He is one of only a handful of people to ever build more than one business worth over a billion dollars and his creations have been revolutionary.

After creating the first personal computers and building a billion dollar company while still in his 20′s, Jobs was fired from Apple at age 30.

Steve Jobs went on to acquire Pixar from George Lucas which released Toy Story, a blockbuster success at the box office. After growing and merging his second Billion Dollar Company, he became the single largest shareholder of Disney.

He then returned to the stagnating Apple Corporation in 1997, where he rescued the business from insolvency by creating the iMac, a computer that looked like something that you wanted to play on.

He then changed the game for the music industry with the innovative iTunes and iPod combination. In doing so he added billions to Apples sales and resurrected the failing technology giant.

From strength to strength he went on to use the innovations he pioneered after being fired to create the most respected opperating system in personal computing and bring the Mac range of computers back to life.

After that, he set about creating a device that would fundamentally put a computer in your pocket as well as a phone. Some say, the iPhone has become the most game-changing device since the PC. Today we can’t imagine life without a smart phone for maps, searches, games, music and of course calls.

Not content to rest up despite his cancer, Steve led the innovation team that would create the worlds fastest selling technology device; the iPad. Not only a ground breaking device, but when matched up with the Ap Store it sparked a new wave of creativity in software development world wide.

Under the visionary gaze of Steve Jobs, Apple has become the worlds most respected brand for innovation.

In under 10 years of Steve Job’s tenure his business bounced back from the edge of bankruptcy to become the worlds most iconic brand.

This inspiring entrepreneur has transformed the way the world relates to computers, software, movies, music, phones, books, magazines and screens.

Not only has Steve Job’s story has inspired millions of entrepreneurs, his innovations have become the platform of choice for some of the most creative people on the planet as well.

His most lasting legacy will not be his success at Apple or Pixar. It is the culture of innovation that he’s infused into society and the future innovators that he has enabled, empowered and emboldened.

I never met him but I will never forget him. He will inspire me for the rest of my life. Rest Peacefully Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011

Let’s take a look at the world of motor racing for a powerful example of this principle in action.

Every formula 1 driver shares the same story. They begin as a child driving go-karts. Each race they get better and move from the back of the grid closer and closer to pole position.

One day they win, then they win again and soon they become the kid to beat. As a result of their regular little wins they get noticed.

A talent-scout for Formula 3 starts asking around the parents and the teams for someone who’s regularly winning races. Eventually the name of a rising star emerges.

Then comes the quantum leap. The talent scout invites the young driver to come and drive in a faster team. The young driver leaves the go-kart behind and takes the wheel of the faster Formula 3 car.

It’s not like the go kart got progressively faster and magically turned into an F3 car, the driver has to leave the vehicle he knows behind in order to step into a whole new league.

In Formula 3, they may temporarily go back to loosing and struggling to keep up. Things move faster and everyone is damn good at their sport.

Once again our rising star eventually wins a race. It was narrow and it was lucky but it was a win. Then they win again and again and soon they are getting used to the podium. A lot of regular little wins lead once again to a quantum leap.

A talent scout from Formula 1 comes along and taps the talented young driver on the shoulder and says “I hear you keep winning races, how would you like to come and drive for the F1?”.

On the road to being an F1 driver, the pattern is easy to see. Lots of regular little wins create the conditions for a quantum leap.

It’s also expected that after a leap the driver will take time to get used to the new pace. They will go from regular wins to regular losses before regaining their poll positions.

In business we don’t have clearly posted racing divisions like F1 and F3. At best we can gauge success by turnover, profit or growth; but success still follows the same predictable pattern.

Lots of regular little wins first, then an invitation to take a quantum leap to the next level.

With this in mind there are two key mistakes an entrepreneur can make.

1. Not achieving regular little wins.

In their haste to achieve success the entrepreneur tries to force their way into a level of business they aren’t ready for.

Rather than creating some profitable quarters, winning some small contracts and completing some manageable deals, the entrepreneur goes after “that one big deal”.

