The following is a guest post by Robert Tuchman, author of Young Guns: The Fearless Entrepreneur’s Guide to Chasing Your Dream and Breaking Out on Your Own. In this blog post, he details 8 steps for you to achieve entrepreneurial success.

An entrepreneur needs to be someone who can both visualize and actualize. He needs to be able to visualize something – and once he has that “something”, he needs to see exactly how to make it happen.

In order to make it happen, there are several steps that you as an entrepreneur must take on your way to entrepreneurial success.  Do not just enhance what is, but advance towards what will be: keep the long term in sight.

Step 1: Combine Work and Passion

It is essential that you are able to marry your work and what you love. When in sales, there is no right or wrong way to sell: all you need is passion and enthusiasm for your product. This passion will ignite the minds of your potential client, facilitating connections, and connections between will be made.

Your passion and enthusiasm for your product will be what encourages the sale – not the rote duplication of someone else’s selling system. What you do to sell and promote your business has to be a reflection of what you are already willing to stay up late for and get up early for. It has to connect to your why and be a part of your own experience. 

Step 2: Take Action

Second, you must start working your plan, whether you are ready nor not. Know the four good things that you are about to do: first, that your business is going to be built on a great idea; second, that great idea is going to connect you to a market; third, that you will create a plan based on what you learn, on an ongoing basis, about that market; fourth, that you will adjust that plan over time. 

Step 3: Find the Right Partner

After you have visualized your plan, find the right partner and avoid the wrong one! You will have a significant advantage over one-man businesses if you come together with another person regularly to make important decisions. Find someone with whom you have good chemistry, someone who fills your blind spots.

Successful partnerships are based on the idea of taking different perspectives in a discussion and having different talents.

Step 4: Set Priorities for First Year

Once the groundwork has been established, set priorities for the absolutely crucial first year. Concentrate on why you are doing something, not how. Your why will keep you closely connected to your company and your product.  As soon as you lose sight of why, you will also lose sight of your driving force and your motivation.

Step 5: Sell, Sell and Sell

Through your first year and beyond, court clients and keep them coming back! In order that you become a successful entrepreneur, it is essential that you are the person who is willing to pick up the phone and call people to talk about making deals and doing business.

When you make this phone call, make sure you are absolutely certain about the product that you are selling. With this certainty, you can use confidence to build up a network of contacts. The network cannot be established overnight. It is going to take a lot of phone calls. You cannot just wave your magic wand over a corporation and change them into a profitable client.

Step 6: Build a Team

In order to keep your client base, you need a great team to work with. Make sure that your company has shared values, that there are rewards for quality improvements, and that there are strong internal and external relationships. Empower the best, lose the rest!

Step 7: Learn from Mistakes

Inevitably, there will be failure. You must learn from failure: use it as a stepping-stone. Do not forget what mistakes you have made, but do not allow yourself to dwell on them. Take from your failure: take the lesson learned. Do not let it take anything from you: not your energy, not your time and not your space. 

Step 8: Maintain Relationships Built

Finally, in order to keep your company going and keep your clients happy, maintain good relations with your vendors.  It is essential that you support the people who support you.  If you are making a big commitment to a client, make sure you have a solid relationship with your vendor.

In the end, take energy from taking risks. Live in the spirit of the entrepreneur!

If you have something to say or enjoyed this guest post by Robert Tuchman, kindly leave a comment below.

Feel free to subscribe to Wayne Liew Dot Com Newsletter for premium content as well as new blog post notifications by submitting your first name and email address using the form below.

Photo by: Photos8.com

Related Blog Posts:

• Motivation Tips for Entrepreneurs: Start Networking
• Interview with Co-Founders of YoungEntrepreneur.com, Matthew Toren and Adam Toren
• 3 Books I Plan to Read This Coming Semester Break
• 9 Alarming Reasons to Outsource or Hire
• 8 Ways to Bring Social Media Relationships to the Next Level

Blogs can reap a list of benefits for small businesses as you can read from 10 Benefits for Businesses to Start Blogging which I wrote previously. In this blog post, I am going to pick top 10 blogging styles for a small business blog and elaborate on how you can properly utilize each of the styles.

Insight Blogging

Aim to become an expert within your niche. Insight blogging is all about sharing your expertise and opinion on trends within your industry. Yes, it can be hard to become a thought leader and publish original ideas. However, as long as your content is able to help your audience out on a particular issue related to your business, you will do just fine.

For example, if you are a car dealer, you can always blog about how your prospects can finance their car purchase using various options or your opinions of the latest car launch by Toyota.

Piggyback Blogging

There are news or events that catches the attention of the masses every single day. Piggyback blogging requires you to be nimble and ride the wave created by these buzzworthy happenings. By piggybacking, your blog will be able to gain extra traffic from various search engines and sources due to the spike in searches relating to such events.

Announcement Blogging

Have an upcoming product launch? Hired a new industry expert to work for you? Have a set of industry-related data or survey results that are not publicly available previously? Announcement blogging is the way for you to crack news and instead of piggybacking, you will be creating your own ripples.

Video Blogging

Videos content is becoming popular among Internet users. Instead of blogging using plain text, start targeting users that watch videos online by producing informational videos (in the form of presentations) or videos with a person talking to the camera (big head video).

Apart from satisfying prospects and customers that prefer video rather than text, you can also upload those videos to a huge list of video sharing sites that will allow your business to get in front of more eyeballs.

Link Blogging

If your business falls within a fast moving industry, such as the financial sector or the web industry, it is impractical for your blog to cover everything. What you can do is to link to blogs or news sites that report on the uncovered issues.

By doing so, your blog will gain traffic as a result of the pingbacks generated, have a high chance of getting the attention of an authoritative blogger as well as provide value to your blog visitors.

Response Blogging

Your small business will always have the risk of landing a crisis whether it is due to defective products, bad services or customers dissatisfaction that may or may not be broadcasted over social media platforms.

When this happens, response blogging is a good way to calm down confused customers and address them with remedial actions that you have taken. Under some circumstances whereby your followup actions are being accepted by the community, slowing down or stopping completely the negative buzz from spreading further is possible.

Evangelist Blogging

At first glance, if your brain linked this point to fake positive reviews, you are wrong. Evangelist blogging can be done on a company or small business blog by posting genuine customer testimonials and endorsements. Where to get these? ASK!

For some brands, these endorsements might already happened somewhere. Search for positive reviews. Ask reviewers, evangelists of your business or existing customers whether they could provide you with an endorsement which you will publish on your business blog. Also, be as transparent and authentic as possible in the way you present the endorsements on your business blog.

List Blogging

List posts such as a Top 10 (like this one ), Top 100 or Top 50 lists of how to do something better or how to solve a problem are proven buzz generators for a blog. People and social media users love list posts because informative content are presented in a bite size manner.

Survey Blogging

I’m sure that as a business owner, you will receive complaints, questions or suggestions from time to time. Instead of replying to just the person making the complaints or asking the questions, why not reply or answer them on your blog. Also, if you are not receiving enough feedback, post a question on your blog for readers to answer.

