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English Script Request

khaledhakami
Complete / 5134 Words
by tobi44 0:00 - 0:00:56

Hi, I'm Ebong. I'm a CPA, Entrepreneur, small business champion, financial contributor on TV, and now, I'm the author of the new business book Start Me Up: The No Business Plan Business Plan. Now do you have an idea for a business? Is there a dream in your heart, or a desire, to actually start something? Maybe leaving your existing job and starting a business, or it could be something as simple as starting something on the side in order to make some extra money for you and your family. That's what the American Dream is about. Everybody has these kind of ideas and these dreams. Now what do you normally do when that happens? Well, you go to Google, maybe you ask a few friends, you say: Hey, this might be a good idea! And what do you get in response? You usually get things like: That idea has already been done; there's ten other companies already doing it. Or you maybe getting something like: Go to Google, you need to write a business plan.

by dalindeck 0:00:56 - 0:01:55

And so, a lot of people end up going online, finding someone to write one for them, maybe buying some business plan software, and then they get stuck. They stop. You know why? The main reason why they stop is because the idea of writing a hundred page, fifty page, even a thirty page business plan is daunting. Especially for people who don't have that background. Writing a business plan is like taking a course in itself in college almost, it's very complex, confusing, but more importantly it's useless. Nobody reads it, the person writing it's not going to read it, you're not going to read it, any investor is not going to read it. So there's actually no reason for you to bother writing one. So what ends up happening is you take your idea, that desire, that instinct to taste the American Dream, and you put it away on the shelf. Some of you may even forget about it, and five years later somebody else is doing what you proposed to do five years before. Well you see, enough of that.

by Ariellover18 1:55 - 3:28

I was recently flying and traveling for work and I was about to go and give a talk across country. On my flight I met a nice woman, her name was Karen. And she was telling me about an idea that she had and I can see the gleam in her eyes as she was sharing this story with me. Everything sounded good but then one thing she said actually got my mind working, she said "there's no business out there like this." And then I said "Ok that's, there's usually a reason for that but more importantly, what's stopping you from continuing to start this business?" And she said something to me that I found to be very profound and got me thinking about where I am today and talking about why I'm here giving you this, this video. She said to me "I have to finish my business plan." I said "Ok, that's, that's fair. So when did you start?" "Oh five months ago." And then I said "What's stopping you now?" "Well, I don't understand the financial piece, I have to hire a friend, I know somebody that who gained their MBA that can help me." Again she wasted almost six months of her life filling out documents and forms and writing things that, for intents and purposes, is fiction. And that got me going. And then from that point forward I started running into lots of other people who were going through the same part of the financial and entrepreneurial journey. What was the point?

by Ariellover18 3:28 - 4:27

Well it's very simple. What if I told you that there was a simpler way of getting your business off the ground and started. What if I told you that I can simplify that mess, that path, that journey to four simple steps. There are four main areas you need to focus on when you want to start a business and when you wanna think about starting a business. Going from your idea to when you're actually interacting with customers. That's the thing, over my 12, 13 year career as a CPA as a small business person, even starting my own entrepreneurial endeavors. I learned a lot about these processes, some of my failures, some of my successes. I also interviewed and talked to a lot of other successful entrepreneurs who went through similar processes and they were able to utilise their experiences to formulate these four main areas. I call them the four S's to small business success. It's relatively simple.

by Ariellover18 4:27 - 5:37

These four S's are: Structure, Strategy, Systems, and Sales. These four main areas are the one thing you should focus on in order to increase the chances of you starting your business. Not only doing that but also making the most money you possibly can in your business and eventually growing. That's the whole purpose of being in business. It's not to get investors and loans and everything else. Even though that's part of the journey, the goal is to be self-sufficient. The whole idea, the concept of a business is to be self-sufficient. It's not about getting in money and not making any of your own. If you can't make your own money in your business you go out of business, relatively, that's the simple truth of it. So now the question then becomes "What are the four S's?" Now what does that mean and why do I bother? In loom of a business plan, now granted I'm here talking about, I'm the anti-business plan guy, that's my platform. I think business plans are crap and they're a waste of your time. Especially when you want to put your money and your sweat and your energy into something that you really believe in your heart is the right thing to do.

