Today’s question is regarding First Solar. Where is its future going to? By analyzing an enormous amount of statistics it’s hard to predict/calculate what will happen with and to First Solar.

What’s your take on First Solar’s future? Ditch or buy? Short term or long term?

If you got the answer please leave your comment down below or contact me otherwise.

The Business Essentials will be a weekly review of the best digital articles from Inc(.com). These articles represent a descent and inherent summary of all the necessary tools to become and aspiring, and hopefully inspiring, entrepreneur.

Networking Mistakes

1. Try to take before you give. The goal of networking is to connect with people who can help you make a sale, get a referral, establish a contact, etc. When we network, we want something.

But at first, never ask for what you want. In fact you may never ask for what you want. Forget about what you can get and focus on what you can provide. Giving is the only way to establish a real connection and relationship. Focus solely on what you can get out of the connection and you will never make meaningful, mutually beneficial connections.

When you network, it’s all about them, not you.

2. Assume others should care about your needs. Maybe you’re desperate. Maybe partnering with a major player in your industry could instantly transform red ink into black. No one cares. No one should care. Those are your problems and your needs.

Never expect others to respond to your needs. People may sympathize but helping you is not their responsibility. The only way to make connections is to care about the needs of others first. Ask how they’re doing. Ask what could help them.

Care about others first; then, and only then, will they truly care back.

3. Take the shotgun approach. Some people network with anyone, tossing out business cards like confetti. Networking isn’t a numbers game. Find someone you can help, determine whether they might (someday) be able to help you, and then approach them on your own terms.

Always select the people you want to network with. And keep your list relatively small, because there is no way to build meaningful connections with dozens or hundreds of people.

4. Assume tools create connections. Twitter followers, Facebook friends, and LinkedIn connections are great—if you do something with those connections. In all likelihood your Twitter followers aren’t reading your tweets. Your Facebook friends rarely visit your page. Your LinkedIn connections aren’t checking your updates.

Tools provide a convenient way to establish connections, but to maintain those connections you still have to put in the work. Any tool that is easy or automated won’t establish the connections you really need.

5. Reach too high. If your company provides financial services, establishing a connection with Warren Buffett would be great. Or say you need seed capital; hooking up with Mark Cuban would be awesome. Awesome and almost impossible.

The best connections are mutually beneficial. What can you offer Buffett or Cuban? Not much. You may desperately want to connect with the top people in your industry, but the right to connect is not based on want or need. You must earn the right to connect. Find people who can benefit from your knowledge and insight or your connections.

The “status” level of your connections is irrelevant. All that matters is whether you can help each other reach your goals.

Self-Promotion

1. Tell the story of the struggle behind the success. Great! You won an award or got funding or the like. Show how hard you worked and the obstacles you needed to overcome to achieve this milestone. It’ll soften the blow for those who are still in the middle of a struggle.
2. Be excited, but be humbled. It pays to throw an ‘aw shucks’ into a news broadcast. I’ve watched many peers do this brilliantly. “We just launched our beta. It’s really rough, but I’d love your feedback.”
3. Give credit where credit is due. When you are promoting, it helps to acknowledge the support and advice of people you are close with. “If it weren’t for those late-night chats, I would have never gotten through the rough parts.”
4. Enlist the help of your friends to get the word out. Maybe your friends are tired of hearing you talk incessantly about your start-up, but have you ever sat down with them to get them on board? Asking for help shows your friends that you need them.

Better Decision Making

1. Create two columns on your paper with room for a sentence or two at the top.

2. Label your first column “Driving Forces” and the second “Repelling Forces.” These represent what we call your toward and away values; the things that pull you toward something and those that push you away.

3. Above your columns write a sentence or two about the first decision that you need to make. For example: “Do I take the financial risk of hiring a sales person this year?”

4. Now, in your first column list all of the things that are driving you toward hiring a sales person.

5. In the second column list all of the reasons that are pushing you away from hiring a sales person. Include all of your fears, doubts and logical concerns.

6. Here’s where the weighing process comes in. When you are done with your lists go back and weigh each pro and con by giving it a rating between 1 to 10, with 10 being very strong and 1 being very weak. So one of your statements might look something like this:

Driving Forces: The person I have in mind for this job has a history of increasing sales for past employers by up to 300 percent. (I would give this a ten!)

Repelling Forces: This person wants an annual base pay of $50,000 plus 13 percent of all sales. I’m not sure I can afford this. What number would you give this statement? Since my statement shows uncertainty around my ability to pay the base wage, but there is a strong possibility that the new sales rep will bring an increase in sales within three months, I would give this a seven–hypothetically speaking.

7. Now add each column of numbers, placing your totals at the bottom of each side. Which column carries more weight? Voila! Your decision is made!

Sources

Top 5 Most Common Networking Mistakes, How to Self-Promote–Without Being Sleazy, 7 Steps to Making Better Decisions

Every week we tackle articles regarding essential needs for business and its entrepreneurial spirit. These week we cover various articles varying Lifehacker, Mother Nature Network and About.

