By Adam Urbanski (c) 2008

If you’ve tried your hand at building an Internet-based business but haven’t yet reached the success you want, find out about these 11 deadly mistakes and how to avoid them.

Mistake #1 - Not Treating What You Do as a Business.

The difference between a hobby and a business is that a hobby doesn’t make you money - it costs you money. If you’re earnest about starting a profitable online business, approach seriously and focus on generating revenue. Treat your online business as you would any regular business.

Mistake #2 - Being Distracted by Too Many Good Ideas.

You can light up a room with a light bulb, but you can cut through steel with a laser beam. The same is true with your effort and ideas.

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These days it seems like any business activity or purchase can be done online, including ordering and buying all your corporate business gifts.  No matter if you’re acquiring that single perfect gift for a special boss or ordering 1000’s of promotional items for your customers, it can all now be done from the web.

You can order large volume orders of promotional business gifts from inexpensive pens, calendars and chocolates to slightly more costly items such as USB Flash Drives, desk accessories and clothing - all branded with your company’s name and logo, of course.

Almost any business gift imaginable can be found online; even unique “one-of-a-kind” luxury items can be obtained if you know where to look.

However, while buying your corporate gifts online does present some distinct advantages, you still have to make sure you avoid certain pitfalls when ordering any product from the web.  With this thought in mind, here are some simple tips to remember when ordering your corporate gifts online:

1. Shop Around

The whole point of the Internet is to give us options.  Almost all well-known stores and companies now have an online presence or outlet.  Use the web to shop around from the comfort of your office or home and do your homework before you buy or order your corporate gift.

Not that you want to be a Scrooge when it comes to gift giving but a little fiscal restraint never hurt anyone especially if you have a large work-force, so shop around and find the ideal gift at the right price. Just remember to remove the price tag before giving the gift!

2. Check Out the Merchant

Of course, ordering and purchasing does come with some hazards along with all that convenience; mainly you must make sure you’re dealing with a reputable company.  With most large well-known online retailers such as Amazon this is not a problem.  Just make sure if you’re using a smaller company or store to do a quick check of this company.

Try BBB or check for customer/user complaints and also check the store’s online ratings.  Contact former or present clients to inquire about the quality and support of your chosen merchant or supplier.  Make sure there is a physical address listed, along with the usual phone/fax/contact information.

3. Look for Bargains & Coupons

The online corporate gift sector is an extremely competitive field, especially when it comes to branded promotional gifts and luxury corporate gifts.  There are thousands of stores and companies competing for your business, so check out any online gift deals, bargains and coupons.  Always check for a special price on volume orders.

4. Use a Gift Guide & Organizer

As we all know, finding the appropriate gift for a demanding boss or employee can be a real pain sometimes, so to lessen your struggle try using gift guides and organizers.  These guides can save you time, money and make your corporate gift buying a whole lot simpler.  The gift guide and organizer created by Amazon has proven very popular in past years.

5. Use Auction Sites for Finding Unique Gifts

Unique original gifts are some of the best gifts to give because they show you have put a lot of consideration and thought into getting that special item; you have gone out of your way to please a special boss or employee.  Some great places to find unique gifts are the online auction sites; try using eBay for finding that unique “one-of-a-kind” gift that will truly delight the receiver.

6. Look for Free Shipping & Gift Wrapping

Many gift companies will offer free shipping and gift wrapping especially during special holidays such as the Christmas giving season. So always check for free shipping and gift wrapping, you might be pleasantly surprised especially if you have a large order or an expensive gift.

7. Order Early

Make sure you order early especially if you have a large volume order or are giving personalized engraved or monogrammed gifts.  At special gift-giving occasions such as Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day… most popular gift shops and stores are extremely busy and backed up with orders so make sure you plan in advance and order early to avoid disappointment at those special times.

