The Venture Edge

First, I would like to take time to congratulate my blog-mate Kathy Allen for her recent article in Forbes -- awesome job! Second, I had to laugh when I read the male engineer's quote in Kathy's latest post: " Excellent advice, even for those of us among the weaker sex." At least until I thought about it for a minute and realized that this assessment rings true. By many measures, in American business today women are increasingly pulling ahead of men.  

No one ever said that starting a business was easy, right? Well, starting a business is actually the easy part. It's the keeping it going and growing part that is difficult.

There's been a lot of talk lately about how the government needs to do everything possible to support small businesses with special lending funds (like the $30-billion fund currently under consideration by Congress), tax breaks, and more. Why? Because, as many politicians tell us, small businesses are "the engine that creates two-thirds of all new jobs."

I recently read an article on dailyfinance.com about the 10 biggest brand disasters of 2010. As I read through the article, I realized that entrepreneurs and small-business owners and execs can learn some important lessons from the missteps of these global giants.  

My father was a career Air Force officer who fought in World War II and the Korean War, and then ran top secret spy plane programs for one of those 3-letter government agencies. I was always proud to be an Air Force brat, and I have a deep-abiding respect for the men and women who put their lives on the line for our country. I was therefore very pleased to find out that the Entrepreneurship Program for Veterans with Disabilities exists, and that it is making a big difference in the lives of many disabled veterans -- and their families and loved ones.

I spent some time at Comic-Con again this year. The spirit of entrepreneurship is clearly still in full swing, despite the current economic situation. There are all kinds of new products, a waiting list for vendor space, a huge artist area where you can get your own art created in real time, and much much more. Check out the video for some scenes of entrepreneurship in action at Comic-Con 2010. 

If there's one thing I love about the Internet and blogs, its the immediacy of the information. Something happens somewhere in the world, and five minutes later you can not only find 10 or 20 articles reporting the facts, but even more bloggers reporting their own take on what happened -- often with insider information. Apple's iPhone 4 antenna problems are now widely known, as is the company's response, which was first to deny that there was a problem, then to pooh-pooh it, and then to hold a press conference last week in which Steve Jobs (who took a break from his Hawaiian vacation) admitted that there was indeed a problem and that Apple would provide "bumpers" to iPhone 4 owners for no charge to fix it.  

As you may know, I am on the board of SPORTS for Exceptional Athletes, a San Diego-based sports program serving athletes with developmental disabilities ages 5 through adult. Tonight was the night of our big annual fundraiser -- A Taste 4 SPORTS. During the course of the event, I was reminded that it's good for businesses to give back to their communities. People want to work for companies that do good things, and people want to buy from companies that support causes that they themselves care deeply about. The resulting impact to the bottom line is direct and positive 

As I have already mentioned here more times than I can keep track of, we're still in the throes of nasty economic downturn -- certainly the worst we've seen in many, many years. And despite everyone's hope for a rosier future, the near-term picture is still pretty bleak. According to government statistics, private payrolls rose by only 33,000 in May and 83,000 in June – not enough to sustain a recovery, and average wages and hours worked have both declined slightly. On top of all that, credit is still tight -- especially for small businesses. 

I would like to start by saying that I agree 100 percent with my blog-mate Kathy Allen's last post: It's the private sector, st...d! This so-called economic stimulus plan has become just another boondoggle -- welfare for an ever-growing list of special interests with cozy Congressional relationships. As soon as this river of cash runs out (which it apparently now has), then of course the result will be economic contraction. It's no coincidence that the economic term "double-dip inflation" is suddenly gaining increased attention in the press. 

I admit it. After years (decades?) of being wrapped in the thrall of the Microsoft/PC world, I am now firmly planted in the wonderful world of Apple. In my case, it started with my kids -- they're the ones who first brought iPods and iTunes digital music downloads into our home, back when I was still hooked on CDs and the Sony Walkman. Then it was my daughter who convinced my wife and I to buy her a MacBook laptop computer, and next my oldest son who bought himself a 24" iMac desktop computer. Finally, the last straw was when my wife bought an iPhone. While I had stood on the sidelines during this steady Apple-ization of the Economy household, I could stand by no longer. I bought my own iPhone, realized what an amazing device it is (no other phone comes close), and I have now taken an oath of eternal allegiance to Apple. To seal the pact, I recently ordered the new iPhone 4 and there's a shiny new 27" iMac i5 on my desk. 

This past Thursday morning I had the good fortune to have breakfast with Troy Hazard, a self-confessed (but non-repentant) serial entrepreneur. I was fascinated to learn more about this entrepreneur who founded 10 different companies in the span of 20 years. 

Sometimes -- either when you start your business, or when the business is well underway -- you may have the opportunity to partner with someone who brings something to your business. In some cases, a partner brings strength in areas that are weaknesses for you -- say, product development or personnel management -- and in other cases, a partner brings something every entrepreneur can always use more of: cash. Whatever the reason, partners can be a good thing or a bad thing for you and your business, and you've got to keep an eye on things to make sure there's more good than bad. 

If you're like me, you have probably enjoyed infomercials for years. I cut my young TV teeth on Ron Popeil and the Veg-O-Matic, Pocket Fisherman, Showtime Rotisserie, and much much more. However, when it comes to figuring out exactly whether or not an infomercial would be right for my business, or how to go about doing one, I'm lost. Fortunately, my friend and coauthor Kevin Daum was recently invited to appear on the Fox Business Channel to discuss this topic and to disclose some of the tricks of the trade. 

I just read an article in the local newspaper about a pair of entrepreneurs who have tried just about everything they could think of to fund their young business: Fiji Yogurt, a frozen yogurt franchise with four company-owned stores and one new franchisee. While the traditional sources of capital were tried -- and offered limited results -- twin brothers Cory and Kyle Miholich stumbled on a non-traditional source of funding for their business that was actually pretty effective: The Wheel of Fortune television game show. While the business partners can't yet reveal exactly how much money they made for their business because the show hasn't yet aired, according to Kyle, "We had a chance to win a million dollars, which we blew. Actually, my brother blew it on the first puzzle. But we were able to walk away with a decent chunk of change.”

My friend and coauthor Harvey Seifter -- former executive director of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and expert on business and the arts -- served as guest editor (along with Ted Buswick of BCG) for a special issue of The Journal of Business Strategy. This issue -- titled: Creatively intelligent companies and leaders: Arts-based learning for business -- was just released online. Downloads of individual articles are available free of charge for the moment. Simply click on the article title, then download the document.

Most people realize that success as an entrepreneur is at least to some degree linked directly to one's competence. If you possess the skills you need to run and grow your business, then your chances of success are much greater than if you do not possess those skills. There's just one little problem: few people recognize their own incompetence.

