I first met Matt Hiles while he was director of business development with Looking Glass Networks in Los Angeles. As a customer looking for telecom services, navigating the providers, technologies, and deal structures can be confusing. Matt took the time to explain all aspects of the business, cost structures, and how he would get us a great deal – while still making money for his company. Matt stood out alone from a world of “wheeling and dealing” telecom sales people, unique in providing the customer a level of confidence they were getting the best product, for the best price, with the best service.

Pacific-Tier: Today we have Matt Hiles, managing partner with Mosaic Networx. Hello Matt! So tell us a little about yourself, how did you get into this business?

Matt Hiles: I started in telecommunications right out of college, and I’ve been in the business, in one form or another, since – which is about 20 years. I’ve been in a variety of telecommunications, voice, and service providers. I’ve also spent a period of time in the data center side of the industry as well.

Pacific-Tier: now you are with Mosaic Networx. Can you give a little background on Mosaic. What are you, what do you do, and what type of business problems do you solve?

Matt Hiles: Mosaic Networx is a carrier neutral, data services provider. We provide a supply chain management service primarily for enterprise companies, but secondarily to wholesale providers and telecommunications providers. From a supply chain management perspective we provide a value add in three functional areas which are pricing, procurement, and provisioning.

What we’ve found is that, in the enterprise space, there is a lack, or need in one of those areas. Typically all of those areas. Where enterprise decision-makers and IT managers don’t have the depth and breadth of knowledge of the telecommunications providers and options that are available.

So we price them, then procure them, provision them, and then manage them ongoing on the back end.

Pacific-Tier: Well, that’s pretty cool. So who is your market, who would be your customer?

Matt Hiles: Our customers are small, medium, and we even have several Fortune 500 companies. We have a strong vertical in the financial services market. Specifically we work with the low-latency, high frequency trading guys. We’ve also worked with public wholesale companies who may not have the buying power we have, so we add some pricing value for those types.

Pacific-Tier: I’ve noticed you are based in Long Beach, California. Other people in your company are scattered around the United States, with diverse locations for your primary management team – does that provide you any challenges?

Matt Hiles: I imagine it provides some challenge, although It would be hard to quantify them. We haven’t really seen them. I think where we’ve done an outstanding job in is finding the right people.

We have 18 personnel in the functional areas in the company, whether its finance or operations, or on the sales side as well. So the distributed environment that we have seems to work out just fine.

Would we have a little bit more camaraderie in a common office? Probably.

Pacific-Tier: So it’s rather tough economic time right now. We’ve had kind of a sketchy run over the last year. What motivated you to start up a company in the last year or so and how do you feel about being an entrepreneur in a tough economic environment?

Matt Hiles: So, I suppose that timings everything, right? We didn’t know we would start a company in a tough economic period. But, the economy notwithstanding , I think there is always business. And for innovative entrepreneurs who can go out and create value for customers, provide them an outstanding customer experience, then good or bad times I think you can be successful.

Pacific-Tier: So what advice do you have for other entrepreneurs, graduates who are looking at a tough economy, what advice do you have for other budding visionaries and entrepreneurs?

Matt Hiles: I think you have to have an expertise. It doesn’t make a lot of sense in my mind to venture into an area as an entrepreneur where you don’t have years of background and can consider yourself a subject-matter expert. I think that is (not being a subject-matter expert) a recipe for disappointment.

But somebody who has spent their time in a corporate environment, learning an area, and then able to translate that into, you know, a startup environment, then I’d encourage them to be entrepreneurs, and entrepreneur owners.

Pacific-Tier: That’s great advice. Give a little pitch for you company. Where do we find you?

Matt Hiles: You can find our company at Mosaic Networx, and the domain is mosaicnetworx.com . if you would like to reach us we’d be happy to hear from you.

Pacific-Tier: Thank you very much for the time!

WASHINGTON — Suddenly the Federal Reserve is everybody’s punching bag.

Strip the Fed of its bank regulation powers, some in Congress are demanding. Get probing audits of its behind-the-scenes operations, others say.

The chairman of the Federal Reserve Board is always fair game for criticism and second-guessing, usually over interest rate actions. But this year the criticism is much broader as Congress responds to widespread public anger that the Fed bailed out Wall Street but not ordinary Americans, and with unemployment in double digits.

Former Fed chairman William McChesney Martin Jr. famously said that the central bank’s job was to yank away the punchbowl just when everybody is starting to party. And while Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has signalled the Fed will keep interest rates low for now, a round of higher rates inevitably will come.

The Fed finds itself both the punchbowl keeper and the punching bag. Imagine the outcry when it does begin to crank up rates â?? perhaps just ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

Fireworks seem likely at Senate confirmation hearings early next month on President Barack Obama’s nomination of Bernanke to a second four-year term as chairman.

Many economists and Fed watchers say congressional efforts to rein in the Fed’s powers could interfere with the central bank’s ability to help guide the fragile economy to recovery.

The Fed’s very independence and its unique ability among U.S. institutions to create money out of thin air enabled it to act quickly to stabilize the nation’s financial system after it froze up last September after the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers investment house, Fed backers say.

“It might have been the Fed’s finest moment when it had to jump into the market,” said David M. Jones, a former Fed economist and president of DMJ Advisors, a Denver-based consulting firm. “We still have to wait to see how effective the Fed is in its exit strategy and whether it can keep inflation in check. But this badgering by Congress, even if there is populist sentiment, is inappropriate.”

The Fed’s aggressive intervention also set the stage for the current criticism. Many lawmakers question whether the Fed’s money machine has mainly benefited financial markets and not the broader economy. Lamakers are also peeved that the central bank acted without congressional involvement when it brokered the 2008 sale of failed investment bank Bear Stearns and engineered the rescue of insurer American International Group.

Bernanke, first appointed by President George W. Bush, has worked closely with both Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in confronting the worst financial crisis in decades. Geithner also has gotten his share of congressional wrath, mainly for his administering of the $700 billion bank bailout fund.

“In the past, the Federal Reserve was held in very high esteem,” said Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, a libertarian who ran a quixotic third-party presidential campaign in 2008. Now, it’s “the source of our problem,” suggests Paul, author of the bestseller “End the Fed.”

Usually an outlier, Paul suddenly has found an army of at least 307 House colleagues and 30 senators marching behind his legislation to subject the Fed to intense scrutiny by Congress’ Government Accountability Office. The House Financial Services Committee endorsed Paul’s approach 43-26 last week over objections from its chairman, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.

The bill would authorize Congress to audit not only the Fed’s lending programs but its basic decisions to set monetary policy by raising or lowering interest rates. Paul has been introducing a version every year since the early 1980s, but this is the first time it has garnered any serious attention.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn., who will preside over Bernanke’s confirmation hearings, has proposed legislation that would strip the Fed of its bank-regulation authority and give the Senate a role in selecting the 12 regional Federal Reserve bank presidents.

Dodd says his measure would return the Fed to its core mission of setting monetary policy, claiming it proved itself “an abysmal failure” by not cracking down on risky lending practices that led to the financial meltdown.

Dodd is in an extremely tight battle for re-election, even though he has served in Congress for 35 years.

“I don’t think it ever hurts to have a member of Congress stand up and denounce the Fed. There is a lot of anger out there, and this is basically a therapeutic gesture,” said Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University.

Still, Baker said, it probably isn’t wise to tamper with the formula that makes the Fed “very much an anomaly in American government. It’s independent, it has to be. You don’t want the Fed to be under the control of the president. And it kind of sits out there — not in the executive branch, not in the legislative branch, not in the judicial branch. Sort of its own little element in the separation-of-powers constellation.”

While the Fed is subject to some congressional oversight, its decisions don’t have to be ratified by the president or Congress. Fed officials are not paid with money appropriated by Congress.

Should Bernanke be worried?

“Not only should he be worried, he’s clearly ratcheted up his game in terms of his communications with Congress,” said Norman Ornstein, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Ornstein said the Fed bashing this time is different from before, with “a broader base of support. And it’s coming from people who in the past would not have hit the Fed. There’s a lot of populist anger out there — on the left, in the center, and on the right. And politicians are responsive to that.”

Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee

Monday, November 23, 2009 1:51 PM

A page one, top-of-the-fold New York Times report Monday warns that U.S. debt is rising so fast that the federal government is careening toward a “payment shock” in the not-too-distant future.

The Times lead headline read: “Federal Government Faces Balloon in Debt Payments: At $700 Billion a Year, Cost Will Top Budgets for 2 Wars, Education, Energy.”

The Times headline appears eerie just as the Senate moves to push forward on a radical healthcare reform — with CBO estimates for a final bill costing nearly $1 trillion dollars over the next year.

The national debt now stands at over $12 trillion and the White House estimates that the cost of servicing the debt will rise to more than $700 billion a year in 2019, up from $202 billion this year. The Times suggests that $700 billion annual payment cost may be conservative.

The additional $500 billion a year in interest payments would surpass the combined budgets this year for education, energy, homeland security, plus the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Times observes.

Treasury officials face not only huge new debts incurred in response to the economic meltdown but a balloon of short-term borrowings coming due in the months ahead, and interest rates that are certain to return to normal levels when the Federal Reserve concludes that the fiscal emergency has passed.

Link to Article

Debido a los efectos dejados por crisis financiera, las transacciones del país con la zona descendieron cerca del 35%.
De acuerdo con estadísticas de ProMéxico, el comercio entre dicho país y Sudamérica cayó 34.61% durante el primer semestre de este año, en comparación con el mismo periodo de 2008, y es la primera que ocurre desde la década pasada tras una sostenida expansión.

Cae comercio entre México y Sudamérica

Según la promotora mexicana de comercio exterior, el intercambio llegó a US$12,390 millones en el periodo enero-junio de 2008, mientras que en el mismo lapso de este año se desplomó a US$8,101 millones.

El desplome se originó por la fuerte baja de la demanda, la baja de precios de algunas materias primas, las dificultades de financiamiento y el comportamiento procíclico de los flujos de comercio intrarregional.

Los tres países sudamericanos que experimentaron una mayor caída en su comercio con México durante el primer semestre del año son Perú, con una baja de 48.24%; Chile, con 46.33% y Venezuela, con 41.6%.

Chile, que en los últimos años se consolidó como el segundo socio comercial de México en Sudamérica, sólo después de Brasil, fue desplazado por Colombia, que registró un intercambio de US$1,449 millones con México.

Las caídas más moderadas se registraron en los intercambios con Colombia y Argentina, con bajas de 24.69% y 22.34%, de manera respectiva, en el comercio con México.

El desplome del comercio entre México y Sudamérica se registra en el contexto de una severa crisis económica global que provocó una caída del 37.2% en los intercambios comerciales a nivel mundial entre enero y mayo pasados, según un reporte de la Cepal.

Fuente: Altonivel.com.mx
www.altonivel.com.mx

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México registra recuperación en comercio mundial: SHCP

By Jeff Clark
Stowe, Vermont

“There’s no doubt in my mind that we’ll have a mania in gold. And because the gold and especially silver markets are so tiny, the rush into them will be like trying to push the contents of Hoover Dam through a garden hose. Our positions will go absolutely ballistic.” – Doug Casey, September 2009

There’s certain to be a rush into gold and silver, and buying before Main Street catches gold fever is the only way to play this trend. Because when Midas fever hits, prices will explode to the upside, for both the metals and the stocks. How do we know that?

First, let’s look at gold. If we added up all the gold ever mined on the planet, its total value would equal no more than $5 trillion at today’s prices. Yet, look at how this compares to the debt and bailouts and other monetary mischief of current governments…

Let’s make this chart very clear. Of the $5 trillion in gold ever mined…

• The US government has thrown over twice as much at the economy in the past 12 months.
• The US debt is more than double this amount so far this year.
• Total global government bailouts are almost four times larger (and this is a conservative figure; one estimate puts it at $24 trillion).

I intended to include annual gold production as one of the comparisons, but the chart isn’t big enough and neither is your monitor: 2008’s global gold production equaled about $73 billion, and to make that figure discernable on the chart would require the Global Bailouts bar to hit the ceiling above your head. That’s how small the gold market is.

The implications are undeniable: when the greater public rushes into gold – whether in response to inflation, dollar woes, war, whatever – the price will be forced up by an order of magnitude.

While physical gold will protect our wealth, it’s the gold stocks that can potentially make us wealthy.

Once again, to get a sense of the Lilliputian size of the gold industry, I compared it to several other leading industries and stocks.

The value, as measured by market capitalization, of all gold producers around the world is less than Wal-Mart’s. Every gold stock would need to nearly double just for the industry to match ExxonMobil. The oil and gas industry is about 12 times bigger.

When your neighbors and relatives and co-workers and friends all start clamoring to buy gold stocks, the pressure on prices will be enormous, rocketing our positions upwards.

Meanwhile – and admitting we’re first and foremost gold bugs – the picture for silver is even more dramatic. The potential for silver stocks is jaw dropping.

If the gold industry is tiny, then silver’s $9 billion market cap makes it a nano industry. The entire silver industry is over 21 times smaller than gold’s! If gold explodes, silver will go supernova.

Consider these macro-facts about a micro-market and what they reveal about silver’s enormous potential:

• There are over 200 companies in the S&P 500 with a market cap larger than the entire market of silver producers.
• There are five times more gold stocks than silver.
• Total silver production in 2008 was valued around $10.3 billion (at today’s prices). That represents just 1.5% of the $700 billion bailout last year, and 0.006% of the current US monetary base.
• Of the 20 largest silver producers, only five actually call themselves a “silver” company, due to the fact that about 73% of all silver mined is a byproduct of other metals mining.

Any flood into the silver market would overwhelm it. In other words, the rise will be stunning. While it’s not going to happen tomorrow, I strongly suggest you get on board before that rocket ship takes off.

Just putting these charts together stirred my feelings of restlessness, making me anxious for the mania in precious metals to arrive. But the timing is not up to us. Be patient, because if you’re invested in gold and silver and the respective, high-quality stocks, you’re on the right side of this trend.

Regards,

Jeff Clark
Senior Editor, Casey’s Gold & Resource Report
for The Daily Reckoning
By Jeff Clark
Stowe, Vermont

“There’s no doubt in my mind that we’ll have a mania in gold. And because the gold and especially silver markets are so tiny, the rush into them will be like trying to push the contents of Hoover Dam through a garden hose. Our positions will go absolutely ballistic.” – Doug Casey, September 2009

There’s certain to be a rush into gold and silver, and buying before Main Street catches gold fever is the only way to play this trend. Because when Midas fever hits, prices will explode to the upside, for both the metals and the stocks. How do we know that?

First, let’s look at gold. If we added up all the gold ever mined on the planet, its total value would equal no more than $5 trillion at today’s prices. Yet, look at how this compares to the debt and bailouts and other monetary mischief of current governments…

Let’s make this chart very clear. Of the $5 trillion in gold ever mined…

• The US government has thrown over twice as much at the economy in the past 12 months.
• The US debt is more than double this amount so far this year.
• Total global government bailouts are almost four times larger (and this is a conservative figure; one estimate puts it at $24 trillion).

I intended to include annual gold production as one of the comparisons, but the chart isn’t big enough and neither is your monitor: 2008’s global gold production equaled about $73 billion, and to make that figure discernable on the chart would require the Global Bailouts bar to hit the ceiling above your head. That’s how small the gold market is.

The implications are undeniable: when the greater public rushes into gold – whether in response to inflation, dollar woes, war, whatever – the price will be forced up by an order of magnitude.

While physical gold will protect our wealth, it’s the gold stocks that can potentially make us wealthy.

Once again, to get a sense of the Lilliputian size of the gold industry, I compared it to several other leading industries and stocks.

The value, as measured by market capitalization, of all gold producers around the world is less than Wal-Mart’s. Every gold stock would need to nearly double just for the industry to match ExxonMobil. The oil and gas industry is about 12 times bigger.

