Business & Investing are Team Sports

One of the great lessons of my Geeks on Call failure is the title of this post. Business & Investing are team sports. What I didn’t know in franchise is that I didn’t have to do everything. I needed to learn to focus on working on the business and not in the business.

Working on the business means finding new ways to get new customers but many business owners are focused on everything except finding new customers. Thats why in any business you need to create a team and your first job is to sell the team on the vision.

Who should be on the team, well one of the most important concepts of my business is “the less I do the more I make” and what that means is instead of trying to learn everything surrounding a business I outsource everything to experts in that particular field. For example, I don’t do my own taxes I have a tax accountant, I don’t do my own bookkeeping, I have a bookkeeper, I don’t do my own web development I hired someone that is an expert.

By hiring experts, I can focus on my business vision and sharpen that vision and I can focus on growth.

If you are interested in learning more about the “less i do strategy: subscribe to the Black Genius Network Newsletter, each month chocked full with valuable business startup information complete with new business ideas, plans, marketing strategies and more.

How to Start a Small Business

In today’s world starting a business is an absolute necessity and everyone should consider starting one. The reasons are numerous but the most important reason is properly started the business a business is an excellent wealth builder and starting a business could not be easier.
But many people still start businesses the wrong way, what I mean is most people start the business they want to start. What I mean is the business owner decides the business he wants to start mostly based on what they want and frankly this is the wrong way.

I have a friend John, that opened a restaurant. He found a business, hired an architect, a contractor an interior designer, a menu designer and more. He hired a chef, taste tested recipes and a week before the restaurant opened as we where tasting food I asked this question. “Who are going to be your customers?”.

John, looked at me perplexed and said “Anybody that likes good food”. Think about this answer, he had spent almost two million dollars and he had not defined exactly his customer. His strategy was to open the restaurant, spend tons of money on advertising and getting reviews in magazines, hoping that people would come to his restaurant.

I said to my friend John, “Well how many customers do you need and how much is your average customer worth?”. He replied “I don’t know”. The point is that he had not focused on the most important part of any business and that is knowing the customer. Everything possible about the customer.

John’s restaurant opened well and business was very good the first month (John, ha ha Dwight I told you so) but after the first month because he didn’t know his customer and didn’t know his numbers (the most important being how much each customer spends) the next six months where very bumpy.

As I helped John define his customer, his marketing message and knowing his customers his business turned around and not long after he had a strong growing business. John’s restaurant is doing well but John spends all of his time working on his business, knows his numbers and works less time.

If you want to learn how to track your numbers (not the p&l, balance sheet etc) but your profit numbers, and if you are serious about creating wealth and starting a business checkout the Black Genius Network Newsletter, every month you’ll get interviews and articles that answer all your questions about starting a business, marketing, growing profits and more.

Answer to your questions

Our subscribers have many questions about starting businesses and today we will answer some of them, so here goes

B.H from Memphis TN asks:

“Will you please tell me how to get started as far as minority loans, where to apply or what I should do?”

When I got my loan to start my franchise I did not get a “minority loan”, B, I got a loan from the SBA nd they based the decision on my business experience and knowledge of the industry. The question you have to ask B is, can I find my customers before I get a loan and can I get them to pay for my product or service in advance. If you can pre-sell your customers on your product or service when you go to the bank with customers they are more likely to lend. Hope this helps.

D.H from Bowie MD asks:

“Where do you search for getting business in the international sector? Africa and the Caribbean? How many certificates do you need to start your business and how many classes should one be attending? And do you really need a lawyer?”

I worked for many years in the Caribbean and in visited and worked in Africa and finding business in that part of the world requires identifing your product or service and more often than not each country as a economic development department or board. You can find many on the web. As far as starting a business, there are no certificates needed, you can decide to start at any time. As far as classes are cncerned I would recommend the classes given by a local SBDC. You can find them at many colleges in the area in Philly there is one at Temple and Rutgers and in Maryland checkout this website http://www.capitalsbdc.umd.edu/index.html

If you are serious about creating wealth and starting a business checkout the Black Genius Network Newsletter, every month you’ll get interviews and articles that answer all your questions about business.

