Welcome to the 9th Carnival of Entrepreneurs!

WHEW!! 

Greetings everyone!  It is my pleasure to be the first guest host for Ben Yoskovitz' Carnival of Entrenpreneurs and what a Carnival it is!  Lots of enthusiasm in the blogging community to share what you all are learning about entrepreneurship and what it takes to run a business without going insane.  If you were here a bit earlier you may have noticed a "not ready for prime time" version of this edition.  Funny thing happened. In an effort to get every last entry that asked, "pretty please will you please let me sneak in after the deadline?" included, I forgot that I had set up the auto publishing feature.  Much to my horror, an unfinished post published itself while I was reading tardy submissions.  But the Universe is not without a sense of humor, my friends.  The last post to make it in was poetic in it's irony so today, the first shall be last...

Leah Maclean at Working Solo says, "sometimes in the effort to try and please/win/impress readers bloggers will get over eager with their posting schedule and fill every last crack of time and space on their blog with information. Is that in the best interest of the blogger or the reader?" (Well, it ain't so good for the blog carnival host, I can tell you that.  I've got the whole Amadeus "too many notes" thing going on over here apparently.)  Read more in  And Speaking of Space - What’s With All The Posts?

Talkin' Bout a Revolution...

So you think you are an entrepreneur, or maybe would just like to play one on TV?  Below are a potpourri of thoughts and perspectives on what entrepreneurialism is and how to cultivate it.

Early School >> Middle School >> High School >> Job >> College >> Job+Career >> Create Family >> Die

Does anyone else besides Scott see the problem with this picture? Scott Lee shares his perspective to help you set a more energizing and rewarding path for yourself in Become a Rock Star of Business posted at Dirty Mechanism.

Entrepreneurship is often a difficult undertaking, as a majority of new businesses fail. So what keeps the dreamy eyed entrepreneur going? What makes an entrepreneur? Ranjan presents Freedom & Responsibility of Working on your idea posted at Musings on Money, Business, Finance and Investments.

Why become an entrepreneur? Listen to what students of Trump University had to say. Priscilla presents Think Like an Entrepreneur posted at Priscilla Ortiz - Journal to Prosperity, Path to Freedom Inc..

What gets you out of bed? If you are like the majority of people, nothing gets you up in the morning. You get out of bed because you feel like you ‘have’ to, not because there’s something you can’t wait to do. Sound familiar? Josh Bickford presents What Gets You Out Of Bed? posted at Josh Bickford's Reach For Magnificence.

Napoleon Hill stated that the only thing that separated Thomas Edison or Henry Ford from the rest of the pack was persistence. Lack of dedication is one of the major stumbling blocks on our way to success. Alan shares his own experience following this ideal in Persistence - Winners Never Quit posted at Made to Be Great.

And for you young upstarts who need a little side order of beer and nachos with that persistence, Chris Pund presents Staying Focused and Motivated on the Weekends posted at Dorm Room Biz. Good practical advice and brought a smile to this old woman's face reading about how getting up at 10:30 gives you a good couple hours before your roommate wakes up. Oh, college life...

I can hear Billy Joel singing now...Honestyyyyyy. Before you start a business, make an honest self-assessment and answer some questions of yourself. Seriously, have you ever been able to achieve any of your objectives? Are you used to finishing jobs completely? Is it easy for you to start something new or make a change or do you always have hesitation when about to try new things? Vahid Chaychi presents Time Is Passing. Are You? posted at Internet and Search Engine Marketing.

David Maister talks a little truth with you as he presents four keys to success for entrepreneurs in Sad Truths for Leaders posted at Passion, People and Principles.

Still groovin' on being the idea of cultivating your entrepreneurship and interesting in giving a helping hand to those wanting to follow a similar path? Our own Ben Yoskovitz, the originator of this Carnival weighs in with six steps to help get more people into entrepreneurship and help them success when they get there in The Top 6 Ways to Create Thousands of Successful Entrepreneurs at Start Up Spark.

What to do, what to do...Earth to Entrepreneur, this is Reality speaking...

You know you want to have your own business, but which one? 

Perhaps you thoroughly enjoy a particular hobby. You decide, “Why not make money doing what I love?” Mary Emma offers you some perspective on the pros and cons of doing so in Turning a Hobby into a Home Business at Home Biz Notes .