by Ariellover18 5:37 - 6:44

So use the four S's in simplistic forms. Structure: the whole point, the whole part of the structure section is focusing on your idea but more importantly focusing on a problem that you want to solve. So I told Karen, i said: What's more important to you? Before you tell me the idea. Just think about the problem you're solving. Don't follow up with your idea. Don't tell me that there's no one else out there doing this. That's not important to me. What's important is: What problem are you solving? A lot of the big companies out there, even the smaller companies out there, they all started from that, from that vantage point. They started with solving a problem. You know why? Because people are more likely to come back to you if you solve their problem. People pay money to solve problems. There's only real two reasons why people spend money and why you're spending money: to solve a problem or to get a desired result. That's it. Otherwise you put your money in your pocket. So if you fall in love with solving a problem you increase the chances of somebody actually wanting to give you money and at a high dollar value.

by Ariellover18 6:44 - 7:38

Now, you could say, well Ebong, not every business out there solves problems. You're right, some businesses don't solve problems but very few of them and those businesses don't last very long. I'm willing to guarantee you that. You can email me, just give me an example, I'll gladly give your response to that and also debate you on that. But the reality is, most real businesses that last long-term, they solve problems. And then as they get bigger, they solve more problems, and then they solve them on a grander scale, on a bigger level. So your goal is for structure, is to fall in love with the problem you're solving and not the idea. Too many people do that and that's why they fail. They turn it into an emotional thing, and love the business, but in reality it's not doing anything. The pet rock as an example, the chia pet as an example. Those aren't businesses, they're products. The Snuggie's not a business it's a product. You get it?

by Ariellover18 7:38 - 9:37

Now the second is, again just as important, it's called Strategy. Strategy, the importance of strategy is this: there are multiple facets in strategy but the main part of strategy that's really important, that you need to focus on is price. Now for too often, you can ask anybody you know that started their own business, any entrepreneur. We tend to think that we wanna spend less, we think we wanna spend a lot less than what we want. Now granted if you focus on the first part Structure in solving a problem, the idea of price, the concept of price becomes a myth. The reality is when people spend a lot of money, they spend money because there's a problem that's being solved, even it's not as obvious to you and I. There is a problem underneath the purchase of that item. Here's an example: if price wasn't an issue, there's two examples I'm gonna give you, if price wasn't an issue then why do people drive BMWs and Mercedes and they go out and spend a half a million dollars on Ferraris? Because you can go out and buy a Hyundai or you can go buy a Kia or buy a $10,000 car, right. Why do people spend 5, 6, $7,000 on the red bottom Christian Louboutin shoes? Why do women do that? You can go easily buy shoes that look very similar to that by a lot of brans like Steve Madden for like 1/20th of the price. Even 50 bucks if you want. Why do people spend money on expensive purses instead of going to the department store or even maybe the dollar store and find something that's a lot cheaper? You see what I mean? Price, the idea of price is a myth, but when a lot of entrepreneurs start they think that everybody wants to spend less and so they do, they make the cardinal mistake and the number one of the biggest mistakes they make that almost puts them out of business and eventually leads to their failure is they don't charge enough money for their product or service.

by Ariellover18 9:37 - 10:41

Now if you're not solving a problem then you become a commodity. And the idea of a commodity is, the person purchasing your product or service can't tell the difference. Now here's an example of a commodity: when you buy gasoline, and you go to buy gas for your car, your scooter, whatever you're driving right. I personally, and I'm sure you can't either, you can't tell the difference between Shell gasoline, BP, Exon, I have no clue. So you know what I do? I look at the price. I make sure it meets the minimum standards that I need which is about 91 or 93 for my gas tank for my car. And if it has that, if that's the lowest price, I'm gonna go there. Understand? But if I wanna buy a car, I know what I'm getting with a BMW, I have a general idea with a Mercedes. I know what I'm gonna get with a Honda, I know what I'm gonna get with a Hyundai. I know what I'm gonna get with a Kia. So different levels of comfort, different levels of luxury. That's why people pay more money. That's why people pay more money for a house in a certain desired neighborhood. That's why people pay more money to send their kids to a certain school. You see what I mean?