First, these issues may be faced by others and by making your response public, you are sometimes addressing to more people than you thought. Secondly, this helps to build a community around your business and shortens the distance between you and your customers.

Guest Blogging

Most company and business blogs are managed by the founder, chief executive or a specific social media and PR person. Once in a while, invite some other members within your business to do the writing.

This allows readers to enjoy writings from a different perspective and internally, it generates the feeling of being part of your business among employees. AirAsia, a Malaysian budget airline, did this particularly well with their Just Plane Thoughts blog.

Presentation on More Blogging Styles

I got this blog post idea after referring to a presentation from SlideShare, with the title The 25 Basic Styles of Blogging by Rohit Bhargava from 360º Digital Influence.

Here’s the presentation. With the ideas that I have given you above and the other styles listed in the presentation, combine and find a mix for your own company or small business blog.

Any Blogging Style Ideas from You for Small Businesses?

With the 10 + 15 blogging styles above, I hope small business owners will now have no problems in trying to figure out what type of content they should publish on their business or company blog.

Do you have any other blogging style ideas to share?

Post them in the comments section and I’m sure small business owners reading this will appreciate it.

If you like the content above, subscribe to Wayne Liew Dot Com Newsletter today to get premium content as well as notifications of upcoming blog posts by submitting your first name and email address using the form below.

Related Blog Posts:

• 5 Steps to Effective Customer Feedback Mechanism for Small Business
• 5 Evergreen Marketing Basics in Social Media Marketing
• Interview with Bryce Maddock and Jaspar Weir, Co-Founders of TaskUs
• 10 Ideas for Small Business to Launch Social Media Campaigns
• 7 Proven Ideas to Recession-Proof Your Restaurant

This week, after my long break from blogging due to exams, I have another great interview lined up for you. Bryce Maddock and Jaspar Weir, co-founders of TaskUs was kind enough to do an email interview with me.

This interview revolves around tips on outsourcing and hiring a virtual assistant for your small business, how TaskUs can help you out and some entrepreneurial experience of Bryce and Jaspar themselves. Getting all excited? Well, start reading because I’m sure that you will enjoy the interview.

Interview with TaskUs Co-Founders, Bryce and Jaspar

Wayne: Today I am glad to have Bryce Maddock and Jaspar Weir, co-founders of TaskUs on Wayne Liew Dot Com Entrepreneur Interviews. Bryce and Jaspar, welcome to the interview and thanks for taking the time to do this with me.

Wayne: Bryce and Jaspar, before we actually look at the questions, can each of you talk a little bit about your background as entrepreneurs, how you got started and some of the past ventures that you guys have committed yourselves into?

Bryce: We’ve been business partners since we were 17. Our first venture was hosting all age night clubs in Los Angeles. All of our businesses start with a question. For the first business, we asked ourselves, "Why can’t teenagers go to nightclubs?"

Bryce: With a little research we found that some nightclubs were licensed as restaurants which meant they could let in people of any age. The reason they focused on 21 and over clientele was alcohol sales but there were so few alcohol sales on Monday and Tuesday nights that the clubs stayed closed. So we decided to rent vacant nightclubs Monday nights during the summer and open them to our friends.

Jaspar: It was crazy! The clubs (which were called Access) brought out 800 to 1,000 kids each week. Kids would save up all week to afford the $15 cover charge, some would even spring for a $25 VIP entrance. It was the best summer job you could ever ask for. We were having fun and making as much in one night as our friends would make working all summer.

Wayne: That’s an interesting story. A few entrepreneurs or small business owners that utilized the service of TaskUs will probably know what it is but for those who don’t, what is TaskUs and what are the services it provides?

Jaspar: TaskUs.com is the one-stop shop for getting things done. We provide business services, from data entry to online marketing, sales calls to proofreading, by the hour. Instead of hiring expensive, full time employees, our clients outsource with a single click. Our prices start at $9.95 per hour, you only pay for the time you use, and the quality of all of our work is guaranteed. Simply put, TaskUs offers the simplest and most secure way to outsource on the web today.

Wayne: How does the idea of setting up such a business came about?

Bryce: Originally we were going to move to Buenos Aires and open a frozen yogurt store. I’m totally serious. We went down there and had investors lined up and everything. Then two American guys who had started a business in Argentina asked us, "Why don’t you figure out how to earn dollars and pay people in Pesos?"

Bryce: That question sparked our creativity and before we were back in the States we decided we were going to develop a simple outsourcing solution that would allow busy professionals and small business owners to delegate work seamlessly. That was exactly a year ago.

Wayne: Let’s say I have a few tasks that I need TaskUs to complete for me. How does the process work? I mean, what are the flow of things that will happen throughout the process until the particular tasks are being completed?

Jaspar: New customers sign up at TaskUs.com (Here: https://www.taskus.com/index.php?pg=signup), then simply click New Task. The process is simple; you write a description of the task, upload any necessary attachments and assign the maximum amount of time you want spent on the task.

Jaspar: If it is your first time using the service you will get a phone call from your American Administrator, your single point of contact based out of our Santa Monica offices. We implemented this position to completely eliminate the cultural and lingual barriers found with other services. Your American Administrator is responsible for overseeing the completion of your task by someone out of our offices in the Philippines and checking the entire task for quality before returning it to you.

Wayne: Entrepreneurs and small business owners talk about outsourcing and hiring a virtual assistant a lot. Can either one of you tell me some of the reasons why entrepreneurs should hire a virtual assistant or outsource some of their tasks?

Bryce: There are so many! To name a few, eliminating fixed costs like wages, health insurance, payroll taxes, the rental of extra office space and additional IT expenses. Hiring a VA is a great option for people who do not need someone full time.

Bryce: With a service like TaskUs there are no monthly commitments; this means you can assign a 100 hour task one day and then wait weeks before assigning another task. We are the on demand workforce that cash strapped entrepreneurs depend on in today’s economic climate.

Wayne: I know a few connections of mine like Michael Dunlop of Income Diary and Shonika Proctor of Teen Entrepreneur Blog are customers of TaskUs. Just to give an idea for a newbie on what to outsource, what are the top tasks that TaskUs receive?

Jaspar: Our three most popular tasks are social media marketing (which includes writing blog posts, posting tweets and commenting in discussion forums), sales calls and data entry. Social media marketing is definitely the most exciting, but we like a big data entry project every now and then.

Wayne: When people talk about outsourcing their tasks online, they often link it to sites like Elance, which is the 900 pounds gorilla for online outsourcing. What makes TaskUs stands out from a big outsourcing site like that?

Bryce: Elance, and other outsourcing search engines like Guru and Odesk, can be great for big projects. The problem with these services is that customers have to invest a lot of time to get started. Even the smallest data entry task requires filling out a lengthy form, and then sifting through dozens of applications from service providers from around the globe. The process is as extensive as hiring a new employee, when it should be more like calling a temp agency.

Bryce: The other major issue is quality. We tested all of these services when we were doing research and while some jobs got done perfectly, most projects get messed up by cultural misunderstandings, poor performance and disappearing service providers. None of these sites take responsibility for the work the service providers deliver, at TaskUs we personally take responsibility for every assignment.

