Life Unsettled

This topic is probably my favorite on many, many dimensions, and that is causality. Causality, what do I mean? Causality means something that causes something else, or is a partial cause for something else. The study, the watching, the asking of questions to delve into the depths of causality are critical for everything, from anything you’re going to do in business because it’s going to have an effect on the customer, or: What do you do that has an effect that’s negative or positive for the customer now? If you don’t understand that, what are you going to do in the future, all the way to your kids. Just take a look at what your kids do and how they do.

I’m not saying there’s right or wrong answers, but what I am saying is: Always look underneath the covers. Some of the examples are really kind of interesting. You take a look at kids, for example: What do you do if your kid does something wrong? What happens if your kid doesn’t study? If you repeatedly don’t do anything, are they going to study? What happens?

Watch any time—you may have done this, or caught yourself in this, or one of your spouses or whatever—what happens when a baby cries? You’ll see very often that the mother picks up the baby, and then the baby stops. There is sometimes that that’s necessary or appropriate, and other times you shouldn’t pick up the baby. Now, I don’t know the answers to that, not at all. I don’t have the foggiest idea, but watch how sometimes babies train their mothers because they want to be picked up, they want to be held. Heck, I do, too. (But I’m a little too big for the pick up part.)

Anyway, also take a look at education, everything that’s happening in education today. Here, again, ask questions. I see all the time, and it really, really gets to me when I see these flyers outside or the thing in the mail that says: “It’s time to vote for a new bond issue,” or this, or that, or the other thing, and it’s usually about something like: We need lower classroom size, or new classrooms, or more classrooms, or more teachers. First of all, there’s an over-supply of potential teachers out there. There’s all kinds of women, in general, (some men but mostly women), go through the education departments at our universities and then can’t find jobs. Why? Because the unions close them off because of the tenure, etc., role.

Then you think of: What’s the cause in there? The tenure causes not only the good, but also the bad teachers to be retained. The idea is supposed to protect the teachers. Why are we protecting them? They’re not supposed to be giving political speeches in class, either. They’re supposed to be teaching our kids. It’s also not a popularity place. They’re not supposed to be winning over the students, not in the sense to be popular, but in the sense to be respected, well thought of, and to be teaching.

Back to classroom size, much smaller than when I went to school, so the problem isn’t the classroom size, it’s that they can’t have discipline. The problem is other things that they have to figure out, but they have to go back to the root cause.

Take a look at government programs, how many programs there are for poverty, etc. None of them ever get deleted. What are they doing, what do they do? What is the purpose behind them? Okay, yes, to make somebody so that they’re not destitute or unhealthy, or something like that. But if it doesn’t work, why doesn’t it work? What happens when we supply or provide something, and make it easy to get? How easy should it be to get? I mean, these are difficult questions without easy answers, but they should be discussed and they should be thought about. The idea that when you have a program that makes it so that somebody has the ability to get income, and food, etc., and if they start making money, they’re going to lose that – they’ll be afraid to go out and make money. There’s a disincentive.

Many of you out there want to be an entrepreneur, or you want to earn extra money, or find an easy path to the money that you need for new things, new stuff, and your future. One question. Many people right now and are also tempted or drawn into the idea of an MLM or network marketing. Is an MLM the answer, or your answer? I’m not going to give you an answer or the answer, because I want you to think about whether that particular opportunity or situation is good for you.

But wait a minute, this explanation is not just about MLM or network marketing, because I want you to think about any business in a similar vein. I want to give you the thoughts and questions that come to my mind, so that you can ask yourself whether it’s network marketing or whether it’s some business you want to do it on the side, whether it makes sense, whether it makes sense to you or whether it makes sense at all. If you’re going to be spending your evenings and weekends starting a business, in any case, be careful on how you do it.

First of all: Can you make money? I don’t mean success in the sense that you’re bringing in income, but are you actually making money? Net revenue, that is, after expenses, are you actually bringing in money? If you’re talking about other people or other people’s examples, for example in network marketing you’ll hear the top earners and all the wonderful things they’re making. The first rule would be to ignore the income of the top earners, particularly if they come in early or they’re given a position. Many of them have sweetheart deals to help start the company up. You don’t have that deal. If you do, congratulations. I’ve been offered that a couple of times, but have turned it down for various reasons. Some of those you will specifically hear in a little while.

