This is a short blog dedicated to kind old ladies who help small businesses even though they don’t know it.

The old lady in question will have to remain unknown, (unless of course by some insane fluke she is reading this blog, in which case get in contact and let it be known who you are) as I never got here name but she has, in a small way, helped nurtur to more another step forward, for which we are very greatfull.

So we salute you, old un named, small start-up helping granny, you will always be remembered in our hearts. calgary payday loanno faxing instant payday loanadvance cash loan payday softwarefree payday loanpayday loan onlineaccount bank loan no paydayapproval instant loan online paydayez loan payday,ez money payday loanbest payday loanmilitary payday loan,loan military payday,loan military overseas paydayadvance america loan paydaylow interest payday loanonline payday loan instant approvalyahoo payday loandebt get loan payday66 funding loan payday route24 hour loan paydayfast easy payday loanadvance cash loan payday quickfastest loan online paydaygeorgia loan payday,georgia in loan online paydayno teletrack no credit check payday loan,check credit loan no paydaycash loan payday untilquick payday cash advance,payday cash advance,payday cash advance illinoisloan payday,no credit check payday loan,fast cash payday loanlow cost payday loanaafes payday loanadvance bad credit loan payday,advance loan payday,advance loan mexico new paydaypayday loan store milwaukeefax guaranteed loan no paydayapplication loan online paydayhour loan online paydaycanada in loan paydaysonic payday loan,loan payday sonicpayday advance loan,advance loan payday loan,payday advance loan louisianaadvance loan payday software? ?cash100 loan online paydayapproval guaranteed loan paydaycanadian loan online payday,canadian payday loanfax free payday loancash until payday loanadvance cash day loan payquick cash advance,advance cash now quick,instant quick cash advance loancash advance detroitadvance cash cashing check gainesville,gainesville,advance cash cashing champaign,champaign check,check cash advancecash loan payday tiladvance cash loan payday softwareadvance advance america cashcash loan payday tillno faxing savings account cash advance,1000 advance cash faxing no,advance cash faxing no download free cingular ringtones | hotlink caller ringtones | celcom malaysia caller ringtones | download mosquito ringtones | free motorola tracfone ringtones | free lg ringtones | christian music ringtones | free ringtones maker download | cell download free phone ringtones | metro pcs phone ringtones | cingular cell phone ringtones | free phone ringtones verizon | free jamster ringtones | free ringtones for cricket cell phone | caller download hotlink maxis ringtones | free mp3 ringtones converter | free real ringtones for verizon | gold mp3 ringtones | e315 motorola ringtones | motorola ringtones composer | free sms ringtones virgin mobile phone ringtones ringtones for alltel cell phone free funny voice ringtones free real ringtones verizon free motorola ringtones download free ringtones free phone ringtones verizon download free mobile ringtones virgin new ringtones free downloadable ringtones gratis ringtones motorola polyphonic ringtones free real ringtones verizon free cingular wireless ringtones free samsung x427 ringtones free tracfone ringtones caller download hotlink ringtones 1600 nokia ringtones free mobile phone ringtones

Sitting down and taking serious stock of your business and honestly evaluating where it stands and how it affects all those involved is by far the worst experience of being in business to date, and definitely not the easiest topic to blog about, but this is Naked Business after all, business laid out bare and not sugar coated.

One of the worst things you can do in business is to cement over little cracks making them disappear into the big scheme and vision of things, this is a big mistake and will make the nice little house you are building fall down later on because the foundations are shot. Too many people, and especially partners, do this at a very early stage in their business and do not address key issues when they arise and so are setting themselves up for some very big problems later on. A key relationship between the founding partners is always essential to a successful business and should be put in high priority.

At Nurtur recently we had one of those “crunch time” moments with some big issues that needed to be addressed. It wasn’t easy and by far the most preferable solution would have been to cover the cracks and hope it all goes away. Fortunately this is not what we did and our partnership and our business is stronger because of it. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t tough, it just had to be done.

A big part I learn’t from this personally is the need to keep business and emotion seperate from each other. Business is business, as the saying goes. Throughout the time we were facing issues at Nurtur we got some excellent advice from a great many people who have all been through a similar situation at least once and normally many times in their business careers. If you are reaching a crunch time in your business and you know it, my advice is definitely to seek wisdom from those that have been through it already and don’t just hope it will go away, better to face it head on early then let it fester.

