I don’t know if it’s an addiction,  the challenge, knowing you can bear the pain of the long climb, the exhilaration of success when, against long odds, you know you’ve created something  that didn’t exist before. Maybe it’s a hidden gene, waiting to be discovered.  Maybe it’s just that after entrepreneurship, nothing else seems so satisfying.  But whatever it is, and the x factor is, author Rajesh Setty gets it, to my mind, just right in The Dance of Entrepreneurship:

As Berry says: “This is business plan season for me. I just finished reading half a dozen plans for Notre Dame’s annual business plan competition (we (Palo Alto Software) give a prize to the best one), and another half dozen plans for the Rice business plan competition (I’m a judge, and we have a best business plan prize for that one too). I still have to read five plans for the University of Oregon’s New Venture Competition next weekend (I’m a judge), and I’m supposed to produce a first-cut on 43 plans for the Willamette Angel Conference (I’m one of the angel investors) by the end of the workday today.:

Here’s his take on what sort of business plan you need:

Whether you’re a big business or a small business, you need to get the word out, particularly in this tough economic time.

This is Derek Halpern’s one-stop source for all Twitter resources that relate specifically to business. You will learn how people acquire customers and grow their business using Twitter. Additionally, you will see a few examples of large companies who use Twitter effectively.

• How and Why to Use Twitter for Small Business | Small Biz Trends
• 10 Small Business People to Follow on Twitter | The Society for Word of Mouth
• How to Use Twitter to Grow Your Business | Copyblogger
• 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business | Chris Brogan
• How to Use Twitter for Your Business the Right Way | Twitip
  
• 5 Ways to Acquire Customers on Twitter | Shoemoney
• Tweeting for Companies 101 | Horse Pig Cow
• Ten Ways to Use Twitter to Promote Your Business | Business Zone
• 16 Examples of Huge Brands Using Twitter for Business | Search Engine Journal
• The Do’s and Don’ts of Promoting Your Business on Twitter | Sparkplugging
• 7 Lessons Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Twitter’s Success | Blog of Mr. Tweet

I’ve written before on the critical importance of delegating or outsourcing to give you time to focus on the big picture and develop the right strategic direction so your business can grow.

It’s not easy.  Some people have an extraordinarily difficult time doing it.  I have a friend who’s a very successful but rather harried and definitely overworked leader of a national organization.  She often says:  “I can do it myself in the time it takes to show someone else how to do it.”  I respond: “Yes.  When I teach someone how to do something it takes about as much time as it would take for me to do it myself.  Maybe a bit longer. But that person is now able to do it forever.” Do the math. It’s an investment of time that will bring you a great return on your investment.

To succeed, without working yourself to death, we all must learn to delegate or outsource.  Finding and training people to delegate or outsource to will give you a support system which will facilitate your success:

First – decide what to delegate: the point of delegating is to free yourself, first, from routine, low level or mechanical tasks which someone else can do, perhaps better and more efficiently than you.

Delegate anything low priority or which doesn’t require your personal attention to achieve your primary goals.

Select the most capable person for the task: you may not like to file, but there’s someone, somewhere, who does.  Let them do it.

Give clear direction and reach an agreement on expected results: You should be willing to take the time, up front, to review your expectations and reach an agreement on what the end result should be. Communication is a key component of this process.

Be available for questions and mid course decisions

Set a clear deadline with accomplishment milestones along the way

Finally, give credit to your assistant, volunteer or support staff

The only way to develop a support system for yourself is to let the people you delegate to have the responsibility to do what you’ve asked of them; let them do it their own way; let them make their own mistakes and learn from them. Praise them when they complete their assignment. Point out that the completed task contributes to the success of the company as a whole. Give them credit within the company.

Here’s an example from Chaitanya Sagar on how learning to delegate: ,Delegate or Outsource – If You Want Your Business To Grow

“…In the initial days of my company, I did everything myself. I spoke to customers; I interacted with investors; and wrote business plans. At the same time, I cleaned my office and went long distances just to deliver legal documents somewhere. I spent a lot of time on those tasks which were not strategic or something that contributed to my customers. I did everything because I had nothing better to do. If I hired someone else, I would pay them and I’d have to sit idle!

As a small business grows, and as the scale at which a task is done increases, you have to find ways to get the time to focus on the bigger picture. If you don’t, you will get caught up in myriad routine activities, and can’t progress on strategic areas of your business. You have to make time to steer your business in the right direction. And you can do that by delegating work to others, by outsourcing, and at times, it’s as simple as asking the other party to visit your office instead of you visiting them!

