Category Archives: Entreprenur

How to Support A Friend’s Business

In these difficult times, we all need to collectively find ways to support the businesses of our friends and family.  It actually costs nothing to support the businesses they run.

How to Support a Local Business or a Friends Business by Not Spending Money:

1 – Like their social media posts.  It costs nothing. 

2 – Re-post their social media posts.  It costs nothing.

3 – Share their social media posts.  It costs nothing.

4 – Comment on their posts.  It costs nothing. 

5 – Shout them out.  It costs nothing.

6 – Connect their posts with someone you know could use the service or product.  It costs nothing. 

We, collectively,  will get each other through this…. 

 

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Time… The limitless Commodity

STOP thinking of time as a limitless commodity.

Find your urgency.

You don’t have unlimited time to “figure it out” or “get to it soon” – the clock is ticking on you.

So many young professionals feel they have forever and a day to put it all together; when they get there, if they get there, they’ll figure it out.

You need to shift that and start trying to figure it out now and plan how to get there sooner than later.

Business Advice in 4 Words or Less

I asked a community of 650+ entrepreneurs  to give me their best business advice using 4 words or less.  Here are the top 10 answers.

  • You have to start.
  • Business is for humanity.
  • Love your job.
  • Start something, grow, & expand.
  • Time is money.
  • Do not fear failure.
  • Always be honest.
  • Be persistent, be unstoppable.
  • Be bold and unique.
  • Hesitation gets you killed.
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Entrepreneurial Spotlight: Orbel Zakarian

The Entrepreneurial Spotlight is a feature story that runs once a month featuring a local entrepreneur of my choosing.  The purpose of the story is to show aspiring entrepreneurs how other entrepreneurs work to achieve success within their daily lives.  Thanks for sharing your story with us Orbel!

I’m Orbel Zakarian, a Financial Education & Leadership Development coach, and this is my Entrepreneurial Spotlight.

Current work location: Downtown Glendale
Current Position: Associate
One word to describe your work habits: Trustworthy
Current mobile device: iPhone 6+ on the AT&T network
Current computer device: Lenovo Laptop

Describe how you got to where you are today. What helped you get to where you are today?
I have gotten to where I’m at today because of my self-discipline. It is not an easy characteristic to practice. It is, however, an invaluable characteristic to have if achievement and success are important to you. When I am asked what helped me get to where I’m at today, I answer, “The desire to help others succeed”. I do not say this because I want people to think of me as an overly-nice guy, but for me, helping others to succeed is a source of total pleasure and enjoyment.

What are your favorite apps, software, tools?
My Calendar

What is the ONE app, software, or tool you can’t live without?
I can live without them all!

What is your desk look like? 1 monitor? 3 monitors? Laptop with headphones?
Clean. With nothing on top.

Tell us about your favorite shortcut or lifehack?
No shortcuts in life!

What is your favorite to-do list manager?
Pen and Paper

What are you currently reading? Recommend it?
Think and Grow Rich & How to Win Friends and Influence People … highly recommend both!

What is your favorite book of all time?
The Power of Intention

How do you recharge for work the following day?
Meditation & Sleep

What does your cell phone voicemail currently say?
“Hi! You’ve reached Orbel. I wasn’t able to get to your call at the moment. Please leave me a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”

What is your sleep routine like? Night owl or early-bird?
I live by Benjamin Franklins motto… “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

What is the best advice you’ve ever received?
Set yourself apart from the rest!

What is your favorite quote?
“Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.”
– Helen Keller (1880-1968)

Leave us with a thought…
High Energy always Wins!

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6 Reasons Why You Lack Motivation

De-motivation: Its Effect on You, Your Brain, and Your Future

Motivation is defined as the general desire or willingness of someone to do something.  You are excited to do something special, you have the desire to do something special, but you can’t gather enough inner power to act on your idea.  You should be questioning what causes me to lose motivation?  What causes me to lose focus?

1) Own your goal.

We all go through these random times where we get motivated, we set goals, we obsess over our success to the point where we lose sleep over it. This goes on for a few days, then out of nowhere, we suddenly lose motivation, we lose focus, we lose clarity. Why?

Simple answer: Stop doing so much. A very common mistake people make with such a simple solution. You lose energy when you become super-human. You need to take a step back, choose the goal more important, tackle that goal, then repeat. In a perfect world, your second goal would be directly tied in to your first goal making it a perfect harmony.  Need help with your goals?  Read this.

