Entrepreneurs Don't Need To Do It Alone

Two Heads Are Better Than One

There is often an impression that the world of entrepreneurship is somewhat hyper-competitive, with many people under the impression that if you can’t do it all on your own than you might as well forget it. There is a fairly negative impression of sharing, of accepting or looking for help, and once the game is over and the money is counted, the people with the most smug smiles on their face are the ones who are able to say they did it all on their own. Some credit has to go to these people, undoubtedly, because they have done a fine job to get so far without any input from someone else. But would it be such a bad thing to enlist help on occasion? Sometimes a partnership is, after all, more than the sum of its parts.

Whatever you call it – outsourcing, joint venture, partnership or anything else – there are times when doing it all on your own becomes counter-productive. Maybe it is true that no-one knows your business better than you do, but sometimes you will need to look beyond the world in which you are comfortable and allow someone else to take a look at things. Working together with them in an official capacity could be the smartest decision you make – and the best for you. Some people avoid joint partnerships because they feel that they will have to share more than they would like. But what if a half-share in something big is better than a hundred per cent of something smaller? It does not have to be about doing it all on your own. Sometimes the partnership is the soundest business decision and the best for your bottom line.

It is best to accept early on in your business career that you are not going to be a master of all trades, because no-one is. There are gaps in everyone’s knowledge, holes in everyone’s experience. This is not an admission of weakness. It is strategic realism. If you accept that you are not an expert on everything, and enlist someone who is an expert in a field that can help you, you will benefit from their expertise and you will see better results for it. Indeed through working with someone else you can find yourself absorbing knowledge that could help you in many other ways somewhere down the line.

It may be that someone else speaks another language which will help with an overseas market, or that someone has an innate knowledge of a specific way of doing a job – something that your customers have requested several times in the past. The other person may have an ingrained knowledge of the geography of an area you want to crack, but whatever it is, the important thing for you as an entrepreneur is that it can aid you in your dealings and take you up a level. Spurning the chance to work with someone else, someone with experience and intelligence, is simply cutting off your nose to spite your face.

First Published: Sep 6, 2009 EntrepreneurJourney.com

Is CIBC Providing Free Credit Score?

CIBC Offers Free Credit Score Via Its App

Just about a year ago, Canadians had to pay $24-$25 if they wanted to access their credit score. However, the landscape of free credit score changed when FinTech loan companies like Borrowell.com, Mogo.ca, and Creditkarma.ca started offering free credit score.

Now, better yet, CIBC customers who have the CIBC mobile banking app on their phone will be able to access their free credit score without even signing up with any one of these three providers I mentioned.

CIBC’s free score is a result of partnership between CIBC and Borrowell and pulls Equifax credit score, which is a proprietary model of Equifax. Keep in mind that this is different than FICO credit score, which is a proprietary model of Fair Isaac Corporation. This credit score is a soft credit inquiry that does not negatively affect credit score.

Besides providing free credit scores, the mobile app has a FAQ section where clients can learn about how credit score works and so on. This is a good thing. Some recent research performed by CIBC shows that 69 percent of Canadians have do not know their credit scores and 45 percent have no idea where or how to obtain their credit score.

I have published a video review of CIBC’s providing free credit score and I also have showed how to access your free credit score on your app. Click on the above link to watch this video and you can follow step-by-step instructions to access your own credit score right away. You do have to have a CIBC account and mobile app to check your free credit score.

Invest Now: A Canadian's Guide to Investing

Invest Now: Ahmed Dawn

I have a special announcement to make. But first, I would like to thank all of you for making A Dawn Journal and Canada’s Personal Finance Web Site a huge success. Some of you may have noticed a tiny ad on the top right corner of this site. Yes, this is about Invest Now. My first book Invest Now will be available in early 2008. I do not have a definite date at this time as Invest Now is going through design and format manuscript process at the publisher.

What is Invest Now about? Invest Now is a simple, step by step guide to start investing for the first time. I have put together some information about Invest Now on Canada's Personal Finance Website. Please click here to visit - Invest Now

I will keep you updated from now on and I have created a new category Invest Now to post all my Invest Now related news. I truly hope Invest Now will help Canadians to start investing for the first time. This book is written for Canadians who never invested before and would like to start with minimal risk.

