Core Mission

Okay, you have your entrepreneurial capital in line. You've ramped up your passion, honed your leadership skills. You're expanding your network, and you have some money to devote to this project. What is your core mission in life? What are your core vales? What were you put on earth to do? What satisfies you? How will you know if you are successful? These are questions each of us needs to get a handle on in our lives.

Todd Duncan, in Killing the Sale; the 10 Fatal Mistakes Salespeople Make and How to Avoid Them. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2004, says:

Success in sales has everything to do with keeping personal priorities. In other words, salespeople can increase their success only by putting boundaries on their businesses that help them up hold and promote their priorities throughout the day. If you don't put boundaries on your business, you'll never achieve balance in your life. Success by definition is supposed to produce satisfaction. Therefore, your sales career, if it is successful, should produce more life satisfaction. But if you don't know what makes you a satisfied person in the first place, you'll frequently invest time in things that don't matter and strive for things that don't add value to your life. [p.73]

Duncan has an exercise that you can use to help you answer these questions. He says it is you can find it at www.killingthesale.com, but when I checked on it, Google said it's not around. If you want to follow up, email me and I'll send it to you.

I first did this exercise in the fall of 2006. I was given the book and read it on vacation just to see what it was about. It turned out to be revolutionary in my life, and I'm going to go further into it in this blog. No I do it every 6-9 months to make sure I'm still on track.

This is some of the stuff that will go into my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.

Forms of Entrepreneurial Capital

Here are the three forms of entrepreneurial capital you'll need to compete as an entrepreur:

1. Human Capital: your skills, talents, and abilities. Your ability to think, write, communicate, inspire, and listen, your personal health, your creativity, your leadership skills, trustworthiness, etc.

2. Social Capital: the number and types of people you know. The more people you know and the better your "crowd," the more social capital you have. How many people do you know? How much can you rely upon them to share with you information about opportunities in your market or to spread the word about your company.

3. Financial Capital: money or access to money. Do you have investments, savings accounts, checking accounts, CDs, money market accounts, etc. you could use to support the business and pay the lender back.

Ron Burt, Hobard W. Williams Professor of Sociology and Strategy at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, came up with this stuff. You can find his argument in Structural Holes; the Social Structure of Competition(Boston, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992, pp. 8-9) or read my blog posting for 7.15.2008.

You will need to assess your capital in each of these areas, then go on to look at what you will need to be fit as an entrepreneur.

My goal here is to promote skilled entrepreneurs. What do you think about this? If you have something substantive to add, post a comment.

This is some of the stuff that will go into my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.

Five Criteria of Creditworthiness

Okay, so you have to borrow money. You've allocated your resources, gotten help from family and friends, and still you need extra funds and are certain after a year you can pay them back from cash that the business generates.

First of all, you should have been talking to a bank a long time ago, getting money when you don't need it, which is when the bank is most likely to give it to you. But you didn't, so here you are, filling out an application for funds.

Here are the criteria the bank is going to apply to your application for funds:

1. Character. Are you a good person, paid your bills, not gotten in trouble, etc. This is usually embodied in your credit score. Get a copy of your credit report and look at it. If there's false information on there, complain and get it off. Any information you challenge, they have to initiate an investigation within a set period of time. If they don't they have to take it off. So you can usually improve your score just be challenging items. And, don't forget, start acting in a creditworthy way if you are not already.

2. Capacity. How likely are you to pay them back? Is your financial position strong enough to allow you to pay it back. Is the ratio of your debts to your assets too high? If you're maxed out on your credit cards, struggling to make ends meet, even if you have a high income, you may have some problems here. There are plenty of high earners who are also big spenders. If you're one of those, you may run into trouble.

3. Capital. They're going to look primarily at financial capital, but they're going to look at your human and social capital as well. I'll go into that next time.

4. Collateral. What do you have that they can grab if you default on repayment. Of course it's better that you sell these things and use the money, but if it's your house, you need to live somewhere. At any rate, the bank's not going to lend you all the money. You'll have to put a lot of your own money in there. That way the bank has a sense that you're in the deal.