Wayne: What is the common mistake that people do when they try to hire someone to do certain tasks for them?

Jaspar: With a VA, people expect immediate results and perfect performance from hour one. Yet when hiring a full time, in person employee, most people allow at least a few weeks for that employee to get up to speed, learn the culture of the office and work process. I think it has something to do with not developing the empathy that comes with a face to face connection, but it can certainly be a challenge.

Wayne: If someone, say, an entrepreneur, is looking for the services of a virtual assistant. What are the characteristics of the assistant that they should look for?

Bryce: Communication is the most important aspect of any working relationship. Look for someone with whom you have an easy time communicating both via email and on the phone.

Bryce: After that it totally depends on the nature of the work. In most situations conducting one phone and one email interview should answer all of your questions.

Bryce: My final piece of advice that we have learned the hard way is price should never be your top priority. If you go with the lowest hourly rate you almost guaranty yourself perpetual headache.

Wayne: Jaspar, for someone who is going to outsource or hire a virtual assistant for the first time after reading this interview, what will be the Top 3 advice that you will give?

Jaspar: Number 1: Be patient. Virtual assistants are people too and they need a little time to learn your process.

Jaspar: Number 2: Go with the best the first time around. I can’t tell you how many people have told me stories of working with a VA for a couple of weeks and then having to start the search process all over again. In most of these cases it’s because the person went with the cheapest VA available, instead of selecting the most qualified possibility. This wastes time and money, the two things outsourcing is supposed to save.

Jaspar: Number 3: Variety. Do not go to the same place for every assignment. Seek out experts in whatever you are trying to get done, whether it be data entry of iPhone application development.

Wayne: OK, I’m not sure whether I will get an answer for this but I’ll try anyway. Are there any big and exciting events coming down the chute for TaskUs? Also, where do you guys see TaskUs moving in the coming few years?

Bryce: (Laughing and looking at Jaspar). There are, there are. We have a completely redesigned user interface for TaskUs that we will be launching shortly.

Bryce: Also, in striving to focus on specific verticals we have recently rolled out two exciting new sites. Trusted Transcription delivers podcast, legal and business transcription at the click of a button, and Smarter Social Media is a full service social media marketing firm; from gathering feedback from customers on Twitter to driving traffic to a new blog, we do it all.

Wayne: Bryce and Jaspar, I’m sure my blog readers will benefit a lot from your answers. Before we round this interview up, how can they get in touch with you guys to learn more about TaskUs, outsourcing or hiring a virtual assistant?

Bryce: You can email us at info@taskus.com, or reach out to me on Twitter – http://twitter.com/BryceMaddock

Jaspar: I’m also availible at http://twitter.com/JasparWeir. And be sure to follow http://twitter.com/TaskUs for promotions, updates and tons of productivity tips.

Wayne: Bryce Maddock and Jasper Weir, co-founders of TaskUs, thanks again for doing this interview with me.

Afterthoughts on Interview with Co-Founders of TaskUs

Bryce and Jaspar shared a lot in terms of tips and what to look out for when you, as an entrepreneur or a small business owner, are looking for virtual assistant or VA services and avenues to outsource parts of your business.

TaskUs is one service that I will check out soon because fellow entrepreneurs that I am networked with already gave me great reviews about them for quite some time now.

I’m not sure about you but their nightclub idea is pretty appealing as well.

Do you have any experience about outsourcing and hiring a virtual assistant that you would like to share? Have questions in your mind on outsourcing and working with a virtual assistant?

Post your thoughts and questions in the comments section below. Hearing from you is priceless.

If you like the interview above, you might want to be part of Wayne Liew Dot Com Newsletter to receive premium content as well as notifications for upcoming Entrepreneur Interviews. To join, simply submit your first name and email address using the form below.

Related Blog Posts:

• 5 Evergreen Marketing Basics in Social Media Marketing
• Motivation Tips for Entrepreneurs: Start Networking
• 9 Alarming Reasons to Outsource or Hire
• My Definition of Entrepreneurship, What’s Yours?
• Top 10 Blogging Styles for a Small Business Blog

With a venture by me coming down the chute, I plan to improve my knowledge on social media marketing and business building by reading the following books. Have you read them before? Will they fulfill the expectations I have for them?

Let’s see what I have in the list.

The Go-Giver by Bob Burg and John David Mann

The Go-Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea is a recommendation from Trey Schaefer, the person behind Magnets Fast and a Twitter pal of mine. It was purchased using the $20 Amazon gift card I won from a competition on Small Biz Bee.

From the description and customer reviews on Amazon, The Go-Giver is a book that communicates business lessons through a story and it revolves around the Five Laws of Stratospheric Success: Value, Compensation, Influence, Authenticity, Receptivity.

My Expectations: The Go-Giver should be able to enhance my perspective on being an entrepreneur, especially in terms of the mindset. The book is rather thin as told by my younger brother but because of this and the fact that the lessons come in the form of story, it should be a good book to kick start my holiday.

World Wide Rave by David Meerman Scott

World Wide Rave: Creating Triggers that Get Millions of People to Spread Your Ideas and Share Your Stories is a book that I look forward to read next.

I don’t know about you but I am a person who can’t get enough of new marketing knowledge, especially those that are related to inbound marketing, viral marketing and word of mouth marketing. If you are into marketing like me, I think World Wide Rave is a must read.

My Expectations: Rather than theories, I expect to read about case studies and examples of how others had leveraged the power of social media and word of mouth to generate buzz for themselves, their products or services and events. This should a nice and entertaining read for marketers.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini

This book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion is a book that got my attention long time ago (published in 2006) and a blog post by Gyutae Park, 6 Powerful Principles of Persuasion for Influential Internet Marketing, reaffirms that this book is going to be very useful.

Everyday, whether you are a salesman, a marketer or a guru, you are always trying to persuade other people. Persuasion is not just for marketing and sales, it is for everyone. You can use it for personal branding, networking or even improving your relationship (in an honest way I mean )!

My Expectations: Great book with tons of inspiring and mind blowing facts on the science of persuasion. Persuasion forms the foundation of marketing so again, I wish to improve my marketing skills with this book.

Comment on the Books or Grant My Amazon Wish

Have you read or heard about the books above? What do you think about them? Will they be worth my time and will you be checking them out during your visit to the local bookstore or Amazon?

Share your comments below now. Hearing from you is priceless.

If you are too shy to voice up, why not buy me one of the books? They are already on my Amazon wishlist. Well, buying me one of them is a way of saying that I should read the book. Get your credit card ready!

Related Blog Posts:

• Weekly Biz Buzz #2 Word of Mouth Marketing, Social Media Space Monitoring, Niche Domination
• Motivation Tips for Entrepreneurs: Start Networking
• Weekly Biz Buzz #1 Company Sites, Blog Post Ideas and Corporate Blogging
• 5 Evergreen Marketing Basics in Social Media Marketing
• Steve Chou Interview, Founder of Bumblebee Linens, Author of MyWifeQuitHerJob.com

This week, on Wayne Liew Dot Com Entrepreneur Interviews, I have invited Jim Estill, a time management expert who also possesses years of experience being the CEO of multiple companies.