Move Up Day

June is move up month, college seniors move up to careers, high school graduations move up to college, grade school grads move up to high school and today I went to my godsons 3rd grade move up day ceremony at the Ivy Leaf School in Philadelphia.

Ivy Leaf School is a private school in Philadelphia ad 98% of the students are black. The school accepts students from Pre K thru 8th grade and the 3rd grade move up day parents pay about $6,000 for their children’s private education. Ivy Leaf is that teaches academic and personal excellence and I was proud and privileged to attend the ceremony.

I was very proud of my godson who moved up with academic honors. The ceremony was mc’d like an award show, the 3rd grade master and mistress of ceremony made the program funny and quick, all told less then 2 hours. Good job to the Ivy Leaf staff, students and parents.

The reason for this post is the content of the ceremony a lesson from 3rd graders to the adults. Here are some of the topics;

• Poem - Be the Best
• Speech- Taking Responsibility for Making Positive Decisions
• Song - I Believe
• Poem - Look up and Live the Life
• Speech - Striving for Excellence in 2007
• Song - Tomorrow
• Song - You Can Win
• Speech - How Can I Make This World A Better Place
• Song - We’re All in This Together

All of this from the 3rd grade move up day. But the point is that we all need to remember and practice this move up program. In a lot of ways every day is a move up day. So as you go thru your day today and everyday remember this move up day program and try to live your life like a 3rd grade move up day.

Lets salute the young black geniuses and in fact all the Move Up Day folks, college, high school, grade school, third grade, preschool and everyone else. You all have genius
Be well

Congrats to Ozaze, Tracy Milbourne and all of the other 2007 graduates

Baby Boomers Need To Create a Wealth Infrastructure

While reading the USA Today (online) in the business section I see the following headline;

“Boomers expect to work longer, can’t afford to quit“, the article go on to talk about because boomers have less children, aren’t married and have longer life expectations they will not get the same help as their parents and grandparents when they reach old age. This report impacted me immediately because I am a boomer, with no children, soon to be un-married (who knows) and hoping for a longer life and like most Boomers until recently hadn’t saved much for retirement.

The report really had nothing but bad news for boomer’s including

• Some boomer’s will continue working by choice
• Others will have to stay on the job as fewer companies offer health insurance to retirees and an alarming number of private pensions fail
• higher rates of divorce and separation could result in greater financial hardship for aging baby boomers

Pretty bleak future unless you have changed your thinking and started to create a wealth ethic and a wealth infrastructure. If you havn’t now is the time to start subscribe to the BLACK GENIUS NETWORK NEWSLETTER and learn about how you can create a wealth infrastructure that will provide retirement income that for the rest of your life. Learn in our first issue how Victor Milbourne, create a two (2) million dollar real estate empire in a year and more importantly how you can do the same

Creating A Wealth Ethic

This weekend I was talking to a friend about the entire idea of a wealth ethic and creating a wealth infrastructure and he reminded me that I have not clearly defined wealth ethic and wealth infrastructure, so are the definitions.

Wealth Ethic means to no longer connect your ongoing efforts to money. A wealth ethic lifestyle is a lifestyle that provides money without continuous work. Now many of you will think I’ve lost my mind because we all have be raised to believe that time and money are connected. We all have used this saying “Time is Money” but that is not true. The amount of time you work only produces a predictable amount of money, it does not produce abundance for one very good reason, we all have limited time.

If you are a doctor, you can only see patients so many hours a day. If you are a plumber you can only fix pipes for a fixed amount of hours so regardless of your hourly wage, the amount of money created is limited by time. But even more importantly, doctors, plumbers and may other occupations all require your continued effort to produce money.

In the Black Genius Network Newsletter every month we will provide specific information about how to create a wealth ethic regardless of the business you own. If you don’t own a business we will teach you how to create assets that provide future wealth. In our first edition here is what you will get.

