Motivation 12: There's More To Life Than The Corner Office

"What is the best, most redemptive thing I can do for the greatest number of people?"

While the question is simple, it too often goes unsaid in our daily routines. If there was one message that I walked away from this book repeating, it was this.

There's More To Life Than The Corner Office by Lamar Smith and Tammy Kling is an extremely quick read. Both my wife and I finished it in a single sitting, which is extremely rare. The format of the book is an educational fable. Much in the same way that The Richest Man in Babylon (One of my all time favorites!) delivers a message of frugality and saving, There's More To Life Than The Corner Office uses an entertaining story that forces us all to step back and reexamine our priorities in life.

The story starts with an overworked, slightly bitter protagonist named Patrick Mitchell slogging through a stressful and depressing life. While his career seems to be moving along well, his personal life is in shambles, with a pending divorce staring him in the face. Through a fortunate encounter on-board an airplane, Patrick is introduced to a "business icon" named Al Crafton. After realizing that Patrick is a good person with tremendous potential, Al decides to mentor him and teach him the ways of the world.

Through regular meetings, the two discuss their life stories and Al provides innovative ways to look at the problems that Patrick faces. In many ways, most of us can relate to the situations that Patrick encounters, and I constantly found myself making parallels between his life and mine. The lessons that Al teaches are delivered in thoughtful and insightful stories, many of which derive from his days as an aviator.

My main complaint with the book was the simplicity and predictability with which the messages were delivered. Although the lessons learned were valuable, the story lacked surprises or the true "rising action" that most great fables contain. In addition, the authors write the book in relatively simple linguistics, appropriate for many that read infrequently but not as sophisticated as most business savvy readers would like to see.

Finally, I can endorse this book for the unique method with which the message is delivered. I hope that it begins a new trend of using clever fables to deliver life's lessons rather than the simple lecture style that most business books tend to adhere to.

I also support the key message of maintaining balance in every aspect of our life. When is the last time that you REALLY told your wife that you loved her? How about spending a night on the back porch staring at the stars and thinking about your hopes and dreams? And most importantly, when is the last time that you asked yourself "What is the best, most redemptive thing I can do for the greatest number of people?" before planning out the next few years (or days!) of your life.

Think about it.......

For more on Lamar Smith and his teachings, you can visit his website at improvingyourbalance.com. Read more on this article...

Sidebar 8: My First Billion Dollar Company

I am pleased to announce that I have my first billion dollar company!! By selling a 0.000001% share in my company to an eager young investor, my company's official value finally crossed the billion dollar threshold!

Ok, so I stole the idea from the article below, which you should definitely read. I posted this for two reasons, entertainment and education. The entertainment side speaks for itself, but the education lies in the shear genius of this press release. By thinking outside the box, this company managed to generate a lot of positive buzz for their company. Kudos to them for the effort, and hopefully this will inspire you to think a bit more creatively with your future pursuits.

Enjoy the article!

37 Signals Press Release
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Path 19: Copy And Paste (ie. Buying a Franchise): Part 1

Resources On The Topic:

Entrepreneur Magazine
Fast Company Magazine
FranchiseMart.com
Street Smart Franchising by Joe Matthews, Don DeBolt, and Deb Percival

While McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken may get all the credit for the franchise concept, it has actually been around far longer. History shows evidence of franchises in China as far back as 200B.C., though they may have started even earlier. If 2200 years of success isn't enough to convince you of the power of a good franchise, then hopefully this article is.

For starters, because the topic of franchises is so large and important, I plan to break it up over a few postings. The first post today will address the franchise discovery process. Later postings dive even deeper into the franchise topic.

So my guess is that if you stumbled upon this article, you have some pent up desire to head down your own road to financial freedom, but you haven't found that "guarantee" just yet. While there are no guarantees in the world of small business (or big business for that matter!), buying a great franchise is the closest thing out there. You gain the knowhow/processes/marketing support/web presence/name recognition of a successful business, which allows you to focus on one thing: being a small business owner.