In this interview, Jim Estill shared some valuable tips on time management for entrepreneurs and the correct mindset to tackle time management issues. All I can say is that throughout this interview, you will find useful and practical steps that you can implement right away in order to do more as an entrepreneur.

Interview with Jim Estill: Time Management for Entrepreneurs

Wayne: Hi Jim, welcome to Wayne Liew Dot Com Entrepreneur Interviews segment. Thank you for accepting my invitation to do this interview with me.

Wayne: Jim, I know that you are a time management expert. For the sake of my blog readers, can you talk a little bit about yourself, your background and what are you currently doing?

Jim: I started a computer distribution company from the trunk of my car in 1979. We went public in 1994. We grew the company to $350,000,000 in sales in 2004 when we sold it to SYNNEX. I then ran SYNNEX Canada for almost 5 years. By the time I left, sales were about $2 Billion. I am just starting a new position as CEO of Nu Horizons, a $750,000,000 electronics distributor.

Wayne: How do you came across this idea of helping executives and entrepreneurs to better manage their time?

Jim: Originally, I did it to help my own company become more productive. Then other people heard about it and it spread from there. I also know that my life purpose is to help as many people as possible to achieve their greatest potential. Helping other entrepreneurs then is only natural.

Wayne: Now, let us jump straight into our topic today, which is time management for entrepreneurs. As an entrepreneur yourself, why do you think time management is crucial for a person, especially for an entrepreneur?

Jim: Time is our most precious asset. We have to maximize what we get from it.

Wayne: Do you have an interesting example in mind about an entrepreneur benefiting from proper time management practices?

Jim: I attribute my success to properly managing time if that counts.

Wayne: Jim, both you and me know that entrepreneurs are always busy. They are the strategic planner, marketer, purchasing officer, customer support person and basically every position in their respective businesses. How can they get started with time management?

Jim: I suggest they do a simple goal setting exercise. The one I suggest is at http://www.squidoo.com/60minutegoals

Wayne: I understand that you run time management workshops as well. From your experience, what are some of the worst time time management mistakes that you have seen people doing?

Jim: I prefer to approach it from the positive.  What are the best habits successful entrepreneurs have:

Jim: 1 – Deliberately set up success habits. We are the product of what we repeatedly do. Some success habits that I use and have seen are: getting up early, working out and eating right, leaving the room a bit neater than when you arrived, etc.

Jim: 2 – Do the worst thing first. This is the best way to get things done. Choose the most distasteful task on your list and do it first. The rest of the day will get better.

Jim: 3 – Prioritize your tasks. Success is doing the important things first.

Jim: 4 – Keep your work space organized. There is a clear link between organization and proper time use.

Jim: 5 – Take a bit of time to plan. 20 minutes of planning is often better than an hour of doing busy work.

Jim: 6 – Just do it.  "The best way to cross the river is to cross the river". Looking at the tasks does not get the job done.

Wayne: In your ebook, Time Leadership, you have incorporated some self improvement or personal development elements together with time management concepts. How do they blend against each other?

Jim: The concept of Time Leadership is that Leadership comes before Management. Leadership is about being effective, Management is about being efficient. Leadership is about goals and direction. Management is about the follow through. So the most important concept I emphasize is to make sure you know yourself, your goals etc before you work on just Time Management.

Wayne: If I am an entrepreneur with terrible time management skills and now, I want to slowly get my life back in order, what will be your Top 3 tips for me?

Jim: 1 – You become what you say you are so rather than saying you have terrible time management skills, I would say "I am learning great time management skills."

Jim: 2 – Set goals. All time management starts with knowing what you want to accomplish.

Jim: 3 – Almost too simple but have a to do list. Using the goals, you can then prioritize tasks. Remember the 80/20 rule applies. You get 80% of your value from 20% of your time so spend time on the right 20% of your tasks.

Wayne: What are your recommendations on tools or softwares out there that will help entrepreneurs to manage their time better?

Jim: Every Time Management book or course is based on the To Do list. So this is the most important tool. I keep my To Do list in Microsoft Tasks and prioritize it. As far as other tools I use. I use a Blackberry. As a CEO, I have also become very proficient at using an assistant. I communicate a lot with my assistant using an electronic Dictaphone (it is faster and easier to say things than type them).

Wayne: You mentioned using an assistant. Sometimes, having the wrong person managing our time can be of a hassle rather than of convenience. What are some specific characteristics of an assistant that we should look out for?

Jim: An assistant does not manage my time.  She simply extends my time.  I accomplish more because she does things for me.  A good example might be traveling to a tradeshow.  I simply tell her that I want to go to the show and meet with these 15 people.

Jim: She books a flight, arranges a car, MapQuest if needed, prints briefing of the sales we do for each meeting, schedules the meetings, books a hotel. This would be hours of work if I had to do it myself.

Jim: Another example might be a letter of reference for an ex-employee. I simply dictate the characteristics I appreciated in the person and she writes the letter. She also politely turns down appointments etc that I do not choose to do. A good assistant doubles my output.

Wayne: Jim, I’m sure that my blog readers will definitely learn from some of the valuable tips that you have given throughout this interview. How can they get in touch with you if they want to?

Jim: Read my blog at www.jimestill.com or follow me on twitter @jimestill.  My email address is jimestill@gmail.com

Wayne: Jim, thanks again for doing this interview and I appreciate the tips and insights on time management for entrepreneurs that you have provided in this interview.

Afterthoughts on Interview with Jim Estill

I don’t know whether it is the exam stress or something else but recently, I am very negative when it comes to time management as you can see from the questions that I directed.

Jim corrected me and repeatedly states that one must look at time management from the positive side in order for the steps to work effectively for you. During my upcoming holiday, I will be spending more time on developing goals that I wish to achieve in the second half of 2009.

What’s Your Take on Time Management?

Do you have a time management tip that you wish to offer to entrepreneurs and small business owners reading this interview?

How do you manage to overcome time limitations and grow your business on a daily basis?

Share your thoughts by commenting below. Hearing from you is priceless.

If you find the above interview useful, subscribe to Wayne Liew Dot Com Newsletter now to get notifications of upcoming interviews and premium content by submitting your first name and email address using the form below.

Related Blog Posts:

• Interview with Bryce Maddock and Jaspar Weir, Co-Founders of TaskUs
• Motivation Tips for Entrepreneurs: Start Networking
• 15 Excuses Stopping Aspiring Entrepreneurs from Starting Out
• 3 Books I Plan to Read This Coming Semester Break
• The Growing Field of Social Entrepreneurship

These entrepreneurs recognize the social problem and thus manage a venture in the attempt to make an overall social change, regardless of the effort it may take. The end performance is measured much differently than typical entrepreneurships, since profit is not a main concern; the focus instead revolves around the societal change that occurs.

Social Entrepreneurship Getting More Attention

As a result, most social entrepreneurs work through non profit or government-affiliated organizations. Recent college graduates are best fitted for this type of work since they have just left a setting in which they were more than likely exposed to many lessons about social problems, and additionally have yet to be fully engulfed into the corporate work of entrepreneurship.

