I have a love for biographies, either business or celebrity.  I don't go after current pop-icons, but older entertainers who have been around the block.  Their lives offer lessons anyone can learn from, and I realized last night, that they offer great business lessons as well. 

Entertainers are Entrepreneurs too.

If you think about it, they are in the business of promoting themselves.  That is what an entrepreneur does as well.  We promote our product, service and ourself (if we're smart).  Well, Steve Martin's autobiography has some great lessons in patience, persistence and innovation - the same things that make a great business person.

These are 5 lessons you can learn, and in the podcast, I go into details of Martin's life and how we can apply these lessons to our own businesses:

1. There are NO overnight successes.
2. Timing is everything.
3. We start by borrowing, but become successful by innovating.
4. Sometimes the best ideas arise out of problems.
5. Sometimes the best ideas need to be dropped.

I'd love to hear feedback from you.  I've added the podcast to FriendFeed because it allows commenting, and have posted a place for you to comment on episodes at http://www.BrainStormBusinessPodcast.com. Let's see how it works!

Penny Haynes, Commercial Creation Center

As I said, I only mention Obama's campaign in passing, but thought it deserved mention.  A vague but energizing word (Change), celebrity endorsements, the use of social media, and the targeting of an untapped generation of typically unmotivated (and uninformed) voters worked wonders.

As for ZipCar, this podcast is based on an article from one of my 2 favorite magazines (Fast Company and Inc).  You can find it at http://www.inc.com/magazine/20080301/how-fast-can-this-thing-go-anyway.html to read the details for yourself.  I love stories that detail the exact steps people have taken to build or improve a business (or to ruin it, so we can learn our lessons through them).

The ideas that I took away with me included focusing on a small target area and perfecting your business there before expanding.  Get it right, then duplicate it in other areas.  Don't go for funding until you've got something solid. I also love the tweeks they applied to better market to different areas, and how they kept their clientele (and the client's desired result from using their service) in mind, and made changes accordingly.  Best of all, they went after a target market NO car rental company in their right mind wanted, and got someone else to cover the risk factor for them!

I'd love to hear from you regarding which of these 7 strategic steps could you apply first?  How could you apply it?  (And WILL you apply it???)  Let me know by sending me an email at penny@1stpod.com.  Until then, have a great week!

Penny Haynes, http://www.CommercialCreationCenter.com

He's accessible.  He drinks beer and parties with geeks.  He tells dirty jokes on internet tv. Or does he?

He admits that he has one persona for doing business, and another one for promoting business. In today's business podcast, we talk about YOUR business persona and mine.  The people who know me - long term clients - have one persona about me.  But I'm afraid I'm putting off another persona (one that may not be helping me) to everyone else.

I'd love to know what you think your persona is, what your customers say it is, and what you think it SHOULD be in order to best promote and build your business.  Email me at penny@1stpod.com, or DM me via Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/pennyhaynes.

Oh, and remember that you need to subscribe to the NEW feed:  http://feeds.feedburner.com/brainstormbusinesspodcast, or the original feed which is at http://allbusinessmagazine.com/data/users/Online-Community-Magazines/Brain-Storm-Business-Podcast.xml

Have you seen the black and white, simple commercial from Sprint, telling existing and potential customers that they can come in and have their phone explained to them?  Brilliant - they are actually acknowledging that the majority of their cell phone service users have NO CLUE what their phone does, and therefore wouldn't pay to use those services!  Nobody wants to buy what he doesn't know exists - so tell them what they are missing in hopes that they will buy it!

The big things I focus on today are the different ways they are marketing.  Their choice of going black and white, their simplistic setting and message all reveal their recognition of their most neglected target market - the non-techies.  These people are probably like my mom, who only turns on her cell phone when she's out and it's an emergency.  That's it.  But what if she found out there were cool things to do on her phone?  She already spends hours using games on her computer - cause that's the ONLY thing that she can do easily.

What are you doing differently to promote yourself, color and content wise.   Are you tailoring your message to your target market, or just trying to look like everyone else? Are you offering the human touch, as Sprint is doing, to make the difference in the sale and in customer satisfaction?  Are you reaching out to a new segment of the market who may be a little slower to respond, but whose sheer mass could make the investment of your time very worthwhile?

Just some things to brainstorm about today.  If you'd like to brainstorm with me about your own podcasts, the Commercial Creation Center is now offering weekly sessions about what to put in your podcast and how exactly to do it in audio and video. We are also offering monthly how to sessions - all for members only, however. But if you need that accountability and creative brainstorming, as well as simple software to create your audio and video, that's what we're here for!

Penny Haynes, Commercial Creation Center

Brief review of what has happened over the past 4 months:  my programmers abandoned me mid-project, leaving me with promises I had made to others regarding availability. My immediate reaction was to have a panic attack and breathe into a paper bag.  My other strategy was not getting out of bed out of sheer terror of what other bad news the day would bring.

But eventually, I had to push myself beyond my fears and pick up the project, re-learn VB6, learn php and mySQL, learn about Active X programs, and learn more about xml.  It has been horribly challenging, but in the end, I have to say it was worth it.  Now, I have more valuable skills and basically the ability to program whatever the heck I dream of - without hiring someone else.  Of course, I do have a "Technical Advisor" whom I refer to as Yoda, without whom I never could have learned as fast, nor could have dealt with the technical support issues.  YODA rules!

So today's business podcast is just a quick re-introduction of myself to you, sharing a few lessons learned, and the public intention to return to podcasting now that I have the time to do so.  Also, I want you to know that we'll be permanently moving the Brain Storm podcast RSS feed.  It will all go through FeedBurner at http://feeds.feedburner.com/brainstormbusinesspodcast.  I've had that feed for a while and put the quikonnex feed through it.  Now, my new feed is coming off of one of my Online Community Magazines (http://www.AllBusinessMagazine.com) - so I'll assign it to Feedburner.

Well, that's all for today.  I'm looking forward to reviewing my stack of business magazines and sharing with you the cool stuff that we can all learn from.

Penny Haynes, Commercial Creation Center & Online Community Magazines

P.S. Combination video made with the CCC: http://tinyurl.com/ccc-creativemom