You need to find out, ask, and get the actually income that’s being generated by people. Not the people that you’re talking to there at some meeting, or that knocks on your door, or that you know is a friend or family member or something else, but rather, verifiable income printed and put out by the company. Why do I say the company? Because they have a legal liability to tell the truth. Those other people that tell you all kinds of things, generally, frequently lie. If you have to rely on somebody else’s income, get their annual income for a couple years, and I mean get it by either them showing it to you on the company website or the 1099s for a couple of years to show you that they really truly earned that money. Your income must come from the company in one way or the other, or some verifiable government document.

Then, what about the income? How does the income come into the company? You’ll hear things like: “Oh, you’re going to earn income five ways, or seven ways, or eight ways,” you’ll find all, but probably one or two, are all things that are only geared if you attain some supersonic level, which there is only a couple of people up there, and those are usually the people that started at the beginning of the company. Yes, there is always an exception someplace, but very rare, and those exceptions are people who come in with a lot of contacts from major players that have been in other companies.

Ignore that, and then take a look at what you’re really doing. This is a business? Okay, then, does it make sense? What is the product or service that is being sold? If the video intro that you see focuses on the money… I’ve actually seen where some friends of mine, and I looked at them only because they were long-term friends, and they never said what the thing was. They basically talked about: “Oh, you’re going to make this, you’re going to make that,” etc., but they never made a case for whatever the product or the service was. Make sure it makes a case. It’s got to make an economic case to make this a “viable business,” not just a promise of a lottery ticket to you.

As I say this, what I also want to caution you about is the other side. Yes,

Many of you out there want to be an entrepreneur, or you want to earn extra money, or find an easy path to the money that you need for new things, new stuff, and your future. One question. Many people right now and are also tempted or drawn into the idea of an MLM or network marketing. Is an MLM the answer, or your answer? I’m not going to give you an answer or the answer, because I want you to think about whether that particular opportunity or situation is good for you.

But wait a minute, this explanation is not just about MLM or network marketing, because I want you to think about any business in a similar vein. I want to give you the thoughts and questions that come to my mind, so that you can ask yourself whether it’s network marketing or whether it’s some business you want to do it on the side, whether it makes sense, whether it makes sense to you or whether it makes sense at all. If you’re going to be spending your evenings and weekends starting a business, in any case, be careful on how you do it.

First of all: Can you make money? I don’t mean success in the sense that you’re bringing in income, but are you actually making money? Net revenue, that is, after expenses, are you actually bringing in money? If you’re talking about other people or other people’s examples, for example in network marketing you’ll hear the top earners and all the wonderful things they’re making. The first rule would be to ignore the income of the top earners, particularly if they come in early or they’re given a position. Many of them have sweetheart deals to help start the company up. You don’t have that deal. If you do, congratulations. I’ve been offered that a couple of times, but have turned it down for various reasons. Some of those you will specifically hear in a little while.

You need to find out, ask, and get the actually income that’s being generated by people. Not the people that you’re talking to there at some meeting, or that knocks on your door, or that you know is a friend or family member or something else, but rather, verifiable income printed and put out by the company. Why do I say the company? Because they have a legal liability to tell the truth. Those other people that tell you all kinds of things, generally, frequently lie. If you have to rely on somebody else’s income, get their annual income for a couple years, and I mean get it by either them showing it to you on the company website or the 1099s for a couple of years to show you that they really truly earned that money. Your income must come from the company in one way or the other, or some verifiable government document.

Then, what about the income? How does the income come into the company? You’ll hear things like: “Oh, you’re going to earn income five ways, or seven ways, or eight ways,” you’ll find all, but probably one or two, are all things that are only geared if you attain some supersonic level, which there is only a couple of people up there, and those are usually the people that started at the beginning of the company. Yes, there is always an exception someplace, but very rare, and those exceptions are people who come in with a lot of contacts from major players that have been in other companies.