I was green with envy when I read Kathy's last post about her visit to the Kennedy Space Center to watch the final launch of  space shuttle Atlantis. As someone who can still clearly remember Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong make man's first footstep on the Moon, I am extremely proud of our nation's achievements in space. But while I agree that NASA (and the space agency's bevy of government contractors) has accomplished remarkable things, I strongly believe that the time has come for us to turn over the task of manned spaceflight to private industry.

As you may have noticed by now, the Apple iPad is by most estimates a smash success. Apple sold more than 1 million iPads in its first month on the market, and the sexy gadgets continue to fly out of Apple Stores across the country. And now that Apple has established a beachhead in the marketplace, it appears that consumers are increasingly coming to the realization that they need either an iPad, or something like it. According to a survey conducted by Boston Consulting Group, 50 to 75 percent of consumers worldwide will purchase such a device within the next three years, assuming prices migrate south to the vicinity of  $150 or so. Of course, with the sweet smell of Apple's success hanging over the industry, other companies are getting ready to launch touchscreen tablet computers of their own. Samsung, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and AsusTek all have units in development and close to market.

My friend and colleague Kellie McElhaney recently pointed me to a very interesting website, trendwatching.com. The site keeps track of consumer trends worldwide. I was particularly interested in a recent trend briefing on the role of status in consumer buying decisions, and the top-5 ways that consumers get their status buying fix.

Yeah. I know. I used to think that using social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn for my business was a waste. Who actually has time to read all those tweets and keep track of everything their Facebook friends have to say? Well, apparently a lot of people do. Social media is finally catching on as a way for businesses to reach current and potential customers, and to build brand loyalty and awareness. And nowhere is it catching on as quickly as with today's fastest-growing companies. According to a study of the usage of social media among Inc. 500 companies, conducted by the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, America's fastest-growing private companies adopt social media marketing initiatives at much higher rates than other companies.

I have a friend, Eric Talner, who a year-and-a-half ago heard the entrepreneurial call. He decided to leave behind a very comfortable career as a school teacher, and start his own bus-transportation business. His business -- Nevertardy Transit -- is off to a strong start. Business has been so good that he was recently able to afford to buy his own bus, after leasing one since Day One. As we chatted yesterday about his business, Eric handed me one of his new business cards. "Wow," I told him, "this looks GREAT!" And his card does look great. He's got a new logo that looks totally pro, and the card is well-designed and distinctive. Then Eric mentioned how the logo and business card came about: he met a student at a local university business school who took on developing his company branding as a project for her MBA degree.

If you happen to have an Apple iPhone, you probably very well know the power of the app -- those little software programs that allow you to do things with your phone that you never imagined you'd ever do with a phone. On my own iPhone, I have apps that let me check my bank accounts (BofA), view weather radars anywhere in the country (Accuweather), track all my airplane flights in real time when I'm traveling (FlightTrack), view and download (or email) any file I choose on my desktop computer -- from anywhere in the world (SugarSync) -- find a taxicab (Taxi Magic), get recommendations for local restaurants (Yelp), book reservations at local restaurants (OpenTable), and much, much more. It's truly amazing what iPhone apps allow you to do, and it's the reason why I'll never switch to another phone -- at least until something better comes along. However, with more than 185,000 different apps currently available -- and more being added each day to Apple's iPhone arsenal -- I personally believe it's going to be a very long time before something better does come along.

A couple posts ago, I suggested that if you want your employees to act like owners (that is, fully engaged in their work), then you should treat them like owners by giving them real ownership (equity) in your company. Kathy wasn't so sure, suggesting that there are other ways to "share the wealth" without giving actual ownership to employees. I beg to differ.

Have you ever wondered why your employees aren't as dedicated as you are or don't treat your business as seriously as you do? In short, why they don't act like owners? If that's the case in your business, chances are it's because you haven't given them opportunities to share real ownership of the business with you.

On January 5, 2010, I posted about a new opportunity for funding for "pro-social" entrepreneurs and businesspeople: The Pepsi Refresh Project. To refresh your memory, PepsiCo decided to dump its $33-million advertising plan for the 2010 Superbowl, and instead use the money to provide funding grants to U.S.-based individuals, non-profits, and pro-social businesses to make a positive impact in their communities. Each month, Pepsi promised to award up to $1.3 million as follows: 2 Grants at the $250,000 level; 10 Grants at the $50,000 level; 10 Grants at the $25,000 level; and 10 Grants at the $5,000 level. Pepsi planned to accept 1,000 ideas each month, with the public voting on its favorites. At the end of each month, grants would be awarded to the top vote getters, and the process starts fresh for the next month. Now that the program is well underway, and with entrepreneurs looking for any possible funding alternative, I thought the timing would be good for an update.

A couple weeks ago I ran a guest post -- 8 Tips for Finding Angel Investors -- written by Arnie Koss who, with his twin brother Ron, started the country's first organic baby food manufacturer: Earth's Best Baby Food. The post was a big hit on the Internet, being tweeted and re-tweeted to more than 30,000 people in less than a week's time. This time I've got a guest post written by Ron Koss on the topic of How to Overcome Start-Up Fears. This is something that every entrepreneur has gone through at one time or another in their careers, and it can be a serious roadblock to your success. You'll find a lot more great advice to entrepreneurs -- including obtaining start-up and growth funding, and dealing with angel investors -- in his new book: The Earth's Best Story: A Bittersweet Tale of Twin Brothers Who Sparked an Organic Revolution (Chelsea Green Publishing, March 2010).

As you may have noticed, I have been following serial entrepreneur Kevin Daum's quest to attain New York Times bestseller status for his upcoming book Roar! Get Heard in the Sales and Marketing Jungle. The book is a sales book (specifically, a parable) based on the Passover passage about the wise son, the wicked son, the simple son, and the son unable to ask. Coincidentally, Passover starts in a week.

Back in 2005, James Surowiecki wrote a book by the name of The Wisdom of Crowds. The basic thesis of the book was this: "Under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them." The book went on to become a bestseller, and it spawned a new movement: Crowdsourcing.

Continuing with our recent discussions about angel investors and FFF (friends, family, and fools) money, I just heard about an interesting new way to raise funds for new ventures: Kickstarter (www.kickstarter.com). According to the website, Kickstarter is "...a funding platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, inventors, and explorers." Kickstarter leverages the power of online crowdsourcing to gather together potential investors for new creative and business ventures. Current projects include someone building a Bussard fusion reactor ($3,099 pledged from 71 backers), a cinematic exploration of Calvin and Hobbes ($21,369 pledged from 302 backers),  a new video game by the name of Glorkian Warrior ($10,417 pledged from 109 backers), and 8-Bit NYC, a map of the city rendered to look like something out of Zelda ($3,374 pledged from 54 backers -- pictured at right).