Business Plan

1. Executive Summary: An overview of your company or “the business idea”. Basically, the who, what, where, when, why, and how of your business. It’s the section you might want to write at the end, and the most important one that summarizes why you think the business will be successful and what your business is all about.
2. Company Description: This section should answer: What products and/or services will you sell? Who’s behind it? Who are your customers and what needs are you fulfilling with your products and/or services?
3. Organization and Management: Include in this section your company structure (sole proprietorship, limited liability company, etc.) as well as your background and years of experience. If you’ll have employees, list them here with their titles or roles. For more on business structures, see the IRS’s descriptions (most people working on their own will be sole proprietorships, but there are benefits to forming a Limited Liability Corporation, LLC, or other structures).
4. Products or Services: Detailed descriptions of what you’re going to sell, including prices and specific benefits compared to your competitors. If you’re selling products, you’d include here your sources and how much markup you’re adding. For services, include your hourly rate or project rate (not sure what to charge yet? Here are some tips).
5. Marketing and Sales: To grow your business, you’ll need a sound marketing strategy—for the next three years at least. Plan on investing in corporate identity design (e.g., logo design, website development, business cards), expenses like advertising in newspaper or search engine listings, and think about other ways you’ll reach your customers.
6. Market Analysis: Research on your competitors—what they’re charging, how they position themselves, what their products are compared to yours is also an important exercise. For an informal business plan, a simple Google search of local and online competitors might do, but for more in-depth market research, you might want to turn to sites like Hoovers to get more detailed business and industry information. The more research you can do, the better (if there’s a lot, just add it in an appendix).
7. Financial Information: This is probably the most involved part of your plan. You’ll need to know exactly how much you will need to start up and what the money will be used for—list every expense you can think of for the next three years at least; how much you expect to make each year (financial forecasts); and set some financial assumptions like your tax rate and how many days you’ll give your customers time to pay your invoices (e.g., net 30 days). The business plan templates and tools in the next section will help you create these plans, but you may also need to research standard assumptions for your industry or sample rates similar companies use. Joining an industry association, such as the Graphic Artists Guild, might get you access to financial planning tools and industry-standard rates.
8. Funding Request: If you’re looking for a loan, create a funding request section where you outline how much you’ll need, what the money will go towards, the terms you’d like to have applied, and any expected business developments that could impact your loan in the future (e.g., you expect to get a new partner in the future).

Recycling

1. Step into a leadership role. Every program needs a leader to step up and take charge. Why can’t that person be you? If you’re passionate about the environment and have a little time each month to spend on the cause, this is a great way to hone your leadership skills while also doing something good for the planet.

Your first task as leader should be to conduct an assessment. Go around to high-traffic areas – the kitchen or break room, the copier area, the entrance to the office – and make sure recycling bins are accessible and easily identifiable.

While you’re at it, check to see if the bins are being used properly (or at all). This tends to be the biggest issue in most offices. People don’t know what goes where so they take the easy route — the trash can.

So, your next task is to label the bins as well as the area around them. Write down exactly what items should be put in each bin (such as “white office paper”) and any special instructions (such as “remove staples”) so you don’t end up with contamination. Attach this label to each bin and to the wall next to it.

2. Plan special events. Most company recycling programs take care of the basics – paper, aluminum cans and glass bottles. But there are plenty of other materials that can be recycled – electronics, toner and old office equipment. Organize a semi-annual event to collect these items. Encourage employees to have fun finding them around the office and to feel free to bring them from home. Make getting rid of clutter easy and convenient – something everyone will appreciate!

Call your recycler and ask if it accepts these materials. You want to find a company that also offers pickup service since the load may be heavy given the materials.

Also, make sure everyone knows in advance when this event is taking place so they can gather the materials to turn in at the event instead of simply throwing them away.

3. Educate the staff. Keep your co-workers motivated by educating them on why recycling matters. If you have a company newsletter, ask to contribute a regular article or “quick tip” about the environment.

It also helps to keep the staff informed about the impact of their contributions. Send regular company-wide e-mails or office memos to thank them for supporting the recycling program and let them know how many pounds of waste they kept out of the landfill each month. (Your recycling company can help provide statistics.)

4. Build enthusiasm. Nothing helps keep up the energy like a little healthy competition. Consider creating a game or contest between departments to see who can generate the least amount of trash, and come up with innovative ways to track progress and reward those who participate. Publicize the winners so others around the company can see the success.

5. Grow the program. With a recycling program in place, you can help expand the program to other businesses in your building or area. Consolidating your efforts may help reduce hauling and processing fees.

Building Wealth

1. Put Off Marriage
Your biggest obstacle to attaining wealth is YOU. Too often, people live their lives in a manner that is not conducive to creating riches and then get frustrated at “the system” when they only really have themselves to blame.

One of the most important financial decisions you will ever make is marriage (more specifically who you marry and when). By putting off the walk down the aisle for a few years, you can save a decade worth of frustration. Your first goal should be to become financially independent, with little or no debt, and have your investments in place. Once you have these three things, your odds of success are drastically improved by beginning your journey on a level playing field (after all, the number-one reason for divorce is financial trouble).

2. Debt is a Disease
With a few notable exceptions, debt is a form of bondage; a disease that enslaves the borrower. A few years ago, there was a young lady attending college who shot herself because she couldn’t pay back $2,300 in credit card debt. Although an extreme example, it is a testament to the power money has over peoples’ lives. Imagine your life without owing anyone anything; your car, your house, your education, all paid for in full. Like what you see? When you want it badly enough, you will make extinguishing your debt your number one priority.

3. If You Don’t Like Where your Parents Were at Your Age – Do Things Differently
The old cliché that “insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results,” holds just as true today as it did when it was originally written. If you don’t like where your parents were at your age, stop what you are doing. During your childhood, they taught you all they knew about money. For many people, these early years established how they feel about their finances today. In order to become financially successful, you must do something different than they did. Otherwise, you will end up exactly as they are.