My startup has been growing gradually. And some of the rules I had learned in the initial days are obsolete already. Though I saved precious dollars in the initial days doing all the routine work, time and again, I found myself asking myself, “Why am I doing this? How does my customer benefit from it? Should I not be working on something that enhances value to my customer?”

So now I do what is strategic and outsource many activities like coding for my website, marketing material work, accounting, graphic design, etc. In areas I do outsource, I am glad I do because it led to a lot of progress. Inn hindsight, the decision to outsource my work to others has greatly paid off in the following ways:

1. Where it was not my core competency, I rode on other’s competency and made wonderful progress.

2. When the project (such as product development) was over, I had the ability to scale down the activity reducing the “burn rate” without having to fire employees (had I hired them).

3. I was able to save time and could focus on the strategic aspects of the business.”

What about you?  Do you have any delegating or outsourcing examples or experiences to share?  We would like to hear from you.

My company is located in the high tech corridor that runs between San Antonio and Austin, Texas, so I am more than a bit familiar with the wild swings and boom and bust cycles in both high tech and housing.

I was slam bang in the middle of the dot com bust of 2001, having gotten on the Net with the pioneers at the onset of Netscape and the graphical browser. I remember the wailing and the moaning.  I even remember a “friend”…… a rather cliche-ridden friend, and not such a rock solid friend, it turns out… saying: “Rather see ya than be ya.”  Even in the midst of the crash and the doom and gloom, I retorted,”Are you kidding?  A very small per cent of the people are on the Net yet.  It’s in its very earliest stages.  Bubbles are about over hype and not real profits.  The Net is the future.”

Of course, I had kept my costs low and had to make a profit.  I didn’t have a venture capitalist leaning over my shoulder and breathing down my neck saying “Capture eyeballs, forget profit.  It’s a real estate grab and a race to critical mass.”  I was slowed down by the need to build a profitable business now, not later.  And, that turned out to be a good thing.

So the question is, will green tech be the next big bubble that bursts?

Here’s how I look at it.

Business is all about cycles.  If a particular sector becomes overheated and rampant with speculation, there  naturally are going to be some wild rides.

Let me put it this way.  If you got all excited about real estate values booming and put your money down on two high dollar condos in Miami or a couple of spec houses in Phoenix, you may have to walk away from your investment with only your experience to show for it.

If, on the other hand, you bought your own home, or a rent house in Phoenix, at a reasonable price, you can just live in it, or rent it out for enough to cover the mortgage, for two or three years or most of your life.  The real estate market will recover and your investment will recoup its losses and continue to rise. All you need is time.  And, if you structure your investments or your business right, you will have time.

Time is the answer to most investments and most businesses.  Time to grow.  Time to accumulate…..assets, customers, understanding, markets. Time to ride out the downturns and take advantage of the upturns.

That’s why it’s so important to conserve your cash, and if you’re a small business or an entrepreneur, run your business with an eye towards thrift.  That will give you the ability to withstand the sometimes sudden shocks and typhoons that hit the market and your business in particular.

If you create a business that offers real value, and you are careful with your cash, you will survive and thrive.

Green business, or the green tech sector, is no different I think. It offers a lot of value and increasing efficiency for the future.  It is only at the very beginning, as the Net was in the 90′s.  It’s a good time to get in before the field becomes incredibly overcrowded.  Will it be here for the long term?  I would make a serious bet on it.  In fact, I am making some serious bets on it.  Just put on your hard hat for that inevitable fall out when the speculators have climbed too high and created an avalanche of nay sayers.  But that, too , will pass. And you will still be there to reap the rewards.

Getting Online Business Start Up

• Fail As Fast As You Can and Other Contrarian Business Secrets
• Business Planning Series (Worksheets, guides and checklists)
• 20 Small Business Ideas for Small Towns covers seven ways to generate your own ideas, so you can dream up the small biz idea that best fits you.

Getting Online – Starting Your Blog

How to Develop Money Making Niche Web Sites With WordPress

Social Media For Marketing

Social Media For Marketing Social Media for Small Business by Duct Tape Marketing is also giving away their own ebook on using social media for marketing.

