Category Archives: Motivation Techniques

Enrepreneurs need motivation techniques that work for them. The techniques which work will depend on many factors, so we have presnted a set of expert techniques from the upcoming book. The Motivated Entrepreneur.

Blog, Enterprise Education, Motivation Techniques, Resources

5 places to run your startup business, on the cheap

What places to run your startup business?

When starting out, you only seem to have costs and they keep coming in. The five set of fees are:

  1. Office space
  2. Utilities
  3. Incorporating and legal fees
  4. Accounting costs for the first year in business
  5. Payroll for employees

So one of the main costs is office space and if we can reduce that we can survive for longer and hopefully last until we start making more money than we spend.

  1. Run your startup business from home. This won’t work for every business, but if it will work for yours it can save you a pile of cash on utilities and rent.
  2. Coffee Shop’s are happy to have you and have good wifi. You also get to meet like minded people and can invite people for meetings in the coffee shop.
  3.  Look out for a business incubator which helps startups by providing them space, mentors and events. These are normally free for a set period.
  4. Spare desk in someone else’s office. A lot of businesses have space and if you can use one or two desks in return for some form of payment, even your manpower it will be cheaper and more flexible.
  5. Find a co-working space where you can rent space as-needed for much less than the cost of a traditional commercial office which is normally looking for 3-5 years.

Just remember when looking for office space its “Location, location, location.” , which drives home just how important location is when choosing a space for your startup business.

Blog, Motivation Techniques

The Guitarist Entrepreneurs

What if I tell you that, there are more than five British people who have made more than $1.1 Billion dollars between them by just using one (maybe the greatest) entrepreneurial tool, the guitar.

If there was a group of people who have a way of making money using a simple formula, you would imagine that there would seminars on how to do it, the internet would be full of adverts stating this get rich scheme. Every school would tell young people that this is a career option, but no, because its rock n’ roll.

There are lots of these people around the world but I wanted to focus on just five, so selected these five, who past retirement and still making money, just to emphasis the long term viability of this global self employment opportunity.

This group of people found a secret formula in the 1960s and created such an incredible demand for their services that the world continues to consume it decades later. They made so much money that some governments created special taxes, just to try and get into the act.

Below I have shown you, just five “Guitarists”, each very successful from the same age 67-71 years old.

So what’s ‘secret’ formula and how can five people be worth $1.150 Billion?

Jimmy Page

Led Zeppelin – Stairway to Heaven Live
Aged 71
Net worth: $170 million
PRACTICE – While still a student, Jimmy Page worked as a session musician and doing a lot of busking. He states “I had to come to grips with it and it was a good schooling”, and this practice provided an opportunity to get feedback from real customers and also build a solid product which could then be taken to mass market.

Eric Clapton

The Yardbirds / Cream – Cocaine
Aged 70
Net worth: $250 million
INDUSTRY INFLUENCE – Eric Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and influential guitarists of all time. This is why successful people still go on TV or write blogs, you can never underestimate how this influence can provide limitless opportunities.

Pete Townshend

The Who – Quadrophenia
Net worth: $105 million
SIGNATURE MOVE – If there was a move which every person knows, its the windmill swing when playing the guitar. On stage, Pete Townshend developed a signature move in which he would swing his right arm against the guitar strings in a style reminiscent of the vanes of a windmill. Others have followed since, e.g. Michael Jackson with his backward walk, that signature move is the most powerful marketing tool available.

Keith Richards

The Rolling Stones – Out Of Control
Aged 71
Net worth: $340 million
LUCK – If there is one person on this planet would has luck on their sides, it’s Keith Richards. Every entrepreneur knows if you have some luck then it makes a big difference.

Blog, Motivation Techniques

Besties : Steve Jobs and Bill Gates

I recently watched a few videos featuring Steve Jobs, the first one was his launch of the iPhone (1.0) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hUIxyE2Ns8) which is such a classic. In one hundred years it will be on every history curriculum, but today is a must for how to present a product launch. Then I saw a video “Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Together at D5 Conference 2007” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvhW8cp15tk )  which demonstrated the incredible long term relationship between the two tech entrepreneurs.

They needed each other and understood this from the very beginning. The symbiotic relationship starts with Mircosoft developing a competitor to Lotus Notes on the Mac and supporting Apple with their version of Basic. This allowed Mircosoft to create a well proves et of products which could then be translated to DOS and subsequently Windows. It follows through with Mircosoft providing $150m when Apple needed it the most and Steve Jobs makes the phone call, your dealing with me now.

