This week’s “ Business Question of The Week” is asked by Heather Washington, San Francisco, CA.
In The Equation, you speak about a book signing you had at a mall kiosk that was located right across from a video store. You wrote about the lines of men who came to buy the new John Madden video game, but had no interest in buying a book. Why do you think men would rather play video games over reading a book?
Omar Tyree Answers:
That’s easy. Men would rather play a video game over reading a book because a video game takes them away from their everyday grind of work, while reading a book keeps them in it. You must understand that a majority of men don’t actually read books for pleasure, they read books to sharpen up on certain career skills, or to read about other men who they admire in industry or in character. With that in mind, for men, reading is not so much to be enjoyed as it is, but to be studied and digested.
Women, on the other hand, tend to read much more for pleasure, where the actual content itself is not taken as seriously as if a man would read it. So oftentimes, when I ask the average woman to explain what she read to me, many of them can only offer if they felt the book was good or not, based on their personal pleasure principle, while bringing up certain emotional points of the book that they may have disagreed with or found interesting. But they usually cannot state an overall view, objective, or theme of a book like an average reading man would.
On the flipside, where video-playing men can get all into understanding the physical and technical manipulations of a video game, most women would find that to be a tremendous deal of work for no particular purpose at all. Why would a man want to spend so much effort and time, like a human octopus with a joystick, just to score imaginary touchdowns, steal cars, shoot up enemies, and kill bloodsucking zombies instead of doing more constructive things like fixing the broken garage door, repainting the house, or helping their sons and daughters with their homework assignments?
So as the book and the saying goes, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. But since I happen to be in the book writing and publishing industry, I became one of those few men who will actually read for pleasure as well as for work. And I happen to Love it! But what if I was not a writer? How much would I love to read then?
The Equation here concerns our individual Passions and Purposes. What turns us on as men or as women? And what is the ultimate Purpose for the things that we choose to do in our lives?
Friday, February 27, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Using Technology to Keep In Touch
This week’s “ Business Question of The Week” comes from S.R. from Virginia:
I know you travel a lot promoting your books and I’m sure you meet a lot of great people wherever you go. How do you keep in touch with the people you have worked with and what is the best way to follow up opportunities with them? It can all seem so overwhelming?
Omar Tyree Answers:
You know what, I’ve had that same issue for years. I literally have stacks and stacks of business cards from being out on the road on book signing tours and at speaking events. And it is overwhelming to have that many contacts to call back and follow up with.
Amazingly, I have always been able to at least call back the people who I’ve wanted to do business with, but not all of them. All of the contacts may not be important in your immediate stream of things. However, you never know when something big may spark from an unlikely source. So you may have to touch bases with people anyway.
In my final fiction book entitled Pecking Order, published in September 2008, my main character “Ivan David” came up with the excellent idea of utilizing his web site staff to input all of the data from the business cards that he collected at network functions and parties. They would then send out thank you notes and follow up, especially since “Ivan” had an internet and web site marketing business.
So to take a page out of my book, Pecking Order, you may want to pay someone as little as $50 to input all of your business cards into an e-mail and data file like “Ivan David” does, and send them all a form letter from your “assistant” with your return address attached for their responses so you can carry out business with the interested parties from there. And e-mails make this process a lot simpler than phone calls.
In the meantime, if you don’t already have it, you may want to check out that Pecking Order book. I hear it’s about a guy named “Ivan David” who utilizes The Equation’s third component of Support to amass a fortune in just four incredible years. So learn it from the experience.
If you have a question you would like to ask Omar Tyree, please email it to omartyree@ascendantstrategy.net.
I know you travel a lot promoting your books and I’m sure you meet a lot of great people wherever you go. How do you keep in touch with the people you have worked with and what is the best way to follow up opportunities with them? It can all seem so overwhelming?
Omar Tyree Answers:
You know what, I’ve had that same issue for years. I literally have stacks and stacks of business cards from being out on the road on book signing tours and at speaking events. And it is overwhelming to have that many contacts to call back and follow up with.
Amazingly, I have always been able to at least call back the people who I’ve wanted to do business with, but not all of them. All of the contacts may not be important in your immediate stream of things. However, you never know when something big may spark from an unlikely source. So you may have to touch bases with people anyway.