8. Last-Minute Corporate Gifts

We are all human. If the inevitable happens and your corporate gift order is late/delayed or you just forgot to buy a gift, be assured there’s a whole market sector formed around last-minute corporate gifts.  From magazine subscriptions to concert/sports tickets to gift certificates to an impromptu night out at a popular restaurant or club, most online corporate gift stores and sites will have a section on last-minute corporate gifts.  Use them to save your corporate derrière.

Just remember, your next corporate gift-giving occasion doesn’t have to be a major chore or pain.  Simply relax, take a deep breath, turn on the computer and browse the web for those special gifts that will delight and please your boss, employees or clients.  Just keep some of these online corporate gift buying tips in mind as you get ready to play corporate Santa.

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Deciding to start your own business is a major step, but one that you will enjoy. Starting your own business is a great way to take control of your future. Your ability to succeed or fail is completely on your shoulders. To ensure that you have a company that you will make a profit, you will need to dedicate your time and effort to making it a fruitful business.

Before you begin you must decide on the type of business that you are interested in, The main goal of your business should be to draw in a number of clients. Without clients, your business will not succeed. You must have a product or service that others will want. With no one to reimburse you for the product, it does not matter how much money or time you put into your small business. When deciding on the aspects of running your own business be sure to keep records and organize your goals and priorities.

One way to keep your business organized is to write out a business plan. This will organize your business goals and plans, including finances. You can outline your plans to bring in clients, information about the types of products and services that will be provided, and the expected returns and losses of the finances. Not only will this help you organize, but it will this help you organize, but it will allow others, such as potential long-term business partners and loan officers, to read through your plans and procedures to help them decide if they want to become involved with you and your small business. This can also cut down on the number of questions that they may have about your intentions regarding the future of your business.

Being organized is a key factor in maintaining a profitable business. You need to keep records that track the orders that you are fulfilling for your clients. You also need to keep adequate records regarding the products that you are ordering from other companies to ensure that you know exactly where every penny of the money that you are spending is going. Keeping your paperwork neat and organized is a necessity also. You may want to invest in a filing cabinet and assign a folder to each client so that you are able to locate past orders for each of them quickly. This can be time saving if you receive a call that the client wants to order three more of what they ordered last time but are unable to remember the exact name and model of that item.

One of the most important steps in helping your small business advance is to advertise, advertise, advertise. You are incapable of advertising too much. It is better to have too many customers than not enough customers. Advertising can be done in a variety of ways, and you may need to experiment with several of these options before finding the ones that help bring in the most customers. Now that you have established the key factors in starting a small business, you should be ready to start making money.

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Success means different things to different people.  Whatever your definition of success, this article will help you realize your goals.

If you define success in terms of a good job or a profitable self-owned business, then this article may become the turning point in your life.  As you read, I will share some of my success secrets, which I have been able to execute in my own online business.

What It Means To Be A Leader

During my time in the U.S. Army as an Army Staff Sergeant, I learned valuable lessons about leading teams to the successful completion of projects.  I learned that by following the direction of good leaders, one could build the confidence and skill set necessary to become a successful leader.

Good leaders quickly separate themselves from the masses of people who simply live day-by-day doing only the bare minimum to keep their job one more day.  In other words, leaders stand out in a crowd of managers and workers.

While the Army tried hard to bring leadership qualities out in all of their people, the truth was that leaders are those who decide to go the extra mile and to create a brighter future for themselves and others around them.

A good leader is simply the person who “helps” you to become the best person you can become, by teaching you how you can “help” other people to become successful too.

One Decision Can Change Your Destiny

Are you waiting?

Are you waiting for “me” to tell “you” the secret to success?

It is time for “you” to make a decision, now.

You must decide to stop waiting for success to come to you.  Success simply will not fall out of the sky into your open arms.  It does not work that way.

You must “decide” to become successful. If you are waiting for success, then success will never come your way.  But, once you understand that success is waiting for you, and you decide to go get it, no matter what, then you will have changed your destiny for the better.