In 1985, brothers Arnie and Ron Koss started the country's first organic baby food manufacturer. The company they started -- Earth's Best Baby Food -- was eventually acquired by H.J. Heinz for $30 million, but not before Arnie was removed as president of the company by the same venture capitalists who provided the funds they needed to survive and grow. The brothers recently wrote a book about their experience: The Earth's Best Story: A Bittersweet Tale of Twin Brothers Who Sparked an Organic Revolution (Chelsea Green Publishing, March 2010). The following guest post -- 8 Tips for Finding Angel Investors -- was written by Arnie Koss, a man who knows a thing or two (or three) about angel investors.

Dick Brass was a vice president at Microsoft from 1997 through 2004. According to Brass, his former employer has fallen far behind the competition when it comes to innovation. Instead of bringing us great new products like Apple's iPhone, Amazon's Kindle, Facebook, or Twitter, the company contents itself producing endless updates of its Windows operating system and Office applications. The result is that the company's dominance is slowly eroding, as it loses market share in Web browsers, high-end laptops, and smartphones. It's Xbox gaming system is no better than any of the other consoles, and its Zune music player can't hold a candle to Apple's iPod.

Today I ran across an article by Malcolm Gladwell in the January 18, 2010 New Yorker magazine. The title is "The Sure Thing: How Entrepreneurs Really Succeed." Whether or not you are a fan of Gladwell's work, he definitely has a way with words. He has a real knack for digging up interesting facts and weaving them into compelling stories. The main point of the article was that -- despite the popular myth -- successful entrepreneurs are NOT risk takers. Instead, they constantly strive to take the least risk possible.

As I was flying to New England today to meet with a new client, I was reminded of the power of the personal touch. Email, text messages, and even phone calls all help make businesspeople more efficient and effective. However, business is all about relationships, and the best way to build strong and lasting relationships is through face-to-face meetings.

As you may have noticed, I have posted a few times over the past year about the coming Green revolution in business. It's already well underway, and businesses of all shapes and sizes are getting on the bandwagon. Why? Because (1) customers increasingly want to buy Green products from companies that care about making the world a better place in which to live, and (2) companies are increasingly realizing that being Green can help attract quality employees, save money, and improve the bottom line.

It's no secret that some of today's largest and most successful businesses started out of small businesses, often in someone's home. In 1950, for example, Ewing Marion Kauffman started pharmaceutical maker Marion Laboratories in his basement with an investment of $5,000. In 1989, 39% of the company was sold to Merrill Dow Pharmaceuticals for $2.2 billion. And both Hewlett-Packard and Apple Computer started in garages -- the former in a Palo Alto, California garage rented by Bill Hewlett and David Packard, and the latter in Steve Jobs' parents' suburban Los Altos, California garage.

As I mentioned in my January 27, 2010 post, it was looking increasingly likely that President Obama would soon announce help for America's small businesses. That day has finally come. According to a White House press release, Obama will today announce a new Small Business Lending Fund, funded to the tune of $30 billion redirected from TARP. Interested? Check out the press release, then drop by your banker's office and get in line. I suspect this will be a VERY popular program.

You would have to be in a cave for the last couple of months not to know that Toyota has got some very big problems right now. First there was the recall of 4.2 million Toyota and Lexus cars late last year to deal with faulty floormats, spurred by the horrific crash of a California Highway Patrol officer and his family in San Diego in August 2009. Then there was the announcement last week that the company would recall 2.3 million more vehicles to replace accelerator pedals that could become stuck. Toyota considers the latter problem to be so serious that it has done something that I believe is unprecedented in the modern history of auto manufacturing. The company has halted production and sales of eight different models of its cars until it can work with its American parts producer to come up with a solution and then get new parts to its factories and dealers. This understandably has caused problems for dealers who have been barred from selling these cars, including Toyota'spopular Rav4, Corolla, Matrix, Avalon, Camry, Highlander, Tundra, and Sequoia models.

It looks like President Barack Obama will announce in his upcoming State of the Union address tonight that he made some mistakes during his first year in office. It is anticipated that among these mistakes will be the admission that not enough focus has been placed on getting the economy back on track. I suspect this new focus on the economy will be officially rolled out tonight. Because small businesses are considered to be a key engine of economic growth in this country (as well as the source of our greatest technological innovations), expect to see an emphasis tonight on programs that will reinvigorate small business. This could potentially be accomplished through a variety of means, including tax breaks, unemployment tax holidays, incentives for hiring new employees, improved access to capital, and much more. So, if you've got a small business here in the United States, tonight just might be your night.

As you may recall from a previous post or two, my serial entrepreneur friend and colleague Kevin Daum is on a quest to turn his next book -- Roar! Get Heard in the Sales and Marketing Jungle -- into a New York Times bestseller. To help keep him motivated, he has gone so far as to tattoo "New York Times Best Seller" on his chest -- backwards, of course, so he can read it in the mirror when he shaves each morning. Kevin is clearly enthusiastic about achieving his goal -- just as he is whenever he dives into some new entrepreneurial venture -- and he's pulling out all the stops to publicize his quest (which he has dubbed the Quest for the Jewish Superbowl Ring). However, based on his most recent blog post, its seems he has come down with a common entrepreneurial affliction: the in-between flu.

Today I fired up the Wall Street Journal app on my iPhone and was greeted with the following message: "Your trial period to subscriber access ends next week." You see, I have enjoyed reading the WSJ on my iPhone for free ever since I downloaded the app nine months ago. Unfortunately, that little pleasure will soon end, as Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation have decided that their bottom line needs a boost. However, I am not willing to pony up $50 a yearfor the privilege of reading this particular newspaper on my phone, so they will not be getting a boost from me anytime soon.

While I too hope that Google stands firmly on its principles (see Kathy's 1/13/10 post: Google and China: a study in integrity and business ethics), I'm not so sure that Google's threatened pull out from China has much to doat all about ethics or about standing on principles. Actually, I think it IS all about protecting their shareholders' investments in the company.

As Kathy pointed out in her post a couple of weeks ago, if you're involved in starting or running a business, then you'd better prepare for a bumpy ride in the new decade. In times like these, your business needs to stand out from the pack even more than when business is booming. If it doesn't, then you may have a tough time attracting the attention (and dollars) of your prospective -- and even your current -- clients and customers.

What if a large American business -- a VERY large American business -- decided to dump its $33-million advertising plan for the 2010 Superbowl, and instead put the money to work for a more useful purpose? And what if YOU -- could win a piece of this pie?

When Kathy and I decided to create this blog, we made a conscious decision to avoid giving employee-management advice that you our readers could find on other blogs and websites, or in our many books. So you won't find a list of the top-5 ways to reward your employees here, nor an essay on how to get your employees engaged in their jobs, nor 10 steps to creating a happy work environment. Instead, we decided to focus on giving you our own unique findings on the best ways to start and grow a GREAT business.