In my final fiction book entitled Pecking Order, published in September 2008, my main character “Ivan David” came up with the excellent idea of utilizing his web site staff to input all of the data from the business cards that he collected at network functions and parties. They would then send out thank you notes and follow up, especially since “Ivan” had an internet and web site marketing business.
So to take a page out of my book, Pecking Order, you may want to pay someone as little as $50 to input all of your business cards into an e-mail and data file like “Ivan David” does, and send them all a form letter from your “assistant” with your return address attached for their responses so you can carry out business with the interested parties from there. And e-mails make this process a lot simpler than phone calls.
In the meantime, if you don’t already have it, you may want to check out that Pecking Order book. I hear it’s about a guy named “Ivan David” who utilizes The Equation’s third component of Support to amass a fortune in just four incredible years. So learn it from the experience.
If you have a question you would like to ask Omar Tyree, please email it to omartyree@ascendantstrategy.net.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Does a career in the arts void business sense?
This week’s “Business Question of The Week” comes from Naila Chauncey,Columbus, OH:
Question - Why do you think that those with careers in the arts are not given credibility as business people?
Omar Tyree Answers:
To make a long story short here, people who have careers in the arts have a blessing and a curse dilemma. Even though the business salesman, marketers, company men, and investment people can’t sell anything without creative products to sell, they typically don’t want the artistic opinions or emotions in the way when they’re trying to push the dollars and cents game. And artists typically have more of an invested interest in what they’re trying to create than just pure dollars and cents. Artists typically have quality control goals, just like salespeople have numbers goals. But typically, many business people have learned to disrespect the artists who create and innovate the product because they are not driven by the utilitarian purpose of a buck for the sake of a buck. Artists want to earn that money with their quality control in check.
But do you really want your innovative artists spending time calling up Tom, Dick, and Harry to sell the product instead of creating the product anyway? Then they’ll have the valid excuse that they didn’t have enough time to create or perform well to make the product valuable enough to sell. So you have to look at the priorities of the business model and say, “Look, we need folks to be able to focus on creating the best product that we can get.” And that is their JOB, and that is BUSINESS whether the rest of us understand that or not! But if you start having every artist or innovator or athlete for that matter, trying to do everything, and their premiere product begins to suffer because of it, then we ALL suffer.
And the artists and athletes who do tend to get too involved in the business side, can generally come off as unfocused, greedy, selfish, and money-driven which ends up hurting their business when people can’t connect to the Love of the art. Nevertheless, both of these departments of innovation (Art) and sales (Support) are needed to make economic gain. And the Business people have to understand that. It’s ALL A PART OF THE BUSINESS!
So no matter how many times you hear the creative Art people complaining about the sales and Support people, and vice versa, they both need each other to survive. Humans who are never inspired by the Love of entertainment, performance, or new innovation will not have the daily energy to work. PERIOD! So the companies who are able to better balance those two entities of innovation and sales, are usually the ones that are more successful. Because if you disrespect your creative artists, and they start leaving your company to join someone else, and your team can no longer win because of it, then your business model has failed. And if you have artists who don’t understand the importance of the business model and sales force, then you need to sit them down and explain it to them, or give them The Equation to read (smile).
And The Equation to this answer is this; IT’S A TEAMWORK GAME, SO LEARN TO RESPECT EVERY PART OF THE TEAM! Just ask the Pittsburgh Steelers! It’s offense AND defense that wins the game! But when you do find those artists who can also do the Support that is needed for the Business, or a salesperson who can comprehend the excellence an execution of the Art, the synergy becomes a beautiful thing to witness.
Question - Why do you think that those with careers in the arts are not given credibility as business people?
Omar Tyree Answers:
To make a long story short here, people who have careers in the arts have a blessing and a curse dilemma. Even though the business salesman, marketers, company men, and investment people can’t sell anything without creative products to sell, they typically don’t want the artistic opinions or emotions in the way when they’re trying to push the dollars and cents game. And artists typically have more of an invested interest in what they’re trying to create than just pure dollars and cents. Artists typically have quality control goals, just like salespeople have numbers goals. But typically, many business people have learned to disrespect the artists who create and innovate the product because they are not driven by the utilitarian purpose of a buck for the sake of a buck. Artists want to earn that money with their quality control in check.
