by Daria Steigman on August 16, 2010
There’s a new study out that suggests that fewer Americans are turning to entrepreneurship in 2010 than did in 2009. According to an article in Entrepreneur’s Daily Dose blog, the study by outsourcing firm Challenger, Gray, & Christmas* found that “just 3.7 percent of job-seekers ended up starting a business… For comparison, 8.6 percent of the unemployed became entrepreneurs in calendar [year] 2009.”
The article is titled Note to Entrepreneurs: Laid-Off Workers No Longer Want To Be You. Interesting, because I’d argue that they never did. Sure, lots of people hang out consulting shingles or think their employment gap is the perfect opportunity to test out that business venture they always said they wanted to start. But most people aren’t prepared for the long hours and the do-everything-yourself reality of starting up a business. Not to mention the lack of a steady paycheck, health care benefits, or a built-in pension plan.
What do you think? Surprised by the numbers or a reversion back toward the norm?
*Sorry that there’s no link to the original study, but I couldn’t find one. If you have one, please let me know and I’ll add it in.
Photo by Aaron Smith (Flickr).
Tagged as:
Challenger Gray & Christmas,
Entrepreneurship
by Daria Steigman on August 11, 2010
There was a sound bite on the evening news recently about how a lot of fishermen on the Gulf Coast will be sorry to see BP pull out as they have grown used to the big pay days. (Now, whether this is true is for a different post–and one I’m not going to touch.) It made me think about how I, as a small business owner, handle shifting cash flows.
I have been doing this stuff a long time, so I know that consulting is a feast or famine business. Sometimes I get big pay days; other months might be quite lean. I’m pretty conservative, so I tend to assume the worst and spend very frugally. A good friend calls this “stashing the cash.”
Do you stash the cash?
Photo by Daniel Borman (Flickr).
Tagged as:
Business,
Entrepreneurship
by Daria Steigman on June 7, 2010
Tony Hsieh’s Delivering Happiness* is a good reminder that sometimes you have to take a leap of faith and follow your passion.
Part autobiography, part tale of success-wrought-from-hard-work, part customer service bible, Delivering Happiness is a good read for entrepreneurs and business owners. There are lessons leaned about business models, core competencies, and flexibility. And Zappos’ 10 core values–and how they came about–will hopefully make you pause and assess whether you have identified and articulated your core business values.
What I liked best about Hsieh’s book was the process stuff:
- Zappos didn’t just identify problems (i.e., “We just don’t have the right products to offer our customers”), but took tough steps to change its business model to become profitable.
- Hsieh acknowledges mistakes (i.e., “As an e-commerce company, we should have considered warehousing to be our core competency from the beginning. Outsourcing that to a third party… was one of our biggest mistakes.)
- Zappos focused on three key areas (customer service, culture, and employee training and development).
If you’re looking for a dry business book, this isn’t the one to buy. But if you’re looking for a quick read, conversational style, and good takeaways, you won’t go wrong with Delivering Happiness.
Want to read Hsieh’s book? The kind Delivering Happiness book team gave me a second copy to give away to one lucky reader. Just tell me in the comments something you’ve done to wow a client or customer. The best answer (deemed by me) wins the book.
*Disclosure: I received a free copy of the book in exchange for agreeing to review it and post this link–but without any restrictions on what I might say.
Tagged as:
Customer Service,
Delivering Happiness,
Entrepreneurship,
Tony Hsieh,
Zappos
by Daria Steigman on April 14, 2010
Each week I’m highlighting 3 or 4 posts, surveys, and other news that I have read and/or tweeted about that you may not have seen. As the name implies, I think they deserve a second look.
- How Ford Got Its Mojo Back: A must-read post about smart business strategy reveals how Ford CEO Alan Mulally valued employees and used a combination of transparency, energy, and long-term thinking to bring the automaker back from the brink.
- Driving Value in Health Care: “Today’s health delivery system and payment framework does not reward innovation around health management, prevention, and real-time consumer engagement… To truly shift the business of health, we need to drive the right combination of structural change, innovation and use of technology to create a better system–essentially, drive real value for every dollar spent.” Smart thinking around shifting the model.
- China’s First Entrepreneur: The BBC looks at the courage, smarts, and serendipity it took to become China’s first licensed entrepreneur.
Photo by omniNate (Flickr).
Tagged as:
Alan Mulally,
Business,
engagement,
Entrepreneurship,
Ford,
Health care,
health reform,
Strategy