Okay. Let's say you're an entrepreneur who's looking for the NEXT BIG THING -- where will you focus your time, money, and energy? Consider following the lead of Chinese business, which is going green in a very big way. You see, regardless of whether or not you believe in global warming -- much less the reasons that it may or may not actually exist -- Chinese entrepreneurs have seen the future of business, and it's a very green future indeed.

DARPA -- the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency -- is well known for its technology innovations. Founded in 1958 as America’s response to the Soviet Union’s launching of the Sputnik satellite, DARPA invented the Internet (no, it wasn't Al Gore), the stealth technology used in fighter aircraft, high-energy laser technology for space-based missile defense, and much, much more. DARPA’s mission is to maintain the technological superiority of the U.S. military and prevent technological surprise from harming our national security by sponsoring revolutionary, high-payoff research bridging the gap between fundamental discoveries and their military use.

Tiger Woods' recent personal difficulties point out the problem when companies tie themselves closely to a celebrity endorser. What happens when that person -- who is, after all, just a person and not perfect -- does wrong, and tarnishes your brand in the process? In the case of Tiger Woods, Accenture has quickly dropped him (he's "no longer the right representative" after the "circumstances of the last two weeks."), Gatorade has dropped its Tiger Focus brand beverage, and Gillette is phasing him out. You've got to imagine that most of his other sponsors are giving the idea of dropping him serious consideration.

The past three days have been very interesting ones for yours truly. My latest book -- Writing Fiction For Dummies -- was just released, and my coauthor Randy Ingermanson and I are wrapping up a three-day book rush, hoping to drive initial sales of the book. While we're still tabulating the results, early indications are that our efforts paid off in a very big way. As I write this, our book is ranked #368 on Amazon.com -- that is, Writing Fiction For Dummies is the 368th best-selling book on Amazon.com. Not bad out of millions of books available on the Amazon website.

Last month Kathy posted on the topic of where to start your business, citing a recent Fortune Small Business and Kauffman Foundation report titled "Best Places to Launch." While Kathy (and Fortune and Kauffman) certainly have a point -- that some areas of the country may be better than others to start and grow a business -- I think there's more to it than that.

Way back in April 2009, I wrote a glowing post about my love affair with Kiva.org, the online microlending website. The idea is a great one: connect everyday people with entrepreneurs around the world who need small loans to start or grow their businesses. Go to the website, find an entrepreneur you want to loan $25 to, click and pay, and your money is winging its way into the pocket of your "adopted" small businessperson.

The golden Cinderella carriage that is the federal Troubled Asset Relief Program -- TARP, for short -- will in just a month-and-a-half's time become a pumpkin when legislation that authorized the Department of Treasury to buy or insure up to $700 of "troubled assets" expires on December 31, 2009. The funny thing is that, as of October 1, 2009, more than $317 billion of the $700 billion remained unspent. Why? The exact reasons are fuzzy, but maybe there just aren't that many more troubled assets for Treasury to buy up or insure.

A couple days ago, the coauthor of my upcoming book Writing Fiction For Dummies -- Randy Ingermanson -- and I had a conference call with the marketing folks at our publisher, John Wiley & Sons. It was clear to all of us that the old ways of marketing books are mostly broken -- it no longer makes sense to send out 1,000 copies of a press release or 100 review copies of your new book and hope that the media picks up on your message. Ninety-nine percent of the time, they won't. What does make sense today is connecting one-on-one with people using Facebook and other social networking websites.

Contrary to the popular idea of entrepreneurs as lone wolves, following their own unique vision of what a business can be, many entrepreneurs actually work with a variety of partners or a management team to start up and grow their businesses. In many cases, the entrepreneur takes the time to carefully spell out the relationships between partners -- who does what, who owns what, and what happens if the partnership breaks up. In some cases, however, these relationships are never formally spelled out. This is a recipe for entrepreneurial disaster, not entrepreneurial bliss.

The basics of customer service are actually not all that difficult. So, why then is it that so many companies are lacking in good customer service?

It's no secret that social networking websites and media -- Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. -- are all the rage today. People are making connections with one another in ways that were unimaginable just a few short years ago. However, some people are going beyond updating their friends on what they had for dinner or their big plans for the weekend. They are using social networks to start new businesses. Rodney Rumford and his business partner Sean Callahan -- cofounders of TweetPhoto -- are two such people.

If you've got a small-ish business and you're looking for financing, you know that there are plenty of challenges. One of these challenges is the fact that many banks are still holding back on making loans at all. Another challenge is that companies are bumping up against the SBA (Small Business Administration) loan limits. Fortunately, progress is being made in Congress to help in both these areas.

A few years back, I helped write a book by the name of Lessons from the Edge: Survival Skills for Starting and Growing a Company, by Jana Matthews and Jeff Dennis. In this book, more than 50 entrepreneurs and business owners offered some very candid stories and insights into how they got their businesses off the ground, survived some calamitous business event, and then picked themselves up and rebuilt their lives -- and often their businesses. As it turned out, partnerships with other people -- good and bad -- had a very high impact on the success (or ultimate failure) of many of these businesses.

Online social networks are all the rage today. From Facebook to LinkedIn to MySpace to Twitter -- and countless other sites with a social networking hook -- more and more people are meeting their friends and family at these websites. And, not surprisingly, so too are the many businesses who hope to reach these people through targeted advertising. Perhaps YOUR business.

When a business is really starting to take off, there are any number of potential obstacles blocking the way to success. As employees are hired, the money begins to come in, and things really start humming, it's easy to think that everything you touch will turn to gold. This is, of course, rarely the case. In reality, it's at just this critical point in the growth of your company that you've got to remain disciplined in your goals, and not overreach. This a lesson that Ken Wolf learned the hard way.

The INC. magazine website recently ran a feature by the title Start-up Secrets: Tips from America's Coolest Young Entrepreneurs. Tips include such things as Stick with It ("Start-ups don't die, they commit suicide. In other words, 90 percent of start-ups fail because the founders get bored, discouraged, or something else, and they move on to other things, not because of some catastrophe. No matter how dark it is today, things will always better tomorrow." -- Justin Kan, Justin.TV), Exceed Expectations ("We knew we only had one shot at this, so there was nothing throughout our start-up that we didn't purposely over-deliver on -- from the way we pitched our distributors and investors to the way we rolled out in the market. If you always over-deliver, it is going to draw attention and you will likely be successful." -- Jeff Avallon, IdeaPaint), and Do Your Homework ("Be really clear about the assumptions you're making about the business you're going into, and check those assumptions as quickly as you can -- whether it's building a prototype and testing it with people, or just talking to other people in the industry." -- Can Sar, Apture). Check out the feature to view all the tips.

Given the choice, most entrepreneurs would prefer their businesses to grow -- not get stuck on a plateau or, heaven forbid, shrink. But there are times when growth isn't good, and as an entrepreneur, you need to know when to grow -- and when to lay low.