It takes a certain type of person to administer this type of social change, which is why this field of business remains a growing endeavor. In this economy, many business professionals do not want to waste their time on something that does not turn a profit, thus lacking the realization that it is turning a different kind of profit through its work.

However, even through a field as obscure as social entrepreneurship, all 30,000 entrepreneurs around the globe together have generated $40 billion in revenue, while still giving much back to the community. Their overarching goal is not solely to generate a profit, but to generate enough so that they are able to donate their efforts to the community, whatever their endeavor may be.

Case Study on Social Entrepreneurship

One of the most current recognizable figures in this movement is Blake Mycoskie, a participant on CBS’s The Amazing Race, whose campaign “Tom’s Shoes” has been featured on a prominent AT&T commercial which explains his cause. For every pair of his company’s shoes that are sold, Mycoskie donates a pair to children in need around the world, basing his ideas on the poverty stricken areas of Argentina.

This has helped to give the movement itself more publicity, since the ad campaign for AT&T has been playing for months since the original air date. Mycoskie’s campaign alone has earned nearly $5 million since its inception three years ago, and has donated more than 140,000 pairs of shoes to needy children around the world. His company has helped add to the increasing pile of revenue which this field produces through contributing to those less fortunate.

Young Social Entrepreneurs Take Charge

BusinessWeek has recently published an article about the most promising social entrepreneurs, many of whom are in their 20s and 30s; most of these innovators have helped the environment in some way or helped in getting those in poverty access to things we take for granted: books, food, energy, etc.

It is important that this type of endeavor gets recognized on a larger scale so that people can recognize the effort these young entrepreneurs are putting in, and the changes they have made in the world. It is difficult to stray from an MBA-beaten path and form your own individual company with the sole intent on giving back to the community, but so far 30,000 individuals have managed to do so.

Your Thoughts on Social Entrepreneurship

Editor Note: Are you into social entrepreneurship? What are some of your experience that you have with social entrepreneurship that you would like to share with us?

Feel free to share your thoughts by commenting below. Hearing from you is priceless.

This post was contributed by Tiffany Davis, who writes about best online college classes. She welcomes your feedback at TiffanyMDavis82 [at] gmail.com

Photo Credits: (- Rafael Rente -)

Related Blog Posts:

• Interview with Bryce Maddock and Jaspar Weir, Co-Founders of TaskUs
• Interview with Tim Berry: Business Plans for Entrepreneurs
• Paul Smith Interview, Green Business Consultant from GreenSmith Consulting
• 9 Alarming Reasons to Outsource or Hire
• My Definition of Entrepreneurship, What’s Yours?

This week, I am proud to have Matthew Toren and Adam Toren, co-founders of YoungEntrepreneur.com on Entrepreneur Interviews. Apart from creating such a great community for entrepreneurs, they themselves are also serial entrepreneurs.

In this interview, Matthew and Adam talked about YoungEntrepreneur.com, their previous ventures, upcoming YoungEntrepreneur.com revamp and they also have some tips in store for young aspiring entrepreneurs out there reading this interview.

Interview with Matthew Toren and Adam Toren

Wayne: Hey there, Matthew Toren and Adam Toren (Brothers and founders of http://www.YoungEntrepreneur.com). I’m so glad to have both of you on Wayne Liew Dot Com Entrepreneurs Interview today. Thanks for agreeing to do this interview with me.

Matthew: Its our pleasure Wayne, thanks for the opportunity!

Wayne: Before we dive into the questions that I have for both of you today, can you guys take some time to talk about your background, how you got the entrepreneurship bite and what are the ventures that you guys are working on at the moment?

Adam: Definitely! We grew up learning the "Entrepreneurial Lifestyle" from our grandfather Joe! He actually set us up on our first Entrepreneurial venture selling these little stunt airplanes called Dipper-Do’s at a local folk festival. He taught us the proper way to use the stunt plane to really ‘WOW’ the audience and we sold out of them before the folk festival was over. What a great feeling for a couple of kids 7 & 8 years old! So it began, the entrepreneurial bug had taken its ‘bite!’

Adam: We then went from mini-venture to mini-venture throughout our schooling years. From importing stereo equipment to magic kits from Hong Kong, we learned a lot and made some money along the way! Then, as soon as we graduated from High School we took the money we earned and bought a struggling billiard hall in an up and coming part of our town. This is where we learned the saying that you hear so often from entrepreneurs "poured our blood, sweat and tears in that business."

Adam: Lots of long hours, huge rebranding, creative promotion for the venue, and expanded the venue into a place where you can enjoy a game of pool/billiards, a nice glass of wine while listening to a live Jazz band on stage. With our hard work, dedication and creative marketing ideas, we soon became the place-to-be on a Thursday-Friday-Saturday night with line-ups every night.

Adam: The buzz continued building and we then started doing some private parties for the movie industry as we had the ideal location and the space was big enough to accommodate large groups! Before we ended our 12th month in business, we had received an offer to sell. It didn’t take long for us to realize that the long nights of sleeping on the couches of our venue had paid off.

Adam: We took the deal and then moved on to our next ‘adventure.’ This time it was a totally different industry that we knew nothing about: Printing & Graphics. We found this struggling downtown printing/graphics company and we used the same philosophies and ethics to overhaul and brand this small printing and graphics company. Success! We sold it on our 11th month in business for a nice profit.

Adam: We took our graphic team with us and started a publishing/media company which has been one of our main focuses for the past 5 years now. We own niche market, luxury lifestyle publications, with a combined readership of over 500,000 per issue.

Adam: We realize that some things have definitely stayed the same since our first business venture: our dedication, work ethic, determination and our passion to help others start, manage and grow successful business ventures.

Wayne: We’ll get started with YoungEntrepreneur.com, which is a great resource and discussion place for entrepreneurs, young and old, from all around the world. What was the idea behind the creation of YoungEntrepreneur.com?

Matthew: During the time while we were working hard on some of our first business ventures out of high school, we were written up in several media outlets. We were asked by the Junior Achievement Association if we would be willing to go into the Grade 11 & 12 marketing & entrepreneurship classes in local high schools to speak about our experiences.

Matthew: We were thrilled to share our stories and we regularly dedicated a few days every month to visit community high schools and talk about the real-world entrepreneurship stories that we had experienced. It was a nice break from what the text-books had been trying to teach them as its always powerful to hear real stories from people actually ‘doing it!’

Matthew: This was a very rewarding experience for my brother and I which drove us to wanting to help as many entrepreneurs as possible. In 1999, we set out to do just that and started building what has now become one of the largest social networking forums for entrepreneurs in the world.

Wayne: Who should visit YoungEntrepreneur.com and how they can benefit from the site?

Adam: http://www.YoungEntrepreneur.com is for anyone and everyone who is an aspiring entrepreneur looking to learn from the more seasoned entrepreneurs who visit YoungEntrepreneur.com to assist their fellow up and coming entrepreneurial peers! The site is truly for like-minded Entrepreneurs from all over the world.