When your neighbors and relatives and co-workers and friends all start clamoring to buy gold stocks, the pressure on prices will be enormous, rocketing our positions upwards.

Meanwhile – and admitting we’re first and foremost gold bugs – the picture for silver is even more dramatic. The potential for silver stocks is jaw dropping.

If the gold industry is tiny, then silver’s $9 billion market cap makes it a nano industry. The entire silver industry is over 21 times smaller than gold’s! If gold explodes, silver will go supernova.

Consider these macro-facts about a micro-market and what they reveal about silver’s enormous potential:

• There are over 200 companies in the S&P 500 with a market cap larger than the entire market of silver producers.
• There are five times more gold stocks than silver.
• Total silver production in 2008 was valued around $10.3 billion (at today’s prices). That represents just 1.5% of the $700 billion bailout last year, and 0.006% of the current US monetary base.
• Of the 20 largest silver producers, only five actually call themselves a “silver” company, due to the fact that about 73% of all silver mined is a byproduct of other metals mining.

Any flood into the silver market would overwhelm it. In other words, the rise will be stunning. While it’s not going to happen tomorrow, I strongly suggest you get on board before that rocket ship takes off.

Just putting these charts together stirred my feelings of restlessness, making me anxious for the mania in precious metals to arrive. But the timing is not up to us. Be patient, because if you’re invested in gold and silver and the respective, high-quality stocks, you’re on the right side of this trend.

Regards,

Jeff Clark
Senior Editor, Casey’s Gold & Resource Report
for The Daily Reckoning

By Stephen C. Webster
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 — 9:50 pm

As the number of problem U.S. banks swells to the hundreds, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is increasingly hard-pressed to fill in the gaps where institutions have put depositor’s funds at risk.

Unfortunately, a dire prediction made by government officials in early 2009 has come true: the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund is now broke, according to published reports.

“The deposit insurance fund dropped by $18.6 billion during the third quarter of 2009 to negative $8.2 billion, as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. set aside $21.7 billion in provisions for additional bank failures,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “This is the second time in the agency’s history that the balance has fallen into negative territory.”

In March the FDIC took steps to stave off the possibility that its insurance fund would run dry, instituting new fees on banks, forcing them to pay to protect consumers.

The head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Sheila Bair, wrote to bank leaders declaring that “without these assessments, the deposit insurance fund could become insolvent this year.”

According to the FDIC’s most recent quarterly report, there were 552 “problem” banking institutions in the U.S., the most since the end of 1993.

“In its state of the industry report, the F.D.I.C. reported that banks posted a $2.8 billion gain in the third quarter, after a $4.3 billion loss in the previous period,” The New York Times reported. “The number of bad loans of nearly every stripe — credit cards, mortgages, small business and commercial real estate — continue to grow, albeit at a slower pace.”

BizJournals added: “Fifty institutions failed during the third quarter, bringing the total number of failures in the first nine months of 2009 to 95. As of Nov. 21, 124 banks have failed nationwide.”

“The FDIC has not yet accessed a temporary $500 billion fund of capital it has available to it from Treasury for the insurance fund,” Marketwatch notd. “The FDIC estimates that bank failures will cost the agency as much as $100 billion over the next five years, with the majority of the losses taking place in 2009 and 2010. The agency may require banks to pay additional assessments to cover losses to the fund if bank failures expand in greater numbers than anticipated by the agency.”

When banks insured by the FDIC are seized or declare bankruptcy, the agency returns depositors’ funds up to $250,000.

Read the FDIC’s full Q3 2009 report [PDF link].

With AFP.

An earlier version of this report said the FDIC insures depositors’ funds up to $100,000. The government-run agency expanded its coverage for consumers from $100,000 to $250,000 in 2008. President Obama further extended the additional cushion until the end of 2013.

Nov. 24, 2009 at 2:49pm

Commercial banks and savings institutions insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) reported aggregate net income of $2.8 billion in the third quarter of 2009. Earnings were more than three times what was reported a year earlier and an improvement over the industry’s $4.3 billion net loss in the second quarter 2009.

In contrast, outstanding loan balances declined by the largest percentage since quarterly reporting began in 1984.
“There is no question that credit availability is an important issue for the economic recovery. We need to see banks making more loans to their business customers,” said agency Chairman Sheila Bair. “This is especially true for small businesses that rely on FDIC-insured institutions to provide over 60 percent of the credit they use.”

Total loans and leases declined by $210.4 billion (2.8 percent) during the quarter. Loans to commercial and industrial borrowers declined 6.5 percent, and real estate construction and development loans declined by $43.6 billion (8.1 percent).

The number of institutions on the FDIC’s “Problem List” rose to its highest level in 16 years. At the end of September, there were 552 insured institutions listed, up from 416 on June 30th.

The complete Quarterly Banking Profile is available on the FDIC Web site.

After a successful business trip to see a client in Newquay yesterday, I took the chance to sit back on the plane home and read Growing Business magazine – a publication I have recently subscribed to, but not managed to get round to reading.

The strap line of the publication uses is ‘Energising Entrepreneurs’, and it certainly did that!

It can be lonely being an entrepreneur, whether it is just you, or even if you employ a small/large team. You have questions about expansion, getting turnover from X to Y, marketing, IT, mentoring?

Who can I talk to?

Some of the comments made by the contributors rang true – I recognised a lot of them from questions client’s of Paper Mountain Solutions ask.

The head line article in this month’s publication is on Matthew Riley of Daisy Group plc who hit the nail on the head, which is partly why the business has been scalable so quickly:
“We incorporated the company in February and didn’t start trading until the following September. I realised we needed to do our housekeeping first.

If you haven’t got the back office, the standards and processes in place, its just to fall off at the other end.”

This is exactly what Paper Mountain Solutions does by providing clients with an outsourcing solution to this back office function.

I also like Riley’s comments on mentoring – he has the fortune to call up on Sir Philip Green after securing finance following winning the 2007 Bank of Scotland Entrepreneur Challenge.

Riley is not the only entrepreneur to make reference about the fact that is incredibly useful to have someone you can bounce ideas off in the publication. This comes back to my original point about it being lonely being an entrepreneur – many of Paper Mountain Solutions‘ clients phone up for a ‘chat’ about ideas – they bounce information off us to help with strategic decisions.

If as an entrepreneur you need some energising, check out Growing Business. It is now on my monthly list of must reads!

Follow Paul on twitter at paul_smalley

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Nobu, a Mayflower student, entrepreneur, and sanshin player, talks about the importance of music in his life!

Hello everyone! My name’s Nobu.

I’m friends with Ted, one of Mayflower’s directors. He and I studied entrepreneurship at business school together. I decided to join Mayflower because I would like to support Ted’s taking a step forward, towards his dream. I also sympathize with Mayflower’s educational policy, one important aspect of which challenges me to study entrepreneurship through English.

Quite simply, I must improve my English, because I am involved in a business which requires me to use English. Through my studies here at Mayflower, I am gradually becoming more interested in English culture. Right now, I cannot say what I feel freely in English, but this is changing slowly.

OK, now let’s get down to business!

Have you seen Michael Jackson’s movie “THIS IS IT”? Well, I did! And I was knocked out by Michael’s performance! So today, I would like to share my fascination of music with you through my own performance. I know what you’re thinking…I may not look like the King of Pop, or even a musician, but actually, I like playing the piano and writing songs, and I always want to share my compositions with others.

Although there are good services such as MySpace, which give amateurs an opportunity to introduce their songs to the world, I thought it was too late in my life for me to make a band, and that I couldn’t make music by myself.

Well, last year, I was asked out of the blue by an old friend from high school to play together (piano and guitar) at a music event in Kanda which took place on a shopping street. Now I’ve already done that kind of performance three times since the end of last year. Amazing!

Through those musical performances, I gradually began to enjoy having a relationship with people through music.

Of course, my first performance was not quite as sweet as I pictured it would be. I couldn’t keep the tempo, and I forgot to play some parts. In fact, I was really disappointed at my performance. And that’s not all, the atmosphere of audience looked a little too heavy, because I failed to capture their attention with my floundering.

