It is believed that there are many factors that need to come together to make an entrepreneur tick. There could be many factors, but in my mind, there are only 3 things that you need to put right in order to be successful as an entrepreneur. And for the rest? They will take care of themselves.

Ability to see the need gap

To me, a prime difference between an entrepreneur and small business owner lies in the fact that small business owners follow the pack. He or she sees an opportunity and hop onto that with full gusto. There is nothing wrong in it, but doing what others are doing is not something entrepreneurs are after. They are more concerned about fulfilling the need gap.

A successful entrepreneur has the knack to find the need gap.

Ability and dedication to find the solution

For anyone to be called an entrepreneur, he or she has to have the ability to find the solution for the need gap he or she has recognized. A solution needs to be found, just knowing the problem is not enough.

A successful entrepreneur knows that the solution might not be immediate, but if he works hard, he will be able to find solution to solve the problem (need gap) he has identified.

Passion for the work

A successful entrepreneur is passionate about what he does. It is not a meager feat to identify a problem, that too on an ongoing basis. Identifying the problem may come easy, but finding a solution to it never comes easy. And an entrepreneur has to be fanatically attached to the problem to be able to find the solution, regardless of the odds.

The aforementioned traits may look nothing, but they pose the most insurmountable challenge for an entrepreneur. Those who get ahead of these, succeeds, and those who do not fails.

It is believed that there are many factors that need to come together to make an entrepreneur tick. There could be many factors, but in my mind, there are only 3 things that you need to put right in order to be successful as an entrepreneur. And for the rest? They will take care of themselves.

Ability to see the need gap

To me, a prime difference between an entrepreneur and small business owner lies in the fact that small business owners follow the pack. He or she sees an opportunity and hop onto that with full gusto. There is nothing wrong in it, but doing what others are doing is not something entrepreneurs are after. They are more concerned about fulfilling the need gap.

A successful entrepreneur has the knack to find the need gap.

Ability and dedication to find the solution

For anyone to be called an entrepreneur, he or she has to have the ability to find the solution for the need gap he or she has recognized. A solution needs to be found, just knowing the problem is not enough.

A successful entrepreneur knows that the solution might not be immediate, but if he works hard, he will be able to find solution to solve the problem (need gap) he has identified.

Passion for the work

A successful entrepreneur is passionate about what he does. It is not a meager feat to identify a problem, that too on an ongoing basis. Identifying the problem may come easy, but finding a solution to it never comes easy. And an entrepreneur has to be fanatically attached to the problem to be able to find the solution, regardless of the odds.

The aforementioned traits may look nothing, but they pose the most insurmountable challenge for an entrepreneur. Those who get ahead of these, succeeds, and those who do not fails.

Here is a niche product marketing guide that one can consider while beginning a small business.

Research

To begin with online small business one needs to conduct an in-depth research of the available niches to work in and then segregate the niche which suits one best. Not everyone can work in every niche. It is important to build an interest in a niche and work towards it with a passion to own it. It should be a marketable product that one decides to reach the customers with. There has to be a gap between demand and supply for the small business to flourish. To make profit it is necessary to conduct a second level of research in order to gauge the market reality of the product selected. A well researched niche combined with apt marketing may take time to pick up as a business, but reaps long term benefits.

Focus on niche marketing

Once the small business in online, a lot of work needs to be done to establish it by marketing with the right note of self-proclamation. The focus should be niche marketing and in order to stick to it one needs to follow ones customers closely. Making an effort at figuring out the customers’ likes and dislikes through magazines, conferences, chat sessions, and seminars can be a rewarding time investment for the business. It is best to be specific in ones approach at targeting the customers rather than being general through niche products. It is of utmost importance to provide the client base with best services, especially those that the big brands ignore. Anticipating the customers’ requirements, one needs to act fast to create an impression of the customer being on the centre stage.

Tackle competition

A general perception of the competition being healthy does not always hold true! For small business marketing niches much competition can prove to be a hard nut. To escape the cut throat competition, it is advisable to opt for such a niche which is not very popular amongst the business groups, but has ample scope for innovation and improvement. Who knows, some big names in the business may become customers of a small business online. Considering the flip side, absence of competition can pose as a red alert too. Other people might have given up on the niche that one thinks to be good. It could have been a failure or incapable to lure the required number of clients. The riddle can be solved only after an avid research. Mc Donald’s is a known brand and people know what sells there. An online small business ()needs to advertise well, so no need to be scared of competition, just market and market more.

It is the prolific research and a clearly defined niche that forms a strong foundation for any online small business. One need not spend too much on advertising ones small business if the niche marketing strategy is intellectually carved out to raise the brand popularity. Yes, a small business can become a brand name online for ones clients to feel proud to be associated with.

