Here are the results from our most recent Young Entrepreneur poll asking you: “Who is your business role model?”

Famous Entrepreneurs (15)

John D. Rockefeller (3):

“Sam Longiotti, Warren Buffet, John D. Rockefeller and Bill Gates”

“John D. Rockefeller, Warren Buffett, Cornelious Vanderbelt, and a few more”

“Donald trump. And john d. Rockafeller.”

Donald Trump (3):

“Donald Trump, how to turn your name to a brand!”

“I second that. (Donald Trump, how to turn your name to a brand!)”

“Donald trump. And john d. Rockafeller.” 

Richard Branson (2):

“Richard Branson is such a free spirit in what he does in the business world. He’s not afraid to try things, and he’s not afraid of failure. He always has the energy to continue what he’s doing if he does fail.”

“Richard Branson & Jack Welch.”

Warren Buffett (2):

“Sam Longiotti, Warren Buffet, John D. Rockefeller and Bill Gates”

“John D. Rockefeller, Warren Buffett, Cornelious Vanderbelt, and a few more”

Soichiro Honda (1):

“I always admire Soichiro Honda. I use the products.”

Others:

“Sam Longiotti, Warren Buffet, John D. Rockefeller and Bill Gates”

“John D. Rockefeller, Warren Buffett, Cornelious Vanderbelt, and a few more”

“Dave Thomas”

“Richard Branson & Jack Welch.”

Nobody (2)

“Your question has got me thinking… I don’t really have a business role model, but perhaps I am in search of one!”

“I need to find one. They always say its good if you can find a role model.”

Family (2)

Grandfather:

“Great poll. My business role model is definitely my grandpa who has had a plethora of entrepreneurial success and most importantly, did it the right way through hard work, ethical relationships, and being smarter than everyone else (seriously, I wish I was 1/100 as smart as he is).”

Great Uncle:

“My great uncle (my father’s uncle)..but he was great too! hehe He grew up in a poor family and persevered to build a powerful Publishing Company in India called LIFCO that is still very successful and being run by his sons. I only met him once and I was too young to remember well but his legacy has inspired me.”

Authors

Tim Ferriss:

“There is no other person who would best personify many of my financial and life goals than Tim Ferris, author of the 4-Hour Workweek. I recommend that book to any persons who wants to own/start their own business (and not run one!).”

Thank you everyone for casting your vote - it’s an impressive list of mentors and for those of you who don’t have a business mentor yet, it’s time to get searching!

I frequently get asked about the relative importance of the Page Rank of a website versus the traffic to the website. This becomes especially important if you’re looking at revenue sources for your online business or if you’re looking at selling your website.

Question: Would you rather have a Page Rank 3 with 100 visitors per month or a Page Rank 1 with 1,000 visitors per month?

The Case For High Page Rank

• It’s often easier to sell a domain (and get a better price) if you have a high Page Rank and low traffic than the other way around.
• It’s easier to monetize the site by selling links which pass Page Rank to advertiser webpages
• It makes your website looks more prestigious and important

The Case For More Traffic

• It’s easier to monetize the site through pay per click, affiliate programs, and banner advertisements.
• It’s also easier to sell your own products or services to help monetize the webpage
• It will help your Alexa ranking which will give you additional credibility

My own preference is to focus on traffic as opposed to Page Rank. Page Rank is sexy but high traffic will make you more money unless you’re in the niche business of website flipping or selling links (which is a no-no in Google’s eyes).

What is your preference? As online entrepreneurs we obviously want both Page Rank and traffic but if you had to pick only one, which would you prefer?

Yesterday afternoon I was interviewed by a franchise related magazine and was asked my opinion on why so many people were starting businesses now since being let go from their regular work.

I was also asked what advice I would give to a new entrepreneur in these tough economic times. I thought I would share my thoughts with you as well.

Why are so many people starting businesses now after being let go from work?

1. Control Your Own Destiny.

When you work for someone else you don’t have control over your destiny. You’re always tied to the success of the organization and when the company has problems you could be let go for no fault of your own. When you run your own business you make the decisions and your hard work is in return rewarded with profits.

2. Young Workers Want Opportunity.

Many of today’s young workers were hired during the boom times and haven’t seen an economic recession. Now they are realizing that life isn’t always so great working at a big company. They know they are still young and are using the chance to start off in a new area by doing their own business. If not now then when?