When starting the franchise discovery process, there are a TON of resources available to you. A trip to your local library or book store will provide you with a host of magazines such as Entrepreneur Magazine or Fast Company. These magazines do a great job of profiling several successful franchises, telling you about the new rising stars. If you prefer to do the work on your own, there are also magazines such as Business Opportunities Handbook that are nothing more than a listing of franchises. They can be a bit tedious to read through, but provide more than enough information on the available franchises, no matter what niche you are considering.

In addition, a new company called FranchiseMart is spreading around the country and can provide a useful resource for your franchise search. Visit their website and see if they have a location near you. For a small fee, they will work with you to find a franchise that fits your needs.

These resources serve as a great starting point for understanding what is available, but the next step is even more critical. You need to spend some time answering the following questions and use them as a guide to selecting the right franchise for YOU:

1) How Much Money Am I Willing to Spend Upfront? Depending on your resources, some franchises may be out of the question right away.

2) How Many Hours Per Week Do I Want To Spend Working? While being a small business owner is rewarding, it can actually become more time consuming than a normal 9-5 if you aren't careful.

3) What Does My Geographic Area Need? While a chain like Pak Mail is very highly regarded, you need to consider whether or not there is enough local business to support it.

4) What Competitors Are Out There? To use Pak Mail as an example again, if your region already has a FedEx, UPS, and DHL, then you may struggle to pull customers away.

5) What Will I Enjoy Doing? One of my favorite franchises is Little Jimmy's Italian Ices. Operating a snow cone cart outside on sunny days is hardly working in my book. This is important to consider.

6) What Is My Final Goal? Do you want to run this business for life? Do you want to establish a business that you can sell to someone else for profit? You need to understand your long term goals before you take the plunge.


This should be enough to get you started. Use the tools and questions above to narrow down your options. In future articles we will discuss the franchise management process in a bit more detail.

Good Luck!


Keys to Success:

Read Up! There is a ton of material on the subject.

Take Your Time. Selecting the right franchise for YOU is critical.

Ask For Help. Once you've chosen the franchise for you, don't hesitate to contact the owners of existing franchises to ask questions. In most cases, they will be glad to help.

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Entretool 5: How I Made My Millions

At Upward Lifestyle, we believe that everyone has a million dollar idea hiding deep within them. At some point in our lives, all of us have said, "You know what would be a great business?", but unfortunately few of us follow through on those ideas. When I stumbled upon the show "How I Made My Millions" on CNBC, I saw it as the ultimate inspiration, and I think you will too.

For starters, you can find the full version of the show on CNBC's website. The host, David Faber walks through several amazing stories of people who took a simple idea and grew it into a remarkable business. Some of the cool companies include Burt's Bees, 1-800 Flowers, and SuperPretzel. While I won't ruin the details of the show for you (You should watch it ASAP!), I do want to walk through my quick and dirty analysis of the unique cases presented. I think there are a few similarities that all the companies shared, and we should be mindful of these as we wander down the road to our alternative career.

Here are my thoughts on the common themes between the success stories:

1) No Groundbreaking Inventions: Most of us have this misconception that we need a groundbreaking idea in order to start a successful company. This show proves that taking products that already exist in the market and tweaking them slightly can be enough to dominate the competition if marketed properly. "The Headblade" is the perfect example of this. Todd Greene was going bald and was frustrated by the difficulty of using conventional razors on his head. By simply tweaking an existing razor to fit his hand better, he cornered the market for head shaving devices. Check out his website at www.headblade.com

2) Minimal Startup Costs: If money is your worry, look no further than Kernel Seasons for motivation. By mixing up a few different popcorn seasoning flavors in his kitchen and selling them to the local movie theater, Brian Taylor created a whole new market for gourmet sprinkle-on popcorn seasonings. The lesson here, poor people can start companies too!

3) A Good Website is Critical: In order to judge the credibility of your business, most customers will head to your website. And as they say in business, first impressions are EVERYTHING.

4) You Don't Need an MBA: While some business knowledge may be useful, most of the daring entrepreneurs on this show lacked high level educations. The one common denominator though, all of them spent extensive time studying the things necessary for their success, such as web design and marketing.

