Here’s a great link for those that love Macs, and want to know how the Mac was marketed.
Jul 12
As an entrepreneur, you’re always looking for what it takes to be successful. Learning new skills is one thing, but translating your current skills from one channel to another is just a matter of changing your mindset.
Watch this NY Times video about Randy Kearse, who served more than 13 years in federal prison, has used the business skills he honed as a drug dealer to sell thousands of his self-published books in the streets and in the subway.
You, too, change, turn your life around. Change your mind, change your results.
Jul 01
When it comes to being an entrepreneur and using a Mac you come across a number of people that don’t like Mac users. But that is beside the point.
Recently a friend received a Microsoft Publisher document in Publisher’s native file format, not as a PDF. This customer called the business and said, “I can’t read the file you sent, what program did you use?” “I sent you a MS Publisher file, why can’t you read it?”
First, for a business to come across as “why YOU can’t read” what they sent you is the WRONG answer to the question.
The customer started with, “I use a Mac and…,” and before the customer could continue the their statement the business then began to denigrate their customer as being stupid and arrogant for not having Windows and MS Publisher. “Mac users *&@+!^)(~*”
As a customer, how would you respond to such actions?
There is a hugh difference between reducing various communications avenues or channels for customers to contact you to keep your time to respond to customer concerns to a minimum, versus shutting down completely customers contacting you completely. (Having 10 different channels to communicate means you learn 10 different systems and protocols). You don’t have to have 10 different ways of customers to contact you, it is best to have one or two, but to prevent them from contacting and even working with you is bad for business.
So, if you have want customers to work with you, you need to make sure that the one communication avenue our choose is the one most available to your customers. Sending a PDF not only can be read by everyone, but it saves on the environment.
Besides, real print publishers dislike MS Publisher files that are sent to them, so get with the program and use something that your vendors and customers will enjoy, it just might bring you more business.
Like, get a Mac? Hmm?
P.S. Mac has UNIX under the hood and Postscript as it’s native printing language. All printers understand and use it.
Jun 23
As an entrepreneur and startup there is one thing that you work on: if you can’t do it yourself, hire someone to do it for you. Creating new documents can take time, but designing templates, or finding someone else’s designed templates, can save you time in the many tasks that
Inkd is just one such company the designs iWork templates, including a number of sections of free templates, both free to download and upload your own designs.
StockLayouts is another iWork Pages template web site with nicely designed templates for business use.
Check out both sites and see if you can reduce the amount of time it takes you to get your marketing up and out the door.
If anything, you can get some great ideas from them to try out yourself. It may take longer, but you’ll increase your Mac and iWork skill set and get things done yourself.
Mar 25
I’ll be attending the Colorado Independent Publishers Association (CIPA) College tomorrow, Mar 26-27 at:
Red Lion Inn 4040 Quebec Street Denver, CO 80216Tel: 303-321-6666
Fax: 303-355-7412
E-mail: denvercentralsales@redlion.com It’s located just south of I-70 on Quebec Street in Denver. You can see me there on both days with my smile on. A chance to mix with new friends and old ones.
Mar 22
As an entrepreneur and business startup using a Mac I’m always looking for basic items much like going hiking for the first time. What do I take with me, what do I have to have? Same with getting into the graphic arts.
Here’s a list of 25 classic fonts for graphic designers that can translate into a business startup or for an entrepreneur that may not know what “got to have” fonts are needed for their Mac running business. But rather than go to the site, here’s the list of what’s on your Snow Leopard Mac in bold:
- Helvetica (y)
- Bodoni (n)
- Clarendon (n)
- Akzidenz Grotesk (n)
- Avenir (n)
- Din (n)
- Futura (y)
- News Gothic (y, called News Gothic MT)
- Frutiger (n)
- Meta (n)
- Gill Sans (y)
- Garamond (y)
- Mrs Eaves (n)
- Dax (n)
- Myriad (n)
- VAG Rounded (n)
- Optima (y)
- Avant Garde (n)
- Univers (n)
- Rockwell (y)
- Minion (n)
- Sabon (n)
- Cocon (n)
- Rotis (n)
- Bembo (n)
Apple hasn’t done a bad job giving beginning Mac users a smattering of good fonts to work with about 1/3 of the “classic fonts” in your Font Book listings.
What you DON’T want to do is get “complex” fonts and use them in your writing. Here’s a great short article on complex versus simple fonts.
The real question: what order should we get our next fonts?
Do you have any comments about these? What would you recommend for the basics?
Mar 17
I found this web site about the Boulder Book Store that helps indie authors get their books into their stores. Rather interesting article. Have to check it out and see how it goes since it’s down the road from me.
Mar 12
Buy Now Here:
How to Start a Business: Mac Version
Well, the time has come to launch my book “How To Start A Business: Mac Version” and I’ll be giving a talk at the Colorado Springs Entrepreneur Meetup.com group on March 31st at the East library in Colorado Springs. I’ll be talking about:
- What started me with my book idea
- Researching the book
- Writing the book
- Producing the book via Print On Demand (POD) publishing
- What’s in the future.
Hope to see you there, but I’ll have more after March 31st, so stay tuned.
Kevin
Update: 03/29/2010
I’ll still be giving my presentation to the CSE but my book has been delayed because of technical issues for a few more weeks.