Adam: With over 50,000 members, we have been receiving some awesome success story testimonials from our members. These are truly rewarding to read. We have read testimonials from people thanking us for the opportunity to be a member of the site as they had met their business partner through the site and now run a successful business.

Adam: We also have received several notes from people letting us know that they found other members who believed in their business and helped them out by investing in their business. These are great to read and we are very happy that we have been able to create an active community where so many great friendships and business partnerships begin!

Wayne: As an entrepreneur myself, I am a firm believer of networking with fellow entrepreneurs. Why is it important for an entrepreneur, especially a young one, to interact with other like-minded people through a platform like YoungEntrepreneur.com?

Matthew: As Adam just mentioned in the previous answer, your fellow like-minded entrepreneurs help give you that energy or that drive to stay motivated to build your business venture because they understand what you are going through. Being an entrepreneur is not an easy title to maintain.

Matthew: In the beginning of your business there is no such things as "Auto-Pilot Entrepreneur". It’s more like "how many hats can I wear Entrepreneur" because as a business owner, you do a lot! This is why it is important to surround yourself with others that ‘get it.’ These are the people that can help you stay focused and driven to take your business to the next level!

Matthew: Plus, they can help you answer a lot of the things that you may be wondering about as its very likely that someone on YoungEntrepreneur.com has gone through something very similar in the past and can help you avoid any costly mistakes.

Wayne: What are some of the problems that you guys encountered during the starting phase of the site or was it smooth sailing?

Adam: In 1998, as we were getting our first design of YE completed, we learned very quickly that you need to have a solid agreement in place before engaging in any big projects.

Adam: The company that we hired to design the first version of YoungEntrepreneur.com had asked for a big deposit and unfortunately, never followed through with their promises. We were out several thousands of dollars but learned very quickly to get everything in writing!

Wayne: There are a lot of resource sites and communities on the Internet that are targeting entrepreneurs. What makes YoungEntrepreneur.com special?

Matthew: The fact that we have created a very user friendly, active & FREE platform for Entrepreneurs has set us apart. If you have a question, it is very likely that it will get answered within a few minutes by one of the other members. We have thousands of pages of user generated content that is all searchable as well, so if you have a question, someone may have already asked it and you will find your answer within seconds.

Wayne: Adam, you told me that YE is going to experience a big revamp this Summer. Can you give me and my readers the exclusive insight on what the revamp is going to be all about and why is it taking place?

Adam: Yes, this ‘YE Overhaul’ has been in the works for quite some time now and will launch this summer and is much anticipated by all. We have included several new tools, tutorials, entrepreneurial videos, "how-to" editorial, answers to many of the common questions, much more support, a panel of seasoned experts on hand to assist, a premium membership with some extra abilities for members and a whole new look! Everything was created with these important factors in mind: Will this help a member start, manage and grow their business venture? If the answer is yes, it is most likely to be included in the re-launch!

Wayne: Now, YE is definitely a good platform for young entrepreneurs to obtain a lot of information about starting and running a business as well as interacting with fellow entrepreneurs from around the globe. Can each of you give three important tips to young aspiring entrepreneurs who are reading this interview?

Matthew: 1) Surround yourself with quality people that you can learn from. 2) Find a Mentor that can help guide you along the way. 3) Don’t give up!

Adam: 1) Start now! "Procrastination is the thief of fortune!" 2) Come up with a plan to stay organized and focused. 3) Keep your overhead LOW and don’t try and micro-manage your business as you grow.

Wayne: As entrepreneurs yourselves, who or which entrepreneur story inspires you guys the most?

Matthew: Both Adam & I have always been inspired by Sir Richard Branson and his entrepreneurial story. He has truly overcome several trials and tribulations, some typical of being an entrepreneur and some that are not so typical. His unorthodox marketing and promotion style speaks very confidently and yields some outstanding results.

Matthew: His newest book: Business Stripped Bare covers his "adventures of a global entrepreneur" which Adam & I really enjoyed. His quote on the back of his book really sums it up: "The Brave may not live forever—but the cautious do not live at all!" Learn more about the book at: www.BusinessStrippedBare.com

(Editor Note: You can purchase Business Stripped Bare by by Sir Richard Branson from Amazon.)

Wayne: Let us project a little bit into the future. Where do both of you see yourselves in 5 years time?

Adam: Continuing our brave journey of entrepreneurship and continuing to empower entrepreneurs of the world. We hope to create our own Entrepreneurial Fund to infuse start-up companies with monetary investment along with additional tools and assistance they need to catapult their businesses to the next level! We plan on growing YoungEntrepreneur.com to become the largest and most helpful social networking site for entrepreneurs!

Adam: We are starting to do many more speaking engagements and this summer our book called: KIDPRENEURS will be available throughout North America and online at http://www.Kidpreneurs.biz.

Adam: We were inspired to write this book as my brother’s kids turned 6 & 7 years old and they started asking "What do you and daddy do as an entrepreneur?" I set off to the local book stores to try and find a ‘kid-friendly’ book on entrepreneurship and the basics of starting and growing a business.

Adam: After searching both in the stores and online, I hadn’t found anything which we thought was accurate nor fun for the kids to read and learn from. After a year of writing, tweaks and design, we are excited to present this book (which we wished we had as kids!) called KIDPRENEURS! We encourage your readers to check out the website in June of 2009 when it goes live!

Adam: We have already pre-sold several thousands of books to schools, libraries and organizations throughout North America and we are still taking pre-orders. Email us if you are interested at: kidpreneursbook@gmail.com or follow Kidpreneurs on Twitter: http://Twitter.com/kidpreneurs

Adam: This past January we also acquired http://www.Blogtrepreneur.com which is a great blog on building successful online business ventures!

Wayne: Matthew and Adam, both of you have definitely shared some great information and tips for entrepreneurs. How can my readers get in touch with you guys?

Adam and Matthew: We’d love for your readers to get in touch with us! Our facebook fan page was just launched last week: YoungEntrepreneur.com Facebook Fan Page. Follow us on: http://Twitter.com/thebizguy or email us at: forum@YoungEntrepreneur.com.

Wayne: Another great interview! Matthew and Adam Toren, co-founders of YoungEntrepreneur.com. Thanks again.

Adam: Thank you for the great questions Wayne, its always nice reminiscing from the past and looking forward to the future! Keep up the great work on your site!

Interview with Matthew Toren and Adam Toren Afterthoughts

Although I am quite active on the YoungEntrepreneur.com Forum and their blog in terms of comments, I didn’t really know Adam and Matthew until I got this idea of interviewing them last week.

As serial entrepreneurs, they know their stuffs when it comes the nitty gritty bits on how start and run a successful business. Also, I like how the brothers are able to work so well with each other, progressing from one successful venture to another.

My personal recommendation will be to check out what the Toren brothers are up to and follow every tips and advice that they give out. I am sure that you will learn a lot and make a lot of progress as an entrepreneur by doing so.

Are You on YoungEntrepreneur.com?

Are you a member of YoungEntrepreneur.com? If yes, do link up with me over there via my YoungEntrepreneur.com Forum profile. Also, what are some of the improvements that you think YoungEntrepreneur.com should have in their upcoming revamp?

