Category: Entrepreneur

Recently I did an admission mock interview for MBA applicant who asked my help. At the end of the interview I gave the applicant an opportunity to ask me questions. One of the questions he asked was if entrepreneurship can be learned in business school.

I believe that entrepreneurial classes taken during an MBA at a premier business school who asked my help. will definitely add value to someone who has entrepreneurial spirit but lacks more formal analytical skills. In entrepreneurship classes students learn useful business concepts, create business plans, and acquire finance and marketing tools. Its just as important that they also learn how to analyze the viability of ideas.

Empirical research supports this conclusion as well. Researcher Donald Kurato (2004) argues that it is now definitively evident that entrepreneurship can be taught. Gorman, Hanlon, and King’s study (1997) states that –most of the empirical studies surveyed indicated that entrepreneurship can be taught, or at least encouraged, by entrepreneurship education.- The recent research paper -Toward Effective Education of Innovative Entrepreneurs in Small Business: Initial Results from a Survey of College Students and Graduates- made by Summit Consulting, LLC for the Small Business Administration (SBA) presented some interesting findings: -Graduates who have taken entrepreneurial courses are significantly more likely to select careers in entrepreneurship, which are defined as ever having founded, run, or been employed in a start-up or entrepreneurial team. -Graduates who have taken entrepreneurial courses are more innovative, as quantified by the number of patented innovations, new production processes, and new services and products generated by these students. For example, while only 18% of all participants in the entrepreneurship report offered new products or services to customers, 86% of those who also took an entrepreneurial course reported belonging to a team that offered new products or services. – Of all the entrepreneurial skill areas considered, -Developing a new entity to take advantage of new business-related opportunities- was the area in which the greatest difference can be seen in those who did and did not take an entrepreneurial course. Only 13% of respondents who had not taken an entrepreneurial course rated themselves as -extremely effective- in identifying new business-related opportunities, while 25% of respondents who had taken an entrepreneurial course rated themselves -extremely effective- in this skill area. -While business schools can definitely help you to hone your business skills and to become a better entrepreneur from an educational point of view, in my opinion many of them still don’t invest enough in encouraging their students to pursue the entrepreneurship path immediately after school. Instead, schools focus on channeling their students to more traditional corporate careers.

According to Summit Consulting, researched rates of entrepreneurship are highest among those with the greatest and least amounts of education:

42.1% of Ph.D.’s (only 0.5% of the population) become entrepreneurs-the largest percentage, while 37.3% of those with less than a high school education (11.6% of the population) become entrepreneurs, the second largest percentage. MBA programs MBA programs are not among the largest producers of entrepreneurs. If you look carefully at the career statistics released by business schools, the percentage of entrepreneurs who started their businesses following their MBA programs will often not be mentioned since the number is so insignificant as to be negligible. So what this means for you if you are targeting entrepreneurship after school? We believe that choosing the right school is the key.

According to Business Week’s Best Schools for Entrepreneurship section, you should be looking at the following factors when choosing schools:

–Does the program have institutional support? A great entrepreneurship program should have the backing of the university, from the president down. That ensures funding-important for still-developing programs-and facilitates interactions among the B-school and other parts of the university, such as the engineering school or the medical school.

-Who teaches the classes? You’ll want to be taught by faculty members who have experience both doing and teaching entrepreneurship. Academics with no street experience won’t be able to impart important real-world lessons. Also, remember that grizzled business vets may tell great stories, but that anecdotal evidence only goes so far. You should also look for depth and breadth in coursework.

-Does the school have a dedicated entrepreneurship center? If so, chances are you’ll have more resources and staff members to assist you in both course selection and career development. These centers often fill the void left by traditional career-services offices, which may or may not be able to help place MBAs who want to be entrepreneurs. Does the B-school have a business plan competition? Critics of such contests say the only thing they teach is how to win business plan competitions. That’s probably too harsh. Writing a plan is a valuable exercise for budding entrepreneurs. Plus, participating in-and especially winning-a competition gets you exposure to venture capitalists, who often serve as judges.

-What hands-on experience will you get? The best B-schools offer some combination of the following: opportunities to intern at local startup companies, ways to connect students with entrepreneur mentors, small business incubators, and access to capital from alumni or from the venture-capital community-.

We would also add one additional factor: how many students start their own business or join a start-up after getting their MBA.

Good luck and we look forward to hearing about your new business!

Stefanie Parks Director of Marketing ZoomInterviews.com

Are you going through some changes in your personal life? I am sure that you are, even if those changes are small. If you are not experiencing change, there is something wrong.

“If you’re in a bad situation, don’t worry it’ll change. If you’re in a good situation, don’t worry it’ll change.” – John A. Simone, Sr.

