万花筒 2011-02-08&02-10 创业小贴士

 Welcome back to Job Club ,I'm Tory Johnson in New York. And We've been discussing how entrepreneurs can have the  best shot at success. Many of you have submitted questions to ask at ABC News.com about your business efforts, and I've asked Scott Gerbert to join us once again, to help me answer them. All right, Scott, are you ready?

 

Absolutely ready!

 

Good. The first question is from Dolores in Pennsylvania. She writes, My sister and I are starting a pajama business and are  having a hard time finding a sewer¹ to make the samples, and a manufacturer in our area. We wanna keep it in the USA and be able to offer jobs to people out of work. Hope you can help us find the right people. Important question, Scott, so where should Dlores start looking to find those reliable resources to get her business going.

 

Well, I always  say that on-line forms and social media are the best ways to connect with other vendors³,with partners and other such folks. So the first thing I would say, is going to Google,do a basic search to find, who's the sewing forum⁴, who's hosting the, a place to be if you're in that world, and look on-line to see if there are alike-minded individuals that also have similar problems looking for vendors. Ask people on these forums⁵. Go to twitter, look for key search words, as well, and try to find folks that are basically creating a dialogue about sewer subject.

 

Sure, and also probably just going door-to-door and asking people to make samples for her , so she can see the quality of their work.

 

Absolutely,I mean there's definitely different meet-ups, different organizations. They're going to focus on this exact, eh, you know, type of product, so definitely put yourself out there. Look continue to try to pun the  payment and find those folks that are looking to create those  kind of products.

 

Sure, and she'll discover she's not the only one, who had the same concern and yet, she can benefit from other people's solutions, so that's very smart. Okay. Next, Kim from Wisconsin, she has this question, I was wondering if you could help me get started on how to write a book. I live with Crohn's disease and I want to help other people understand this disease. Scott, you've just written your book. How dose Kim get started?

 

Well, there is two routes--you can go self publishing or you can go after a publisher. Let's take the first one. Self publishing is something that you can go to sites like, lulu.com or Amazon, to tried to find ways to write a topic, create your own cover artwork, get an editor as a freelancer⁶, find a way to create you  manuscript, get it all polished and put it up as your own product. Obviously, there is a way that you wanna get rid of all of the fees, that's why you wanna do it on the main publisher like lulu or Amazon to make sure you don't have a lot of cost. If you wanna go the direction of a published book, my suggestion first is to build your platform. What does that mean is creating a video blog if you start to push out there. Create a syndicated column by pitching different outlets⁷ out there that would focus on your topic, because the name of the game of the publishing world is platform, platform, platform. They need to know that you have relevance⁸ to a market, that people care about what you have to say, and that people frankly⁹ are going to buy your book.

 

And that's something she could start right now, she could even start a group on Facebook, and talk to(Absolutely) people about the Crohn's disease and build that following up.

 

Absolutely, it takes an army to get a book published, I can tell you that.(That's right.) But it's very very key that you connect with people because they'll also be best influencers and folks to spread the world of mouths once you book is out there in the world.

 

All right, and when she writes that book we will have her here to talk about it. Okay. Finally we have a question from Maggie in Colorado. She says,I spent 10 years as professional civil engineer, until I had my two girls. I am now a stay-at-home mom and realtor. I have recently had a great idea for a new learning illness-prevention product for children. Can you recommend the process for  developing the prototype obtaining a patent and who to contact as far as marketing¹⁰ the product? Scott, She wants to know everything, but perhaps you can tell Maggie where she should get started.

 

Well, No.1 is talk to your lawyer or find somebody who's willing to give you a legal counsel. A patenting is a very very time-consuming and expensive process you wanna make sure that you're getting great advice from the start, as well as making sure you've everything in place before you start patent process, in terms of creating the actual product. You know, it is not more than ever investors¹¹ are not willing to take a risk. Eh, most of them anyway, aren't putting something brand new into the market without any level of  distribution. So try to find some strategic partners. Look to local vendors you might wanna take the next step in their businesses. Look for who's distributing similar products,try to get meetings. Try to tell them why this is something that you know will work. But most importantly, try to get that product created by some local vendor² to show what it actually does, cause remember, you're wanna show and don't tell.

 

Thanks so much for spending time with us the book again Never get a real job. And That's all the time that  we have for today, but you can visit us anytime on the Job Club page at ABC News.com for so much more information, and you can also always talk to me directly at facebook.com/Tory or twitter.com/Tory Johnson. Thanks so much for watching, I'll see you next time right here on Job Club.

1 sewer   

n.排水沟，下水道

参考例句：

• They are tearing up the street to repair a sewer. 他们正挖开马路修下水道。
• The boy kicked a stone into the sewer. 那个男孩把一石子踢进了下水道。

2 vendor   

n.卖主；小贩

参考例句：

• She looked at the vendor who cheated her the other day with distaste.她厌恶地望着那个前几天曾经欺骗过她的小贩。
• He must inform the vendor immediately.他必须立即通知卖方。

3 vendors   

n.摊贩( vendor的名词复数 )；小贩；（房屋等的）卖主；卖方

参考例句：

• The vendors were gazundered at the last minute. 卖主在最后一刻被要求降低房价。
• At the same time, interface standards also benefIt'software vendors. 同时，界面标准也有利于软件开发商。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

4 forum   

n.论坛，讨论会

参考例句：

• They're holding a forum on new ways of teaching history.他们正在举行历史教学讨论会。
• The organisation would provide a forum where problems could be discussed.这个组织将提供一个可以讨论问题的平台。

5 forums   

讨论会； 座谈会； 广播专题讲话节目； 集会的公共场所( forum的名词复数 )； 论坛，讨论会，专题讨论节目； 法庭

参考例句：

• A few of the forums were being closely monitored by the administrators. 有些论坛被管理员严密监控。
• It can cast a dark cloud over these forums. 它将是的论坛上空布满乌云。

6 freelancer   

n.自由职业者

参考例句：

• He has great interest in working as a freelancer.他对做个自由职业人很感兴趣。
• It's not always easy to make it as a freelancer.做个自由职业人，要能时常感觉满足，可不容易。

7 outlets   

n.出口( outlet的名词复数 )；经销店；插座；廉价经销店

参考例句：

• The dumping of foreign cotton blocked outlets for locally grown cotton. 外国棉花的倾销阻滞了当地生产的棉花的销路。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They must find outlets for their products. 他们必须为自己的产品寻找出路。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

8 relevance   

n.中肯，适当，关联，相关性

参考例句：

• Politicians' private lives have no relevance to their public roles.政治家的私生活与他们的公众角色不相关。
• Her ideas have lost all relevance to the modern world.她的想法与现代社会完全脱节。

9 frankly   

adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说

参考例句：

• To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说，我一点也不赞成这个主意。
• Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说，我不反对改革。

10 marketing   

n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西

参考例句：

• They are developing marketing network.他们正在发展销售网络。
• He often goes marketing.他经常去市场做生意。

11 investors   

n.投资者，出资者( investor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a con man who bilked investors out of millions of dollars 诈取投资者几百万元的骗子
• a cash bonanza for investors 投资者的赚钱机会