Most important question of all, what have you learned from this interview?

Share your thoughts using the comment form below. Hearing from you is priceless.

If you like this interview and would like to receive notifications of upcoming ones, subscribe to Wayne Liew Dot Com Newsletter now by submitting your first name and email address using the form below.

Related Blog Posts:

• Motivation Tips for Entrepreneurs: Start Networking
• 8 Ways to Bring Social Media Relationships to the Next Level
• Interview with Tim Berry: Business Plans for Entrepreneurs
• Factor77 Co-Founders, Jared O’Toole and Matt Wilson Interview
• My Definition of Entrepreneurship, What’s Yours?

Over the past few months, I have been very active on Twitter and if you have been following my Entrepreneur Interviews segment, you will learn that I got to know most of my interviewees via Twitter (@WayneLiew).

I’m sure that if you are active on Twitter, you would have exchanged a few replies or direct messages with other Twitter users or Tweeples (technical term ). This is how you build the relationship. But how can you bring these relationships to the next level?

Organize Social Media Meetups

Social media meetups can be arranged based on geographical locations, niches that your connections are into or even held in line with a local event. Just like a normal networking event, you should get to know each other more, have a relaxing chat and if possible, help each other out with business.

Organize Social Media Events as Partners

Social media events here refer to something like a blog carnival or a Twitter chat sessions (examples are #smbiz, #journchat, #sbbuzz). Organizing an event together allows you to uncover someone’s personality and working together will definitely enhance the possibility of both of you working with each other again.

Do Business with Each Other

When you have close social media connections, you tend to do business with them as compared to people that you never had any conversations with. Apart from business as in transactions that involve money, a business can also be something like a guest blog or speaking events arrangement, an interview request, etc.

Feature Connections to Your Community

A lot of people, or perhaps it’s just me :p , love to get themselves featured. Whether it is on a full page article of a nationwide magazine or just a #followfriday feature, it helps to improve the relationship and you might even get a reciprocal feature.

If you know someone that your community would definitely love to follow, featuring that person on your blog or in your tweets is also a move that adds value to your community.

Offer Your Help

Often times, people will have questions on certain issues that they will post it in their status updates. If you are able to provide an answer, go ahead. Other forms of help include donations, promotion (retweeting for Twitter), participate in an event, comment on a blog post and many more.

Recommend Connections as Resources

You cannot be an expert in everything. Our connections or followers on social media sites will have unambiguous needs and require different help or information from time to time. Since you can’t answer all of them, why not refer them to someone that you know could provide them with the answers?

Instead of providing crappy help and risk losing your reputation, why not become a good resource by recommending your connections to another? In the end, it is really a win-win-win situation.

Personalized Messages

Sending out personalized messages via Twitter DM, Facebook message or email is always a good way to improve the relationships that you have made on social media platforms.

One tip to appear personal due to all those “made-to-be-personal” messages is to have someone’s first name in your message. This works great for Twitter as I don’t think any Twitter DM spam tools out there that can pull someone’s first name into the DMs they send out.

Also, be sure that you have had prior conversations before sending out a message like this because it can be very offensive for some people if you try to be sassy.

Phone and Instant Messaging

Bringing your conversations with a particular person onto private means will allow you to know more about him/her. Instant messaging platforms like Windows Live, AIM and Google Talk are tools that you can use to bring your social media friends closer to you.

What’s Your Tips on Social Media Relationship Building?

The above are just some ways that I can think of to bring social media relationship to the next level. I am sure that you can be innovative and figure out more that can suit your business.

If you have been very active on social media, what are some of the tips on relationship building that you would like to share?

Share your thoughts in the comments section below. Hearing from you is priceless.

If you like the content above, consider subscribing to Wayne Liew Dot Com Newsletter where you will receive premium content as well as notifications of upcoming blog posts. Sign up now by submitting your first name and email address using the form below.

Photo Credits: madmarv00

Related Blog Posts:

• Motivation Tips for Entrepreneurs: Start Networking
• 5 Evergreen Marketing Basics in Social Media Marketing
• Interview with Co-Founders of YoungEntrepreneur.com, Matthew Toren and Adam Toren
• Paul Smith Interview, Green Business Consultant from GreenSmith Consulting
• 3 Books I Plan to Read This Coming Semester Break

Although I am actually getting a link from their blog (full disclosure), my suggestions and review on their campaign will definitely help you to get a better idea on how to properly implement a social media marketing campaign.

Let’s get started with some of the things that they have done right for their campaign.

People Love Contests!

Contests, no matter how big or how small it is, will be able to grab the attention of your audience and trust me, they spread like wildfire too, especially when you ask your contestants to talk, blog or tweet about them.

Apart from the buzz, make sure that there is a purpose for your contests. In the blogging and Internet marketing space, the aim is usually to capture a person’s email or RSS subscription but in the case of ClickBooth, they are trying to crowdsource ideas on how to improve their blog and they got themselves a ton of responses from the community, which is a success.

ClickBooth, as of the time of writing, is holding a Blog Design Feedback Contest and it is so easy to be part of it. Also, the prize that are are putting up for grabs is not cheap at all – an Apple iPod Touch or an Flip Mino HD Camcorder. Join now!

Putting a Face Behind Your Social Media Campaign

Clickbooth also put Eric Schechter in charge of all their social media campaigns and he will be the person behind ClickBooth’s Facebook group, Twitter account, blog and other social media avenues.

Having a real person managing your social media campaign and be transparent about the person’s personality add personal touch to the interaction with your target market. Do you want to interact with a company name or someone that is real?

Useful Content for Community

I have always been a great supporter of content marketing because I believe that useful content is able to add value to your target market or the community that you are trying to serve as well as building the trust they have in you.

ClickBooth provides affiliate marketing tips from different personnel within their organization through their blog. Providing the necessary knowledge to their publishers is mutually beneficial for ClickBooth, publishers and the advertisers.

Additionally, prospective publishers and advertisers will prefer them over the sea of affiliate networks due to the content just because ClickBooth is showcasing themselves as an helpful network which tons of information to share.

This campaign is just a beginning for ClickBooth. There are still a lot of improvements that can be done and the following are a few that came right off my head.

More Content Formats for Better Distribution

Consumers of content, especially in the tech or Internet-related industry, prefer content that can be carried around with them. These content can feature affiliate marketing tips, industry news and interviews with thought leaders in the industries on a weekly manner.

Currently, ClickBooth has a Flickr profile, a Twitter account, a Youtube channel, a Facebook group and their blog. Apart from these, they can create content in the form of live web TV (award-winning Hubspot TV is a good example), podcasts, video podcasts or webinars.

Better Search Engine Optimization for Blog

A quick browse around their blog shows that search engine optimization is not carried out properly. One of the major benefits that one can get by publishing useful content using blogs is the amount of search engine traffic that the content can generate over time.

Since ClickBooth is using Wordpress as their blogging software, I would recommend that they go and check out the All in One SEO Pack plugin, which is the Swiss army knife for Wordpress search engine optimization.

