Entrepreneurship is very appealing to women in leadership. You get to be your own boss and the challenges of building your own business can be exciting. Is entrepreneurship something that you have considered? Perhaps the idea of working for yourself sounds appealing, but you don’t know where to begin. Maybe you’ve worked a full-time job all of your life and are afraid of what working on your own might mean. Here are some things to consider as you think about entrepreneurship.

1) Get your spouse’s support: Starting your own business will take a lot of mental and physical stamina. You will work long hours and will likely spend many days and nights away from home networking, marketing and building your business from the ground up. Be sure to discuss what entrepreneurship will mean with your spouse and get his/her buy-in. Having your spouse’s support and partnership as you take on a new endeavor will provide you with the extra fuel that you need when the going gets tough.

2) Get your financial house in order: Entrepreneurship is rewarding, but also very risky. In fact, many small businesses spend more than they make the first year of business. Before you take the plunge, work to clear your consumer debt and create a nest-egg that you will be able to rely on. Perhaps you want to cut back on your hours at work to ensure that you still have some steady income and health benefits while you develop your small business.

3) Plan and prepare: According to the Small Business Administration, 50% of small businesses fail within the first year. One of the primary reasons they fail is lack of planning and preparation. Take the time to get advice from the Small Business Administration or local economic development corporation. You may even decide to invest in a business coach who can help you develop a solid business plan and marketing strategy.

4) Stay focused: Entrepreneurship requires self-motivation, stamina, persistence and focus. You will need to program your mind for success. In order to do so, surround yourself with other like minded individuals. Join your local Chamber of Commerce or join a mastermind group. Both will offer you the opportunity to network with other entrepreneurs who can share in your experience, provide helpful advice and even offer strategic partnership opportunities.

There is a lot to consider before becoming an entrepreneur, but if you plan and prepare it can be extremely rewarding and fulfilling.

Ellie Nieves, Esq. is a Speaker, Writer and Leadership Coach. Through 55-minute telephone coaching sessions and live seminars, she helps women develop leadership skills, set strategic goals, bolster effectiveness and create a personal brand. To learn more go to http://www.LeadershipStrategiesForWomen.com.

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Perhaps, these young ones suited to youth social entrepreneurship. Why is that?

The youth have a lot of passion. Social entrepreneurship is not motivated by money or profit. It is actually driven by a desire to make the world a better place. Too often though, charitable institutions are not creative or ambitious enough to make big changes in the world. With the passion of youth social entrepreneurship, perhaps the world can be a better place.

Almost boundless energy. With youth come strength and energy. Although a lot of youth and young adults are devoting their energies to destructive causes such as gangs and self-destructive habits, some youth can be asked to make a difference in their world. With their almost boundless energy, the youth can certainly make an impact in any of their chosen advocacies or causes.

Technologically savvy. The youth are also savvy in using the internet, the Web and the latest technologies that come out in the market. While older people tend to use such gadgets extensively, youth tend to be more creative in using these tools and integrate them in their lives. The use of technology can enhance whatever cause that youths choose to support.

No big deal responsibilities. Most youth are carefree. This just means that they still do not have big deal responsibilities. Because of that, they have more free time to travel, to devote some part of their money to some cause and advocacy. They can also serve as volunteers in a non-profit organization. Or, given their youth, they can even start their own movements in changing the world.

Risks. Youth are generally risk-takers. They want to always push the limits and boundaries-whether in the home, in the school or in society. Imagine if the youth expended their energy on a world-changing activity and opportunity! The world will become an amazing place in no time.

Youth social entrepreneurship is nothing new. It is just gaining new attention because a lot of youth have engaged in destructive behavior that it is surprising and refreshing to see youth and young adults engage in social entrepreneurship that could help change the world for the better.

Transformational leadership is not rocket science! GET FREE LEADERSHIP COACHING from M Rasing’s Social Entrepreneurship Blog, http://www.mightyrasing.com.

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Generally speaking, entrepreneurship based research usually focus on either Traits or Behavior. Since the nineties, behavior underlie the vast majority of entrepreneurship’s research, the main reason for this is a limited success of scholars to reinforce the existence of common traits that characterize entrepreneurs (Smart and Conant, 1994). Gartner (1988) argues that the focus should be on “what the entrepreneur does” and not “who is the entrepreneur”. Behavior based research focus on the entrepreneurship process through the entrepreneur activities, that instead of referring to personal specific traits (Smart and Conant, 1994). Behavior based entrepreneurship’s research is usually conducted at entrepreneur level; nonetheless, scholars claim that entrepreneurship is implemented at the firm level as well (Carland et. al., 1984; Naman and Slevin, 1993; Lumpkin and Dess, 1996; Wiklund, 1999).

This article tries to establish a common base for defining firm level entrepreneurship. Naman and Slevin (1993) states that organization can be characterized and measured based on the level of entrepreneurship demonstrate by the firm’s management. According to Covin and Slevin (1986), top managers at entrepreneurship’s firm possess an entrepreneurship style of management, which affect the firm’s strategic decisions and management philosophy.

In order to establish definition for the firm level entrepreneurship, it is necessary to present the characteristics of management behavior used by scholars for that matter. Schumpeter (1934) states that innovativeness is the only entrepreneurship behavior that separates between entrepreneurship’s activities to non-entrepreneurship’s activities. Innovation relates to the pursuit after creative solutions through the development and improvement of services and products as well as administrative and technological techniques (Davis et al., 1991). Innovation reflects the firm’s tendency to support new ideas and procedures, which can end as new products or services Lumpkin and Dess (1996).