Follow In The Footsteps Of People Whom You Wish To Emulate

While I was in the U.S. Army, I learned how to seek out leaders who were willing to share with me their secrets to success.  I actively sought out people who could help me to become a better leader.

Even in my daily life outside of the Army, I found several opportunities to hook up with people who exuded leadership qualities, people who were willing to share with me their own secrets to success.

The truth is that there are people who may doubt their own abilities to have something to share, but if they doubt themselves, they are wrong.  Everyone has something important to teach others, but it takes a gem of a person to understand that the role of a leader is to teach others, what “they” take for granted.

A Lifetime Of Learning Over Lunch

Just the other day, I had lunch with a fellow who is probably responsible for selling more cars in our area than anyone else.  In our local metropolitan market, if someone asks about a great car dealer, his name will surely be mentioned.

My lunch partner knew that I have a successful website, and he also knew that I had an interest in learning more about what is required to be successful, from him.

To my surprise, his first words were, “Clinton, I don’t know if I can offer anything to you that would help you.  I sell cars, and that is what I do.  You have some kind of online business, and I cannot even venture to guess how you make your money.”

My lunch partner went on to say, “I appreciate the offer to share a lunch with you, but your business and my business are so different.  I would not even know where to begin in giving advice to you.”

Despite his initial hesitation, we went on to have a great meal, and I learned a lot!  I could literally spin several articles just on the knowledge that he was able to impart to me over lunch.

If You Want To Be Rich, Listen To Rich People

Online and offline, I like to associate with people who have been successful in their fields.  I learn so much about growing my business, by listening closely to people who have  defined their industries.

Even online, there are key people whom I pay close attention.  With every conversation, I hear some gem of information that I can apply to my own online business.  These tidbits of information pieced together have helped me carry my website from one in millions to one that has served more than a million visitors.

Success In Three Simple Repeatable Steps

My car dealer friend finally put aside the idea that he could not help anyone outside his own industry, and we had great conversation.

When I asked him the secret to selling cars, he said he could sum it up in three steps:

* Talk to your customers.  When you understand the needs of your customers, then you know how you will best be able to help them solve their problems and achieve their goals.

* Follow-Up.  People rarely buy on their first visit, so it is important to follow-up with them.   When buying big-ticket items, people tend to shop around a little bit more.  When you follow-up, you are frequently creating a relationship with your customer.  When all is said and done, if two products are substantially equal, it is often the relationship the customer has with the sales person that will “seal the deal.”

* Be persistent.  Persistence does not equate to being pushy.  Persistence means that you follow-up, once, twice, three times, and more if necessary.  If a salesperson is obviously “only” interested in satisfying his or her own interests, then persistence could be construed as pushy.  But, when your goal is to be persistent with the goal of helping the customer solve his or her problems and satisfy his or her goals, then persistence is a quality to be appreciated.

Learning Anew Each Day

Bill Platt at The Phantom Writers (http://www.thephantomwriters.com) taught me the same lesson last year.  Bill always tells me that the secret to success online is “consistency.”  He says that we need to talk to our potential customers, and we need to keep the conversation going by consistently talking to potential customer base.

John Reese of Marketing Secrets (http://www.marketingsecrets.com) taught me the same lesson.  He emphasized that I need to develop a newsletter or an auto-responder series so that I could create and keep an ongoing conversation with my potential customers.  Reese also taught me to track my results (follow-up) on everything that I do for my business.

Since I started my website in 2001, I have noticed that all of my mentors tend to teach me the same lessons over and again in their own terminology.

All of my mentors continue to tell me to talk to my customers, follow-up, and to be persistent in talking to my customers

With so many people who are successful in their own industries sharing with me the same sage advice, I tend to pay attention.

Final Thoughts

It does not matter whether you seek to use this information to help your career or to build an online business.

Make your decision today; decide to be successful. And then follow the golden rule of helping others to achieve what they want to achieve, follow-up, and be persistent in your efforts.

