However, where does Orange County stand on the entrepreneurship dimension compared to other regions of the country known for their entrepreneurial activities? This question is important since it can point to ways of strengthening entrepreneurship in OC. Curiously, no one can readily answer this question, or so it seems.

The CSUF Center for Entrepreneurship aspires to answer that question. Please click on the link and fill out our survey.

http://ocentrepreneurship.com/2010/03/ocentrepreneurship-survey/

The first goal of a website is to be found and that means building a website that is optimized for search. With Google commanding a 70% share of the search market, the only thing that really matters in search is pleasing Google.

Those beautiful flash-based websites of two years ago are now almost worthless, if you want your customers to find you with key words. Google sees a flash page as a blank page. Instead, Google wants key word rich text and lots of it.

What Google really loves is SEO copy. SEO (search engine optimization) copy needs to be written by an SEO engineer who is also a journalist. Gone are the days of the website owner writing his or her own copy —- to be competitive on the web now requires special writing skills that only a search engine could love.

Gone are the days when your brother in law could design your website over a weekend. Being found on the web today now means appearing in the first three pages of an organic search; page four almost doesn’t get opened. Your brother in law cannot help you anymore.

You now need an SEO savvy web team that understands search and can continually optimize your site for search. Be prepared. Being competitive on the web is now hard and expensive.

John Bradley Jackson
© Copyright 2010 All rights reserved.

This type of pricing reflects a sustainable competitive advantage (SCA) where there is little or no competition. SCA is a description of what is unique about your product or solution that makes you valued in the marketplace. A competitive advantage is sustainable if others can’t copy or deliver the same thing, or if the cost or the time to develop a competing solution is very significant. Micheal Porter, the Harvard Professor who coined the term SCA, suggests that a competitive advantage is achieved when you do different things that are valued by your customer and are not available from the competition.

Pricing with perceived value pricing is niche market heaven. However, be sure that your competitive advantage is real and defensible, or you have got trouble on the way.

How much is too much to charge, when utilizing perceived value based pricing? Look for tear stains on the checks you receive from customers. If it hurts them to write you a check, then you are charging too much. If that is the case, you will need to lower the price.

John Bradley Jackson
© Copyright 2010 All rights reserved.

What is your purpose? Stop for a moment and answer that question.

I know that sounds pretty heavy and it is. Life is truly short (unless that reincarnation thing is for real). Roll with me for a minute here. Let me submit that we all have a unique script to play out. Given the choices before us, why not live a life with purpose?

How about we first provide value to others (such as our friends or customers or even strangers), rather than fixating on our own needs? Yes, the “me” generation might struggle at first with this notion, but the satisfaction of a life of purpose has its rewards. The rewards might be the respect and admiration of others, a sense of calm that you did something right, or, surprisingly, monetary rewards.

I met with a rich man the other day (far richer than me). His vast wealth was part hard work and part luck (he admitted to being born right). Yet, his money was not the ticket to happiness, instead his greatest satisfaction was giving to others. All his profits are given to charity. Despite that he gives away his profits, he continues to be rewarded beyond his dreams — more money, quiet satisfaction, and contentment.

In the same week, I met with a poor man, or so I thought. He had lost his house in a fire, declared bankruptcy, and had lost most of his possessions. Yet, his passion was music. His gift to others was his song and it was beautiful. My God it was beautiful. His music plays again and again in my head. I am a better person because I met him. I will do almost anything to help this man, but he needs little from me. He is rich because he lives a life with purpose.

Either story might be yours (or mine) and the ending is the same. Give to others unconditionally. Ask nothing in return. Live with intention. Live with purpose.

John Bradley Jackson
© Copyright 2010 All rights reserved.

Businesses with a vision of new growth and profits will need to nurture entrepreneurship and create an environment that offers room for creativity and innovation. Business leadership has the opportunity to provide the freedom and resources to employees so that they can explore new work processes, solutions, and markets.