First Published: Oct 22, 2007 ADawnJournal.com

Different Perspectives to Entrepreneurship

What Approach Should You Take?

There is a cliché image surrounding entrepreneurs which essentially amounts to a caricature of a man (almost always a man) with a cell phone clamped to one ear and a briefcase held in the other hand, looking increasingly impatient as the rest of the world fails to give them their due for being so clever. In fact, entrepreneurs get a bit of a hard time from a lot of people, but in all truth the definition “entrepreneur” tells you no more about a person than the word “tall”. There are many different perspectives to entrepreneurship, and the one thing which unites all entrepreneurs is that they use their initiative to make money. The many things that separate them, now, they are the important bits.

Some entrepreneurs are just like the cliché mentioned above. It is inevitable that they will be, really, as clichés tend to have some basis in fact. Often it is this kind of impatience and hustle that takes a business from being quite average to being the best in its field. This is the case for as long as any entrepreneur will benefit from being impatient and persistent. That is to say that it works well for quick pressure selling, but not so well for more specific niches. Some entrepreneurs are successful for other reasons. Some are actually a lot more methodical because it is that approach that will gain them the most interest from customers. What is it, you need to ask, that defines the niche in which I work?

Sometimes you need to be the details guy or gal. Customers set a lot of store by getting exactly what they want, and will pay what it takes, wait as long as it takes, to get it. being strong on detail will get you everywhere with those customers. A manufacturing entrepreneur may well find that their target market is full of such customers. Then again, it might be all about the quick turnaround. A good sense of observation rarely goes to waste for an entrepreneur – being aware of what seems to be popular can feed into making lots of money, and being ready to ask questions and learn about your customers often pays off handsomely too.

To find what makes your entrepreneurial spirit unique to you, you need only look at what you are like as a person. If your friends use words like “considerate” to describe you, then you are, in all likelihood, going to make money by being attentive to customers’ needs. If you are often described as “witty”, then you may well find that you have the sales pitch that can sell just about any product to a captive audience. Play to your strengths, and what’s more, always be inwardly tenacious. You don’t need to always be in the customer’s face. Being there when they need you – whatever kind of entrepreneur you may be – will always pay off. Having a reputation for reliability is the kind of advertising that money cannot buy.

First Published: Aug 24, 2009 EntrepreneurJourney.com

Why is American Express Canada Removing Their Minimum Income Requirement?

Amex Canada Eliminates Minimum Income

Disclosure: Opinions expressed here are my own and not anyone else’s or those of the credit card companies. My opinions are based on my own analysis and in reality credit card companies may be pursuing these policies and procedures to achieve very different objectives.

American Express recently removed the minimum income requirement on all their cards, including high-end cards such as Amex Gold and Amex Platinum. Today, I will give my take on the reasons behind this decision and what it means for Visa and MasterCard.

Currently Visa’s elite series card, Visa Infinite, has a minimum annual income requirement of $60,000/00 personal and $100,000/00 household and MasterCard’s elite series card, World Elite, has a minimum income requirement of $80,000/00 personal and $150,000/00 household income. By establishing a higher minimum income requirement, Visa and MasterCard don’t want everyone or those with lower income to hold these elite series cards.

This is my understanding that the reasons behind this: merchants pay higher fees on elite series cards and by restricting these cards to only higher income groups Visa and MasterCard are trying to balance out the higher fees merchants pay because it is expected these groups will spend more than lower-income groups. However, in reality this may not be the case, as it is not necessarily true that high-end cardholders will spend more than regular card holders.

This is where Amex comes in. By targeting those left behind by Visa and MasterCard, they are grabbing a significant part of market share that will turn out positive for their business. American Express is mainly targeting those groups of people.

They are targeting young people who just joined the workforce, college/university students, and middle-aged to older people who want high-end credit cards. The main boost Amex will get will be from younger people who just joined the workforce and students, as these people will remain loyal to Amex in the latter years when their income goes up. Amex is not just looking at business today, but they are looking to grab market share from Visa and MasterCard for years to come.

It will be interesting to see what reactions this brings from Visa and MasterCard. They may decide to idle away and do nothing, watching American Express grab market share from them or they may take actions to lure these groups Amex is targeting by releasing innovative products or by lowering the minimum income on their elite series cards.