Dear Readers,

We apologize that we have not put up any new content lately.

We are taking a sabbatical because of the unexpected death of one of our chief wizards.

We’re sorry to delay new content to you and we will let you know when we are back up.

Thanks for your understanding.

The Launch Wizards

BUSINESS STARTUPS

Be honest . . . have you failed in your job or career?

Instead of thinking negatively about that experience or burying your head under the covers in denial, begin a process of reliving that situation.  Bring it up in full 3D.  Imagine every aspect of it, walk through it step-by-step, and identify exactly how and why you failed.

And why would you want to do that?

So you can use that failure as the first step to starting a new business.

Watch Honda’s new webisode on “Failure: the Secret to Success” for both inspiration and practical thinking (and for the cool shots from the Indy Racing League or for a peek at Danica Patrick’s hot shoes).

The Take-Away points:

• Most people are harder on themselves than others would be.  We need to remember: everyone’s failed at something.
• IndyCar drivers purposely push the envelope and invite failure so they can get comfortable with it.
• Failure is not a negative as long as something was learned.
• Honda, when they entered the market, went from IndyCar engines that totally failed to the number one manufacturer of IndyCar racing engines.  They just kept at it until they got it right.  Which is what we all should do.

A PRACTICAL EXAMPLE:

Suppose you’ve been fired from your job as Director of Sales because your sales team failed to meet its sales goals based on the projections you set.

Here’s how you can turn failure into success.

STEP 1: Identify all the reasons why sales fell short of projections.

In this example, perhaps the factors were:

• an economic downturn
• budget cutbacks by your prospects
• sales reps failed to close sales because they did not make enough cold calls
• sales reps failed to close sales because they did not make enough presentations to prospects
• sales reps did not have enough qualified leads to work

STEP 2: Think about the factors above and identify what business could be started.  For example:

• start a sales analysis and projection service
• start a competing business (to your old company) with products or services at lower price points
• start a cold-calling service
• start an appointment-setting service
• start a data mining firm
• start a sales training firm
• start a data cleansing and replenishing firm

STEP 3: Begin research on several or all of the ideas generated in Step 2.  Use that research to generate further ideas.

PSSSTTT!!! Did you notice the “Ask A Question” links we’ve just put up (they’re in the upper left corner of this page)???  So please ask us a question on either Business Startups or Small Businesses, our Wizards are eager to get to work on helping you start or run your small business.

Don’t miss any posts! Register your email address or subscribe to our RSS feed!  If you register your email address, you’ll also receive special tips, information, and resources created exclusively for our email subscribers.

COMPLIMENTARY TELESEMINAR: “Using Joint Ventures to Survive the Economic Downturn”

Wednesday, January 14, 2009, 3:00 pm ET/ 12:00 pm PT

WHY ATTEND:

We’re surrounded by constant reminders of our current challenging economic times.

A joint venture – which is a method of pooling resources with others so you don’t have to go it alone - might be the key to economic survival for some businesses and entrepreneurs.

If you think a joint venture is the exclusive territory of Fortune 500 companies, think again.  There are many opportunities for individual entrepreneurs and small companies to work together.  Your joint venture might be as straightforward as sharing a customer list for a combined marketing campaign, licensing a product you’ve developed, or providing original content for a website.

THE TELESEMINAR:

In this complimentary teleseminar, attorney Joy Butler explains the business and legal issues triggered by joint ventures and strategic alliances.  She addresses the practical questions you need to answer in order to form a beneficial and smooth-operating joint venture:

* Which method of joint venturing is most appropriate for your circumstances?
* Should you organize your joint venture as an LLC, partnership, or corporation?
* Do you need a written agreement and what terms should it contain?
* What are the factors that make joint ventures fail and how can you avoid them?
* How can you save money on legal costs when structuring your joint venture?

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Joy R. Butler is a transactional business lawyer who offers clients expertise in private equity financing, mergers and acquisitions, copyright, trademark, entertainment, and internet law.  Click here to learn more about her practice.

REGISTRATION:

The live teleseminar occurs on Wednesday, January 14, 2009, at 3:00 p.m. ET/ 12:00 p.m. PT.

Click here to register.

PSSSTTT!!! Did you notice the “Ask A Question” links we’ve just put up (they’re in the upper left corner of this page)???  So please ask us a question on either Business Startups or Small Businesses, our Wizards are eager to get to work on helping you start or run your small business.

Don’t miss any posts! Register your email address or subscribe to our RSS feed!  If you register your email address, you’ll also receive special tips, information, and resources created exclusively for our email subscribers.

Need business name ideas?

Please read the entire Launch Wizards interview with Phil Davis starting with our September 11, 2008 post.

Want a free evaluation of your potential business name?

Just click on the “Ask your Business Startup question” link (in the upper left at the top of this page) and be sure to include a description of your business.

BUSINESS STARTUP: NAMING A BUSINESS

More of the Launch Wizards Interview of Joy Davis of the Law Office of Joy R. Butler (please see November 21, 2008 for the first post of this interview)

Launch Wizards: You’ve talked about the advantages of having your business name trademarked.

We imagine that most entrepreneurs and business owners come to you with a few potential business names they already like.  But your job is to assess whether the business name is protectable from a trademark point of view.  Is that a difficult process?

Joy Butler: Often there’s a tension between the marketing perspective and the legal perspective in developing a business name.

Just because a name is good from a marketing perspective does not mean it’s a good name from a legal trademark perspective.

That’s because the marketing side frequently wants to choose a name that tells potential customers what the product is or does.  It’s often descriptive.  But very descriptive names are the weakest trademarks because in order to qualify as a trademark, a second requirement (in addition to not conflicting with any pre-existing trademarks) is that the name needs to be distinctive.

LW: Wow, that’s great to hear.  Because Phil Davis also recommends that business names be distinctive from a branding and marketing point of view.

Phil cautions entrepreneurs not to rush to market with a descriptive name (see Launch Wizards post of 9/11/2008 ).

So, given there’s a convergence on this idea of distinctiveness, tell us, from a trademark point of view, what makes a name distinctive?

JB: In the jargon of trademark law, there are five different categories of distinctiveness . . .

(Look for the five categories of distinctiveness in our next post - the Launch Wizards)

PSSSTTT!!! Did you notice the “Ask A Question” links we’ve just put up (they’re in the upper left corner of this page)???  So please ask us a question on either Business Startups or Small Businesses, our Wizards are eager to get to work on helping you start or run your small business.

Don’t miss any posts! Register your email address or subscribe to our RSS feed!  If you register your email address, you’ll also receive special tips, information, and resources created exclusively for our email subscribers.

Joe Nocera’s blog post of December 2, 2008 lists several reasons why banks are currently not approving S.B.A. loans:

• because the bank then has to carry the loan on its books;
• because the interest rate on S.B.A. loans is less than they would normally charge;
• because the administrative loan fees go to the S.B.A. and not the bank;
• and because the S.B.A. can later refuse to guarantee the payment if the bank’s compliance on documentation was incomplete or inadequate.

Also check out the Comments section at the end of the post for some advice and tips that others have posted.