Ignore that, and then take a look at what you’re really doing. This is a business? Okay, then, does it make sense? What is the product or service that is being sold? If the video intro that you see focuses on the money… I’ve actually seen where some friends of mine, and I looked at them only because they were long-term friends, and they never said what the thing was. They basically talked about: “Oh, you’re going to make this, you’re going to make that,” etc., but they never made a case for whatever the product or the service was. Make sure it makes a case.

Today I want to get a little further into some of the ideas of the customer perspective. I talked earlier (last episode) about finding a problem, and that solving it could be your next new business.

Another area is: Take a look that problems that are sort of solved. I say, “sort of solved,” in the sense of something else has had an unintended purpose. Whenever that happens, that was a market opportunity that was missed. Do notice over and over again that I say, “customer perspective,” that’s because it’s what the customer sees; not you. Very different. Most people, and very often as an economist, we talk about customer demand, but demand is a function of all the attributes of the products, the characteristics of the person that’s buying it, etc. That’s where it all comes in, but: What is it about that person and what is it about that product that make it a nice fit? I’ve always wondered why most people can’t really see that, and I think I have a theory on it, anyway, and I’ll get to it at the end.

First, let’s talk about some of the unintended purposes of products. Someplace somewhere along the line, baking soda, Arm & Hammer Baking Soda was basically for baking; use it in dough for rising, etc. What happened? Somebody someplace along the line must have stored it in their refrigerator, and noticed all of a sudden their refrigerator didn’t stink as it usually did, so now not only did people get encouraged to use it, Arm & Hammer came up with a version itself that is directly related to the refrigerators. Its purpose is to help reduce odors in refrigerators. They sell that for that purpose that way. They say it is not to be used for baking. So, it is not as pure, my guess is that it’s probably then either cheaper to make or it might have been runoffs or something where impurities have creeped into the process, so rather than throwing that batch away, they make it into the non-edible baking soda, and you stick it in your refrigerator.

People noticed that for grating, people used some of the microplane wood rasps. So, people using microplane rasps for hardwood, literally for grating of things, cheeses, etc. So, what does that do? People then realize there’s a marketplace there, and they start selling graters, somewhat looking like a rasp (long, thin graters) that work great for the kitchen, exclusively for the kitchen. New product, same idea, same concept.

Here’s one that I find very interesting: Q-tips, those cotton swabs that you have. First, what do you use Q-tips for? Most people don’t use them for the purpose that they were made. Most people use them for the purpose that they’re warned against not to use them for, that’s right, Q-tips does advertise and say it has a multitude of uses. Of course they want to say that because there’s sort of an implication, there, of some of the things, like your ear. They even have, let me read this to you, this warning: “If used to clean ears, stroke swab gently around the outer surface of the ear,” then in bold print: “without entering the ear canal.” I think everybody uses Q-tips for cleaning the ear canal; maybe they try to not push it in too far. That’s what they use it for. It’s probably the major use for Q-tips, so of course, they advertise it as: “There is no softer or safer swab than Q-tips cotton swabs, ideal for a multitude of uses.”

Minoxidil was actually for high blood pressure. It was a treatment for high blood pressure. Somebody found out—how this happened, I have no idea—that it would grow hair, and they started selling it as Rogaine. Probably it was just a person taking it regularly, and started to get the fuzz on the top of their head.

What about pie plates? Until I was reminded this, I had forgotten about it. Yeah, when there was a pie plate, the pie was done, we cleaned off the plate, we’d use it as what’s today called a Frisbee. So, somebody took something that everybody else was getting for free, made it out of plastic, made it look a little neater,

Today I want to get a little further into some of the ideas of the customer perspective. I talked earlier (last episode) about finding a problem, and that solving it could be your next new business.

Another area is: Take a look that problems that are sort of solved. I say, “sort of solved,” in the sense of something else has had an unintended purpose. Whenever that happens, that was a market opportunity that was missed. Do notice over and over again that I say, “customer perspective,” that’s because it’s what the customer sees; not you. Very different. Most people, and very often as an economist, we talk about customer demand, but demand is a function of all the attributes of the products, the characteristics of the person that’s buying it, etc. That’s where it all comes in, but: What is it about that person and what is it about that product that make it a nice fit? I’ve always wondered why most people can’t really see that, and I think I have a theory on it, anyway, and I’ll get to it at the end.