• The Impact of Social Media on Innovation – Josh Bernoff
• The Social Web Analytics eBook 2008
• The Essential Guide to Social Media

Internet Marketing and Traffic

• 30 Ways to Promote Your Website on a Shoestring Budget
• Adsense Guide
• Web Marketing Success

Marketing

• How to Market Your Small Business
• How to Make Big Profits from a Small Mailing List
• Small Business Marketing Bible

Working from Home

• Become a Global Homebusiness Pro [zip]
• Work from Home: A Complete Guide to Developing a Successful Internet Business from Home

What is your business worth? Although not precisely a trick question, it’s not that easy to answer correctly either.  There a lot of factors in play and most of them are in constant flux.

My father, a consummate entrepreneur, used to take me out to accompany him on his business rounds. I was about five years old when he pointed out a building and asked me “How much is that building worth?”  The correct answer was : “As much as someone is willing to pay for it.”

That is still the correct answer.  But to get to that answer one must sometimes go through the circuitous route of developing an asking price for the building.  And that should be based on something besides wishful thinking and a wild guess.  You might have to justify it to a potential purchaser.

That is why I’m glad to see a new site called Biz Equity come on the scene.  At least, it’s a starting point.

What is BizEquity?

Bizequity is a free service that provides estimated value of a category of business, or a custom valuation, based on industry-specific “rules of thumb“.  Of course, there are different “rules of thumb” that might be used.  And the site clearly states: “A valuation completed by a CFA or other expert is a more thorough and legally valid assessment which considers business aspects and sources of information that BizEquity might not have access to.” Although that might be true, both valuations are still hypothetical until someone offers cold, hard cash for your business.  Then, many other factors come into play.

Is your business in a “sexy” industry”?  It might be worth more.

Is it a bear market?  It might be worth less.

Is it “hot”?  More. Or “not”?  Less.

Right now, as we all know, we are in a bear market, one which is depressed with prices for business buy outs headed South.  In essence, whatever your valuation, now is probably not the best time to sell.

When is the best time to sell?

When you have a motivated buyer who, for one reason or another, is willing to pay a top price for your business.The value of many businesses may be falling. If you can, it might be in your best interest to wait for a better business climate to offer your business for sale.

Once, I went for seven years without being able to find a buyer for a certain mineral lease I was handling.  Nobody would touch it. And believe me, I approached every company or indiviual I thought might be remotely interested. The only interested propect was a geologist who couldn’t afford to pay more than $5,000 for it, when the price should have been in six figures.  I turned him down.  Not that I didn’t need $5,000.  It would have come in very hand.  But I wasn’t going to lose a six figure price which I believed I could get eventually, in order to get $5,000, now, thanks very much.   ( Of course, I was also a little encouraged that the geologist wanted it; they’re the ones who develop the theory about what’s under the land.  He thought something was.  I didn’t care whether it was oil, gas or urananium….or even gold or lollipops….as long as someone paid for it.)

How do you find a motivated buyer?

A truly motivated buyer will find you. Otherwise, you need to keep abreast of your industry. Read everything.  Know the players.  Know which other businesses have an eye on expansion and with whom your business would be a good fit.

How do you get the best price?

Competition. One day I woke up and someone was knocking on my door wanting that lease. Times had changed.  Suddenly the property was hot again.  In fact, suddenly two companies wanted it. And the next thing I knew there was a bidding war in the hall way and the price went up an additional six figures in a minute or two while I stood there trying not to smile too much. After I had the incredible luxury of selecting the lucky buyer, we walked over to his hotel room to fill in the contract, sign it and I picked up my check.

It’s good to start thinking now about all this because, someday you will have to sell your company, unless someone in your family will run it or be responsible for someone else running it.

But, the main consideration for you right now, in this bear market, is to maintain enough cash to survive.  That will guarantee that you can sell when you want to, not when you have to. That’s when you can toss away valuations like bizequity, because your business will be worth whatever it is someone is willing to pay for it, when times are rosy and their hopes are high.

Just to give you a heads up, let me tell you what Bram’s five are:

1. Discipline: … To build an idea into a business, you have to have the discipline to spend time slogging through the least fun parts of running a business (like the bookkeeping), rather than taking that time to do something fun.
2. Calm: ..A good entrepreneur must have the ability to keep his cool in an emergency or crisis. It may not make the problem easier to solve, but it certainly won’t make it harder. If an entrepreneur can handle failure without frustration or anger, he can move past it to find success.
3. Attention to Detail: Restricting your attention to the big picture can be even more problematic than ’sweating the small stuff.’ It’s attention to detail that can make a small business successful when it has competition and it’s attention to detail that can keep costs down.
4. Risk Tolerance: No entrepreneur has a sure thing, no matter how much money he stands to earn on a given product.  An entrepreneur has to be willing to accept pretty big risks, with some level of comfort.
5. Balance:  Just as an entrepreneur doesn’t have a boss to keep him at work when necessary, he doesn’t have one to send him home when he’s done. If you are working for yourself, you have to decide how to balance your work and home life — and if you have a day job to add into the equation, balance just gets more complicated.