3. Necessity Is The Mother of Invention.

Many people cannot find work anywhere else so they start their own business more out of a necessity to survive than out of a desire to be an entrepreneur. There is nothing so powerful as the need to put food on the table when your back is up against the wall.

What top 2 tips would you give to new entrepreneurs starting out?

1. Build Around A Customer.

Find someone to buy what you are selling and get the cash coming in right away. Do not waste time thinking and planning endlessly. Find a problem and solve it. Many people have found that their old employer is actually a good potential customer if you can solve their critical needs.

2. Do Not Spend Until You Earn. 
Especially if you have been let go from work, you do not want to get into anything that will require a large capital outlay. Find ways to get profitable and start filing up your bank account. This may mean starting with a service where you are trading your time for money and eventually moving into a product based company once you have the capital to expand.

Why do you think people are rushing to start new businesses? What advice would you give them?

If it were not for the ingenuity of W.K. Kellogg, the world today might never know flaked cereal.

A master marketer and inventor, Kellogg revolutionized the breakfast food industry when he decided to start his own company and sell toasted corn flakes back in 1906.

Today, that same company has grown to include almost 26,000 employees and earns over $11.5 billion in revenue.

He dropped out of school and was always considered to be the “dim-witted” child in his family.

So how did this boy so destined for failure rise to become one of America’s most well-known entrepreneurs?

“As a boy, I never learned to play.

I confess at the time I little realized the extent to which the food business might develop in Battle Creek. I was so overloaded with work that I am conscious that very little, if any of it, was performed satisfactorily. I did the work as business manager of the Sanitarium and got no glory and very little money. I was always notified when insane patients succeeded in getting away.

For twenty-two and one-half years, I had absolutely lost all my individuality in you. I tried to see things through your eyes and do things as you would do them.

I never, at any period of my life, aspired to become wealthy, but the fierce competition perhaps developed a fighting spirit, and in the effort to secure our share, the business has succeeded. It is my hope that the property that kind Providence has brought me may be helpful to many others, and that I may be found a faithful steward.

Dollars have never been known to produce character, and character will never be produced by money.

I sort of feel it in my bones that we are preparing a campaign for a food which will eventually prove to be the leading cereal of the United States, if not the world.“

Do you “feel in your bones” that your business will be successful?

This week’s Entrepreneur University comes thanks to Debra Gould. Debra is an internationally recognized home staging expert also known as “The Staging Diva.”

Today Debra shares her lessons learned from the gym:

“I belonged to a gym for years and rarely made it there despite all my best intentions. Every month, the membership fee on my credit card reminded me how I’d failed to follow through yet again.

Then last year I had major surgery. What a wakeup call to pay more attention to my health! It took 4 months to fully recover and I decided that no amount of wishing and promising was going to get me to the gym until I did something different. So, I purchased 50 training sessions with a personal trainer and made appointments to work with him three times a week.

It’s been a difficult journey toward becoming fit, but it reminded me of a few lessons that apply equally to building a business.

1. Even the slightest adjustment can make a world of difference.

I would think I was doing an exercise correctly until my trainer had me change my arm position by an inch or less. Suddenly I was using a whole new set of muscles. I could have done the exercise incorrectly for months with no results and concluded that exercise was a waste of time!

That’s not unlike someone having a website and giving up after a year or less, thinking it’s a waste of effort when the problem wasn’t with being on the web, but with the content of their site. Sometimes all that’s needed is a little fine tuning to get the results you want.

2. Having an appointment or a deadline keeps you focused.

I’ve blocked off 2 hours three times a week for my personal trainer. There is no way I would have gone to the gym that often if he wasn’t expecting me and I hadn’t already paid for the time. But now I’m in better shape than I have been in 20 years.

I still fight with the little voice in my head that says, “This is too expensive and too time consuming.” But the reality is that there’s a huge payoff. It’s keeping me healthy, so how can I afford NOT to do it?

This is not unlike someone saying “I can’t afford to promote my business or learn how to charge properly for my services.” If you don’t do these things you won’t have a business, so how can you afford NOT to do them?

3. Having an objective third party give you expert advice and encouragement can keep you motivated no matter how hard you’re working or how hopeless it can sometimes feel.

Just when an exercise is getting easier, my trainer ups the weight, speeds up the machine, or makes me do more repetitions. I get discouraged because then it’s hard work all over again and I want to quit. But the trainer keeps me going and encourages me to push through the hard part. Little by little my muscles get stronger and my heart rate recovers more quickly. I’m now on my third set of 50 training sessions and I feel fantastic!