First, let’s talk about some of the unintended purposes of products. Someplace somewhere along the line, baking soda, Arm & Hammer Baking Soda was basically for baking; use it in dough for rising, etc. What happened? Somebody someplace along the line must have stored it in their refrigerator, and noticed all of a sudden their refrigerator didn’t stink as it usually did, so now not only did people get encouraged to use it, Arm & Hammer came up with a version itself that is directly related to the refrigerators. Its purpose is to help reduce odors in refrigerators. They sell that for that purpose that way. They say it is not to be used for baking. So, it is not as pure, my guess is that it’s probably then either cheaper to make or it might have been runoffs or something where impurities have creeped into the process, so rather than throwing that batch away, they make it into the non-edible baking soda, and you stick it in your refrigerator.

People noticed that for grating, people used some of the microplane wood rasps. So, people using microplane rasps for hardwood, literally for grating of things, cheeses, etc. So, what does that do? People then realize there’s a marketplace there, and they start selling graters, somewhat looking like a rasp (long, thin graters) that work great for the kitchen, exclusively for the kitchen. New product, same idea, same concept.

Here’s one that I find very interesting: Q-tips, those cotton swabs that you have. First, what do you use Q-tips for? Most people don’t use them for the purpose that they were made. Most people use them for the purpose that they’re warned against not to use them for, that’s right, Q-tips does advertise and say it has a multitude of uses. Of course they want to say that because there’s sort of an implication, there, of some of the things, like your ear. They even have, let me read this to you, this warning: “If used to clean ears, stroke swab gently around the outer surface of the ear,” then in bold print: “without entering the ear canal.” I think everybody uses Q-tips for cleaning the ear canal; maybe they try to not push it in too far. That’s what they use it for. It’s probably the major use for Q-tips, so of course, they advertise it as: “There is no softer or safer swab than Q-tips cotton swabs, ideal for a multitude of uses.”

Minoxidil was actually for high blood pressure. It was a treatment for high blood pressure. Somebody found out—how this happened, I have no idea—that it would grow hair, and they started selling it as Rogaine. Probably it was just a person taking it regularly, and started to get the fuzz on the top of their head.

What about pie plates? Until I was reminded this, I had forgotten about it. Yeah, when there was a pie plate, the pie was done, we cleaned off the plate,

Today I want to talk about your business, the business you may have, may want to start, and what opportunities are out there today. Really, more the purpose of how exploding the capabilities and the opportunities are. Really, how to find your business success or your next business idea. Can you find a problem and turn it into a business? That’s really what it’s all about.

Success in business starts with the idea. While you have much to do, it must be something that is solid.

Think of nothing more than you go into Starbucks, and you get the little spill sticks. How many times before they had spill sticks to stick into a coffee cup, or if you forget them, you’re in your car or something else, and there’s a little bit that spills off, or it spills on to your hand when you’re walking around? That’s all a tremendous business that somebody found, and saw: “I can have this little thing called a spill stick, stick it into a cup, and each and every cup,” and every Starbucks around has a little package of those to give out to anybody.

Of course, I always want to put a little bit of caution, there, because: Because something is a problem for you doesn’t mean it’s a problem for somebody else. When you take a look at something, and think of an issue, you also want to look at: “Who is affected? Who does the problem really harm/hurt, or would like the solution? And how big is the marketplace for that solution?”

You can’t have a solution somebody can’t pay for, not unless you can reinvent how it’s done in such a way that it lowers the cost to make it marketable. Then define and decide who’s the market. We’ve always discussed the demographics of the market. Today, most people talk of an avatar coming out from the internet days, and the emoticons, etc. Same thing, same concept. The only thing that’s sometimes is done incorrectly is they talk of an avatar, as if you’re going to have one person. It sounds good, but most products are differentiated across some demographic groups.

Start out with one. Find out, though, what others might be affected, because there most likely is more than one marketplace that really your product suits very, very well. It may be just multiple age groups, maybe mostly 35- to 44-year-olds, but it turns out that 25- to 34-year-olds are very heavily invested into the same thing, maybe because they want to mimic the people who are slightly older than them. Notice it’s not just notifying and noticing that they want that product, but they want it because they’re mimicking something of a slightly older age. That affects how you position the product.

