Amazon has recently upgraded its Kindle software, so what appears on the Kindle comes out closer to the visual quality and layout of the printed version.
What Amazon Prime means to you as a reader is that you can borrow it free, from Amazon, for however long you want. As I understand it, if you're a Prime member, and own any version of Kindle, you can borrow up to 12 books each year. Only catch, only one book at a time.
And if you borrow a book and find it so indispensable that you just gotta have it? Just "return" it, virtually, buy it, and borrow another.
If just want to buy Selling 101 in e-format, not borrow it, same link gets you there.
"Faced with bruised nest eggs and high unemployment rates, older Americans—ever resourceful—are becoming entrepreneurs, " begins this Smart Money article by Anne Tergesen.
The core of the article is a Q and A with Eric Ries, Entrepreneur in Residence at Harvard Business School, focusing on his forthcoming book, The Lean Startup.
Here is one sample, making a point that I think is very much on-target with what we speak of in this blog. Notice how there are elements of making cold calls, using a consultative selling model to find prospects' real needs, and then crafting a brief, focused message making the case of how he can best fill those needs expresssed:
Q: What if you are offering a service, such as carpentry work, and you know there is a market. How can you go about testing whether your business will succeed?
A: I know someone who started a home interior design company. He knew that people would spend money on home refurnishing, but would they want to buy it from him? He spoke to prospective customers, to find out why it was that they wanted to remodel. It turned out that many potential customers in the place where he was based were women. He had the realization that they were not just buying home remodeling, but the sense of control a designer could create for them over their environments. He tried out tag lines for his business until he found a hit—which enabled him to market himself as offering something they could not get elsewhere. The tag line he chose was “unlike your husband, we listen.”
First the good news: "President Obama's proposed 2011 budget includes funding for 100 additional federal staffers [within the IRS]. . .
Who says this country isn't creating new jobs? Well, look at that! Yes, it's true! The IRS is creating new jobs: 100 jobs IS 100 jobs that can be added to the labor statistics.
Career transition rebounders such as those profiled in a Business Week article (and the related on-line slideshow) are examples demonstrating that you can leave the corporate nest and go on to successfully "sell your better mousetrap" or yourself. (Not explicitly mentioned is the very real issue of how to sell your newly-rebounded self, or your new venture. No matter: we cover that how-to-sell in this blog.)
The 29 people — career transition rebounders — profiled in the video/slide-show include,
The link is below, so I won't go into much detail here. Only to point out that three of the ways echo what we've been saying here and in the sales books:
"Don't wait for lost jobs to return."
"Don't count on big companies." They are doing very well, thank you, with fewer employees. But, as an entrepreneur you can find those big companies a ready market if you can show how you fill the needs that they still have, even after layoffs. Outsourcing, in short, can be sourcing to you, if you can find the need and make the case for yourself. (That is, if you can sell— which is what we're all about here and in the sales books.)
USA Today has been running a weekly series (Mondays) "Small Business Start-up," exploring issues new entrepreneurs face.
Here's the opening for this week's piece, and I trust it resonates with the purposes of this blog:
"For millions of Americans, the recession has been a
curse. For a relative few, it's something more complicated: A catalyst for
change. An opportunity to grow. A kick in the butt.
"In some cases, economic necessity has been the mother of
re-invention. It has forced people to pursue careers they might never have
considered if they hadn't gotten — or quit before getting — the ax."
And, a little later in that same article: [career-changers] "agree that if they hadn't been pushed, they never would have made the
leap.
Andrea Kay, author of Life's a Bitch and Then You Change
Careers, says many people hang onto jobs they don't like, oblivious to the
fact that their unhappiness — which they mistakenly think they can hide — hurts
their performance and attitude.
"'Typically, not until someone is forced out of what they've
been accustomed to doing do they feel the need to change,' Kay says."
And, "In a surprising number of cases, we're happier — /if, after
the shock, anger and fear, someone is willing to see there's an opportunity to
do something different,/ Kay says. 'Then they ask, 'Why did I wait so long?'"
Why did I wait so long to try it on my own?
'Nuff said. The link below takes you to that article, and from there to the others in the series. You'll also link with Rhonda Abrams' on-line series of videos and tutorials on small business start-ups. Beyond that, you'll tap into case studies and readers sharing their own start-up stories.
Sunday's New York Times (August 23, 2009) ran an article apropos to this blog, and I thought you might want to check it out. The title is "Unemployment can lead to entrepreneurship," with a secondary title of "On to Plan B: Starting a Business."