5. Conditions. What's the condition of the industry you're going into. Are you trying to enter a dying business, or do business periodicals point to this as the next big thing?

Remember, banks make their living off of money, so they're very conservative, even in the best of times. If you have a loan officer at a local bank advising you, that helps you. But if you're new, they're probably going to be helpful but not overly forthcoming with money.

What do you think about this? If you have something substantive to add, post a comment.

This is some of the stuff that will go into my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.

Borrowed Money

When people think about starting a business, many often ask, "How can I get a loan?" as if "How can I get a loan." were part of the sentence. It actually isn't, necessarily.

Tim's law is: DO NOT BORROW ANY MONEY.

Shakespeare said, "Neither a borrower nor a lender be," which I agree with. Work out of your basement or your garage, or a small room in your home, or a corner of your living room. U-Tube was started in a garage. Buddy Holly used to record demos in his bedroom. Borrow somebody's old car. Convert into cash some asset that isn't doing you any good. Maybe a relative has a vacant house or part of a warehouse that he'll let you use or rent to you at very low rates.

But if need money, borrow as little as possible, and preferably from family or friends who may give you money and charge you no interest. Make sure that, minus some disaster like a sudden health episode or financial disaster, you'll be able to pay it back. You don't want to mess up your personal relationships. And if a catastrophe does strike, your family and friends will understand why it's taking you longer to pay them back than you thought.

But start a relationship with a bank. Open a savings account or a checking account or buy a CD. if you have to go to a bank, get the best terms possible. And make sure your credit score is as high as possible. Use other people's money if you can, you supply the "sweat equity." Instead of asking, "How can I get a loan?" you should ask, "How can I start my own business such that I borrow as little as possible?"

What do you think about this? If you have something substantive to add, post a comment.

This is some of the stuff that will go into my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.

Entrepreneurship for the Wrong Reasons

Yesterday morning I had the opportunity as a representative of S.C.O.R.E. to talk to about 50 students at local technical school here in Philadelphia. It trains people to become machanics. Most seemed to be thinking about opening their own auto repair shops. Another business counselor talked as did a representive of the Small Business Association. I learned a lot from the SBA guy about how the SBA approaches things and thinks about things. Most were young guys, but there were some women and some older guys as well.

But students seemed to be trying to work an angle. As we went through the questions, it seemed they were interested in starting a business to get some deal. I talked about passion and transparency and following your dreams, but their eyes glazed over when I did that until they went back to things like, "If I start a non-profit business can I get more taxes back?"

Well, my entrepreneurial leaders, you go into business because you want to realize a dream or make things better for the world or support your family or something. If you approach it from the point of view of getting a deal, the odds are very high that you're going to be frustrated.

What do you think about this? If you have something substantive to add, post a comment.

This is some of the stuff that will go into my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.

Change Agent

An entrepreneur is a leader is a change agent. It's just the way it is. Even if you're a lifestyle entrepreneur. You affect those around you and your customers.

Dennis Stevenson, in it.toolbox.com says a change agent "alters human capability or organizational systems to achieve a higher degree of output or self actualization."

According to Everett C. Rogers,

A change agent is an individual who influences clients' innovation-decisions in a direction deemed desirable by a change agency. The change agent usually seeks to obtain the adoption of new ideas but may also attempt to slow down diffusion and prevent the adoption of undesirable innovations.

If you're entrepreneur, you're a change agent. You're going to have an effect on the world around you. You need to learn how to manage that experience to bring the best things to all you contact. (See Rogers, Everett C. Diffusion of Innovations. New York, Free Press, 5th Edition, 2003, p. 27)

I think entrepreneurs need to pay attention to their style. But what do you think about this? If you have something substantive to add, post a comment.

This is some of the stuff that will go into my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.

Entrepreneur as Doer

Entrepreneurs are doers. They aren't people who like to take orders from others. They don't sit in their offices until their bosses come in and tell them what to do.

Take my friend, Jerry. He was a client of my market research business. Jerry had been the president of a small Wisconsin bank who was tired of having to do the bidding of people he thought didn't know what they were doing. So, fed up, he resigned and started a consulting firm to provide management consulting to banks. He rented an office, bought some furniture, and had a phone installed.