What about everyone's favorite wealth building fantasy: Real Estate! Over 6 million homes will be sold in the U.S. this year. If you're a real estate investor, how the hell are you supposed to sift through that monumental number to select those that are worth your time to pursue as investment properties? Steve Faber gives you some guidance in 4 Key Factors to Qualify Investment Property posted at Get Debt Free.

Or how about becoming a best selling author? Do you have what it takes to be a best selling author? Me too! What a coincidink!  Inc says everyone can do it in Five Easy Steps. Donna Kozik fleshes out the Inc. staffs "Five Easy Steps to Becoming an Author" formula, in between gasping for air and rolling on the floor  in 5 Easy Steps to Book Writing? I Don't Think So posted at My Big Business Card.

Bobby Buntin presents atlantapreneurs.com - The Real Money from Peer Lending posted at Atlantapreneurs. This is an article about Prosper Marketplace and thoughts on how you could start to piggyback on Prosper's peer lending success.

Show Me the Money, Honey

A lot of entrepreneurs see a large VC investment as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but many don't realize exactly what they're giving up when they sign their term sheet. Bill D'Alessandro presents Costs and Benefits of Taking Venture Capital Funding posted at Ready Fire Aim.

Recently Matthew Paulson at Getting Green decided to review one of the current interest rate leaders in the online savings world. He shares his experiences with it in Banking Reviews: Grand Yield Direct’s Online Savings Account posted at Getting Green.

Tales from the Trenches

Jon Symons presents Lessons Learned - The Make or Break Decision posted at Art Of Money. This story is based on lessons learned from his first business. It demonstrates how asking the right questions can be the difference between greatness and mediocrity.

Paul presents Three Pillars of Business Success posted at ExtremePerspective. Paul has been learning quite a bit from a number of ventures and I suspect will be holding up a good mirror for more than one of you.

Jeff Tsai presents EntrepreneurCube » Blog Archive » Limelight - An Interview With My Dad posted at EntrepreneurCube. Jeff states, "This will be the final installment of my article about my Dad. My previous article was selected as a highlight in the 8th issue of this carnival." Jeffrey’s dad worked very, very hard to achieve the success he has, but the result is a son that treats him like a stranger, and a difficult (albeit comfortable from a “possessions” perspective”) life. For this article, Jeff decided to do an interview his father for his perspective on the life of an entrepreneur.

Moses E. Miles III presents My Ministry: Part 1 - Origin and My Ministry: Part 2 - Purpose posted at Three Sticks - www.mosesedwardmilesiii.com - Empowering, Teaching, Healing. First two articles in a series that describes how Miles overcame his past to find his purpose.

Inspiration and Motivation

What Are The Top 10 Reasons Your Start Up is Cool? The StartUp Princess wants to know! If you don't have fun with this exercise, you need to seriously think about whether this whole entrepreneurship is really your thing. And if writing about ten reasons accidentally morphs into a list of ten more cool businesses (yeah, I'm talkin' to you), you may want to get a coach for that back pocket. Ideas are seriously addictive brain candy. Implementation is a whole 'nother ball of wax.

Have you ever worked really hard to get somewhere only to find you have lost all motivation once you actually achieve your goal? How and why did the wind leave your sails? Erek Ostrowski offers some insight on this dynamic in Understanding Momentum posted at Verve Coaching. (Scroll down for the article, the blog frames are funky so don't let the blank screen fool you.)

If you haven't seen Rocky Balboa, yet, I agree with Wilson. It's worth seeing. Dare you not to take on something cool once you get all jacked up on good old fashioned Rocky chutzpah. Wilson Ng presents Its About How Hard you Take The Hits and Still Keep Moving posted at Reflections of a BizDrivenLife.

Practical Suggestions and Stoking the Coals

Yes, there is such a thing as life balance. It's just not a static concept, but you already learned that on the playground when you were a little squirt. Anna Farmery elaborates in Work/Life Balance and Leadership posted at The Engaging Brand.

Now that you have readers, give a thought to value. Murad Ali presents The importance of return web visitors posted at Online Business Concepts.

Silicon Valley Blogger presents Of Loan Refinancing, Debt Consolidation And LowerMyBills’ Dancing Cowboys posted at The Digerati Life atating, "This is a post about a particular company and its ad campaign. Ultimately, I write about whether this is the kind of advertising program I would pursue for my own entrepreneurial venture."

