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What can you learn about business from a children’s movie? You can learn some great entrepreneurial lessons from the recent film "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" starring Johnny Depp.

WARNING -Spoiler Alert- If you have not seen the movie (or the older version) yet, this article may give away a few elements of the story that could reduce your enjoyment of the film. You can always come back and read it after you have seen the picture.

Marketing

"Find 1 of 5 Golden Tickets in a Willy Wonka product and be one of the first people in a long time to visit the magical chocolate factory. Also, one kid will win a special prize that will exceed your wildest imagination."

This is an excellent promotion. It sparks interest in Willy Wonka products, builds brand awareness, and most importantly; it significantly increases sales. The media picks up on the promotion and generates a tremendous amount of free publicity. Word of mouth referrals help spread the promotion to areas that were untouched by newspapers and television.

Positive Thinking

There are many "naysayers" who discourage the main character, Charlie, from getting his hopes up about finding one of the lucky Golden tickets. Negative thinking can be devastating, especially to a child. However, Charlie does not take heed of the negativity. Supported by his Grandmother’s constant reassurance, Charlie keeps a positive outlook and believes that he has as good a chance as any other kid to find one of the five tickets.

Don’t Quit

Charlie refuses to give up on his dream of finding a ticket. After he doesn’t find one on his first, and probably only, attempt - he doesn’t quit. Charlie believes that he will get one of those tickets. Providence provides two more opportunities and amazingly, Charlie finds the last ticket! This is especially significant because it had been falsely reported that all of the tickets had been found.

A Good Support Network

Charlie has an excellent support network. Although very poor in financial terms, Charlie is very rich in family. He lives in a loving environment and appreciates every member of his household. He selflessly offers to sell his ticket to provide some much needed cash for his family, instead of taking the special chocolate factory tour. His family will have nothing of it and encourages him to pursue this once in a lifetime opportunity.

When Willy Wonka offers to make Charlie his heir, Charlie refuses because accepting the offer would mean that he probably would never see his family again. Willy Wonka later makes the offer again, but allows Charlie to bring his family this time. Charlie’s family then extends its hospitality to Mr. Wonka and he ends up gaining the positive and supporting network that he had needed as well.

Four Good Lessons

If you are an entrepreneur or are thinking about becoming an entrepreneur, remember these lessons from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". It takes good marketing, positive thinking, and a good support network to get started. Most importantly, don’t quit - your success may be only one candy bar away.

With skyrocketing credit card debt, fewer job prospects and a growing economic divide, young people are increasingly in need of more financial knowledge.

In response, a growing number of summer camps are teaching kids money management skills. While our memories of camp were more about canoeing than banking, programs such as those listed below show that that kids’ financial-savvy (or at least parental interest in) is starting at increasingly younger ages:

Young Americans Center for Financial Education: This Denver-based non-profit hosts “Fun-ancial Summer Camps” for 2nd to 7th graders. Curriculums range from Money $ense, where campers learn about budgeting, investing, credit and taxes, to Running Your Own Biz, where mini-entrepreneurs make their own crafts and sell them at a weekly marketplace.

The Money Camp for Kids: Based in Southern California, this camp aims to give 10-18 year-old campers an understanding of how the economy works and how to earn money, budget, invest and save it. Kids are given “paychecks” which they invest in stocks, real estate and businesses. And it wouldn’t be camp without field trips: every Friday the kids take a trip to a bank, business, real estate broker or stock broker.

Millionaire Kid$ Club: At this Texas program, 8-16 year-olds learn the basics of making, managing and multiplying money. Despite the name, it’s not necessarily aiming to create the next generation of oil tycoons, but rather to help young people develop good money habits that will last throughout their lives.

Grow Your Own Family Business

TrendCentral

Trying to juggle a full-time job and a business can be done. Consider these tips for smooth sailing.

1) BE UPWARDLY MOBILE: If you are still holding down a day job you will find that handheld wireless units provide privacy as well as constant e-mail contact with your clients. It’s best to check on your side business at lunch or during breaks. My favorite gadget is the T-Mobile Sidekick, mainly because it is so easy to use. Other options would be the Blackberry or Treo.

2) USE BETTER BUSINESS CARDS: If you must give a business card out at work or to people associated with your job, it won’t scream “I have my own business,” if you use a card with your name, personal e-mail and phone number. Don’t include the name of your business if you want to remain anonymous.

3) AVOID TIME WASTERS: Write form letters that can be reused and store them on your computer or handheld wireless device. Simply change the details for each business transaction for fast and easy communication. This cuts down on response time during business hours.