* The Secrets to Creating A Wealth Ethic Lifestyle in Real Estate with Victor Milbourne, Victor has built a million dollar wealth ethic business in real estate. In the interview, Victor talks about how he created a wealth ethic lifestyle and how you can create the same type of lifestyle. Victors interview alone is worth the investment but there is more.
* How to find a niche in the market and
* How to tell if there is MONEY in that Niche
* How to find customers before you start your business and nearly GUARANTEE your success
* How to start your business without a HUGE investment and much much more.

Each issue is choked with business advice, but more importantly how to use that business idea to create wealth.

What I’m offering you, is a way to dramatically change your current situation. A way to create wealth and get many, many times the results you’re now getting, with substantially less effort… more predictability… and a lot more confidence and solid footing behind your business decisions. A way to completely eliminate financial fear and anxiety from your thoughts — ever again.

Hear My Interview with George Kilpatrick

In this interview with George Kilpatrick , I talk about the need to create a wealth ethic and a wealth infrastructure.

First, Thanks to George and continued success. George has worked hard to create a media based business and is growing that business daily. Please check him out at http://www.GeorgeKilpatrick.com and please support his show.

In this first interview, I reveal the following;

1. How to create a wealth ethic to replace the work ethic
2. How to create a wealth infrastructure

In my opinion, creating a wealth ethic is the crux of our economic future and creating a wealth infrastructure is the strategy to create that wealth. Enjoy the interview and let me know your thoughts and comments.

Be well

Dwight

Learn the Secrets of a Successful Real Estate Investor

The launch of the Black Genius Network Newsletter is rapidly approaching and as promised we are profiling successful African American Entrepreneurs that have started businesses that have transformed their lives and their families lives.

This post is an excerpt of an interview I did with Victor Milbourne. Victor is a very successful entrepreneur, business owner and championship athlete that understands clearly the need to create a wealth ethic.

Victor tells the story of how in one year he has created a two million dollar real estate investment business. The lessons in Victor’s interview are numerous but the biggest lesson is how Victor has created a business without actually having to work in the business.

Learn Victor’s secrets about business and life by subscribing to the Black Genius Network Newsletter. The newsletter is launching August 1st, 2007 and will be chock full of information about creating a wealth ethic lifestyle (WEL). Go to www.blackgeniusnetwork.com for more information and enjoy this excerpt of Victor’s interview.

Change Your Life by Creating a Wealth Ethic Instead of a Work Ethic

The wealth ethic is a new idea in living, a new way to think about money, wealth and work and because it’s new it requires new thinking.

The most important aspect of defining a wealth ethic is to stop tying together work and money. The wealth ethic requires that you first divorce money and wealth from work and start to think about how to acquire assets that create wealth with as little work as possible.

The entire idea of a wealth ethic is the complete opposite to what you’ve been taught over the years. Every black person living and in fact, every American has been taught the work ethic from the beginning of the life or at least the beginning of their school days.

I distinctly remember my mom and dad,”Dwight, study hard so you can go to college and get a good JOB”, or “keep your nose to the grindstone” and my Dad’s favorite “Hard work builds strong men”. I’m willing to bet your parents said the same thing to you and I’m not blaming my parents, they raised a good strong man but that was then and now we need to think differently.

My mom and dad worked hard every day to feed and cloth three kids and we never starved, always had a roof over our heads and lived well waht was then defined as a lower middle class family. They worked hard to create a better future for me and my brothers and sisters so I can’t blame them, after all the work ethic worked for them.

But it’s not working now. Too many families are working two and even three jobs and still not making ends meet. People are saving for retirement, hoping that they will have enough money but the reality is that even with a million dollars saved for retirement, longer life and better health care is going to force people to continue to work longer and harder. Been to Walmart recently, you know the older greeter is more often there because they need the money then anything else, will that be you.

So, you gotta build a wealth ethic and a wealth ethic requires a shift in thinking.

In the First Edition of the Black Genius Network Newsletter, we will talk about the Seven Steps to Creating a Wealth Ethic, the steps you need to shift your thinking from a work ethic to a wealth ethic and how to make that shift even if you still have a job.

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