Is the sad, sad truth that you really have no idea where the day went? Are you an entrepreneur trying to get a handle on the whole time management thing? How good are you at estimating how much time your various activities actually take and where your "leaky buckets" are? Debra Moorhead shares her method for time management and how to determine your most important business activities in How to Determine Your Top 20 posted at Debra Moorhead.com.

A quick and cautionary tale about keeping your home and business addresses separate is presented by Nickel in Keeping Your Business and Home Life Separate posted at fivecentnickel.com.

Need to refresher on good old-fashioned stress management? Victor presents Personal Development Articles » Archive » Making Decisions with Less the Stress posted at Personal Development Articles.

Did you know English is no longer the most used language for blogs, and accounts for less than a third of all blog posts? It's a big world out there, baby, and we're all connected via the web. Want to brush up on your cross cultural etiquette? For one, I probably should be refering to you all as "baby". To find out what else you and I may want to think about read David E's article How To Be Global posted at Worldwide Success.

Leadership, Trust and Relationships

The life blood of any business.

There’s a simple fundamental rule in life: the more you give, the more you get. Juuso Hietalahti presents The Most Efficient Way to Get What You Want posted at Game Producer. Juuso states, "I don’t believe in 'tactical helping'". Right on, baby. Right on.

Becoming a trusted advisor, trust-based selling, and leading with trust are the three keys to business success, no matter what size your business is. Charles H. Green presents Why Trust Matters posted at Trust Matters.

Brian presents the cautionary tale of Julie Roehm and her stunning fall from grace at Wal-Mart in just ten months with a some perspective on how you can avoid a similar fate when entering a new workplace in Manager Toolkit: Dialog posted at Brian Nick.

Wayne Hurlbert presents Business obstacles: Finding the weak link posted at Blog Business World. Wayne adds, "They say a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. I'm not entirely certain who the mythical "they" are in the proverb, but I can say that I have personal experience with more than one chain breaking under load. As with the flawed chains, all business ventures have weak links. While it's a very good idea to improve on your company's strengths, a flaw in the organization could be fatal to your business."

How well do your employees know your company website? Employees and owners who know the content in your website can save them time and money and help them increase sales. Chris Denny elaborates in Lead Optimize.com » Blog Archive » Employees Should KNOW Your Website posted at Lead Optimize.com.

Sometimes Business is Creepy

All I ask is that you use your powers for good, oh great master computer compiling all my data...use your powers for good.

How much would you sell your private data to a company for?  Would you take $100 to let someone see every site you have visited over the past year, how about $1,000? Unfortunately, you never get to decide how much your privacy is worth to you, because companies aren't asking your permission. Sagar Satapathy presents Top 10 Big Brother Companies: Ranking the Worst Consumer Privacy Infringers posted at Business Intelligence Lowdown.

Blogs, free speech, defamation and heavy-handed legal tactics - the lines aren't always black-and-white. Scott Allen presents Cuppy's Coffee - Java Jo'z Blog Fiasco Offers Lessons All the Way Around posted at About.com Entrepreneur's Guide.

That's All Folks!

It was my pleasure to be your hostess.  Please return your tray tables to their upright position and remember the contents of your mind may have shifted drastically during your flight.  If you need help with implementation of any of these concepts and suggestions, the contributors would love to hear from you, I am sure and you can always find out more about yours truly at Wellspring Coaching.

Back to you, Ben!

Comments

[Leah Maclean]

Thank you Laura for firstly accepting my tardy submission and secondly for it prime place, front and centre. I am glad that it had a resonance for you. Congratulations on an outstanding carnival and thank you for all the effort you put in.

[Mary Emma Allen]

Thanks, Laura, for hosting the Carnival this week. You did an awesome job. I'm pleased to be included with my post from Home Biz Notes.

[John]

You can offer practically any kind of service using the internet. You just have to make sure there is a market for it and that you can actually fulfill job orders. Some of the most common internet jobs involve clerical jobs such data entry, performing tasks as a virtual assistant, web development, word processing, telemarketing, book keeping and others. You can work as a copy writer, be a sales representative or even become a pro-blogger. You can set up a business that targets clients in your own town or people halfway around the globe.

Thanks, John http://www.thejohnbeck.tv http://www.usfreeads.com/922827-cls.html

[laseoguy]

as the old saying 'if you build it they will come' if you have the goods and know where to find the market then its as good as set almost and patience is the second part

[debbie]

some think working on the web is easy work and money until they actually start it to know they were wrong but if you got the service there will be a consumer for it always

[Cashlin]

Good post.