Monday morning, Jerry came into his new office, hung his coat on his new coat rack, and sat down on his new chair behind his new desk. Nothing happened. Jerry got up, went to the bathroom, and went over and looked out the window. Cars were driving by on the street. It was then Jerry said, "I realized I had to do something."

No one is going to tell you to do something. No one is going to run in and ask you for your help. It's all on you. You have to do something. And you have to figure it out yourself. Fortunately you can get a lot of help from people around you.

I think entrepreneurs need to pay attention to their style. But what do you think about this? If you have something substantive to add, post a comment.

This is some of the stuff that will go into my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.

Entrepreneur Redefined

Back on February 3, 2009, I defined an entrepreneur as "a person who undertakes an enterprise in an atmosphere of uncertainty and risk."

So let's take this person out and substitute for it "leader," thus we get "An entrepreneur is a leader who undertakes an enterprise in an atmosphere of uncertainty and risk." Substitution is a useful concept in math, and language is susceptible to mathematics. Calling the person a leader actually improves the definition.

The second important word in the definition is "undertakes." We're going to unpack this work a bit as we continue to parse this definition of an entrepreneur.

I think entrepreneurs need to pay attention to their style. But what do you think about this? If you have something substantive to add, post a comment.

This is some of the stuff that will go into my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.

Maxwell's Law of the Lid

John C. Maxwell has written extensively on leadership. I covered his 21 irrefutable laws of leadership earlier in this blog. He argues that one's leadership ability determines a person's level of effectiveness. "The lower an individual's ability to lead, the lower the lid on his potential. The higher the leadership, the greater the effectiveness." (John C. Maxwell, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You. Nashville, TN: Nelson Business, 1998, p. 1.

You should read this book. It's a good set of principles. And take heart, if you are deficient in one area, you can get better and increase your leadership score.

I think entrepreneurs need to pay attention to their style. But what do you think about this? If you have something substantive to add, post a comment.

This is some of the stuff that will go into my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.

What is an effective leader?

What is an effective leader? Wikipedia, the free, on-line encyclopedia, defines "effectiveness" as "the capability of producing an effect." If someone gets a job done, regardless of cost or time, it's considered effective.

Some people think it involves evaluating the size of the leader's following. However, this can be misleading as the earlier article in Wikipedia points out. Look at Hitler for example. Millions of people followed him. His following was a measure of power rather than effectiveness.

To my mind, if something gets something done, he's effective.

I think entrepreneurs need to pay attention to their style. But what do you think about this? If you have something substantive to add, post a comment.

This is some of the stuff that will go into my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.

Leadership styles: House and Podsakoff

Robert House and Philip Podsakoff give us 10 leadership "styles". You can find them at citeHR.knowledgebase. Here they are as summarized in the citeHR.knowledgebase.com posting:

1. Vision. Outstanding leaders articulate an ideological vision congruent with the deeply-held values of followers, a vision that describes a better future to which the followers have an alleged moral right.

2. Passion and self-sacrifice. Leaders display a passion for, and have a strong conviction of, what they regard as the moral correctness of their vision. They engage in outstanding or extraordinary behavior and make extraordinary self-sacrifices in the interest of their vision and mission.

3. Confidence, Determination, and Prsistence. Outstanding leaders display a high degree of faith in themselves and in the attainment of the vision they articulate. Theoretically, such leaders need to have a very high degree of self-confidence and moral conviction because their mission usually challenges the status quo and, therefore, may offend those who have a stake in preserving the established order.

4. Image-building. House and Podsakoff regard outstanding leaders as self-conscious about their own image. They recognize the desirability of followers perceiving them as competent, credible, and trustworthy.

5. Role-modeling. Leader-image-building sets the stage for effective role-modeling because followers identify with the values of role models whom they perceived in positive terms.

6. External representation. Outstanding leaders act as spokespersons for their respective organizations and symbolically represent those organizations to external constituencies.

7. Expectations of and confidence in followers. Outstanding leaders communicate expectations of high performance from their followers and strong confidence in their followers’ ability to meet such expectations.