That’s what it’s like in business. You finally figure out something you were struggling with and it gets easier. You’re proud of yourself but you know coasting along will not generate more progress and growth. You have to take on new challenges.

With each new hurdle that you tackle, you get stronger and more confident. Then you go through a period of feeling like a beginner again as you take on some new challenge. But remember, success is a process not a final destination.”

Last week I asked you who your business role model was and I wanted to share the results so far:

Famous Entrepreneurs (13)
Richard Branson (2):

“Richard Branson is such a free spirit in what he does in the business world. He’s not afraid to try things, and he’s not afraid of failure. He always has the energy to continue what he’s doing if he does fail.”

“Richard Branson & Jack Welch.”

Warren Buffett (2):

“Sam Longiotti, Warren Buffet, John D. Rockefeller and Bill Gates”

“John D. Rockefeller, Warren Buffett, Cornelious Vanderbelt, and a few more”

John D. Rockefeller (2):

“Sam Longiotti, Warren Buffet, John D. Rockefeller and Bill Gates”

“John D. Rockefeller, Warren Buffett, Cornelious Vanderbelt, and a few more”

Donald Trump (2):

“Donald Trump, how to turn your name to a brand!”

“I second that. (Donald Trump, how to turn your name to a brand!)”

Soichiro Honda:

“I always admire Soichiro Honda. I use the products.”

Others:

“Sam Longiotti, Warren Buffet, John D. Rockefeller and Bill Gates”

“John D. Rockefeller, Warren Buffett, Cornelious Vanderbelt, and a few more”

“Dave Thomas”

Nobody (2)

“Your question has got me thinking… I don’t really have a business role model, but perhaps I am in search of one!”

“I need to find one. They always say its good if you can find a role model.”

Family

Grandfather:

“Great poll. My business role model is definitely my grandpa who has had a plethora of entrepreneurial success and most importantly, did it the right way through hard work, ethical relationships, and being smarter than everyone else (seriously, I wish I was 1/100 as smart as he is).”

Authors

Tim Ferriss:

“There is no other person who would best personify many of my financial and life goals than Tim Ferris, author of the 4-Hour Workweek. I recommend that book to any persons who wants to own/start their own business (and not run one!).”

What do you think about the results so far? If you have someone you’d like to add to the list or vote on the current nominees please comment below!

You can cast your vote by commenting below or by voting in our forums at: New Poll - Who Is Your Business Role Model?

It’s time for another SEO Advice post! Last week, I offered free SEO advice to Teach and Still Grow Rich . I’m going to continue my SEO Advice series today by helping out another YoungEntrepreneur.com blog reader Mus, from VUW’s School of Information Management.

Mus (Mustaqeem) Mohd. Adam - http://international.sim.vuw.ac.nz/

This is the URL: http://international.sim.vuw.ac.nz/

Please provide SEO advice for URL above. Thank you.

Mus

My Recommendations

1) Choose Your Keywords

Looking at the page, I have no idea what keywords you’re trying to target. Is it Information Management? Is it Victoria University? It doesn’t seem like you have targeted a specific set of keywords that you want your website to rank #1 in Google for. If you’re trying to attract students to find your school, think about what keywords they would be typing into a search engine for you to show up? Pick your top keyword choices and start the optimization process!

2) Use Your Title Tags

Your title tag on the homepage reads “About SIM”. The title tag is one of the most important components of SEO for a webpage because you only have so many characters (keep it under 100) to describe what’s on the page so Google gives more weight to what you put in the title tag. It’s also a great case where SEO doesn’t interfere with design because most people don’t look up at your page title (unless you’re in the SEO industry). Once you’ve figured out your keywords, put them in the title tag and use them throughout your content as well - a good rule of thumb is once every second paragraph.

3) Good Page Rank

The good news is your Page Rank is a 5 out of 10 which is pretty good. This means that you have a respectable website in Google’s eyes and you have other authority web pages linking to you. A higher Page Rank gives you a better chance of showing up in the search engines for your keywords if you optimize for those keywords properly (see point #2). Of course it’s all relative. If you competition (other schools) are all Page Rank 5’s or above then you’ll have to work on building more quality links to your site to give your Page Rank a boost.

Good luck Mus!

Readers, what do you think about VUW’s School of Information Management?

To learn more about how to get SEO tips for your website please read my post: Need SEO Advice? Submit Your Site!