But did I give up? Not on your life! Let me tell you what I did to overcome my problem.

I realized that confidence and relaxation are a must! So I arranged a cover song in a way that was easier than the original, and I composed a simple song of my own using a similar chord progression on the “A section”, and the main phrases. Then, I learned it by heart.

Well, because of my efforts, I believe I had some kind of breakthrough at the second performance, because the organizer told me and my friend that our performance had improved, and some audience even clapped their hands during the performance. That felt great!

At that time, I understood that I feel more relaxed if somebody helps me or supports me. So I invited 10 friends of mine to the third performance, which turned out to be around half of the audience!

Through my performances, I realized that getting some feedback about my compositions from my friends is a really satisfying feeling. They said lots of great, supportive things — that I could make fresh pop songs like YUZU, and that my main phrases were catchy — so because of those comments, I slowly started to have confidence in my skill as a composer.

On top of that, doing more performances meant having more opportunities to have relationship swith people through music. For example, other performers invited us to perform together with them in the future, and my friend invited me to join an event that he was holding featuring sansin performances.

Don’t you think its exciting when what you love creates bigger chances to work with others? In this case, taking a step forward means boldly knocking on a door that you have never opened before.

I encourage all of you to try doing what you want, and try say what you like! Life is all about introducing new worlds, and new experiences to each other! And I think that’s exactly what we are doing together here at Mayflower.

Thank you for your attention!

[After the Q&A session, Nobu gave the Mayflower audience a fun performance on his sanshin! Thanks, Nobu.]

I have been writing a business plan since 2003 to participate in the LiveWIRE business plan awards. I won the grand prize for the livewire participant category in 2006/2007. I have also participated in the think big business plan competition. Considering I am going to submit another business plan, I thought it would be appropriate for me to share what I know. For starters I’ll just share the purpose and the structure of a business plan. I’ll cover other topics some other time.

As a disclaimer, I am not an academic business student. I do not have a degree in business or administration. I studied mathematics and science. My knowledge of business plans or business is from reading books, internet resources, participating in courses, competitions, and doing business.

First thing before writing a business plan… Choosing a business idea. Your Business Ideas should have 3 main criteria:

• Something you love to do (Passion)
• Something your good at or you know a lot about (Skill)
• Something that you can make money (Market)

You have to have all 3 or else it won’t last long. Don’ t care about how much it would cost to startup, because if you have all three, you won’t have problems that you can’t handle.

There a lot of purposes to creating a business plan, among them are:

• to put ideas from inside your head on paper, then you can start organizing ideas in concept maps or stages, so that you know what you need to do to start and see what else is missing.
• as a road map to a startup business, or  an ongoing business.
• to present to partners, investors and bankers for financing purposes.
• to present to your company or employees to share with them their part or purpose in the whole picture.
• or to join a competition.

The Structure of a Business Plan Varies, but most academic books would show it as follows:

1. Executive Summary – This is the first part read, but often the last part written. This is the movie preview. Most judges, bankers, or investors may not have the luxury to read the whole business plan. So make sure this part makes the reader want to read more.
2. About the Company – Here is where people describe their business. starting with the Mission and objectives. if it is an ongoing business, write about the milestones and achievements. If it is a startup then write about the planned milestones and also the startup costs.
3. Products or Service – Describe the products or service. How is it different or unique to everything else in the market, or how does it solve a problem. Recently, here is where people would put how their product and service cannot be duplicated easily. i.e. the use of intellectual property.
4. Market and Industry Analysis – Describe who would be interested in your product. Never say everyone, because it rarely ever is. Write up the market segmentation – age group, gender, occupation, geographical location, etc. Describe your competitors, what do they do and how you are different. Here is where you would use SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats) Analysis to see the things that your company does compared to others. Write up what the market factors that will lead to your success in terms of Political, Economical, Social, and Technology (PEST)
5. Market Strategy – Describe how you would reach the aforementioned target. What medium of marketing and advertising you would use, and when you would use it. It would be nice to be able to put marketing calendar and budget at this point.
6. Human Resources/Organization Strategy – Describe who are the people who would be working in the company. Show the organization structure, The positions roles and responsibilities. If you have people working with you then write up a brief description of them. If not, then the qualities and the qualifications required of those position.
7. Operations Strategy and Business Model – Describe how the company is going to be operated, and how it makes money.
8. Financial Analysis – Show the calculation of money going in and going out in terms of Startup Costs, Sales forecast, Profit and Loss, Cash flow forecast, Balance Sheet and Break even analysis.
9. Future Plans/Exit Strategy – Describe what the company will do in the future – Expanded, be bought and sold, become public, etc.

I will be covering some of this topics in future posts. Previously, I have had the pleasure of facilitating a Business writing Workshop at the LiveWIRE Business Plan Series. The following is the facebook photo album of the workshop. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=102586&id=550578077&l=e876bd84c4

Other Resources that you might be interested in:

-search for business plan in:

• http://www.google.com
• http://www.howstuffworks.com/business-plans.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_plan

-check resources in:

• http://www.bplans.com
• http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com

-read books

• Kiyosaki – “Guide to investing”. The first part of the books he explains about business systems.
• Michael e. Gerber – “e-myth”. This book is about how to work on business and not stuck in business.
• Business plan for dummies or idiots. Hey, its a simple guide.

-Courses:

• iCentre
• LiveWIRE Brunei
• Entrepreneurial Development Centre

If you’re like me, then the holidays are the only time you have to dig out the neurons covered in dust that have been on sabbatical while you:

-         Herd cats

-         Deal with other mammals in your life

-         Follow your own grandiose visions

So, I am using this post to share some of my favorite “get your act together” tools I use for “dealing” on a daily basis. Keep in mind, I am a busy, quasi-stressed out mom, entrepreneur, and colossal nerd.

THINGS I USE TO DEAL ON A DAILY BASIS

1. www.FitDay.com – My favorite free health tool
2. www.Mint.com – A free finance tool
3. www.Doodle.com – Easy group scheduling tool (see “cat herding” above)
4. www.GoogleDocs.com – I use an excel sheet in Google Docs to manage my team, some of whom are virtual. Love it.
5. www.PollDaddy.com – Polls are a great. I really like them. The fact that they are free makes them even better. You can use Google Forms as well.
6. www.EventBrite.com – This was introduced to me by the guys at iStrategyLabs. Use it for your real life events or virtual seminars. You will see why.
7. 1888PressRelease.com – Good stuff. I always like things that give you reach you don’t deserve because you have no money. But, we can’t let that stop us!
8. www.TwitterAnalyzer.com – gives me good stats I can share with the guys in my department and let them know I’m not TOTALLY wasting time.
9. www.SlimTimer.com – It’s like you’re back in high school with your mom telling you to get your homework done. Love it.
10. Six O’Clock Scramble – Healthy meals in 30 minutes. I’m sure I would use this if I cooked. Okay, also, this is not business. But, you gotta cook, right? And if you spend 30 less minutes on cooking, then that’s 30 more minutes for your business.

What tools are you thankful for (more like the above, and less like – uh – a jack hammer). Or, as my aunt and dad and other erudite folks might correct me, “For what tools are you thankful?”

THINGS THAT ARE HIGHLY ANNOYING.

I have just read this blog, and am feeling quite snarky now. I am less thankful for the following:

• Trump Network on Twitter– How did Trump let this happen to his name?
• The “make cash at home” people
• The “make money on Google” people
• The “you can earn money on Twitter” people
• When I am looking for a document on my computer and click through like six windows, and then do that every time I need to find a document, several times a day, for years.

IF YOU DON’T LAUGH, YOU’LL CRY

It is important to laugh, because if you don’t laugh you’ll cry. Here are some of my favorite sites right now. These are only for people with sick senses of humor. If you are “normal,” don’t bother.

1. @darthvader – That’s right, you heard me.
2. Does this Blog Make Us Look Fat?
3. The Bloggess
4. The Onion

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and don’t forget to nominate the dynamic women in your life (over 18) as a role model for the Hot Mommas Project 2010 case competition. We make everyday women’s stories teachable to help the next generation. Email us with your nomination including name, contact, and reason for nomination.

