Amar E. Chakravarthi’s Blog

I’m not knocking higher education, or any school for that matter, concerning what it can contribute to anyone’s business success. But it certainly is worth noting that some of this century’s most successful business moguls: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, and even Madonna do not have a college degree.

So what do these entrepreneurs know about starting and running a business that they didn’t learn in college or business school? And what is it that, likely, most institutions don’t spend a lot of time teaching students?

These items rise to the top from my experiences and from observing other successful entrepreneurs.

1) Risk is a key factor to business breakthroughs.
No risk, no reward. Entrepreneurs must embrace a level of danger, the uncomfortable zone, and unknown elements to move ahead. Most innovations enter the world as unaccepted, anti-logic, even crazy concepts with high degrees of resistance.

2) All business has political and sport aspects in it.
Look around you, everything you touch has political cause and effects imbedded in it. Egos, competitive genes, and strategic game plans direct the majority of business ventures.

3) Emotional toughness separates the winners from the rest.
No doubt, being smart and creative count in business. But equally as important is one’s emotional toughness quotient. Can you recover from the big mistakes you make, quickly? Can you not let the opinions of others impact you? Can you dismiss the voices in your head from your childhood?

4) Intuition is real and should be trusted.
Intuition is a mysterious thing that happens without a lot of fact, logic, or reason. I believe it occurs as a by-product of your sub conscious awareness and everyday life observations. Ignoring and not trusting this power is dangerous.

5) Packaging, charisma, and confidence matter a lot.
Humans make a lot of judgments and get first impressions by what they see. Whether this is right or wrong, it happens every day. Then people translate these visual messages into associations of strengths or weaknesses. Non-tangible and sometimes not-substantiated communications like charisma and confidence are hugely important in business progress. Every businessperson should invest in all of the above for themselves and for their supporting team members.

6) At least every seventh person you meet with disappoint you.
This number may be a myth. Recently, I’m convinced it’s every fifth person that will disappoint you and is a card-carrying moron. Being a negative skeptic is not the answer. Doing your homework and acknowledging #4 is the secret here.

I’m sure many of you (especially the real entrepreneurs at heart) are thinking these six practices are common sense and natural behaviors. They are, and that’s why they are often overlooked in traditional learning environments.

Do you think the technology arena has been going through a change lately? I mean a phase-change?
I think traditional technology arena (Chip design and Communication services as well) has got to its limits, it seems faster technology and more accurate devices means nothing anymore to the end consumer.

The next revolutionary wave shuold come, to my opinion, from a fusion between different disciplines .i.e. physics + psychology + engineering + fashion designers + regulation layers etc.
Take a look a the iPhone, Nokia and the others got nothing left to do against it’s success, you know why? I’ll tell you why.

iPhone is not another cellular phone! iPhone is a ‘way of living’, its something you wear when you get out of home just like your shirt. iPhone has its own communities, magazines, forums, stores, accessories and followers, the irony is that iPhone is more of a ‘new religion’ and less of a new device.

Here is the story behind iPhone, or what the manufecturing of iPhone involves:

1. Psicologists that searched for a revolutionary aspects in usability like ‘swapping and natural operation’.

2. Physics specialists that search for sensitive touch screen materials that are sensitive and yet will not break easily.

3. Engineers (electronics as well as mechanics) that search for a way to compress all the features into as little as possible space yet make it resistance for damages.

4. Lawyers that search for revolutionary manufacturing agreements to make sure the iPhone manufacturing revolutionary elements will not be available to Apples competitors.
5. Fashion stylists that search for a way the iPhone will have the coolest accessories as possible.

And all of the above are just a small glimpse into the special assembly line by the name Apple that keep on producing new products for the new age.

You’re stumped! You just created the BEST content to add to your blog but you are now stuck. What are the MOST effective SEO keywords to use on your site? Where do you start? What tools do you use?

Keyword research is THE most important part of effective SEO. If you pick the wrong keywords, you will waste both a lot of time and money. You also won’t get the search engine rankings you want.

There are some basic criteria you need to keep in mind when searching for keywords:

• Relevancy – What keywords are relevant to your market/niche?

• Search volume – There are many users searching for that keyword/term

• Current ranking – What is the keyword ranking? If it’s a high volume keyword such as “marketing” (ranked #10) compared to “retail marketing” (ranked #600)- go with the former because you’ll get better results faster (more qualified traffic)

How to Avoid Bad Keywords
• Keywords should be relevant with a high traffic volume

• People aren’t always going to search for difficult terms. Don’t use complicated terms such as “freestyle snowboarding champion in Lake Tahoe, California” It’s very unlikely that a person is going to search for that specific term – keep it simple!

• Sometimes keywords with high search volumes may be more difficult – you may have to work a little harder! Check out the following tools to analyze keyword difficulty: SEOmoz Keyword Difficulty Tool ( http://www.seomoz.org/keyword-difficulty ) and SEOlogs Keyword Difficulty Check Tool ( http://www.seologs.com/keyword-difficulty.html ).

How to Choose Effective Keywords
The first step in choosing keywords is brainstorming. You also need powerful tracking tools that will lead you in the right direction. Learn about the buying process and how consumers research and buy online.

• First, ask yourself this question: “How would my customers/clients search for my products and services online?”