But do you really want your innovative artists spending time calling up Tom, Dick, and Harry to sell the product instead of creating the product anyway? Then they’ll have the valid excuse that they didn’t have enough time to create or perform well to make the product valuable enough to sell. So you have to look at the priorities of the business model and say, “Look, we need folks to be able to focus on creating the best product that we can get.” And that is their JOB, and that is BUSINESS whether the rest of us understand that or not! But if you start having every artist or innovator or athlete for that matter, trying to do everything, and their premiere product begins to suffer because of it, then we ALL suffer.
And the artists and athletes who do tend to get too involved in the business side, can generally come off as unfocused, greedy, selfish, and money-driven which ends up hurting their business when people can’t connect to the Love of the art. Nevertheless, both of these departments of innovation (Art) and sales (Support) are needed to make economic gain. And the Business people have to understand that. It’s ALL A PART OF THE BUSINESS!
So no matter how many times you hear the creative Art people complaining about the sales and Support people, and vice versa, they both need each other to survive. Humans who are never inspired by the Love of entertainment, performance, or new innovation will not have the daily energy to work. PERIOD! So the companies who are able to better balance those two entities of innovation and sales, are usually the ones that are more successful. Because if you disrespect your creative artists, and they start leaving your company to join someone else, and your team can no longer win because of it, then your business model has failed. And if you have artists who don’t understand the importance of the business model and sales force, then you need to sit them down and explain it to them, or give them The Equation to read (smile).
And The Equation to this answer is this; IT’S A TEAMWORK GAME, SO LEARN TO RESPECT EVERY PART OF THE TEAM! Just ask the Pittsburgh Steelers! It’s offense AND defense that wins the game! But when you do find those artists who can also do the Support that is needed for the Business, or a salesperson who can comprehend the excellence an execution of the Art, the synergy becomes a beautiful thing to witness.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Making Your Career Passion A Reality While Working 9 to 5
This week’s “Business Question Of The Week” comes from Jasmine Johnson, Los Angeles, CA.
Question - Many times people have to take a job because they have families to support or bills to pay. When they finally make the decision to follow their passion, but still have to keep their job to pay the bills, how should they go about this process?
Omar Tyree Answers:
That is an excellent question and indeed a tough situation to be in. Let me begin to answer the question by saying this; when I was a senior undergrad at Howard University, I often heard my peers discuss entrepreneurship as a ten-year goal. They all had this idea that they would work for the system for ten years, learn everything they needed to learn through their experiences there, and then break away and start their own company within the same field. And although the ten-year plan seemed to make perfect sense to them, it didn’t make as much sense to me. The reason being was that it takes money, time, sacrifice and plenty of active effort to start your own company, which I did at age 22. But far too many of my peers had the idea that entrepreneurship would somehow be easier once they had put in ten years for a parallel company.
On the contrary, I believed that, since we are all humans with needs and greeds, in ten years, you would most likely be married, with kids, a home, cars, and bills up the wazoo that would inhibit you from saving the money, having the time, being able to make the sacrifices, or having the leftover energy that is needed to make the effort to create your own successful company. My idea was to go right at your career goals much earlier, if not from day one. Why? Because you’re a broke college grad, who hopefully has no kids or family to provide for yet, no big bills to pay (outside of your workable college loans), and you have tons of energy, tons of optimism, older professionals, who are willing to teach you added skills on the fly, and your sacrifices are much smaller because you don’t have anything to lose yet.
As the saying goes, “Youth is wasted on the young.” And while you’re still young, you want to take full advantage of having nothing to lose. So please, start your Love goal, EARLY, and with plenty of internships in your given field for 1-3 years instead of working there for ten.
Now let me answer your question. If it is now too late for you to drive toward your career goal early, and you have all kinds of responsibilities as on your shoulders, then you must now make the extra time to keep your bill-paying job while VOLUNTEERING to help out in a field of your passion whenever you can. And you do that until you can find an in to make money from that passion, while still holding onto your bill-paying job. Most companies won’t pay you to learn. And if you can’t find the time to make that grown-up internship happen, then get ready to go Kamikaze and live or die to succeed on your own merit away from the company experience.
