Carol Roth asked her subscribers to share what inspired them to start their own businesses. You'll find my entry below. To view the other 139 entries, click here 7. Blame it on a Car NYS gave me a driver's license at age 38- no more buses or taxis.  Two years later, a driver didn't stop at a stop sign and I spent 6 months in terrible pain.  Realizing it would take me  more time to recuperate, I considered what I wanted to do with the next chapter of my life. I visited a career counselor, took some tests, looked for a job and shadowed business owners.  One day, I opened the NY Times there it was

6. Collecting (all) customers. Maria Marsala, a business coach in Poulsbo, Wash., finds that many of her clients waste time and energy serving the wrong customers. She encourages them to define their "ideal" customer--the person or entity that will pay a fair price for their product or service, value their business, return and buy from them again and generate referrals. The greatest marketing investment and effort should be devoted to finding and courting those ideals, she says. Marsala initially marketed her coaching services to all small-business owners. She decided to define her niche in the business-to-business world serving established business owners who didn't balk at her fees. Then she created an opportunity to sell to a

During the Focus Roundtable: How Organizational Culture Affects Organizational Performance, one question in particular really got participants talking: Can the culture of a company be dictated by top level management? The ensuing conversation brought out some passionate responses on both sides of the equation; but the various insights and theories backing up those opinions was equally engaging. The Focus Content team has gathered some of its favorites responses from Experts Maria Marsala, Josh Bersin, Tom Egelhoff, Erik Goldoff, Mark Herbert, John McCoy and Richard Morris. Download the white paper at http://www.focus.com/research/general-management/many-drivers-company-culture/

It's so easy to lose a receipt or not remember a trip you've taken, Keep an envelope in the car and put every receipt in it. When the envelope is full (or before your bookkeeper arrives) bring the contents of envelopes into your office.  (Leave the envelope in the car or it won't be there for the next batch of receipts). Then, have your bookkeeper pull out what's deductible. Keep a pad in the car to write all of the day's business trips. You're bound to get extra business mileage because you logged in a side trip that you soon would have forgotten.

"If you don't know where you are going you will probably end up somewhere else." -- Laurence J Peter, 1919-90, Canadian academic and expert on organized hierarchies, from his 1969 book "The Peter Principle". Behind every successful entrepreneur is the next shift waiting to happen. What's the difference between a shift and a change? We'll it's more about a subtle distinction than full blown difference. In his brilliant ebook "Distinctionary", printed in 1997, Thomas Leonard (1955-2003) describes the difference like this: Internal shift vs. linear change Change is what happens externally and is the outside measure. A shift is who you've become rather than what you've reacted to. A shift is permanent. A change is often