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[NOTE: This post is part of a series on Entrepreneurship 101 to give a kick-start to those who are thinking about starting their own business. Our regular Job-Seeking and Career-Improvement programming will continue soon!]

Okay - Back on track today! We’re talking about Entrepreneurship 101 and whether you ought to be starting your own business instead of looking for another job.

If you’re joining us late and want to catch up, you can see the beginning of this series - and an index to the posts - here.

Today, however, we’re going to talk about a somewhat complex topic: Where to find good business advice, which advice to take, and which advice to ignore.

I say it’s complex because you can’t just take all advice that’s supportive of you and you can’t just dismiss all advice that is critical. And vice versa.

So, how you do you know? Let’s find out.

ADVICE, ADVICE EVERYWHERE…

Let’s start with the positive stuff - there is good business advice to be had in quite a few places. Here are some of my favorite locations for business advice:

Magazines
———

• Entrepreneur Magazine has a lot of advice for small business people. You just have to keep your wits about you to decide which advice is paid for (they have a ton of advertisers targetting small business) and which is not.

  They also have their SmallBiz Books division that have step-by-step startup guides for many industries.

  I usually advice folks to get a subscription to Entrepreneur for 6 months before starting their business.

• Inc. Magazine - My favorite piece of Inc is the longer articles about a specific case study of business success or business failure. You can learn a lot from other businesses - even if they aren’t in your industry!
• Success Magazine can get a little over-the-top with the “inspirational” pieces for me, but they do have a lot of good advice from folks that have been there.
• Fast Company is no longer a magazine. Sorry! Anyway, they have always been a good resource for people trying to make their companies adapt to the marketplace.

  While Fast Company, when they were a magazine, were a little too on-board with the “Internet Will Change The World” phenomenon, they have always delivered solid business advice and case studies.

BOOKS
—–

There are a ton of great business books out there, and I suggest that you keep reading all the business books that you can get your hands on continually. And don’t complain to me about the cost - you’ve already paid for every single one of those books. They’re waiting for you at your local library.

By the way - these are the more “out of the ordinary” books that I recommend. There are a lot of classics that you ought to read, but I figure you’ve heard about them 20 times already.

• Start With No by Jim Camp - One of the best negotiating books out there. Will disabuse you of the touchy-feely “win/win negotiating” style that you hear about all the time.
• Confessions of Shameless Self-Promoters by Debbie Allen will get you used to promoting yourself (and your new business) in a variety of ways you hadn’t thought of before.
• No Rules by Dan Kennedy is a great book on common misconceptions people have about how business should be done and how to overcome them.
• Every Mistake In The Book by F.J. Lennon because, sometimes, it helps to see people do things wrong so you don’t do the same wrong things.
• The Greatest Salesman In The World by Og Mandino is a great story about many truths in life and business.

Real, Live People
—————–

Every now and again, you want to talk to a live person. Here are some great places to do that:

• SCORE (or the Service Corps of Retired Executives) is a great place to get information on running your business. They have chapters all across the U.S. and are all there because they want to give back.

  While these folks are a wealth of knowledge, keep in mind that many are from much larger businesses (especially when they retired) and their advice will often come from that perspective.

• Other folks in the same business. - Most business owners are too busy to have much of a life outside of their business. Often, however, they’d like to talk to someone, but don’t have someone to talk to.

  Spouses aren’t all that interested in reducing inventory by 5% and employees don’t want to hear anything that doesn’t directly relate to their job. But you, who are in a similar circumstance, would be a good person to talk to.

  Cold call similar business or meet these folks through your local chamber of commerce. It’s definitely good to hear from someone who has been in your market in a similar business.

• Local community college system - Your local community college will often hold small business courses (accounting, taxes, marketing, etc.) to help you along. Probably more helpful than the courses themselves are the discussions in the classrooms and with the professors.
• Business incubators - Most major metro areas have “business incubators” focused in on a specific size or industry. While getting into the incubator gives you great advantages (but loses you some ownership and flexibility), being involved with the incubator can be just as helpful.

  Ask around at your next chamber of commerce or networking meeting about incubators in your area.

• Successful businesspeople are probably one of the best sources of information. While many of them have forgotten what it’s like at the beginning of a business, they offer some great advice to help you get going.

  Whenever you see a speech scheduled in your area by a successful businessperson, you should be there. It’s a cheap way to get great advice and maybe you can get some more specific information on your situation after the speech.

• A Small-Business Coach like Pamela Slim from Escape from Cube Nation. She is putting together a coaching program explicitly for people looking to get out of corporate employment and into their new business life. Check it out here.

…BUT NOT A DROP TO TAKE

Unfortunately, good advices is usually shrouded in bad advice. The trick is to know which little piece to take with you and which to ignore.

Much of the advice from friends and family is going to either be wildly supportive (which is nice, but not realistic) or terribly negative (because they’re scared for you).

Add to that the fact that nobody else is you, no other business is yours, and nobody has the finances at start in your business that you do and you’ll see that picking the good advice is tough.

Something good to remember in this situation is, “Don’t throw away everyone’s advice. Don’t take everyone’s advice.”

Here’s a good, if counter-intuitive test about your idea: a good level of negativity tells you on the right track.

If you’re not getting a good number of people saying something like, “That’ll never work” or “You’re Crazy!” or “If It’s Such A Good Idea, Why Hasn’t Anyone Ever Done It Before?” then you’re probably not on the right track. Casting out on your own scares some people deep down and they react with these phrases (which are more about them than they are about you). If you’re not getting enough of them, you probably need to fix your idea.

In the end, however, a lot of Small Business Life is trying new things, evaluating how they’re doing for you, and either going full-steam ahead or changing direction again. So, pick some good advice from your sources, try a little at a time and see how it does for you. There’s always more advice waiting!


Next In The Entrepreneurship 101 Series: Sales and Marketing - The Life (Or Death) Of Your Business


Enjoy the Search!

-Dan


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This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 7th, 2007 at 10:23 am and is filed under Entrepreneurship 101. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.