They start talking about doing 7 figure deals before they’ve ever done a 5 figure deal. They approach large corporations for business before notching up a win with a small or medium sized client. They try to throw money at problems when they aren’t yet sure how the industry works.

Trying to skip the “regular little wins” phase of business is as dangerous as getting behind the wheel of an F1 car before you’ve even learned how to control a go-kart.

2. Not paying attention when someone is offering you a Quantum Leap.

A quantum leap in business feels risky. Just like the kart driver needs to leave his familiar racing kart behind in order to to go up a grade, a quantum leap often requires the entrepreneur to significantly change the way they do things.

They may need to let go of a product that is selling, they may need to get rid of a key person or partnership. They may also need to go from winning every time to losing quite a lot in order to then move forward to bigger things.

Many times, entrepreneurs have their head down in their business when the “F1 talent scout” comes and taps them on the shoulder. They get an offer to play at a whole new level but because it feels unfamiliar they turn it down or ignore it.

There may be a big deal to do but in order to do it, the entrepreneur needs to enter into new legal agreements, create new products or do a new joint venture. It all seems too tricky and the opportunity is lost.

Skipping the opportunity for a quantum leap is as crazy as a young driver turning down the F1 team because he’s too busy tinkering with his kart. The very reason you get the regular little wins is so you’re offered the chance to drive in the F1. Even if it’s tricky, find a way to get the deal done.

Success is a staged event and it requires you to achieve your regular little wins AND take advantage of the quantum leaps when they come along.

Share your thoughts below…

Of course you would, because the word created literally means “to bring something into being; to cause something to become real in the world; to make something happen”.

It does not mean “to have an idea, to think up something or to think about how something might happen.”

Therefor, if I told you I “created” a cake, you have every right to expect to see a cake on the bench. 

The word creative originally meant “possessing the power to create”, ie: possesing the power to get something done. Lately however, it’s come to mean “possessing the power to think things up”.

Regularly (enough for me to blog about it) I have people say to me “My problem is I never finish things because I’m too creative”.

I’ve also had people say to me “I’m not very creative, but I’m very good at getting things done.”

This tells me we have lost our way, when it comes to understanding what it means to be “creative”.

We’ve bought into the myth that what’s going on in someones head has value in the real world; It doesn’t.

 Thinking about murdering someone doesn’t make you a murderer. Thinking about having a date with Pippa Middleton doesn’t make you prince charming. Thinking about a business idea, a product or a new service doesn’t make you a “creative”.

What makes you creative is your ability to bring it into the world in a way that other people can understand and value.

As long as it’s in your head, you haven’t created anything yet. You MUST get it out into the real world in a way that shows up as valuable.

We need to use the word “imaginative” for people who have a lot of ideas. Imaginative people love to dream things up but the word does not imply they have brought their ideas into the world. 

I think we’ve diminished the value of what it really takes to be creative. Being creative isn’t easy, you need to imagine AN idea, decide upon it as THE idea and then do everything required to bring it into the world.

The process normally takes months or years to get a single creation completed. It’s blood, sweat, tears, risk and sacrifice. For that reason we should separate the dreamers from the doers and give more credit to the people who are truly creating things. 

Imagine we live in 1876 and the first Microphone has just been invented. It’s an exciting new device that takes the human voice and amplifies it to many people.

This new technology is fascinating to a lot of people. Imagine there are seminars and courses on how to set up a microphone, how to switch it on, how to fiddle with the dials.

Imagine people start writing articles like “The Power of the Microphone”, “How To Make Millions With A Microphone” and “Microphone Wealth Strategies”.

To some people it seems like it is the microphone that is making people rich but they are missing the biggest point.

The money doesn’t go to people who know how a microphone works, it goes to the people who know how to sing!

Today we have social media as the new “microphone”. It takes a message and gets it out to the world almost instantly.

Many people have become obsessed by this new technology. They attend courses called ““Social Media Millions” and “Make Money Online”. Some courses are good but many get people focussed on the wrong thing.

It’s not social media that makes people rich. It’s their message.

The Social Media just makes them louder. Just like a bad singer is a loud bad singer when they have a microphone, a terrible business message just gets ignored by more people online.