In his book “Essai sur la Nature Commerce en General”, Richard Cantillon (1755) argues that the essence of entrepreneurship is a risk-taking behavior. According to Lumpkin and Dess (1996), risk-taking can range from relatively “safe” risk as deposit money to the bank to quite risky actions like investing in untested technologies or launching new product to the market. In their research, Miller and Friesen (1982) define an entrepreneurial model of innovativeness, this model regards firm that innovate audacity and regularly while taking substantial risks in their strategy.

Third dimension, which can be added to innovation and risk-taking, is Proactive. According to Davis et al., (1991) proactive associates with an aggressive posture, relatively to competitors, while trying to achieve firm’s objectives by all rational needed means. Lumpkin and Dess (2001) mention that proactive relate to the way the firm associates to business opportunities through acquisition of initiatives in the market it’s operate in.

Although other dimensions are used to define firm level entrepreneurship, the vast majority of scholars use these three dimensions – Innovation, Risk-taking and Proactive (e.g., Miller and Friesen, 1978; Covin and Slevin, 1986, 1989; Naman and Slevin, 1993; Knight, 1993; Wiklund, 1999).

Dr. Rami Schayek combining the academic world as a researcher and a lecturer at the ben gurion university with a field work as the CEO of several small businesses coincident with coaching many other small and medium businesses. You can see more from his work at http://www.small-medium-business.blogspot.com

Terms: Articles may be reprinted provided content is not edited and links are kept live.

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Well, that’s what should be happening anyway. When it comes to validating your business plan it’s not a bad idea to apply the following rule and see what the outcome is:-

1. Halve your revenue expectations
2. Double your costs

If you’re still making money then you really could be in with a shout of starting your own business and having a viable business to boot. Congratulations!

The serious point to this however is if you now look at your costs and try and find ways to reduce them, then this should be a really useful exercise. How many businesses go bust in their infancy due to “cash flow problems”? Taking control of your costs in this way will really ensure that you give your business every chance of success.

One of the biggest costs that any new business has is advertising and marketing and a great frustration is that to the inexperienced professional it can be a bit hit and miss in terms of its success and if you find it to be more miss than hit, then the odds are that your going to find it an expensive business too.

One way to get targeted advertising in a relatively low cost environment is business networking and if you’re really lucky you may find that there are a local business networking events in your area. If you’re not having success in this area then consider contacting your local chamber of commerce.

There are two big chamber organisations in the USA and one in the UK

The British Chamber of Commerce

The British Chamber is a non-political, non-profit making organisation comprising of over 56 accredited Chambers all over the UK.

The fundamental aim of the British Chamber to ensure that UK business thrives and it does this by working with key decision-makers in government to try and influence policy.

It’s at the local level however where you will find support to the business community providing services, information and guidance to its members such as business networking events through free legal advice and reduced insurance.

The US Chamber of Commerce

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce was established in 1912 is still the world’s largest business federation representing over 3 million businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions. There are hundreds of associations and thousands of local chambers in the US and it also includes over one hundred organizations abroad.

Just as the British Chamber its primary goal is to”fight for business and free enterprise before Congress, the White House, regulatory agencies, the courts, the court of public opinion, and governments around the world.”

The US chamber provides a multitude of services from advice, information and education and again at the local level, support in the form of business networking information and events.

The U.S Women’s Chamber of Commerce

The Womens Chamber supports both female business owners and career professionals with the objective of creating business and leadership opportunities for women.

It provides numerous services to deliver government contracting opportunities and provide access to education and development programmes. It runs a variety of events aimed at bringing women together to learn about and discuss topical issues with other women.

So in summary there is a wealth of opportunity out there to promote your growing business with out spending a fortune and a great place to start is your local Chamber of Commerce.

About The Author

Louise Yates shares business networking information and business networking tips for generating referrals and free sales leads together with performance business coaching for your work, life and career development.

Here are the 6 brand new methods to explode your product creation:

1. Involve your customers. To make sure that your products will sell online, they must be able to address the needs and demands of your potential clients.
Post a questionnaire or a survey in your website and blog to encourage your visitors to leave their comments, suggestions, and bright product ideas. You may also visit forums or discussion boards where people usually air their problems and look for answers to their questions. These pressing issues and questions can easily be converted to profitable product ideas.

2. It is feasible? Before you start creating your product, make sure that it is feasible and that you have enough resources and manpower that you can use all throughout the production stage.

3. be willing to experiment. Think of other creative ways on how you can make your product ideas even more compelling. For more details www.create-online-business.com you may add some features and other benefits to make it more valuable and enticing to your potential clients.

4. Think out of the box. Don’t settle with what is commonly accepted online. Strive to set yourself apart from the rest by offering your customers with something new, unique, and innovative products. If you think that your product ideas are too far-fetch, create a test group within your target niche that can help you figure out if your products will sell online.

5. Know what’s in and what’s hot. Right now, information base products like e-books, audio products, one-on-one coaching, etc. are selling like hotcakes as people are more than willing to shell out their precious dimes just to get the information they need. If you are an expert on your chosen niche, you can join the bandwagon to get your fair share of online revenue. Just makes sure that all the information you include in your products are highly targeted to the needs and demands of your potential clients.

6. Have your products tested. Before make your products available online, have somebody try and test them. For more details www.profiting-info-products.com Solicit feedback, recommendations, comments, and suggestions that can help you improve your products. Revise as needed.

7. Outsource it. If you have some money to spare, you can always get ghostwriters to write the e-book for you and this method could save you lots of times. Therefore you only need to focus on how to market your e-book.

About the Author

www.product-launching.com www.product-creation-innovation.com