2) Read, Research, Learn.

Sometimes the quickest way to re-motivate yourself or to push yourself out of a slump is to learn about what others have done. What methods have they used for success. What tools have they used to make themselves more productive.

You should have a vast knowledge of books / magazines / publications in your field and constantly be reading these sources. The more you read, the more you learn, the more motivation will re-spark inside of you.

3) Build your support group.

Who better to kick you in the butt when you need a good kicking than the people who are always there for you, and more importantly, the people you trust. It’s always hard to accomplish something in silence and alone. Build your support group, may it be an in-person group, an online group, a Facebook group.. any group! Just build it.

4) Build. Track. Repeat.

How do you stay motivated when you have a mile long task list to tackle? This is why tracking is so important. Whatever system you use, you have to make sure your lists and progress is trackable. If your goal is to pay off a certain credit card, you need an Excel sheet with your plan, and measurable progress so you can stay on track. Looking at this sheet on a monthly basis will prove to you that the methods are working.  Once you prove to yourself that a certain method is working, it will be easier for you to stay on track and repeat.

5) Organize.

Nothing demotivates you more than a cluttered mind. The bigger the project, the bigger the organizational task at hand. Take the time to mind-map the entire project out of your mind and onto a system that works for you. List tasks, list deadlines, schedule events, then work on completing tasks in a timely manner.

A large project which seems impossible, suddenly becomes possible broken down into stages and manageable items.

6) Whatever you do, don’t quit!

It’s hard being your own boss. You can’t blame anyone but yourself, your sleep routine suffers, and you constantly think about your business. These are all problems faced by entrepreneurs every day and every night. Your mind is trained to doubt and constantly assess risk. If you give your mind enough time, it will convince you to quit. You need to work through the pressure and keep reminding yourself why you started. In the grand scheme, think about how far you have come vs. how much farther you must go. The process should bring a sense of accomplishment and a sense of urgency to your life. This is what should drive you to keep moving. Remember, it won’t be easy, but it WILL be worth it.

Take away:  Don’t settle for something easy, like watching TV or reading endless news articles on the Internet.  Find the true cause of energy depletion and tackle it with everything you got.  It is the single most important step to get yourself back on track.

Stop saying YES when you mean NO!

Successful people become masters of time and the management of it.  In order to master time, learning to say NO becomes critical.  Learn to say NO to certain meetings, appointments, tasks, activities, friends, etc.

You sacrifice what you want now to get what you want later.

It’ll be worth it.

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7 Tips to CRUSHING Your Goals

Francis Bacon said “If we are to achieve things never before accomplished we must employ methods never before attempted.”  If you have yet to start focusing on your goals, use this as your warning!  Start now.  

1) Patience – Crawl.  Walk.  Run.
The natural progression takes time, self-discipline, and tenacity.  If you stress over the “easier” goals, your expectation of crushing the difficult goals with road blocks and challenges go out the window!

2) Define goal purpose. 
Everyone sets goals.  Most people set them and forget about them.  Make absolutely sure that your goals are things you want to wake up for.  Goals that are synced with your purpose are easier to wake up for and easier to accomplish.  I’ll use a quote to help with my point:  “Work with purpose is passion.  Work without purpose is punishment.” -Jillian Michaels 

3) Document! 
Everyone I speak to about setting goals, we talk about journaling and documenting progress.  Some goals take 3,6,12,16 months to accomplish.  When you look back on Month 6, you should be able to see some sort of progress.  Something has to show the work you have done until today.  If you have goals of achieving weight-loss, pictures every week will help you document your goal and actually see results along the way.  Seeing your documented results will keep you determined and motivated every step of the way.