Related links:

Why Mentoring Matters for Girls and Women – and How to Be Part of the Solution

My Interview on Washington Business Tonight on “Hibernating for Business” (Windows Media Player Needed)

Customer development methodology

Good product manager bad product manager

Customer development process

Minimum Viable Product

Project rifle

Research writing methodology

Conducting market research

Dan Kennedy’s Worst Nightmare

A two man show will never allow your company to break the billion dollar mark.

Hey you,

It’s #2.

Today, Thanksgiving here in the United States, I wanted to give you a gift of yet another one of the 18 modules that make up Yanik Silver’s latest “Underground Online Seminar.”

This actually has none of the super technical internet stuff in it.  It’s just 10 pages of  Tony Hsieh – of Zappos.com Fame, talking about what it takes to go From Zero, and Purely On The Backbone Of Customer Service, Break The Billion Dollar Mark Like He Did With His Company Last Year.

Tony Hsieh is ALL about optimizing the experience his customers get.  And because he’s got 9.9 million customers, he has a shit load of employees.  This is Dan Kennedy’s worst nightmare.

One employee is almost too many for Dan.  Tony’s got way more than that and if you want huge results like him, you’re really gonna love what he’s got to say…

1.1 Delivering Happiness

1.1.1 He’s re-framed “customer service department” as “Customer Loyalty Team”

1.1.2 He started his entrepreneurial path in college selling pizzas on the ground floor of his college dorm

His current COO/CFO Alfred, was there at the time also.  He was Tony’s #1 customer.  He would come by and buy one or two large pizza’s.  Several years later, Tony found out he was taking the pizzas upstairs and selling them off by the slice.

1.1.3 Background

1996-1998: He started LinkExchange (online ads) and sold it to Microsoft for $265 million

1999:  Started investment company called Venture Frogs.  Invested in Zappos.com and found just investing to be boring and so he ended up joining them full time within a year

Just in 2009:

#20 in Fast Company’s “50 Most Innovative Companies” list.

#7 in BusinessWeek’s Top 25 “Customer Service Champs” competition.

1400 employees, 23rd on Fortune’s “100 Best Companies To Work For” List

Powered by service – Their outcome is to provide the best online shopping experience possible with fast, free shipping, 365 day return policy, best selection, Over 1000 brands, over 200,000 styles, over 900,000 unique UPC’s.

Zappos is a service company that happens to sell shoes, clothing, handbags, eyewear, watches (and eventually a whole bunch of other stuff.

Looked to model themselves after Virgin.

They have 9.9 million purchasing customers, 4 million having bought in the last 12 months. On any given day 75% of purchases made are by returning customers

Their repeat customers have higher average order size – $143.22 vs new customers $111.98

Part of this has been made possible by spending less on advertising and pouring money that would have been spent there and putting into the customer experience.

They look at the costs of free shipping and other stuff like that as marketing costs, not fulfillment costs.

Likes the idea of customers doing the marketing for them.

1.1.4 What is Customer Service?

What Customers first see when they come to zappos.com…

On most sites it’s almost impossible to find a 1-800 number.  Most don’t even have one.

They take the opposite approach.  They put their number at the top of every single page of the site because they actually want to talk to their customers.

The phone is actually one of the marketer’s best tools if trying to cut through the clutter.  This is where you have the consumer’s undivided attention for 5-10 minutes.  And if you get this right they’ll remember it right for a very long time.

Free shipping:

People might buy 10 pairs of shoes, try them with 10 outfits and send the ones back that don’t fit back.  No problem.

Free return policy:

They did an internal study and found that customers that return the least, we’re NOT their best customers.  They actually make more money once customers figure out how easy it is to ship back and forth.  This helps them relax into impulse buys and try new stuff.

So they actually encourage people to order two different sizes of clothes or shoes to ensure they get it right on one try.

365-day return policy:

All the above are just policies.  Not customer service.

They actually pour a shit load of money into their warehouse operations and focus on fast, accurate fulfillment.

They stock & own everything themselves in warehouses as big as two football fields and only make available for sale what’s actually in their warehouse.  Doing this actually cut 25% of their revenue but they did it thinking long term in wanting to build their reputation in the mind of their customer.

They actually run the warehouse 24 hours a day which isn’t the most efficient way.  Most efficient way is to let the orders pile up and then when the picker goes through the warehouse they have higher picking density.  But they’re more interested in getting the order to you as quickly as possible.

Because one of their locations is 15 minutes away from the UPS hub in Kentucky they can create a wow experience with highly valuable customers by giving them free overnight upgrades and getting their package there in 8 hours.

Renegade Call Center:

The people who work the phones are instructed to go to competitors sites to find shoes they don’t have and then they direct you to their site.  They lose that sale but they don’t lose the memory in the customer’s mind that says these guys have my best interest in mind.

Most call centers focus on efficiency and driving down average handle time, time it takes to get person off the phone.  They don’t have call times.  They don’t up-sell.  They don’t have scripts and they ask the reps to use their best judgment as to what’s best for the customer.

1.1.5 Their #1 Priority is Company Culture

They believe that if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff falls into place.

They hire and fire based on culture.

They do two sets of interviews.  One is standard, fit within the team, technical experience ability and so on.  Then HR does a separate set of interviews purely for culture fit.

Employees have to pass both in order to be hired.  They’ve passed on highly qualified people based on them not being right for their culture.

The reverse is true as well.  If someone’s performing well at their job they’ll fire their ass if they’re bad for the culture.

50% of Performance reviews are based on whether you live the culture or not.

They have a 500 page book detailing their culture that is built by the employees, the  definition of what the zappos culture means to them.  New edition comes out every year.

This is unedited so it reads as customer reviews like you might see on a website.

This is part of their culture that encourages people to be open and honest.

Everyone that’s hired, no matter what position you’re in whether it be accountant, attorney, warehouse guy, you go through the same training as the call center reps.

This is 4 weeks in Vegas covering company history, culture, philosophy about customer service, and they actually put your ass on the phone for two weeks taking orders from customers.

After this, they send you to Kentucky for a week where they show you all the warehouse functions that go with shipping, packing, receiving and so on.

The reason they make everyone go through this is because, first, it gets everyone on the same page.  And more importantly, if their brand is gonna be about customer service, then customer service shouldn’t just be a department.  It should be the entire company.

After the first week of the four week training they offer everyone in the class the chance to quit.  They’ll pay you for the time you’ve already spent and in addition they’ll give you a $2,000 bonus to quit and leave the company.

If you’re a $10 and hour employee, that’s a pretty nice chunk of change.  This is actually a standing offer throughout the rest of the 4 weeks of training.

They do this to discourage people from coming on board just for a paycheck.  They want people who are sold on the vision and the culture of the company.

1.1.6 Tony believes Brand and Culture are just two sides of the same coin.

Your brand may lag behind the culture but eventually it’s gonna catch up.

He uses the metaphor of the brand of Air Travel being “Horrible”.  No one set out for that but there it is.

He talks about how it’s almost impossible to for see all the problems that can come up with employees but that if you pour a shit load of money into making sure you’ve got the right people you save al lot of money in the end and reinforce a harmonious culture.

1.1.7 Owning the 3 C’s in the consumer’s mind

Clothing:

First, job is to make people aware they sell clothing and shoes.

Customer Service:

Next, they want them to feel safe buying stuff from them because they have nurturing customer service.  This comes not so much from telling them but from their first hand experience.

Culture:

They actually want people to know about their company culture.  That’s the reason they do tours of their facilities, put video’s on their blog site, gives you glimpse behind the scenes.

1.1.8 Zappo’s is really just about delivering happiness (customers and employees).

“People may not remember exactly what you did or what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel.”

1.1.9 What is Zappos Culture?

They narrowed their definition down to 10 Committable Core Values

1. Deliver WOW Through Service

2. Embrace and Drive Change

3. Create Fun and a Little Weirdness:

They embrace the idea that everyone’s a little weird in some way and encourage people’s personality to come out.