If you play your cards just right, in just a few years, you might be the mentor that we will all want to attentively listen to and appreciate.

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Business planning is one of the most important steps towards building a successful startup business, and you can use some specific strategies to create a comprehensive outline.  An effective business plan will help you determine your goals and help you organize all of your small business ideas with ease.

If you’ve ever been stuck with too many ideas and not knowing where to start, business planning will help take the pressure off.  Understanding the business planning process is important for creating something that works, and something that will help you reach your goals.  Launching your small business startup is much easier with a clear, step-by-step outline; here’s what you need to know:

Step 1: Organize your table of contents.  This will help you outline each area of your business to include your mission statement, products and services, number of employees, and any basic market research information.

Step 2: Collect attachments and appendix materials.  These are especially important if your business plan will be reviewed by potential investors or business partners, and can also help with your online business planning strategy.

Step 3: Create a list of key topics and sections.  Not only will this create a cohesive document, but you’ll also be able to jumpstart your business planning process with a clear ‘map’ or guide of all your strategies.  This list is especially helpful if you’re not sure where to begin, since you can just put each item down on paper and organize it accordingly.

Step 4: Assign projects and tasks for each area.  This is an effective business planning strategy as it helps you break down each goal into actions steps.  Assigning tasks and objectives in this way makes it much easier to stay on track during each step.

Step 5: Check for grammar, spelling, and even factual errors.  Making sure your plan and notes are clear of mistakes is especially important if you’ll be presenting it to others.   Doing a quick check will also help you determine if you missed any pieces of critical information and help you fine-tune the final-draft.

Step 6: Write up an executive summary for your small business startup.  This is an important step for all business owners, and can help you pull together the entire plan in a few short pages.   Many business owners turn to this summary when they need a briefing on objectives during the course of business, and you can include basic points and topics as if you were presenting it to a board or audience.

Step 7: Get an outsider’s perspective.  While you need to keep your business planning strategy and ideas as confidential as possible, sharing your plan with a trustworthy person can help you catch a few key elements of your project.  Get an objective view of your plan and notes so you have everything in well organized and presented in a logical way.

Business planning doesn’t have to be difficult, but the process intimidates many startup business owners.  Take the time to organize the critical areas of your business and put them in a logical order.  Then, break them down into specific objectives and tasks so you have a strong idea of how you can be successful in each area.  The time and effort you put into business planning will pay off for the long run, and help you launch your small business startup with success.

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eBay UK have announced today that they’ll be delaying the introduction of the Safe Payments Policy scheduled for introduction in February, and introducing it in March instead.  (Glances at calendar and rolls eyes  )

The announcement further cautions that, “The changes we announced around requiring sellers to offer PayPal in certain cases will now go live in late March 2008 instead of February 2008, as previously stated. Sellers who will be affected by these changes should register with PayPal and update their listings to include PayPal as a payment option as soon as possible.”

I’m guessing this is yet another instance of the sellers telling eBay to take a running jump and have words with themselves about the impossibility of the dreamworld deadlines they set.

Ed

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Ed-itorial Commentary

Following the talk-fest that followed the announcements in Washington DC last month, and the subsequent avalanche of policy announcements from national marketplaces worldwide, I’ve finally found time to look at eBay’s fourth quarter financial report for 2007.

Several interesting trends have appeared, though I’m not going to talk a lot about their earnings, which every seller will accuse of being too much (buyers should too as they have a direct affect on the prices they pay for goods on the site).  Instead I’m going to look at the trend effect on marketplace performance that is revealed in the latest quarterly report.

Firstly, let’s look at some of the quarterly Financial Reports data for 2006 & 2007.  Note that eBay stopped reporting total registered users and the split-data for Core & Store with effect from Q4-07.  It may be that the spring-2007 announcement about culling of inactive accounts is taking effect, and the numbers look just too bad to report to Wall Street, and/or that the general 2-year decline in core and store listings, and store subscriptions, is just getting to steep to continue reporting them separately.  However, that’s just surmising on my part - without the data from San Jose, it will always be just speculation.

