Warren Buffet's Advice For 2009 - The Year Of The Meltdown

Google “Warren Buffet’s advice for 2009” and there are a lot of websites that have this piece of advice on them. I just couldn’t help sharing it with my readers. So here you go

We begin this New Year with dampened enthusiasm and dented optimism. Our happiness is diluted and our peace is threatened by the financial illness that has infected our families, organizations and nations. Everyone is desperate to find a remedy that will cure their financial illness and help them recover their financial health. They expect the financial experts to provide them with remedies, forgetting the fact that it is these experts who created this financial mess.

Every new year, I adopt a couple of old maxims as my beacons to guide my future. This self-prescribed therapy has ensured that with each passing year, I grow wiser and not older. This year, I invite you to tap into the financial wisdom of our elders along with me, and become financially wiser.

Hard work - All hard work bring a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.
Laziness - A sleeping lobster is carried away by the water current.
Earnings - Never depend on a single source of income. [At least make your Investments get you second earning]
Spending - If you buy things you don't need, you'll soon sell things you need.
Savings - Don't save what is left after spending; Spend what is left after saving.
Borrowings - The borrower becomes the lender's slave.
Accounting - It's no use carrying an umbrella, if your shoes are leaking.
Auditing - Beware of little expenses; A small leak can sink a large ship.
Risk-taking - Never test the depth of the river with both feet. [ Have an alternate plan ready ]
Investment - Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

I'm certain that those who have already been practicing these principles remain financially healthy. I'm equally confident that those who resolve to start practicing these principles will quickly regain their financial health.

Let us become wiser and lead a happy, healthy, prosperous and peaceful life.


Feel welcome to post your thoughts, views and questions in the comments.

For more entrepreneurial talk and ideas visit the Home Page of my blog

Copyright © Dennis D Maliekal

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The Importance Of Changing Your Perspective

I received this story from a friend of mine as an e-mail forward. It is a fantastic story with its central theme focused at how things can changes when we change our perspective. I do not know the source from where this story originated from. If any of you have this information please feel to add it into the comments and I’ll update this post with credit given to you ofcourse :-)

Read On ….


This Story is about a man who once upon a time was selling Hotdogs by the roadside.
He was illiterate, so he never read newspapers.
He was hard of hearing, so he never listened to the radio.
His eyes were weak, so he never watched television.
But enthusiastically, he sold lots of hotdogs.
He was smart enough to offer some attractive schemes to increase his sales.

His sales and profit went up. He ordered more a more raw material and buns and use to sale more.
He recruited few more supporting staff to serve more customers. He started offering home deliveries. Eventually he got himself a bigger and better stove.
As his business was growing, the son, who had recently graduated from College, joined his father.

Then something strange happened.
The son asked, "Dad, aren't you aware of the great recession that is coming our way?"
The father replied, "No, but tell me about it." The son said, "The international situation is terrible. The domestic situation is even worse. We should be prepared for the coming bad times."
The man thought that since his son had been to college, read the papers, listened to the radio and watched TV.
He ought to know and his advice should not be taken lightly.

So the next day onwards, the father cut down the his raw material order and buns, took down the colorful signboard, removed all the special schemes he was offering to the customers and was no
longer as enthusiastic. He reduced his staff strength by giving layoffs.
Very soon, fewer and fewer people bothered to stop at his hotdog stand.
And his sales started coming down rapidly, same is the profit.
The father said to his son, "Son, you were right".
"We are in the middle of a recession and crisis. I am glad you warned me ahead of time."

Moral of The Story: It's all in your MIND! And we actually FUEL this recession much more than we think we do!!!!!!!!!! !!

What can we take away from this story??

1. How many times we confuse intelligence with good judgment?

2. Choose your advisers carefully but use your own judgment

3. A person or an organization will survive forever, if they have the 5 Cs

* Character
* Commitment
* Conviction
* Courtesy
* Courage

The tragedy today is that there are many walking encyclopedias that are living failures.
The More practical and appropriate views on this economic recession is:

"This is the time to reunite together for any small or a big organization, this is the time to motivate and retain people which are the biggest asset,
this is the time to show more commitments to the customers, this is the time show values of our company to the world”

Feel welcome to post your thoughts, views and questions in the comments.

For more entrepreneurial talk and ideas visit the Home Page of my blog

Copyright © Dennis D Maliekal

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A Business Of Your Own

Jonnelle Marte has an interesting article on the Wall Street Journal, on offering tips to the Generation Y entrepreneurs who are to create jobs and lead way as entrepreneurs.

Finding a job in this economy -- even keeping one -- is tough. Tired of the uncertainty, some twenty something are going from job hunting to job creating by starting their own businesses.

Generation Y entrepreneurs have a few advantages here: They're seen as tech-savvy, enthusiastic risk takers with fresh perspectives. But they also tend to lack money, credit histories and managerial experience.

He talks about the 4 Tips that every Generation Y entrepreneur below 30 must examine.

1. Ask For Advice
2. Be realistic on funding
3. Search for targeted loans.
4. Find a good lawyer

Here's the reference link to read more.

Feel welcome to post your thoughts, views and questions in the comments.