4. When you Begin a Job, Look at the Pay of the Highest Employee
Whether you are looking for employment now or are thinking about it sometime in the near future, one of the most important things for you to do is to look at what the top-dog gets at any company for which you are considering working. This will give you an idea of how high you can expect to climb in terms of earnings and promotion. If the CEO is making $30,000 a year, you have no chance to make six figures. Select a job accordingly.

5. Do Something You Love and Get Paid for It
I remember going into college and being surrounded with people who wanted to be artists, scientists, and businessmen, but instead did what their parents or grandparents told them to do. There is no honor in being a doctor or a lawyer if you wake up every morning and hate your job. Pick a profession you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.

6. Understand the Money Myth
Money is nothing more than a piece of paper with the image of a long-dead person on it. When you understand that any power it has over you is derived from your relationship with it, you suddenly become free from the constant pressures and stress of thinking about it. Especially at times such as these, if you are putting money away for ten, fifteen, or twenty years down the road, stop checking your portfolio every day! There is nothing you can gain from it except stress.

7. Your New Commodity is Not Your Labor, It’s Your Ideas
With the advent of the Internet and other technological advances, you are no longer limited to supporting yourself or making a living by your physical labor. The only limit you have on yourself now is your own imagination – your ideas are the most valuable thing you possess. Every man, woman, and child is a salesman for a living; if you don’t own a business or investments, then you sell your manual labor to a company in exchange for a paycheck. Change your product. The gap between the rich and poor does indeed grow larger with each passing year, but not because of inequalities or any other such injustices. Instead, it is because the rich understand money and how to use it. Capital is literally a seed; learn how to plant it to produce the best harvest. When you do this, you will rule your finances, not the other way around.

Sources

How Do I Create a Business Plan?, Five Secrets to Making Your Company’s Recycling Program Really Work and 7 Rules of Wealth Building

For every sale you miss because you’re too enthusiastic, you will miss a hundred because you’re not enthusiastic enough – Zig Ziglar

You know who’s not happy with their lives, when their busy discussing yours.

If I want your opinion I’ll ask for it.

I shouldn’t have to explain myself…YOU should be the one telling ME why you believed what you heard.

Don’t put words into my mouth. I’ve got plenty to say. Don’t tell me how to live my life, I do things my way.

What you think of me is none of my business.

To say that only those businesses affected with a public interest may be regulated is but another way of stating that all those businesses which may be regulated are affected with a public interest – Harlan Stone

The main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance but to do what lies clearly at hand – Thomas Carlyle

I don’t think anybody in our business is creative. What we do is copy something better than the next person – Henry Siegel

A business that makes nothing but money is a poor kind of business – Henry Ford

It is very easy to manage our neighbor’s business, but our own sometimes bothers us – Elbert Hubbard

You tend your garden and I’ll tend mine. Good fences make good neighbors.

Our business in life is not to get ahead of others, but to get ahead of ourselves – E Joseph Cossman

Whatever I do, it’s my business. It’s not my job to parent America – Christina Aguilera

The air is full of ideas. They are knocking you in the head all the time. You only have to know what you want, then forget it, and go about your business. Suddenly, the idea will come through. It was there all the time – Henry Ford quotes

Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion – Jack Welch

If you start by promising what you don’t even have yet, you’ll lose your desire to work towards, getting it – Paulo Coelho

Baseball is a game, yes. It is also a business. But what is most truly is is disguised combat. For all its gentility, it’s almost leisurely pace, baseball is violence under wraps – Willie Mays

The happiest business in all the world is that of making friends, And no investment on the street pays larger dividends, For life is more than stocks and bonds, and love than rate percent, And he who gives in friendship’s name shall reap what he has – Bill Gates

If you want success, then don’t rely on other people to do what YOU can do! – Sasha Azevedo

Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust – Zig Ziglar

A meeting is an event where minutes are taken and hours wasted – James T Kirk

Great organizations demand a high level of commitment by the people involved – Bill Gates

You can’t do today’s job with yesterday’s methods and be in business tomorrow – George W Bush

To succeed in business it is necessary to make others see things as you see them – John H Patterson

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield – Warren Buffett

As a small businessperson, you have no greater leverage than the truth – Paul Keating

The business of the advertiser is to see that we go about our business with some magic spell or tune or slogan throbbing quietly in the background of our minds – Marshall McLuhan

Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this – no dog exchanges bones with another – Adam Smith

Business is a combination of war and sport – Andre Maurois

When business is good it pays to advertise; when it is bad you have got to advertise – Red Auerbach

I would be a billionaire if I was looking to be a selfish boss. That’s not me – Alfred North Whitehead

In business a reputation for keeping absolutely to the letter and spirit of an agreement, even when it is unfavorable, is the most precious of assets, although it is not entered in the balance sheet – Lord Chandos

I don’t know any other business that tells you not to go in and buy their product – Jack Valenti

Method goes far to prevent trouble in business: for it makes the task easy, hinders confusion, saves abundance of time, and instructs those that have business depending, both what to do and what to hope – William Penn

The stock market will always be more about capitalizing on dumb people than about investing in good companies – Jonathan Gilbert

This is a very exciting time in the world of information. It’s not just that the personal computer has come along as a great tool. The whole pace of business is moving faster. Globalization is forcing companies to do things in new ways – Bill Gates

I work in a strange business, and trust is a word that’s not even in the vocabulary – Gerald Barzan