The question they ask to reveal this in an interviewee is “On a scale of 1-10 how weird are you?”

If you answer 1, you’re probably a little to straight laced for the Zappos culture where they have random things like parades going through the office and people dressing up in costumes because they can.

A 10 is little too psycho.

They’re mostly looking at how candidates re-act to that question.  This really throws the professional interviewee for a loop.  They can sniff out people who are trying to feel out the interviewer.

4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded

One of the interview question for this is “On a scale of 1-10 how lucky are you in life?”

1, is “I don’t know why but bad things always seem to happen to me and the opposite is “I don’t know why good things always seem to happen to me.”

They have a similar philosophy to Bob Parsons.  They don’t want to hire unlucky people because that brings a bad vibe into the culture.

Being lucky more a state of mind than a classification of person.   A person who feels lucky is open to opportunity and radiates joy.  People who feel like they always get screwed and brood bring the energy of the room down.

5. Pursue Growth and Learning

6. Build Open and Honest Relationships Through Communication

7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit

8. Do More With Less

9. Be Passionate and Determined

10. Be Humble

The interview question asked here gets people to fail the test more than any other. They’ve had pretty senior positions open for years that they couldn’t fill because people keep giving unsavory answers here.

When you hire one person who’s super capable but abrasive and annoying, that won’t tear the culture down but if you keep making exceptions, that will.  For them it’s purely a question of whether the guy is egotistical or is he humble.

His employees actually came up with this list.  They asked them to define their culture and what should it be.

When HR interviews people they have questions that reveal how much people match these values.

Lots of companies have something similar to this but they always sound like a press release or lofty/fake.  It’s something that after orientation no one pays attention to ever again.

They key word here is “Committable”.  Think for yourself what core values you want to have for your company.

Response he gets when he talks about this is “Yeah, I’m sure that works for Zappo’s but my business is different.”

He tells people not to adopt Zappos’s core values but to determine their own and let them drive their company.  Doesn’t matter what they are.  All that matters is that you have them and that they’re committable and making sure they align with your outcome as a company.

There’s a special effect that happens when everyone is on the same page.

And you’ve got to commit to them and hire and fire by them.

7 Steps For Getting To A Billion Dollars In Sales

Step 1: Decide if you’re out to build a $1 Billion Dollar company.

This requires more patience with revenues & profits in order to lay a proper foundation.

The path to do this varies from building a $100 million dollar company.

You can avoid a lot to the stuff he’s talking about if you’re only out to build a $10 million dollar company.

There’s no shortcut and no quick recipe.  You’ve got to be willing to sacrifice growth and revenue.  Part of that was expressed when they gave up 25% of their revenue to inventory product.

You want to decide this sooner, than later.

Step 2: Figure out your values and your culture.

Figure out your personal core values.  You can make these the same as the companies in the beginning.

Company’s core values:

Start early.

He started on this late and thinks they’d have gotten to a billion sooner had they gotten this wrangled.  Should be started before you start the company.  It doesn’t matter what the values are… ALIGNMENT is vital.

LIVE the brand

What do you want your personal rant to be?

Step 3:  Commit to Transparency – Be real, and you have nothing to fear.  Your culture is your brand.  Don’t try to be someone you’re not.

Their culture book is one way they’re transparent to the world.

They have a newsletter titled “Ask Anything” where people can ask about the company’s financials, ask about what brands they’re gonna carry, about pretty much anything.

They work with 1,500 brands and all of them actually have the log in password to their extranet and have access to the same info that their own merchandisers and buyers do.

They can view on hand inventory, profitability, mark downs, turn ins, and so on.

When a “Normal” business does interviews or reporters come, you’re ushered by HR or a PR Person and you only get to talk to three people or whatever.

At Zappos they give you a basic tour and then say, “You basically know where everything is, go find out what you want to know and come back and find us here in the office.”

They believe in their culture so they have nothing to hide.

Step 4: Vision:  “Whatever you’re thinking, think bigger.”  Does the vision have meaning?  Chase the vision, not the money.  Or as Puff Daddy would say, “Don’t chase the paper, chase the dream.”

They finally asked themselves a vital question, “What do we want to be when we grow up?”

They decided they wanted to be about the very best customer service.

The unexpected benefit that came was that employees’ became more engaged because they were working for something beyond profit.

It also flipped vendors who didn’t want to take them on because they were an internet account.

He get’s asked at marketing conferences “What’s a good market to go into?’  He feels like it’s the wrong approach.  He encourages people to figure out what they’re truly passionate about and go after that passion and figure out a vision that about more than making money.

Cited Craigslist as an example of a guy who didn’t set out to become rich and he did.

His challenge to you would be “What would you be passionate about doing for 10 years even if you never made a dime?”

If you have employees, “What’s the larger vision and greater purpose in their work beyond money or profit for you?”

People perform better if they believe there’s more to their work than making you rich.

His belief is that there’s a big difference between inspiration and motivation.

Motivation can get you to a certain point… Inspiration can accomplish so much more and what inspires is contributing to something larger than themselves.

Hard times will come and passion inside you and your employee’s is what will get you through it.

Step 5: Build Relationships (Not Networking)  Be interested instead of trying to be interesting.

He associates networking events as a bunch of people just horse trading, what can you do for me?

He finds that when you go to an event without an agenda and just seek to bond and become friends with people of interest to you, that this is when the magic happens, somewhere down the line an opportunity comes up where you can serve each other, that you couldn’t foresee happening at the time you met.

He embraces the idea of talking to strangers, not trying to get anything out of it.

Step 6: Build Your Team “If you want to go quickly, go alone.  If you want to go far, go together.”  African proverb  Hire slowly.  Fire Quickly

You can’t build this big of a company on your own.  You need to be able to build a team who intertwine with your values.

Hiring slower and firing quickly is one of the things Tony wishes he could go back and change about Zappos

Step 7: Think Long Term -  Repeat customers, customer service, no ‘get rich quick’ formula.  Overnight successes are years in the making both personally and in business)

If maximizing profit in 2009 was Tony’s outcome, the thing to do would be to fire the 400 people in his call center, don’t answer the phone, don’t answer emails and he bets that his customers for 2009 would not go down.  They’ll have a lot of unhappy customers but they’ll be a shit load more profit.

But they’re looking at long term to make sure the business is sustainable.

What is Your Goal In Life?

For a lot of people, it’s happiness.

What is the science behind happiness?

Research shows people are very bad at predicting what will give them sustained happiness.  “When I get _______, I’ll be happy.” or “When I achieve _______, I’ll be happy.”

Research has shown that the “Is this all there is?” factor arrives and we adapt and become desensitized to outcome they achieved.

There’s a science behind marketing.  You’re gonna spend all kinds of time studying this stuff.  What if you spent just 10% of your time studying and learning the science of happiness.  How much happier could you be?

Tony has found that happiness comes down to 4 things…

Perceived Control

In traditional call centers you work the year, and then you get a bump in pay.  At Zappos they lay out the option of acquiring 15-20 other skill sets as a rep that each come with a small bump in pay.

Basically they show them the path and say “It’s up to you how high you go.”

Perceived Progress

They don’t care if you come in with no skills.  They focus mostly on culture.  For the merchandisers they broke down the steps to becoming a buyer into 3-4 month stages over 3 years.  People feel they’re moving forward and can see a clear outcome.

Relatedness

They try to get their people with related values to reframe their view of what they do not as a job but as a calling.

Vision/Meaning for your life/Being a part of something bigger than yourself

3 levels of happiness

1. Rockstar happiness – You’re always chasing the next high.  Works but very hard to sustain.   Once the high goes away, happiness does also.

2. Flow.  This is where you get so engaged doing what you’re doing that time flies by.

3. Meaning.  Contributing to something larger than yourself.  Research has shown this is where happiness can be sustained the longest.