Act now, do not wait

Waiting is not the game you are in the position to play. Go out and take action. Make this “out of job”
a temporary thing. You indeed need some time to figure out what you want, but do it as quickly as you can. Waiting for long will delay the possibility of getting hired. Get out of home now, and start searching for the job that suits you.

Think and decide about career change

If you are tired of doing the same thing again and again, then this is the perfect time to consider a plan change. Make a list of things that you are interested in, and match them against the ability you have. Bingo! You have the list of alternative careers in your hand. It is time to act now, make a resume befitting the needs of new job and start shooting them off.

Go temping

Temping may not offer you permanent solution, but it can fill the gap. You can also use it to gain experience of a new job in which you want to shift. Temping can provide a viable stopgap solution that gives you experience which further can help you in securing a fulltime job.

You should start putting these things to use as soon as you are laid off. These will work wonder and save you from the agony of unemployment, and will help you pay your bills.

Then why they are not plunging in?

Because we are not living in the era where capital matters. What matters today to make a business successful is idea. A business requires a killer idea to become successful. In the paragraphs below, I will tell you how to find a killer business idea.

Find killer business idea in 3 easy steps

• Step 1: Based on the ability you have, look for the industry that you can work. Alternatively, you can also look for a sector in which you will be more comfortable working. Find an industry in which you would love to work.
• Step 2: Divide the industry in various sector and list major players in each sector. Also analyze, perceive, and observe the need gap. Ask consumers and retailers about what benefit they are seeking from their existing consumption which are not yet fulfilled. I am asking you to find a need gap.
• Step 3: Find the alternative routes to fill the need gap. See how you can fulfill industry’s demand efficiently. You need to find a way to keep the price of the solution you are offering within industry’s expected price range.

Once you are through with this, make a business plan and execute it. The business plan should cover every aspect of a business. You need to ascertain the challenges as well as opportunity. Do a SWOT as well as PESTLE analysis. Do not forget to make a list of things you need to run the business.

• S – Strength
• W – Weakness
• O – Opportunity
• T – Threat

Strength and weakness are internal elements, which mean they are inherent to the product or organization. And opportunity and threat are external elements, which mean they are not inbuilt in, but are outside of the product or organization.

Opportunity is presented by the market, whereas, your competitors (both direct and indirect) can be a threat.

Benefit of SWOT analysis

• It helps you find out the opportunity that you can use to maximize the market penetration of your product or services.
• It helps you gauge your competition, and tells you what to avoid.
• It also brings the weakness of your product on the table, which you can eliminative before reaching to the market.
• SWOT analysis will help you make a better decision.

How to do SWOT Analysis?

Step 1: Find the strengths of your product

Step 2: Find the weaknesses of the product you are offering.

Step 3: Find the need gap (opportunity) in the market, based on the strength of your product.

Step 4: List the potential threats that you might face, if you cash in on the opportunity.

Notes:

1. 1. Always Use Bullet points to do the SWOT. There is no need to write long descriptive points.
2. 2. Do not reverse the order. Always start with analyzing S and W elements of SWOT followed by the analysis of O and T elements.

A parting thought

SWOT analysis is just a tool, and how well you use the tool will decide what result you will get from it. It is easy to get biased towards one’s own product and organization, but you should avoid this trap. Stay objective and stay focused when doing a SWOT analysis of your product or organization.

The latest Integrated Newspaper Audience study by Scarborough Research has found that nearly three-fourth (74%) of American adults still read newspaper. Not only that, the readership of newspaper is found to be higher among educated and affluent class – indeed, this is not surprising, but despite all thee the revenue of newspaper is falling by 28% as revealed by the Newspaper Association of America in its recent data.

Findings of Scarborough Research

• 79% of adults with white-collar jobs read newspaper in print or online.
• 82% of adults that has household income of more than $100,000 read newspaper in print or online.
• 84% of people who have completed their graduation or have any advance degree reads newspaper in print or online.

According to the Newspaper Association of America total advertising revenue is down by 28% in the third quarter of 2009 in comparison to the revenue in the third quarter of 2008 (from $10.1 billion to $6.4 billion).

What does this mean?

This mean that despite users being confident about the content provided in the newspaper, advertisers are not playing ball. They are not investing. In my view there could be two reasons for that:

• Advertisers have started to believe that one who reads newspaper do not pay any particular attention to the ads inserted in it, or they are too forgetful to remember anything once they put the newspaper down.
• They have become cautious of greenery shown by Madison Avenue, as unlike the Internet, they have no way of knowing who is viewing what.

The newspaper industry needs to learn to provide measurable value, if it does not want to become extinct.

