Why A Business Model Is So Important

A business model explains the rationale of how a company establishes, provides, and captures value. It includes the product or services offered, sources of revenue, customer base, organizational structure, strategies, operational process, and financing. Basically, the methodology and infrastructure of a business combine to form the business model. This model should be created long before a business opens its doors.

Before starting a business, an entrepreneur should be aware of the basic process for building one. This knowledge proves valuable when creating the business model. Certain aspects of infrastructure, operations, and strategic thinking have proven successful, while others are destined to fail. Being able to distinguish one from the other enables a business owner to avoid the pitfalls. A business with a model that maximizes opportunities and avoids threats is positioned for long-term success.

Sales are an important aspect of the business model and this is where proven methods really shine. By learning how to quickly generate income from sales, any business can get out of the growing pains stage much faster. The sooner a company can pass through this phase, the less likely it is to become a statistic. Quick success is especially important in the online world, where competition is particularly fierce. When a company becomes financially independent, so will its owners, and this is a much more comfortable way to live.

Closing a sale successfully is what leads to income so a business model should include information regarding closing techniques. These should be based on success achieved by other businesses and should be shared with the entire staff. Every employee serves as a mouthpiece for the organization so it only makes sense that each staff member be skilled in closing a deal.

Prospects have many excuses, especially during times when money is tight. They may be fearful of making a purchase because they do not want to spend their hard-earned money. Some of them convert this fear to aggression, placing pressure on the business. Staff should be trained in handling these situations and know how to convert negatives like this to positives.

Leaders in business know what it takes to achieve and maintain a high level of sales. It is not unusual for them to have salaries into the seven figures. By incorporating what they do and how they do it, any business can realize similar results. A sound business model can result in an entrepreneur making more money than ever anticipated.

Penny Chenery, The Entrepreneur Behind Secretariat

Some Thought That Secretariat Was A Film Just about Race Horses

I finally got a chance to view the film Secretariat. In general I believe it really is tough to create a good movie when everybody knows how its likely to end when they walk into the theater. Therefore my hat’s off to the folks that made this movie it was a great one. I expected a fun movie about horse racing and the incredible will to win from the horse.

But what actually got my attention was the entrepreneurial spirit belonging to the owner. Penny Chenery, is an amazing entrepreneur who was willing to do whatever it took to hold on to Secretariat and ensure that she was in a position to be an integral part of her horses legacy. For me the scene in the film that explained it all occurred right after her father had passed away.

The family was going to lose the ranch because of inheritance taxes and needed to get $6M to cover it. Her whole family wanted her to sell Secretariat, except she refused. This scene showed the difference between a pragmatic business person and an entrepreneur. As pragmatic individuals, all they had to do was sell the horse, they could have kept the ranch and had money left over to keep it going.

But Penny was all in, she believed she had a winner and was prepared to risk everything because her belief was so strong. She might have lost it all if she was wrong. We all know how it turned out. But this is a superb illustration of what it truly requires to become an entrepreneur. So for anybody who is pondering whether or not you’ve got what it takes. Place yourself in Ms. Chenrey’s shoes and ask yourself, could you have risked losing the whole thing to gamble on your dream.

Entrepreneur’s Have To Be Sure

If you are not certain which way you’d go on this one, perhaps you are not able to be an entrepreneur. There is nothing wrong with that, but better to recognise ahead of time and not take risks which you could’t follow through on.

By the way, there is one added part to the story, that also showed what sort of an entrepreneur Penny Chenery actually is. Once she decided to go ahead with her plan to raise the cash to race Secretariat, it did not go well. She failed practically every time to get investors on board. Except she kept going and going until she finally was able to crack the code and once she did, she raised over $6M and was able to race the horse. Ask yourself, what number of telephone calls would you be ready to make once you got rejected again and again, till you gave up.

Entrepreneur’s Focus On Winning The Race

It did not get any better for that Secretariat race team, when he lost a necessary race just prior to the Kentucky Derby. Thus, another chance to throw up their hands in defeat. But again, because of their unwavering will to succeed, they pushed forward and, well, you already know the rest.

The bottom line here is that difficulty and problems are a part of what it takes in order to be a successful entrepreneur. You also have to dust yourself off and get back on the horse (sorry for the bad pun), no matter what. If you can’t take the Penny challenge, then you should run, not walk away, because you are not meant to become an entrepreneur.

A Fortune To Be Made With Smart Domain Name Marketing

Making money by selling expired domains is gaining popularity because of its potential to make a good profit. Many expired domain traders take this business very seriously and they use a number of methods and strategies to sell their domains at very lucrative prices. Also known as virtual estate properties, expired domains and domains expiring are some of the hottest business opportunities in the world.

Experienced domain traders use one or a combination of different methods to make money from their stock of expired domain names. These may include such methods as domain parking, domain name selling, or domain flipping. A well-planned combination of these methods will provide you with a very high income potential. Here are some details about each one of these methods:

Domain Parking: This is commonly known as the beginner’s method for earning money from domain names. It is easy to set up a domain parking account and simple to operate it, as the domain-parking firm will take care of the details. What you want to do is to sign up for an account on one of the well-known domain-parking firms and use the web page provided by them to host your name. Most of your web site visitors are un-targeted and they will click on one of the ads provided on your web page. The method used here is the famous pay-per-click system and the income earned by you depends on the number of visitors who click on the online ads to visit other web sites. The only downside of this income generating method is its inability to provide a large stream of income. However, for a new entrepreneur, this is a safe and assured method to make some amount of money.