8. Selective Motive-arousal. Outstanding leaders selectively arouse those motives of followers that the outstanding leaders see as of special relevance to the successful accomplishment of the vision and mission.

9. Frame Alignment. To persuade followers to accept and implement change, outstanding leaders engage in "frame alignment". This refers to the linkage of individual and leader interpretive orientations such that some set of followers’ interests, values, and beliefs, as well as the leader’s activities, goals, and ideology, becomes congruent and complementary.

10. Inspirational Communication. Outstanding leaders often, but not always, communicate their message in an inspirational manner using vivid stories, slogans, symbols, and ceremonies. (From: Robert House and Philip Podsakoff, "Leadership Effectiveness: Past Perspectives and Future Directions for Research" in Jerald Greenberg (ed.), Organizational Behavior: The State of the Science, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ., 1994.

Check this site out.

It's clear to me that the style of the leader has a direct effect on the ability of the leader to accomplish his goals and objectives and to motivate those around him to get on the bus. They may not equate directly to Lewin's 3 leadership styles, but they're in there somewhere.

I think entrepreneurs need to pay attention to their style. But what do you think about this? If you have something substantive to add, post a comment.

This is some of the stuff that will go into my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.

Bristow Group Leadership "Charter"

Richard Burman and Andy Evans, of the Bristow Group, Inc., puts forth in "Target Zero: a Culture of Safety," Defense Aviation Safety Centre Journal 2008, pp. 22-27, give the following Leadership Charter:

• Leading by example in accordance with the company’s core values.
• Building the trust and confidence of the people with whom they work.
• Continually seeking improvement in their methods and effectiveness.
• Keeping people informed.
• Being accountable for their actions and holding others accountable for theirs.
• Involving people, seeking their views, listening actively to what they have to say and representing these views honestly.
• Being clear on what is expected, and providing feedback on progress.
• Showing tolerance of people’s differences and dealing with their issues fairly.
• Acknowledging and recognizing people for their contributions and performance.
• Weighing alternatives, considering both short and long-term effects and then being resolute in the decisions they make.

Check out their website, www.Bristowgroup.com for an example of all sorts of things entrepreneurs should know about. The company describes itself as

one of the world’s largest providers of helicopter services, providing the safest and most efficient helicopter transportation, maintenance, search and rescue and aviation support worldwide.

If you conduct yourself according to this "charter" you will increase your odds of succeeding.

What do you think about this? If you have something substantive to add, post a comment.

This is some of the stuff that will go into my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.

Leadership Styles

The US Army Handbook (1973) says this about leadership style:

Leadership style is the manner and approach of providing direction, implementing plans, and motivating people. Kurt Lewin (1939) led a group of researchers to identify different styles of leadership. This early study has been very influential and established three major leadership styles. The three major styles of leadership are (U.S. Army Handbook, 1973): Authoritarian or autocratic; Participative or democratic; Delegative or Free Reign. Although good leaders use all three styles, with one of them normally dominant, bad leaders tend to stick with one style.

Authoritarian (autocratic):'I want both of you to...'
This style is used when leaders tell their employees what they want done and how they want it accomplished, without getting the advice of their followers...

Participative (democratic), 'Let's work together to solve this...'
This style involves the leader including one or more employees in the decision making process (determining what to do and how to do it). However, the leader maintains the final decision making authority...

Delegative (free reign), 'You two take care of the problem while I go...' The leader allows the employees to make the decisions. However, the leader is still responsible for the decisions that are made.

You have to have all styles available to you. In some cases you need to make a decision fast; in some you need to get all points of view and reach consensus; and in some cases you need to let employees alone to do the work. The key is to know how to use the right style to accomplish the goals you've set out.

What do you think about this? If you have something substantive to add, post a comment.

This is some of the stuff that will go into my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.

Entrepreneurial Leadership

No matter what type of entrepreneur you are, as an entrepreneur, you are a leader. As a leader, your job is to lead.

Wikipedia has this definition: "The ability to affect human behavior...to accomplish a mission designated by the leader." Go to the article on "Leadership" and read it and follow it's links. There are a lot of good things in there.

