Entrepreneuring Videos

With Game 6 of the World Series upon us, we found a fascinating article from Time entitled Sport: A Game of Inches. It s from July 1957. ___ ___ It s about George Robert Tebbetts who gave 53 years of his life to Major League Baseball first as a player, then a scout and, finally, the manager of the Cincinnati Redlegs (as the Reds were known at that time). He is better known by his nickname: Birdie. How did he get his nickname? No, it doesn t have anything to do with the use of his middle finger! The article says that his aunt observed that he had lips like a bird. Wikipedia says his aunt said he chirped like a bird. We don t know which source to believe, but they do both agree that his voice was irritating. According to the article, he got thrown out of a game because, as the umpire said, I have a splitting headache and that voice of yours just kills me. Time awarded him the Manager of the Year honor in 1956 because of the way he had turned around his team. There are all kinds of lessons in this article about baseball, of course, but also about leadership, life and entrepreneuring. There are also a number of great quotes by Birdie in this article. Quotes that make you think and quotes that make you realize how colorful he was. Like his scouting report on a young pitcher, where Birdie said, Major league stuff and a great arm. Screwy in the head. Eliminate head and I recommend. Get good surgeon. But our favorite quote is where the title of the article comes from: Baseball is a game of inches a fellow gets up in the ninth and comes through with a liner between third and short he s a hero. Two inches the other way and he s a bum because he hit into a double play. True in baseball. True in life. True in small business and entrepreneuring. So here are 5 lessons from baseball about being a hero in business: Prepare to be a hero You select your bat. You practice and practice and practice some more. You have to know your competition almost as well as you know yourself. Step up to the plate You ll never be a hero if you don t put on your uniform. You ll never be a hero if you don t get out of the dugout. You have to step up to the plate. You have to risk striking out. A lot of people never take their turn at bat. They have ideas but they never act upon them. They spend so much time preparing that they never get in the game. Pick your pitch You won t be a hero if you swing at every pitch. You ll strike out before the right one comes along. Opportunities are all around you. Most of them aren t worth your time. There are prospects you could pursue. Pick the right ones for you, your products or services and your company. There are projects you could initiate. Select the ones that will advance you the furthest toward your goals. Let the rest pass right by. Don t worry about the result When you re up to bat, you don t know where the ball will go when you hit it. You can t worry about that. You just have to focus on hitting it hard. You can t make a prospect say yes. You can give your prospect your best pitch. You can t force an employer to hire you. You can give them every reason to put you on their roster. Heroes know you can t control results. You can only control your activity. So they focus on the activity and let the results take care of themselves. You may not be a hero today but you can rest assured you will be a hero soon. Inch your way forward. Focus on getting a little faster, a little better, a little smarter every time you re at bat. Take away the lessons from failure and success to hit a grand slam the next time out! That s bigg success! ___ Get the tips and tools you need to be a BIGG success. Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly it s FREE! ___ Thanks so much for reading our post today. Please join us next time when we discuss why you should beware of killing your customers with kindness. Until then, here s to your bigg success! Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file: http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00516-110509.mp3 Related posts Steer Your Way to Bigg Success A Lesson on Crowds from Glee (Image in today s post from Time.com)

It s another age-old nature / nurture question are entrepreneurs born or are they made? Can the essential skills be taught or do you have to learn from experience? ___ ___ There s a great book by Richard Goossen called Entrepreneurial Excellence: Profit From the Best Ideas of the Experts. He s lined up some of the greatest minds on entrepreneurship. He concludes that you can be taught some things but entrepreneuring is mostly learned by doing. The science of entrepreneuring For years now, colleges have been teaching their students the general principles of management. Colleges apply these principles primarily to managing large companies but the same basic tenets are relevant for entrepreneurs. Lessons can also be taken away from people who have succeeded or failed in an entrepreneurial endeavor. You may not get the specifics, but you can come to understand the general principles that helped them reach bigg success. Finally, you can learn to differentiate between a good idea and a good opportunity. There are a lot of good ideas; there are relatively few good opportunities. You can be taught how to determine if your idea is not a good opportunity. The art of entrepreneuring However, nobody can teach you how to identify specific market niches and determine whether or not you can pursue them successfully. Experience is the only teacher of this valuable entrepreneurial trait. You also have to learn how to transform your passion into a valuable tool than can be used to woo customers, employees, vendors, strategic partners, and financiers. This passion will also help you persevere when you face the inevitable obstacles along the way. You also have to develop an innate belief in yourself. Self-confidence grows with education and experience, but you have to be able to draw deep within yourself as well as upon the support of others. Entrepreneurship is part science and part art. Learn as much as you can about the science of entrepreneuring before you launch your business. The art is something you can only learn by dipping your toes in the water. That s the start of bigg success! ___ Get the tips and tools you need to be a BIGG success. Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly it s FREE! ___ Thanks so much for sharing your time with us today. Since we re in the midst of the World Series, next time we re going to look at some lessons we can learn from baseball about entrepreneuring. Please join us. Until then, here s to your bigg success! Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file: http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00515-110409.mp3 Related posts 3 Reasons Entrepreneurs Fail The First Question Entrepreneurs Must Ask Think Like an Entrepreneur (Image in today s post by ugaldew)

