Interactive Pocket Guide for Entrepreneurs By Michael McCafferty ppt

Interactive
Pocket Guide
for
Entrepreneurs
By
Michael McCafferty
****
Published by:
Michael McCafferty at Smashwords
Copyright (c) 2012 by Michael McCafferty
****
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any
means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission
of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Smashwords Edition Licence Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to
other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy
for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not
purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.
****
51% of the profits are donated to
the search for a cure to paralysis caused by
spinal cord injury (Rutgers University’s Keck Center for
Collaborative Neuroscience- Spinal Cord Injury Project).
Quick Start Guide
Using Computers and Tablets
Access the full web material on your computer or tablet at IPGFE.com where you can
link into the community of other readers of this book, ask the author questions, and
leave comments.
Help

Suggestions, questions and comments are encouraged. Please call (858) 699-0901 or
email
Ordering Additional Books
The list price is currently $12.95 per copy.
Orders of 5 books or more are priced at only $10 per copy. Books are now available for
purchase on Amazon, eBay, and Google Books.
51% of the profits are donated to the search for a cure to paralysis caused by spinal
cord injury (Rutgers University’s Keck Center for Collaborative Neuroscience- Spinal
Cord Injury Project).
Preface
This book is your passport to a new form of communication, combining the best features
of a traditional book with the power of the web, using your smartphone as the link.
Imagine: you are reading along this book, and want to know more… just point your
smartphone at the page and your screen instantly pops with all you could want: video,
photos, text, links…
And, unlike any ordinary book, you can instantly link into the community of readers of
this book, to ask the author questions, get answers, leave comments, and learn from
others.
Gutenberg would have approved.
Testimonials
“Over the decades (yes!) that I’ve known and worked with Michael, I’ve found him to be
consistently brilliant, always eager to found his opinions on flawless logic, and
absolutely honorable. This is a guy with extraordinary vision, who is also grounded in
reality. He’s a big thinker, and I’d bet on him every time. I write books on marketing and
communication. Michael practices them daily.”
George Walther
“There is one word to describe MM: Visionary. He has the ability to see the future, and
to inspire people to achieve it.”
Jeremy Heyman
“Wow, now that I am consciously thinking about what we want to do as a company vs.

what we currently do, I see how I got into this mess…Now I understand the value and
importance of focus in a whole new way. Thank you for that.”
Kirk Ranta
“Over a 4 year period of working with Michael McCafferty I found him to be an
exceptionally talented business owner. He consistently demonstrated an uncanny
insight in what customers find valuable. He was a great motivator of his team members
and sales agents and quite frankly one of the best salespeople I have ever met.”
KC Truby
Acknowledgments
It is with sincere appreciation that I acknowledge the following people for their
contributions to this book and the associated website.
Erika Lal for her tireless and excellent help with the many revisions of this book and
website.
Grant Freeman and Leanne Chau at Electronic Printing Solutions for their many early
revisions to the beta versions of this book.
My many protégés over the years from whom I have learned so much.
The 100 beta testers who provided their valuable feedback for this book and the
website.
Table of Contents
Quick Start Guide
Preface
Testimonials
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Defining Entrepreneurship
Let There Be Cash
Think Straight
Travel Light
The Customer Is King
Write It Down

Begin It Now
Hire Experience
Motivate
Conserve Energy
Be Not Greedy
Test
The Superior Man
Measure it to manage it
Easy Does It
Price and Terms
Positioning
I delegate, therefore I am
The Habit of Excellence
Add A Zero
Leverage
Goals
Think, Plan, Do, Repeat
Passion
Serenity Now
Your business must serve you first
Communicate
Your Mentor
Your Board of Advisors
Everything is Prototype
How to Motivate
Systems for Success
Act As If
Always Be Recruiting
The Tyranny of the Idea du jour
The Management Metronome

You Are Right
Your Company Library
The E Myth
The Startup Owner's Manual
The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development
Business Model Generation
The Lean Startup
The Art of the Start
The Law of Success
First Things First
Wealth
Resources for Startups
Help, FAQ, Troubleshooting, etc.
About the Author
Begin it now, before your competition…
Introduction
When we first start out as entrepreneurs, it’s easy to make mistakes, waste time and
money, and cause ourselves a lot of stress. However, motivated entrepreneurs will read
extensively, learn from others and experiment continuously.
This little book, and the associated web pages, contain a few of the principles learned
from half a century as a serial entrepreneur and mentor, helping selected entrepreneurs
apply these principles to build their own successful companies.
The highest levels of success came to my business adventures when I focused on The
Ten Basic Principles for Managing a Young, Growing Business.
These truths spoke to me as being essential to success. I resolved to use them fully and
without reservation, and I still keep them at my desk today. I have shared them with you
starting on page 4 of the Interactive Pocket Guide for Entrepreneurs book. Additional
principles begin on page 16.
Each principle has a unique QR (Quick Response) code that your smartphone can scan
to link to this web page where the principle is discussed in depth, and where you can