Expired domain name selling: This is perhaps the most famous method for making money with expired domain names. People make millions by selling their special domain names while the average capacity to earn money by selling an average expired domain is about $25. There are records of unique domain names sold for millions of dollars. Expired domain name reselling is highly competitive and you would normally buy the domains from an auction house. Some experienced domain name traders buy domain names and sell them on a regular basis to create a constant stream of income.

Domain flipping: Expired domain names traders also convert one or two of their domains into highly useful and beneficial web sites that will be potential money-spinners. Domain flipping is a smart method of converting an expired domain into a content rich web portal. Smart domain traders succeed in driving lot of traffic to their flipped web sites. Web sites with plenty of traffic can help them to reach top of major search engines like Google and Yahoo. People are eager to buy web portals that contain useful content and are already optimized with incoming links and traffic. You can also use sophisticated techniques like Pay-per-click (PPC) Affiliate marketing search engine optimization (SEO) and RSS feeds to make your web portal more valuable in terms of income and built-in revenue streams.

Top Startup Tips By International Entrepreneur, David Cleevely

Chairman of the world-leading Cambridge Wireless network and an adviser to successive UK governments, Dr Cleevely helped revolutionise broadband delivery in Cambridge. He founded telecoms consultancy Analysys in 1985 and has founded many other influential technology businesses including 3WayNetworks, Abcam and spectrum monitoring company CRFS. He was a co-founder of Cambridge Network and in 2009 became founding chairman for Cambridge Universitys new Centre for Science and Policy.

Q: What would you advise any startups – not just technology but any industry sector – to treat as priorities to get their companies off the ground?
Make sure that you have more money than you think you need (because it won’t be enough). Find people who can sort out the hygiene factors for you book-keeping, accounting, recruitment, contracts and so on are dealt with by people who do this kind of thing all the time and can do it much more quickly and effectively than you. Finally, think big you need to plan all the systems and processes that you are using so that they can scale-up. So, for example, it is worth investing in a little bit of software that makes something routine even if it costs you something in investment now because later on that process will free up time for you to do the important stuff.

Q: What was the biggest challenge you faced in starting your first major venture?
Making sure that all the processes work together and that no time was wasted. Quite often start-ups find it very difficult to plan and conserve resources and to do things in a systematic way so that they are efficient even as a small-scale. (This is based on my experience at Analysys).

Q: Do you think difficulty in engaging with funders was due to their lack of understanding or your inability to explain the proposition?
My first real experience of getting funding was with Abcam. Where the people knew me already it was very easy to explain what we were doing and for them to enthusiastically support us. When it came to pitching to people who see many of these business plans every day it was almost impossible to convince them that there was anything worthwhile in the proposition. So I think it’s neither the lack of understanding nor an inability to explain the proposition but the provenance of the message that is really important.

Ceo Will Gruver Chosen As Ernst & Young Regional Finalist

CEO Will Gruver was chosen by an independent panel of judges to represent USP&E as a finalist in the southwest area north region of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Program. Gruver says he felt a surge of emotion and gratitude when he learned of the news.

“To be connected in any way to a firm as world renowned as Ernst & Young is a tremendous honor,” says Gruver who received the phone call while with clients and staff in West Africa.

Award recipients were formally announced in June at a special gala held at the Hyatt Regency Dallas Hotel. A finalist reception was held on May 17th.

Regional award winners are eligible to be considered for the Ernst & Young National Entrepreneur of the Year Program. The Entrepreneur of the Year Overall Award winner along with award winners in other national categories will be announced at the annual awards gala in Palm Springs, California in November. The awards ceremony will culminate the Ernst & Young Strategic Growth Forum. The overall national US winner will compete for the World Entrepreneur of the Year Program in Monaco.

Ernst & Young received more than 1,700 entries from entrepreneurs across the country. The program is the world’s most prestigious award for entrepreneurs. Award winners are those entrepreneurs who have demonstrated excellence and extraordinary success in areas such as: innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to their business and communities. There are 26 regional programs in the US and 50 countries in the global program. The Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards are nationally sponsored in the United States by SAP America and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

Gruver will represent his company in the energy sector of the competition.

“It’s a special company represented by the highest caliber of people that I have ever known–and it’s only because of this incredible team that I am even considered for this distinction,” says Gruver.

The Entrepreneur of the Year celebrates those individuals building and leading successful growing and dynamic businesses. Ernst & Young recognizes these companies through regional, national and global awards programs in more than 140 cities and in more than 50 nations. Entrepreneur of the Year candidates are both transitional and transformational. Nominees can be CEOs of public or privately held companies, multi-generational family business leaders or divisional CEOs.

Ernst & Young has been recognizing entrepreneurs for more than 25 years.

“We were advised that we’ve been selected as a finalist for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Program,” said Dean Castillo, Chief Strategy Officer. “This program is considered the top program of its type in the United States. This selection represents a significant milestone in our company’s growth and visibility.”