Some of the trends that do stand out from the nine quarters of results in the table, are -

Registered and Active Users - Whilst it appears the total number of Registered users continues to grow (redundant and abandoned accounts being included in the total) the growth of active user numbers stalled last summer.  Three quarters of static numbers may not signify the peaking of interest in eBay (there are plenty of untapped nations left on the planet without eBay home sites), it should be worrying enough for eBay to be looking at more than just the buyer side of their market, especially given the surge in competitor sites, that have appeared over the last two years.

Stores - The Active Stores and growth rate metrics indicate that whilst there was a large and immediate effect on stores subscriptions quarter-to-quarter, following the June 2006 store-punishment announcements at “eBay Live” 2006, it was not until a year later that the real effects began to show in the reports via the year on year growth metrics.  Q3 and Q4 2007 showed genuine contraction of eBay stores as a channel.  This delay might have been due to the performance promises and promotional cross-visibility with the eBay Express white elephant (eBay Express for the UK was recently abandoned and closed, other countries may follow suit in the near future).  With Express never delivering on the hype, sellers disillusioned with the famed double whammy of decreased store listings visibility and significantly increased costs of use, may finally be living up to their threats of closing their eBay stores.

Total Listings -In real terms, listing activity peaked on eBay in Q3-2006.  This was the quarter when the last of the cheaper 90-day store listings (UK) and lower insertion and success fee store listings (rest of World) could be uploaded in August, after which cost of use of this format increased by up to 450% depending on prices and which country-site the listings were put on to.  Ignoring the Q4 seasonal surges of listings for the peak pre-Christmas selling frenzy, the overall trend has been downhill and as any professional retailer knows, reducing the competition in a shopping zone reduces the footfall and traffic to that zone.  the steady decline in listing volume on eBay, over time, will yield the same loss of buyers that bricks & mortar shopping malls would experience.  This is double-impacted by the growth in alternative online venues capturing disaffected eBay sellers, who then take their customers to the new venues.

Core v Store -Store listings have shrunk 20% from Q2-06, presumably for the reasons mentioned above, but more worrying for eBay must be the shrinkage of around 4.5% in the core market during the same period for an aggregate listings reduction of 6.8%.  Viewing recent data which shows that arount 1.2 million sellers worldwide rely on eBay for a permanent main or second income, compared to quarterly active users of 83.2 million, that means there is approximately 69 buyers per seller spaced out over the 90-day quarter.  Repeat sales would therefore seem to have never been so important - how many bricks and mortar stores could survive on one customer every one and a bit days?  More importantly, given eBay’s fees are the highest of the online marketplaces, does that context even further reduce their attractiveness to sellers?

BIN Success % in Core -At the eBay eCommerce Forum last month, the top managers finally acknowledged the importance of Fixed Price Buy Now sales to the marketplace.  Despite overpricing the function for years, and badly punishing its twin, in Stores, in 2006, the market capture of direct online retail (as opposed to auction) through the eBay channels has slowly and steadily grown, from 34% of total sales two years ago, to 41% last quarter.  This advance being despite overall buyer, seller, and listings growth.  At that rate, it could be only another six quarters before BIN has a larger share in the total eBay market place than do auctions.  If that happens, will eBay finally concede the auction-era is over, and reverse the current positions of auction and Store functions?

Now I know the financial analysts and the rose-tinted spectacles crowd are going to rebutt all of the above with comments about looking at the financial side of the report, however, it should be remembered that eBay’s customers are not the buyers of products on the site.  eBay’s customers are the sellers of those products - the people who pay fee-revenue into eBay’s coffers, for the benefit of the company and its shareholders.  Wall Street and the shareholders should be looking to what the sellers are doing on eBay, not what the bank balance is doing.  