If you were alive at the time of the microphone I would advise you to get good at singing NOT get good at setting up a microphone.

Today you need to get good at pitching your ideas, productising your value, building your profile and empowering your community NOT get good at fiddling with websites.

Please share a comment below…

Their perception of an internet based business is that it’s almost a forgone conclusion that it’s a synch to make millions with little effort. It seemed to them that an internet based business couldn’t fail.

I have a very different opinion. I see the massive potential to run a business online however I also see that it’s far from easy.

Imagine you want to open a coffee shop. You need a good location, good staff and good coffee. You need to be better than every coffee shop in the street.

 On the internet, your “coffee shop” is less than 2 minutes from every other coffee shop in the world.

In just a few clicks, your customer is in another store. Effectively you are on the same street as every coffee shop in the world.

It gets worse. Imagine that you are on the same street as every other coffee shop in the world AND each shop has an infinite number of seats available. Your competition don’t get too busy and make people cue up, they can serve all the customers in lightning quick speed no matter how many people show up.

Finally, add to the mix the fact that your competition have raised so much money that they can give away free coffee for 5 years, while the figure out how to make money in other ways. Now, if you charge for your coffee you’re going to look bad!

… That’s the internet and that’s why it’s not easy.

So here’s some tips when thinking about your presence online:

1. Have both a global reach and a local fan base. The internet still can’t compete with the “local touch”. My company Triumphant Events has products sent out all over the world but our local fan base is what keeps us growing.

2. Get clear on your “Micro-Niche”… On the internet, it’s painfully small niches that tend to get traction. Michelle Phan has had over 500,000,000 people watch her videos for “Asian girls, aged 15-25 to put on makeup in new unique ways”.

3. Make it remarkable and interactive for people to share. Over the last year, more than 150,000 people have started “planking” (basically you take a photo of yourself lying flat like a plank in a strange place). It’s a craze that’s happened because its super easy for people to do it and share it.

4. Understand your product strategy. There’s no point having 20,000 fans if you haven’t got a great value proposition for them. You also need to have more than just one product, you need a chain of them if you want your business to thrive. Apple have free products like iTunes, low cost products like iPod Nano’s and then before you know it you’re looking at a MacBook Pro for £2000!

Be smart on the internet. It’s the place where dreams are both made and broken. 

This is a normal conversation for me. I often find myself talking with successful entrepreneurs about the full range of business topics at all hours of the day. Often these topics have no direct link to my business but it’s ok because I am just as passionate about business in general as I am about my own business.

This is a common trait I’ve noticed that separates successful entrepreneurs from unsuccessful ones.

I’ve noticed that the successful entrepreneurs aren’t just into their own business, they are excited by business in general. 

I’ve also noticed that most unsuccessful entrepreneurs get frustrated when talking about business in general and just want to get answers for their own current business challenges.

Unsuccessful entrepreneurs don’t seem to know the stories of the worlds most famous entrepreneurs, they don’t seem to buy business books or read the business section of the paper. They don’t really care about emerging trends or strategies that don’t directly apply to them right here, right now.

This is a tricky topic to bring up because I’m really not sure if this can be learned or it’s something some people just naturally do. Whichever the case, I do think it’s important to know.

In my experience, if you want to be a successful business owner you MUST be passionate about:

1. Your business
2. Your industry
3. Business in general (Every business in the world, all the trends that effect businesses everywhere and all the people who are leading businesses).

For some people this might seem like a big ask, but the people I know who are seriously successful in business can tick all three  of those boxes.  

Leave your comments below…

One skinny, commuter newspaper contains plenty of examples that indicate the impending Entrepreneur Revolution and the rise of the Global Small Business.

Here’s some examples:

An agoraphobic girl who hasn’t left her UK house in 2 yeas is a pop sensation in China. She records her videos, uploads them to YouTube and has had 2.5Million views to her channel.

In what universe could a person who has a fear of leaving the house become a pop sensation!

Then we see three women aged 26 have set up a web site for sharing photos of handsome men who users have spotted on the tube. It’s reported as having 22,000 users from over 100 countries.

