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GetEntrepreneurial on Best of the Best Blogger Series

We were recently interviewed by Bill Hazelton of CreditCardAssist.com on a variety of topics, including inspirational business ideas, the pro-business climate in Singapore and the prospects of Singapore becoming the next Silicon Valley. Some exciting excerpts:

What are 2-3 of the most important things you would tell any new aspiring entrepreneur?

Perseverance is extremely important to an entrepreneur. For CoolBusinessIdeas.com, we took 3 years to achieve a steady state. There were many ups and downs along the process. The crises and obstacles are the ones that really test an entrepreneur’s mettle. Entrepreneurship is a self-learning process. The process may be tough, but the reward is certainly sweet.

Passion is another attribute of success in any entrepreneur. Do what you like best. This will drive you forward no matter how tough things get.

What’s been most surprising to you as an entrepreneur yourself running your site?

I’ve always thought that you can taste success in the market with a well thought out business plan. In our experience, most of the times, our well-drafted business and marketing plans are left on the table and we had to rely on instinct in running our site based on our understanding of what our readers are actually looking for instead of what we aim to write in our websites as planned.

We also learned that as an entrepreneur, one has to always experiment, refine and find a niche in your area. There is no one size fits all solution.

Read the full interview at CreditCardAssist’s 38th edition of the Best of the Best Blogger series. Thanks Bill for the interview!

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Entrepreneur Intervention: Triumphs & Failures of Entrepreneurs

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At a time when economic uncertainty and unemployment numbers fill the headlines, we all need something to lift us up. That is what this book is about. The Financial Bin has accumulated the stories of 28 remarkable individuals. These entrepreneurs share their triumphs and failures with you as you embark on a quest to figure out your own life. Maybe you just lost your job. Maybe you just graduated college with no job prospects and massive student loan debt. Maybe you feel it is time to be your own boss. Whatever your reason, Entrepreneur Intervention can help you along the way. Open your mind and allow yourself to be inspired by true success.

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Businesses Make Their Postage Habits More Tech Savvy

Article Contributed by Samantha Morse

In the new world of smart devices, businesses are trying to get on top of the tech world in all facets of their operations. One of the last places consumers and businesses might think of as tech savvy is the mail industry, but they are finally jumping on board as well. FP Mailing Solutions has released Mailone™ which is a mailing, tracking and accounting software that allows businesses to save money.

This new software makes postage meters extra smart and easy to use. It allows all businesses to easily take advantage of significant cost savings every time they place a package on postage scales without needing to do any calculating. It is software that is easy to use for most businesses of all sizes. Kevin A. Pietras, the Director of Marketing for FP Mailing Solutions says, “Software with this kind of performance typically is priced for only the largest mailers, but mailone™ is priced so it can pay for itself in just months, even for small- and mid-sized operations.”

Mailone™ offers percent savings for a multitude of shipping criteria. The process is all electronic eliminating wastes, it also allows for free discounted and delivery confirmation. Commercial-Base Pricing offers discounts up to 9.9 percent on Priority Mail and 5 percent on Express Mail. Detailed reports can be generated in graph or table form, and can reveal new opportunities for savings and efficiencies allowing for even more cost savings that already present. Also, cost figures are easily exported to financial accounting software.

Mailone™ allows for cleaner and easier accounting/documenting. The accounting feature automatically records detailed data on an unlimited number of transactions, accounts and customers. The process is appealing because it can track expenses by department or customer, bill back accounts and automatically add a handling fee if necessary. This makes Mailone™ extremely attractive for businesses that ship a lot of product. It’s only a matter of time before businesses go completely electronic with the release of new innovative products

About the Author

Samantha Morse is a writer and pet lover based in San Diego, California. She writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs such as phone systems & voip service at Resource Nation.

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Business Blogging: Keep It Simple and Informative

Article Contributed by Tami Stodghill

It’s pretty much been established that blogging is important in network marketing. To quote a popular Business Week article: “Blogs Will Change Your Business—Look past the yakkers, hobbyists, and political mobs. Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch up…or catch you later”. Blogs offer an abundance of information from an even bigger variety of sources. They are generally—if done well—honest and provide insights that are tougher to absorb sometimes through news articles and news reporting. The right blog can answer questions you may have in regard to any number of topics related to your business. Subscribing to blogs you find informative is a must. I do. I have perused the internet for bloggers who seem to speak to me and offer another view of things that I hadn’t thought about. And we should never stop learning or being open to receiving new information.

When I was previously in the work force putting in my 8-5 hours, blogging was part of my responsibility as a Press Relations specialist. It was also part of my freelance writing career. I was able to write about software in a way that offered easy reading and a view from a “real-world” user of that software. And now that I own my own business, I approach it from the same way. I write what I know was important for me in my learning how to be successful in my business and I want to offer it to others in the way I perceived it. I write every entry hoping what I write will change someone’s life and help them to better understand what it takes to be their own boss. I take the attitude that if I can help even one person change the level of their success, then I’ll know I’ve contributed.