The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows – Aristotle Onassis

Our business in life is not to get ahead of others, but to get ahead of ourselves — to break our own records, to outstrip our yesterday by our today – Stewart B Johnson

It is difficult, but not impossible, to conduct strictly honest business – Mahatma Gandhi

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently – Henry Ford

In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, product and profits. Unless you’ve got a good team, you can’t do much with the other two – Lee Iacocca

Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision – Peter F Drucker

One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at once – Samuel Butler

In business, three things are necessary: knowledge, temper, and time – Owen Felltham

Business, you know, may bring money, but friendship hardly ever does – Jane Austen

The most successful businessman is the man who holds onto the old just as long as it is good, and grabs the new just as soon as it is better – Lee Iacocca

The list might seem insanely a bit daunting. But if all you do is take one step in each category (and respect all of the Don’ts), you’re likely to gain more coverage than any of your competitors. The bottom line is: reach out, be helpful, and get busy.

I’ll hang out in the comments section to help out anyone who has questions. But quite frankly, I’d rather see you out there, connecting with reporters, selling stories about you and your fantastic business successes.

The publicity is there for the taking. All you have to do is ask.

Build relationships months in advance of pitching

1. Connect on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, or in real life more than six months in advance of pitching a reporter.
2. Monitor the Twitter hashtags of your community. Often reporters chat with the public on Twitter, and you can respond to comments they make.
3. Compliment a reporter via Twitter, Facebook, or e-mail on a story he or she did.
4. Introduce yourself to reporters at big public or chamber of commerce events. Pass along your card, but don’t try and sell them the idea on the spot. Just be helpful.
5. Invite reporters out for coffee, and ask a lot of questions about them.
6. Leave a comment at the end of the online version of a story a reporter did, which you genuinely liked.
7. Congratulate them on their birthdays, or other personal news they post.
8. Comb through Muck Rack to find regional or national reporters on Twitter who cover your industry.
9. Write a positive blog post on your blog highlighting a story of theirs, and e-mail them the link.
10. Respond regularly to posts they’ve written either on their blog, or on a local community blog you’ve noticed they post on.
11. Visit city council meetings in your town. Typically there’s a reporter sitting around bored, that you can build a relationship with.
12. Sign up on helpareporter.com. Several e-mail lists are sent out daily, full of reporters needing experts for stories. Jump on those that fall within your expertise.
13. Scout publications with smaller and more targeted readerships, such as a local business weekly publication. These media outlets are often run by just two or three people, and they’ll jump at a guest column or article by you because it’ll save them the time of tracking down a story on their own.
14. Listen to AM radio stations, especially on weekday mornings or on Saturdays. Befriend one of the regular show hosts. Often they’ll highlight any business that is doing something interesting the public might find interesting.
15. Nix spending money on an online press release site early on. Those online press release systems are more useful for building inbound links, or if you’re already a recognized expert with a track record, and there’s a major news event breaking that you could discuss.
16. Ask them if they’d mind if you added them to your email list. Then provide them with education-based content marketing to sell them on doing a story about your business.

Once You’ve Met, Make The Pitch Transition Smooth

17. Say “yes” without fail if a reporter wants to interview you that day, even if it has to be over the phone or while you’re on vacation.
18. Offer occasional suggestions of angles you think would make great follow-up stories, especially that don’t have anything to do with your business. Nearly all stories are parts of a long-running issues, so reporters always need additional story follow-up ideas.
19. Offer to connect reporters to experts you know . If the reporter sounds interested, follow through with the offer.
20. Be a source for stories that fall within your expertise by letting reporters in your industry know you’re available when they need a source. This can lead to regular spots on the news.
21. Point reporters to blog posts you genuinely think they’d be interested in – whether on your blog or others. It validates you as an expert.
22. Treat journalists with respect. You’ll set yourself apart just by being friendly.
23. Keep a camera handy for “spot news” photo opportunities, and then pass along to the media outlet. This can be anything from a deer crashing into a department store while you happened to be there to a good shot of an event or store opening.
24. Offer to write a column on your specialty for the online website of a media site, or for a print publication in your area.

Ponder These Issues Prior to Pitching

25. Define the story in just one sentence, so you can easily explain it to the media in 10 seconds.
26. Include people in your story pitch. Many owners try to pitch their company’s achievements, but stories that sell normally have people involved, not just the company.
27. Focus on selling the benefits to viewers, listeners or readers first. It’s about their perspective of what you’re selling, not about how wonderful it would be for you to sell your product or service.
28. Think visually. When can a media station shoot video and pictures? If that’s not possible, are there video or pictures you can provide?
29. Avoid offering a posed or fake event or picture. They are typically frowned on by the media.
30. Hold an event where you’re actually doing what you’re talking about, and invite them to come, whether it’s to write a story, or just take a picture or video.
31. Post your video online for easy download, or put it on DVDs.
32. Seek permission from the individuals in a potential photo shoot ahead of time.
33. Highlight trends in which your business is just one of several examples. Nearly every trend can be turned into a story pitch, and it has the added advantage of letting you not hog the limelight, which reporters often don’t find appealing.
34. Provide actual users of your service or product for the media to interview. Their testimonials will boost your credibility.
35. Offer to review the facts or your quotes if you feel nervous the journalist misunderstood you. Don’t try to pressure the journalist into letting you review the entire article before publication, though, because media stations normally don’t allow this.
36. Provide a journalist with an expert to interview who has used and can vouch for your product. If you sell skin cream, for example, ask a dermatologist who likes your product to be available for an interview.
37. Copy relevant documents for the reporter, to provide at the interview, or prior to it.
38. Create a list of key dates and facts relevant to the story, along with potential quotes.
39. Write a couple paragraphs describing the process in simple terms, ideally with a drawing if the story is complex.
40. Write a killer press release in the form of a ready-made story, if submitting a story to a weekly or a daily in regions of fewer than 50,000 people. You’d be surprised how often a newspaper will print almost exactly what you sent.
41. Give reporters two weeks’ notice for an upcoming story or event.
42. Remain flexible. Reporters have days that are jam-packed with breaking news, and other days that are slower and more open to a less-urgent story like yours.
43. Choose to meet in person if an option, because the journalist will then get to know you better, and you’ll have more time with him or her.
44. Travel to where the story actually happens for the interview – whether in your office or an hour away at a gravel pit.
45. Muzzle the natural urge to provide stacks of background research. Most reporters don’t have the time or interest in looking through it.
46. Leap on breaking news relevant to your industry as a chance to put yourself in the local news. The shootings in Arizona presented an opportunity for anyone who deals with mental health to be interviewed on local radio, television and in the newspaper.
47. Pitch local stories to local reporters. National attention typically springs from local attention first.
48. Call ahead and pitch a story, if you’re showcasing your products at a local convention or other major event typically covered by the news. Otherwise reporters just walk the aisles and randomly choose businesses to speak with.
49. Watch the calendar, and pitch a story that would ideally run around major holidays, when things are often really slow in newsrooms.
50. Act enthusiastic. If you don’t seem excited about the idea, neither will they.
51. Express why this story is of value to your community. If it’s a story you wouldn’t bother watching or reading, don’t pitch it.
52. Show an image that encapsulates the story you’re trying to tell. When Google held a national competition, our video shot on a Flip Camera received national attention from a variety of media outlets because it easily showed in one image how wild the competition became.
53. Forget about giving up. Don’t be a pest, but keep trying every few weeks to pitch an idea, until a reporter gives a straight yes-or-no answer to your idea.
54. Write very short e-mails to reporters. Three or four sentences total. Your e-mail is much more likely to get read by busy reporters if it’s short and to the point.
55. Devote lots of time on e-mail subject lines to reporters. You can apply the same techniques for writing magnetic headlines for blog posts – they make both readers and reporters want to know more about what you have to say.

21 Kinds of Reporter Bait

56. Hold a fundraising drive.
57. Do X for the 10th, 20th, 50th year.
58. Launch a brand new product.
59. Sell product X locally for the first time.
60. Provide an environmentally friendly version of a product everyone uses – and be the only local place to purchase it.
61. Link your underlying story pitch with some basic human emotion, like love, fear or hope. Start a knitting story in memory of your late aunt, who taught you about knitting.
62. Frame your story as a local example of a national or international issue currently in the news. If Congress is debating health care, and your clinic has developed a unique program for handling people without insurance, you’ve got a pitch.
63. Time a pitch about your company for a few weeks before your company’s anniversary.
64. Buck a trend. It’s Christmas Eve, and you’ve seen an uptick in your toy store sales, while everyone else has noticed a downturn.
65. Launch a product or service in your community no one locally has ever sold.
66. Highlight that you’re doing something most people are afraid to attempt, such as starting a business during a recession.
67. Brag. If you’ve been interviewed by a local media outlet, a larger one, or a major publication, play it up. It shows you’re desirable as a media interview.
68. Spotlight unique ties to major events. Show how your business has doubled through word of mouth marketing after volunteering for two weeks during Hurricane Katrina.
69. Share how you just hit X,000 regular subscribers on your blog, and show how that translates to online sales. This process remains foreign and therefore fascinating to most reporters.
70. Reveal how you’ve transitioned a primarily brick-and-mortar store into doing a healthy amount of online sales.
71. Announce that your business for the first time employs four generations of the same family.
72. Embrace anything that makes you unique. A local jewelry store owner in Northern Wisconsin received media coverage across all of Minnesota and Wisconsin simply because the owner felt the end of the world was coming soon, and incorporated it into his commercial.
73. Compile fascinating data. OkCupid.com mined its customer data to show which smartphone users have the most sex. What kind of irresistible statistic could you compile from your business?
74. Run a weird contest. Be the beauty parlor giving a makeover to the husband of the women who makes the best case that he looks like a slob.
75. Write an e-book. Just being able to say you’ve written a recently released “book” can be enough of a news hook for a story.
76. Look for sections in the newspaper that highlight interesting businesses, often under headlines like “What’s That Business.” Normally a simple phone call with a pitch will secure a feature on your business.