Modifying slightly the words of Rita McGrath and Ian MacMillan, in The Entrepreneurial Mindset; Strategies for Continuously Creating Opportunity in an Age of Uncertainty (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2000, p. 305),

You need to ...[be] consistent, predictable, and focused, and you [need to] sustain this emphasis over a long period. Pressure applied only once is soon forgotten, and alternating pressure (as in flavor-of-the-month management) will cause people to be confused, disillusioned, or angry...As the leader,...[your] most important job...[is] to keep people focused.

Read this book, it will return many good things to you.

What do you think about this? If you have something substantive to add, post a comment.

This is my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.

Etymology of "Entrepreneur"

From Wikipedia, the free, on-line encyclopedia, we have this:

The word "entrepreneur" is a loanword from French. In French the verb "entreprendre" means "to undertake", with "entre" coming from the Latin word meaning "between", and "prendre" meaning "to take". In French a person who performs a verb, has the ending of the verb changed to "eur", comparable to the "er" ending in English. "Unternehmer" (lit. "undertaker" in the literal sense of the word) is the high German equivalent and curiously, "Unternehmungs Forschung" is the German equivalent of Operations Research although the Anglo-Saxon model of the firm is fairly antithetical to the notion of management as a science.

Enterprise is similar to and has roots in, the French word "entreprise", which is the past participle of "entreprendre". Entrepreneuse is simply the French feminine counterpart of "entrepreneur".

Leave it to the French to have a feminine suffix. :-)

Anyway, Read the entire entry and follow its links.

Are you interested in words? I am. So, if you have something substantive to add, post a comment.

Entrepreneurship On Lineis my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.

Serial Entrepreneur

Ola Ahlvarsson, excerpted in blogs.symbio.group.com gives this definition of serial entrepreneurs:

The ones who are addicted to the process of entrepreneurship itself. They don’t spend a lifetime building their companies. They see an opportunity and jump in feet first. [They]...get into an idea, but also have lots of ideas and often draw lots of tangents. My friend Martin Varsavsky is the best example of this kind of entrepreneur – he’s a visionary and sees opportunities that no one else can see. But he’s also got a 100 things going on at once and is an active angel investor. These guys are the Renaissance Men of the business world.

You should check this website out. There's a lot of interesting things on entrepreneurship here.

Then there's the "cereal" entrepreneur, who likes to start cereals. :-)

Serial entrepreneurs have no interest in running a business. They are fascinated and driven by the idea of starting businesses, building value, then selling them off to start another.

Do you know any serial entrepreneurs? I'd like to know. So, if you have something substantive to add, post a comment.

Entrepreneurship 2.0 is my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.

Social Entrepreneur

Wikipedia, the free, on-line encyclopedia has this definition:

A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change...

A social entrepreneur assesses success in terms of the impact s/he has on society. While social entrepreneurs often work through nonprofits and citizen groups, many work in the private and governmental sectors.

The main aim of a social enterprise is to further its social and environmental goals. This need not be incompatible with making a profit - but social enterprises are often non-profits. Social enterprises are for ‘more-than-profit’ (a term coined by a BBC journalist).

Read the entire Wikipedia article, and follow its links.

Do you know any social entrepreneurs? Do you think a social entrepreneur isn't a "real" entrepreneur? What do you think about this? I'd like to know. So, if you have something substantive to add, post a comment.

Entrepreneurship 2.0 is my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.

Lifestyle Entrepreneur

George Rodriguez, writing iin PowerHomeBiz.com discusses one view of what a lifestye entrepreneur is.

Freelance writer Mark Henricks says that self-employment can allow you to do what you love and love what you can do in his book Not Just a Living: The Complete Guide to Creating a Business that Gives You a Life. Henricks asserts that not everyone starts a business for the money. In fact, more people are turning to entrepreneurship to support the lifestyle that they have always dreamed of. He calls this under-reported but growing phenomenon "lifestyle entrepreneurship."