4) Short-term goals MUST support Long-term goals. 
Why does this matter?  If your short-term goals don’t ultimately support your long-term goal, it’s time to re-evaluate.  These goals should be tied together from the top down to achieve the result you are aiming for.  Use an app, a worksheet, something to track your goals and your progress.  Here is an example of a Goal Sheet you can use starting today:

Long Term Goal:  This is something that is at least one year or longer out.  One thing.  
Short Term Goal:  Now break down the long-term goal into short-term mini goals.  What do you need to cross off this list to get closer to the One Thing above.  These should be 5-6 items that can be achieved within the next 3/6/9 months.
Short Term Goal Breakdown:  Now let’s break down each one of those 5-6 items into the following list – (You should have these 5 steps done for each one of your short term goals):

*Specific:  Make sure your goal is as specific as possible.  The clearer the defined goal, the easier the process will be.
*Measurable:  How do we measure this goal and document the progress?  How will you be held accountable to achieve this goal?
*Achievement:   How do you achieve this goal?  What steps do you need to take to make progress towards achievement?
*Realistic:  Is the goal realistic to your life?  Do you have the drive to accomplish this goal?
*Timely:  What is the time frame to accomplish this goal?  How will you be kept accountable?

This exercise will help specify and define your overall goals into smaller, more achievable steps.

Daily Goal Breakdown:  Now list daily goals into your daily checklist.  There will always be checklist items that have nothing to do with your goal.  That is completely normal, whereas, you are still expected to live a normal life while you work towards specific goals.  If you go too many days where the majority of your list is not geared towards the larger goal at hand, you need to pause and reflect.

Set.  Achieve.  Repeat.

5) Excuses.  Excuses.  
The more excuses you have the harder your goal becomes.  The longer you procrastinate, the harder your goal becomes. Anything that deters you from accomplishing your daily task list will inevitability push your goal farther out.  You can’t slow down or justify excuses to yourself.  

6) Failure.  Lessons.  Change.  
If you were afraid of failure, you would not be this far into this article.  I wish I could tell you that you won’t fail and everything is going to work out perfectly.  However, I can’t.  I won’t.  You will fail.  More than once.  Then again after that.  If failure was detrimental  there would be no companies trying to change the world.  Failure is the first step to success.  Fail, learn from it, change (or better yet, improve!) and re-do.  It becomes a cycle.  So many people give up or crawl into depression after failure that they never learn the lesson.  The lesson is the most valuable part of your failure.  Without the lesson, there is no progress… there is no change.  

7) Don’t give up.  Ever. 
You know when you try and explain things that explain themselves…. this is one of those moments.  Here is a quote to help: “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone” 

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35 Reasons to be an Entrepreneur

Once you work as an entrepreneur, on your own terms, for your own goals, it becomes very difficult to give up complete control of your time, entrepreneurship, and your priorities to go back to working for someone else.

#1:  I have to be a better entrepreneur than yesterday.
#2:  I have to lead daily.
#3:  The possibilities are endless.
#4:  I contribute to the success of others.
#5:  I meet and learn from people all over the world.
#6:  The entrepreneur reward is immediate.
#7:  I have the ability to empower others to start businesses.
#8:  It never feels like work.
#9: I set my own schedule.
#10:  I can’t get fired.
#11:  I can solve the problems I choose to solve.
#12:  I can say Yes! or No! when I want.
#13:  I am all in.  On myself.
#14:  I decide if we help you or not.
#15:  I always have something to do.
#16:  I get to say “I am an entrepreneur”
#17:  Your co-workers become family.
#18:  Work from anywhere.  Anytime.
#19:  Is it 5pm already?
#20:  I can cut the meeting short when I get bored.
#21:  I produce more, consume less.
#22:  I learned to manage risk.
#23:  I keep enabling productivity hacks.
#24:  I learn life-long skills.  Skills you learn as an entrepreneur are life-long skills.  You have to learn to sell.  You have to learn accounting.  You have to learn to communicate.  You have to learn how to work with teams.  You have to learn to put others first.
#25:  I became an expert.  When I started, I thought I knew everything about computers.  The more I thought I knew, the less I actually knew.  Being an entrepreneur forced me to learn and understand more and more every day.
#26:  I have become a very organized entrepreneur.
#27:  The more I teach, the more I learn.
#28:  I became a flexible entrepreneur.
#29:  I love building teams.
#30:  The end result is the result of my entrepreneurship.
#31:  I enjoy the “when I open my eyes to when I close my eyes” business hours.
#32:  Is it 6pm already?
#33:  Vision.  My vision.
#34:  Developing my idea is more important than developing other peoples ideas.
#35:  Entrepreneurs have the ability to change the world!
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7 Things Standing in the Way of Your Entrepreneurial Success

If someone asked you where you see yourself 10 years from now, do you stare back blankly or do you have a plan for success?