5) It Takes Time: None of these millionaires were overnight success stories. They developed a concept, refined it, marketed it, and slowly grew their business. Quitting your job to start a business is a dangerous proposition and a good way to go broke. Start small and then as your side business grows, look for the right point to exit your old job, but don't jump off the ship without the raft........

Enough of my ramblings, head on over to CNBC, watch the show for yourself and let me know your thoughts in the comment section below!

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Entretool 4: www.Webs.com

As promised, we proceed with our entretools section. These are essential tools to help you get your entrepreneurial dreams off the ground. We have moved through two great books, The Dip & The Four Hour Work Week and a great podcast called Internet Business Mastery. If you haven't checked them out by now, I strongly advise you do so.

For this posting, we will move into one of my favorite online tools, webs.com. As we discussed in several past postings, every business endeavor, regardless of the field, must have a web presence, and webs.com is without a doubt the easiest way to get that web presence in place, RIGHT NOW.

The site starts with an easy user interface that anyone can use. It also eliminates the hassle of registering a domain name and paying for hosting. Webs.com handles all of these tasks for you. The true beauty of this site is that it can serve as the ultimate spring board to your success. While many of us struggle to get started for a variety of reasons, a few minutes setting up a website can make you realize that the road ahead of you isn't nearly as challenging as you once thought.

So what can you do on the site? Well it starts with an incredible array of clean and classy templates. They look far more professional than other free templates you would find in programs like Microsoft Publisher. Pick a template that fits your theme and get rolling. From there, you can set up your home page, info pages, forums, a blog, merchandise order pages, and a huge variety of other pages to meet all of your customer needs. If you are just getting started, focus your efforts on a professional looking homepage. Review your competitor's pages for ideas. At a bare minimum, you will want a brief description of your company and some great looking graphics.

Once your site is up and running, you can continue to add pages that fit your company's needs. I would highly recommend a blog to update your customers with your latest products or offerings and for many businesses, a forum is also a great way to encourage repeat visitors. Finally, most businesses will eventually add a product sales page to distribute your products to your customers.

It's that easy. With less than a half hour of work, you can have a high quality, professional site up and running. Webs.com can allow you to establish a presence online and start you down your path to entrepreneurial success.

Good Luck!
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Sidebar 7: Lots of Ideas Leads to Great Ideas

Did you know that Thomas Edison's name is listed on 1,093 United States patents? And how many of those great inventions can you name? The phonograph? The lightbulb? (kind of...) Let me tell you something, a good portion of those other thousand ideas were not so meaningful. You can read about all of the inventions here, but I wouldn't waste your time.

So what is the lesson of the story? Not every idea is a home run, but the more you have, the more likely you will find a winner. As an aspiring entrepreneur, you simply can't afford to ignore interesting ideas that pop into your head.

Your lesson for today is to pick out a small pocket size notebook and take it with you EVERYWHERE! You will be amazed how many ideas pop into your head throughout the course of a day that you simply ignore. This notebook is used to record every these ideas and give you the chance to filter through them later, when you are in an entrepreneurial mood.

I want to give you one more tidbit of motivation. Have you ever heard the name Charles Goodyear? I am guessing that at least the second part of his name sounds familiar. That's right, he founded Goodyear Rubber Company and is credited with inventing the vulcanization process that makes rubber usable. Goodyear was actually a bit nutty. He spent a good portion of his adult life obsessing over rubber and ways to improve it. You see, the problem with rubber in its natural state is that it is extremely temperature sensitive. As the heat rises, rubber changes from its useful, springy state into a globby, sticky mess. This makes it useless for most applications. Goodyear tried every additive he could think of to improve rubber's characteristics, to no avail. Luckily enough for him, he left a small piece of his rubber sitting next to the stove one day. As the material cooked, it's properties amazingly changed, and the vulcanization process was discovered. While the invention was a bit lucky, Goodyear was observant enough to notice the change, and capitalized on it.

How many times have you stumbled upon a great idea and simply let it pass? Well not any more. Starting today, you can document these ideas and eventually, you will find your home run, and once you do, head over to our Inventing and Reinventing posts to find out how to bring your idea to life.

Good Luck!

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