Right now, disatisfaction and goodwill loss from sellers has never been so high.  eBay are losing paying customers (the sellers) hand over fist, and it is the mid-rank competitors who are gaining them.  Amazon has heavily benefitted, and sites like eBid, iOffer, and AuctionsOnline are in the ascendancy.  Moreover each of those are more reactive to the needs of their sellers, than is the eBay brontosaur.  eBid in particular has a very shallow management pyramid, and the founders are still in control, reading the community discussion boards daily, and replying directly to their paying and non-paying customers.  eBay cannot claim such executive attention to the grass-roots.

Gone are the days when eBay could simply squash the opposition using financial muscle, as they did with the 2003 buy-up of FreeServe Auctions in the UK, closing the site immediately after the purchase and transferring customer accounts into the recently opened eBay UK.  If they tried such tactics today, Monopolies Commissions around the world would be all over them like a bad rash.  As a result, each high-volume PowerSeller that eBay loads one too many straws upon seems to be opening their own online auction venue.  Unfortunately this dilutes the market and disperses potential for real competition to the multi-national giant.  What those with the financial and tech knowledge to open their own sites should be doing, is making approaches to existing sites with buy-in offers to boost the marketing war-chests of the smaller operations, whilst simultaneously increasing the product volume listed on such sites.  Product volume attracts buyers - ask eBay’s founder Pierre Omidyar, it wasn’t a chicken and egg problem after all.  Nothing to sell = no buyers, pure and simple.

Stocks and shares are long term investments, and eBay’s stock (NASDAQ: EBAY) has been down for a long time in the mid $20’s compared to a high of almost $90 a couple of years ago.  Shareholders should be demanding eBay examine it’s policies towards sellers.  Just a few years ago, many sellers were eBay shareholders too, and now it’s almost impossible to find one that admits to holding stock in the company.  That should worry management and remaining shareholders alike, perhaps it is why eBay have recently announced provision to buy back another 2 billion dollars worth of shares (roughly 7.8% of outstanding stock) - they are having to shore-up the share price by repurchasing excess liquidity in the market.  If they had not issued 3 buy-back notices in the last two years (nor issued so many options to employees) where would the share price be now?  Could they have survived without being taken over by another company?  Should the stockholders be looking to become venture capitalists for the small to mid-level competition?  The penny-stock market would probably say yes.  Getting in on the ground floor of any start-up is risky, but with potentially high rewards.  Luckily for investors, there are plenty of online auction sites out there, that are past the crucial 3-year milestone, but need capital to list them into the higher leagues.

Looking at eBay’s sales revenue suggests they could have survived without take-over if they hadn’t issued the share buy-backs, but remember also that in stock market terms, eBay is ripe for take over.  It is cash-rich with no debt and little in fixed assets depreciating its value.  It has no large inventories in need of liquidation, but is staff-heavy compared to many similar operations and has spoiled it’s own marketplace / product to the point of excessive customer disatisfaction.  Could any outsider improve the situation?  Arguably many could if they enter the company with a focus on paying customers, and an incisive eye on the fact that eBay is a media company, not an ecommerce trader. 

eBay’s business is selling advertising and gaining eyeballs onto that advertising, they seem to have lost this vision in recent years.  Perhaps they need someone like Rupert Murdoch or Lord Beaverbrook to make a bid for them and remind them of what their core business is about?  Gossiping about an Amazon, or Google, going after them would just muddy the waters further for sellers.  What is needed is a media tycoon or conglomerate to grab them by the scruff of the neck and shake some sense back into them.  Unfortunately Microsoft et al would be too technology focused to address the crumbling in the eBay foundations, that have been undermined since the company’s performance peak of January 2006.

Ed

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HAPPY NEW YEAR & BEST WISHES TO YOU ALL.

 As you all recover from the festivities of seeing out the old, and pondering whether or not your new year resolutions are maintainable, I thought it might be a good idea to write something about the subliminal idea that a new year is a clean slate.