Studies support his assertion. According to the market research company Warrillow and Co., as many as 90 percent of the roughly 20 million American small business owners appear to be motivated by lifestyle more than money. In a 1999 Lou Harris survey, it was found that money was the main driver for very few small entrepreneurs and self-employed people. Instead, nine out of ten entrepreneurs said a desire for independence prompted them to become entrepreneurs.

The book provides practical tips and advice on how to create a business that offers both financial gain, as well as satisfaction, personal fulfillment and joy.

What is Lifestyle Entrepreneurship?

Henricks defines a lifestyle entrepreneur as "somebody who goes into business not primarily for financial rewards but for lifestyle reasons."

They are usually after some kind of pay-off, and the motivations could range from living on a beach or a mountain; or working only when they feel like it and with people they like. Others choose to become a lifestyle entrepreneur to be near their aging parents or stay at home with their young children. Still others want to get off the travel grind and away from overbearing bosses. Mostly, they want to do the kind of work that they love...'Being a lifestyle business owner is more than a lifestyle. It is also a way to make a living.' So how then does a lifestyle entrepreneur compare with the traditional entrepreneur? He acknowledges that it is difficult to separate entrepreneurship from lifestyle. After all, running a business is more consuming than working at a job.

Check out PowerHomeBiz.com. It looks like it has a lot to say about entrepreneurship. Not everybody is going to, or wants to become, the next Bill Gates. In fact, what may start out to be a lifestyle entrepreneurship may turn out to become a full-blown case of entrepreneurship. As for me, I'm going to check out his book.

What do you think about this? I'd like to know. So, if you have something substantive to add, post a comment.

Entrepreneurship 2.0 is my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.

Assertive Entrepreneur

To continue from last time, I talked about the defensive entrepreneur (Jerome Berkman, in The Age of the Entrepreneur (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1984/ v/10 (7), p. 72, 116, 118, 120). Berkman, also points to an "assertive" or "natural entrepreneur, who

sees the new economic reality as a chance to chart new avenues for success by taking up the for-profit challenge in a business-like manner.

These are not mutually exclusive types. As we will see as we go forward, there are lots of other types of entrepreneurs.

These are not hard and fast descriptions. No one person fits a particular mold. A typology gives some hooks to hang our hats on.

What do you think about this? I'd like to know. So, if you have something substantive to add, post a comment.

Entrepreneurship 2.0 is my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.

Defensive Entrepreneur

Jerome Berkman, in The Age of the Entrepreneur (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1984/ v/10 (7), p. 72, 116, 118, 120), says:

The 'defensive' entrepreneur perceives that costs have to be cut as far as possible without eroding the quality necessary to sustain the base operation at an acceptable level and this must be supplemented with revenue-producing activities.

Berkman is apparently speaking of entrepreneurship in the health care industry. But this works elsewhere. Keeping costs as low as possible without jeopardizing sales growth enterprise and capacity for growth is key to success.

I'm writing from the abstract published in a journal abstracted in IBID, a journal on dietary supplements. But google the author and title and you should find it in your search results.

What do you think about this? I'd like to know. I'm looking to stimulate intelligent and serious (not imperatively unfunny, though) conversation. So, if you have something substantive to add, post a comment.

Entrepreneurship 2.0 is my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.

Habitual Entrepreneur

Rita Gunther McGrath and Ian MacMillian, in their book The Entrepreneurial Mindset (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School, 2000, p. 3), talk about habitual entrepreneurs, who

Have made careers out of starting businesses, some working within existing businesses and some in independent start-ups. They have in common finely honed skills in forging opportunity from uncertainty...They capitalize on uncertainty rather than avoid it, they create simplicity where others see complexity, and they embrace the learning that come from taking calculated risks. They recognize that when opportunities are fleeting, it is sometimes more expensive to be slow rather than to be wrong. As a consequence, they will find solutions that are 'roughly right' rather than consume time developing an analytically correct, but slow, answer.

Read the McGrath and MacMillan book. You'll find it brimming with insight and information.

What do you think about this? I'd like to know. I'm looking to stimulate intelligent and serious (not imperatively unfunny, though) conversation. .
So, if you have something substantive to add, post a comment.

Entrepreneurship 2.0 is my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.

What is an Entrepreneur?

