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Posts Tagged ‘Entrepreneurship’

Running a business comes with its share of problems, in terms of both mechanics and aesthetics. In my experience, one of the most important challenges every entrepreneur faces is the naming or re-naming of a company. I’ve been involved in the creation of more than a dozen companies, and I have had the privilege of advising on the development of hundreds of others. Here are some of the lessons I learned when it comes to picking a name that will garner success, now and in the future:

Easy-to-Remember Names

Names that are easy to remember are a sure-fire way to increase advertising effectiveness. These kinds of names are easy to pronounce and often have a visual component (think Target and Duracell). The difficulty, though, is that they can be tough to trademark. Also, the specificity of easy-to-remember names can limit a business to a particular region or industry. The perk of these names, however, is their high spend-to-result ratio. If an entrepreneur picks a highly memorable name, he or she can spend relatively little and still net huge results in short working less and making more.

Trademarking That Works

By choosing a name that is easy to trademark, entrepreneurs can ensure that they will have a strong legal claim to their business identity. These kinds of names are often “made-up” words like Novartis, Accenture or ZymoGenetics. Other protectable names are based on unique proper nouns, such as Phillip Morris or Martha Stewart. One drawback of easy-to-trademark names is that they can be confusing. Also, entrepreneurs who choose these names can expect to spend more money on advertising to help customers recognize the name and understand the business behind it. This leaves entrepreneurs with a lower spend-to-result ratio.

Nonsense Names

Some companies have reaped great benefits from names that are both familiar enough to be memorable, but distinctive enough that they’re relatively easy to trademark. These are often called nonsense names. Some nonsense names—Apple, Amazon and Yahoo—combine a known word with an unexpected industry. Other nonsense names combine two familiar words people find easy to pronounce and envision, but meet the uniqueness criterion for trade-marking because you wouldn’t expect to see the two words used together. An example of this is Yogabutter (a local yoga studio) and Talking Rain (a soft drinks pioneer). I experimented with this nonsense approach by creating Purespace, a business that did short-term space rental for holistic practitioners. The name provided customers with a sense of our business, and it bred inquiry.

Testing the Name

I’ve learned that the worth of a business name is in the reaction of the customer or trademark attorney. To determine if their name has long-lasting appeal, entrepreneurs should find out if it allows them to access the tools they need for business. One way to do that is to Google the name. Business owners should ensure that someone isn’t already using the name—or something similar—in a way they wouldn’t want associated with their own business. This could cause confusion and lead to potential legal problems. When in doubt, it’s best to consult with an intellectual property attorney.

A carefully selected business name can save thousands of dollars a year in advertising costs, and it can keep the company on an extended path of greatness. The wrong name can sink a business by making marketing expensive and frustrating, or making it difficult to protect your business identity. When it comes to naming a business, you can never be too careful. After all, your success and future are on the line.

Log on to http://www.chrisrugh.com/ for more information!

Christopher Rugh ,EO Seattle  

A serial entrepreneur, Christopher is the founder and CEO of several companies, including 1-800-Good Credit, Worldwide Telegraph and CustomTollfree.com. He has
been an EO member since 2001. You can reach Christopher at cmb@customtollfree.com.

Technology is continuously developing, progressing and brings about significant changes in our everyday lives. But making a brave investment in a new form of technology entails great risks and money losses. Some scientific and engineering breakthroughs fail deliver efficient and effective solutions and some investors have been seeing this kind of failure and have stopped believing that significant growth is still possible for startup technology companies. But, this is not the case for the triumphant entrepreneur named Mouli Cohen. In fact, Mouli Cohen leads several private firms concentrating on the discovery, research and development of high technology, digital media, consumer products and biotechnology. These firms include Voltage Capital, ICOS, Aristo, Lilly and Ecast.

Mouli Cohen studies the competition very well and through his careful analysis, he combines his entrepreneurial expertise and sound investment skills with the art of scientific discovery and research. He believes that failure is always a part of a greater success and being passionate about failing and doing it again until you succeed is essential to making startup businesses work. Being with the right people is also a vital key to making your new investments on breakthrough inventions and innovations highly profitable and to gain a niche in the target market. Being around the right people, Mouli Cohen is confident to craft a robust and reliable management structure that will work hard in attaining the goals of the business.

Mouli Cohen finds pleasure in his business adventures, embraces the reality of packaging both his personal life and business career and enjoys every day of his life.

Do you manage your time effectively? How do you spend your time each day? Proper time management is an integral part of being a MLM entrepreneur. But this can be very challenging as there are many things craving your attention.

On the business front alone, many different tasks must be performed each day-responding to emails or communicating with customers and prospects in some other way, engaging in networking activities, marketing your products, and keeping yourself informed about happenings in your industry.

And for most persons, there is also the need to balance the demands of running a business with the needs of one’s family. Striking a balance in all these can seem daunting.

Amidst this maze, how can you have enough time to do all it takes to succeed with your business? You really do not need more time-you will always have only 24 hours each day! All you need is a better way to manage the time you do have.

You will be surprised how much you can achieve with your business in both the short and long term if every activity relating to your business has a set time.