In case you didn’t know the term, padding your resume refers to adding accolades that aren’t true about yourself.  Whether it be false work history items, or false educational accomplishments, or even dishonest community contributions.  All are considered padding, and are wrong in the sense that you are being dishonest to companies that you are trying to attract.  Nothing really sets you on the wrong foot with a new company more than them discovering you lied in order to get the job.

Which is why if you are unhappy about how something appears on your resume, you should take advantage of explaining yourself in your cover letter.  If you don’t like a particular gap in your employment history, you have ample opportunity to put a positive spin on things through your cover letter.  The same with anything else you feel uncomfortable about, whether it be education, etc.

But mainly, padding is bad because it sets a bad precedent for your new job.  Even if you get the job, you’re not presenting yourself correctly.  That puts you and your company in an awkward position, as tasks you don’t have the skill to accomplish may be expected of you, and your new company is getting an employee that doesn’t have the skill set expected of them.  If it’s found out you lied on your resume, most places won’t hesitate to terminate you immediately, so that little bit of padding can really come back to bite you.

There are however other sides to the Internet that many at times turn a blind eye. While information opens our horizons to think and to reason at a more advanced level than our ancestors, such information if not censured can dreadfully carve certain behavioural patterns that leave an indelible mark in our lives. The busy rush hours and constant deadlines to meet, have caused parents to unintentionally forget their parental duties towards their children.The result is a generation that grows craving for attention, affection and at times finding it through the wrong outlets. Parents should therefore take the time out to censure the information that their children are being exposed to.

Windows Vista comes equipped with certain gadgets that help curtail the exposure to risky information and people that children may encounter and also limits the possibility of them downloading files to the computer that may contain viruses,Trojans etc. The gadgets allow you to control the sites the children visit, the time they spend on these sites, which video games they can play etc. To turn on Parental Controls using Windows Vista go to Start, then Control Panel then User Accounts and finally Set Up Parental Controls from there you establish the controls you wants to set for your child.

For traditional users of Windows XP this comes through the web service Windows Live Family Safety at www.fss.live.com and from there you follow the given instructions. The Internet should be seen as a cyber library but care at all times must be taken to control the information that we take in and give out from our favorite chair.

Creating Organizational Knowledge is the ability of companies to generate new knowledge, bringing it to its employees and translated into actions that lead to new products, services or better production systems.

Therefore an organization with the ability to create, acquire and transfer knowledge, and modifying their behavior to reflect the new knowledge learned can be defined as an intelligent.

In this issue, there is a big difference in vision of the creation of knowledge between the eastern and western companies although the gap has narrowed over time. The Western view has focused much more on knowledge Explicit while the East has focused much more on knowledge Tacitus.

The explicit knowledge in a nutshell is what can be explained with words, numbers, scientific formulas, procedures, specifications and so on. So it is much easier to learn it or pass it on.

On the other hand is the tacit knowledge that comes from the intuitions, individual experience is the experience acquired over the years, an artisan or any employee to work a long time in the same trade, are the schedules and mental models, perceptions that each person has, since everyone has a perception of reality and the future. This makes it difficult to transmit knowledge and to translate into formal documents.

Despite these differences, something we agree is that Eastern and Western knowledge is power and that power production company is based on their intellectual skills and service, rather than its assets. “Also note that the value of products and services that depend mainly on how to develop the intangible elements that are based on knowledge and technological know-how, product design, how to introduce them to market, understanding the customer’s personal creativity and innovation. ”

From what we’ve seen, we believe that information systems do not mean a competitive advantage in businesses that do not use them and they know it can mean an advantage for those who give them the proper use, but For those who believe that there is information systems to be affordable for all cease to be a differentiator, and as a technology but because they are not, what can be achieved if exploited wisely and entering the cycle of knowledge.

Why should not expect that one buys a solution of information systems and magically we can extract knowledge from it, even if there are packages that they promise, this is not the case since each company is different, and use a standard product is only going to achieve that standardize my business rather than differentiate, because the packages that promise to do what they are packages that will give customers as knowledge are very standardized reports which are found only at the beginning of the cycle of knowledge creation, so what they should do it buys the company is designing and programming and answers that fit best their needs, although I have no doubt that many of the standard and will be useful, but it is in the analysts decide which it can extract Increased awareness and focus more on the business strategy of the organization in which they work.

Because if we remember that part of the perception of which we speak, those in charge of compiling the information should see what information is relevant and what not to the interests of the company, and that is the basis for the creation of knowledge, because if we take information irrelevant to the organization, we will be analyzed with a lot of information that is not going to be useful for making decisions that ultimately our goal is to create knowledge, an optimal decision-making.