My friend Kevin Daum is the archetypical entrepreneur -- he's always on the lookout for opportunities, he loves starting new businesses, and he is eternally optimistic. A few weeks he sold a business book to publisher John Wiley & Sons: Roar! Get Heard in the Sales and Marketing Jungle. Kevin doesn't want to sell just a few hundred or even a few thousand copies of Roar!, he is 110% committed to turning it into a New York Times best seller.

More than a few successful entrepreneurs have almost lost everything they worked so hard to create when they let their success go to their heads. Success is certainly a satisfying feeling -- and great success perhaps even more so. However, when we become blinded by our success, problems are sure to follow. Such was the case with Parvinder Singh, managing director of Valley Holdings Pte. Ltd. -- a restaurant developer in Singapore.

Although I'm not yet sure how deep and strong its roots are, there is a move afoot in this country to transition to a new, more-sustainable model of business. Business experts Paul and Sarah Edwards have encapsulated this movement in something they call the Elm Street Economy. According to Paul and Sarah, the Elm Street Economy provides jobs that last, services one can depend on, and a secure future in a strong community and a healthy environment ... where people come first. I personally believe that this trend towards a local focus on doing business (and away from national chains, franchises, and big-box stores) is gaining in momentum. It is therefore something every entrepreneur needs to consider when making plans for the future.

As a business writer AND an entrepreneur, I love to read the latest statistics on business and economic trends. As such, one of my favorite online hangouts is Discover Small Business Watch. Each month the Discover number crunchers do a survey of small business owners, and the results are often quite illuminating.

I was browsing the business news earlier today and noticed an ominous headline: Walmart's Project Impact: A Move to Crush Competition. With my curiosity piqued, I decided I needed to learn more about Project Impact.

Few of us give much thought to exactly how we go about making decisions. While we know that some decisions are more important than others -- and we therefore put more time into gathering and considering as much information as possible before making the decision -- it's the rare businessperson who actually routinely applies any sort of formalized decision-making process. This is a mistake. Why? Because there's a right way and a wrong way to make decisions.

Kathy's recent post on Connection Fatigue reminded me that I'M getting tired of Twitter, and weary of Facebook. Apparently I'm not alone. According to a recent article in the New York Times, the number of people leaving one or both sites behind is gradually increasing.

As often happens when the economy goes sour and unemployment is on the rise, many people get serious about putting their back-burner dreams of starting a business into motion. It's no surprise, therefore, that the number of articles in the press about this latest wave of "accidental" entrepreneurs is on the rise.

Some years ago, I cowrote (with venture capital expert Joe Bartlett) the book Raising Capital For Dummies. Although entrepreneurs often raise money to start up their new ventures -- or grow their current ventures -- from a variety of outside sources (angel investors, friends and family, private equity offerings, commercial banks, venture capital firms, and more), about 20 percent turn to a readily available source of cash: themselves.

According to a recent article in the New York Times, a survey by the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University shows that venture capital firms are alive and well -- and investing in all sorts of enterprises. Last spring, researchers at the Graziado School surveyed 185 venture firms. Of these 185 firms, 46 percent said they planned to make at least two investments over the next 12 months within their current fund, and 54 percent said they planned to make three or more investments. As the pictured graph shows, the majority of VC investments are made in technology firms, with software, medical devices, and biotech leading the way. Financial services and consumer products companies are also-rans when it comes to attracting VC investments.

Unfortunately, I believe Kathy was correct in her assessment a few days ago that innovation is moving out of the United States,. The first I recall hearing warnings about the coming Great American Brain Drain was in an article by David Gergen, published two years ago in U.S. News and World Report. In this article -- entitled Great to Good? -- Gergen reports that "In 1970, U.S. students represented 30 percent of all university enrollments worldwide; by 2000, that had dropped to just 14 percent. The U.S. share of Ph.D.'s around the world is also plummeting, from about 50 percent in the early 1970s to a projected level of 15 percent in 2010. By a separate estimate, within just five years, Asia will have produced 90 percent of the world's scientists. Never before has there been such an explosion in the world's knowledge workers." The bad news is that the vast majority of this explosion in the world's knowledge workers is occurring outside of our borders.

I've been wondering for a while if jumping onto the latest and greatest social networking phenomenon -- Twitter -- makes sense for someone who runs a business. I've been on Twitter for the last six months or so, and havemanaged to accumulate 172 followers. This is just a small splash considering it's not uncommon for celebrities to rack up thousands of followers -- each one presumably hanging on their hero's every tweet. If you listen to Internet pundits such as Guy Kawasaki, Twitter is a key marketing tool for any businessperson. However, just because you have followers doesn't mean that everyone (or even anyone) is listening.

I was recently discussing with a friend the difference between creativity and innovation, and how people tend to confuse and conflate the two. In business, while creativity -- coming up with new ideas and new ways of looking at the world -- is a nice thing to have in any organization, unless you are creating ideas that can be put to use (innovations), then it is of little real use. Innovations flow directly to the bottom line, while creativity tends to float somewhere high above.

Despite my concern that I might end up feeling like a big sardine jammed into a little can, I decided to brave the Sunday crowds at Comic-Con. Arriving with my kids in tow at 9:30am -- right as the doors opened to the public -- I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Sunday crowds were much less intense than what I have experienced onother days during previous shows. I suspect the reason was some combination of typical last-day trade show blues, and burnout on the part of the 4-day passholders who decided to sleep in on Sunday and arrive fashionably late.

One of the fringe benefits of being assistant editor of Leader to Leader magazine is that I am usually able to wrangle press passes for some very interesting events. For the past several years, I have used the power of the pen to get a pass into what is possibly the world's largest convention for lovers of pop culture: Comic-Con. Born 40 years ago in San Diego, Comic-Con has steadily grown over the years into a four-day extravaganza that draws lovers of comics (and science fiction, fantasy, superhero, supernatural, and horror films, television shows, blogs, websites, and most any other form of media you could ever imagine) from across the country, and around the world. And while only 300 people attended the very first Comic-Con, last year 126,000 showed up.

The publishing industry is increasingly becoming a tough place to do business. It's no secret that fewer people are willing to shell out the $20 or $25 it costs to buy a new book (much less the $1.50 it costs to buy a newspaper). And why should they? All they have to do is turn on their computer and fire up their Web browser and they can get the latest news and all the savvy analysis and in-depth articles they want -- for free. While this is a great thing for consumers of information, it's a not-so-great thing for those traditional publishers that are selling fewer books today than they were a few years ago. Many of these smaller publishers are simply closing their doors and going out of business, while the larger ones are feeling the heat -- and responding by drastically cutting costs, laying off staff, and reducing the number of books they publish.

In any business, there are times when you'll hit a ceiling -- when growth slows and sales flatten. How do you get jumpstart your engine of growth and get your business moving again?