Recommended Reading:

by Chip Conley

Tribal Leadership by Dave Logan, John King, Halee Fischer-Wright

4 – Hour Workweek – Tim Ferriss

Happiness Hypothesis – Jonathan Haidt

There you go, the counter intuitive approach to getting more customers.  What do you think?  Does this approach make sense to you?  For me it does.

I remember years and years ago hearing Tony Robbins talk about how they axed the number of complaints they received, ultra significantly when they finally started figuring out who the wrong people for their service culture was.

If you want to go big, you’re gonna need lots of help.  And this means hiring employees.

Dan Kennedy is anti-employee and loses money because of it.  He knows it and built his business to suit his life style preferences.  What do you want?

If you want to do it huge or just optimize your company’s culture start by checking out Zappo’s training on this here… http://blogs.zappos.com/blogs/inside-zappos/2008/12/06/culture-class

Thank You So Much For Supporting Us Here.  Talk to you soon.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Note Taking Nerd #2 & The Chief

So you know I LOVE Napoleon HIll. I am working on my Thinking and Growing Rich. My goal is to manifest $480 million dollars in the next 4 years. The book says to name your price, so I named one I think would make me happy. Whatever it is. Name it. Named it. Claim it. Claiming it. Manifesting what I think.

Part of getting the money–the main part really for me is gaining my freedom. Freedom to do what I want to do from moment to moment. Feeling freedom now–what will it feel like–working at the things I LOVE to do–inventing, business, working out, personal coaching, helping people with weight loss, and this…manifesting their dreams.

I have experienced this already. Sure it sounds nuts, but it’s not really. I manifested a size 10 from a size 20 and have maintained it after seeing it in my head I made it happen. The book says this and I knew it before I read the book as I experienced it from time to time previously. You have to feel what it’s like. I felt what my smaller body was like.

I know it works. I’m now working on a size 6–ripped and lean for good.

Anyway…so far I’ve been manifesting good parking spaces. Not $480 million dollars. But it’s a start.

Alissa

pagi-pagi saya nganter ayah ke terminal,soalnya ayah saya ada workshop di semarang..padahal masih ngantuk berat karna semalam abis ngeronda !masih sempet balik ke kasur sih abis itu,tapi gak lama..adek saya treak2 minta di anterin ke sekolah hu hu hu .wokeee,cukup basa basinya,.
oh iya,gimana masih semangat bisnis internet gak nih?!masih donk?! kemaren saya ngobrol sama temen saya yang juga baru saja mencoba berbisnis internet.sama aja masih “bayi” juga wong dia mulai ngeblog aja baru 2minggu yang lalu kog.lha dia ini lagi merengek-rengek sama ortunya biar dibeliin tanktop..eh laptop..gichu..!!katane dia mau jadi full time blogger .hla ortune ya jelas mencak-mencak,ngeluarin jurus rajawali menelan biji salak *yang ini berlebihan* dia itu digadang-gadang ortunya biar jadi PNS.
nah trus saya kasih contoh adalah saya sendiri yang sedang menjalani bisnis internet.saya gak punya komputer *apalagi internet*,gak punya hape *seriuz!* LHA TROS GIMANA NGEJALANI BISNIS INI MAS?!
saya sadar saya cuma lulusan SMA,tapi bukan berarti saya bodo dan gak punya cita-cita bisa menjadi pemimpin bukan bos! *orang-orang menganggap cita-cita saya itu hanya gurauan* ah bodo amat..saya main internet ya diwarnet aja,duitnya dari…dari…dari…
(sulit dijelaskan,tapi intinya selalu aja ada uang yang gak terkira datang untuk saya suer!!meski dari orang laen tapi saya juga gak pernah minta lho..tau2 dikasih gitu aja )
berapapun duit yang saya dapet,saya langsung pake buat ke warnet NGEBLOG!!!
ada 5000 ke warnet..ada 10.000 ke warnet..pokoe berapa aja langsung ke warnet deh..posting..
saya gak pernah mikir buat neko-neko beli ini beli itu,yang penting posting sebanyak2nya dulu .
soal SEO,pagerank,alexa,itu belakangan deh..yang penting ngeposting dulu..sekalian belajar nyusun kata demi kata yang baik dan benar *saya masih ngerasa ketikan saya masih acak adul
sambil membaca postingan-postingan di blognya master..gratis dan gak perlu bayar transfer2 segala

oke,tetap semangat menjalani hari-harimu ya..

salam kreatif!

Reprinted from NY Times, Small Business

The Latest Entrepreneurial Fantasy Is Selling Cupcakes

 

Courtesy of Lovely Confections Bakery  Lovely Confections Bakery in Denver has to sell 2,800 cupcakes a month to cover expenses.

Move over restaurants and bed-and-breakfasts. A new fantasy seems to have taken hold for people who long to own their own business: the cupcakery.

You’re the Boss: Are Cupcakes a Viable Business?

There is no Cupcake Manufacturers Association keeping count, but anecdotal evidence indicates that stand-alone cupcake shops have been spreading not just in the acknowledged cupcake meccas of New York and Los Angeles but also in Boston, Denver, Austin, Tex., and lots of smaller places. Nationwide, cupcake sales, according to the market research firm, Mintel, are projected to rise another 20 percent over the next five years at a time when other baked goods are expected to grow in the single digits.

“Cupcake Wars,” a series pilot in which four bakers vie to create the most interesting concoctions, will soon have its debut on the Food Network. “Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes” (Clarkson, Potter), a collection of 175 recipes, was published in June, and spent 11 weeks on The New York Times best-seller list. And the most popular of the cupcake blogs, Cupcakestakethecake, is visited by some 9,000 people a day. At least a dozen blogs chronicle each new flavor — from bacon to s’mores — as well as the best frostings, the quirkiest decorations and the newest twists (so far, the meatloaf cupcake with mashed-potato frosting seems to have been contained within Chicago).

New York’s Magnolia Bakery, which helped set off an earlier cupcake craze when its treats appeared in a “Sex and the City” episode, is now expanding operations into Los Angeles, where its $3 red velvets and devil’s foods will compete with the chai lattes and ginger lemons of Sprinkles Cupcakes, which is based in Beverly Hills but has owner-operated shops in six other cities and plans to open in far-flung locales like New York, London and Tokyo.

“Cupcake stores are taking the place of ice cream stores,” said Adam Borden, whose Baltimore-based venture capital firm, Bradmer Foods, specializes in food-focused enterprises. “Cupcakes aren’t seasonal like ice cream, and they appeal to people who want the authentic experience. They have an allure based on nostalgia.”

All of which suggests a couple of questions: How many cupcakes do you have to sell to pay the rent? And are cupcakes a viable business? These are still very early days in the Great Cupcake Rush, but the answers appear to be, respectively, a lot and maybe. (What do you think? Click HERE to leave a comment.)

Thus far, there seem to be four basic cupcake business models:

The Chain

Founded by two married former investment bankers, Charles and Candace Nelson, Sprinkles is looking to grow. The couple spent two years working on their recipes before opening their Beverly Hills location in 2005. “You have to have a great product, brand and location and then it can be very scalable,” said Mr. Nelson.

Sprinkles is slated to open three more stores next year. Seventy percent of its business comes from walk-ins, so location is crucial. Mr. Nelson declined to say whether the individual stores or the company as a whole had achieved profitability, but he did say that Sprinkles had a 20-year business plan and was committed to the long haul.

Click Here to read the entire article.

Wealth Masters International farewell banquet-Paris Hotel Las Vegas Nov.2009

Where you LEARN to make money work for YOU at this crucial time in downturn economy.

http://www.mybusinessplannow.com/natidv

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXy8P9DSEHM

Make the decision to author your own success.

 Online, you can literally create your own economy.

  What most people in business-especially top management-do not realize is that new economies are being created all around us. New products and new services are created every day while everyone is talking about a ‘recession’ and how the economy is crashing – that could be hurricane Katrina “clean up”. Everyone is so filled with fear, yet we are creators of our own gremlins but equally able to seek and produce our best outcomes making better evaluations and decisions.

 Remember the top income earners make decisions quickly!

One path to Prosperity in a disordered World is to quit being just a indebted consumer, and become an informed entrepreneur that invest first in him/herself. Self-education in this area has never been more fun.