For many people in business, ask what the first week of the year means to them and they’ll almost certainly respond with “January Sales”.  This annual phenomena is supposed to handle two dilemmas of the retailing industry - clearing the last season’s remaining stock, and boosting sales in what is otherwise a low point in the retail calendar.  Yet for almost everyone in business, it should be a lot more than that.

The psychological boost of a new year should be a time to shrug off old thinking and plan for the next twelve months.  Examining last year’s market data and innovation trends can open opportunities and new directions for the forthcoming campaigns.  For retailers there are a rapid sequence of events to profit from - Scotland’s Burn’s Night, Chinese New Year, Valentine’s Day, Easter, and the Spring season.  For manufacturers, recognition that many employees will have overspent for Christmas gifts should be a nudge that extra working hours (overtime) will be welcomed and accepted more eagerly.  Hospitality and Tourism businesses may be in the full flow of taking bookings for summer, as should wedding related businesses, but this week may be the time to give staff a quick break before the workload increases.

For business owners, with the pressures of the holiday season gone, now is the time to research your industry and look for new ideas, markets, suppliers, and partners.  Here are some such events and landmarks from history …..

1st January - New Year’s Day in today’s Gregorian Calendar

This week in history - effects on business and innovation

The Julian calendar, which was created in BC 45, preceded today’s Gregorian one, and was adopted around Europe between 1522 & 1578.  The Gregorian calendar was created in 1582, but Britain and it’s dependant American colonies retained the Julian one until 1752 causing plenty of confusion to historians.  Scotland only adopted the Julian calendar in AD1600.

The Gregorian calendar as promulgated in 1582 did not specify that January 1st was to be either New Year’s Day or the first day of its numbered year.  Back then, England began its numbered year on March 25 (Lady Day) between the thirteenth century and 1752, January 1 was called New Year’s Day, which was a holiday when gifts were exchanged.  In this respect (the start of the numbered year being close to Easter) it held similar alignment to the traditional Buddhist New Year.

Birthdays of famous business people & innovators

•  AD 1643 - Sir Isaac Newton, English mathematician & natural philosopher (d. 1727)
• AD 1727 - James Wolfe, British general (d. 1759)
• AD 1745 - Étienne Montgolfier, French inventor (d. 1799)
• AD 1813 - Isaac Pitman, British inventor (Pitman shorthand) (d. 1897)
• AD 1863 - Pierre de Coubertin, French Olympic Games initiator (d. 1937)
• AD 1888 - John Garand, American inventor (d. 1974)
• AD 1892 - J.R.R. Tolkien, British author of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy.
• AD 1895 - J. Edgar Hoover, American FBI director (d. 1972)

Business Moments - lost, noted, or seized

• AD1660 - Samuel Pepys began keeping his diary.
• AD 1800 - Dutch East India Company ceased to exist.
• AD 1882 - John D. Rockefeller unites his oil holdings into the Standard Oil trust.
• AD 1919 - Edsel Ford succeeded his father, Henry Ford, as president of the Ford Motor Company.
• AD 1942 - Pan American Airlines becomes the first commercial airline to have a flight go around the world.
• AD 1946 - The first civil flight from London’s Heathrow Airport occurs.
• AD 1974 - Richard Nixon signs a bill lowering the maximum US speed limit to 55 MPH in order to conserve gasoline during an OPEC embargo.

 Deaths of famous and not so famous people

• AD 404 - Last known Gladiator competition in Rome.
• AD 1748 - Johann Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician (b. 1667)
• AD 1795 - Josiah Wedgwood, English potter (b. 1730)
• AD 1852 - Louis Braille, French teacher of the blind (b. 1809)
• AD 1877 - Cornelius Vanderbilt, American entrepreneur (b. 1794)
• AD 1894 - Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, German physicist (b. 1857)
• AD 1992 - Grace Hopper, American computer pioneer (b. 1906)
• AD 2007 - Momofuku Ando, inventor of instant noodles and cup noodles (b. 1910)

Discoveries that changed the world

•  AD 1493 - Christopher Columbus leaves the New World, ending his first journey.
• AD 1896 - An Austrian newspaper reported that Wilhelm Roentgen discovered a type of radiation later known as X-rays.
• AD 1927 - The American astronomer Edwin Hubble announces the discovery of galaxies outside the Milky Way.
• AD 1930 - The first diesel-engine automobile trip is completed (Indianapolis, Indiana, to New York City).