Paul Edwards -- my friend and coauthor of Home-Based Business For Dummies with his wife Sarah -- sent me an interesting study published this month by the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Missouri. The study -- titled The Anatomy of an Entrepreneur: Family Background and Motivation -- surveyed 549 company founders in a variety of industries, including services, health care, aerospace and defense, and computer and electronics. And while the results of the study are skewed towards successful entrepreneurs (those entrepreneurs who were at the helm of failed businesses were not a part of this study), they are illuminating nonetheless.

It seems like every day there is some new bit of news about the economy and its chances for recovery. One day the news is good -- consumer confidence is up, for example -- and the next day the news is bad. However, some economists feel that we are just about to turn a corner and that, although the recovery will take some time, the trend is definitely about to head in the right direction.

A client of mine in Texas recently asked me if I had ever read the book Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, mentioning that it was one of his favorites. I admitted that although an early-'60s, 1,000-page+ paperback edition of the book has graced my bookshelf for as long as I can remember, I had never gotten around to reading it. Then, when a colleague of mine -- Traci Fenton, founder and CEO of WorldBlu -- mentioned to me that she was about to read the book, I knew that my time had finally come. I dusted off that old, yellowed copy of the book and dug in -- reading it in 5 and 10 minute bursts while waiting to pick up my daughter at school each day.

A little over a month ago I posted about the importance of knowing who your customer is. I mentioned that it's not enough, however, to know who your customer is, you must provide products and services that your customer values. This is by far the more difficult task -- it's not always clear what exactly your customer will value. While you might believe that what you are providing has hit the mark, your customer might believe otherwise. And if this is the case, then you've got a problem.

My wife and I have been having an ongong discussion about the current national debate on some sort of government-provided universal health care. She comes down firmly on the side of "The current system works so there's no need to fix it." Lately, however, I haven't been so sure that it really works.

While many in our nation bemoan the loss of manufacturing plants and capacity to lower-cost countries -- the losses of jobs and tax base are understandably traumatic to the affected communities and the people who live within them -- the United States is increasingly depending on innovation to lead the way. We are becoming a nation of knowledge workers -- farming out or outsourcing or licensing cutting-edge technologies to manufacturers overseas. It is important that instead of throwing government money after the rapidly disappearing manufacturing base, and instead to invest it wisely in innovation -- the seeds of our future.

The last thing any businessperson wants to do is tell a customer that there's a problem with their order or project. We all want happy customers, and problems often lead to customers who are something less than happy. I have personally found that there are a few things you can do when there's a problem, and that these things will help keep your customers happy.

Yesterday my wife and I threw a party for my son's "graduation" from fifth grade. Next year he and the rest of his class -- most of whom showed up, with parents and siblings in tow -- will fragment as their paths take them to a variety of different middle schools in the area.After completing my duties on the grill, it was time for me to socialize with the guests. I was talking with one of the moms of one of my son's classmates about just how tough it is getting new business in a crowded field. I told her that I am absolutely convinced (and I am), that if you're really good at what you do -- and if you do what you promise, on time and on budget -- then you'll have more business than you'll know what to do with. And much of this business will come from referrals from happy customers and clients.

Okay. I know I was on a major rant a couple of months ago about all the magazines and newspapers I subscribed to, and how I was going to cut back. I did indeed cut back, but there's one magazine I decided to hang on to: The New Yorker. I love how you'll be reading a story about some topic -- say, Edgar Allan Poe, or the Parrot Panic of 1930 -- and just when you think the article is going to end, it goes on for another page, and then another, and another, and another. I find myself learning a LOT about some very interesting topics. Anyway, that was a long way of saying that one article in last week's issue caught my eye -- Board Stiff -- which explores how the nature of corporateboards has changed as people have tried to improve them over the past couple of decades.

I can't let the bankruptcy of General Motors go by without comment. Yesterday was truly a sad day for what was once the largest and most powerful U.S. corporation. According to its bankruptcy filing, the company has assets of $82.3 billion and debts of $172.8 billion. That is a going-out-of-business plan if I've ever seen one. While the company is not going out of business -- yet -- it is embarking on a major cost-cutting campaign. This campaign includes letting go of 25,000 employees, closing 17 factories and parts centers, and getting rid of 2,400 of its 6,000 dealers across the country. GM has been a part of the Dow Jones industrial average since 1925. No longer.

My friend Bob Nelson -- author of 1001 Ways to Reward Employees -- talks a lot about all the different ways to (no big surprise) reward your employees. While rewarding employees is important, there are other people in your life who you should consider rewarding too. At the top of my personal top-10 list would be someone near and dear to my own heart: my clients and customers. And one of the best ways to do that is to turn them into heroes -- in your industry and your community.

I have been an observer of leadership for many years. During this time, I have seen leaders come and I have seen leaders go. Throughout it all, it became clear to me that, given the right environment and attitude, anyone can become a leader. Leadership is not something that only a select few have the smarts, the fortitude, or the genetic code to possess. I have seen—time and time again—examples of regular people who, when confronted with a challenge, took charge of the situation and became extraordinary leaders. Leadership is within each one of us, we just have to find it.

Last week I was reminded about the importance of remembering exactly who your customer is. I've had a long-term job where I provide support to a key employee who works for a client of mine. I meet with the key employee for a couple of hours every week, and we work closely together on a variety of projects. While I spend a lot of time with this employee, I only meet with my actual client once every couple of months. The problem was that because I was spending far more time with the key employee, I had forgotten exactly who I was working for. I was serving the employee instead of the client. The result? My client reminded me -- not too subtly -- who was approving my invoices, and who I needed to please.

This past weekend I was chatting with Kathy about this blog, and I was reminded of something that happened a few years ago to an article I was working on for Leader to Leader magazine. One of the things I love about working with the magazine is that I get to meet some very interesting and influential top executives. When it comes to cold-calling a CxO, I'm fearless -- no matter how big the company or how big the name. So I was particularly proud when I cold-called FedEx Express and got president and CEO David Bronczek to agree to do an article with me. For the associate editor of a business magazine, it just doesn't get much better than that. But as I soon was to learn, sometimes it's the small stuff that counts.

Today Stonyfield Farm -- a subsidiary of Groupe Danone -- is the leading producer of organic yogurt in the world, with more than $300 million in annual sales.However, the path the company traveled to get to this place was frought with uncertainty and near-disaster. Stonyfield Farm -- which originated with an organic farming school in New Hampshire -- opened for business in 1983 with CEO Gary Hirshberg's vision for the future and a $35,000 loan from the Institute for Community Economics. The business started with seven Jersey cows and by the end of the year was steadily producing 150 cases of yogurt a week.

A while back I posted about the fact that many of today's top companies were started -- or significantly grown -- during some very difficult economic times.For example, Disney started during the post-war recession of 1923-24, Hewlett-Packard began during the Great Depression, and Microsoft was founded during the oil crisis in the mid-1970s. The point? That just because times are tough doesn't mean that you as a businessperson should run and hide from the multitude of opportunities that await you. A recent article in the New Yorker provides further support to this point of view.