Share Your Input for ClickBooth

I know that some of you guys reading this are really into social media marketing. Do you have any tips or experience to share with the guys over at ClickBooth on how to improve their campaigns?

Share your thoughts by commenting below. Hearing from you is priceless.

If you like the case study above, subscribe to Wayne Liew Dot Com Newsletter now to get future notifications of upcoming case studies and premium content by submitting your first name and email address using the form below.

Related Blog Posts:

• Miles Baker Interview, Affiliate Marketing Expert and Internet Entrepreneur
• 5 Evergreen Marketing Basics in Social Media Marketing
• 10 Ideas for Small Business to Launch Social Media Campaigns
• Michael Dunlop, Founder of Retire at 21 Interview
• Interview with Bryce Maddock and Jaspar Weir, Co-Founders of TaskUs

Business planning and writing a business plan are inevitable for entrepreneurs these days in order to secure funding from investors as well as providing you with a sense of direction for your small business or venture.

This week, I am proud to have Tim Berry, founder of the famous business plan resource, Bplans.com, on this segment where he answered a few of my questions on business planning and business plans. I know aspiring entrepreneurs will like this so enjoy the interview below.

Interview with Tim Berry, Founder of Bplans.com

Wayne: Hi Tim, I would like to welcome you to Wayne Liew Dot Com Entrepreneur Interviews segment and thank you for agreeing to do this interview about business plans with me. Before we proceed further, can you tell the readers a little bit about who you are, your background and what are your current ventures?

Tim: President and founder of Palo Alto Software, founder of Bplans.com, co-founder of Borland International. Author of ‘The Plan as You Go Business Plan‘, book published by Entrepreneur Press, and ‘Business Plan Pro,’ software published by Palo Alto Software. Plus half a dozen other books on business planning and starting a business. Stanford MBA degree.

Wayne: Tim, we are going to talk about business plans for entrepreneurs and small business owners today. I know that business plans can serve different purposes in the course of launching and running a business. Why is it that most small business owners or entrepreneurs out there will need a business plan at some point of their business or venture?

Tim: Let’s rephrase that to be business planning rather just a business plan. A business plan alone, by itself with nothing else, is an excellent way to develop a plan for a whole business, covering everything from what you want, and where you want to go, to the steps you’ll need to take to get there, plus projected sales, profits, and cash flow.

Tim: But a plan alone, by itself, is not nearly as good as a plan as part of a business planning process, meaning a plan that will be reviewed regularly, results compared to what was projected, changing assumptions, market, and the course corrected. The real goal is management. Set your sights on the long term and manage the short-term specifics as well.

Tim: The common misunderstanding is that some business plans, a relatively small proportion of those that are needed, are used as if they were a sales document for investors or information backup for a loan application.

Tim: All companies need planning as a way to set their sights on the future, and navigate through change, and mark the changes in assumptions and revisions. Not needing to show it to outsiders doesn’t mean you don’t want to have planning as part of your regular management.

Wayne: I actually came across some entrepreneurs out there who are actually prefer to be "entrepreneurial" and construct emergent strategies as and when issues arise rather than having a business plan. What are your thoughts on this?

Tim: It’s based on the myth that having a business plan means you have less flexibility for change. That’s not the case. Having a business plan means that you can manage change better, more flexibility, because you have markers for your assumptions and you can track how things have changed, and react, more quickly, and more flexibly, than if you were just wandering around without a plan.

Tim: You cannot say that not planning is more "entrepreneurial" than planning; it’s just making things harder for yourself. Things always change, and good planning is about managing change, optimizing your response to change. All business planning processes should always include regular reviews to mark and manage changing assumptions.

Tim: Think of it this way: what’s more entrepreneurial, to look out for things and watch as you drive a vehicle, steering as the road curves, or to paint the windshield over so you can’t see anything, and just drive and see what happens. Blindness is not entrepreneurial, it’s blindness.

Wayne: What do you think are some of the common mistakes that entrepreneurs make when preparing their business plans?

Tim: 1. Writing it as if it were a document for outsiders when in fact they are doing it just to manage their own business. Form follows function. Don’t sweat the format, editing, and completeness until you have to because some outsider demands it.

2. Not setting the regular review schedule to analyze actual results, compare them to the plan, and set course corrections.

3. Not plainly marking assumptions so you can understand when things have changed, and therefore manage the change better.

4. Printing it out and leaving it somewhere, instead of keeping it live on your computer.

5. Delaying the business while waiting to finish the business plan. Get going, and keep the plan alive as you go. Don’t think it will ever be done. Keep it alive.

6. Doing something or not doing something just because it’s in the plan. Review and revise the plan.

Wayne: Let’s say I have a startup idea and I need a business plan to impress potential investors. Where should I get started and what are some of your tips for this?

Tim: I think you go online to Bplans.com, or PlanAsYouGo.com, for step by step help for free. Or, better yet, go to www.paloalto.com and download Business Plan Pro.

Wayne: As a business plan expert as well as an entrepreneur yourself, Tim, have you came across any interesting business plan-related stories that you can share with us?

Tim: One of my favorites was the entrepreneur who told a group of investors that he needed $300,000 for "Peace of Mind," and being able to sleep at night. The investors were not amused. They want to give entrepreneurs money needed for creating a business, not for the entrepreneur’s peace of mind.

Wayne: Tim, apart from Bplans.com, which is a great resource for business plan writing and business plan-related tutorials, what are you currently working on which you think can add value to entrepreneurs and small business owners reading this interview?

Tim: My publisher Entrepreneur Press has generously allowed me to post the entire text, including all illustrations, of my latest book online, for free. That’s at http://planasyougo.com.  Also my blogs at timberry.bplans.com and upandrunning.entrepreneur.com.  And I am extremely proud of Business Plan Pro, the software, which is now in its eleventh version, and is a great tool for writing a business plan the way I recommend.

Wayne: How can my readers get in touch with you?

Tim: http://timberry.com/email-me/

Wayne: Tim, thanks again for answering my questions about business plans and business planning.

Interview with Tim Berry Afterthoughts

Although I et income goals for my own online marketing business, I don’t really have a proper plan for it. Tim, through this interview, opened my eyes about the importance of business planning.

I make decisions based on data, analytics and information provided but it is still all about my gut feeling when someone asks me where do you see your business in 5 years time.

Blindness is not entrepreneurial, it’s blindness.

What are some of the lessons about business plan and business planning that you have picked up from this interview? Do you have an interesting experience about business planning that you would like to share?

Leave a comment below. Hearing from you is priceless.

Also, if you like this interview, you may want to subscribe to Wayne Liew Dot Com Newsletter to receive notifications about upcoming interviews by submitting your first name and email address using the form below.

Photo Credits: jurvetson

Related Blog Posts:

• My Definition of Entrepreneurship, What’s Yours?
• 15 Excuses Stopping Aspiring Entrepreneurs from Starting Out
• Interview with Co-Founders of YoungEntrepreneur.com, Matthew Toren and Adam Toren
• Interview with Bryce Maddock and Jaspar Weir, Co-Founders of TaskUs
• Paul Smith Interview, Green Business Consultant from GreenSmith Consulting