Indeed, more than just helping your business to grow, proper time management also improves the quality of your life; because it helps to free up a sizable amount of time each day and each week for you to use as you please. 

Now, what does proper time management involve? Do not bother your head with how this is defined in academic circles. The most practical way to look at time management is that it involves organizing one’s tasks, prioritizing the tasks, and succeeding with the tasks in terms of completing them on time.

Begin by tracking your activities for a few days, starting from when you wake up till bedtime. Try and list out all the things you typically do in the course of each day. I bet you will be surprised how much time is wasted each day on non-essentials, non-business-related activities.

Next you need to prioritize your activities. What things must be done before others can make any sense? Identify that first step and perform it first. Remember that details of certain tasks become evident only after the first stages have been accomplished.

Also, if you take a closer look, you will discover that there are always bits of activities that will not hurt anybody if they are not done now or today-such as responding to an email or charting with a friend on the web or on phone. Such activities and similar non-urgent tasks should be postponed until vital tasks are done.  

Finally, perform the tasks. Having organized what tasks need to be done, and having arranged them in order of importance, your next step is to swing to action and do the work. Resist the habit of procrastinating clearly-identified tasks. Remember that procrastination is the thief of time.

And we are talking time management here. So if you must manage your time well, hate procrastination. Do not wait until such a time when you could perform the tasks perfectly. Perfection sometimes acts as the enemy of achievement because it prevents people from starting.

You can also use outside sources to improve your activities and save time and energy.Developing time management skills is a process. But it is worth your while as it is sure to help you achieve more with your business. Following the guides suggested in this article can help you manage your time better.

As an Online Marketing Business Builder being able to attract daily targeted leads to your business is the key to your Online or MLM Success. How would you like to attract 50-100 leads to your business daily? 

Learning these Marketing Skills will help you build your MLM or Online business. You can visit my Blog sandraessex.com and this Success Website yourmakemoneyonline.info to find out more complete information on Lead Generation Training.       
   

There are two kinds of entrepreneurs. First, there is the entrepreneur that is commonly associated with the noun; this person is the start-up business expert. They are the ones that take dirt and make a castle out of it. However, there is another type of entrepreneur and he or she comes in the form of a corporate business starter. That means that he or she has an expertise in growing and starting up different sections within a corporation. For any company, having an effective entrepreneurial thinker can prove to be an immense asset.

Despite the platform that these entrepreneurs utilize to make money, they are all similar in personality and nature. Conversely, the process is a little different when it comes to being an entrepreneur in a corporation. The upsides and downsides of starting up a project also vary. Here are a few benefits and setbacks that the corporate entrepreneur sees upon starting up a new division within an established entity:

Pros:

The Corporate Entrepreneur Has More Resources Readily Available 
The thing that many start-ups lack is, of course, money, capital, whatever you want to call it. In the majority of cases, when starting a business within a business, a corporate entrepreneur has a lot more monetary resources available to him or her.

The Corporate Entrepreneur Has A Website Set-up 
For many entrepreneurs, the website is a big expense. Also, many website development companies will tend to take advantage of their clients; they take advantage in a major way. The small start-up clients, not having the time to study other alternatives, become easy prey for those selling unnecessary services such as website hosting, search engine optimization, PPC as well as a slew of other ineffective, costly marketing add-ons.

This is a huge advantage for the corporate entrepreneur as dealing with these individuals can be tiresome and costly with no return on investment in site.

The Corporate Entrepreneur Has Name Recognition 
Anyone, large or small business, will tell you just how important name recognition is in any industry. For the corporate business starter, this is fed to them on a platter that, if utilized correctly, can be an advantage which typically takes others years of hard work to successfully acquire.

The Corporate Entrepreneur Has A Sales Force 
In conjunction with the aforementioned name recognition that will lead to sales right off the bat (a.k.a. a quick ramp-up period), the corporate business starter will have a team of business development professionals to add to their already sitting arsenal. This means all types of outbound business calls going around the clock. Additionally, the more senior sales force will probably have contacts within targeted companies thus shortening the sales cycle for the new initiative. On a third note, the corporate entrepreneur will usually have sales support, a luxury the small start-up cannot afford nor provide for their clients. This is a huge selling point.

Cons:

The Corporate Entrepreneur Typically Has Only So Much Time 
Prior to starting any new business initiative, the company entrepreneur has to present a solid, compelling business plan to the CEO and possibly some other heads of the company. This means that the corporate entrepreneur has to ask for resources that could be put towards business models that are already working, thus persuading a group to have those monetary and personnel resources diverted to their business plan.

When this happens, and money doesn’t come in right away, the investors (business heads of the organization in this case) get jittery. When corporate heads get jittery, money begins to get pulled from the new business initiative. At this phase in the game, the entrepreneur will begin to feel a lot of pressure which could lead to the entire plan blowing up. After this, the employee will probably never get a chance at an endeavor such as this again.

The Corporate Entrepreneur Can Be Quickly Fired 
When an employee steps forward within an organization and heavily pitches a business idea that fails, the CFO is very likely to make a case to get that individual out of the company, quickly. When this happens, the entrepreneur has to find a new job and, upon interviewing explain as to the reasons why he or she could not execute. To say the least, this could be quite embarrassing.