I just read an article in the New York Times reporting that the popular Yelp.com website has made a major change to its policies. In case you're not familiar with Yelp, it's a website where anyone can write reviews of restaurants, hotels, grocery stores, dry cleaners, CPAs, fish markets, and most any other kind of business you can imagine. You can even write reviews of local places of interest, such as museums, parks, and beaches. I've been a BIG fan of Yelp for a couple of years now, and I rely heavily on the Yelp app on my iPhone when I'm looking for a great place to eat in an unfamiliar town. What's changing with Yelp's policies is that starting last week, the company now allows businesses to respond to negative comments left about them by reviewers. And believe me, reviewers can sometimes leave comments that are both brutal -- and untrue.

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.

Teach him how to fish and he will feed every day.

Loan him money for a boat and he will have a fishing business.

                                  -- Olivier Ozoux

Like my blog co-conspirator Kathy Allen, I too am a BIG fan of person-to-person microlending site Kiva.org. Over the past couple of years that I have been a member, I have made nine different loans to entrepreneurs around the world, including men and women in Senegal, Peru, Cambodia, Mexico, Tajikistan, Samoa, and Azerbaijan.I have been paid back in full on five of my loans, and the others are on their way. To date, Kiva has loaned more than $67 million by way of almost 100,000 individual loans. I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Kiva.org cofounder Matt Flannery (he and his wife Jessica came up with the idea for Kiva.org while they were working in Uganda for the Village Enterprise Fund) for my book Giving Back: Connecting You, Business, and Community. I thought it might be interesting to include here some excerpts from the interview pertaining to Matt's own entrepreneurial journey...

I was chatting with a friend last week about a new website she was about to get off the ground. She was particularly excited about the name of the website -- a name that I noticed was VERY close to a concept made popular several years ago in a book by business author Jim Collins. Now, my friend was not familiar with Jim Collins' work, so she had no idea that the name of her website was dangerously close to his concept. And even if she had known, that might not have made a difference anyway, since she was so excited about it. But, as I pointed out to her, if Collins had trademarked the term, then she might not be able to use it.

While few forsaw the depths of the economic crisis that we now face, a few noted authors released books in 2008 that can help provide some much-needed perspective tobusinesspeople looking for solutions today. Here's a list of my current favorites:

Although it seems like I spend 99.9 percent of my waking hours in my home office, every once in a while the opportunity presents itself to get out and run some errands. The first thing I do after starting my car is to change the radio station from whatever noise my kids were listening to the last time they were in the car to something that I like.Today I was driving around and I  heard an interesting advertisement. While I don't remember all the details, the main theme was this: The President and Congress have just agreed to the biggest stimulus of the American economy ever, and there are billions and billions of dollars just waiting forsmart businesspeople like you and me to claim. Of course, the ad implies that if you're REALLY  a smart businessperson, you'll waste no time picking up the phone, calling the company, and getting your piece of the stimulus pie.

Make no mistake about it -- the current economic downdraft is having serious consequences across our nation -- and around the globe -- and there is no end yet in sight. However, it's at times like these -- when everyone seems to be placing their bets on a continued downward slide -- that great companies are built, and that sigificance is found. This fact has been borne out time and time again by many of today’s greatest companies, which either began or grew substantially during recessions and/or depressions.

There has been much debate over the years as to whether entrepreneurs are born or made. My own personal opinion is that it is a little of both. Some people just naturally take to entrepreneurship -- they see themselves as entrepreneurs, and cannot imagine any other kind of life. Although my business only has two employees, I am an entrepreneur of sorts (perhaps a low-level one) and I will do everything in my power to ensure that I never have to work for someone else ever again. I like being my own boss. To be honest, I work far harder for myself than I ever did for anyone else when I worked a regular job, but I don't mind it a bit.

Yesterday my blog-mate Kathy Allen and I were chatting about the current state of the economy, and what we would do about it if we were in charge. While being in charge of cleaning up this economic mess is about the last job I would personally aspire to at the moment, that didn't stop us from coming up with some interesting ideas. This then is the first plank in the Allen-Economy Economic Stimulus Plan of 2009.

If you haven't yet seen a copy of the $787 billion economic stimulus package signed recently by President Obama, then you're in for a treat. At more than 1,000 pages, it's not exactly light reading. For busy small business owners, ferreting out programs of particular benefit to them has not been an easy process. But, according to a recent New York Times article, the benefits are definitely there. Here's some of the good news for small businesses:

Last week Mark Cuban -- the billionaire entrepreneur and owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA basketball team -- announced an interesting new approach to stimulating the U.S. economy: an open source funding environment that he would fund with his own money. Says Cuban, "Rather than trying to be a Venture Capitalist, I  was looking for an idea that hopefully could inspire people to create businesses that could quickly become self funding. Businesses that just needed a jump start to get the ball rolling and create jobs. I'm a big believer that entrepreneurs will lead us out of this mess. I just needed a way to help." Here's how it works: Simply post your business plan on Cuban's blog, and he will personally consider it for funding. There is no minimum and no maximum funding limit, and with a couple billion dollars in the bank, Mark can clearly afford some serious funding.

You might think with the economy on the skids, that consumers could care less about buying green products -- regressing to old habits of purchasing those less ecologically fit items that generally cost less (often significantly less) than their green counterparts. If that's what you thought, then you thought wrong.

I recently met with a very smart former C-level executive who worked in some of the country's largest companies. During the course of our meetings, he gave me a copy of a book that he used to give to all of his managers: Zoom, by Istvan Banyai. The book has been around for a while -- it was originally published in 1998 -- but its message about the power of perspective is timeless. There are no words in the book, just a series of pictures with constantly receding frames of reference.

We all know the news in the United States is nonstop doom and gloom, 24-7. But, despite rumors to the contrary, a significant portion of the rest of the world is not suffering from the same severe economic downdraft as we are. In fact, some parts of the world are prospering.

Is it possible to have too much information? This is a question I've personally been struggling with lately. As a full-time business writer and small business owner, it's my job to be up to date with the goings on in the business marketplace. To do this, I subscribed to the Wall Street Journal, made the New York Times my homepage on my web browser (and also read through the online versions of the Washington Post and San Diego Union-Tribune each day), and closely monitored the Business Week, Inc. magazine, and Fast Company websites. The result? I spent far more time reading about what was going on out there in the world than writing about it. I was suffering a chronic case of information overload.

With the business environment as unsettled as it has been lately, you might think that taking time to undertake a planning process might not be the best use of your time right now. I would actually venture that you need to plan now more than ever. One good thing about planning is that it makes you sit down with your team and take some time to think about the priorities and direction of your business. While I agree that the end result should not be a 300-page five-year strategic plan (that might indeed be overkill at this point), a short bullet list of key priorities might just do the trick.