by Ariellover18 10:41 - 12:08

There's a value in there. There's a result that I want to get. THere's a need that I want to be filled or a problem I want to have solved. The key is, with strategy, is if you solve a problem in your structure the pricing that you charge can be higher. Last example with strategy: say you own a business and in the middle of the night the pipes burst and they're flooding out your restaurant, ok. The alarm goes off, you pick up a phonebook, or if anybody else is still using a phonebook, you go to Google and you find a plumber. You ask the plumber, "Hey can you come and shut this off and part of your service also includes cleaning up the mess and making everything, make sure everything's pristine, so when I come back the next morning or the next day, everything's tip-top shape." The plumber says "Yes, we're one of the few businesses in your city that actually does this service. The rub is I'm gonna charge you $1000 for that service." If you'd called during the day you probably could've had at least 30 different companies willing to do that and would have done it for a lot less, 2, $300. But the reality is, what's more important to your business as a restaurant owner is that you can open up tomorrow morning. It's not that you can save 5, 6, 7, $800 that night. You see what I mean? That's why the importance of solving problems resonates when it comes to starting your business, thinking about your business. So with your business idea you need to think about: What problem am I solving? And if I figure out what that problem is, I gotta figure out how I can charge the most from a price perspective.

by Ariellover18 12:08 - 13:13

The third is Systems. Now with systems, a lot of things, a lot of what befalls entrepreneurs or causes them problems is that they don't have time. Now, I get it, you got kids, you have a husband, you have a wife, you have spouse, you have a significant other, you have a job, you have other responsibilities. Now how're you gonna do all these things and then start a business on the side. That sounds crazy. Systems is thinking about a different way to bring in resources for a cheaper amount or for a lower cost for labor, right. This includes finding interns, this includes using websites like "freeleger.com", "taskrabbit.com", you can even use craigslist. Finding people or finding virtual systems to help do some of the non-revenue producing activities. You can focus on the things that will help you continue to grow your business. It allows you to scale. Now here's a bigger example, a macro example, k. McDonald's is an example. I've traveled all over the world, been international, I've been to international countries.

by Ariellover18 13:13 - 14:16

And as one example I went to China. Going to China and I bought a Big Mac and I had a Big Mac meal. The Big Mac there tasted exactly the same and looked exactly the same as if I got it here in the D.C. area, if I got it in Kansas, or if I got it in Texas. Now the reason for that, there are procedures that are put in place to ensure the quality is preserve the same. You go to any airport, any Starbucks, in any country the lattes you order all taste the same. The coffee you order tastes the same, everything tastes the same. It's the same experience. And that's the key, that's the mistake people have. They start growing too quickly or they don't have the right procedures in place and everything suffers in other areas. So there's inconsistency in delivering of your product and of your service. And that's one of the things that actually, allows, causes entrepreneurs like you to fail. And then we're gonna fix that. That's what the point of Systems is. Now Sales, I mean that, it's self-explanatory, right. You need sales in order to continue making money.

