Job Creation and Small Businesses Blog

Although sometimes difficult, getting a good business idea is only the beginning. A good preparation is needed in order to make sure the business is successful. Many entrepreneurs start a business and fail because they did not prepare adequately. A typical scenario is for new entrepreneurs to pick a business idea for which they do not quite have enough capital but do not necessarily know it. They guess that they can financially do it and just go ahead and set up the business place, buy the inventory and everything else, confident that the minute they open their doors, customers will start pouring in.

Most new entrepreneurs think that their products or new store is so great that people cannot help but come shopping. They neglect to do a market study to learn about their customers and they fail to let potential customers know that they exist. After going on a shopping spree for their initial set-up, they run out of money before they can do anything else. They count on the first few sales to get money to both live on and advertise.

However, they soon find out that it takes more time than they originally anticipated to make enough sales to keep going. They just run out of money and have to close shortly after having started the business, especially when they have some overhead. The more overhead they have, the more expensive it is and the less time they will last, because it is more than they can sustain. This is quite sad because often, the business idea is indeed very good and has a lot of potential.

This is the kind of situation that preparation will avoid and that the book Whiz Biz in Changing Times explains. We will also explore this issue and several more in the upcoming FREE online business seminar series starting this month. See the details on WhizVentures.com. To see the other issues that we will explore, see the Table of Contents of the book. When we have a business, we must wear many hats, but it is not that difficult when we know what to do!

For the whole month of February, I am offering you a 20% discount on the purchase of the Whiz Biz in Changing Times book (all the tutorials and seminars are free). The Whiz Venture initiative (all the free stuff) is financed by the sales of the business books. Just click on the link https://www.createspace.com/3362471 and enter the coupon number 2CU44DRA after getting to the checkout. And, if you know a teenager who wants to start a business, there is also the Whiz Teens in Business book, which even includes a chapter on how to manage parents! You can use the same discount coupon with the following link: https://www.createspace.com/3356877. Find out more about the books at http://www.daniellevallee.com/books (Table of Contents, book description, formats available, etc.) The books are also available on Amazon.com, but the discounts are only through the CreateSpace e-store (an Amazon company).

If there are any specific topics that you want to discuss, let me know!

This BLOG is originally published by Danielle Vallée at http://blog.whizventures.com

An interesting site where I just registered this blog: rsshugger.com, where I have found a series of business ideas. Although there are several ideas in the Whiz Biz in Changing Times book, you may find a few more on RSS Hugger’s Web site. Enjoy!

As seen in the last post, small businesses have a major impact on the economy because they generate a lot of business for other people and other businesses. But what about you making money? What does it take to make real money?

It is easy to get sidetracked because, as economic conditions worsen, we see the offers to make money fast and easily multiply on the Internet. We receive many promises of fast and stellar earnings with practically no work to do. Most of these offers are conditional to you spending an amount of money first, and the only person making a lot of money fast is the one sending you the e-mail if you respond to it. The catch is that you have to spend money first, based on some vague promise of a miracle recipe, and only then you see what you are buying. Even when you are offered free training, what you are getting is often only a sales pitch for the same “miracle recipe” disguised as a seminar, over and over again, without you really learning anything new. Unfortunately, the world is full of inexperienced people who have an Internet access and are fooled easily with that kind of scam. This is because when you are getting desperate, you are living mainly on hope, and these people know it and know how to take advantage of it.

It is not hard to imagine why these scams exist. For instance, let’s say they offer you a magic recipe for $25. If 100 people get caught, that person makes $2,500. 1,000 people equals $25,000 and 10,000 people equals $250,000.  The Internet allows us to reach limitless quantities of people, and offering something at a small price can be very lucrative indeed!

Another scam consists of Web sites offering you to work from your home. When you click on the link, it brings you to an e-commerce page offering you a package for a fee, in order to set yourself up. But the reality is that you will still have to do all the work, even after receiving their “miracle package”.

There are numerous scams of that type. This is an unfortunate situation because these schemes take money from the people who can least afford to spend it. If you need to be “set up”, why don’t you just set yourself up, knowing exactly what you are going to get for the money you are spending? Furthermore, why don’t you start the business you have been dreaming about, instead of doing someone else’s work?

This is exactly why I wrote the book Whiz Biz in Changing Times, discussing everything you need to know about getting a business organized. Plus, you already have access now to free tutorials, and starting in February, to some free online live seminars with REAL content about starting a small business on WhizVentures.com. The accent will be on businesses that cost little or no money to start.

In the meantime, be very careful about “miracle offers and recipes”. If you are required to spend money, make sure you know what you are buying!

I know that times are hard so, to thank you for reading this BLOG, I am offering you a 20% discount on the purchase of the Whiz Biz in Changing Times book (all the tutorials and seminars are free). Just enter the coupon number 2CU44DRA after clicking on the link https://www.createspace.com/3362471 and purchasing the book. And, if you know a teenager who wants to start a business, there is also the book Whiz Teens in Business, which has just been updated. It even includes a chapter on how to manage parents! You can use the same discount coupon number on that one too: https://www.createspace.com/3356877. Find out more about the books at http://www.daniellevallee.com/books (Table of Contents, book description, formats available, etc.) The books are also available on Amazon.com, but the discounts are only through the CreateSpace e-store (an Amazon company).

My goal is to help as many people as possible to create their own job, because we cannot really wait any longer to be hired by large companies who are on a steep decline at the moment. Follow your dream and succeed!