So, you identify what problems people are having. It’s obvious in the one I just mentioned, spill sticks with Starbucks coffee. There’s also other things. Take the GPS. The GPS now, and this is more modern obviously, because we’re talking about not only GPS, but getting into mapping, and then linking it into your reminders. So all of a sudden, when you’re pulling up to the grocery store and your list of groceries that you want to buy pops up. Why? Because it was in your reminders, the GPS found it. Just you’ve created something where the applications are talking to one another.

Keep in mind you don’t necessarily have to know how to do all that programming. That’s where you have, as I mentioned in a previous episode, your virtual team, your virtual company. There’s a town nearby that you go to for a variety of different things, and as you pass over the bridge, or under the bridge, or over the river, whatever it is – all of a sudden, the list of errands pops up for all the different things that you need to go see in that town or take care of in that town. So your lists are right there on your phones.

Things are constantly being created, invented that are new that are taking advantage of the new and different technologies. Of course, we’ve seen Facebook and Twitter have been around for a while, and now we have Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat,

Today I want to talk about your business, the business you may have, may want to start, and what opportunities are out there today. Really, more the purpose of how exploding the capabilities and the opportunities are. Really, how to find your business success or your next business idea. Can you find a problem and turn it into a business? That’s really what it’s all about.

Success in business starts with the idea. While you have much to do, it must be something that is solid.

Think of nothing more than you go into Starbucks, and you get the little spill sticks. How many times before they had spill sticks to stick into a coffee cup, or if you forget them, you’re in your car or something else, and there’s a little bit that spills off, or it spills on to your hand when you’re walking around? That’s all a tremendous business that somebody found, and saw: “I can have this little thing called a spill stick, stick it into a cup, and each and every cup,” and every Starbucks around has a little package of those to give out to anybody.

Of course, I always want to put a little bit of caution, there, because: Because something is a problem for you doesn’t mean it’s a problem for somebody else. When you take a look at something, and think of an issue, you also want to look at: “Who is affected? Who does the problem really harm/hurt, or would like the solution? And how big is the marketplace for that solution?”

You can’t have a solution somebody can’t pay for, not unless you can reinvent how it’s done in such a way that it lowers the cost to make it marketable. Then define and decide who’s the market. We’ve always discussed the demographics of the market. Today, most people talk of an avatar coming out from the internet days, and the emoticons, etc. Same thing, same concept. The only thing that’s sometimes is done incorrectly is they talk of an avatar, as if you’re going to have one person. It sounds good, but most products are differentiated across some demographic groups.

Start out with one. Find out, though, what others might be affected, because there most likely is more than one marketplace that really your product suits very, very well. It may be just multiple age groups, maybe mostly 35- to 44-year-olds, but it turns out that 25- to 34-year-olds are very heavily invested into the same thing, maybe because they want to mimic the people who are slightly older than them. Notice it’s not just notifying and noticing that they want that product, but they want it because they’re mimicking something of a slightly older age. That affects how you position the product.

So, you identify what problems people are having. It’s obvious in the one I just mentioned, spill sticks with Starbucks coffee. There’s also other things. Take the GPS. The GPS now, and this is more modern obviously, because we’re talking about not only GPS, but getting into mapping, and then linking it into your reminders. So all of a sudden, when you’re pulling up to the grocery store and your list of groceries that you want to buy pops up. Why? Because it was in your reminders, the GPS found it. Just you’ve created something where the applications are talking to one another.

Keep in mind you don’t necessarily have to know how to do all that programming. That’s where you have, as I mentioned in a previous episode, your virtual team, your virtual company. There’s a town nearby that you go to for a variety of different things, and as you pass over the bridge, or under the bridge, or over the river, whatever it is – all of a sudden, the list of errands pops up for all the different things that you need to go see in that town or take care of in that town. So your lists are right there on your phones.

Things are constantly being created,

I’ve got a really interesting topic that so many people make mistakes. It’s absolutely crucial if you’re in a business, in a company, starting your business, building your business. I’ll refer to it as listening to the customer.