by rachaelbrown 0:00 - 7:37

Hi, I'm Ebong. I'm a CPA, entrepreneur, small business champion, financial contributor on TV, and now I'm the author of a new business book, "Start Me Up: The No Business Plan Business Plan". Now, do you have an idea for a business? Is there a dream in your heart or a desire to actually start something? Maybe leaving your sixteen job and starting a business, or it could be something as simple as maybe starting something on the side in order to make some extra money for you and your family. You know, that's what the American dream is about. Everybody has these kinds of ideas and these dreams. Now, what do you normally do when that happens? Well, you go to Google, maybe you ask a few friends, you say "Hey, this might be a good idea!" And what do you get in response? You usually get things like "That idea's already been done," "There's ten other companies already doing it," or you may be getting something like "Go to, go to Google and. . . and find. . . you need to write a business plan." And so, a lot of people end up going on. . . on line, finding somebody to write one for them, maybe buying some business plan software, and then they get stuck. They stop. You know why? The main reason why they stop is because the idea of writing a 100-page, 50-page, even a 30-page business plan is daunting, especially for people who don't have that background. Writing a business plan is like taking a course itself in college almost; it's very complex, confusing, but more importantly it's useless. Nobody reads it. The person writing it's not gonna read it, you're not gonna read it, any investor is not gonna read it, so there's actually no reason for you to even bother with one. So what ends up happening is you take your idea and desire-- that instinct to taste the American dream-- and you put it away on a shelf. Some of you may even forget about it. Then, five years later, somebody else is doing what you proposed to do five years before. Well, you see, enough of that. I was recently flying and travelling, uh, for work, and I was about to go and, give a, give a talk across, across the country. On my flight, I met a nice woman. Her name was Karen, and she was telling me about an idea that she had, and I could see the gleam in her eyes as she was sharing this story with me. Everything sounded good. But then one thing she said actually got my, my mind working, she said, "There's no business out there like this." And then I said, "OK, that's. . . there's usually a reason for that, but, more importantly, what's stopping you from continuing to start this business?" And she said something to me that I found to be very profound, and got me thinking about where I am today, and talking about why I'm here giving you this, this video. She said to me, "I have to finish my business plan." I said, "Oh, OK, that's, that's fair. So. . . when did you start?" "Oh, five months ago." And I said, "What's stopping you now?" "Well, I don't understand the financial piece, I have to hire a friend, I know somebody in Ganger NBA that can help me. . ." Again, she'd wasted almost six months of her life filling out documents and forms and writing things that, for all intents and purposes, is fiction. And that got me going. And then from that point forward, I started running into lots of other people who were going through the same part of the financial and entrepreneurial journey. What was the point? Well, it's very simple. What if I told you that there was a simpler way of getting you business off the ground and starting? What if I told you that I can simplify that mess, that path, that journey to four simple steps, just four main areas you need to focus on when you wanna start a business, and when you wanna think about starting a business. Going from your idea, to when you're actually interacting with a customers. That's the thing! Over my 12, 13 year career as a CPA, as a small business person, even starting my own entrepreneurial endeavors, I learned a lot about these processes; some of my failures, but some of my successes. I also interviewed and talked a lot of other successful entrepreneurs who went through similar processes, and they were able to utilize their experiences to formulate these four main areas. I call them "The Four 'S's of Small Business Success".
It's relatively simple. These four 'S's are structure, strategy, systems, and sales. These four main areas are the one thing that you should focus on in order to increase the chances of you starting your business. Not only doing that, but also making the most money you possibly can in your business, and eventually growing. That's the whole purpose of being in business. It's not to get investors and loans and everything else, even though that's part of the journey. The goal is to be self-sufficient. The whole idea, the concept of a business is to be self-sufficient. It's not about getting in money and not making any of your own. If you can't make your own money in your business, you go out of business. Relatively. . . that's, that's the simple truth of it. So now the question then becomes, what are the four 'S's? What does that mean and why do I, why do I bother? In lieu of a business plan-- now granted, I'm here talking about, I'm the anti-business plan guy-- that's my, that's my platform, I think business plans are crap and they're a waste of your time, especially when you wanna put your money and your sweat and your energy into something that you really believe in your heart is the right thing to do. So, here's the four 'S's in simplistic forms. Structure. The whole point, the whole part of the structure section is focusing on your idea, but more importantly, focusing on a problem that you want to solve. So, I told Karen, I said, "What's more important to you, before you tell me the idea, just think about the problem you're solving. Don't follow up with your idea. Don't tell me that there's, that there's no one out there doing this. That doesn't, that's not important to me. What's important is: what problem are you solving? A lot of the big companies out there, even the smaller companies out there, they all started from that, from that vantage point. They started with solving a problem. You know why? Because people are most, are more likely to come back to you if you solve their problem. People pay money to solve problems. There's only really two reasons why people spend money, why you're spending money. To solve a problem, or to get a desired result. That's it. Otherwise, you put your money in your pocket. So, if you fall in love with solving a problem, you increase the chances of somebody actually wanting to give you money at a high dollar value. Now, you could say, "Well, Ebong, not every business out there solves problems. You're right. Some businesses don't solve problems, and there are very few of them. And those businesses don't last very long, I'm willing to guarantee you that. You can e-mail me, just give me an example. I'll will, I'll be, I'll gladly give you a response to that, and also debate you on that. But the reality is, most real businesses that last long-term; they solve problems. And then, as they get bigger, they solve more problems, and then they solve them on a grander scale, on a bigger, on a bigger level. So, your goal is, for structure, is to fall in love with the, with the problem you're solving and not the idea. Too many people do that, and that's why they fail. They, they, they turn it into an emotional thing and love the, love the, love the uh, business. But in reality, it's not doing anything. The pet rock is an example.The chia pet's an example. Those aren't businesses, they're products. The snuggie's not a business, it's a product. You get it?