Check if the mirror is still fogging up when you breathe on it. If it does, it means you are alive and you will experience change. Even if it is only the simple fact that today you are a day older than yesterday. Some cells have died and others are being renewed.

Some people experience more radical changes than others, but we all experience change. Most people try to avoid change instead of embracing it. Change is a good thing because it forces you to grow mentally, spiritually and physically. Change keeps you mentally sharp. It forces you to search deeper for who you really are and what your purpose in life is. Change gets you out of your comfortable chair and forces you to get up and deal with the problems at hand instead of the TV remote in your hand. Change requires your business to become more efficient, more competitive and more profitable. Instead of being fearful of change, embrace it.

Whether it is personal changes or business changes, change can be intimidating because it forces us to deal with uncertainty. It makes us feel like we are losing control and we don’t like to lose control. We rather control what happens today , tomorrow, next month and next year. That’s why we want to plan things, whether it is a vacation, a family or a business. When suddenly things are not going to plan, we are often stunned and shaken up.

However, once you have accepted the fact that change is a normal part of life, both personally and in business, you will be able to more effectively handle it. We can look at change as a negative or we can view it as a chance to become a better person. If we are faced with sudden changes in our business, it is an opportunity to create a better business. We cannot change the past, but we can decide how we react to change and that often requires us to change how we look at things.

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” Victor Frankl

If we are able to look forward and not look back, then we can take hold of the positive mindset that allows us to move on with renewed energy and commitment. If you have lost a customer, look for others. If your product or service becomes obsolete, build better ones. If you have lost a business, start a new venture. If you have lost your job or lost a business in this recession, don’t think of yourself as a failure but look at it as an opportunity to start over and to do it better this time around. Change is unavoidable. How you handle it, is what matters. Welcome change and recognize that change can have a positive effect on your life or your business.

Continuity gives us roots; change gives us branches, letting us stretch and grow and reach new heights. – Pauline R. Kezer

During these difficult economic times a lot of people lost their job and some have decided to start a business. That is a major change for most people. If that is you, you can minimize the effect of that change by choosing a business that fits your skills, experience and passion. If you are new to running your own business, keep in mind that business is more than just making money. If you focus first and foremost on making money, you will always toil to experience abundance. Focus on how you can help people and develop your product or service with that in mind. If you do that part of running a business correctly, then money and abundance will follow.

“A business that only makes money is a poor business” – Henry Ford

Whatever caused you decide to start a business, embrace the change that it brings. Dont look back and play the mind game could have, should have, would have. Concentrate on how you can best help people in your new business venture, and success will follow. Starting a business is a big change in your life. However, if you look at it as new opportunity to use your skills and experience you will have success. It does not mean that success will come instantly or easy, but commitment, hard work and integrity in your business dealings will bring you success.

By accident, I believe that our industry does us all a disservice. How? By calling us real estate investors.
How many of you call yourselves real estate investors? Lots. How many of you feel a little queasy when you introduce yourself as a real estate investor? (No need to confess you just need to recognize that feeling).

Do you want to know why you may be feeling queasy? I’ll tell you. It’s because of the incongruent language we are using on ourselves. Let me prove it while helping bust the number one fear of real estate “investors”.

What do you think of when you hear the word investor?
I bet it’s “cash” or “credit”. Right? Maybe something that you feel that you don’t have. So if your business card declares you a real estate investor and you don’t have any cash, do you feel funny, or out of integrity, or incongruent? Maybe a little?

On the other hand, what do you think of when you hear the word entrepreneur? The answers to this question usually range from “opportunist” to “opportunities” to “ideas” to “deals”, etc.

The definition of an entrepreneur is someone who uses the time, talent and treasure of other people to realize their idea or vision. Read that again because this a subtle but important point about your real estate success.

The number one limiting belief of real estate “investors” is “I cannot do this business because I have little cash and/or bad credit.” And if your subconscious holds this belief, guess how hard you are going to work to find deals. Guess how many deals your are likely to do. That’s right, you will do ZERO.

Good news! This limiting belief is easily busted.
You are not a real estate investor. You are a real estate entrepreneur.

What’s the difference? Well, entrepreneurs bring the deals to the money. Investors bring the money to the deals.

By DEFINITION, entrepreneurs are not expected to use their own cash. They are expected to raise cash for their deals and projects. That’s what we do. We find the one thing that is much more valuable than the cash which is the deals.

Money is easy. Finding the deals is the part that requires a little work. But most real estate “investors” get hung up in marketing or making an offer because they don’t have the cash sitting in their checking account. They freeze.