One lesson of this economic crisis may be that we have to change how we measure growth, production, and success; we’re going through a lot of adjustments, and not just in real estate and finance.

Many people make a lot of money in times like this, why not choose to be one of them. the fact that everything seems to change faster makes that kind of education even more valuable. The true challenge is finding ways to use those tools…Yet solutions are right here under your nose.

N.Idvanoff.

GLOBALTCB.COM

I’ve played with the idea of becoming an entrepreneur for the last 10 years but something has always held me back. It was never the finance side of things since I’m aware that there’s venture capital in them thar hills if you just know where to look . . . It was never the fear of failure either as I’m confident that I’m surrounded by genuine friends and colleagues who wish me nothing but the best in what I do . . . I’ve got a notion however that what may have held me back all this time is a distinct lack of passion for my million dollar idea.

I don’t think I’ve read one ‘how-to’ manual or listened to one audio book where the need for passion in your enterprise hasn’t been extolled as a necessity.  The general theory is that without passion you won’t be able to survive the tough times that naturally come with being a business owner. Without passion you won’t be able to bounce back from adversity, keep going through the economic down-turns or make the difficult decisions which paid salarymen often don’t have to concern themselves with. Only passion will get you through when you’re surviving on baked beans so that you can affoard to invest in that new piece of CRM software or when you’re getting by on 2 hours of sleep a day in an effort to keep up to date with the paperwork and ensure the cheque has been written and is in the post. In other words, those without passion need not apply! And there lies the problem . . .

While I wouldn’t call myself one of the living dead, a zombie bereft of emotions and feelings I’ve also never had a true vocation in life or something I can clearly label a ‘passion’ (or at least one that could double as a career, there being no one yet willing to pay me to eat and sleep). I look with envy at friends who knew since they were knee high that they wanted to be mechanics, teachers, civil servants (you know who you are) or doctors. These friends have had the drive and passion to pursue their dreams and make them a reality. I however still don’t really know what I want to be when I grow up. When inspiration does strike me on occasion I’ll do some cursory market research, play with the idea in my head, bounce it of friends but the enthusiasm will soon fade, the shine will come off and suddenly the thought of bringing it into reality will seem a chore and possibly a risky one at that. Is this different for someone with a real passion that they created a business out of? 

Those entrepreneurs who have gone on to conquer their respective industries by demonstrating excellence in what they do are naturals in their fields and you might struggle to think of them doing anything else. Richard Branson loved music so much he created not just a world class company but a world class brand around and out of it.  Bill Gates dropped out of university to pursue his calling. Warren Buffet was trading before he was in highschool.

What, if like me you like music but don’t love music, you enjoy playing on PC’s but can’t programme to save your life or you see the value of investing but would rather a fund manager do it? Is there hope for us who don’t have a passion that naturally transferred into a skill?

Well, there must be, mustn’t there?

The way I see it, for every Richard Branson there’s someone running a waste disposal business and I don’t care who you are, if you tell me you’re passionate about human waste I’ll tell you to go jump! If this is the case and businesses where passion may be lacking continue to grow and thrive, is my definition of passion wrong?

When I watch Duncan Bannatyne on Dragon’s Den I try to imagine him being passionate about his first venture of an icecream van or later for a gym. I struggle. I don’t know him personally and I haven’t read any of his books but my gut tells me he probably is passionate primarily about the act of creating and growing a business, the nature of the business being secondary. Might this be an alternate definition of passion? One could maybe also add that a driver in business might be the need to be one’s own boss, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow or the ability to employ and develop others. Are these enough to sustain one through the bad times? I don’t know . . .

Did anyone start up a business and see it through to fruition driven by a need other than a passion for the product? Obviously, to succeed a business will have to meet certain criteria like a high degree of market and industry attractiveness, a good team and a strong product among others but if all of the above can be accounted for is passion for the nature of the business or product vital when there is a drive to succeed for less tangible reasons?

If this is the case might one be spurred into action to start one’s own business when an event directly linked to your key motivator occurs? I could imagine that if one went through being made redundant and your driver was autonomy then it may be natural, given a good business idea in the right circumstances for that you would go out on ypur own. Similarly, if you have a high estimation of your own self-worth but are getting paid a pittance you might not think twice about going solo.

Conversely, if anyone who is reading this started a business they were passionate about, can I ask what your personal circumstances were at the time. Were you gainfully employed? If so, was your passion enough to lure you away from a regular pay check or were there other factors involved?

Anyway . . . in light of my pondering I’m off to re-assess my drivers for starting a business. Maybe if I’m more conscious of these then the decision to start up on my own will be more easy when circumstances present themselves.

Thanks for your patience with my first ever blog and I look forward to your comments and input.

Phil

I made this photo for coverpage of Team Academy Magazine. It´s name is Entrepreneurs dream and it illustrates how sometimes our minds are somewhere else, far, far away, in a place where the sun shines and merengue plays.

So its nearly Xmas again.

I was just recapping the year, from being in Bali in Jan and Cambodia as well with Dave Rogers and the Rock Your World Team, to Asia and Australia in February, then to South Africa in April and a wonderful Safari, Malaysia and Cambodia again in May, Australian tour with Dave Rogers in June, Alaska and Phoenix and Vegas in July with Hay House and NSA, Australia in August, then Malaysia and Indonesia, followed by the USA and Mexico for Rock Your World Mayan Prophecy in September to October in Australia again and now November. Sounds full on, but in reality over 25% down on 2009 schedule… dont worry…it all gets normal again in 2010.

In November I had a great tour of the eastern states of Australia with my good buddy Glen Levy – The most dangerous person on the planet – National Geographic and NASA approved of course. Fortune events run by Zane & Inga Truscott did a fabulous job of filling venues for Glen and I plus ensuring we had first class treatment. It so awesome when you have a schedule like mine for everything to actually be organised and work. Amazing.

Glen is a wonder. He is so charged he blew my computer up by standing near it, closed down two other people’s computers by walking past in the airport lounge and blew out 2 lights. I think he truly must be off that show – Heroes – as he does have some superhuman abilities. Mostly I loved watching him on stage doing some of his incredible work, showing people how they can break a hold from a 6 foot 7 giant or simply how we can get more oxygen into our lungs.

Testimount to his ability is that he has been putting on weight, about 10kg, to ensure his weight loss techniques work. The moment we got on tour he started losing it, by the end of the week he had lost 5kg. We were eating on the run and the only exercise he did was on stage showing the audience the exercises. How cool is that. I have definetly noticed just by doing the exercises with Glen each night for 5 mins that I too was toning up…wild eh!

After all the touring I finally had a 3 day break, no internet, on Waiheke Island off Auckland. Walking along the beach, watching old 1940’s movies, I even watched the all blacks whip Englands but… something I havent done all 2009.

Now is the time folks to concentrate on 2010 and what you really need to achieve. You can have an awesome life…just dream it and live it.

On stage in Melbourne with Glen Levy

Hello Fans of CBC Dragons’ Den and readers of Dragonfly on the wall,

You may have been wondering why the silence in the last few weeks and no reviews of the recent episodes? Well, I am still a big fan of Dragons’ Den and watch every episode but I have been busy with other things. And it takes time to write a good entry.

Don’t worry, I am still going to post new entries here from time to time. In fact, I am in touch with one of the cool Dragons’ Den entrepreneur and going to interview him to find out more about his invention and business. And when that interview is done, I will post it here.

Stay tune.

This year, the GulfAtlantic ActionCOACH team has many reasons to be thankful….

Our Coaches – through their training and hard work, they have created winning results for themselves and their clients.
Our team members – for supporting our coaches and focusing on seeing the GulfAtlantic team succeed.
Our clients – for remaining loyal and referring us to other business owners because they have seen their own companies achieve an increase in profitability and overall results because of our business coaches.
You – for clicking this link to see what becoming an ActionCOACH with the GulfAtlantic team could mean to you. 

On behalf of the entire ActionCOACH GulfAtlantic team, we would like to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving.