Defining your niche

02. November 2010 All, Career 1
Let me tell you a story about three little kids who wanted to sell lemonade. The first kid set up his lemonade stand on the busiest street corner in town and made a large sign that said “Lemonade – 5 cents”. He made 20 sales that day, totaling $1 The second kid set up his ...

How to accomplish anything

24. October 2010 All, Career, Favorites 1
How to accomplish anything
The difference between a titan and an average schmo is outlook and empowerment. Joe Schmo sees all of the obstacles between himself and his dream, whereas Thomas Titan sees the path around and over those obstacles to his destination. So if you are one of the lucky few who knows exactly what his desired destination ...

Drive

18. October 2010 All, Career 1
Drive. Willingness to sweat, get your hands dirty, do whatever it takes to make it work. Not being afraid to work long hours. Not being afraid to go back to the drawing board. I have hired many people throughout the years and I often get asked the same question, “what does it take to be ...

How to close a sale

15. October 2010 All, Career 0
I rather dislike the term “close a sale” but this title brought you here, so it worked. A better way to describe this process would be getting a client to buy. Clients like to buy, they don’t like to be sold. So, begin by thinking from the client’s point of view and you are already ...

Tough Love for Professional Gals

03. October 2010 All, Career, Favorites 0
It’s biological. Women are different from men. I am not a feminist nor am I traditionalist. I am an opportunist. Everyone of all genders, colors, and shapes should have equal opportunities. Somehow I think we’ve forgotten what this means. This means the chance to earn a greater living, a greater position, and greater lot in ...

Keeping the main thing the main thing

30. September 2010 All, Career 1
I’ve been away for so long. I got married. In June. And once you’re away for some time, it gets difficult to get back into a rhythm. No excuses. Anyway, in that time, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I would write about when I started up again. Which brings us to ...

How to win customer loyalty

16. May 2010 All, Career 2
Yesterday, I decided to try a new dry-cleaning service near my home… new to me, but as I learned later, had been in business for almost 25 years. I decided I needed to switch dry-cleaners because the one located on my work campus had shown atrocious service: they shrunk 5 of my pants and showed ...

Conduct market research through your customers

18. April 2010 All, Career 1
There are several great methods of conducting research about your industry/ market, and in my research article, I talked about the different methods that I included as part of the research plan. Of all of these, I think one of the most insightful exercises is holding small focus groups or 1 on 1 sessions with ...

Tales of a college-dorm-room-run-business

02. April 2010 All, Career, Life 1
As a starving undergrad at Rutgers, I had an editing business that paid for my living expenses. Back then, my entrepreneurship was out of desperation so I could eat… but looking back, I appreciate the instinctive actions I took to get people to pay me for services. If I could do it all over again, ...