On my desk calendar i have a quote from Margaret Thatcher “If your only oppurtunity is to be equal, then it is not equality”.

In order for any entrepreneur to succedd there first must be oppurtunity, freedon of oppurtunity is freedom to succeed or to fail, it is the right to have financial and economic freedom. If oppurtunity is not there or is controlled all of us suffer. Any type of intervention agaist freedom is an intervention against oppurtunity. I do not advocate untramelled freedom where everybody gets to do what they want when they want but i do advocate freedom where everyone gets to do what they want or desire so long as what they want or desire is not to the detriment of someone else. It is this that i beleive is at the heart of the statement “all men have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ the pursuit of happiness is the right to have before you the oppurtunity to make your own decisions regarding the direction that you want your life to take, as long as your pursuit of happiness does not interfere with someone else’s pursuit of happiness that is fine.

the right to oppurtunity is a fundamental human right and that includes the oppurtunity to have more than someone else, to earn more, to be in some senses “more equal” rather than equal. This is what Margaret Thatcher is saying, pursue more and get more, if all you can be is the same as everyone else whay would you strive to be better, to have better education, better work or to be an entrepreneur and rise above the herd. The human condition is to continually strive for something better, that is how civilisation develops.

Regards

Michael

Part 6 in this series from Tony Kubica:

“Entrepreneur Mistake #6: Getting stuck in perfection. There is no such thing as the perfect proposal, the perfect letter and the perfect response. Good is often good enough unless you are dealing with life and death situations, which most of us are not. The extra 20 percent you put into your product, service, response is neither recognized nor appreciated by the recipient. But the fact that it took you too long to respond is recognized and not in a good way”

I am as guilty of this mistake as anyone else in the business world, i have sometimes spent hours working on a proposal or making that presentation just perfect, most of that time was wasted. In the end i found most of my clients through my existing clients and the networks that they had.

Then negative of trying for perfection is of course the wasted time, sometimes what your client needs is action now, not next week, they want their needs catered for not yours.

In your business, always strive to do you very best, however make sure you do your very best in the optimum timeframe.

Regards

Michael

Dr. Steve Gedeon of Ryerson University talks about Entrepreneurship and the Entrepreneur.

From an article by Steven Bergias at Forbes.com:

New entrepreneurs need help. More and more people are going down the entrepreneur track, trying out the business world for the very first time. There reasons are many and varied but for may it is because they are tire of the corporate world, they have lost their jobs or they have finally decided to pursue that dream of wealth and freedom that they have had for many years.

Mr Bergias states:” Traditional entrepreneurs perceive a need in a marketplace, come up with an innovative solution and build a business around it. This new class–call them newpreneurs–are born of circumstance rather than ability, vision or just something to prove, and they tend to launch new ventures in a different way. That doesn’t mean they won’t succeed–it just means they need a different kind of guidance.”

He adds that a true entrepreneur are oppurtunists with an ability to see a business oppurtunity and jump on it while the new entrepreneurs are not necessarily wired that way.

How can these new entrepreneurs act like real entrepreneurs?

Get Alert
Economist Israel Kirzner said entrepreneurs have sensitivity to new information (rather than accumulated knowledge) that others don’t. They are vigilant–hunting for disruptions in the market and capitalizing on disequilibrium when it occurs. We’re not talking about quick fixes here, but solutions to longer-term economic shifts.

There are exercises that foster entrepreneurial alertness. Try reading daily business reports (newspapers or wire services) and developing back-of-the-napkin business plans inspired by the most common themes. This exercise forces successful men and women to ignore their over-learned reaction to news–as in, cope now–and adopt a more strategic perspective. For many this is a huge mental shift, but it’s a fundamental key to entrepreneurial success.

Be Ready to Fail
Ironically, newpreneurs often suffer from past career success. Harvard professor emeritus Chris Argyris has devoted his career to explaining how intelligence and accumulated wisdom can hamstring successful people. A major reason old dogs are adamantly opposed to learning new tricks is that we are terrified by humiliation, embarrassment and suffering. Need a quick win? Go for the proven technique–even if it’s already dangerously out of date. In that sense,newpreneurswill shy away from the possibility of failure faster than real entrepreneurs. Indeed every newpreneur I have coached has suffered from this problem to varying degrees.

My advice to newpreneurs–even those heavily invested in their new ventures–is to really feel the pain that prompted them to go solo in the first place. If you still decide the venture is worth pursuing, based on a real business opportunity and not a knee-jerk reaction to your current situation, then go for it. If you fail (or at least stumble) and emerge intact, take comfort in knowing your ability to absorb new information and assess risk–essential for any successful entrepreneur–will only increase. Henry Ford had it right: “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.”

A great article for new entrepreneurs, you need to get rid of your old mindset and bring in a whole new one.

Regards

Michael

 Alexander Restrepo, owner of House of Sound Car Audio in southeast Houston, recently named the local district’s Small Business Administration Young Entrepreneur of the Year for 2009, states that in order to prosper he is:

“I’m like a chameleon,” Restrepo said. “I have to change with the times. So, if the economy’s down, I have to sell lower-priced items. If it’s up, I go with higher-end merchandise. You can’t stay the same when you own a small business.”

You can read the article at: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/6853984.html

Regards

Michael