How To Become A Favorite Source for Reporters

77. Explain things chronologically if possible.
78. Speak slowly, so the reporter has time to take notes and mentally process what you’re saying.
79. Tell the story twice. The first time give the sweeping overview, and then return to the start of the story, and fill in all the details. The second time around you’ll remember more and fill in gaps in the narrative, and the reporter will ask better questions.
80. Respond to a reporter’s phone call or e-mail immediately, or as soon as humanly possible. Reporters love dependable, helpful people.
81. Provide information from most to least important if time is irrelevant to the topic.
82. Allow the reporter to lead the interview if he or she comes with questions.
83. Wear a company logo, and dark, solid colors on camera. Clothes with stripes or checkered patterns look bad on television.
84. Don’t waste time. Assume you won’t have more than half an hour to speak to the reporter.
85. Answer the obvious questions: Who, What, Where, When, Why, How and So What.
86. Ponder how you will answer every potential question, and don’t assume there won’t be any difficult ones.
87. Stay on topic.
88. Offer to return as a regular guest either weekly, monthly, or as needed, once your first interview concludes.
89. Send an e-mail or note a day after the interview talking about how you appreciated the reporter’s time, or how great the story was.
90. Provide a clear call to action, if there is one.
91. Ask the reporter to summarize what you said every few minutes during an interview. This typically gives you a better chance to clarify and reiterate key points.
92. Repeat your key couple of messages, so it’s more likely to make it in the story.
93. Refrain from saying “no comment” if you can’t answer a question. Explain why you’d prefer not to answer.
94. Remain flexible with the reporter, even if he or she decides to take the story in a direction that isn’t ideal in your eyes.
95. Assume anything you say will be printed or stated by the journalist. Avoid saying “off the record” unless the reporter verbally agrees to keep what you’re about to say out of the story.
96. Work with one news outlet at a time on a story.
97. Talk in short sentences, using simple English.
98. Avoid slang, industry vernacular or abbreviations.
99. Provide a business card with your name, title, and what numbers to reach you at both during and after business hours.
100. Contact the reporter every few weeks, to remain top of mind, and find out when the publication or air date will be.
101. Post on your website and other online outlets footage of you on television. Have someone record or videotape the segment while on television, just in case the station can’t or won’t provide you with a copy.
102. Propose being on a local Sunday show or early morning show, which often gives you 20 minutes to highlight your business.
103. Pre-write tweets and a blog post, so you can quickly tell friends, family, clients and supporters when the story runs without losing time.

A Few Important Don’ts

104. Don’t cold call. Warm up the reporter by sending an e-mail first, with a paragraph spelling out the bottom line of the story idea, then follow up with a call a few hours or a day later, depending on the urgency of the story.
105. If you must cold call due to time constraints, never call after 3 p.m.
106. Don’t neglect your headline. Without a good one, you’re dead.
107. Don’t try to get an editor. Their mentality is often to help reporters eliminate mediocre story ideas. Reach out for reporters instead – they’re looking for material.
108. Don’t show up in the newsroom unannounced.
109. Don’t mail information in unsolicited.

The original article can be found here.

Becoming a better business person doesn’t only mean having a better, bigger and more profitable business, company or enterprise, but more importantly, it also means becoming a better and more improved person. Well, it should be… since a “business person” is a combination of a business and a person. Now, here are 100 ways to help and guide us to become a better businessman or businesswoman. The list is long, hence, let’s get started.

Becoming a better person

1. Review your principles in life because they are the roots and the ones which shape your life, as well as your business. Continue the right principles and eliminate the wicked ones.

2. Apply and practice those right principles with more bravery and with more frequency.

3. Have a healthier body. Exercise regularly, maintain a balanced diet, and take enough rest. Be a healthier businessman!

4. Avoid not only bad business acts, but also avoid bad business thoughts and intents.

5. Do business not only with all your heart, but purify your heart first, then do business with your purest heart. Remember that the heart can be misleading if it’s corrupted.

6. Be more than personal; be spiritual.

7. Achieve inner peace using the 3 Fs: namely, forgive, forget and forward!

8. Be a truly happier person by increasing the number of people whom you make happy.

9. Strengthen your faith by justifying it.

10. Love yourself by making it truer, purer, kinder and better.

Becoming a better business owner

11. Make your business plans SMARTER (specific, measureable, achievable, relevant, time-bound, evaluated and retested).

12. Stick to those plans. Don’t start a business that you will quit.

13. Have a greater purpose for your business, such as to save people’s lives and to make the world a better place to live.

14. Give your business a better name. Make it more memorable, enjoyable and honorable.

15. Have trusted co-founders and part-owners. Don’t take all the credits.

16. Talk and listen regularly to your business language. Always keep its record. Read, analyze and understand your company’s financial statements. Also conduct regular financial audits, with the help of auditors.

17. Have a better business coach or mentor, and listen to him.

18. Make your business friendly to environment, government and the public.

19. Don’t rush your business, but grow it gradually, consistently and certainly.

20. Get your business a better insurance.

Becoming a better entrepreneur

21. Be the first to offer a product or service in the market. Be an inventor.

22. If you can’t be the first, then be the best.

23. Be holistic and rather than just atomistic

24. Find your passion, and when you find it, be passionate about it.

25. Be bold. Be a deeper diver. Explore the ocean; investigate the tips of the icebergs. In other words, explore places or opportunities where no one is exploring.

26. Don’t stop innovating, until your reach the ultimate form of sophistication, that is, simplicity.

27. Make more sacrifices and wait longer.

28. Be prepared to pass on failures, financial problems, and criticisms.

29. Be unbreakable and flexible. Learn how to set allowances and margin of errors.

30. Orient yourself to become customer-oriented and people-oriented.

Becoming a better manager

31. Start by controlling and managing yourself

32. Learn how to connect and blend with people

33. Don’t just search and hire the best people, give them also the best training

34. Try harder in avoiding being a bossy.

35. Have a mission, vision and action. Have a destination, direction and motion. Also don’t forget acceleration and completion.

36. Manage your time; manage your moments.

37. Show grace and generosity to your workers and employees.

38. Manage your personal finance and achieve financial freedom. Don’t love money!

39. Learn how to shut your big mouth and open your already-opened ears. Also learn how to use your two ears to listen the both sides.