This “business” would have cost just pennies to set up and  could make serious money (if it doesn’t get shut down by Mens Rights groups everywhere)

Next I spot three chefs in Italy who are now supplying to retail giant, Marks and Spencer with “Eco Food” from their small farm in Milan. This shows how fast the barriers are coming down for small businesses anywhere in the world to find new markets. It also shows how small businesses overseas are willing and able to compete on your doorstep.

To demonstrate that trend further, workers at a call center for telco giant Orange were told they could keep their jobs if they moved to the Philippines. Of course their pay would also have to drop to £200 per month plus laundry and food allowance. This is a direct example that shows how local workers are directly competing with developing countries.

If you think that employment stats are going to get better this decade, think again. When businesses need a job done their first choice is software if they can find it and then if they can’t they look to developing countries. Only “value producing” jobs are are safe in the West. If you aren’t vital, your likely to be replaceable.

Parents are obviously cottoning on to the fact that there will be no jobs for their children, the next story says that 1 in 3 of all children in the UK now have a profile page on the internet. Many kids as young as 9 have set up a web site.

Finally, we see in another article that 1 in 3 children under 16 are now expected to live to 100. At the turn of the 20th century only 100 people were recorded as being over the age of 100. Today the number exceeds 11,500 and in the not too distant future its likely to be in the hundreds of thousands.

It says “While life expectancy in Britain continues to rise, pension savings are in decline.” and “Two out of five 18 to 24-year-olds did not think there were enough jobs for older people to stay in work.”

If we join the dots, its clear to see that the Industrial Revolution is over. No more factory labour (be it blue or white collar), no more secure jobs for life and clearly no more pensions.

Something has to shift and the answer is in black and white for all commuters to see.

On the one hand, we see things going disastrously bad for people who are clinging to traditional employment. On the other hand we see that this is the greatest time in history for those people who want to express their passion to global marketplace through a fun, flexible enterprise.

Please comment below… 

They get paranoid about sharing it, they worry about people discovering it, they want people to buy it off them and they think that it’s worth millions.

Let me categorically say that (IMHO) valuable ideas aren’t worth anything. The valuable part of any idea is its implementation.

Anyone can sit around and have a big idea. Few can make it happen.

Even a boring idea becomes valuable if it’s implemented well. The idea behind Pret A Manger is “yummy sandwiches ready to go”. Yawn.

The idea behind Innocent Drinks is “delicious healthy smoothies”. So what? Is that a revolutionary idea? Would you have fallen off your chair when you heard about these little bottles of juice?

Neither of these ideas are particularly ingenious. What’s remarkable and valuable about both of these ideas is that they are implemented with absolute excellence.

An even better example is the iPad.

Tablet PC’s have been around for years. Bill Gates was on about tablet PC’s a decade ago. The idea is clearly a brilliant idea but could Microsoft or anyone else execute it? Not even close.

The brilliance of Apple wasn’t to have the idea of a tablet PC but to implement a strategy that would get the whole world buzzing about them. What better example demonstrates that valuable ideas are worthless … Until they are implemented with excellence.

So why do people try so hard to protect the their idea?

1. They have no idea how to implement it with excellence but they still want the money and the glory.
2. They aren’t willing to implement it with excellence and they still want the money and the glory.

But that’s not how the world works and nor should it be. The people who get an idea into the world, who pitch it again and again and work tirelessly for years to get it right are the ones who deserve the money and the rewards. Not the person who thinks they deserve a medal just for having an idea.

Please leave your comments below….

A GSB isn’t like a big global business and it’s not like a traditional small business either. As the name suggests, these are businesses that have less than 10 staff but aren’t limited by geography. They have reach into cities all over the world and could easily be making millions in sales despite a relatively small headcount.

Most commonly they will be service providers however many will also sell high value physical products that can be sent whizzing all over the globe to customers in  far away cities. A lot of GSBs will also have valuable Intellectual Property that they license to their “local partners”.

GSBs will have incredibly well developed brands, making them look much bigger than they are. They will be built around a “micro-nich” and they rely heavily on a few Key People of Influence.