The founding partners at nurtur needed to face each other and honestly assess each others vision for the company and passion for making it happen. It was important for us to make sure that we both were on the same road and that the partnership was “working”. Obviously there was a little more to it then that but you get the general gist. This was not easy and involved looking at the business from a completely un-emotional viewpoint which was especially difficult for me.

I quess it all boils down to being tough, this isn’t a macho thing or a domoneering thing, this is about being able to look at the facts and make tough decisions and stick by them. This is not an easy thing to do and arguably some are better at it then others but it is an essential skill that all entrepreneurs must learn, however old. If your not tough in business and you overlook or cement over the cracks hoping things will work out or that you want to avoid confrontation it will always turn out worse in the end.

It has always been my contention that much of conventional success in life; be it wealth, fame, a booming business, a popular blog or a sports career is as much to do with luck as with anything else. Actually it has probably more to do with luck than anything else . There is just no substitute for being in the right place at the right team, meeting the right person, having that lucky break.

There is a running trend you find when listening to interviews with very successful people. Very rarely do you ever hear them say they got to where they are because they read the market right, had a plan right from the start which played out beautifully, or used their skills to outplay everyone else. Generally what they all tend to say, in one form or another, is that they were damn lucky.

More often then not in society, the most traditionally successful people today are strangely average people, if we speak conventionally in terms of talent and ability; the most money in music tends to go to very average singers, the most successful actors and actresses aren’t always Oscar winners, the top entrepreneurs are very rarely academically bright and the top sportsmen aren’t always the highest skilled at the game, and so the list goes on.

As luck would have it, talent doesn’t necessarily relate to success, there are millions of extremely talented individuals out there that are neither rich nor famous while there are plenty of rich and famous people that arguably have absolutely no talent what so ever. Conventional thinking would denote that this should not be the case, that actually society’s most talented people would be at the top of their particular field of expertise leading, and the less talented would work naturally down the ladder. Luck completely ruins this.

Luck creates this uneven spread of success against talent and ability which if you don’t believe me just ask the American Super bowl bothins where researchers have found that in baseball games, the team with the stronger team and record wins only 56 percent of the time—barely better than pure chance. Click here for the full story.

Knowing this and given a choice between a talented entrepreneur and a lucky one, I think I would go for lucky.
Does that mean that talent and ability, hard work, risk taking, passion and a striving commitment are pointless if only the lucky ones get ahead? Of course not, many of the aforementioned points are the deciding factors on how lucky you ultimately are.

In the next blog I will write about how to be a lucky entrepreneur.

Your computer is lying to you when…

It says: “Press any key.”
It means: “Press any key you like but i’m not moving.”

It says: “Installing program to c:\…”
It means: “…and i’ll also be writing 200 megabytes if files into various directories and you’ll NEVER find them.”

It says: “Please insert disk 6.”
It means: “Because I know darn well that there are only 5 disks.”

It says: “Please wait…”
It means: “…indefinately.”

It says: “Directory does not exist…”
It means: “…any more. Whoops.”

It says: “The application caused an error. Choose Ignore or Close.”
It means: “Makes no difference to me, your still not getting your work back”

Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop died yesterday after suffering a brain hemorrhage. She was 64.

Roddick began her beauty and retailing career in 1976 in a little hippie shop in Brighton, England. But the 33-year-old entrepreneur set herself apart by underscoring the ethical properties of her formulations, created with natural ingredients, often sourced from the developing world.

Roddick pioneered ethical beauty long before it was fashionable, long before Dove campaigns and Stella McCartney.

Heres to a talented and ethical entrepreneur.

Just wanted to draw your attention to a small design company I came across this morning that echos the business philosophy we are trying to build at Nurtur.

“founded in 2006, mater is a copenhagen-based company with a strong vision to create timeless and beautiful design based on an ethical business strategy. mater combines exclusive high end home accessories with working methods that support people, local craft traditions and the environment.”

Great philosophy and what’s more, contrary to a lot of “green” design these days their products are beautifully crafted. I may even be temped to part with my hard earned cash and invest in some of them myself. Well done guys, all the best.

materdesign.com

Ok so this isn’t the most thought out post in the world, I was running low on ideas and this was Marho’s best input.

So, sitting here munching through my 3rd cookie I must now attempt to explain with as much jargon as possible why it is important, nay vital to have an ample supply of “Tesco” brand Finest cookies at business lunch meetings.

