The Revelation of the Golden Pyramid

Reading Awakening the Entrepreneur Within has been a good exercise for me which I have been inspired, at times overwhelmed and wanting to give up, and generally encouraged that I can do this. Before I take it back to the library I wanted to take some last notes on the "Enterprise". When you understand business systems, there is the ability not just to start a business, but to start hundreds of businesses.

Here is the strategy:
1. Identify Old Co. - these are the marketable skills that you currently possess
2. Make a list of every single vertical niche market you could conceivably provide your service to - these make up customer categories
3. Identify your trading zone - geographic area of customers (I question relevance for web based products/services)
4. Pick the ten most appealing Customer Categories
5. Pick the one most appealing Customer Category - where is the money:) I like this because success these days is not necessarily making the next walmart but rather getting followers that will evangelize your product or become your tribe
6. Learn everything you can possibly learn about this one customer category - who are they, passions, hopes, buying habits, etc.
7. design client fulfillment system - must have the means to get it out there
8. design your lead conversion system - person is interested...must be ready
9. design your lead generation system - sales 101
10. test effectiveness of your new practice - do it, track, measure
11. document - weakness of mine, have trouble doing this within my home which would yield quick results must be disciplined about doing this in business
12. Create your surrogate practitioner agreement - legal, trademark/patent make sure you IP is taken care of
13. Recruit first surrogate practitioner - these will be folks you take through the previous 11 steps
14. Train your first Surrogate partner
15. Build your business management system - monitor performance of practices, improve operating system, expand the capability
16. Replicate

This is one reason I love Amazon.com

How do they know? Karin just went to Costco this week and bought many of these items! I love advertising when it make sense to what my needs are.

Is this the case for you and price promotions

I find this is true in my personal life and have trusted it in my professional life. Was wondering if anyone felt significantly different. When you cut price you expose the true value. Hard work needs to be done on what the particular price should be and then it should be stuck with, at least if you are passionate about it. The things I buy on promotion are things that I don't care about. When I pay full price I am nuts for it.

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/537141/?sc=dwtr

Raving Fans

I have the book in my bag, and it is next on my list or maybe just after the next book. Regardless I should be finished it two weeks from now.

Today I read Seth Godwin's post on "The truth about word of mouth". Very insightful, especially the part about the election and the caucus mattering.

The 1% rule is remarkable. For me I guess empowering the 99% means I need to know some percentage of them in order to get them excited.

never eat alone

Great title for a book by Keith Ferrazzi is excellent. Not really into writing summaries of books because I don't do them justice. My approach is more day by day, taking in something new or being inspired to action, here are two points that hit me today:

"Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Those rewards create almost as many problems as they solve. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter so the world will at least be a little bit different for our having passed through it." - Rabbi Harold Kushner

Keith on his career and the lack of balance: "For me, the best thing about a relationship-driven career is that it isn't a career at all. It's a way of living. Several years ago, I started to realize that connecting was actually a way of seeing the world. When I thought and behaved in that way, dividing my life between professional and personal spheres no longer made sense. I realized that what made you successful in both worlds were other people and the way you related to them. Whether those people were family people, work people, or friend people, real connecting insists that you bring the same values to every relationship. As a result, I no longer needed to make a distinction between my career happiness and my life happiness-they were both piece of me. My life."

A few years ago I read a book called "Season of Life: a football star, a boy, a journey to manhood" by Jeffery Marx. It changed my life, by stating many of the parts of my worldview but had never expressed. This book "never eat alone" did the same for me. So much for not summarizing huh? God is glorified when we love his creation, and we (people) are a significant part of that creation. The more I understand about myself and my story I see that I have been gifted in this pursuit. Keith Ferrazzi nails it for me and applies this worldview to work practice whereas "Season of Life" applies it to coaching

WholeFoods new exec policy

This is funny to me. If you can't trust your executives to have open honest conversations online what else are they doing?

http://techdirt.com/articles/20071106/170439.shtml