Saturday, August 1, 2009

Millionaires Say "No" to Toilet Paper

By Art Basmajian

Most top marketing entrepreneurs have their rags-to-riches stories: from waiting tables to millionaire by the age of 28 from living on the streets to owning multiple homes.

While all these stories arouse feelings hope and inspiration, the trek up the road to success is really a bit more nasty.

Mike Michalowicz would have you ask yourself: "Am I a Toilet Paper Entrepreneur?"

Mike compares true entrepreneurialism to a typical bathroom experience: "business" is done and you discover only 3 sheets of TP left on the roll! Necessity breeds invention if you want to leave the rest room smelling like a rose.

He adds that successful and serious entrepreneurs are not those who sit around and wait for someone to hand them a "roll of toilet paper".

They take action, dig around in the nearby garbage, check out whatever is handy within arm's reach, use the empty cardboard roll if necessary, call it goodand move on!

Serious Entrepreneurs will never sit around, whining excuses. Nor do they have patience for those who do so.

Words you'll never hear from a Serious Entrepreneur:

"I don't have enough money right now."

"I'm not smart enough for that."

"I don't have the time. I'm too busy."

"It takes too long to build a business."

"There are too many risks."

"I'm too old for that."

Serious entrepreneurs don't just sit and dream about when their big break would come, but they get off their butts and make it happen.

They don't wait until they have enough money to fund a new venturethey find creative ways to finance their project by exploiting their own strengths.

And if you think that they're off burning their millions, think again! Warren Buffett, who is, according to Forbes, the third richest person in the world, lives in the same $31,500 home that he brought four decades ago, in Omaha, Nebraska.

Contrary to popular belief, they focus on one project at a time until its finish. They don't multitask.

Nor are they perfectionists. They're the ones who say "Good is good enough."

They know that speed and money go together.

They know that if they sit around and do and erase and redo and re-erase, by the time they finish their product, their competition would have swooped in, cornered the market, and left them no room at all.

They don't spend the bulk of their time thinking, planning, and revising they take action.

They are thrill seekers, but they have gone out of their way to calculate the risks involved.

Founder of Feedburner.com Dick Costolo once said, "The key is to just get on the bike, and the key to getting on the bike is to stop thinking about 'there are a bunch of reasons I might fall off' and just hop on and peddle the damned thing. You can pick up a map, a tire pump, and better footwear along the way."

Determined entrepreneurs need no toilet paper.

It's probably because they'll have a spare napkin or piece of paper somewhere in their pockets with their next million-dollar plan scribbled hastily on its back.

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