4) CELL FORMULA: Create an outgoing message that lets callers know how to get the quickest response from you. Add a tag line, “I check my voicemail regularly however, for a faster response please e-mail me at (fill in your e-mail address)

5) FAUX FAX: There are options if you don’t want to miss receiving a fax during work hours. Use one of the free electronic e-mail services; it is a convenient option you can access from a computer. Otherwise let the person faxing know that they need to call first so you can stand at the fax machine because you are at work.

6) ARE YOUR LIPS SEALED: Some employees don’t mind if you have a side-business yet others would prefer you keep what ever it is that you are doing a SECRET! Be careful not to flaunt what you are doing because it may cause friction or jealousy amongst your co-workers.

7) TIMING IS EVERYTHING: It is best to handle things for your side-business when you are NOT at your day job even if you have lots of free time. Run your business evenings and weekends and set boundaries for your clients by letting them know the hours you are available to them.

Entrepreneur

Try to connect with companies that have the same kind of customers you have and trying to trade for or rent their client lists. Become active in newsgroups and forums where you’ll not only have a chance to talk about yourself but may meet prospective customers.

You might author an article about your niche market and send it to other publications that reach your market, asking for no money but just to be identified by your name and Web site.

Some of the publications will let you include a paragraph at the end in which you can blow your own horn. If you could offer your services as a speaker at the conference, that would help establish you as an expert, but you wouldn’t be allowed to make a sales presentation. At a conference, you should merely give information of worth and value.

Inc.

In today’s Internet marketing world we are so used to seeing those long sales pages with a huge list of testimonials including plenty of smiling faces, sometimes audio and even video comments endorsing a product or service or person.

The last few days I’ve been preparing my first draft of the sales page for Blog Mastermind in preparation to hand it over to my friend Will Swayne for a review, who knows copywriting better than me, and then to a paid copywriter for a final review (apparently copy is important or something!).

In some ways I think having a long-form sales page is a necessary evil when it comes to selling online. I realize a lot of people will join Blog Mastermind just on the back of knowing me and sampling my work. They will probably scroll straight to the first “join” button and sign-up, ignoring all my carefully constructed copy. That’s great of course, yet I can’t simply launch a product with a page that says “join” on it because I’ll be loosing a lot of potential clients. Continue reading →

Want A Healthy Company? Start With Yourself! For many entrepreneurs, it’s easy to ignore the warning signs that you’re unhealthy–much less take notice if your business isn’t well. When you’re so busy that you can’t remember the last time you read a book, sat down for a meal or spent a night watching useless TV, then your health may be the last thing on your mind.

But ignoring your unhealthy habits and their subsequent risk factors is dangerous–not only to you, but also to your business. Lack of sleep and exercise, unhealthy foods and high stress won’t keep you performing at your best. Your business is only as healthy as you are. “I can’t be effective [as an entrepreneur] if my body isn’t as healthy as possible,” says Jonathan Fields, a serial entrepreneur who started New York City-based Sonic Yoga in 2001 following a frightening emergency surgery brought on by the stress of his career as an attorney.

With sales approaching $1 million and two locations, Fields, 41, now incorporates yoga, meditation and breathing exercises, as well as mountain biking and other outdoor activities, into his routine four or five days a week. He also keeps his diet well-rounded, eating plenty of fruits and vegetables and avoiding red meat and pork but allowing the occasional indulgence.

Entrepreneur

Many businesspeople achieve their greatest successes in unexpected areas. They begin a business and then they find that it isn’t as profitable as they had anticipated, so they change direction, using their experience and their momentum, and strike paydirt in something else. The most important thing is to begin. To take action. To move forward one step at a time, learning and growing as you go. There is enough information available in virtually every field for you to become knowledgeable enough to achieve success. But action is necessary.

The Two Parts of Success
Success author Orison Swett Marden once wrote, the first part of success is get-to-it-ivness. The second part is stick-to-it-iveness. Every business beginning requires an act of faith and courage, a bold leap into the unknown. Only one in ten people who want to start their own businesses ever develop enough courage to begin and enough persistence to continue. Get-to-it-iveness. And stick-to-it-iveness. The fear of failure, more than anything else, holds people back. It paralyzes action. And it makes failure inevitable.

Begin With a Dream
Fortunately, even if you know nothing about business, you can begin with a dream, a castle in the air, and then build a foundation under it.

Seven Simple Steps
The starting point of many great fortunes has been these seven simple steps. Number one, set a goal and back it with a burning desire. Number two, begin accumulating capital with a regular savings program. Nothing else is possible without this. You cannot move forward until you start a savings program.

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