You need to declare yourself a “Real Estate Entrepreneur.” That’s what I do. At this stage of my life, it’s more fun being the entrepreneur and putting deals together. It’s my form of creativity. It’s my art. Being the investor and putting up the cash is OK but it’s kind of like being the guy that furnished the paint to Michelangelo. Nobody remembers the paint supply guy.

I urge you to adopt 2 new affirmation(s):
I am a real estate entrepreneur.
I am leveraging the time, talent and treasure of others.

Every serious entrepreneur is aware of the power of Internet marketing. However, a majority of them still consider online marketing to be related to the company website, email and online ads. While these online mediums make a significant part of the internet market, there has been a revolution in the last five years in the online world that has given birth to another powerful medium social media or social networking.

Social media or social networking can be defined as group of activities that combine technology with social interaction. Some of the common tools that are being used for social networking are LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, MySpace, YouTube, and Digg. However, not many entrepreneurs have been able to use social media effectively and a large number of them have been successful in annoying their potential customers. They fail to realize that social networking sites are a place for social interaction and not a place to peddle your products by spamming the entire community.

Serious entrepreneurs take time to learn the etiquettes and rules of each social media and focus on building lasting relationships. They make sure that they do not end up making any wrong move that may get them blacklisted or ejected from the community. They establish relationships that may become their loyal customer base but their main motive is to not only make money but also make great friends.

Serious entrepreneurs understand the significance of social media thoroughly and understand how it can help them grow. Lets see how:

Social media creates a level playing field between an entrepreneur and a Fortune 500 company.
Social networking sites provide access to professionals and potential partners who you cannot reach out to in the real life.
Social media sites give every serious entrepreneur an opportunity to show that he or she cares about the community.
It broadens your target market by breaking geographical barriers and enables you to have customers, partners, and suppliers all over the world.
Social networking can be a great marketing tool for entrepreneurs who are not good at communicating in real life.
Social media is one of the most effective as well as economical tool for conducting marketing research on your target customers.

So, if you are a serious entrepreneur who has been waiting on the side-lines watching other businesses grow with the help of social media, it is time that you, too, join these communities and test the waters. However, it is advisable that you do your research and take time to learn each of the social networking tools to minimize any error that may annoy others.

For more information or to learn how to work with Maryjean, go to http://MaryjeanAHowe.com/?t=tg3.26