Everything begins with the entrepreneur. Nothing goes forward without the entrepreneur. No sales, no revenue, no income. The entreprenur is the creator of the enterprise and brings it to life.

There are lots of definitions of entrepreneurship. I quoted Dictionary.com back in May, 2008. I also like one in Random House's Compact Unabridged Dictionary.

Let's go with this one: "An entrepreneur is a person who undertakes an enterprise in an atmosphere of uncertainty and risk."

What do you think about this? I'd like to know. Post a comment.

Entrepreneurship 2.0 is my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.

Income

From Wikipedia, the free, on-line encyclopedia:

Income refers to consumption opportunity gained by an entity within a specified time frame, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. However, for households and individuals, "income is the sum of all the wages, salaries, profits, interests payments, rents and other forms of earnings received... in a given period of time." For firms, income generally refers to net-profit: what remains of revenue after expenses have been subtracted. In the field of public economics, it may refer to the accumulation of both monetary and non-monetary consumption ability, the former being used as a proxy for total income.

Go to Wikipedia and read the entire article.

Investopedia lists the following kinds of income:

Net Income
Portfolio Income
Taxable Income
Passive Income
Ordinary Income
Personal Income
Nonpassive Income And Losses
Unearned Income
Investment Income
Net Investment Income
Sundry Income
Provisional Income
Operating Income
Net Operating Income - NOI
Marginal Tax Rate
Passive Activity
Operating Income Before Depreciation And Amortization - OIBDA
Non-Operating Income
Modified Adjusted Gross Income - MAGI

Revenue is revenue, but income is a bagel. Along time ago, my previous brother-in-law went to a store to buy a bagel. He was in Michigan, and and bagels had just begun to be known. The person who waited on my b-i-l asked him for the kind of bagel he wanted, cinnamon and raisin, onion, sesame seed, plain, everything, blueberry, cranberry, etc. My b-i-l was flummoxed. It's like that with "Income". You hear it bruited about, basically meaning money made. But go to Investopedia.com and read about what income really means and about the various forms of income.

Sales leads to money in the door. Revenue, and all the other kinds of income. Bottom line: without customers, no sales. Without sales, no revenue, or income of any kind.

So our job begins with sales, the creator of wealth. But that's a complex thing, and we're going to be on it for a while.

What do you think about this? I'd like to know. Post a comment.

Entrepreneurship 2.0 is my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.

Revenue

From Wikipedia, the free, on-line encyclopedia:

In business, revenue or revenues is income that a company receives from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers. Some companies also receive revenue from interest, dividends or royalties paid to them by other companies.[1] Revenue may refer to business income in general, or it may refer to the amount, in a monetary unit, received during a period of time, as in "Last year, Company X had revenue of $32 million."

InvestorWords.com says:

For a company, this is the total amount of money received by the company for goods sold or services provided during a certain time period. It also includes all net sales, exchange of assets; interest and any other increase in owner's equity and is calculated before any expenses are subtracted. Net income can be calculated by subtracting expenses from revenue. In terms of reporting revenue in a company's financial statements, different companies consider revenue to be received, or "recognized", different ways. For example, revenue could be recognized when a deal is signed, when the money is received, when the services are provided, or at other times. There are rules specifying when revenue should be recognized in different situations for companies using different accounting methods, such as cash basis and accrual basis.

InvestorWords.com gives separate definitions for firms and for the government. We won't concern ourselves with the government.
The amount of money that a company actually receives during a specific period, including discounts and deductions for returned merchandise. It is the "top line" or "gross income" figure from which costs are subtracted to determine net income.

Investopedia defines revenue as:

The amount of money that a company actually receives during a specific period, including discounts and deductions for returned merchandise. It is the 'top line' or 'gross income' figure from which costs are subtracted to determine net income. Revenue is calculated by multiplying the price at which goods or services are sold by the number of units or amount sold.

Revenue is what we want to get from our businesses. You don't have any income without revenue and no revenue without sales.

What do you think about this? Post a comment.

Entrepreneurship informs all of my professional activities. For entrepreneurial real estate, go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com./blog and for entrepreneurial writing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com