. He did not want to take on the challenge of building a general contracting firm, but he knows enough about carpentry and electrical wiring to offer himself for hire as a handyman. Within 3 months he had a few other ‘handymen’ on board with him and now he now works 20 hours a week coordinating the activities of a half a dozen other handymen, and running a phenomenally successful business from his basement office helping busy people take care of the mundane maintenance items in their homes.
This may not be glamorous but, if you choose the right service for yourself, it can be lucrative, but loads of fun.
The point I want to illustrate with this article is that trends create opportunity.
Trends come in all shapes and sizes. There are local trends, regional trends, national trends, and international trends. There demographic trends, weather trends, and economic trends.
A trend marks a change of some sort.
Change is always the results of some unfulfilled need or desire.
Unfulfilled needs or desires create business opportunities.
As you continue to read this blog series and consider various opportunities for you to find your perfect business, keep your eyes peeled for signs of change, or trends.
Look behind the obvious into what is motivating the change and see if there is an opportunity for you hidden inside. You’ll be surprised and encouraged by what you find
Report what you find here in the blog and we will investigate the opportunity together.
Tomorrow I will explore what you need to know in order to find the perfect business for yourself.
Share a link to this article with others. You never know how it might help them.
“See ya” tomorrow,
I am standing for all that is possible for you in life and businesss.