We re excited to share some news with you today. This is our 500th show. And behind the scenes, we had all kinds of ideas about what to talk about today. Finally, after much debate, we settled on our topic. But before we get into that, we just wanted to say a couple of things. ___ ___ First, thank you so much for being part of our community. It means so much to us. We love to hear from you. We love your comments, the tweets and retweets. A trap that discourages you Second, as we were settling on our topic, we talked about tracking progress. You know, how would we know it was our 500th show if we didn t track them? It s easy to get discouraged. For example, you may set a goal and not reach it. But sometimes we get discouraged because we don t realize how far we ve come. When we started Bigg Success, we didn t really think about doing 500 shows. We just started doing them one at a time and here we are. But if you don t track your progress, at any given moment in time, you may feel like you haven t made any progress. It s a trap. Don t let yourself fall into it. How to stay out of it When you start feeling discouraged, think back to a year or two ago. Think about what you ve done since then. Think about things you know now that you didn t know then. Think about the people you ve met in the last year. Think about people you re closer to now than you were before. You ve come a long way, baby! Celebrate! Our bigg discovery: The word that isn t a word We ve learned a lot over the last 499 shows which span almost two years. Going back about 7 months and 144 shows ago, we told you about a bigg discovery. That after 355 shows and a whole lot of research and thought, we had finally arrived at our definition of bigg success: Bigg success is life on your own terms. Implicit in that definition is that you own your life you are the entrepreneur in charge. ___ Terms are important. So a couple of months ago, I typed the word entrepreneuring into Microsoft Word. It underscored it. When I spell checked it, it basically told me it wasn t a word. That intrigued us. ___ ___ It did, because it is a word in our mind. Of course, so is blog . But it was underscored for a long time after it was commonly used. So we consulted the trusty dictionary. And we struck out again! ___ Well, we disagree. We think entrepreneuring is a word. It turns out that a lot of scholars today agree with us. Entrepreneuring is a process that is the focus of much leading-edge research across many disciplines. Entrepreneuring is about leading the process of change in your life and work; managing the inherent risks to create the life you dream of living. Entrepreneuring life on your own terms that s bigg success! Do you agree with us that entrepreneuring is a word? If so, what does it mean to you? If not, why not? Share that with us by leaving a comment, e-mailing us at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com or leaving a voice mail at 888.455.BIGG (2444). Thanks so much for reading our post today. ___ Get the tips and tools you need to be a BIGG success. Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly it s FREE! Please join us next time when we ll discuss a small step that you can take that leads to a giant leap for mankind. Until then, here s to your bigg success. ___ Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file: http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00500-100909.mp3 Related posts Bigg Success Primer

Under new management. You ve seen the sign in the window of a store or in an ad. It is often thought of as a signal of better things ahead. Under new management. A new owner bought an established firm. Like many small businesses, it wasn t a perfect business. It was, however, a good business. Otherwise, why would he have bought it? ___ ___ Under new management. The new owner wanted to put his stamp on his newly purchased firm. He changed the logo of the business. Under new management. The new owner changed the employees. The employees just didn t do things the way the new owner wanted them done. He put his own people in place. Under new management. The new owner threw out the systems and replaced them with his own. The old systems were out of date or unnecessary. He had his own ideas about how to structure the business. Under new management. The new owner changed the name of the business because he noticed some complaints about the business. He wanted a fresh start. Under new management. Employees left. Under new management. Customers left. Under new management. The business failed. The new owner didn t understand why. He blamed the economy. He blamed the old owner. He blamed circumstances. He blamed everybody but himself. Change creates opportunity If it ain t broke, don t fix it. That s what you may be thinking about our little story here. Sometimes, though, it s hard to determine exactly what s broke and what s not. Entrepreneuring has been described as the science of change. One thing that entrepreneurs recognize, explicitly or implicitly, is that change creates opportunity. Fortunately for entrepreneurs, change these days happens frequently and quickly. Change is good but there s another side to it. The trick to keeping customers and employees Because there is so much change constantly hitting us in the face, customers AND employees crave stability. Create stability in their lives and they will be stick with you. If you change too much too quickly, you ll lose customers and employees. The two step First meet their expectations by consistently delivering upon your promises. Then, and only then, can change enter the picture. Work to exceed their expectations by making changes incrementally. Don t just change for the sake of changing. Lead your customers and employees through productive changes for your bigg success! ___ Get the tips and tools you need to be a BIGG success. Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly it s FREE! ___ Here s something that never changes we re grateful every time you read one of our posts. Thanks for doing so today! Next time, we ll discuss a bigg discovery. Please join us. Until then, here s to your bigg success! Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file: http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00499-101309.mp3 Related posts 3 Reasons Entrepreneurs Fail The First Question Entrepreneurs Must Ask Think Like an Entrepreneur (Image in today s post by cobrasoft)