For more entrepreneurial talk and ideas visit the Home Page of my blog

Copyright © Dennis D Maliekal

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Leverage On Layoffs

I happened to read this article on entrepreneur.com on how to leverage on layoffs. The article is quite interesting and showcases the life of Diane Lindquist, Veteran journalist and an expert on the trade economy of the U.S.-Mexico border.

She was offered a buyout from the San Diego Union-Tribune after being at the news paper for nearly 30 years. Older journalists were shown the door for younger blood to take their places. With the knowledge she had acquired over the years helped her move to a role of a consultant on the border business, thus transforming a Layoff into an Entrepreneurial birth.

The key notes from Diane Lindquist story are

1. Knowledge Is Power - Re-visit your skills. Build on them further and transform yourself into an expert on it. You don’t necessarily have to quite your day job to offer consultation. Build a platform online and freelance your skill sets. If you are good, people would come knocking at your doors.

2. Be Positive - Diane Lindquist did not brood and cry over the loss of her job. She looked at the positive side of her layoff by focusing on providing her skills online, through her blog. This is what each one of us has to look at, a positive side of the situation that we are in. It would alter the way we live life.

3. Adapt To Change – The move from being a busy worker bee to a lonely boss is not very nice. Change is the only thing that is constant in life. There are pro’s and con’s to everything. Being a lonely boss, would further push you to expand on your business for the very sake of working with more people.

Here are the Reference links
Cover Story
Diane Lindquist Site

Feel welcome to post your thoughts, views and questions in the comments.

For more entrepreneurial talk and ideas visit the Home Page of my blog

Copyright © Dennis D Maliekal

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Entrepreneurship – The Courage Needed To Get Started

There is a general feeling that runs in a lot many of us folks who come from middle class families. The feeling where we think, 'The road to entrepreneurship is not for the faint hearted'. It takes a lot of courage to get started. This is not always true. You don’t have to be the bravest soul in this world to kick start your entrepreneurial dream.

Many entrepreneurs that we see around us were not necessarily very courageous and were people who hesitated to take risks. Given the fact that they having done their homework really well, had contingency plans in place and a lot of safety measures in position anticipating a failure. They needed something more to propel them forward and generate that spark of entrepreneurship.

The way they moved out of their cocoon is by convincing themselves with this fact. The fact that their nice ‘safe’ job that they currently hold is ‘not necessarily as safe’ as it seems. This triggered the thought process of examining the risk in of being an entrepreneur is not as scary as it always looked. Think of it, during these troubled economic times and recession, Is your job really that safe?

Once you have an idea which when applied can be transformed into something that can change the world, it’s worth taking the risk of trying it and seeing it implemented. It is a lot more satisfying to give it your ambition of being an entrepreneur a shot, than live in regret all your life that you did not do it.

Feel welcome to post your thoughts, views and questions in the comments.

For more entrepreneurial talk and ideas visit the Home Page of my blog

Copyright © Dennis D Maliekal

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Maximize The Impact Of Your Television Advertisements

The reason why television channels exist is because of the revenue advertisements get them. The ads paid by business folks like you, are to reach people and maximize the impact that it has on your business. Television Ads to a large does impact the way your product is publicized, but then a simple tweak in the way your advertisement is shown on screen can further increase the impact it has on viewers.

On examining most Advertisements show on the television, I noticed that the way an Advertisement was structured.

1. A Problem – The Advertisement highlighted the problem that is faced by the viewer. A problem does not always mean a tedious or painful situation; for example a headache or a toothache. It could also be as simple as enhancing your lifestyle and comfort from a stage at which it already is; for ex: - A car with much better comfort features than an existing luxury car.

2. Tackling the Problem – The Advertisement further talks about what can be done to solve the problem. Using the above example, the solution could be to use an analgesic or toothpaste or own a car which is much roomier and has better seats.

3. The Product solving the problem – This is the stage in which the advertised product solves the problem to near perfection and emphasis the reason why the ad viewer should buy the product.

4. The Brand Logo – This is the final stage of the Advertisement, where the Brand Logo of your business is displayed.

The ad in spite of being really good, would in time fade out of your viewers mind. Your business would make tons of products advertise and sell it. What is permanent is your business and to the world it’s your Brand Image portrayed as the Brand Logo.

You spend less than a second in a ten second advertisement to show your Logo. Do you see the problem here? The solution to the problem is simple. Have the Brand Logo of your business be present during the entire duration of the advertisement. Place the Logo as an opaque watermark at one of the corners of the screen. Just as a television channel has its logo constantly in the screen. This would definitely imprint your brand logo in your viewer’s memory far better, than a fraction of a second flash of the logo.

One Indian company has seemed to do it and it’s worked really well for them. The company that I am talking about is Reliance. Below are a couple of links to a TV ad of Reliance Mobile. Notice that the Logo is always present during the entire duration of the Ad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qhJdqMz7-M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OqGr8Gwxm4

Feel welcome to post your thoughts, views and questions in the comments.

For more entrepreneurial talk and ideas visit the Home Page of my blog

Copyright © Dennis D Maliekal

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