• Brainstorm a seed list (it helps to brainstorm with other colleagues) – choose a list of terms that would answer the above question.

• Use the following keyword tools to expand your list: Google Keyword Tool ( https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal ), WordTracker ( http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/ ) and WebCEO ( http://www.webceo.com/download/index.htm ). This is how you optimize keywords/terms that people search for the most.
• Place keywords you find underneath your seed list. The goal is to grow your list with well-optimized keywords/phrases. You need to figure out which keywords have the most relevancy, search volume and current tracking.

• You could spend up to hours looking for optimized keywords – that may sound long and boring but you could end up with the wrong keywords and mess up your SEO. It’s better to take the time to research keywords NOW then to regret it later!

• Pay attention to keyword discovery – broad keywords (broad terms with a high search volume) versus long-tail keywords (less searches but more specific/relevant terms related to your products and services)

• Figure out the search volume for each keyword. You need a relevancy value for each keyword and then calculate the score of each keyword.

• Choose 5-10 primary keywords (keywords that have high relevancy and search volumes), 20-60 secondary words (lower search volume but very relevant) and keyword modifiers (words that go before, after or in the middle of primary or secondary words – i.e. “free”)
When choosing keywords keep the following criteria in mind:
• Brand names (i.e. Target)

• Generic product names (i.e. laptops)

• Product attributes (i.e. affordable laptops)

• Brands (i.e. Dell laptops)

• Models (i.e. Dell Inspiron E1705 laptops)

• Action keywords (i.e. buy laptops)

• Problem-related keywords (i.e. how to fix laptops)

• Specials (i.e. laptops free shipping)

I am looking for 1-2 people to help produce a weekly youtube show. I need people to get their thinking caps on to come up with a good idea.

Take for example a guy on Youtube that creates videos for him and his friends driving around in junk cars, rvs, lawn mowers on his farm. He gets 50000+ views of his videos everytime he puts one out. He is making $15000+ a month off youtube ads within his videos. There is another guy in Youtube that creates videos about CATS – he has 170000 subscribers to his videos. That is a goldmine if you know what you are doing to monetizing.

They are both missing 2 critical things in their youtube setup/videos to double their revenue. I am in talks with them to fix that part.

But for this request I want to partner with someone to produce some videos that people want to watch. There are 2-3 ways we will use to monetize these videos and build a list.

Check out these videos – http://www.youtube.com/user/charlestrippy they are stupid/funny videos that people love to watch.

I need ideas…

Add a comment below if you are interested.

Your e-mail is as much a part of your professional image as the clothes you wear, the greeting on your voice mail and the handshake you offer. If you want to impress on every front and build positive business relationships, pay attention to your e-mail.

Here are some common sense pointers everyone should follow:

1) Make sure it’s obvious who your e-mail is from.

The “From” field in my inbox should be your full name. I’m looking at the first 20 emails in my inbox. I have 1 person with his initials, 3 with an e-mail address, and one with the word ‘Finance”. In other words, I have no idea who sent 20% of these emails.

2) Personalize Your Message To The Recipient.

E-mail is informal but it still needs a greeting. Failure to put in the person’s name can make you and your e-mail seem cold and too direct.

3) Be sure the subject line is meaningful! Again, I see the following subjects in my inbox:

- Re:
- HI
- (a person’s name)
- FYI
- Discussion
- RE: Hello
- Thursday
- (no subject)
- Good Afternoon
- Recruiting

At first glance,I have absolutely no idea what any of these e-mails are about. Please, make it obvious what the e-mail is about.

4) Be sure the file name of an attachment is meaningful.

A file titled rkRev20a.doc may mean something to you but not to a recipient. For a resume, try LastName-FirstName_JobTitle.doc. Keep track of your job search activities and which resume you sent where on a spreadsheet. I have a file on my profile at http://www.linkedin.com/in/tjhogan to help you.

5) Don’t use the “High Priority” Flag unless it truly urgent.

6) Remember that all your correspondence is a reflection on you.

If you know that misspelled words, poor grammar and a lack of or misuse of punctuation on a resume is a death sentence to getting an interview, what makes you think your e-mail correspondence is any different? Use grammar and spell check. Read before sending.

7) Put your message in context.

You don’t read a book by starting in the middle so don’t send an email that starts the reader off in the middle of a topic. Including message threads in your e-mails helps and remember to change the subject line as the topic changes.

Understand the difference between Cc: and Bcc:

If you’re mass mailing your resume to everyone in the United States, use Bcc:. It’s not good to let a hiring manager or recruiter know that your resume is circling the globe. At that point, you become a commodity and no one really wants to work with you.

9) Don’t use emoticons.

Those little smiley faces make you seem at best silly, and at worst unable to express yourself.

10) Be mindful of the tone of your correspondence.

A reader cannot see your face or hear your tone of voice so chose your words carefully and thoughtfully. Put yourself in the other person’s place and think how your words may come across.

11) Don’t write a novel.

E-mail is meant to be brief. Keep your message short. Use only a few paragraphs and a few sentences per paragraph. People skim their e-mail so a long missive is wasted.

12) Don’t Leave Off Your Signature

Always close with your name and contact information such as your home phone and cell phone, The recipient may want to call you. Creating a formal signature block with all contact data is the most professional approach.