47 Why You can Build a Business
b'Today I want to talk about ideas of the opportunities for you. People all talk about starting their own business, going at it. Let\\u2019s take a look at three different aspects. You can go and literally compete against the big boys (I\\u2019ll explain that it actually can be possible), you can also find a new way to compete (and I\\u2019ll go over that, in particular Gary Vaynerchuk and VaynerMedia), and then last I want to talk about just the individual businesses itself, and: Where do you find some of your advantages?\\n\\n\\n\\nToo often it is thought that a company must be big to succeed. As technology moves rapidly, the speed of change is creating change and new opportunities.\\n\\nFirst let me talk about competing against the big companies. What happened, actually, was quite accidental. I did this, I did it very successfully, but how did it happen and what happened? Because it wasn\\u2019t really planned out that way. What happened was I was working at Chase, head of automotive, and they were selling off all their industry research divisions for assets only. The deal was all closed, etc., they asked us to go around and talk to all the customers to make sure they were still happy with the bank. In that process, four companies said to me: \\u201cWe really want you to start your own business. We\\u2019ll be clients.\\u201d It was still scary because there were some big names out there that were still going to be in the business, and the company that was buying them was another competitor.\\n\\nBut I was urged, did some research at the library, and decided to do it. Got my non-compete signed off, and then all of a sudden, one week before they were closing down, the deal fell through so my competitors were Chase Manhattan, Merrill Lynch, McGraw-Hill, and Thompson Publishing. My company became the dominant company shortly thereafter, but how did it happen, what happened? Certainly, I didn\\u2019t have the deep pockets that they had, but what I did do is I realized that I could compete on quality, so I raised the status and stature of what I was doing in that way. In a sense, I\\u2019m finding a niche based on quality. Very different, a high-end product.\\n\\nThere is the advertising industry, VaynerMedia, Gary Vaynerchuk. A wonderful story. Actually, sometime I actually told Gary I was going to do an episode that was actually going to dissect a lot of what he does and how he does it, etc. because really, I have tremendous respect for what the guy does, tremendous. He\\u2019s very perceptive. I\\u2019m not sure exactly whether he knows some of his good qualities, because he\\u2019s certainly not shy. Gary always was the entrepreneurial type, that was fine, and he had done Wine Library. What he saw was the opportunity in social media to go into a different direction, and to supply businesses with something that was new technological change. In essence, here he is competing against big name advertising agencies that supposedly nobody would be able to start a new company and compete against, but he used the new technology as the springboard and became probably one of the dominant, if not, the dominant company out there, starting from a new technology point. I don\\u2019t want to make this episode too much about going into that detail, because I\\u2019ll save that for another time. I want to get into the three, and then I want to talk a little bit about what you can do and what you should be doing.\\n\\nThe third is you, yourself as one person, looking in and identifying that little niche someplace. It might be that you already own a store. Keep in mind what happened to travel agencies. They were little stores around. Now, what do you have? You have them online and they\\u2019re international. Back in 1996 when I was first brought into Microsoft training for the Microsoft University. At that time, in order to learn about their newest and latest developments in the internet/web development, I really found it very fascinating. When I went out to meet with companies, I was trying to tell and explain to them\\u2026 Really, at that time,'