They worked together throughout their careers and had direct access to each other. As two CEO’s they knew there was only one other person who could stamp on their legacy, so building a supportive relationship was the only way for their legacy to be timeless. You may not like Mircosoft but they moved our technology forward to such an extent, Bill became the rich man on the planet. There is only one technology company which you want to hold their products in your hand, and Steve created this timeless vision. A global army of open source technology geeks have still not stake Bill out of the park. Sony the only real contender hasn’t got close, while Samsung with multiple products is just missing it, the shame is I have tried their products and they work but, … its just not right, to the extent I had to spend £600 and buy a iPhone. In fact a Nokia/Microsoft phone is better.

Our double act understood the power of software. When they started out the world was running on hardware and they changed this to software (more importantly now called apps) running on any hardware. Software was the business model which was much more scaleable than hardware. You can sell someone several operating systems.

They both also understood the power of apps before the rest of the planet know what apps were. Mircosoft Office and Apple iMovie are just apps. You can sell someone several hundred apps which extends the sales cycle and more importantly builds a closer relationship with the customer.

This is a case of when great entrepreneurs understand that being alone in a global competitive field is not the ideal situation for continued market domination.

So what should we entrepreneurs learn from this?

You always need competitors, the stronger the better, local competitors are better that those the other side of the world, competitors whereby the sum our parts is greater that the whole and competitors who you can call by the first name and know if the credit hits the fan they will be there to bail you out. After all, we start businesses to work with people and supplying goods to people.

Blog, Motivation Techniques

2014 is the year to try your plans for failure

As we start 2014 everyone has a lot of optimism for what it brings. This is a great time of year to lay down plans and create ideas for activities and events for the up coming year. Each year we do this, knowing that not all of these will occur, however our understanding is that we could do these resolutions if we so wished.

The same is true for entrepreneurs, when we create busineses we know that not all of them will be sucessful and failure will provide us with the opportunity to learn. We know that this puts back into a new “year” enterprise start whereby we can move forward again. Each start-up is like a new year, we set down plans, work them through, knowing that not all of these plan are right, will happen and we will have the time to succeed.

Our traditions provide us with the stability of knowing something is right, having been done for many years. Businesses have been formed for hundreds of years, each year some have failed, so allow these failures to create better understanding of business, starting an enterprise and also your skills in entrepreneurship.

The holiday period is a time for reflection and this time is important in many ways. Its a chance to socialize with new and old friends, meet the family and grow as people. The important thing about failure is the learning it provides, without which we can not tune our skills and refine our plans and processes.

So as we start 2014, just remember its ok to fail as log as you can learn from it.

 

 

Blog, Motivation Techniques

The real question is, IS the probability of failure is greater than the probability of success?

Having studied statistics and quantum mechanics back in the late 80s at university (It has changed a little bit since then). I understand this life dimension runs between a number of statistic probabilities which in general provide a limited set of outcomes that on average can be determined. Thus having been born in the rural West Midlands(UK), living in a  village for the last 15 years, I will live until I’m 82 years old, as most of the street which I live on have. Job done!!

I don’t believe in enterprise because I want to keep the status quo!! Everything must change, change is the only option,change is good, so how do I change the probability in the favor of enterprise?

So should I even think about this?

I was walking in the forest with my wife, its was during the snow fall last February on a Saturday afternoon. A big forest which leads no where and goes no where, its just a big forest. So what is the probability that we three sets of people meet at the same time(yes same time, same place, all within one metre of each other) these people…

One man warring a three piece suite with two children, also carrying a pink bike
One man caring two plastic shopping bags full of shopping
A woman with two dogs talking on her mobile phone

OK, I think its about 170 million to one.

But if I could bottle it and give this to entrepreneurs who are starting a business, they would pay, being able to fix a 170 million one chance, just pure gold. Every day in my life I see these amazingly high probability opportunities come forward. I am sure I should say serendipity but  …

The real question is, IS the probability of failure is greater than the probability of success?

Given tomorrow, I will sit in a train carriage with a three other random people, who will never have meet, never meet again and spend a brief moment in time which will change the complete history of our galaxy.

Those who fail are not recorded in history. Thus the probability of success is just equal to 1. (Which means the probability of failure is just zero which is why we where we are, right now)

Given we will succeed, what path will you take in this?