Arch Bonnema – Christian Entrepreneur and Philanthropist. —By Julie Lyons Arch Bonnema’s mission couldn’t be plainer. It encircles the towering ceiling of his McKinney home, inscribed in gold letters: -Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress– Though Bonnema, 56, has launched several successful businesses and played an important role in the early success of the film The Passion of the Christ-he purchased all of the seats in Plano’s Cinemark Tinseltown 20 for opening day, and gave away the 6,000 tickets-orphan homes are the focus of his time and money today. Since 1991, he and his wife, Sherry, have tithed a minimum of 50 percent of their finances and work hours to missions, including their own ministry, My House. They’ve partnered with longstanding local ministries in Uganda, Kenya, India, and Ethiopia to build orphan homes centered around churches and to staff them with widows, explicitly following the words of James 1:27 etched inside his home. The decision to give on such a scale came 17 years ago after he and his wife attended a missions conference. They were driving home from Georgia on Bonnema’s motorcycle, communicating by helmet-mounted radios. -We’d been silent for quite a while,- Arch says, -and I said, -You know, honey, I have to admit I’ve been kinda feeling lately that we ought to increase our commitment from 35 to 50 percent.’ -I hardly got done saying that, and she says, -God’s been telling me that for months. I was just waiting for you to confirm it with me.’- Bonnema’s response echoes what many Christians have believed in recent years-only to find their fortunes shrink drastically during the recession. -The whole time you’re thinking, -Wow-God is gonna really bless us now.’ But it doesn’t always work that way. If you give, God doesn’t always give back right away. That’s what the prosperity message got wrong. -There were times when my wife and I gave significantly and went through the biggest hardships, but we kept on giving. We still survived. It might have been a year or two later, but God gave us a tremendous blessing.- In Arch’s and Sherry’s case, their decision to tithe lavishly was followed by the loss of their savings and other assets-just about everything but their home. They even sold their last car, a two-year-old Cadillac, so they could keep the pledges they’d made to ministries. -We gave everything we had, including cashing in our retirement, to make sure that our promises to missions were fulfilled,- Arch says. -It’s not that my business dropped off, but I spent less time doing it, and my income dropped-while my giving increased, percentage-wise. No problem, we thought. We’ll just sell this. We don’t need that anyway. It’s more important we fulfill our commitment to God. -It wasn’t until we had given away pretty much everything we had over a span of six years when, all of a sudden, everything just reversed faster. God started building my businesses faster than I ever could have imagined. Within two years I had more money than I ever had in my whole life.- Today, Arch has set aside Joshua Financial, the trust company from which he prospered for many years-changing tax laws eliminated much of the business–to invest in enterprises such as the buying and re-selling of electricity and hydrogen technology. Bonnema has also launched expeditions to search for Noah’s Ark and the Ark of the Covenant. (Both of those ventures are documented on his Web site, www.cometomyhouse.org.) Arch joins in business with -kindred spirits,- Christian entrepreneurs with a passion for missions and ministry. -You want to have people surrounding you who are like-minded,- he says. -There’s an old saying, -It’s not what you know; it’s who you know.’ But I think there is a more correct saying: It’s who knows you. What is your reputation? If you develop a good track record, they come find you.- Bonnema applies the same principle to building orphan homes. He works only with ministries that have worked with orphans for years on their own, -doing a really good job.- My House builds new and better facilities so the ministries can expand their work. The goal, he says, is that the orphan home is independent of outside aid within three or four years. -Once we build it,- he says, -we give it to them.- Right now, My House sponsors four orphan homes in India, two in Ethiopia, one in Kenya, and one in Uganda, all in rural areas. Four other orphan homes are under construction; the Bonnemas hope to build 10 in 2010. Over the years, My House has encountered its share of scammers–just people who want money,- Bonnema says. -It’s just as bad in the U.S. as it is over there.- Bonnema has developed a motto–We inspect what we expect.- My House personnel are on the ground talking to people before the organization builds, checking out the credentials of local ministries and talking to pastors, mayors, and community leaders. -We make sure they have a good reputation for taking care of kids,- he says. Bonnema’s passion for orphans has unlikely roots in the Minnesota farming community of Prinsburg, population 450, where he grew up. His grandfather, a farmer for many years and later -a very successful businessman,- entertained a constant stream of visitors from overseas-missionaries and pastors, to whom he gave much of his money. -He felt the best gift he had was he knew how to do good business. He knew about the world, because everybody came to visit him. He was very generous. They were expecting to see some big tycoon, but he had a very modest house. He lived in a very small town. He just gave away an enormous amount.- Faith pervaded the Bonnema family, which prayed and read Scripture at every meal, three times a day, and attended the Christian Reformed church together. -I grew up in a family where all my relatives were strong, committed Christians,- says Bonnema, now a member of Prestonwood Baptist Church. -When I reached an age of understanding, at 7 or 8, I committed my life to Christ.- At 19, Bonnema walked around the world with a backpack and sleeping bag, traversing remote and war-torn countries, including Vietnam. He visited Israel in 1973, right after it went to war with Egypt. In Bombay, India, he got so sick he prayed to die. In Hong Kong he started a Youth for Christ chapter that still exists today. Throughout his journey, he learned to -rely on God- in everything. -James chapter 1 says if your life is full of difficulties and temptations, be happy,- Bonnema says. -I remember reading that when I was 16, thinking, boy, did they ever mistranslate this. How can you be happy when life is full of difficulties and temptations? Because you learn to trust God. That’s when you really build your faith.- Crossing the world with little money or status allowed him to see reality in the countries he visited, where no one was trying to impress him. He avoided the big cities and wandered through rural areas, -where you really see the people.- He witnessed poverty and oppression, degradation and violence. As well as people with few possessions who took inexplicable joy in their love for God. -That’s where my heart was first touched by the orphans and widows,- he says. -I saw a different world than the one I lived in. It did two things: It tremendously increased my passion for ministry. I saw how easy it is to change lives, compared to the U.S. When you see how easy it is to make a difference, it makes you want to do more. -And it really opened my eyes so that I’m a good steward. It’s not about just writing a check. It’s like the parable of the good seeds. It’s giving to the right place at the right time.- Over the years, Bonnema has visited 93 countries, all but one with his wife. That one country was Iran, where he believes his team found the petrified remains of Noah’s Ark in 2006. He’s also witnessed first-hand the world’s problem with orphans; according to the World Health Organization, the number of orphans has doubled in the last five years, and only one-tenth of one percent are ever adopted. Yet more than 90 percent of the money spent on orphans is directed to the adoption process. A Kenyan bishop who visited him recently represented the alternative that My House seeks: He described how he could build an orphan home housing a dozen children as well as a widow to take care of them for as little as $20,000. The facility would include separate rooms for boys and girls as well as a kitchen and bathroom. -What’s interesting is for centuries, that’s what the church did. We took care of orphans and widows,- Bonnema says. -Now, we let the government do it.- E-mail Julie Lyons at .