I would not quarrel with author Bram that these characteristics are all good to have, in one degree or another.  But in my personal experience…and I have a lot of it…. all of these are not necessarily the characteristics of a successful entrepreneur.

First, let me define “successful entrepreneur.”  I think of a successful entrepreneur as one who develops a successful business.  And what I’ve seen…. or experienced…is this:

Entrepreneurs don’t have so much discipline as drive. They are so determined to do this they will plow through a brick wall or over, under or around it, until they find a way past it.

Entrepreneurs may or may not be the calmest people. Often not.  Because entrepreneurs are fixated on their goal and deeply invested in it, emotionally as well as monetarily, they may well have a tantrum or two when things go wrong, but will not skip a beat before plowing forward anyway.

Detail?  Not so much. To the extent that one particular thing generates or costs money, entrepreneurs can be the most focused people in the world. There are some who are in lines of work where mastery of detail is an absolute requirement, and they are temperamentally attuned to it. But for many entrepreneurs, and as far as what most people consider detail, entrepreneurs generally don’t care if the waste basket is on fire, if it doesn’t affect their bottom line. Someone else can fetch the water pail.

Balance?  Never met an entrepreneur with a lot of balance. Most are workaholics or restrained/recovering workaholics. Some may be more balanced now, probably after a relationship or two has headed South. They work with themselves constantly to try not to let their newest venture overtake their entire life. But their latest venture is always somewhat of an obsession so it’s a challenging juggling act.

Risk.  This is the key.   Study after study has shown that entrepreneurs come in all different shapes and sizes with all different types of characteristics.  Some plan in exquisite detail; others fly by the seat of their pants. Some are disciplined; others are wildly undisciplined ( although they may have teamed up with a disciplined partner who will compensate for that.)   But the one characteristic that all successful entrepreneurs have is the willingness to take risks. We all agree, as Bram says:”Even if a product tests well, the market can change, the warehouse can burn down and a whole slew of other misfortune can befall a small business. It’s absolutely risky to run a business of your own.”

Well, yes, we know that.  But a true entrepreneur develops an ability to focus like an Indian fire walker.  It is not so much calm in the face of crisis, as the ability to focus on eventual success and therefore on the next step and how to get through the immediate firestorm.  An entrepreneur plays the odds, like a poker player.  He or she knows that if she has a good concept, does a few things, but the right things well, she will likely win in the end.  With that inner confidence, the entrepreneur holds the possibility of failure at bay, views crises as minor bumps in the road and puts in all her chips, betting on the final outcome.

It’s that ability to take risks that is the hallmark of an entrepreneur,

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Entrepreneuring can be a pretty challenging business so it’s good to have some support, particularly from someone who’s done it many times.

This is how Godin starts off his manifesto ( which he is giving away free for only a few weeks. It’s well worth the read, plus it’s pretty inspirational if you’re testing the waters to start a business.)  The rest of Godin’s manifesto goes on to explain these and some other points he makes in the beginning.

TAPE THIS TO YOUR BATHROOM MIRROR AND
READ IT OUT LOUD EVERY NIGHT BEFORE YOU GO TO BED:

• I am a bootstrapper. I have initiative and insight and guts, but not much money. I will succeed because my efforts and my focus will defeat bigger and better-funded competitors.
• I am fearless. I keep my focus on growing the business—not on politics, career advancement, or other wasteful distractions.
• I will leverage my skills to become the key to every department of my company, yet realizethat hiring experts can be the secret to my success. I will be a fervent and intelligent userof technology, to conserve my two most precious assets: time and money.
• My secret weapon is knowing how to cut through bureaucracy. My size makes me faster and more nimble than any company could ever be.
• I am a laser beam. Opportunities will try to cloud my focus, but I will not waver from my stated goal and plan—until I change it. And I know that plans were made to be changed.
• I’m in it for the long haul. Building a business that will last separates me from the opportunist, and is an investment in my brand and my future. Surviving is succeeding, and each day that goes by makes it easier still for me to reach my goals.

Most of all, I’ll remember that the journey is the reward. I will learn and grow and enjoy every single day.

To download the entire pdf document, go to Seth Godin’s “Bootstrapper’s Bible” .

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