But the reality is this; you will still need time to sharpen your skills in your field of passion to create the valuable Art that people will see as a product or service worth paying for. And there is no short regarding the time that will be necessary.
Then you would have to receive the Support of your family members to allow you to do it. Your wife or husband and kids will all need their time. So now they are forced to sacrifice with you. In some cases, like with many immigrants who relocate to new countries, their whole family gets involved. So you put the wife and husband and kids to work with you. But that sacrifice; to acquire real skills through time, must happen to become serious about making a career change. You are essentially starting back over from the bottom, which again is much easier to do when you’re young and unattached. You also have to build the Support of customers who are unfamiliar with you. Just because you worked for the company for ten years doesn’t mean that you’ve earned any trust in your own name. So you now have to earn public Support for your individual skills and company.
Lastly, we need to talk about income and investment. And unless you have an able or willing relative or friend, or you can talk someone into investing in your passion, or acquire a small business loan, money must be built, invested and multiplied for your passionate career to become an ongoing reality. Otherwise, your goal can become a very time consuming hobby at the expense of everyone around you. Therefore, tough Business decisions will need to be made to survive, which is actually a good thing. You will learn to be in Business by not having a choice. But do you and your family have the courage to try?
With the state of the present world economy going sour, we are all under the gun. But those who will best survive these times of hardship are those who learn what it means to get started, acquire the needed skills, make the necessary partnerships and sacrifice. You must tighten up your living expenses, ride it out, and make sure you find folks who are willing to pay for the products and services that you have to offer them.
The Equation does not change just because you have more responsibilities that are holding you back from starting your career goals. You simply have to make the adjustments now, with a solid plan that you can stick to. And if nothing you do works, then keep that bill-paying job until you can find another opportunity to attempt your career passion successfully.
If you have any questions you would like me to answer, please email them to omartyree@ascendantstrategy.net.
Question - Many times people have to take a job because they have families to support or bills to pay. When they finally make the decision to follow their passion, but still have to keep their job to pay the bills, how should they go about this process?
Omar Tyree Answers:
That is an excellent question and indeed a tough situation to be in. Let me begin to answer the question by saying this; when I was a senior undergrad at Howard University, I often heard my peers discuss entrepreneurship as a ten-year goal. They all had this idea that they would work for the system for ten years, learn everything they needed to learn through their experiences there, and then break away and start their own company within the same field. And although the ten-year plan seemed to make perfect sense to them, it didn’t make as much sense to me. The reason being was that it takes money, time, sacrifice and plenty of active effort to start your own company, which I did at age 22. But far too many of my peers had the idea that entrepreneurship would somehow be easier once they had put in ten years for a parallel company.
On the contrary, I believed that, since we are all humans with needs and greeds, in ten years, you would most likely be married, with kids, a home, cars, and bills up the wazoo that would inhibit you from saving the money, having the time, being able to make the sacrifices, or having the leftover energy that is needed to make the effort to create your own successful company. My idea was to go right at your career goals much earlier, if not from day one. Why? Because you’re a broke college grad, who hopefully has no kids or family to provide for yet, no big bills to pay (outside of your workable college loans), and you have tons of energy, tons of optimism, older professionals, who are willing to teach you added skills on the fly, and your sacrifices are much smaller because you don’t have anything to lose yet.
As the saying goes, “Youth is wasted on the young.” And while you’re still young, you want to take full advantage of having nothing to lose. So please, start your Love goal, EARLY, and with plenty of internships in your given field for 1-3 years instead of working there for ten.
Now let me answer your question. If it is now too late for you to drive toward your career goal early, and you have all kinds of responsibilities as on your shoulders, then you must now make the extra time to keep your bill-paying job while VOLUNTEERING to help out in a field of your passion whenever you can. And you do that until you can find an in to make money from that passion, while still holding onto your bill-paying job. Most companies won’t pay you to learn. And if you can’t find the time to make that grown-up internship happen, then get ready to go Kamikaze and live or die to succeed on your own merit away from the company experience.
But the reality is this; you will still need time to sharpen your skills in your field of passion to create the valuable Art that people will see as a product or service worth paying for. And there is no short regarding the time that will be necessary.