In the last posting, it was mentioned that small businesses are the engine of the economy. Let’s illustrate the real impact even very small businesses have on their environment and the economy. An image is worth a thousand words. First, let’s start by looking at the impact of a normally employed person, on a basic level. We’re keeping things fairly simple in the following example, in order to make a fair comparison. An employed person usually pays for a roof, food, personal services such as banking, dentist, hairdresser, doctor, and such. Most have a car and/or use public transit, Internet and telephone services. This gives us the following diagram to show the interaction with suppliers:

Now, let’s take the example of small business used in the previous blog, i.e. a small decoration store offering artwork from recycled materials, and see the effect. The same individual, when starting that kind of activity on a small scale, produces far more economic activity, as illustrated below. This level of activity manifests itself in a practically exponential manner over time:

Can you see how many more additional services are needed in order to operate the business? How much more business is created for other businesses and other people, just from this simple enterprise? And can you imagine the effect it has when the business grows? This is why small businesses are truly the engine of the economy. We can safely assume that, at this time, small businesses will truly be an important element to salvage the economy!

In the next posting, I will discuss the necessary qualities to be an entrepreneur, and how to inventory your skills in order to create your dream job. In the meantime, read the book “Whiz Biz in Changing Times” available at: WhizVentures.com. A series of new online seminars will start on February 18, 2009. The seminars are free and a maximum of 20 persons can attend at a time. See the content and register for the seminars on WhizVentures.com.

In deference to President Obama’s Inauguration, I will take a few days off and start posting articles (and very interesting ones!) from Wednesday, January 21, on. Let’s celebrate!

In the previous blog posting, it was mentioned that tough times bring new opportunities. It is important to realize that, the more difficult a situation is (and not just economically), the more people tend to go back to fundamental values related to the situation. For instance, the more affected people are economically, the more they forego luxury. In addition to this, the current credit crunch means that a lot of people do not have the same margin to sustain their spending habits as they used to. They have to rethink how they spend what little money they now have at their disposal. This, in turn, directly affects jobs that are disappearing at an alarming rate.

However, this creates a new demand for more affordable alternatives for staple items. People will increasingly be looking to replace usual products and services, especially when they are essential, with cheaper alternatives. Traditionally, the offer for low-end products has been rather limited because the middle-class did not always view them in a favorable way. So the demand was rather limited.

In fact, certain marketing strategies are based precisely on pricing to increase the perceived value of products. There is a natural tendency to associate a higher price with a superior quality, even if it is not always the case. Thus, free things are also perceived as worthless or inferior value.

But that mentality is rapidly changing. What we see these days are super sales from major stores, as they are trying to compete with low-end retail outlets and thrift stores. Saving a dime is now regarded as the thing to do and is becoming increasingly acceptable, even for people who do not really need to. Difficult times tend to increase compassion in people.

So… what are those opportunities exactly?

For one thing, any business that has to do with recuperation. It does not only include recycling what you throw away, it means finding new ways of using things. If we apply it to businesses, it means any business that deals with repair or transformation of objects. For instance, the most common avenues are repairing clothes and appliances. But there is also an opportunity for more creative endeavors: for instance creating new stuff out of used items. With the addition of some paint and a few new accessories from craft stores, old objects can become new. Here is an example: recycling old frames into “new” ones by adding glued decorations on them.

This example is taken from http://www.mycraftbook.com. Note that if the frame is older or in a bad shape, after repairing it you can glue more seashells so that the base is not easily visible.

Setting-up a decorating store specializing in recuperated objects could be a good application of the principle. You can create wonderful works of art that will be sold at affordable prices if you feel inspired. The point is, where you previously might have had trouble marketing a lower-priced service or product, you may suddenly find an interesting, popular and profitable niche. Also, dealing with that kind of merchandise makes starting a business very affordable, when compared to buying and stocking up new inventory. This is the ideal time to be creative and do not hesitate to think in terms that are completely different than before. In the next posting, I will give more examples of businesses that can easily be set-up in your neighborhood. In the meantime, if you want me to discuss specific issues, please post a comment. Do you have any business ideas to share?

We are facing very difficult times, and I won’t bore you with any details or dire unemployment statistics as they are all over the media.

One thing we know for sure: it is going to take several months before we even see the start of some improvement on the job market. So the question is: can you wait that long before taking action? Even then, what kinds of jobs are going to be available, if any? Will you be able to find your dream job easily? Or even a decent job where you are not too unhappy? Have you been happy in the types of job you have had so far? Have you ever dreamed of doing something else? If so, now is the ideal time to try realizing your dream!

The fact is that small businesses, at the moment, account for 2/3 of ALL jobs in the U.S. In spite of their small size, they are and have always been the engine for the economy.

This is why it is important to not only do everything we can to save small businesses in these difficult times, but also consider setting up new ones as an answer to the massive unemployment that is striking our country now.

Starting a business does not only create your own job, but it also directly creates other jobs when at some point you need outside help. In addition to that, small businesses also sustain countless other jobs because they need supplies and services.

This new blog is dedicated to job creation, business start-ups and business networking. In the next few days, I start a series offering facts and ideas, as well as practical solutions. If you want a head start, my new book called Whiz Biz in Changing Times is available in the BOOKS section The complete title of the book is Whiz Biz in Changing Times: Start Your Business Easily, Create the Job You Love! Never depend on anyone to earn money ever again!

See you soon!