One of my favorite HR books is 1001 Ways To Reward Employees. It goes through 1001 ways that you can recognize your team starting from ideas that cost no money to others that start getting more expensive.

One thing I’ve found with my team is the actions that you reward get repeated so you want to make sure you’re rewarding the right thing!

I have two high school interns, for example, who work with many of my customers. What I started doing a few months ago was putting a line at the bottom of all the emails that they send out that reads:

“How am I doing? If you’ve had a good or bad experience working with me please tell Andrew at (email).”

Every time they do a good enough job for one of my customers to write in, I print off the customer email, make a small announcement in the office and reward the intern $10 for the job well done.

For a high school student, it’s a nice reward and it can quickly add up as they continue to do a good job! Yes, I’m out of pocket a little bit of money but how much is customer satisfaction worth? The interns now have an incentive to provide better service because they know they will get rewarded for doing so.

Every quarter I also give all my staff members different appreciation gifts - some get Amazon gift certificates because they are big book readers, others get ebay gift certificates because they are constantly bidding on different items, and others get gifts based on what they’ve been talking about in the office (ie. movie passes for one team member who has been working very hard and needs a break!).

These gifts are usually pretty small in monetary value ($20-$50) but the recognition helps motivate them to continue to perform and keeps the morale high in the office.

The quarterly gifts have worked out well as a general “Thank you for your loyalty” but the performance based ones are having an even greater impact! My next challenge is figuring out how to implement a performance based reward system for technical and editorial staff who are not directly tied to customers or revenue. The behavior I reward will get repeated over and over again so I want to make sure I’m picking the right behavior!

If you haven’t already established a rewards program you should try it out! It can be as simple as someone getting a trophy on their desk until someone else earns the right to have it or giving people hand written, thoughtful notes. You can promise to do something out of character if you reach a certain goal and money, of course, is also a great incentive but remember it doesn’t have to be much to get them going.

Have you tried any kind of performance based incentive programs with your team members?

In March I did a profile of Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of Pokemon (Work Irregular Hours To Find Inspiration - Satoshi Tajiri). I wanted to continue the story today by sharing one of Tajiri’s closely held beliefs: Do It Your Way.

No matter where young Tajiri went as a boy, it seemed he never quite fit in. He collected insects when most of his friends were cramming for college. He spent his money playing video games when most of the other kids were saving up. And, he always remained just a little bit to himself.

Tajiri was an outcast, a person the Japanese called otaku. He had one or two obsessions which preoccupied his time, and he shut himself off to the rest of the world. Tajiri always preferred spending time with his insects more than with people, or playing video games more than living in reality.

But while Tajiri’s obsessions worried his parents, who were convinced that their son was a misfit and turning the wrong corners in life, refusing to change his ways for anyone else allowed him to go on to create what would become the Pokemon phenomenon the world knows today.

To this day, Tajiri maintains his reputation as a quirky game developer. Although he no longer physically goes on the hunt for beetles, Tajiri’s habits are still a sign of his uniqueness. For instance, if you do not see Tajiri around the office for an entire day, it is because he is sleeping. “It’s the way I work,” says Tajiri. “I sleep 12 hours and then work 24 hours. I’ve worked those irregular hours for the past three years. It’s better to stay up day and night to come up with ideas. I usually get inspiration for game designing by working this schedule.”

Tajiri has always shunned the limelight. Even after his tremendous success with Pokemon, he kept his company in the same office it had always been: two floors in a simple office building. But Tajiri was never worried about what anyone else thought of him or his habits.

That is the same attitude with which he approached Pokemon. Before then, Game Boy was host to a number of games, but all of them were about competition. “I liked competition too,” says Tajiri. “But I wanted to design a game that involved interactive communication. Remember, there was no Internet then. The concept of the communication cable is really Japanese: one-on-one. It’s like karate - two players compete, they bow to each other. It’s the Japanese concept of respect.”

In Pokemon, none of the monsters are really evil. As Tajiri describes it, “If a horse runs over you and you die, then the horse is bad. But if you’re riding the horse, the horse is your ally. So, if you have a monster in your collection, then it’s considered good. But if not, it’s still not considered bad, because it could be your friend one day.”

That is why when Tajiri first pitched the concept of Pokemon to Nintendo executives, they could not quite grasp it. But, just like he when he was a kid, Tajiri refused to give in. He stayed true to his vision and always insisted on doing things his way.