ask questions, leave comments, and learn from other readers.
Repetition is key. Keep the book handy, review the principles often, and continue to
engage with other readers to learn more.
This last point is most important: to engage with a community of like-minded and
experienced people, to learn and share ideas.
See also:
Resources for Startups
Help
Defining Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship
is living a few years of your life
like most people won’t,
so you can spend the rest of your life
like most people can’t.
Anonymous
See also:
Resources for Startups
Help
Let There Be Cash
Project, monitor and conserve cash and credit capability.
Cash flow is the life’s blood of a growing business. A company’s ability to continue is
determined daily, not at year end, by the contents of the checking account rather than
the financial statement.
Keeping cash on hand or readily available for both planned and unplanned events is not
only prudent but necessary in unsettled times. Cultivation of financial sources is an
enduring duty.
Video: Show Me the Money
See also:
Resources for Startups
Help

Think Straight
Maintain a detached point of view.
Managing a growing business requires unyielding dedication that can consume the
body, impair the senses and warp the mind. Such effects are harmful to the individual
and the enterprise. Clinical objectivity is the only preventative.
Growth implies and entails risk. Risk begets failure as well as success. Wide
perspective gained through nonbusiness experience or study helps one endure the
pressures and accept the results, good and bad, of business decisions.
The video below is a true classic on clear thinking.
Video: Napoleon Hill’s Success Principles Part 12
See also:
Your Business Must Serve You First
Resources for Startups
Help
Travel Light
Limit the number of primary participants to people who can consciously agree upon and
contribute directly to the goals of the business.
There are many reasons people become involved in young, growing companies as
owners, investors, or key team members. The broad range of satisfaction sought runs
from an opportunity to personal expression on one end of the spectrum to capital gains
on the other.
Unless there is compatibility between what each primary participant wants out of the
business, debilitating conflict is likely to ensue. The process of trying to consciously
agree on the purpose of the enterprise is often difficult and revealing.
Consider the following video carefully.
Video: Startup Development Team
See also:
Motivate
Resources for Startups
Help

The Customer Is King
Define the business in terms of what is to be bought, precisely by whom, and why.
Businesses are organs of society that perform tasks associated with providing most
goods and services the public decides it wants. Under the capitalistic system, a
business can prosper to the extent it performs its particular tasks effectively and
efficiently.
The nature of the tasks to be performed usually changes over time as those served
change The successful company predicts and responds to the needs of its chosen
customers.
Customers, therefore define the business. At all times, some customers are growing in
their ability to buy, others are declining. The astute manager ascertains which is which.
Video: The Customer Is King
See also:
Resources for Startups
Help
Write It Down
Prepare and work from a written plan that shows who does what, by when.
Until committed to paper, intentions are seeds without soil, sails without wind, mere
wishes that render communication inefficient, understanding uncertain, feedback
inaccurate, and execution sporadic. Without execution, there is no payoff.
The process of committing plans to paper is easy to postpone under the press of day-to-
day events. In the absence of a document, fully coordinated usage of the resources of
the business is unlikely.
Each participant travels along a different route toward a destination of his or her own
choosing. Decisions are made independently, without a map. Time is lost, energy
squandered.
What is the most important written document in your business? Employee handbook?
Business Plan? Goals? Mission Statement? Why?
See also:
Communicate

Think, plan, do, repeat
I delegate, therefore I am
Resources for Startups
Help
Begin It Now
Whatever you can do
or dream you can,
begin it.
Boldness has Genius,
Power and Magic in it.
Begin it now!
Goethe
See also:
Resources for Startups
Help
Hire Experience
Employ key people with proven records of success at doing what needs to be done.
People do what they like; they like what they know. Experience adds depth to
knowledge. The best indicator of how people will perform in the future is how they have
done in the past in the same or related activity.
Criteria for selecting key people are dictated by the plans, the blueprints for the
business. The plans reflect the operational objectives and the intentions of the primary
participants. The interest and capabilities of a new person must harmonize with both.
If experience is not required, hire Attitude.
Video: The Best Way to Hire Employees
See also:
Always Be Recruiting
Resources for Startups
Help
Motivate