The catalyst for this change is creativity — almost childlike in its simplicity, creativity needs the room to blossom and flourish. Linus Pauling once said, “that one must endeavor to come up with many ideas — then discard the useless ones”.

To be creative you have to go a little crazy and empty the toy box on floor. Go ahead and make a mess (despite the warnings of your parents). Play with the ideas. Explore. Have fun. Dream.

For many of us, that means walking around the barriers that our organizations have built and worshiped for many years. Just past these old barriers you will find the hope of entrepreneurship and the joy of creativity.

John Bradley Jackson
© Copyright 2010 All rights reserved.

This is the compelling question behind award-winning filmmaker Mary Mazzio’s newest project “Ten9Eight”, a thought provoking film which tells the inspirational stories of several inner city teens (of differing race, religion, and ethnicity) from Harlem to Compton and all points in between, as they compete in an annual business plan competition run by the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE).

What if all kids became Entrepreneurs?

Check out the the film “Ten9Eight”

John Bradley Jackson

- Chinese proverb

In the last two years much has been written and commented about Twitter. The thing that we must remember is that Twitter is written. Written words last a long, long time.

And, that is the power that Twitter has that other mediums such radio, television, and water cooler conversations lack. We just cannot remember it all —- our memory fades with time.

Yet, Twitter survives and is just a keyword search away.

John Bradley Jackson
© Copyright 2009 All rights reserved.

It is now with the publisher and should be available in 120 days or so. The book took 3 years to write and is an update to my first book, “First, Best, or Different”. This one is more search marketing and social media focused.

I will keep you updated on its progress.

John Bradley Jackson
© Copyright 2009 All rights reserved.

If you disagree with statement, go to eBay and do a search for a made up product. Let’s make up something right now…how about “dog food knife”. My bet is that you have never heard of such a product — I sure have not. Sure enough, I just went to eBay and found a four piece dog food serving set including a dog food knife, fork, spoon, and can cover made by a maker named Betterware out of the United Kingdom.

Yes, that was a silly example. Yet, in the world of web marketing, there are few true niche products and your competition is just a click away. This means that your offering needs to be different than the rest of the pack. While else would anyone choose your product over another?

Without sounding obvious, it would be best to find a way to differentiate your offering. A competitive advantage can be built on just one attribute or feature such as price, color, delivery lead time, packaging, quality, performance, or brand.

For a pure commodity, this may not be easy. But, without this differentiation, the online market is just an auction.

John Bradley Jackson
© Copyright 2009 All rights reserved.

For me to use the comparison of the old west cowboy persona to that of the 21st entrepreneur is no accident. I have been called a maverick or a cowboy for much of my career — and that reference was not always meant as a compliment.

The message Owen offers is that the American cowboy lives by and upholds seven core ‘cowboy’ values: courage, optimism, self-reliance, authenticity, honor, duty, and heart.

1. Courage means that you do what is right even if others suggest you should not.

2. Optimism is a mindset that that things are more likely to go well than go badly and that by thinking this way you will make it true.

3. Self-reliance is not just doing things solo, but instead it means being responsible and getting the job done.

4. Authenticity means being yourself and not just following the herd. If you are different, celebrate your differences.

5. Honor is telling the truth, meeting your commitments, and not backing down when others tempt you to do otherwise.

6. Duty is similar to honor, but it is the expected behavior that comes with the job — if your job is to ride the point (i.e. to lead the herd), then do your job well and do it with pride.

7. Heart is both passion for living and empathy for others.

Little has changed since the mid to late 19th century and all seven values apply to entrepreneurs today. There are bad guys out there that must be confronted and we need to get through the current economic storm. Yet, if we do our job with pride, respect others, and make good choices everything is going to be OK.

So, cowboys and cowgirls, saddle up your horse and go make me proud.

John Bradley Jackson
© Copyright 2009 All rights reserved.