When was the moment after you started your business that you said to yourself “I’ve made it; I’m a successful entrepreneur!”


My Small Biz Break partner, Maria, and I are looking for entrepreneurs (and of course this means you, my solopreneur friend) to help us answer this question in our latest book. You have the opportunity to inspire, motivate, and help others who are struggling to see the light at the end of the tunnel. All you have to do is answer the question within two pages. We will edit it, create the cover art and provide you a professional eBook. 


What’s in it for you?
Aside from giving back to your fellow entrepreneurs and supporting the American dream, you get to be part of a book branding you as an expert in your market.


Here are some additional benefits for you:

1. Add “author” to your roster of accomplishments.
2. Small Biz Break and 29 other authors will be marketing this publication through multiple networks giving you greater exposure.
3. Small Biz Break will select six (6) participants for interview on our Blog Talk Radio show. All interviews will appear on our Small Biz Break blog, too.
4. You will get an eBook copy that you can use as a marketing piece, or sell it for whatever price you want and keep 100% of the profits!

Limited Space
We can’t accept hundreds of submissions; we will only select the best to ensure the quality of the content for all involved.


Please contact Small Biz Break by September 30^th, 2010 at contact@smallbizbreak.com if you are interested in participating and to get more details.


We will notify candidates of their acceptance by Monday October 11^th, 2010.


All accepted authors must submit their stories to Small Biz Beak at contact@smallbizbreak.com by November 19^th, 2010.


We look forward to having you share your experiences with others. This is your opportunity to bring your struggles and success to the pages of a book while gaining great exposure and recognition. Plus, you’ll receive an excellent market piece or additional source of passive income.


All the Best,


Doug Dolan
The Solopreneur’s Guide
Small Biz Break

Yesterday I made some modifications to The Solopreneur’s Guide and thought that it would be courteous and helpful if I gave you the heads up about the changes.


As I state on my Review page, I believe it’s necessary for solopreneurs to take regularly scheduled breaks to review their business and see how they can modify it to provide better service for their customers. So I decided to take my own advice because there were some things about this site that were troubling you and me.


Although I’ve received some great feedback from visitors and registered readers, in some cases they felt lost as to what services I could provide them beyond reading the information on this site.


So I changed the structure of the site, added some new pages, and kept all the previous pages people found helpful.


Successful Steps
I added this new page to give you a quick understanding of the basic, sequential steps necessary for a solopreneur to achieve sustainable success. On this page, you will see several links going to some of my previous pages (Introspection, Research, Planning, Action, Review, and Resources), plus info and links to my new pages listed below. Hopefully, this condensed version clears up the clutter and quickly answers, what steps you need to take with your business and how I can help you achieve your goals.


Consulting Services
Often, prospects ask me, “What consulting services do you offer?” Although I had talked about my services in various pages and posts, apparently you had to hunt for the answer. If you have to ask, then it’s obvious that I haven’t done a very good job of making it easy on you. Please accept my apologies.


Writing Services
I added this page about a month ago, but I had it as a sub page under Resources. Now it’s in full view, easy to find and clearly states how my talents as a wordsmith can help you learn more about your market, build your brand awareness, convert prospects into customers, and keep those customers coming back.


Small Biz Break
If you’ve caught my two previous posts, you know that last week I kicked off a new joint venture with Maria Smith-Alvira of Multi Entrepreneur Ideas, a talented multi entrepreneur and business consultant in her own right.


Our mission with Small Biz Break is to replace the fear and frustration of starting and growing a small business with focus. How? Take a quick read through my last post, if you haven’t already.


Are you feeling stuck with your start-up? Don’t delay. Create some positive momentum by asking us for help. Don’t worry, we’ll keep it simple and insightful. Stop by our site or write to us at smallbizbreak@gmail.com.


I created this site to help you achieve solopreneur success. Your feedback gives me the opportunity to better serve your needs. If you have any questions, comments or concerns about The Solopreneur’s Guide, I would love to hear from you. You can leave a quick comment below or email me at thesologuide@gmail.com.


All the Best,


Doug Dolan
The Solopreneur’s Guide
Small Biz Break

My last post titled, Simplifying Small Business, announced my new joint venture, Small Biz Break, with Maria Smith-Alvira. As part of my marketing, I recently polled some entrepreneurs with a question, “How would you like to see starting a small business simplified?” I received some interesting answers.


One respondent stated that he didn’t want the process simplified because he thought it was best people realized how demanding starting a new business can be. I understand where he’s coming from, but I don’t agree.


Let me clarify, with Small Biz Break, Maria and I are not selling magic dreams of a one-sized-fits-all, instant formula for success. Simplifying isn’t synonymous with simplistic.


Starting and running a small business takes dedication, vision, focus, talent, and resourcefulness, among other things. It is work.


While I believe working by the beach for an hour or two a day making a six-figure income is a nice thought, we don’t believe it’s a healthy expectation to set for your start-up. And this isn’t our vision with Small Biz Break.


Our passion is to help novice and struggling entrepreneurs clear up the clutter of options and activity that can overwhelm them and replace that scattered existence with focus … focus on actions that are specific to moving their business forward.


Work can feel less like, well, work, when you create a business that is an extension of your passion, leverages your strengths, while meeting your financial needs … and has a focus. That’s why we created the New Business Idea Questionnaire and Personal Finance Worksheet.


As business consultants and regular contributors to various online business forums, a common question we’ve experienced is, “I have a business idea, but I don’t know what to do next?”