Reward individual performance that exceeds agreed upon standards.
Performance above the minimum level is a discretionary matter for each team member.
Most people have alternative off-the-job ways of using excess energy or talent.
Channeling such excess into activity beneficial to the business requires a tailored
approach for each individual.
A manager must first ensure that there is understanding of the minimum results to be
achieved. Then, for performance above the minimum, forms of compensation important
to the performer - or in some cases, teams of performers - must be used.
This video offers some surprising research on what motivates us and how it changes
according to certain circumstances:
Video: The Surprising Truth About Motivation
See also:
Resources for Startups
Help
Conserve Energy
Concentrate all available resources on accomplishing two or three specific operational
objectives within a given time period.
A young, growing company has finite resources and will therefore achieve competitive
advantage when playing for limited, explicit gains in a marketplace of its own choosing.
Specialization breeds an organization sensitive to opportunities and quick to act.
But any advantage withers if follow through is weak. It will be weak if resources are
dissipated. Resource dilution is a sure formula for mediocrity, a state of being that
aspiring growth businesses cannot afford.
Steve Jobs started in a garage and built the most valuable company in the country by
saying “No!”. The bottom line is that you can’t do everything, so choose wisely.
Video: Steve Job “Focus is about saying no”
See also:
Resources for Startups
Help
Be Not Greedy

Expand methodically from a profitable base toward a balanced business.
Optimism is both the poison and the antidote of the growth company manager. It may
be possible to accomplish all things, but not simultaneously. With limited resources,
sequential growth over time is the judicious prescription for prosperity.
Seek logical, incremental extensions of existing activities, but avoid a growth-for-
growth’s-sake mentality. Bigger is not automatically better; more is not necessarily
merrier.
Make managing a competitive advantage. Increase customer dependency on the
enterprise.
And, remember the fate of Gordon Gecko’s mantra “Greed is Good”:
Video: Greed is good
See also:
Resources for Startups
Help
Test
Anticipate incessant external change by continuously testing adopted business plans for
their consistency with the realities of the world marketplace.
The past will not come again. Neither isolation nor insulation from tomorrow is possible.
The problems of the times are the opportunities of the times, as always.
See also:
Measure it to manage it
Resources for Startups
Help
The Superior Man
The superior man
is slow in his words
and earnest in his actions.
Confucius
See also:
Resources for Startups

Help
Measure it to manage it
You’re either in control, or out of control. It is of the utmost importance to know the
difference, and the only way to know that is to measure what you need to control.
Take profits, for example; certainly you measure the amount of profit, and as a
percentage of sales, but is that percentage consistent with prior periods? Do you
measure profit by product, by team member, and by customer?
Many business owners are satisfied to simply know they have made a profit, and don’t
bother to make further measurements.
What do you measure? That question reminds me of some advice my dentist gave me:
“Only floss the teeth you want to keep.” Measure only the stuff you want to manage. Be
sure your team knows what they should be measuring and managing, and how they
personally will be measured and managed.
What are the most important metrics you manage in your business?
See also:
Write It Down Motivate
Resources for Startups
Help
Easy Does It
As simplicity brings pleasure to the eye, it also brings cash to the business.
If there is any single four-letter word that describes the essence of success in sales, it
is easy. You must make it easy for the customer to buy.
It is surprising how difficult it is to make something easy! You start by getting rid of
everything that you think is not completely essential, and then try to improve it by
removing even more…
To make it easy for a customer to buy, offer a money-back guarantee, and all sort of
incentives designed to make the buying decision utterly simple, risk-free and effortless.
It is a continuing battle to maintain ease of use while dealing with a blizzard of features
and improvements as the product matures.
See also:

Resources for Startups
Help
Price and Terms
How to price your product or service is one of the most difficult decisions you will ever
make in your business. You will probably never achieve the optimum price. There are
so many variables; the business, product, customers, and competitors are always
changing. The way to determine the right price is with continuous testing.
For example, you can probably get a higher price than your competitors if you offer a
money-back guarantee and they don’t. But how much higher? At what point do
customers decide that the higher price is not worth the guarantee? Is a free trial period
a smart move? What about lower prices for longer signups? ($10/month, $95/year).
How about if you offer a rebate? And what about paying for referrals who buy? What
about having “sale” pricing periods? Tie-in sales? Frequent buyer cash back? The list of
options seems endless. And how these options are deployed is dependent on your
overall strategy. For example, are you optimizing for profit/cash now, or lifetime value,
or total number of users?
How is the price presented? Just a word or short phrase can make all the difference in
response rates, for example: “pennies per day” or “only”. These things are easily tested,
but few people take the time to focus on these important details.
When you consider the multitude of variables involved in the pricing decision, you will
appreciate that you could probably increase profits significantly by paying close
attention to pricing strategies.
What is the most important thing you have learned about pricing?
See also:
The Customer Is King
Test
Let There Be Cash
Resources for Startups
Help
Positioning

The positioning of your business is a fundamental strategic decision. You may have to
adjust your positioning frequently in the early days of your business as you learn more
about your customers and competition, and even your own capabilities.
What is your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)? How do you differentiate your company
and products from all others?
The ideal is to position yourself in the marketplace in such a way that you have no
competition, by definition. This can be challenging, but it is certainly possible.
What is your positioning statement? Has it changed? Why?
See also:
Test
The Customer Is King
Resources for Startups
Help