A couple of articles I read recently that would be useful/interesting to entrepreneurs anywhere:
Grist: Don't Read the Business Pages
Newspaper business pages are a waste of time for entrepreneurs, says Adam Hanft, president of an advertising and marketing firm in a Inc magazine article. Hanft feels most of the news in the busines pages is either stock-market focused or "a daily knee-jerk reaction to the story of the moment". And as for "news" pertaining to your industry, most of the time, you know all about it long before it hits the papers!
So, is Hanft recommending that entrepreneurs stop reading newspapers altogether? No. In fact, he recommends that they diligently scan all pages other than the business pages! "The rest of the paper is a rich resource, a trend trove that can tell you more about the economy and your business than you might imagine," he says.
Click Here to read the full article and find out why.
An Indecently Hasty Proposal
In this BusinessWeek SmallBiz column, Christopher Kenton, president of a US-based marketing agency, recalls the "classic" mistakes he made in preparing and pitching his first proposal.
"I won my first project based on a fixed-price bid. Not terribly unusual, except that the scope had only been defined in broad strokes. Once the proposal was signed, I was essentially agreeing to take on any hidden features that might accrue as we filled in the blanks on the scope of the project. Good for the client, bad for my business," he says
Click Here to read the full column.
Grist: Don't Read the Business Pages
Newspaper business pages are a waste of time for entrepreneurs, says Adam Hanft, president of an advertising and marketing firm in a Inc magazine article. Hanft feels most of the news in the busines pages is either stock-market focused or "a daily knee-jerk reaction to the story of the moment". And as for "news" pertaining to your industry, most of the time, you know all about it long before it hits the papers!
So, is Hanft recommending that entrepreneurs stop reading newspapers altogether? No. In fact, he recommends that they diligently scan all pages other than the business pages! "The rest of the paper is a rich resource, a trend trove that can tell you more about the economy and your business than you might imagine," he says.
Click Here to read the full article and find out why.
An Indecently Hasty Proposal
In this BusinessWeek SmallBiz column, Christopher Kenton, president of a US-based marketing agency, recalls the "classic" mistakes he made in preparing and pitching his first proposal.
"I won my first project based on a fixed-price bid. Not terribly unusual, except that the scope had only been defined in broad strokes. Once the proposal was signed, I was essentially agreeing to take on any hidden features that might accrue as we filled in the blanks on the scope of the project. Good for the client, bad for my business," he says
Click Here to read the full column.