Then you would have to receive the Support of your family members to allow you to do it. Your wife or husband and kids will all need their time. So now they are forced to sacrifice with you. In some cases, like with many immigrants who relocate to new countries, their whole family gets involved. So you put the wife and husband and kids to work with you. But that sacrifice; to acquire real skills through time, must happen to become serious about making a career change. You are essentially starting back over from the bottom, which again is much easier to do when you’re young and unattached. You also have to build the Support of customers who are unfamiliar with you. Just because you worked for the company for ten years doesn’t mean that you’ve earned any trust in your own name. So you now have to earn public Support for your individual skills and company.
Lastly, we need to talk about income and investment. And unless you have an able or willing relative or friend, or you can talk someone into investing in your passion, or acquire a small business loan, money must be built, invested and multiplied for your passionate career to become an ongoing reality. Otherwise, your goal can become a very time consuming hobby at the expense of everyone around you. Therefore, tough Business decisions will need to be made to survive, which is actually a good thing. You will learn to be in Business by not having a choice. But do you and your family have the courage to try?
With the state of the present world economy going sour, we are all under the gun. But those who will best survive these times of hardship are those who learn what it means to get started, acquire the needed skills, make the necessary partnerships and sacrifice. You must tighten up your living expenses, ride it out, and make sure you find folks who are willing to pay for the products and services that you have to offer them.
The Equation does not change just because you have more responsibilities that are holding you back from starting your career goals. You simply have to make the adjustments now, with a solid plan that you can stick to. And if nothing you do works, then keep that bill-paying job until you can find another opportunity to attempt your career passion successfully.
If you have any questions you would like me to answer, please email them to omartyree@ascendantstrategy.net.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Succeeding In Uncertain Times
After publishing two consecutive books in the past four months that deal with the subject of business and people who are successful at making money (Pecking Order - September 2008 and The Equation - January 2009) and with the state of the world economy being what it is, I was asked the following question in a recent interview with the METRO newspaper staff to be published and distributed around the city streets of New York, Philly and Boston:
METRO - The world is mired in a nearly unprecedented economic crisis and businesses are failing left and right. Is there any additional advice you might give your readers on how to succeed in these uncertain times?
I answered the question accordingly:
Beautiful question. And thanks for asking. Last fall I wrote my last adult fiction book for Simon & Schuster called Pecking Order where I outlined one man's rise from the cubicle of an accounting firm, making $60,000 a year, to the majority stock owner of his own company, worth $180 million. And I wrote all of the details of how this fictional character "Ivan David" made it happen for himself. However, the book is 500 pages long, and many fast-reading fiction fans typically don't want to read that many details. But understanding the details is the only real way to learn anything. Ask any successful CEO.
So at the end of the day, I have been a teacher of book writing for twenty-one years. But if needy people of the world fail to learn from the long and detailed lessons of life, in fiction or in non-fiction, then what more can you say to them? And if you think my book Pecking Order was bloated with business information at 500 pages, then do a page count of Warren Buffett's new book at your local bookstore and tell me how many pages he wrote. And that's the real Equation, my friend. Understanding how to get yourself out of a hole economically is a long and diligent read of life with very few shortcuts.
Now I've decided to continue to do my part in raising the Economic I.Q. of the people by answering one important "Question of The Week" in business, as it relates to The Equation of life.
Stay tuned, the first question and its answer will be posted January 18. If you have a business question that you would like me to answer please email it to omartyree@ascendantstrategy.net . For more information on The Equation or any of my books please visit http://www.omartyree.com/.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
My Blog Below
I learned so much about the Middle East and world culture in my recent trip to Dubai that I don't even know where to begin here. But I guess I would start the conversation off by saying that America is indeed the land of opportunity.
I say that because the most striking information I learned concerning the Middle East is how much of the power, status and wealth is attributed to oil and family royalty.
You see, once upon a time, many of the so-called "Locals" of the Middle East, or Arabs who were already established there, found oil on their various properties that became highly valuable around the world. And just like a #1 draft pick out of college who goes pro, these men and their families became wealthy, powerful, and "Royal" instantly. And as long as these families would remain tied to the international oil, they would remain wealthy and powerful.
