EntrepreNecessary.com

I love to hear the success stories of others who have taken their idea and turned it into a business. Have you ever heard of philanthropic green travel?  That’s what Dominique Callimanopulos, Founder of Elevate Destinations, decided to specialize in.

Why did you leave your last job?

Prior to starting Elevate, I was working as a psychotherapist, but was getting restless, and wanting to work on global issues again, not just with individuals. I began by consulting with international non-profits on strategic development and fundraising, but then formed Elevate Destinations to focus exclusively on philanthropic travel.  It is great being able to catalyze substantive support for leading international non-profits doing such good work in emerging communities.

Why/how did you start your business?

I wanted to play a role in raising funds for community and conservation projects internationally, while also supporting small to mid size non-profit organizations by expanding their capacity and reach.  Elevate Destinations organizes many donor trips that bring board members and donors to visit projects they are investing in overseas.  Such first hand witnessing in the field is powerful and transformative.  I had previous background in non-profit work and was well networked in the field, so that helped me to quickly advance our philanthropic travel agenda.

What does success mean to you?

For most women, success means being able to balance many agendas.  In my case, balancing my personal, creative and family life with a professional agenda while making an impact in the global arena is front and center.  Creating a strong company based on good values which promote a creative, satisfying work culture & collegiality and results in happy clients and beneficiary projects is currently my top priority.

You can visit her website at www.ElevateDestinations.com.

I’ve been asked why the EntrepreNecessary logo has this cool looking guy who is juggling a bunch of balls. My first answer is, “Didn’t everyone want to run away and join the circus?”… Which reminds me that I was reading job listings a few weeks ago, and there really was a job opening for the circus.  They wanted you to start in June in Oregon, and then travel by yourself or with your significant other through the west and throughout Canada until September, visiting towns ahead of the circus to hang all the posters advertising that the circus was coming to town.  But that really has nothing to do with the juggling dude on the EntrepreNecessary logo!

The reality is, when you start a business you have to be a juggler, keeping many jobs and duties in the air at one time.  The thing I liked about working in a big corporation, was that there was a department for all the details you didn’t want to deal with.  If my computer had problems, I’d call the guy from IT who would bring his little cart full of tech tools down the hall and figure out how to fix it.  As a small business owner, there is not an IT guy or a techie cart. When a computer has issues, it’s usually a late night of experimenting until you find the problem. The same can be said of accounting issues, shipping, payroll, and every other department you may have had at the touch of your phone in a corporate environment. Now, as a business owner, it’s all about you. You are the IT guy, the HR gal, the Shipping clerk, the CEO and the Janitor.  You are juggling all those duties, as you build and grow your business.

Essentially, you are the ringmaster of your own circus.  It’s crazy at times, but that’s the joy of being an entrepreneur.

Did you find that when you had a job, the unemployment statistics were just an interesting fact on the evening news? You may have had friends or relatives who had lost their jobs, but even as the numbers creeped up – 7%, 8%, 9% — it didn’t have a real impact on your life. BUT THEN… that day you lost your job, the unemployment rate soared to 100%. For your household, what mattered most in your life was that you were 100% unemployed, and that was a problem.

Which brings a choice for your future – to find a job or to start a business? Let me share some information from a recent article on MSN that may help you make the decision to start a business. Experts are saying it may take up to 2 years for all the currently unemployed people to be absorbed back into the ranks of the employed.

“Growth is still coming from cost-cutting and federal spending, not from a pickup in real demand. And with 7 million workers sidelined by this recession, that headwind likely will be blowing for several years.

With unemployment stuck at high levels, jobless benefits running out and those consumers who have disposable income devoting more of it to savings, demand will likely remain sluggish.

Once companies do begin hiring again, it may be several years before overall employment reaches pre-recession levels. Roughly 125,000 new jobs are needed each month just to keep up with the growth of the work force.

So even if the economy quickly returned to the peak job creation performance of 2007, when the economy was adding roughly 400,000 new jobs a month, it would take more than two years to rehire the 7 million workers who lost their jobs to the recession.

Few economists expect a return to those 2007 growth levels any time soon. As demand picks up, companies will likely increase hours for part-time staff or bring back furloughed workers before creating new full-time jobs.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32314827/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy//

I was never very good at geometry, however I did understand enough to know that Triangles have three sides.  The funny thing is however, I discovered this past weekend a fourth side to the sales triangle.