I get contacted by people who ask me things such as “what do I blog about?”, or “what do I say?”, or “what if no one thinks I’m interesting?”. And overthinking and analyzing what you want to say in your blog can actually detract from its effectiveness. If you sit down and expand on one thing that happened to you, or that you learned from, you will, most certainly, have appropriate blog content. That said, however, you should also put it out there in a way that is readable, understandable and appropriate. Thus, the importance of writing skills…

No one is a perfect writer. And writing styles vary person to person. That’s why one person likes Nora Roberts and the other lives for Stephen King novels. And comments, if you receive them, should be received with the attitude that you value the input and will grow and learn from that input. The more you write, the better you will become at it. And there are many people whose blogs I read even a year ago, that I revisit now and am taken aback at how inspirational their content has become. The best writing, to me, is done in a conversational style. If you can say what you want to say the way you would to a friend through your writing, you will reach people.

Ideally, your blog subscribers or readers should feel you there talking to them, and welcome the content as offering a value in it’s information. It should also be simple and follow a clear train of thought. No matter what you are covering, it should be read, and reread before you put it out there as your own.

Sometimes, I will write a blog and read it the next morning and decide the best place for it is in a file. It wasn’t what I wanted representing me and it didn’t offer content that I would have read myself. That’s the true test. Ask yourself, “Do people really need this information?” And if they do, are you including content that is actually supporting the point you are trying to make? Is it guiding your subscribers and readers to the conclusion you want them to come to? When you read it, if it sounds redundant, edit your work. Keep what you need to make your point, and do away with fluff or unnecessary content.

I started a habit a long time ago of keeping a small pad and pen with me wherever I go. If I’m out and about and think of something that changed the course of my day, or try something that I experience success with, I jot down a few words to remind me about that thought. At any given time, I may have 10 topics that are pending as possible topics for my blog. Some may never be used. Others, I can’t wait to write about and they are crossed off the next day. It’s a great habit to get in and will provide you with content to expand on. Even things people say to you or something you read in a book can be a spur for a great blog idea.

The important thing is to get started. Once you do, you will find it comes easier with each entry. Worst case, you find out you need to improve your writing skills and utilize a grammar/spelling checker to help you out initially. Best case, you may discover that you have a hidden talent and actually might have fun doing it.

About the Author

Tami Stodghill was the Press-Relations manager, for a world-wide extensible-technology distributor based in London and the US for 20 years. She was also a freelance writer for several industry publications and is now a home-based business owner with WMI. She makes her home in Page-Lake Powell, Arizona, in the summers and Palm Harbor, Florida in the winters where she enjoys boating and reading, camping, hiking and meeting new people. She runs a blog site exclusively to offer tips for success for any small or home-based business.

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Business Conferences and Seminars Offer Long-Term Value

Article Contributed by Tami Stodghill

My husband recently returned from a conference that was hosted by the company our home business is through. I resigned myself to not going as I still do freelance writing work and had committed to a publication to provide an article which involved some research. I rationalized that even if I missed this conference, he could take notes and share the highlights with me. And he did. But what I didn’t realize is that by missing actually attending this event, I would never be able to carry away from it all the long-term valuable things he did. So I couldn’t have been more wrong…

Conferences and seminars that are related to your business, marketing, sales, mindset and any other topic that may assist you in your business are invaluable. The right conference—with the right speaker or speakers—offers intelligence and instruction that is not available sometimes through any other outlet. The information you garner can sometimes change your approach to your business completely. Speakers who are “gurus” in these key areas are paid well for a reason. They offer insights and lessons and suggestions and guidance and the chance to hear them speak in a conference or seminar setting is often a once-in-a-life-time opportunity.

Here’s the thing…by attending these type of events, you come away with a new mindset. You have the chance to meet with like-minded people, network, share ideas and strategies and also put names to faces in the industry. By allowing yourself to participate, you gain a positive, reinforcing feeling about your business, and those who are involved in the same business or a similar business, and are enjoying success. The motivational speakers put you in a whole new “place” and when you return home, you are often eager to implement all of the tips and information you have accrued.

Another reward is the promotion of yourself as someone who has attended this type of event and therefore no possesses more knowledgeable in key areas. Posting pictures from the event of you with some key players in the industry goes a long way toward letting potential prospects see you are a key player yourself. You can utilize some of the content in your business blog, on your website and in your advertising campaigns. With the exception of anything that is under non-disclosure, the general concepts are a great marketing tool.

At the conference my husband attended, he also had the chance to mingle with these key players and successful entrepreneurs. They were there for attendees to chat with, they answered questions and people were able to find out more about what helped propel them to the level of success they had experienced in their ventures. Being able to talk one-on-one with these people is illuminating and helps you to renew your passion for your own business.

Finally, one of the main pluses of attending an event is the time away. Seriously. If you step back, leave your routine and attend an event with enthusiasm and the attitude that it holds immeasurable value for you, you will come back refreshed and even excited about your own business and the potential that is there to grow and expand it. I won’t make the mistake of missing another event that can propel me forward in our business and that can offer me those keys to further success. It’s like a vacation, only it’s tax deductible and it provides an opportunity to learn from the best. And if you are like my husband, you’ll come back eager to actualize what you have learned!

About the Author

Tami Stodghill was the Press-Relations manager, for a world-wide extensible-technology distributor based in London and the US for 20 years. She was also a freelance writer for several industry publications and is now a home-based business owner with WMI. She makes her home in Page-Lake Powell, Arizona, in the summers and Palm Harbor, Florida in the winters where she enjoys boating and reading, camping, hiking and meeting new people. She runs a blog site exclusively to offer tips for success for any small or home-based business.