The U.S. economic stimulus program promises to inject up to $2 trillion of new government spending into the economy during the period 2008-2010. While a portion of this cash has already been spent or earmarked for specific purposes -- such as propping up woozy banks and buying bad mortgages -- the majority is yet to be committed. With the new presidential administration's desire to make major investments in rebuilding the nation's infrastructure, there are numerous potential opportunities for American businesses -- your business -- to profit.

In case you haven't noticed, over the past month Kathleen and I (and some of our readers) have been engaging in a mini-debate of sorts over whether or not to set goals, and if so, how large they should be. A friend and colleague of mine -- Traci Fenton, founder and CEO of WorldBlu, Inc. -- is a big believer in the power of setting BIG goals. However, rather than just creating a list of goals and tacking it to her office wall or implanting it into her Blackberry, she decided that sharing them with other important people in her life might apply the additional leverage she needed to achieve them.

While I generally don't post information that will be stale in a few months -- much preferring timeless pearls of wisdom that will stand the test of time (*cough*) -- in this case I'm going to make an exception. I just found out about a competition that -- if you qualify -- you're going to be very interested in. It's called Pitch 2009: Women 2.0 Startup Competition, andthe prizes are nothing short of awesome.

Today one of my clients and I drove up to Riverside, California so I could do some research for a project we're working on. On the way through town, we passed numerous empty houses with uncut grass and empty rooms -- and For Sale signs posted out front. Some of the signs had an added note: Bank Owned. California's Inland Empire -- the inland area of Southern California surrounding the cities of Riverside and San Bernardino -- was booming just a few years ago. Today it's a bust. According to an article in today's New York Times, the area's unemployment rate is hovering at 9.5 percent and 350,000 homes have gone into foreclosure -- with a local population of about 4.3 million people, that translates into one out of every three homes.

However, among all these dark clouds silver linings are starting to appear.

Over the past few days I've had a couple of conversations with colleagues that have crystallized a recent change in my personal business philosophy. My own business of writing books and consulting for aspiring authors is very cyclical -- most of my business comes from referrals from happy clients, and I never know when a new customer is going to walk through the door. When business is tight, I automatically go into austerity mode -- I don't spend a dime on my business unless I absolutely have to. But when I've got LOTS of business, that's when I typically go into spending mode -- buying new computers, monitors, software, printers, and the other things I need to upgrade my office.

However, that's all changed.

Now is not the time to be frittering away your marketing time and money on prospects who offer you the least possible chance of paying off in the near term. Now is the time to focus your marketing efforts on the potential customers and clients who offer you the best chance of a return sooner rather than later. And who exactly might these best marketing prospects be? Well, your current customers and clients of course!

Many company owners and execs no doubt believe that demonstrating to clients and customers that they have a social conscience is a good thing for their companies, particularly if doing so won't have a negative impact on the bottom line. Corporate social responsibilty --aligning a company's activities with the social, economic and environmental expectations of its "stakeholders" -- is the motherhood and apple pie of 21st century business. It's the kind of thing that most every company feels it's got to do -- or at least to give the appearance of doing -- in today's increasingly competitive business environment. Even Wal-Mart -- the 1,000-pound gorilla of the retailing marketplace -- has gotten into the act, declaring on its website that the company's "environmental goals are simple and straightforward: to be supplied 100 percent by renewable energy; to create zero waste; and to sell products that sustain our natural resources and the environment."

Do you know anyone who doesn't make at least one or two resolutions for the New Year? I don't. Whether it's exercising more, spending less, or resolving to take a business to the next level, there are all kinds of things we can do better -- starting January 1st. In his book My Start Up Life, my friend Ben Casnocha included a One-a-Day, One-Month Plan to Becoming a Better Entrepreneur. Following Ben's plan -- starting January 1, 2009 -- would be the perfect resolution for any businessperson who wants to shake things up in their business and life. Here are Days 1 through 5 of Ben's Plan (you'll have to buy the book to get Days 6 through 30!):

I was just reading about the guy who was accused a few days ago of embezzling a ton of money ($65 million, to be exact) from his employer Fry's Electronics. According to the complaint filed Dec. 18 by the Internal Revenue Service with the U.S. District Court in San Jose, Ausaf Umar Siddiqui -- the company's VP of merchandising and operations -- allegedly devised secret deals with five vendors that involved purchasing excessive amounts of merchandise above market rates in return for kickbacks ranging from 15% to 31% of the total order. That's some serious cabbage!

Many prospective business owners today have tested the economic winds of change to decide whether or not to start their enterprises, felt a chilly downdraft, and retreated to the warm comfort of their existing jobs. This is unfortunate, because even in the most turbulent economic times, there are plenty of opportunities to be had -- you just have to take the time necessary to find these opportunities and work up the courage to pursue them. Imagine, however, that on top of a severe economic downturn, that your country had just emerged from a brutal, years-long civil war -- one that had literally torn your nation apart. This was the case when Hanan Saab decided to start her Beirut, Lebanon-based business, Pharmamed.

A recent Business Week magazine article described an approach to business lending that is gaining in popularity. The article discusses the case of Michael Amstein, a Denver ambulance company executive who decided to quit his corporate job to open a Nestle Toll House Cafe in a local mall. Amstein's loan requests were rejected by local banks because he didn't have sufficient collateral, but he was able to pull $100,000 out of his401k without the standard 10 percent tax penalty.

Okay, so times are tough -- we all know that. You may not be bringing as many new customers in the door as you did a year ago, and some of your most reliable customers from past years may not be quite so reliable. In fact, some may have stopped calling altogether.

The recent financial meltdown has really put the hurt on a lot of businesses. And it’s not just the Wall Street brokerages, the huge multinational insurers, and Big Three automakers that are suffering. In my hometown, restaurants that were vibrant a few months ago are now dark—their windows shuttered and doors locked—and stores and other businesses suddenly have “For Lease” signs posted out front. Credit is tight, banks are holding onto their money, and business loans are harder to get. 

Okay. Let me make something perfectly clear from the very beginning of this post. I have never bought “shapewear,”—undergarments that are specifically designed to reshape (mostly) female body parts and regions—and I don’t expect I ever will. Apparently I’m not alone: the market for pantyhose (much less for girdles, corsets, and other, old-fashioned shapewear) has been sagging for years as large numbers of women have abandoned the product, moving to a more natural look.

A couple of years ago, Frances Hesselbein at the Leader to Leader Institute asked me to take on a new project—an update of a book that Peter Drucker wrote for the Institute (then known as the Drucker Foundation) way back in 1993. Of course, it’s not every day that I get asked to create an updated version of a book by Peter Drucker, so I of course jumped at the chance. Long story short, the new book—The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization—was published by Jossey-Bass earlier this year. As it turns out, Drucker’s five questions are just as relevant for companies today as they were when he wrote about them more than a decade ago.