Now let's talk about how this oil history has established the building of Dubai. Well, as these Arabian families continued to pass down millions of oil money to their various family members, and they continued to be courted by the greed of the West for gasoline (input the United States here), a few of the royal rulers of the United Arab Emirates or U. A. E. came up with the grand idea of building a commercial playground in Dubai, with the largest malls, hotels, and attractions to seduce the people of world commerce to travel there "duty free" and spend, spend, spend, instead of the royal families being so dependent on oil deals.You see, once upon a time, many of the so-called "Locals" of the Middle East, or Arabs who were already established there, found oil on their various properties that became highly valuable around the world. And just like a #1 draft pick out of college who goes pro, these men and their families became wealthy, powerful, and "Royal" instantly. And as long as these families would remain tied to the international oil, they would remain wealthy and powerful.
Now let's talk about how this oil history has established the building of Dubai. Well, as these Arabian families continued to pass down millions of oil money to their various family members, and they continued to be courted by the greed of the West for gasoline (input the United States here), a few of the royal rulers of the United Arab Emirates or U. A. E. came up with the grand idea of building a commercial playground in Dubai, with the largest malls, hotels, and attractions to seduce the people of world commerce to travel there "duty free" and spend, spend, spend, instead of the royal families being so dependent on oil deals.You see, once upon a time, many of the so-called "Locals" of the Middle East, or Arabs who were already established there, found oil on their various properties that became highly valuable around the world. And just like a #1 draft pick out of college who goes pro, these men and their families became wealthy, powerful, and "Royal" instantly. And as long as these families would remain tied to the international oil, they would remain wealthy and powerful.
Now let's talk about how this oil history has established the building of Dubai. Well, as these Arabian families continued to pass down millions of oil money to their various family members, and they continued to be courted by the greed of the West for gasoline (input the United States here), a few of the royal rulers of the United Arab Emirates or U. A. E. came up with the grand idea of building a commercial playground in Dubai, with the largest malls, hotels, and attractions to seduce the people of world commerce to travel there "duty free" and spend, spend, spend, instead of the royal families being so dependent on oil deals.You see, once upon a time, many of the so-called "Locals" of the Middle East, or Arabs who were already established there, found oil on their various properties that became highly valuable around the world. And just like a #1 draft pick out of college who goes pro, these men and their families became wealthy, powerful, and "Royal" instantly. And as long as these families would remain tied to the international oil, they would remain wealthy and powerful.
Now let's talk about how this oil history has established the building of Dubai. Well, as these Arabian families continued to pass down millions of oil money to their various family members, and they continued to be courted by the greed of the West for gasoline (input the United States here), a few of the royal rulers of the United Arab Emirates or U. A. E. came up with the grand idea of building a commercial playground in Dubai, with the largest malls, hotels, and attractions to seduce the people of world commerce to travel there "duty free" and spend, spend, spend, instead of the royal families being so dependent on oil deals.
And shish, boom, BANG the nation of Dubai shot up out of the sand, with immigrant workers traveling there from all over the world to help build it, international architects and engineers to design it, real estate investors to help finance it, international employees and staff to work it, and everyone who can afford to play in it to travel there and enjoy themselves. And boy, let me tell you, by year 2014, this place will be one of the most dynamite human cities in the world. But right now, they're still building everything.
Well, as I always do when I travel to a new book location, I try to cover every solid inch of the cultural environment while I'm there. And yes indeed, I was over in Dubai not for a simple vacation, but to explore business. I want to write about the place and eventually do business over there myself.
But again, there is just so much to write about that it would literally take me pages and pages of text to do it. So what I'll do instead is have you guys take a vote on what subjects you would want me to write about the most. Okay?
So let us know ASAP and I'll dive back into it all with my pen. In the meantime, you may want to visit my Myspace page to view more of the posted pictures from the trip.
Dubai Subjects: 1) The environment 2) International flavor 3) The night life 4) The culture 5) Family 6) Islam 7) Royalty 8) The weather 9) Violence 10) Gold market 11) Hotels 12) Malls and shopping 13) The women 14) The men 15) Real estate 16) Crime & poverty 17) Fashion 18) Cars 19) Food 20) Or anything else you guys would like to know about . . . So let the voting begin!
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