At this point I think it is important to clarify why it is imperative to have “Tesco” brand cookies and why they need to be of the finest variety. For this I will have to consult Marho again, he being a more travelled cookie connoisseur.

“Before we establish the reason for the brand we must first focus on the cultural connotations of the cookie. The cookie stands for youth, for freedom, for the active pursuit of pleasure…ment. Have you ever looked into the eyes of a nine year old child with a fresh cookie in his hand; the wide, glassy eyed expression of someone who has, for one small smichen of a moment attained the meaning of life….one who has….

I cut him off at this point as we were never going to get any work done in this fashion. I think the general gist of what he was saying is that “because they are tasty as”

Now to the importance of “Tesco’s” finest cookies and the fundamental role they play a perfect business meeting. I have tried to summarise this into 5 main points.

1. Creativity. No one cookie is every the same and there are 19,673 proven and documented ways in which to devour any one cookie, for a full list go to www.the artofcookiemunching.com. Presuming an average cookie consumption of 3.46 per meeting, you will be creatively engaged in discovering each of the polishing off methods for at least 5686 (rounded) business meetings, which, unless you business is actually planning business meetings should have you set for life.

2. Energy. Everyone knows that the easiest place to fall asleep in work, unless you a doctor in the on call room, is in a business meeting. Chowing down on some cookies will give you the sugar high you need to at least feign interest.

3. Distracting. The activity of heavy cookie consuming gives you something to do during those awkward silent lapses when everyone has ran out of things to say but you still have the room booked for another 25 minutes and dammit if your not going to use them
.
4. Bartering chips. If someone has the upper hand on crushing one of your proposals that is going to cost millions and probably not do very much anyway just offer them a chocolate chip for their silence. It’s surprising how weak the human mind can be.

5. Makeshift Frisbees. Enough said.

And there you have it, a complete waste of a post based around cookies. However, had you been eating a cookie while reading this then the whole experience would have been much more enjoyable, so there you go

I read an article on digg the other day about the power of the internet or keeping up on your competition…or some sort of rubbish like that and it got me back to thinking of business as one big game. Thinking back to my younger days playing strategic games like Command and Conquer or Age of Empires it struck me at how similar the scenario was as it is in my business today. In the games I started small, had to learns the ropes, capabilities of the resources I was given and then create a strategy to defeat my enemy. This required a measure of planning, creativity, determination as well as an understanding of my enemy, the environment and the best way to come out on top. Remembering back to those days I have tried to compile a list of 10 things that came naturally to me in the game and how I can use them to play my real life business game.

1.Build a base. First rule of Command and Conquer, get your MVC and find a good location for a base. Send guys to scout the area, find resources and ideally where the enemy is. The first time you do this you have very little knowledge of what to expect from the game so placing the base it more about luck than planning, sometimes you strike it lucky, other times not so lucky, the more you play, the better you become at spotting a good location. This is exactly like finding a niche market for your company, you need a good one if your going to stand any hope of competing and making a success of your business, the more businesses you start, the better you get at identifying good niches that are more likely to stand you in good stead. Sometimes your lucky, sometimes your prepared.

2.Build a core. Once you have a good niche for your business you need to build a good core team. In C and C this usually means building a descent refinery, some barracks and a couple of power stations. This is a small set-up and later will seem very insignificant but at the start of the game it is wonderful. If your anything like me it’s usually very well organised and works well but due to it’s size doesn’t really pose any threat to you enemy, or competition in the business world. This is your early business team. At Nurtur we are incredibly fortunate to have a very powerful team built of people much more capable of running a business than me.

3.Take account of the resources you have available to you. When you first start the game a lot of time is taking working out what all the buildings and units do. Sometimes you can do some background research and read the instruction manual but usually the best way is to start a game and start using them, finding out their strengths and weaknesses. Again much like in life you can do all the research and theory you want but generally the best way is just to get out there and see for yourself. The first game you play is usually very slow because of this learning time, it is speeded up slightly if you have someone who has played before showing you how to do it, a mentor shall we say, see number 4. When you first create a business it will be completely new to you and some things need to be learnt along the way, Tax return forms for example. The first time can be hectic but you will get better each time you play.

