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UPDATE: A winner has been chosen and will be announced tomorrow, 8/16/2011. Because I know all three lovely contestants, I had an impartial third party review the stories. Stay tuned… 🙂
According to Merriam-Webster, a person who is scrappy exhibits an aggressive and determined spirit. This describes many entrepreneurs and especially describes Tyler Merrick of Project 7. He sat in a meeting with the buyer of Whole Foods and learned that his bottled water product was rejected. Instead of leaving the meeting, he sold the buyer on a product he hadn’t yet created: gum and mints with a philanthropic angle. He reinvented his business on the fly. Read more of Tyler’s story at MSN Business on Main.
Are you scrappy? Has there been a time when you had to re-invent your business because something just wasn’t working? Maybe you suffered one of these set-backs.
1. The target market is no longer interested in the product or service.
2. The business owner is faced with a financial or medical setback.
3. Your best customer drops your product or service.
4. A competitor with a bigger budget captures the majority of the business’ customers.
5. A supplier for a main product goes out of business.
Scrappy entrepreneurs rebound with grace even in the most difficult situations, like Tyler Merrick. Now I want to hear your story. Did you save your company’s distribution by coming up with a new product? Did you enlist the help of family and friends to run the business when your health suffered? Or did you do something else even more creative? MSN Business on Main has provided me with $100, and I will give it to the small business owner who shares the best re-invention story (as deemed by Entrepreneur Resources). Use this money to market your business, buy product supplies or even spark your next reinvention. 🙂
Rules of The Business on Main/Entrepreneur Resources “Business Reinvention” Contest
1. Post your re-invention story in the comments section of this post and on the MSN Business on Main article page.
2. Identify your post on Business on Main with the words Entrepreneur Resources.
3. The winner will be selected by Entrepreneur Resources.
4. Contest ends midnight August 14, 2011, and the winner will be posted on August 15, 2011.
5. You must be at least 18 years of age and live in the United States.
6. A valid email address must be included in both the post here on Entrepreneur Resources and in the comment section on the Business on Main article.
Note: Prizes will be awarded in the form of a $100 VISA gift card and will mailed out within 2 weeks of winner notification.
Good luck, and I look forward to reading about your reinvention!
Disclaimer: My blog is a part of an online influencer network for Business on Main. I receive incentives to share my views on a monthly basis. The opinions, however, are all mine. 
I must say that I am very scrappy. I started my business in 2010 and at the beginning I was going about it all the wrong way. I was having a FREE giveaway seems like every month, maybe even twice a month. It wasn’t until I joined a couple of great networking groups and started to follow some amazing women entrepreneurs, that I started asking questions and soliciting help from other business owners who are where I wanted to be. So with my first six or seven months in business, I came to realize that I was spending more money than I was bringing in from my business. After doing my 2010 taxes, I came to realized that I had spent over $3000.00 doing free giveaways, craft shows and so forth. That was one of my aha moments, and I knew that I could not continue to keep doing the same thing, or else I was going to be out of business before I even got my business up and running smoothly.
I began to talk to other entrepreneurs, and set up sessions with them to see where I was going to have to revamp my business if I wanted to move ahead. That is when I sat down and wrote a business plan for my business, and all the goals that I wanted to achieve. This is when I began to see some positive leads as far as maying revenue. I stop giving away everything and started to focus more on giving valuable content via my blog and email campaigns to my targeted audience. Now, I can see more interaction with my followers, and fans, whereas to at the beginning, I was just posting buy this, buy that, and no one likes to be shoved products and services in their faces all the time. People love to do business with people they know, like, and trust. So, I can truthfully say, that my business is a work in progress.
My entire business life has been scrappy. I started my first business – allegedly – in 2001. I was supposed to provide human resources consulting services. As I reflect on that venture, I never really promoted it because I didn’t like human resources. I thought it was because of a lack of business skills, but it was because of my lack of passion for human resources.
I was laid off in 2003, and decided to try to promote human resources again. That attempt was worse than the first one. During that time, I realized that I enjoyed writing and creative projects.
The reality of how much I didn’t like human resources became apparent in my last and final human resources position in 2006. My performance was horrible, and I was highly disappointed. Although I had a job, I was still trying to determine what it was I really wanted to do. As I continued to work the job I hated, I discovered that writing was my passion. My supervisor realized it, too, because when I asked her if she would let me go with unemployment, she said yes.
Remember how Mary Tyler Moore looked when she exited the subway and threw her hat in the air when she had finally made it. Well, I felt the same way when I walked out of my position on February 14, 2008. That was the best Valentine’s Day ever.
I dusted off my business documents and re-vamped The Write Design Company to provide writing services to small and mid-sized businesses. In 2009, I added blogging, live blogging and social media services and training. My business venture is so much easier to promote now because I love what I do, and people can hear it when I talk about it. As a result, I get more business.
My current challenge is branding myself. However, that is going to develop as I continue to grow. So, I guess I can say that I am still rather scrappy in business.
There are no clear instructions on how to post this on the Main Article Page. Please provide the link and I’ll do it. Thank you.
Three women who
are colleagues with “Green Irene”, my affiliate company, separately came
to me for business advice. I was a consultant for businesses and
nonprofits across America in my last “job” so I have a great depth of
start-up and operating and business planning experience and knowledge,
and apparently people realized that from my participation in the Green
Irene business affiliation.
After
I finished with my last consultation (which came out of the blue) I put
the phone down and realized there was a need here that wasn’t being
met.
So
within the hour I had organized a plan for rolling out a free business
support group targeted to “eco-entrepreneurs.” I wrote a blog and
posted it and guess what – fifteen people have signed up! Our first
virtual meeting will be August 10th. Members are spread all across the US and 2 are international.
How does a “free” support group translate into a business?
These
people need help writing content for their business and learning how to
set up and use social media. Two people have already contracted with
me and I feel confident there is more to come! The group is a way for
me to demonstrate my competency and abilities.
I am revising my website to let people know the types of services I can help them with.
Here’s a link to the group I’ve created. Clarity Green’s Eco-Entrepreneur’s Circle.
I may decide to create “series” and “workshops” out of the curriculum
(I am still writing it) and may charge a fee for the support group and
trainings in the future, I’m not sure yet. Another reason I am offering
this for free is because it gives me the opportunity to “practice” and
learn in a safe, supportive environment, perfect for me right now.
But, if nothing else, the group itself has given me hope and the encouragement I need to not give up!