Ideas that opened new industries

• AD1772 - First Travellers’ cheques (valid in 90 European cities) go on sale in London.
• AD 1818 - Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus is published.   Believed by some to be the birth of the Science Fiction age.
• AD 1871 - Henry W. Bradley patents oleomargarine.
• AD 1888 - Marvin C. Stone patents the drinking straw.

New Market & Opportunity Discoveries

• AD 1673 - First regular postal mail deliveries between Europe and America.
• AD 1788 - First edition of The Times of London, previously The Daily Universal Register, is published.
• AD 1801 - Legislative union of Kingdom of Great Britain and Kingdom of Ireland is completed to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
• AD 1865 - The New York Stock Exchange opens its first permanent headquarters at 10-12 Broad near Wall Street in New York City.
• AD 1877 - Queen Victoria of England proclaimed Empress of India.
• AD 1900 - John Hay announces the Open Door Policy to promote trade with China.
• AD 1901 - The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia federate as the Commonwealth of Australia.
• AD 1958 - The European Community is established.
• AD 1993 - A single market within the European Community (EC) is introduced.
• AD 1994 - Not to be outdone by the EC, The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) comes into effect., and the EC reciprocates with the European Economic Area (EEA).   The International Tropical Timber Agreement also comes into effect.
• AD 1995 - The World Trade Organization (WTO) comes into effect.
• AD 1998 - The European Central Bank is established.
• AD 1999 - The Euro currency is introduced.
• AD 2002 - Euro banknotes and coins become legal tender in twelve of the European Union’s member states.
• AD 2008 - SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) due to come into effect

Start-up businesses that became famous

•  AD 1907 - Maria Montessori opens her first school and daycare center for working class children in Rome.
• AD 1939 - William Hewlett and David Packard found Hewlett-Packard.
• AD 1977 - Apple Computer incorporated.

Technology inventions

• AD 1496 - Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tests a flying machine.
• AD 1838 - Samuel Morse first successfully tested the electrical telegraph.
• AD 1847 - Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the United States government.
• AD 1890 - First use of football (soccer) goal nets in England.
• AD 1937 - Safety glass in windshields became mandatory in Great Britain.
• AD 1959 - The first artificial satellite to orbit the moon, Luna 1, is launched by the U.S.S.R.
• AD 1970 - Unix time begins.
• AD 1983 - The ARPANET officially changes to using the Internet Protocol, creating the Internet.
• AD 1985 - The Internet’s Domain Name System is created.
• AD 1985 - The first British mobile phone call is made by comedian Ernie Wise to Vodafone.
• AD 2004 - Spirit, a NASA Mars Rover, lands successfully on Mars at 04:35 UTC.

Just a few of the momentous events that can happen in a week when you might be thinking of free-wheeling your business along, waiting for trade to pick up.  Events like the trade-bloc politics can sneak up on you if you don’t use this time to look at the opportunities and threats coming your way.  Technological change can leave you behind the competition if you don’t know where it’s going, and plan accordingly.  It could also wipe out your innovation if the spin-offs from the Mars missions come at anything like the pace that they came from the Apollo series.

 Will you be the next Montessori, Hewlett-Packard, or Apple?  What aboutthe next Anita Broderick or Richard Branson, Vanderbilt, or Wedgewood?  One thing’s for sure, nursing a hangover won’t get you there … unless you use the time to do some research .

Happy New Year everyone - I hope it’s as successful and profitable as your efforts deserve.

Ed