4.Get a mentor. Just as having someone who has played the game before can help speed up your learning process, so having a mentor can move your business along quicker and also point out areas that they have found that work and areas that have not worked quite so well. Sometimes having played the game for a while you will be much better at it than the mate who first taught you to play, maybe through practice, luck or being more strategic; the same is true of your mentor. It might be that eventually down the line you will become a much more prolific and successful entrepreneur that your mentor, this should be the goal of both yourself and your mentor.

5.Research the enemy. Once you have a core base set-up and are starting to get a hang of things in the game, you always needed to send men out to find out where the enemy was and what they were up to, how big they were, what they had availible etc so that it didn’t come as a shock to you and you could plan you base and resources accordingly. This was of vital importance because most likely the computer, and definitely anyone you planned on-line would sweep down and crush you if they had done their research, seen a weakness and had the resources to finish you. This is the business world. You will always have competition of some sort to your business, this is the nature of it, so you must always be on top of them, knowing everything about them so that you don’t get crushed. This is the reason I do so much research on blogs and social networking sites. If there is something out there that affects my business, I wast to know about it.

6.Build you base. The next stage in the game is always to build your base. Having seen what you competition is at and the resources of the environment you need to build a big powerful base of operations in the most efficient and time effective way. Your business needs to grow also, you have accessed the other companies in your niche, you know your teams strengths and weaknesses and you know the environment, you now need to strategically build your base.

7.Never lose site of the competition. The worse thing you can do in C and C is to forget to check up on the enemy, especially in online play. Things change very quickly, a small oversite usually doesn’t matter much but may lose you a couple of buildings to enemy fire but a prolonged lack of interest in the enemy usually means they attack without warning and obliterate your base. In the business environment you need to always know what your competition is up against, not to check on it every two minutes like some paranoid kid as nothing else will get done but at least know where it is at and of any major developments so you are never really surprised by anything and can strategically plan around it. Play the game.

8.Be strategic. There are usually two tactics in C and C.
1.Build up a massive army of units over many hours and a huge base defence system and then just walk over a crush the opposition. This sometimes works but required many many hours and uses massive amounts of resources and really isn’t any fun. Building a business slowly over 50 years doing the same thing day in day out with a massive employee turnover might be something like this, a screw and washer making firm perhaps. Sometimes works but not for everyone.
2.Research, plan and be creative to out fox the enemy and complete the game much quicker and with much more enjoyment so that you can move on a try another game, another scenario, another enemy. This is more my type of business. I can imagine someone like Richard Brandson playing the game like this.
Being strategic requires high levels of organisation, research, planning and forward thinking but I think is the best and most exciting way of building a business.

9.You need to love it. No one plays a game they are bored senseless off, they just shut it down and do something else. The same is true of your business. Unless you love what you do, chances are you will just pack it in very quickly, usually as soon as something goes wrong. If you love the game you will stick it out through the bad times, learn from what goes wrong, restart the game if you really must but take what you have learnt into your new game. C and C can become addictive, you need to be addicted to your business as well.

10.You can always start the game again. If the game plan goes to pot and you lose its no the be all and end all. In C and C you can start again, in business life you can also start again. It may be more difficult to get the funding but you will be more experienced and wiser in how you start the game, you just need the confidence to give it another go.

Richard Brandson has played the game many time, over 200 times in fact. Just like a pro-gamer online he can create and win games devastatingly quickly. But this is only because he loves it and has practice what he loved. He will at some point have been new to the game and had to learn the ropes just like anyone else. Encouraging that, isn’t it?

Say hello to America’s Coolest young entrepreneurs. (Link). All of them are applying their passion and making it go far…makes you sick doesn’t it. Roll on Britains coolest 30.

For those of you out there thinking about starting up your own business or have an idea for a business but don’t know if its worth the risk, or even what those risks potential are then then I hightly reccomend the book “How I made it” by Rachel Bridge for some inspiration and motivation.

Commissioned by The Sunday Times Rachel Bridge spent many years travelling the world interviewing 40 successful entrepreneurs asking them to explain how they managed to defy the odds and turn their dreams into a reality. They tell how they decided what to do, how they got started, how they found the money they needed and how they went about it. But they also reveal how they had doubts, made stupid mistakes and encountered overwhelming frustrations along the way.

What I love most about this book, and it is difficult to put down, is that the entrepreneurs chosen aren’t your usual run of the mill, the Bransons, Gates or Jobs of the entrepreneur world. The people chosen seem like average, normal people that made a decision to do things their own way and not give up untill it was a success. Inspiring stuff and worth a read or two…or eight.