by kanyethegiant 7:37 - 8:29

You get it? Now the second is, again just as important, it's called a strategy. Strategy, the importance of strategy is this. There are multiple facets in strategy. But the main part of strategy that's really important you need to focus on is price. Now for too often you can ask anybody you know who's started their own business, any entrepreneur, we tend to think that we want to spend less, we think we want to spend a lot less than what we want. Now granted, if you focus on the first part structure and solve a problem, the idea of price, the concept of price, becomes a myth. The reality is, when people spend a lot of money, they spend money because there's a problem that's being solved. Even if it's not as obvious to you and I, there is a problem underneath the purchase of that item.

by ipu 8:29 - 10:05

Here's an example.
If price wasn't an issue...
There's two examples I'm gonna give you.
If price wasn't an issue, then why do people drive BMWs and Mercedes and they go out and spend half a million dollars on Ferraris?
Because you could go out and buy a Hyundai, or you can go buy a Kia, or buy a ten thousand dollar car, right?
Why do people spend 5, 6, 7, a thousand dollars on the red-bottom [Christian Loubie] tennis shoes?
Why do women do that?
You can go easily buy shoes that look very similar to that, buy a lot of brands like Steve Madden for like one twentieth of the price, even fifty bucks if you want.
Why do people spend money on expensive purses, instead of going to the department store, or even maybe even the dollar store and find something that's a lot cheaper.
You see what I mean?
Price, the idea of price is a myth.
But when a lot of entrepreneurs start, they think that everybody wants to spend less. And so they do...they make the cardinal mistake.
And the number---one of the biggest mistakes they make that actually, almost put them out of business, and eventually leads to their failure, is they don't charge enough money for their product or service.
Now if you're not solving a problem, then you become a commodity, and the idea of a commodity is, the person purchasing your product or service can't tell the difference.
Now here's an example of a commodity.
When you buy gasoline, and you go to the--to buy gas for your car, your scooter, or whatever you're driving, right?
I personally, and I'm sure you can't either, you can't tell the difference between Shell gasoline, BP, Exxon. I have no clue.
So you know what I do? I look at the price.

by edortizm 10:05 - 11:58

I look at the price, I make sure it meats the minimum standard that I need which is about 91 or 93 per my gas take for my car and when it has that if that's the lowest price I'm gonna go there, understand. But if a wanna buy a car, but if I wanna buy a car I know what I'm getting with a BMW I have the general idea with a Mercedes I know what I'm getting with a Honda I know what a get with a KIA so the different levels of comfort, different levels of luxury that's why people pay more money, that's why people pay more money for a house in a desired neighborhood that's why they pay more money to send kids to certain school you see what I mean there is a value in there, there is a result that I want to get, there is a need I want to be filled or problem I want to have solved. The key is with strategies if you solve a problem and structure the price you need to charge can be higher last example strategy so you own a business and in the middle of the night the pipe burns and are flooding out your restaurant OK the alarm goes off you pick up the phone book or ...body else still using a phone book, you go to google and you find a plummer, you ask the plummer hey can you come shot off and part of your service also includes cleaning up the mess and make everything and make sure everything is pristine so when I come back next morning or next day everything is ... the plummer says yes we are one of the few business in your city that actually do this service the rub is I'm gonna charge a thousand dollars for that service if he'd call during the day you probably could have at least thirty different companies willing to do that for a lot less, two to three hundred dollars but the reality is whats more important to your business as restaurant owner that you can open up tomorrow morning it's not that you can save five, six, seven, eight hundred dollars that night you see what I mean that's why the importance of solving problems resonates when it comes to starting your business thinking about your business

by odjinmi 11:58 - 12:27

So with your business idea, you need to think about what problem am I solving? and if I figure out what that problem is, I got to figure out how I can charge the most, from a price perspective. The third is systems, now with systems a lot of what befalls entrepreneur or causes them problems is they don't have time. I get it, you have got kids, you have a husband, you have a wife, you have a spouse, you have significant other, you have a job, you have other responsibilities.

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