DISQUS

Excellent article on negotiating. Respect, trust, listening, and caring are the key ingredients to successful negotiations. Finding a WIN-WIN scenario is also the best goal for both parties. When either party must WIN at the expense of the other, then negotiations turn into war. War becomes a LOSE-LOSE scenario. Finding the WIN-WIN scenario is so much more fun and so much more productive.

The real career do-over challenges happen to the professional athletes at the end of their playing careers. They could use the right help to assist them to discover and find their new careers that they will love to do and thrive in because they are doing what they love. The right help is now available.

I believe hiring a career coach is best for people who really want to figure out what they love to do and get paid for doing what they love and are very good at performing. If you just want a job, hiring a career coach is not a good move. But if you want to design your dream position and get it, then connect with a career coach. Career coaching is all about discovering who you really are so you KNOW yourself better than ever before. Once you know your dream position through career coaching you will have a much easier time getting it than you think.

The author is right. Many people who have been laid off woke up to realize they do not want to return to the same old rat race. They want to create their own lives. They do this by hiring their own career coach

I know of hundreds of women who have started their own small businesses, and are succeeding extremely well. These women have found the secret to success. They created and developed their own unique forms of business that followed their own passions on their terms. They designed their businesses to suit them and they did NOT follow the paths, methods, or goals of men. These women succeeded BECAUSE they did it their way. The many types of businesses they created are fascinating and very remarkable. AND successful! Few follow the male dominated technology field. But some do, but in their own different way.

We have personally assisted hundreds of women business owners to achieve their own personal form of success, by revealing how smart, powerful, passionate and capable they are to them, and then we get out of their way when they realize the truth.

A special NON-PROFIT was formed years ago to assist women business owners to actually succeed. This is the Count-Me In group at http://www.countmein.org We have partnered with this fine group to give women business owners the special secret edge to compete and win in the business owners world.

You can too, if you really want to.

Blogs are an easy way for anyone to say their piece and be heard. Newspapers and magazines are being upstaged and exposed by blogs. I find much of the blog content and writing equal to and frequently superior to mainstream newspaper writing. This is especially true when you consider that newspaper writing is done by committee to suit several different masters and agendas. Blogs are personal and direct.

Well said. Many business owners confuse marketing with selling. Personally I do not like to sell, but I love marketing. Your comment of taking the time to build ideal target client and core message of difference is right on. When business owners create a clear vision of their business purpose (the need they fill, how well the fill it in their own special different way, and exactly who they fill it for) and then communicate it (Read educate) the their targeted clients, good things happen, especially when they listen to their targeted clients to discover what their products mean to them.

Your description of the greatest myth was superb. People are either moving forward in their lives or they are falling back. Coaching keeps people moving forward which is always healthy.

Keep it up.

Ben,

The pleasure was all mine.

With the excellent way you write and explain things, I hope to join in on the fun again.

I emphasized the personal contact factor, because I believe too many corporations and IT groups forget that people like to work with people. Obviously you fully appreciate the value of personal contacts.

All of your points are very valuable. I especially like numbers 2 and 4, as they are very connected. Clearly state the pain the customer feels in number 2 and then clearly state in number 4 that your product or service will provide the best relief and solution to the pain described earlier. I believe number 4 would be best substituted for number 3. Without an effective 2 and 4, the rest of the proposal will have little value to the customer. Put them first and as close to each other as possible.

I also believe that a point number 11 would be very beneficial. Number 11 being that proposals rarely complete a sale on their own. Personal contact to generate positive people to people relationships are vital to almost all real proposal type transactions. In fact, a written proposal would be best used as the entrance document to create and establish the personal contact needed to complete the transaction.

Bill,

Your article about what makes a successful entrepreneur is insightful. Virtually all of the successful entrepreneurs I have met have the exhibited the three bullet points you outlined. Some stronger than others. Thus, I disagree with the post by Noric Dilanchian that bullet points 1 and 3 do not apply. In fact, I feel that the concept of corporate entrepreneurship is a huge contradiction.

I believe that the rules of the game for success of an entrepreneur are clear and distinct and are quite the opposite of what it takes to succeed in the corporate arena. Thus, you can only play by the business owner rules of success or the bureaucracy rules but not both at the same time. The rules of success for bureaucracy and business ownership are as different as night and day. It would be like playing the game of American football and tennis at the same time. Not likely. Calling someone a corporate entrepreneur is like calling someone a football tennis player.

Entrepreneurs have to want to play by the rules of business owner success and they have to be good at doing so to succeed. The traits you outlined are typical of entrepreneurs who have successfully followed the rules of success for business owners. In my opinion, I believe that the rules of success for business owners are:

1. The business owner must seek and take full responsibility for the success of the business.
2. The business owner must focus his or her energies almost exclusively on the success of the business (versus power, politics, or image)
3. The business owner must recognize he or she has full control over determining his or her work duties, and has total job security.
4. The business owner must recognize that he or she has no one in the organization to take orders from or indulge. No politics.
5. The business owner must find, attract and keep the partners, employees and vendors who will assist the business to generate more quality income producing results.
6. The business owner will want to pass on salutations and credit to anyone who contributes to the success of the business.
7. The business owner will not want to extract personal favors from subordinates, partners, or vendors that hinder the success of the business, and the owner will not allow anyone else to do the same. The business comes first for everyone in the business; otherwise it is converted into a bureaucracy, which will not be a successful business.