Archive for November 7th, 2008

What Entrepreneurs Need More than Financial Capital to Be Successful

Friday, November 7th, 2008
Tell Me More........

Tell Me More........

I’ve been running my business for over 20 years. I was never able to get financial capital to fund my ideas. This might be the main reason I am SO successful today. I tried all types of ways to capitalize business ideas throughout the years – including courting numerous financiers. I tanked my second business after I spent more time trying to get investors than I did getting customers. I took a three year employed vacation and regrouped. I had the good fortune to land in a job with a great boss who encouraged me to improve my project management skills. She said I was good at getting things done, but would become GREAT at getting things done with better project management skills. When I was starting Cheetah Learning, I wanted to do things differently than I had in the past and one of those things was to generate the money I needed to run and grow my business based on sales – NOT based on financing. I leveraged four sources of capital to create long term sustainable success with my business:

Social Capital – relationships

Knowledge Capital – skills, talents, strengths (which included great project management skills).

Brand Capital – credentials, reputation, past works

Operating Capital – home office, computer, phones, car, public library

EVERY successful business owner I know who is still in business and who has been in business for the long term does NOT rely on financing for their day to day operations. If you listen to the government and the media, you’d believe that you need bank financing in order to run a viable business. I didn’t, and many other people I know who are incredibly successful as well haven’t relied on financing either. What you do need is to fully develop and leverage the other four sources of capital.

If you’re stuck because you believe that to get or keep your business going you have to get someone to back your play, check out my course called Project Prosperity – www.cheetahlearning.com. For people following my blog – use the promotion code everydaypm and get a 20% discount.

Gratitude, The Most Important Element of My Projects

Friday, November 7th, 2008
November Sky at 3:00 PM Over Lynn Canal, Alaska

November Sky at 3:00 PM Over Lynn Canal, Alaska

The best part of any project for me is when I get to sit back and enjoy what it was we set out to create with that project.   Really think about – when do you receive the value of a project?   Sure, it’s fun to do projects, but you do the project because you want the benefit of what you’re creating.    What is the value if you just pop from one project to the next, never stopping to enjoy the benefits of what you created?    I took this picture this afternoon when I was out walking the dogs.   I live in the most beautiful setting on the planet.   This is project “life” for me – creating the type of life that I’m excited to wake up and live to the fullest every single day.   What more important project is there?