Everybody talks about listening to the customer, but why do so many companies and people get it wrong? Many companies, even very large ones, have no idea where their markets are, or who is in the market, or who might be leaving the market; who might be entering the market. Sometimes it’s just utter ignorance, sometimes the market has changed and they’re not keeping up with it.

Think in terms of the auto industry. Back in the, say, 70s and before, there were really three companies here, and while there were those three companies, they were sort not really even competing very heavily; it was more what advertisements they had on TV, and traditions and loyalty to the different companies. Something happened, something changed, the Japanese came in with quality products, they were different in many different ways – it changed the market, and they weren’t ready for it. Sometimes it’s an accident, and sometimes they just don’t have a complete picture.

Something that I had given in speeches in a couple of companies (the last time was at Microsoft, another time was all the way back when I worked at General Motors), and that was early on (well, in Microsoft it was much later), I was asked to talk to the people that were what they call the evangelists all over the world, and they had come in. What I started out with was letting them know: People and businesses don’t give a damn about your products! There were a few open mouths in the audience and there was not a peep in the room. What they care about is what your products can do for them. Can it solve the problem? That’s what you focus on. It sounds obvious, but when we have a product and we have engineers who are developers in whatever industry it is, that have developed and built new features. They’re more interested in showing people their features than what the features can do for the business.

A few different examples on this. First of all, we can go all the way back – there was a period of time with Chrysler, when it was in its financial difficulties, etc., it had terrible cars. I was inside Chrysler at the time, very often talking to key executives, and they basically just kept on saying: “We don’t have any good products.” They knew it themselves. I asked them: “Why are your customers buying them?” They said: “We don’t know. They’re terrible.” They literally admitted that. I picked their weakest, most horrible car, and I said: “If you’ve got over 100,000 people buying that car, why are they buying it? Find out why those people are buying it, and that’s what you advertise. You advertise what the people are buying it as their preference. That is your advantage.” “Advantage Chrysler,” that was the campaign. Many of you who are older probably remember it well. When I first brought it to Chrysler, they just said to me: “We don’t have any advantages.” It was because they didn’t know why their own customers were buying their products.

Keep in mind: You find a niche in something or you find a hole in somebody else’s product. That is they don’t understand why somebody is buying their product – you can position yourself and advertise through marketing to position yourself as the advantage. Also, inappropriate or ineffective customer focus affects loyalty.

When I was at Microsoft, one of the early things that I did. The training & certification areas were focusing on helping the developers from the different product groups, such as the database server, the operating system, Windows, or the mail server, etc. They wanted to help them showcase the new features. Again, remember what I said: Nobody cares about the features of your product; what they care about is what it can do for them. It’s the same thing when you get into training.

I’ve got a really interesting topic that so many people make mistakes. It’s absolutely crucial if you’re in a business, in a company, starting your business, building your business. I’ll refer to it as listening to the customer.

Everybody talks about listening to the customer, but why do so many companies and people get it wrong? Many companies, even very large ones, have no idea where their markets are, or who is in the market, or who might be leaving the market; who might be entering the market. Sometimes it’s just utter ignorance, sometimes the market has changed and they’re not keeping up with it.

Think in terms of the auto industry. Back in the, say, 70s and before, there were really three companies here, and while there were those three companies, they were sort not really even competing very heavily; it was more what advertisements they had on TV, and traditions and loyalty to the different companies. Something happened, something changed, the Japanese came in with quality products, they were different in many different ways – it changed the market, and they weren’t ready for it. Sometimes it’s an accident, and sometimes they just don’t have a complete picture.

Something that I had given in speeches in a couple of companies (the last time was at Microsoft, another time was all the way back when I worked at General Motors), and that was early on (well, in Microsoft it was much later), I was asked to talk to the people that were what they call the evangelists all over the world, and they had come in. What I started out with was letting them know: People and businesses don’t give a damn about your products! There were a few open mouths in the audience and there was not a peep in the room. What they care about is what your products can do for them. Can it solve the problem? That’s what you focus on. It sounds obvious, but when we have a product and we have engineers who are developers in whatever industry it is, that have developed and built new features. They’re more interested in showing people their features than what the features can do for the business.