1) Love your success?
Are you in love with being a success? Is success the only thing on your mind every day and every night? You say yes because you want the lifestyle of the successful. Are you willing to put in the work of the successful? If this isn’t what you breath and live, this isn’t what will make you successful. In turn, it is standing in the way of your success.

Take away: If you don’t love it, you will only put in 50% of the effort required to achieve 100% results. At 50% effort, you might be better off helping someone else build their dreams of success.

2) You don’t need other’s approval.
You stand in the way of your own success every time you make decisions that are aimed to please others.  I am reminded of the famous quote by Winston Churchill “You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks”.

Take away: Your decisions have to be based on your success. You will ultimately be the person to pay for your own decisions. The more you worry about what others will think of your decisions, the more you will delay the inevitable success you are going to enjoy.

3) Excuses, excuses.
Your success is halted by your excuses. Do any of these sound familiar?
“Sorry, I can’t today”
“I don’t have time”
“I am too tired”
“I don’t know what to do next”
“I don’t have the resources”
“I don’t know where to start”

Take away: If it is important to you, you will find a way. The secret here is to want it bad enough.

work-hard-to-success

4) Time, stop wasting it.
Everyone who chases success at one point or another has to stop wasting time. How guilty are you when it comes to these time hogs:
a) Needless drama around you.
b) Comparison between you and your next door neighbor with the new BMW.
c) Living in the past with mistakes made and water under the bridge.
d) By allowing others to use and manipulate you.
e) The perfect time will never come. Its now.
f) Lack of appreciation and gratitude towards you.

Take away: Most people value two things when it comes to their business lives: Time & Money. In the case of the startup, time is the one thing that will lead or break your success. Make sure you know exactly what you are spending your time on.

5) Private life vs. Work life.
Everyone always talks about balance and keeping a healthy distance between the two. They are not separate. The longer you try to keep them separate the longer you will prolong your success. Everything you do in your personal life should somehow fit into your goal for your business life. Success comes from the collection of the roles you play: Entrepreneur, husband, wife, friend, lover, client, boss, leader, mentor, etc.

Take away: I was recently at a Hall of Fame induction ceremony for a good friend of mine and was sitting at a table with a bunch of other people who were also friends of other inductees. The person next to me started talking to me about business and what I do…. Naturally, I asked him what he does. He had a very interesting business he had just started but was unable to provide me with a business card. So he took my phone, and added himself as a contact in my phone. You never know when or where you will meet the next person who will drive your success. Be prepared!

6) Write ’em down.
Do you have a place where you jot down your goals? Are they broken up into Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly, 5-Year Goals? If not, here is your chance. When you just think about a goal the chances of that thought disappearing is very high. Once on paper, it has a life of its own. You can re-visit it, re-read it, move it, re-write it, etc. You don’t have to do it all in one sitting. It can be a compilation of goals put together over time to ultimately help you reach your level of success.

Take away: There is something special about seeing your own goals for success written down in your own handwriting. There is something even more special about putting a check-mark next to something that you wrote down 6 months ago and achieved today! Your success is counting on you writing it down!

7) Ask for help, sissy.
I love quotes. I feel like they do the thinking for me when I can’t put the right words in the right thoughts at the right time. Cesar Chavez said it best “You are never strong enough that you don’t need help”. Your success might be dependent on that one person… when you don’t ask, the answer is always no.

Take away: Ask for help. Don’t expect handouts or financial help, but help that will drive your success. It can be a friend, a co-worker, a parent, a mentor (Read about finding the right mentor HERE)

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Mentorship: 8 Tips on Finding the Right Mentor

This mentorship post is a continuation of my series on young entrepreneurs.  If you haven’t read Part 1 & Part 2, click here:  Where to start as a young entrepreneur – Part 1 and 12 Startup tips for a young entrepreneur – Part 2

Mentorship is the oldest form of education.  As a young entrepreneur, you need a mentor to take you to the next level.

Why do you need a mentor?
Mentorship is the oldest form of education.  As a young entrepreneur, you need a mentor to take you to the next level. The mentor of your choosing has one thing that you still don’t. Experience. A good mentor can challenge you to think thoughts that might have never occurred to you before.

