Small bussines And Entrepreneurialism Is The First Step Toward Success

Defining the term “entrepreneur” can be tricky, and it is not rare that we find various definitions falling short of the true meaning of the word, offering only partial explanation. It is difficult to draft an one liner that sums it all, every aspect of what it truly means to be an entrepreneur, especially since the meaning of the word have had its natural evolution from the time it was first introduced.

According to Wikipedia, the word itself is taken from French, and it is believed that the creator of the word was a 19th century french economist Jean-Baptiste Say who defined entrepreneur as “one who undertakes an enterprise, especially a contractor, acting as intermediary between capital and labour”. With the progress of the economy, and the development of structurally diverse enterprises, it was not until 1970’s that the concept of entrepreneurship was positioned as significant enough part of the economy to even need a definition.

Some of the early definitions of the word describe entrepreneur as a person who creates a product on his own account. Naturally, this definition doesn’t hold truth for the modern day entrepreneur. Merely creating a product is not what makes an entrepreneur. Searching through online resources, word entrepreneur can often be found as a synonymous with founder or an individual who is starting a small business. But then the question arises if one actually stops being an entrepreneur when one’s business is no longer in its start up phase.

The way I see it, an entrepreneur would be a person who recognizes and seizes the opportunity of opening a small business entity that he or she will manage and organize assuming all the risk and responsibility, and at the same time bringing something innovative and valuable to the market. Entrepreneurs are capable of finding the way to get their hands on resources needed to realize their business ideas. Many successful entrepreneurs built their enterprises from nothing taking what is often called an educated risk. Without the proper knowledge of the market, many entrepreneurs fail in their endeavors relying only on the skills they have in their particular industry. Risk taking cannot be separated from entrepreneurship as it is one of its main characteristics.

Entrepreneurs want to be masters of their own faith, personally and professionally. Even if they do not achieve their goals, they enjoy the journey, and after one failure, they often jump strait back into fire. Being an entrepreneur is mainly looked as equal to being a small business owner, but in reality, entrepreneurial spirit is a foundation to all size of enterprises. Being an essential fuel that drives the economy, entrepreneurs have a valuable place in today’s society. The best way for an entrepreneur to succeed in the market is to chose a niche which is new and not already noticed by existing businesses.

All entrepreneurs have few key characteristics in common, they are creative and have visionary spirit, they are able to make decisions no matter what the situation, and most of all they have no issue with taking risks often seen as too grand by other people. A true entrepreneur is born to make something new and valuable, and has a capability to persist through all the hardships that go along with the creation of new enterprise.

Jovana is technical writer, editor and small business expert at Bizcloud. Bizcloud (http://www.bizcloud.net) is an online business social utility focused on promoting small business ownership and local communities.

It’s an unfortunate fact of life (and business). Out of the blue you get a nasty email from someone. Sometimes it’s about an article you’ve written. Sometimes it’s accompanied by a refund request. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like it’s tied to anything at all.

Or maybe you discover someone writing malicious things about you on a blog or a forum. Or maybe some other negative things suddenly start getting tweeted or posted to Facebook about you, your products or your business.

Stuff happens. As a business owner and entrepreneur, the more successful you become, the more you open yourself up to criticism, negative feedback or just plain being attacked.

As someone who is both a writer AND a business owner, I know all about what happens when you’re dealing with unwelcome criticism. (I write fiction so yes, I’ve dealt with my share of negative feedback.) But if this is something new for you, or even if it’s not new but you’re feeling like you’ve just been sucker-punched by something out of the blue, I thought I’d share a few insights to help you get through it.

1. Know you’re not alone. We’ve ALL been there. And I mean exactly that. It doesn’t matter how small or big your business is, stuff like this is going to happen. So know that no matter what just happened to you, there are a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners out there who will both sympathize and emphasize.

2. See it for what it is. All criticism is not created equally. Sometimes what someone is saying has absolutely nothing to do with you and everything to do with their own issues. Sometimes they have a legitimate complaint but the person is so unhappy with their own life they blow it completely out of portion because they just want to strike out at someone and you’re the one they picked.

And sometimes they have a legitimate beef AND they handled it fine, but you just didn’t want to hear it. An example of this is some of the criticism I’ve gotten from some of my stories. The people were thoughtful and absolutely right. And I hated them. (Until I got over myself and slunk back to the keyboard to make the edits.)

Now the third option doesn’t happen too often (unless you’re a fiction writer) but the first two do. You just have to see it for what it is. If there’s something buried in the anger and name-calling you can use to improve your products, services or business, by all means use it. But know the rest of it has absolutely nothing to do with you and everything to do with them.

(And you’ll know when the criticism is right. Trust me. Your gut will tell you.)

3. Be kind to yourself. When these things happen, it can hurt. And that’s okay. Call a friend. Or better yet, your mother (if you can). Write about it in your journal. Take a walk. Don’t bury your feelings, let yourself feel bad and then let it go. Don’t tell yourself it doesn’t matter and let it fester inside you, deal with it. Get it out of you. And then let it go.

4. Let someone else deal with these things. Whenever possible, have someone else in your business be a filter for stuff like this. Let other people take care of refund requests or just read the nasty emails and they can decide if there’s a legitimate complaint buried in there or not. Protect yourself, there’s no need for you to see everything or deal with everything. Yes you’ll have to step in if something big happens, but let other people take care of the small stuff. The small stuff is what wears you down anyway. Save yourself for the big things and don’t worry about the rest.

Michele PW (Michele Pariza Wacek) owns Creative Concepts and Copywriting LLC, a copywriting, marketing communications and creativity agency. She helps people become more successful at attracting new clients, selling products and services and boosting business. To find out how she can help you take your business to the next level, visit her site http://www.michelepw.com. Copyright 2008 Michele Pariza Wacek.

Manufacturers are looking for new product ideas to add to their product line. Manufacturers want innovative ideas as a way to increase revenue and get ahead of their competition.

The problem is that manufacturers get flooded with ideas. And these ideas are submitted without any market information or how the product can be manufactured. Manufacturers also receive submissions that have nothing to do with their capabilities or product line. As a result the disconnect between inventors and manufacturers leads to frustration on both sides.

So how can an inventor stand out from the crowd and get a manufacturer interested? You might assume that manufacturers will just figure out your idea because they are in the industry. Wrong. The problem is time. They are so busy with current projects and don’t have time to figure out each product idea.

To submit your invention, first find manufacturers that make similar products to yours and sell to the same target market. Then find the telephone number for their headquarters. You want to talk to someone in their marketing department such as a Product Manager. When you get the contact person on the phone concisely describe the benefits of your product ideas and how it fits with their product line.

If they are interested mail a cover letter and a Product Proposal. A Product Proposal includes:

1. Market need – describe the need, want, or problem that your product idea provides.

2. Product benefits – since people buy products based on benefits describe how your product idea saves time, saves money, provides health, safety, etc.

3. Competitive advantages – describe how your product idea provides benefits better than other products in the market.

4. Customer – describe who is the most likely end-user of your product idea.

5. Testimonials

6. Estimated manufacturing costs and profitability.

With marketing data in hand, the product manager can present your idea to their new product committee.

Overall, when you follow these guidelines you will get less rejection and more company interest.

For more details on how to effectively license or sell inventions, please visit http://www.ProductCoach.com.

About The Author:

Matthew Yubas is a Product Specialist who assists inventors and entrepreneurs to turn their ideas into winning products. Mr. Yubas is a Certified Professional Marketing Consultant for the Small Business Development and International Trade Center. He has earned a B.S. in Engineering and an M.B.A. in Management. For more information and free articles, see his website: http://www.ProductCoach.com.