Are you doing it your own way in your business?

This week’s Entrepreneur University comes thanks to Andy Marken. Andy has worked in front of and behind the TV camera and radio mike. Unlike most PR people he listens to and understands the consumer’s perspective on the actual use of products.

Andy has been a hit in the past for our blog having been featured three times before:

• Should You Start A Blog? - Entrepreneur University
• How To Do A Media Interview - Entrepreneur University
• How To Create A Sales Incentive Program

Today Andy shares his advice on how to write an effective business proposal:

“Unless you’re on the agency side of the business (which we are), you don’t think much about writing proposals. That’s for those people who have that job…you know sales.

Congratulations.

You just missed a major point of the book that can help you land a job, get programs/projects approved by management and assist you in showing your CEO and VP of marketing that you understand one of your jobs is helping to sell the company, the firm’s reputation, the organization’s products.

At the end of the day, you’re selling. You’re helping put dollars on the bottomline.

We’ve prepared and given probably hundreds of proposals in our 30 years in the business. And we’ve gotten our hands on an equal number of competitive proposals.

Surprisingly they are all pretty similar – an intro tailored to the prospective client with industry, competitive, company facts and figures. This is followed by a fairly boilerplate offering. Then it ends with a dramatic close – the contract/working agreement.

With today’s computerized operations the boilerplate approach is all too common. About as predictable and uninviting as the recommendations lawyers spit out of their systems for several thousands of dollars.

Of course that might be a little predictable since Sant is most successful for his development, sale and support of two widely used proposal automation systems: ProposalMaster and RFPMaster.

Fortunately, we’ve never used or even seen either of the programs. And after reading Persuasive Business Proposals we wonder why anyone would use them unless they were in the cookie cutter service/product business.

By reading, understanding and practicing the guidelines Sant has put forward in the book you realize that it is pretty easy for the recipient to spot a formula proposal and know that it wasn’t prepared just for them – boss or prospective client.

This edition of his book outlines the simple, effective techniques you can put into practice immediately to organize, write and deliver your proposals.

The professional proposal consultant lays out the secrets he has learned over the years and gives you a step-by-step set of guidelines you can use to develop a proposal that zeros in on the recipient and his/her wants and needs. It spells out how you can develop and present the value proposition.

In today’s internet-centric, global economy; Sant shows how you can develop/present an effective proposal without doing it face-to-face. He guides you through the development of PDF and HTML proposals that can be sent electronically.

Once you get past the idea that “you’re not in sales,” you’ll find the actual illustrations that he sprinkles throughout the book – good and bad – to be interesting, informative and useful.

In fact these are the portions of the book that we found most useful. Concrete examples of actual proposals where he painstakingly and clearly spells out what was presented, how it was presented and the strengths/weaknesses of the presentation and messages.

If you want to be humbled in regards to your own management or prospect presentations, you’ll find his Seven Worst Proposal Mistakes invaluable.

We read this section three separate times.

The first time was in passing, perhaps even morbid curiosity just to find out what others had done to “blow a deal.”

The second time was about a week later after reviewing a proposal our staff had prepared for a prospective client and recalling some of the stumbling blocks Sant had outlined in his worst mistakes section.

After reviewing the proposal again we went through Sant’s examples sections and compared good/bad examples with the presentation we were about to present.

With two of our associates we dissected and revised every section of the proposal and perhaps for the first time in 30 years viewed the information from the viewpoint of the person sitting on the other side of the table.

We did the same for an on-going client’s program for a project we thought they should carry out over the coming six months.

Suddenly we realized that the development and presentation of programs, recommendations and ideas wasn’t just an offshoot of our real jobs but was a key business function because if we couldn’t present the idea effectively to the client, we certainly couldn’t carry it out properly!

Granted at this point in our firm’s history we do very few proposals. Our clients now come to us because of our experience in our specific industries. Most of them come because of referrals.

But even then it doesn’t diminish the importance of developing and presenting proposals that zero in on the prospective client’s business needs and objectives. Even if you have broad credibility in your field accurate, effective proposal writing helps you reinforce that credibility with tailored reader-centric messages.

The book helps you think through the entire process from the first contact to the presentation to the follow up. And it lays the foundation for a solid, long-term relationship.

Since we are each selling ourselves every day, we believe Persuasive Business Proposals is a book you’ll want to pick up and read…a couple of times.”

What have you found works best in the business proposals that you’ve created?