The Fortune 500 companies are
seen as industry leaders.
They are NOT innovation leaders.
They have too much to risk.

The innovation leaders are the start ups.
They’re forced in that role.

Bernie Hadley-Beauregard,
founder of Brandever Strategy Inc.,
says start ups become successful
“By taking chances that the
large competitors dare not take.”

If your new product isn’t risky,
it has either been done
or been tested and failed.

When I hear financial security stated
as a reason for starting a business,
I cringe.

Entrepreneurship is NOT for the cautious.
It is NOT a direct route to wealth
and being able to risk everything
to feed a hungry start up
is necessary for business building success.

As David “Patch” Patchell-Evans,
the multi-millionaire founder of
GoodLife Fitness Clubs states
“You have to be able to
risk the mortgage.”

In a brilliant interview with Fast Company,
Ram Charan talks about
why killing ideas is necessary…

“…because the success rate of innovation
is not going to be 100 percent.
If it’s 100 percent, you’re taking no risks.”

He says that deciding what ideas to kill
is easier if there is a portfolio of innovation.
Ideas can be ranked by priority.
“…if you take one idea,
it’s going to be almost impossible to kill.”

Agreed.
If you have a product development team
and only one innovation in the pipeline,
killing that one idea
will put them out of a job.
Highly unlikely they’ll support that move.

Ever wonder why you see
clusters of antique stores
side by side in a mall?

Because grouping like stores
drives more traffic.

In Sharon Harvey Rosenberg’s
The Frugal Duchess,
Adele Meyer,
the executive director of the
National Association of Resale and Thrift Shops
says
“Consumers will drive further
if they have more than one store to visit.
I’m seeing more of it happen.”

Can you team up with your competition
to drive more business?

With 6,400 romance novels published a year,
review sites are swamped
with requests for reviews.

As a result,
the smaller publishers,
the smaller authors
often get neglected.
Without the publicity,
they stay small.

So when a big review site
placed a call for volunteer reviewers,
I put up my hand.

What do I choose to review?
Only small or e- press.

If you want to make a change,
BE the change.

A writer friend of mine
tossed her manuscript.

Why?

Because a well established author
recently released a novel
with a very similar plot.

If I tossed my manuscript
every time a similar one was released,
I would have never gotten published.

Tom Peters has a great quote from
Howard Mann’s Your Business Brickyard
“Your competitors have never paid your bills
and they never will.”

In other words,
focus on your customers,
not your competition.

Seth Godin has a brilliant post on
the five elements of marketing.

My favorite part?

That product is the
physical manifestation of story.

Too true.
There are unlimited products
available for development.
Too many for your company’s
limited resources
to launch successfully.
One of the filters should be
‘does this product fit our company’s story?’

According to the Department of Labor,
the number of employees working a second job
(or moonlighting)
in 2007 rose about 5%.
I suspect 2008’s number will be even higher.

I’ve done it.
Most entrepreneurs
coming from the corporate ranks
have done it.

I was very careful not to have my part time ventures
interfere with my full time job.
I only accepted consulting gigs outside of my industry.
This did two things.
It expanded my knowledge base,
making me more employable
and it ensured no conflict of interest
or confidential information leak.

What many non-entrepreneurs don’t understand
is that entrepreneurs are ALWAYS working.
As Michael Sexton says

“When you aren’t working “in” the business,
you will find yourself working “on” the business.
It will likely keep you up at night and
occupy your free time so
you can figure out ways to grow and
compete in your industry.”

For employees,
their work day stops at 5pm.
For entrepreneurs,
it never stops.

This can be a challenge
especially during the lazy summer months.

I enjoyed Guy Kawasaki’s interview
with Problogger Darren Rowse,
especially Darren’s insights on Yahoo!
and business development

“I don’t pretend to be an expert
in the dealings of big business
but my philosophy in business
has always been to find ways
to enhance the lives of my customers.
I preach this to bloggers by
saying to make their blogs
useful and unique.”

Are your products useful and unique?
Do you enhance
the lives of your customers?