40. Build teamwork and coach your team. Give them better duties and functions, and empower them.

Becoming a better leader

41. Be diligent as it always what makes a leader better.

42. Be strong and sharp, but never forget to be gentle.

43. Lead your followers in front; follow them at the back. Be the first to serve; be the last to receive.

44. Practice more humility and accountability.

45. Be selfless.

46. Be a role model. Be motivated to motivate your people; be inspired to inspire others.

47. Build trust. Start by making yourself trustworthy, then help your people become trustworthy too. After that, trust yourself and them.

48. Pay more respect.

49. Be compassionate and understanding. Open your heart and mind to hear and see what people are feeling and thinking.

50. Be a better follower. Follow justice, righteousness, truth, and be a disciple of discipline.

Becoming a better marketer

51. Add more value and quality to your products

52. Help people save more money. Offer better prices, deals, and give discounts and freebies.

53. Give your customers more comfort and convenience. Be accessible offline and online. Put your business online and have online presence. Provide 24/7 access through the social media: website, blog, Facebook, et cetera.

54. Be honest by making something to be honest of. Practice honest advertising and other means of promotion.

55. Be a better mixer of the four Ps of marketing, namely, product, price, place and promotion.

56. Serve your customers well by providing them better customer service from pre-sales to post-sales.

57. Provide something that will make your customers your own marketers through the word-of-mouth marketing.

58. Do not just ask customers’ feedback, but also listen and act.

59. Don’t rely too much on technology, provide human touch. You’re dealing with human beings anyway.

60. Be the first to show loyalty. Be loyal to your customers by not cheating on them, then hope that they will also give their loyalty to you.

Becoming a better salesperson

61. Familiarize and understand what you offer, and be confident in selling.

62. Make sure that everything is excellent about your goods or services, then tell everything.

63. Do not badmouth your competitors. Tell what’s good about them, then tell what’s better about your business or products.

64. Do not overpressure your customers to buy your product, instead, pressure yourself to produce a satisfying product that sells itself. So avoid too much sales talk that your customers hate. Let your product talks itself.

65. Make yourself or your salesperson the best evidence that your products are excellent. If you’re selling a perfume, then be aromatic.

66. Reward your old and loyal customers; give discounts to your first customers.

67. Always smile to your customers, to your co-workers and to everyone. Remember that a smiling salesperson may not be enough to please your customers – you need to present a smiling store.

68. Be sincere and thoughtful. Make your customers and clients more special. Send them greetings on their birthdays if possible.

69. Get quality certifications for your products if applicable. Also get positive reviews and testimonials from your satisfied customers, and let them help you do the sales talk.

70. Watch your sales figures and numbers – watch them historically, currently and prospectively. Analyze the past, work the present and forecast the future.

Becoming a better competitor

71. Know your worst competitor. It’s not your business competitors – it is the worst you. Hence overcome yourself; overcome your laziness, procrastination, greed, and the likes.

72. Unite yourself: your mind, heart and spirit. Mind your business, feel your business, and live your business.

73. Unite your people and equip them with the right weapon, that is, knowledge, skills and systems.

74. Spy on your competitors, as well as yourself.

75. Stick to your game plan. Don’t be lured with enticing baits and traps. Always bear in my mind that not all profitable opportunities are profitable in the long run.

76. Don’t just consider the competition, but also consider cooperation.

77. Have a work-life balance to become more energetic, elastic and effective.

78. Have a proper timing; be patient.

79. Practice until you can’t be wrong, and not only until you make it right. Understand the sense of the saying “practice makes perfect”.

80. Win the real business competition, that is… making the workers, the customers and the community happy.

Becoming a better learner

81. Pay more attention.

82. Don’t just gain knowledge, but also wisdom, understanding and insight.

83. Don’t just improve your attitude, but also your values and habits.

84. Don’t stop learning, and be a better teacher.

85. Don’t stop teaching, and continue learning something to teach better.

86. Practice what you learn; practice what you teach.

87. Dig for the roots; speculate for the fruits. This is how you will learn the unseen things.

88. Admit your mistakes; take away your pride and change it with humility to widely receive knowledge.

89. Practice the 3 ways of obtaining wisdom, namely, copying, experience and reflection. Prioritize the last which is the greatest of the three.

90. Read several books and articles, then write a better book or a better article of you own. Utilize technology!

Becoming a better worker

91. Reduce your dreaming; increase your working.

92. Focus, focus, focus!

93. Organize your stuff.

94. Take regular short breaks. Also take occasional long breaks, such as a fine vacation. Enjoying life is also a work that must not be ignored!

95. Be an artist and execute your work like a masterpiece.

96. Be a scientist and make experiments.

97. Don’t be too showy. Learn from the masked men, such as Batman and Spiderman.

98. Workout your muscles to become physically strong and do cardio exercises to increase your stamina.

99. Don’t work for money; work for glory.

100. You’ve made a great plan. Hence, just do it!

The original article can be found here. Written by Vic.

1. Make your agreements explicit

The first lesson is to keep agreements explicit. It’s not enough to think that your friend understands what you think: make sure he does by discussing it openly with him. As my mediating friend phrased it, “unspoken promises” have a tendency to turn into broken promises (which are always hard to swallow). Avoid unspoken promises.

Here’s an example of a really bad thing to keep implicit: “We’ll only call it quits if the business is bankrupt and can’t raise any more money.” The promise here is that we’ll keep going until the very end. This may seem obvious to one party in the business, but it may not be so to the other. One partner could, for instance, feel that the time to call it quits is when the business has 3 months of cash flow left. Another may feel that it’s worth going deep into credit card debt territory before giving up.

