Top Ten List for Starting Your Own Business

imelamed — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 21:46:45 +0000

1. What is the need/want you’re fulfilling? Your product or service must fill a need and/or want. People buy for emotional reasons. They don’t buy your product or service, they buy to fill their needs(s) and/or want(s). For example, someone doesn’t go out and buy a windowpane unless theirs is broken or damaged. That person has a need to fix the window. Someone may need a new vehicle, but want a Porsche. Always think in terms of the NEED and/or WANT and sell to the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?).

How Do I Promote and Market My Small Business?

imelamed — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 16:09:31 +0000

First, think about who your target group is. Who Specifically do you need to reach? Do you wish to focus on national, regional or local prospects? Think about the media habit of your target group and what industry associations they may belong to and join those associations or attend their meetings. Remember that the more people you meet the more opportunity you have to meet new prospects or people who can recommend you.

Conrad Black and the Canadian Business Elite

imelamed — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 20:23:45 +0000

I must say there is a part of me that feels for Conrad and especially the loss he represents to this country. Here is a man that a court may jail for apparent misdeeds that should, if true, not call for jail time. My point is that we, as a society, must stop the wholesale aggressive attacks on our business elite for the sake of our economic well being and become more reasonable toward them. Just like our society’s emotionally driven over-the-top dealings with Japanese Canadians during WWll, today’s business elite are unfairly critized and punished due to some bad people at Enron. Our society was hurt by the Enron and Worldcom scandals and we now take it out on today’s executive class.

I will not comment on the technicalities of what Conrad may or may not have done and I certainly do not have all the detailed facts and Conrad may not even be the best example of my over-all point. However, it has been far too often where history has witnessed a blinding of the “big picture” due to the fog of facts. I try to look through the minutia and social prejudices to determine the over-all issue and see the impact an event has on society.

First, it is apparent that what Conrad has been convicted of today would not have even resulted in a criminal charge in the 1990’s. He is the victim of a changing social and business environment where short sighted investors and small minded ambitious lawyers try to make names and profit for themselves. Today, CEO’s are easy targets for a dirth of preceived wrongs. True, there have been business leaders that have abused the shareholder trust but what we now define as an “abuse” has gone too far and is resulting in an increasing loss of a valuable strategic (yes - a strategic) national resource more important then any other in Canada - the buisness leaders and drivers.

No matter what you may think of Conrad and his “elitest” business peers, no matter how arrogant they may seem to you, the fact is that they are the ones that drive the economy of this country. What superstar athlete is not arrogant to some degree! We accept that because it is part of the package that makes them the superstar. Why do we accept this from an athlete but not from our business elite? It is they that create the wealth of the nation by having vision, fortitude and drive to make things happen. Who else has this ability? Certainly not our governments. There are far too few “Conrads” in our country and we seem to be attempting to cower and neuter the few that exist. I wonder if the shareholders who took Conrad to court feel they are better off today. If you look at the stock performance, I would suggest they are not. If you look at the future prospects of their public company without Conrad, I suspect they are not. Those shareholders lost sight in the fog of their own personal greed and misguided sense of justice and now they, and we as a nation, are paying for it.

How many future jobs and Canadian companies have we condemed by our society’s suffocation of “the Conrads”. Even now, the media lament the growing losses of Canadian business (and resources) to foreign ownership and have theorized that this is largely becasue we have too few busiess leaders with the drive and courage to take on those sizable deals. How ironic.

Certainly, if someone commits a crime, then they must do the time. However, we need to re-define what are truley crimes and their appropriate and “just” penalties. It appears Conrad is a textbook example of justice gone well over the top.

Yes, Canadians society seems to resent the rich and powerfull. We forget that their success is our success. Their wealth creates our collective and individual wealth. For Canada’s sake, I hope the “Conrads” make a comeback and we learn to collectively appreciate and respecct them. By the way, don’t count out Conrad Black yet.

Louis

Welcome to Louis J. Sapi blog

imelamed — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 15:28:08 +0000

I would like to welcome everyone to my new website and my blog. On this new website and blog, you will receive up-to-date information and my opinions on topics related to making money like the following: Taxation, Mergers & Acquisitions, Current Events in Finance, Investments, and Interesting Investments Syndincates I organize. Please visit my website at www.louissapi.com and www.hsp-ca.com .

Louis Sapi Blog

Top Ten List for Starting Your Own Business

How Do I Promote and Market My Small Business?

Conrad Black and the Canadian Business Elite

Welcome to Louis J. Sapi blog