The classic sales triangle has three parts: Product, People and Price.  If you can match the right product to the right people at the right price, your sales will flourish. But there’s one thing missing from that model — the right Timing.  I know, that doesn’t start with a “P,”so we could call it the right Psychological Place (how about that, a double P.) You can have the first three legs right — provide the perfect product to the people who would love to have it, and ask a price that they think is reasonable, but if they’re not in a motivated buying mood, there will be no sales.

My great discovery came while spending a couple days trying to sell our “Why Guy” kids videos at a booth during a fair-type festival. The people were our target market — families with young kids. In fact we were set-up across from the blow-up bounce houses that kids flocked to. The product has proven to be popular with kids who have watched it. And the price is consistent with similar videos. So why did I sit there for two days and only sell one DVD?  My potential purchasers were not in the buying frame of mind. They were there to have a relaxing day in the park, watching Pirate shows and eating ice cream.

The moral of the story?  To use a couple of big marketing words — you need to go beyond the Demographics of your targeted purchasers and get into the Psychographics of your customers. All that really means is that you need to learn when they will be willing to buy your product, in addition to whether they will buy your product in the first place.

Two little words with such power. They make a roomful of TV viewers cheer when Donald Trump says them, but if you are on the receiving end from your boss, those two little words can turn your life upside down. It’s no laughing matter when you’re called into a closed door meeting, and told that your services are no longer needed by your employer.

After you pack up your office, or your cubicle or your tools, and you wake up the next morning with nowhere to go, the reality sets in. For many people, dealing with the fact that you’ve been fired is the start of a journey through the five stages of grief.

1. Denial – “This can’t be happening, not to me. I was a great employee.”

2. Anger – “Why me? It’s not fair! How can this be happening to me?”

3. Bargaining – “I’ll do anything. I’ll go anywhere. I just need a job.”

4. Depression – “I’m so sad. What’s the point? I’ll never get another job.”

5. Acceptance – “It’s going to be okay. I’ll just figure it out.”

Once you accept the situation, you’ve come to the “Now What?” stage. Most people just assume they’ll find another job. You’ve always worked for someone else – in a way, it’s comforting. You know that paycheck is going to be coming in on schedule – the same amount every time, every month. The taxes are taken out, the insurance premium is paid, 401K is deducted, and all is well in your career cocoon. And in the old days, you would work for the same company for 30 years, and retire fat and happy with a comfortable pension. But those days are gone.

If you haven’t noticed, there are no 30 year plans anymore. The established ‘Blue Chip’ companies are now as solid as jello. General Motors went bankrupt. Citicorp, AIG, Bears Stern and other financial giants have been reduced to beggars looking for handouts, if they’re still in business at all. And if you still have a job, long-term employees are finding they are casualties of cutbacks, downsizing, outsourcing, layoffs and other workforce reductions.

According to the New York Times, job losses since the beginning of the recession have topped 6.5 million jobs, which surpasses all the new jobs that were created during the past nine years. The other hidden figure that rarely makes the evening news is the underemployed – those who have had their hours cut back, and those only working a part-time job because they can’t find a full time job. Add the underemployed to the unemployed, and you have a very bleak job picture.

It’s not a good situation. You’ve lost your job. There are no new jobs available to replace it with. And you still have bills – the mortgage, the car payment, the gas, the electric, the food, phone and cable – so your savings is dwindling quickly. You want to work, but work doesn’t want you. What’s a person to do?

The Entrepreneur of Necessity

An old quote says, “If it is to be, it’s up to me,” and that’s what the job situation has become for many people. No longer can you wait for gainful employment. Today’s light at the end of the tunnel is the road from unemployment to self-employment.

Small businesses are the backbone of the economy. Research shows that firms with fewer than 500 employees drive the U.S. economy by providing jobs for over half of the nation’s private workforce. They don’t get the headlines, but small business is what America is all about. There’s always an open invitation for new entrepreneurs to start their own business. Success awaits those who can meet the needs of their customers.

With today’s economic realities, the country is entering a new golden age of small business creation. That’s where the opportunity lies for displaced workers to put their skills to use, to support themselves, and to grab their part of the American dream.

Have you started your business? All it takes is a good idea, and an entrepreneurial passion. From there, the adventure begins…