Bigg success is life on your own terms. You are the entrepreneur of your life. Entrepreneurs look at the world through a different lens than do large company CEOs. For example, large companies and small companies use different financial models. Large companies generally have the ability to raise large amounts of money when they need it. ___ ___ For small companies, it s much more difficult. So it s more critical for small business owners to watch their cash flow. For us as individuals, our financial model is much closer to the entrepreneur s. The two decisions There are two types of decisions which we must think about: investing decisions and financing decisions. For large companies, these two types of decisions are independent. They decide what they will invest in. They determine how they will finance their firm. In an entrepreneurial firm and for us as individuals, these decisions are interdependent. We invest in the things we can finance. It could be a new business or a piece of real estate. But it could also include a new car or a new house. If we have an idea for a project, we first must either have the needed financial resources already available or we have to sell someone on funding it. If neither of those is true if we don t have the money or we can t sell someone on funding it, we can t do the project. Now let s look at four ways to think entrepreneurially about your personal finances: Bootstrap Entrepreneurs understand that they have limited resources. They recognize it, but still make the most of what they already have. You can carry that same attitude into your personal finances. Retain earnings This is what we call it when a business saves money. Pre-fund your projects when possible. If you know that you need financing to make an investment, why not finance it yourself? That s financial freedom. If cash is king, reserve borrowing capability is queen. Protect and preserve both your credit rating and your credit capacity. Then you ll have the ability to fund your bigg opportunity when you see it. Create value with your projects Simply stated, Value = Cash Flow Cost of Capital. Entrepreneurs must understand that capital comes with a cost. It may mean giving up a stake in the company. It may mean sharing the money with partners or bankers. In all cases, it requires a reasonable return on the money invested. As an individual, your capital comes with a cost as well. You have to share some of the money you will make in the future with your funders. So just like an entrepreneur, you need to understand if the benefit you will receive from the project makes it worth the money you re investing. To determine this, look at the incremental cash flow from any project you consider. If the return on your investment exceeds the cost of the capital needed to fund it, you should do the project and vice versa. Let s say you have an old car that s requiring a lot of repairs. You see that you can save money if you buy a newer car and pay interest. That s a project that s worth doing. Smart entrepreneurs and wealthy people look at every cash outlay as an investment. They want to make sure they re getting enough value out of the investment to make it worthwhile. Now that value may be somewhat fuzzy like it makes you happier or adds to your sense of well-being. In any case, thinking entrepreneurially about your money leads to bigg success. ___ Get the tips and tools you need to be a BIGG success. Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly it s FREE! ___ Thank you so much for reading our post today. Please join us next time when we ll talk about the long and winding road to bigg success. Until then, here s to your bigg success! Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file: http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00486-092209.mp3 Related posts The Trap That Keeps You from being Financially Free Freedom Or Security – Which Do You Choose? (Image in today s post by srbichara)

You are the entrepreneur of a very important enterprise your life. Entrepreneuring your life is a process. It s a journey to a destination. You design the life you want and find your path to get there. A good opportunity is the vehicle to take you down that path. Entrepreneurs know that a good opportunity provides a reasonable return for the risk assumed. A lot of people are surprised at the first return the entrepreneur must worry about. So many prospective entrepreneurs ask the wrong question when looking for an opportunity. ___ ___ This involves a business, but you could apply the same thinking to a career. The wrong question to ask first is: How do I make money? The question you should ask is: What problem can I solve? If you find enough people who have a problem and the money to spend to correct it, you may have found your opportunity. The first return is societal So the first win for an entrepreneur is actually a win for his or her customers. You won t be successful if you don t solve a problem for enough people. It s a societal return. A group of people, the entrepreneur s customers, get a problem solved. The first return that entrepreneurs create is a return for others. An attractive vision This first return is what helps entrepreneurs with another group of essential stakeholders. We saw a great article awhile back over at the Harvard Business blog. Stew Friedman said, Serve others and others will want to serve you. We love it! He s talking about leadership in general, not just entrepreneurs. He says that people who talk about their own achievement don t inspire action in others. Action is inspired by talking about how you are helping others. So the lesson here for us entrepreneurs is this: If you want to attract an inspired group of people to work with you on your vision, talk about how you re helping others. People want to feel like they re part of something bigger bigger than them, bigger than the company. They want to feel like they are making a difference in people s lives. As an entrepreneur, you must communicate how your organization does that how do you make a difference in people s lives? When you do that successfully, your employees will become more engaged in the success of your business. That s bigg success! ___ Get the tips and tools you need to be a BIGG success. Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly it s FREE! ___ Thank you so much for reading our post today. Please join us next time when we ask, Is change really dead? Until then, here s to your bigg success! Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file: http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00477-090909.mp3 Related posts Think Like an Entrepreneur Becoming An Entrepreneurial Employee 3 Questions to Make Your Business Better