David S. Finch

Your Weekend Reader: Networking Edition

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13 Ways to Network without Being a Nuisance: "Holiday Season also means Networking Season. This is a good thing - as long as you're prepared. In the next six weeks, you will no doubt run into old friends, colleagues and perhaps ex-spouses. So, when you're giving them the update on your world, remember these thirteen ways to network without being a nuisance."

How To Make Your Business Card Memorable: "How many times have you come home with a stack of cards from an event and can’t remember the face or conversation? Since these cards are our most common “transaction” at business events, I offer you the top five ways to make your card memorable."

Ten Fundamental Steps for Online Career Networking: "What is the point of doing online networking for your career? How is it any better than simply keeping in touch with people you know via email or at meetings? Isn’t stuff like LinkedIn or Facebook a waste of time, or at least not worth the time you invest in it? Online networking tools serve two purposes, really."

How To Make A Bunch Of New Friends In Any New City: "Even if you are naturally shy, these three tricks will help you to quickly build a new social circle in any new city."

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Everything You Need to Know About Startups

Depending on who currently has your attention, opinions concerning business and the economy range from extremely optimistic, to the doom and gloom crowd. However, if you silence all the noise and listen carefully you'll discover innovators who are saying, "when everyone is selling, buy." "When businesses are closing their doors, it's time to start." In the thunderous sounds of negativity, your hearing pioneering voices cheering on creativity.

While it's easy to join the masses and play it safe, I'm constantly intrigued by those that push their creativity to a different level. Individuals like Dharmesh Shah, CEO of Hubspot who recently spoke at the Business of Software conference. Here is his presentation from that event that hopefully inspires you like it did me.

The Key Points from the video that I resonated with.

• Your idea can suck. Just get started.
• You can be in the middle of nowhere and still build a great business.
• Not having cash breeds good behavior. It’s helpful to have constraints.
• Write a blog, not a business plan.

For more insight into the presentation you can check out Dharmesh's post at Onstartups.com.

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The Missing Links: Your Weekend Reader

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How To Establish Cash Flow When Starting A New Business: "The one major problem that faces new start-up businesses, especially small enterprises launched by solo entrepreneurs, is a lack of cash flow. This problem is broader than just your business as the need for money impacts where you live and how you live as well."

When Is It The Right Time To Start A Business? "Nowadays, the marketplace is rife with risk, so you may wonder whether it’s a good idea to launch a business during a downturn, especially with layoff numbers mounting daily. When is it ever the right time to start a business?"

5 Tips for Startups and Entrepreneurs: "In the midst of one of the worst economic crises the world has seen, investors are in the main optimistic, and agree that to weather this storm and come out on top, today's entrepreneurs need to change their mindset and go back to basics: go back to the garage, and success will follow."

11 Patterns Every Entrepreneur MUST Recognize: Awareness is the first step toward mastery. Whether you’re strategically planning for the new year, engaged in a sales call with a customer or patiently listening to one of your employees complain about how much they HATE their coworkers, awareness always comes first.

The Art of the Bootstrap: "Times being what they are, it’s encouraging to know that some of the world’s leading public companies got to where they are without taking any early venture capital funding. That’s right, Microsoft, Dell, Cisco, Oracle, eBay — they all “bootstrapped” it."

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Your Weekend Reader: Sunday Late Edition

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The 10 Most Useful Google Reader Productivity Tips: "Since Google Reader may be the most popular browser based RSS reader, I assume that a fair number of you are reading this post from Google Reader. To share the wealth, I am providing some useful tips to help you become more productive while reading feeds and therefore avoiding RSS overload."

Growing your Career: Do at GUT Check: "There are actually great opportunities for those during a recession for professionals, restrained resources and competition will force you to become excellent in whatever you do. You’ll be forced to learn new skills and be more efficient than you’ve ever before. Some layoffs will leave opportunities for vertical growth and leadership opportunities"

Investing in Skills (or Fear of an Apocalyptic Economy): "if you’re worried about the economic future, the best place to invest is in yourself. Developing yourself into a more intelligent person with more skills and more connections will pay huge dividends if such an apocalyptic scenario were to occur."