A few different examples on this. First of all, we can go all the way back – there was a period of time with Chrysler, when it was in its financial difficulties, etc., it had terrible cars. I was inside Chrysler at the time, very often talking to key executives, and they basically just kept on saying: “We don’t have any good products.” They knew it themselves. I asked them: “Why are your customers buying them?” They said: “We don’t know. They’re terrible.” They literally admitted that. I picked their weakest, most horrible car, and I said: “If you’ve got over 100,000 people buying that car, why are they buying it? Find out why those people are buying it, and that’s what you advertise. You advertise what the people are buying it as their preference. That is your advantage.” “Advantage Chrysler,” that was the campaign. Many of you who are older probably remember it well. When I first brought it to Chrysler, they just said to me: “We don’t have any advantages.” It was because they didn’t know why their own customers were buying their products.

Keep in mind: You find a niche in something or you find a hole in somebody else’s product. That is they don’t understand why somebody is buying their product – you can position yourself and advertise through marketing to position yourself as the advantage. Also, inappropriate or ineffective customer focus affects loyalty.

When I was at Microsoft, one of the early things that I did. The training & certification areas were focusing on helping the developers from the different product groups, such as the database server, the operating system, Windows, or the mail server, etc. They wanted to help them showcase the new features. Again, remember what I said: Nobody cares about the features of your product; what they care about is what it can...

Today I want to discuss the idea of being an entrepreneur or entrepreneurial and entrepreneur risk. Part of the reason for this is as we’re talking throughout all of these episodes, we’re hinting or talking about the idea of having additional income, extra income, starting your own business, etc., and there are several different avenues for that, and I want to get clear on some of them and some of the methodologies of getting there, and what you really need to have inside of you.

But first, what I’ll consider the three general categories of an entrepreneur. This is: You’re not working for a company, but you are doing something else. Now, some people (and this is a different classification by different people), some or many people would classify entrepreneur as somebody who starts their own business, but I don’t mean working independently, getting contracts or getting customers, but rather having employees, building a company which has complete financial responsibility, all the risk, and all the management and responsibility it entailed. That’s the real, true broadest definition of “entrepreneur”.

Now, there’s two other things you could do, one of which is you could work completely independently, and be making things based on contracts. This could be something where somebody is working for another company, and they do it part time; they do it on evenings and weekends. Maybe they’re an electrician and they take side jobs, an electrician at a major company. Or they’re a painter, and then they take side jobs as well. Or they’re a systems person, and they help other people advertise on the internet or whatever, or by word of mouth, and they loan themselves out on nights and weekends to solve people’s problems. Or to build things that other people can use.

The last is probably… Well, I’ll call it the newest because it’s risen into a new stage that didn’t exist before, and that’s really because of the internet, and that is this sort of quasi-company that you build that’s a virtual company, whereby you don’t really have employees, but you have lots of people that you’re relying on working with virtually. Now, they don’t have to be virtual; it could be down the street, some of them, but the idea is that you’re not really having that complete financial responsibility with them. That is, you don’t have to file all the papers and all the other things for employees, etc., but also, if something happens, you don’t need them anymore, there’s not the process of laying them off. Also, you go and you find somebody and they don’t work out, then you move on to the next person until you find that very special person, that is your special virtual assistant, or your special web development person that’s building your website and giving you ongoing support, or that social media person that you’re trying out different people and you find the right one that you just mesh. It may not be the best one; it may be the one that is best for you. So you’re building a company that’s a virtual company. This is much lower risk, and there’s an essential part to see the different here between that and what I referred to initially as an entrepreneur.

So, depending on your age, you may want to go into some entrepreneurial activity, but it’s got to be something that’s inside of you. Now, what do I mean by that? It was interesting, you may not even know it yourself, but when I was younger, of course, I always thought that the idea was you were supposed to go work for a company, but I had done a lot of entrepreneurial activities when I was younger. So here it was that when I graduated and went to General Motors Research Labs, then General Motors, and Chase, and I got the opportunity, I built my own company. I built a consulting company, it became very large, extremely well-respected, covered around the world.

As I transitioned out of that, I got another opportunity, and that opportunity was having a training center offered to me by Microsoft,