A good mentor has a network of professionals and friends who you might stand to benefit from. In the worst scenario, a mentor can act as your personal cheerleader and coach. They can provide praise and clap for you when nobody else will. The old quote servers true here: “Pay close attention to people who don’t clap when you win”

Common mistakes young entrepreneurs make when seeking mentorship:
1) The mentor will find me.
2) I have to ask him/her out to be my mentor.
3) My mentor will buy me lunch / coffee / food / gifts because they already made it.
4) Mentorship isn’t something you get; it’s something you do.
5) The first mentor I meet has to be my mentor!

1) Find someone you look up to.
Mentorship is always about the person and not about the money or the lifestyle. I know so many people who try to leech on to take advantage of “perks” that the mentor has worked a lifetime to achieve. Your mentor should have qualities as a person that you feel are valuable to you and you can learn from. Ask questions of yourself that you feel your mentor should guide you with. Here are a few samples:
a) What do I need to learn from my mentor?
b) How often would I like to meet with my mentor?
c) What are my weakest points that my mentor can work with me on?
d) What am I really good at that my mentor can benefit from?

2) Study your new mentor.
Take the time to study your mentor. Ask questions that will help you with understanding how they do things. Understand everything you can about how they conduct business and the process they use for business transactions. By transaction, it could be a phone call, an actual sale, a networking event, a new agreement, etc. If they have a blog, or a website that they journal in, make sure you read it and understand everything before you meet with them and ask questions.  Nothing shows your preparedness level more than asking a question that your mentor just recently wrote a blog about.  Do your homework to avoid the embarrassment.

Mentorship Quote

3) Lifeguard.
Your mentor is not your lifeguard. Don’t go swimming into $120,000 in debt then call your mentor for advice. If they weren’t a part of getting you in the hole, the expectation can’t be for them to get you out of the hole. Go ahead, ask for advice, but keep the expectation at advice and not a life line.  The value of a mentor will keep you out of the dangers of rising waters; granted, you want to be kept out.

4) Let the relationship grow.
Look for someone who you feel comfortable with and can relate to. You want a mentor who can easily answer an e-mail or answer a text message without treating you like an interruption of their time. Your comfort level should include the ability to sit at a coffee shop or at a lunch date with your mentor and not feel intimidated or belittled. Your ability to get comfortable with your mentor will actually take the pressure off the mentor to be open and candid with you.  Keep watering the relationship with your mentor.  The closer you become to your mentor the more likely they are to bring you into their circle.

5) Feedback.
Your expectation should be for your mentor to be brutally honest with you. Most mentors are successful entrepreneurs who run their own network of businesses. They don’t have the time to sit back and sugar coat every piece of advice they give you. I recently had a mentor of mine look at a new pricing structure I have been working on for my company; his response to my e-mail was “work harder…” – I don’t need anything more from him than to send me back to my drawing board to make it better. Of course, when we do our meeting, he will give me more feedback but the expectation is for me to work harder to be ready for that meeting so I don’t waste his time.

6) Take. Give, Give, Give.
Most mentors will be “repaid” for their mentorship by your success. They want nothing more than to see you make it. Just because mentors know how to be humble doesn’t mean you are off the hook! Find ways to give. Find ways to add value.  Sometimes you can spring for lunch, sometimes you can buy coffee. If you actually spend the time to get to know your mentor (read tip #2), you should have a good idea of how or what you can do to provide value. Gratitude is key.

7) Commitment.
Be mentor worthy. If you pickup nothing more, pickup that one piece.  Be mentor worthy.  Anyone willing to help you and spend time with you wants to make sure they spend their time wisely. I have been stuck in situations before where I give advice to someone and they clearly go the opposite direction, no problem.  However, don’t come back and ask for more advice for the road that you traveled and expect me to change my advice up to fit into your decision. Don’t waste anyone’s time if you aren’t ready to be mentored.

8) There can be only one.
Once you land that all important mentor, what do you do? Now get another one! You aren’t limited to any number of mentors. If you do your homework and are really honest with yourself, this portion becomes easier. If you know your shortcomings, it is easy to utilize mentors in every aspect of what you are trying to achieve. Look at the big picture… a “Board of Directors” is actually a board of mentors for the organization they serve.

There is no right or wrong time to get a mentor.  My advice to you, is to get one now.  It is the single most important thing you can do to help your business grow.

This is a good read when it comes to making mentors work for you: