School for Startups Minutes

Most people set 10 goals and accomplish none. I want you to choose one goal for December with a daily action that goes with it. Something like, "I want to increase my sales and have more customers," then the action is to reach out to 10 prospects a day and do that every day in December. Or if you want a better product, spend more time in the factory working on the product. Pick one thing to improv...

The three numbers you need to know for your personal life and for your business are income, expenses, and profit. Oh, and let's throw in another: pipeline. Does January look good for you? Sit down and make sure you know those numbers. Did I make money? Did I spend less than I made? And how does January look?

This is the season of relationships, not necessarily in the holiday party sense, but in the entrepreneur business, personal connections sense. Life and business run on people and your connections, and so as we come upon the end of the year, I want to challenge you to go out and reconnect with some people that matter the most, not necessarily to pitch them or to sell them anything. Ask how they're...

New Year's resolutions are usually about things you're going to add. Let's focus on one bad habit that you want to change instead. In December, start doing something different, and that is going to be changing your morning routine. Instead of doing your email first, start off by doing 15 minutes on your biggest priority first and then go to your email. Try that in December and see what happens. Ge...

We have a couple of weeks before the holiday silliness totally sets in and we all quit working a hundred percent, so it's still time to get a couple more things done. And this week, I want to talk about those things. What are the things that you can do between now and the New Year that will help get you set for a good New Year? Closing, as in closing your books, or just getting set for a good year...

When I was three years old, I wanted one of those pedal cars that you would sit in and drive around as a toddler. It just looked so fun! And my parents at the time couldn't afford one from the new store, from retail, and so they found one in the secondhand market. One of the tires was a different color, and I didn't care. I didn't care about the box. Kids don't care what the box looks like. Kids j...

Is it me, or are adults having a lot fewer parties than they used to? It seems like in the 70s, 80s, 90s, a lot of people would have neighborhood parties, and it seems like that has ended. Or maybe I just don't get invited, or maybe it's just too expensive. Try doing a potluck party this year. Everyone brings one dish and the cost is spread amongst everyone. Everyone gets included that way too.

For your holiday travel, think about traveling on off days, not the popular day but the other day. Book as early as you can and compare other close-by airports. Don't fly in and out of Atlanta; fly in and out of Birmingham. You'll save 300. Same thing with Orlando and Tampa. There are a lot of great ways to save on travel, and if you're willing to travel super light, the budget airlines aren't tha...

Another great way to save money is to use digital coupons. If you're buying a product from Patagonia, do a search for Patagonia discount codes. You will find items that have codes as high as 40 to 60 percent off. I found a Patagonia code 40 off. Do some research.  

I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving holiday and are ready for December. Can you believe how fast it came this week? I'm going to talk about some things that you can do to make your shopping and your travel just a little bit cheaper. I'm going to give you some advice on making the holidays just a little easier to manage. I will start with some advice right after this. I've been saying this...

Number two on the list of top things to be thankful for as an entrepreneur is getting invited to cool parties, and number three is meeting incredible people. This is real. I'm not making this up. I got invited to the Star Wars world premiere and sat next to Tony Robbins. Have a great weekend.

I am thankful for you, you great loyal listeners. The station is thankful also for you, listening 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and thank you to our great sponsors and advertisers. From all of us, Happy Thanksgiving to you!

Number 23 on my list is that, as an entrepreneur or business owner, you get to use everything in your basket. It's the best way to use all of the assets that you were given. Jobs just don't do that. Be an entrepreneur and use every skill set that you have. More tomorrow.

Number 22 on the list. Entrepreneurs and small businesses are leading the fight against misogyny, ageism, sexism, and racism. It's a much more level playing field where consumers read reviews and check out the level of service, not personal details about the owner. It's a great way of transcending all of the isms and just making some money. I'll share more of the list tomorrow.

For the beginning of this week, we should be thinking about the things that we are grateful for. There's the obvious stereotypical good health and family and friends, but let's take it a step further. What are some of the business reasons we are happy to be here in the United States? I made a list of 50. It's on the radio website. I'll share some of the preview with you in just a second. So the li...

Rest and sleep. Successful entrepreneurs plan in their sleep time, plan in their vacation time, and they take it religiously because they understand how important rest is to success. If you don't have downtime, eventually you will crash.

The media loves to point to the flashy tech entrepreneurs, but in fact, most of the rich do boring things that add up slowly over time, in the paving business or the pantyhose business, things like that. Slow, boring, consistent earners over time.      

Successful serial entrepreneurs do one thing more differently than anyone else, and that is borrowing things. That's right, great entrepreneurs see business ideas all around them. They figure out how to make them a little bit better and steal the original idea. Of course, they don't steal any copyrights, trademarks, or patents. But great entrepreneurs are always looking for ideas to copy and impro...

Entrepreneurs embrace rejection because they learn from it. Each data point is a new way to improve and try better next time, and to persevere and fight on. Remember what Thomas Edison said about the light bulb: he had to have 1,000 rejections before one yes.

I think we can all agree that successful entrepreneurs do something differently. There's just something different about their mind, their actions, their beliefs that allows them to be so very successful. This week, we're going to go through five of those things and discuss things that successful entrepreneurs do differently. You may think that successful entrepreneurs love goals. They do, but they...

When your company faces a bad situation, we've talked about accepting accountability and moving forward by showing that you've learned. There are a couple more internal steps you need to take. If someone needs to be fired, fire them quickly. If not, let them know they're not going to be fired and let the company know that too. Externally, you need to move forward with confidence and let people kno...

The worst thing you can do when you have a corporate mistake is to pretend that it never happened or to simply ignore it. No, you must, as a good leader, look directly into the eyes of the customer and the industry and accept your bruises. In 2009, Toyota had a massive recall. They announced new safety systems and published new quality standards that helped reassure the industry and customers. The...

Another thing you need to do when a company screws up, the best thing to do is make it right and to most people, that means they want their money back. If you go to a restaurant and have a bad meal, you want the meal taken off the bill and maybe a free dessert. When we take an airline trip, we expect the airline to make it right. And you know what? That wasn't standard until 2007, when JetBlue pub...

Not only do you want to get ahead of it, but you also want to own up to it publicly. And that's today's advice. When Tylenol started having bad results, they pulled the product from the shelves immediately and said, "This is our responsibility. We are going to deal with this." They saved their credibility with their response. Follow the Tylenol model: admit any problems quickly and take responsibi...

Every once in a while, something bad will happen at your business, and the way you respond will determine the future of that business. This week, we want to talk about what to do when there is a mistake or a problem at work. I'll tell you a story to get the ball rolling right after this. Along the time ago, I was running a program at Stanford University, we had a small fire, not that much damage....