How to Discover New Content: "The quest for finding new content to read is neverending. Gone are the days of visiting numerous websites to get the latest news. Increased RSS adoption, both for publishers and consumers has significantly enhanced the discovery and distribution process. Content is being published faster then ever before, and we are discovering and sharing it as fast as it is published. This happens within minutes, giving "hot off the press" a whole new meaning."

10 Money Saving Tools For Small Business: "How are you faring in these hard times? The recent economic down turn has hit many of us, especially with small businesses, rather hard. I don’t want to dwell on the tough stuff, because you know it. Instead I wanted to focus on opportunities available to save you money in these tough times. Today there are dozens of quality products and services available online, often free of charge, that are not only significantly cost saving but also boost efficiency and are extremely simple to use."

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The Missing Links: Your Weekend Reader

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How To Travel, Grow a Business AND Take Your Family With You: "Most people can literally live anywhere or run their business while traveling, but very few have realized it. If there ever were a time to consider doing this, it would be now, when the economy has been wobbly. Working where costs are lower is a great belt-tightening move, and what a great way to turn lemons into lemonade!"

What marketing should learn from the Obama campaign: "Barack Obama won the presidency on a combination of many factors, but one often overlooked by marketing is the absolutely essential use of data. Obama’s campaign under manager David Plouffe was a data machine."

A 16-Year-Old Entrepreneur Tells Us How to Make eMillions: "Stanley Tang, who is a 16-year-old rockstar entrepreneur. He makes me wish I knew this personal branding stuff ten years ago. Stanley is very ambitious and has earned a lot of respect for a young Gen-Y’er. To be able to interview millionaire players for a book isn’t something most high schools students get involved with. The interview below will inspire you to drop age and to pickup drive, to accomplish your dreams."

The Leonardo da Vinci Guide To Being A Renaissance Man: "When looking at a person such as Leonardo da Vinci, one can't help but to be impressed and almost envious of this man's ability to be so good at just about anything that he put his mind to. Some people remain jealous, others quickly dismiss him as an anomaly, while a few ask themselves what it would take to become half as smart and competent as this man."

How to Get the Most Out of LinkedIn: "Many folks involved in social media are so ADD driven to the latest social network, they fail to fully explore and make use of the networks that they are already part of. Enter LinkedIn, a haven for professional networking with an executive representation of all of the Fortune 500 companies. LinkedIn has a lot to offer regardless of where you are in your career, especially with the economy the way it is."

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The Weekend Reader: Sunday Late Edition

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What’s The Value Of Your Web Business?: "Traditionally, the net worth of a brick and mortar business is the value of the assets owned minus the value of the liabilities owed. For a traditional business — which is likely to own equipment, inventory, and possibly even a building — the standard methods of valuation make a lot of sense. For a web business, however, those methods of valuation may make little, or no sense."

It’s Time For You to Become a Master Brand Using LinkedIn: "LinkedIn is another networking opportunity for anyone looking for new work opportunities, whether it be a new job or a new customer. However, unlike traditional BNI meetings or Chamber events, you’re not limited by a the number of people who can fit into a hall or driving distance. People you link in with can be around the corner or around the world."

Reach Outside Your Fishbowl to Build Community: "All this to tell you that finding new and engaging community members doesn’t come from sitting on your blog and writing great posts. It takes outreach, and it takes attempts to find disparate audiences that wouldn’t normally slip in to see what you’re doing."

The Kurt Cobain Guide to Startup Success: "An entrepreneur is successful because his passion for an outcome leads him to organize available resources in new and more valuable ways. When you look at it that way, Kurt Cobain was definitely a creative entrepreneur, and he and the other members of Nirvana knew the outcome they wanted."

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