The Theory:  There are several marketing industry gurus who champion the approach of marketing to ‘influencers’ to build a brand or ignite an idea through social marketing or business networking. The premise is that some individuals in our society have more power than others. This we can all agree on. And, yes, there are those with strong networks who are activists in one way or another (e.g., in the community, in business, politically, socially). Opinion leaders, another way to refer to them, are generally respected by the people in their network and often emulated. Among those championing the influencers are Malcolm Gladwell, the well-known author of The Tipping Point, Blink and other widely read books about business and society, and Ed Keller and Jon Berry, who co-authored the best-selling book, The Influentials.

First, it doesn’t matter how you feel about Sen. Clinton, you have to agree that she has persistence and tenacity. While the majority of pundits wrote Sen. Clinton off months ago, she is blocking, tackling, and clawing her way to the finish line. I would argue that the most important characteristic of a successful entrepreneur is persistence and stamina. And after 18 months in this campaign, she has outlasted quite a few other candidates – and she still wakes up every day acting like a winner.

I see it time and time again - companies with great ideas not getting off the ground and just burning through cash without revenue.  More often than not, at the very bottom of the problem is an inability to sell.  But how do you know you need help?  And what can you do?

I've spent the better part of the past 20 years selling.  Selling is just plain h-a-r-d.  But it is also a LOT of fun... I love selling!  In my mind, there is almost nothing that you can do as an entrepreneur that gets you to the heart of capitalism better than selling what you have created and satisfying customers. 

As a service to our readers, here’s a good compendium of solid and legitimate organizations you can go to for a variety of marketing-related information, including articles, white papers, terminology, etc.

These organizations vary from pure marketing to functions and specialties such as research, advertising or public relations; from US-based to internationally-based; from brick and mortar to web-only; from open-to-all to level-specific such as executives; from well-known to specialized and less well-known; and from all industries to industry-specific organizatons. You’ll also notice some Washington, DC-centric organizations among these.

A lot of entrepreneurs are coached (or required) to bring in some "seasoned management" in order to make their company successful.  Is this really necessary? Can an entrepreneur somehow maintain the CEO title?

Many VCs and other investors encourage (or sometimes force) entrepreneurs to bring on seasoned executives to run their companies.  Does this make sense?  Sometimes yes, sometimes no, and the wise entrepreneur would do well to think this through before taking outside money.

How many software or Internet business plans have you seen recently that rely on advertising as a business model?  Investor beware!

I've been in the Internet full time since early 1996, and in advertising-based businesses on the Internet since 1997.  I've seen plenty of hype and plenty of failures, and I personally lived the rapid rise of the Internet, followed by the crash, followed by the second rapid rise of the Internet.  And now in this second rise (even more so than the first rise) advertising is being touted as the future of the Internet by many content, software, and Web-based service companies -- and the concept is being bought into by many Venture Capitalists.  But is this real?  Can it work?  Based on my experience (and I have sold Internet advertising for many years now), the answer is a simple NO.

Why is it that business schools as a rule have no classes in "How to Sell", or better yet, "How to Manage Sales"?  In a startup, and yes, any company, sales are where the rubber meets the road.

You can take classes in business school on Marketing, Finance, Human Resources, and even Technology Management.  You can take second-year classes on Options Pricing and Derivatives.  Heck, you can even take classes on Business Law.  But very, very few MBA programs have classes on Sales.  How should one sell?  What systems, techniques, processes and tools work best?  And even if teaching how to sell is somehow not important, perhaps they could teach future managers how to manage sales?

As much as the White House likes to deny it, we're in a recession.  As an entrepreneur, perhaps you are asking, "is a recession a good time to start a business?" My vote is yes!

The way I see it, any time is a good time to start a company.  Some times may be better than others, but it is all a matter of degree.  Once bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, postponing doing your startup is a very, very hard thing to do.  It's like when you have both arms full of, say, groceries, and you get a wicked itch on your leg.  The more you think about it, the more it itches.  It only gets worse, never better.  Sooner or later you need to put the bags down and scratch the itch.  Same with a startup - the itch only gets worse the more you think about it.  Caught in bureaucratic meetings?  Itch.  Watching your peers build companies?  Itch itch.  Thinking, no knowing, that you have what it takes to build a great company.  Itch!

Almost every time I see a series of business plans, a few of them stand out as more features than products.  Features are nice, but products make companies.

So you have a business idea, and you're building a business plan.  But you keep struggling on how people are going to find, buy, and use what you have created.  Perhaps the issue is not with your business smarts or knowledge of marketing... perhaps you have a feature and not a product.  Features are almost always neat, clever, unique, and impressive.  But a business needs more than a "neat" factor, it needs the ability to engage customers and earn revenues.