To help give these entrepreneurs focus, we created the Small Business Start-Up Checklist, the Start-Up Costs Spreadsheet, the Mini Business Plan Outline, the Formal Business Plan Outline and the Marketing Plan Outline.


Another common call for help comes from entrepreneurs that started a business, but didn’t see their business dreams become reality. Some of these entrepreneurs need to take a step back and review their business model, their UVP (unique value proposition), the definition of their target audience and do a revamp of their planning. They can utilize the previous forms I’ve mentioned.


Still others struggle with setting goals and objectives, and time management. For these suffering entrepreneurs, we created the Task Management Worksheet, the Weekly Goals and Objectives Template and the SWOT Analysis Template.


And for those who need more than forms and templates, we currently offer private consulting and will soon provide the option of downloading Small Biz Break ebooks and participating in live Q&A sessions where we will drill down into how these templates and forms apply specifically to their businesses.


We aren’t promising a package that anyone can buy into and do little work to earn a big income. We are promising to provide you value and experience to make starting and growing your business easier.


If you are a first-time entrepreneur or struggling with a small business you already started, check out the Small Biz Break site or write to Maria and me at smallbizbreak@gmail.com with your questions.


All the Best,


Doug Dolan
The Solopreneur’s Guide

If you polled a room full of investors and asked them “What are you more likely to invest in, an interesting, new business idea or a solid execution plan?” most would answer, “a solid execution plan”. Why?


While there are many people who think, “I have a great idea for a new business” only a small percentage of those people will take the initiative to turn their idea into a business and an even smaller percentage of those that do express their entrepreneurial spirit will become successful.


Where do most of these newbies fail? It’s often not their passion or drive. It’s focus … and knowing what to focus on.


To help simplify the process and minimize wasted time, I launched a new site today with my partner, Maria Smith-Alvira, called Small Biz Break.


To get quick help to new and struggling entrepreneurs, we have a number of free templates and forms, from a new business idea questionnaire to help you choose the right business for you, a small business start-up checklist to guide you through the steps from idea to first sale and other business plan templates, financial planning spreadsheets and more.


Soon we’ll be offering live Q & A sessions giving you the opportunity to resolve issues specific to your business and private coaching for special attention. Maria and I will be launching a new Blog Talk Radio show, too.


What does this mean for The Solopreneur’s Guide?


Over the next couple of days, I will be making some changes to my site. I will condense some of the information and include a page for Small Biz Break. However, don’t take this as taking something away from this site. Quite the opposite, the packages included on the Small Biz Break site will give you more tools and services to help you with your small business.


I am excited about this new venture and honored to be working with Maria. Maria is a talented multi-entrepreneur with a Masters in Corporate Management and first-hand experience launching her own businesses. Any small business owner would benefit from working with her.


Need help getting your business started? Write me at thesologuide@gmail.com and check out the Small Biz Break site.


All the Best,


Doug Dolan
The Solopreneur’s Guide

Where’s my dedication? It used to be that I posted a new piece without fail every two or three days. However, as of late, you may have noticed that I’ve slipped a little. It isn’t because I don’t care or that I’ve run out of things to say after more than 130 original posts. It’s just … well, I’ve been busy with some new business that will provide some excellent value for you.


In addition to growing my ghostwriting business and reviewing business plans for some soon-to-be solopreneurs, I’ve been in process of co-launching a new Internet Marketing training site (I’ll give you the scoop next week).


The big news this week has to do with La ComunidadOnline.com.


If you recall in a previous post from last October, I made mention of a new joint venture with the friendly and able partners, Eddie Galdamez and Maria Smith-Alvira, of LaComunidadOnline.com. Back then, we kicked off a PR program of articles, interviews and press releases to compliment the banner ads they were offering.


Just this last lunes (that’s Monday for los rubios), we launched additional bilingual services, including:

1. translation of current marketing and sale materials
2. web sites creation and hosting
3. social media campaigns
4. ghostwriting services
5. bundle packages

 
If you offer a consumer based product or service and don’t dialogue with the US Hispanic market, you should seriously reconsider.


And, no, I’m not just a believer because I chose to offer services in this space. Let me give you some facts and figures to help you figure it out for yourself.

• The US Hispanic market is the fastest growing demographic in the US
• This community representing over 15% of the US population (approximately 50M people)
• They have a big bank account – approximately $1,000,000,000,000 in buying power
• They are the fastest growing demographic on the Internet and with social medial
• Many English speaking businesses only market in English while this bilingual community prefers that you convey your message in Spanish

 
To me, this adds up to a large, underserviced market – and I believe in claiming a stake before the gold is gone.


Why did I choose to connect with LaComunidadOnline?


First, Eddie and Maria are great people. They truly care about people (customers and consumers) and have a passion for connecting the US Hispanic community with US based businesses, medical and social services, and charitable organizations.


Second, being Latino entrepreneurs, Eddie and Maria understand the nuances of bridging the bilingual gap between English only enterprises and the bilingual US Hispanic base.


Third, US Hispanic consumers have voted with their visits making LaComunidadOnline one of the most frequented online bilingual sites. On average, they receive 800,000 hits a month from 80,000 unique visitors. Just last month, they received over 1,000,000 hits.


I’m excited and honored to be a part of this growing community and working with such talented, caring partners.


To get a better understanding of these new services, you can email me at thesologuide@gmail.com, leave a comment below or check out the LaComunidadOnline site by clicking on this program link.


All the Best,


Doug Dolan
The Solopreneur’s Guide