ShoestringVenture.com

Thanks to the guys at Shoestring Venture blog for featuring my first book,Business Start-up 101: From Great Idea to Profit...Quick!  Click on the logo below to go to their feature.

   

   

You can buy the book on Amazon by clicking on the link below.  It's available in paperback and Kindle format and comes with handy downloadable templates to help you get started right away.

   

Shoestring Venture

I'm pleased to report that they guys at Shoestring Venture blog will be featuring my first book, Business Start-up 101: From Great Idea to Profit...Quick! on October 27th at 1:00 PM Central Time.  Here's the link:  http://shoestringventure.com/2011/10/27/creating-startup-success/  The link will not be active until Thursday.  Feel free to visit their site by clicking on the Shoestring Venture logo below.

   

  

I appreciate the publicity and encourage you to buy my book if you haven't already done so.  You can buy it through my book website atwww.BusinessStartup101.com, use the link below or go directly to Amazon.  It's available in soft cover for $19.95 or Kindle for $9.95.  The book comes with free downloadable templates for MSWord and Excel.

I am a cancer survivor!

As many of my friends know, I've been dealing with prostate cancer for the past several months.  I don't typically discuss my personal life in the blog, but felt like I needed to make an exception this time.  

  

I heard a voice in the back of my head telling me that I had prostate cancer, that I would be okay, but that I needed to go to the doctor. So I scheduled the physical that I'd be postponing for ages.  When the blood work came back, the PSA test result was 21.  That's a huge number.  So, we re-ran the test.  Let's make sure it's not a mistake, because that's a big number for someone so young, and without any issues.  The second test resulted in a 24.  Doc sends me to a urologist to check into the elevated PSA.

  

After some uncomfortable exams and an eventual biopsy, it was determined that I had prostate cancer.  I'm no expert in the medical terminology, so bear with me.  The prostate gland was almost completely covered with cancer.  The Gleason Index was a 9.  That's a ranking of the aggressiveness of the cancer growth.  A 1 is very slow and a 10 is very fast.  A second opinion at Vanderbilt Medical Center confirmed the results and the suggested procedure.  Hormone therapy bolstered by daily hormone supplements with surgery in 60 days after the hormones have had time to work.

   

I had surgery on October 11th.  The doctor said it went much better than he expected.  Due to the aggressiveness and amount of cancer growth within the prostate, he expected it to be pretty ugly when he got in there.  However, when the biopsy pathology came back, it was negative.  The edges and lymph nodes were clean.  He said I got the best possible results back.  I am cancer free!  The percentages suggest that 85% of patients will not be clean, at least not for long.

  

I have a big advantage.  I'm a Christian.  I believe that the original 'voice in my head' was God taking care of me.  I believe that this experience was a learning experience for me.  A way for me to grow closer to God and be a better disciple.  I'm not a scripture quoter.  Heck, I'm not even that good of a Christian.  But I do believe that God sent his son Jesus to die on the cross for my sins.  I'm trying to make the most of this situation and grow as a person and a Christian.  Let me know if I can help you.

  

So here's the deal:  Men, I'm 50 years old.  You should get a physical yearly.  I didn't fit any clinical profile.  Men my age don't have the kind of cancer I did with the aggressiveness of a Gleason 9.  I was way past the 1% range of occurrences.  About 75% of men will have prostate cancer in one form or another.  If you find it early, it can be treated.  Nearly 1.6 million people will be diagnosed with cancer in one form or another in 2011.  And approximately 571,000 will lose their battle with cancer this year.  Get yourself checked.

  

If you want to help fight cancer contact your local American Cancer Society office or visit www.cancer.org.  As an odd aside (I don't really believe in coincidences), my wife is a board member in the Huntsville ACS organization. 

Got Your Code?

QR Codes are the latest craze in the marketing world.  QR, or quick response, is a 2-dimensional bar code that can pass on a website link, launch a video or any number of things from any smart phone device.  Point your smart phone at the code and it reads the code and opens the video, webpage or whatever.

   

I launched a new book on October 16th called Business Plan Template.  It's available on my blog and from Amazon.  This QR code will take you to Amazon to the Business Plan Template page.  While you're there, why don't you buy the book?

Business Plan Template

The follow-up book to my #1 Best Selling Business Start-up 101: From Great Idea to Profit...Quick! is now out on my book site www.BusinessStartup101.com and Amazon.  The book is Business Plan Template and is a how-to guide for writing a business plan for any business.

  

   

The book is available in Kindle e-book format and will be available as a paperback on Amazon within the next week.  Please check it out and give me your feedback.  I love to chat with entrepreneurs.

    

Click on this link to buy the book.

Survival Cash

We’re talking about some of the key questions entrepreneurs should ask before deciding to start a business.  In the last post, I discussed figuring out how much cash do you have to invest in your new business?  In this post, I want to discuss how much cash you need to survive while you’re starting your business.

  

It many cases, it can take a year, two years or more to get your business stabilized and paying you a regular and adequate salary.  Can you survive for a year, two years or more without a salary?  Maybe you have a spouse that can fully support the financial needs of the family while you start the business.  If so, you’re very lucky.  If not, how much money do you need to have in reserve to live on for one year?  You should plan to have a reserve fund available that will support your personal financial needs for at least one year.  After you work on your financial projections, you might decide to lengthen that period based on what you expect for your business. 

    

Prepare a family budget, determine your cash needs and figure out how you’ll survive for the next year or two if you don’t bring home a salary.  Remember, entrepreneurship is not for sissies!

Blue Point Site Selection in NEWSDAY

Thanks to Jamie Herzlich, small business writer for Long Island's Newsday daily newspaper, for the mention in her article Small Business: Finding the Right Space in yesterday's edition of the paper. Jamie writes articles about and for small business owners.  Click the link to read her article.

Show Me the Money

Over the next several posts, I’ll discuss some of the key questions entrepreneurs should ask before deciding to start a business.  The first one is how much cash do you have to invest in your new business?

You do realize that you need some of your own cash, right?  This is a great time to take a personal financial inventory.  How much do you have in your checking and savings accounts?  How much do you have in your investment account?  What about home equity and retirement savings?  Where is your money, can you get your hands on it and in what time frame?  Make a list of these sources of funds for your reference.

Does your spouse consent to your investing your savings into a new venture?  This would be a good time to discuss it.

Do you have the ability to personally borrow funds to invest in your business? Maybe you have a family member that wants to support your new business.  What about assets you can use as collateral for borrowing?  Maybe your car is paid off and you can use it for collateral at the bank.  What about home equity or credit cards?  Be careful with the use of these borrowed funds, but in a pinch, they might be the source you need to get launched.

So before you get started too far along in this new venture, figure out how much cash you can invest into your own business.  Make a list of possible sources of personal funds.  Whether it’s from your own cash in checking accounts or cash borrowed from a home equity loan, make a list of all these sources and figure out what you have available.  It’s not time yet to decide how much you will invest, but how much you can invest.

If you need a worksheet template for your financial figuring, go to my book website,www.BusinessStartup101.com.  Look in the templates page and download the sources of cash worksheet to use as a guide.  And if you haven't yet bought my book, Business Start-up 101: From Great Idea to Profit...Quick! then now would be a great time to do so.  It's available from my book website or directly from Amazon.