Don’t make this mistake: keep those agreements explicit.

2. Detail your agreements

Once you make some agreements explicit, it should become clear that you need further discussion to figure out exactly what your explicit agreement is. Don’t be afraid to do this. It’s not “too early to discuss this”.

Here’s an explicit agreement that’s not detailed enough: “We want the business to make a lot of money”. Really? How much are you happy with? 10’000 pounds a month? A million? What is the definition of success? It’s almost certain that you and your business partner have different views as to what “a lot of money” is. Being on the same page about what you expect out of your business will ensure that you don’t pull in different directions when things are going well. Think of how mortifying it would be to find out that your partner wants to pull the plug when you think that the business is successful.

3. Don’t be afraid of discussing the bad stuff

There are a number of subjects which seem almost embarrassing to discuss when things are going well. For example, “What if one of us decides to pull out?” Your first reaction to this topic might be “What? We’re barely getting started, and already we’re talking about what happens if one of us pulls out?”

The reality is that people’s life circumstances change through time. They get married, or decide to leave the country, or get engrossed in a different pursuit, etc. Many things can get in between a founder and his start-up. Similarly, many things can go very wrong with a start-up. When those things do go wrong, or when one of the founders decides to pull out, is not the time to discuss these things. You need to discuss them with a clear head when no one is thinking of pulling out and the business looks healthy and hopeful.

When you discuss your start-up’s future, do not be afraid to talk about the disaster scenarios. Also, when you negotiate what will happen if a partner quits, don’t be so sure that it won’t be you.

4. Write things down

There are two reasons to write things down: first, people’s memories of conversations are faulty. Writing things down also ensures that there is no disagreement, later, about what was decided. You don’t need a long document for this — even just one or two pages describing your agreement is enough to avoid later misunderstandings.

The second reason is that people may think they have reached an agreement when in reality they never agreed about the details. Once you put something in writing, you give it a certain air of finality that teases out those last remaining disagreement. Basically, putting an agreement in writing is like putting a new piece of functionality in code. Until it exists in that form, it’s just vapour.

Halfway through my misunderstanding with my friend, we thought we’d figured out a way forward. I wasn’t sure that we were both thinking the same thing, so I made the effort to put it in writing, in the form of a business plan. When my friend read it, and understood more clearly what I meant, he recanted, and the agreement fell through. It’s a good thing that it fell through, because it would likely have resulted in even more problems later on if we’d gone through with it based on our flawed understanding of each other.

5. Don’t make it work at all costs

Yes, I know this is your friend that you’re starting up with, and this is your great opportunity to start your own business. However, if, in those discussions, you find that there’s an intractable disagreement, don’t fall into the trap of thinking that the most important thing is to smooth things over and start the business.

Starting up with someone is almost like marrying them (temporarily), in a way. You’ll be talking to them almost everyday, and possibly even more than with your significant other. You’ll be working on a “baby” (your business) for many months. It’s a big commitment, basically, and much like any other kind of significant commitment, you shouldn’t go into it if you think there are major problems, because those problems will only get worse.

6. Don’t assume things will get better with time

It’s easy to rationalise away big problems by assuming that things will get better with time. In some cases, they will, but in a majority of cases, they won’t. What this means, for example, is that you shouldn’t assume that your inexplicably small share of the business will magically grow to 50% later on. This is even less likely to happen if the business is working well (if the business isn’t working out, chances are it doesn’t matter anyway).

Sample questions

This article wouldn’t be complete without a list of questions that you might go through and discuss with your cofounder. Use them as a guideline or as a checklist, as you please.

• What do we both mean by “the business is successful”?
• What do we both mean by “the business is not successful”?
• What happens if one of us needs to voluntarily pull out, for any reason?
• What happens if one of us cannot work on the business anymore, for involuntary reasons?
• What are the conditions under which we’d call the business a failure and pull the plug?
• What is plan B for each of us if we do pull the plug? Are we both prepared for that plan B?
• What do we expect of each other, both in terms of responsibilities and in terms of attitude and effort?
• What is and is not an expense? What is the maximum amount someone can spend on an expense without checking with the other? (from Sebastian Marshall)
• When and how will profits be distributed? How much will be reinvested? What will the reserves be? (from Sebastian Marshall)
• What happens if one partner needs cash and the other wants to reinvest it into growth/expansion? (from Sebastian Marshall)
• How will you handle it when (not if) the hours each partner is working are unbalanced? (from Sebastian Marshall)

This is not a final list by any means, but it should at least provide some starting points to make the implicit explicit. If you have other suggestions, please do add them in the comments below.

Conclusion

I don’t regret starting that business with my friend, but I do regret not clarifying those kinds of questions upfront. It would have saved me a lot of worry. If your business is struggling, you don’t need the additional pain of seeing your friendship unraveling under the stress of accumulated misunderstandings.

So, do yourself a favour, and set out to:

• Make your agreements explicit so that you don’t break implicit promises
• Detail your agreements so that your promises are clear
• Don’t be afraid of discussing negative scenarios, so that you don’t add the stress of misunderstanding to already bad situations
• Write things down so you’ll remember
• Don’t make things work at all costs, so that you don’t spend the next years living with a deal that’s not acceptable to you
• Don’t assume things will get better with time, so you’re not surprised when they don’t

Original article can be found here. Written by Daniel Tenner.