From: The Wall Street Journal
Author: Ty McMahan
Article Link

Four years ago, Jared Madsen started a company that makes bicycles built for five. He sold his bikes—which had two wheels and a rear bucket big enough to tote four children—wholesale to shops around the country. But today, 90% of sales at his small business, Madsen Cycles, in Murray, Utah, come from an online store that took his Web designer half a day to embed within his company's website. The company's bikes are now sold by him directly to consumers for about $1,485 apiece, at what he describes as a "way higher profit." He declines to specify his markups.

Mr. Madsen says he initially thought the online store would just fill in "holes" where he didn't have distribution. But the benefit to him in the end, he adds, was that the Web store made it possible for him to dramatically reduce his reliance on third-party shops. As a result, the online store is now his business's main source of income. 

Have a company website? If you're not using it to sell your goods or services, then you could be losing out on an opportunity to boost your company's bottom line.
Forrester Research says online shopping has surged in recent years and is continuing to grow. U.S. online retail sales, which rose 12.6% to $176.2 billion in 2010, are expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 10% through 2015, the research firm reports.

Building an ecommerce platform within your company website doesn't have to be complex or expensive. A number of new services—such as such as Goodsie, Shopify, Storenvy and Weebly—now make the task easy and affordable. You can use these services to design a store, upload product, create shopping carts, manage fulfillment and more, —all for as little as a few dollars a month.

Older platforms such as eBay and Etsy allow merchants to sell direct to consumers with benefits such as built-in site traffic. But these new services give merchants more control over the look and feel of their online stores.

From the Harvard Business Review
by Peter Bregman

So how do you listen in a way that transforms conversations and relationships?

1. Actually listen. And only listen. That means don't multitask. I'm not just talking about doing email, surfing the web, or creating a grocery list. Thinking about what you're going to say next counts as multitasking. Simply focus on what the other person is saying.
2. Repeat back. This feels a little silly at first but works magic. If someone says she is angry about the decision you just made, you can say "you're angry about the decision I just made." I know, I know, she just said that. But it shows you're listening and it communicates to the other person that she's been heard. If you don't have the courage to try it with an adult, try it with a child. You'll see what a difference it makes and it will embolden you to try it with a colleague or your spouse.
3. Ask questions. Explore the other person's thoughts and feelings more deeply. And "You don't really believe that, do you?" does not count as a question. You are not using the Socratic method to prove your point; you are trying to better understand what's going on so you can better understand your partner in this conversation.

Link to full article

In remembrence of Steve Jobs and his impact on the way we think and live, here is the famous Stanford 2005 commencement address.

This is a prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

From Jeff Haden at bnet.com

As a business owner it’s easy to get that “Same Stuff, Different Day” feeling: Every day you face the same frustrations, same roadblocks, same employee headaches, same problems with vendors and suppliers and, yes, even customers.

And before you know it you’re in an SSDD rut.

How do you get out? It’s not easy, but it can be done.

While you can’t change what you do — you still have to deal with employees and vendors and suppliers and customers — you can change your approach.

Here are six ways to break out of your SSDD rut:

1) Get back in the trenches. Most business owners start a business based on a passion. As the business grows, though, they spend more time working on the business than in the business. (Which is usually a good thing, but not in this case.) The more successful your business, the less time you get to spend actually doing what you love. If you’re a florist with three shops, you probably spend the bulk of your time organizing and managing and firefighting and very little time creating beautiful arrangements. Take a step back and “work” for a few hours or better yet a full day. You’ll start the next day recharged… and you’ll remember why you love your business.