They will communicate on Skype, market themselves using social media, manage their operations in the cloud and be based wherever it makes sense from a tax and ip protection standpoint (I predict Singapore being a front runner).

The GSBs will have their top talent working from home and meeting in rented boardrooms on a weekly or monthly basis. Due to multiple time zones the edges of work and play will blur. Performance will be more important than hours clocked -  “the only truth is the results” is the new mantra for managing employees of GSBs.

GSBs will become an attractive alternative to white collar employment. Professionals like lawyers, accountants, consultants and managers will define a “micro-niche” and then leave traditional employment in favor of their own GSB startup.

Lifestyle and flexibility will be a huge advantage for a GSB. Correctly structured, the owners of GSBs will pay little tax compared to their employee counterparts. Many GSB owners will split their time living in 2-3 locations to avoid income tax altogether.

Having an GSB will create an enviable lifestyle. A GSB isn’t like having a traditional, local small business that prevents the owner from traveling and limits the money they can make to the local economy.

A GSB on the contrary, expands as you travel and is only limited by the size of the micro-niche and the creativity of the team. Many GSBs will earn millions in revenue and have only a few staff (some of whom will be based in low-labour-cost countries like the Philippines). For this reason, many GSB owners will earn 7 figures comparatively easily.

Here’s 7 flow-on effects I predict to look out for:

1. The leisure industry will boom – with millions more people able to earn six and seven figure incomes from anywhere in the world, the leisure industries will boom. Hotels, resorts, casinos, attractions and the like will see big demands.
2. Global mail/call forwarding services – these are integral parts of running a GSB and will grow in demand.
3. Global couriers – Shipping goods around the world is a vital component to GSDs.
4. Members clubs – People need a place to meet and do business without the need for a full office setup in one location.
5. Prosumer AV equipment – GSDs rely upon the ability to communicate with customers all over the world. This means regular videos on the web, photos and audio recordings.
6. Tax clamp-downs – Get ready for the day when more and more western governments demand that you pay taxes on income earned everywhere in the world.
7. Weakening middle class – In the next 10 years a lot of money will move towards the people who “get it” and they will find it easier than ever to avoid tax. The middle class will thin out and they will be shouldered with more and more debt and taxes. If unemployment goes up over 20% you might want to get out of town because they will clash with government until the government is forced to name a bad guy and go to war with it.

By 2020 Global Small Businesses will be in full swing. Now you know, what do you want to do about it?

Leave your comments bellow…

What does this tell you about how money works?

It tells you that it’s not fair. Wealth moves to and from a small percentage of key people of influence.

If you are a key person in the top 10% you can expect to be sharing in 95% of the pie. If you aren’t, you will be fighting it out with 90% of people for just 5% of the remainder. It will be exhausting and dehumanising.

It works the same inside industries. The top 10% of companies in any industry often dominate more than 80% of the revenue in that industry. The top 1% of people who run those top companies are earning fortunes while most people are barely surviving.

You hear about people taking a “leap up” in their earning power. When you look at the statistics it’s very easy to explain.

If a person is in the top 11th percentile they are still part of the 90% who are sharing in 5% of the pie.

As soon as they cross over to being in the top 10% they start sharing 95% of the pie with their new contemporaries. Sure enough, it’s a huge leap up.

For the last thousand years the top echelon of society has been preserved, protected and maintained by those in power. Only at times of great change and upheaval is it possible for some people to “jump the fence”. The industrial revolution, the information age and the internet all presented people a chance to make it.

Well here’s the newsflash, we are in times of great upheaval and change and it’s about to get bigger. The next 10-20 years will be like nothing we’ve seen before. A perfect storm of new technology, social change, political unrest, globalisation, wealth redistribution and demographical issues has been brewing for 40 years and it’s about to go pop.

The next 10-20 years will present the biggest upheaval humanity has ever seen and will offer the greatest opportunities for anyone to reposition themselves into a whole new life.

Now more than ever, this is the time to become one of the Key People of Influence in your industry. You must orchestrate your move into the top 10% now.