Very few people have the opportunity, vision and drive to influence a whole generation. Those that do have the opportunity very rarely take their opportunity to do just that because it is a major responsibility. This may be why some young entrepreneurs become disillusioned, but there is reassurance out there in the form of one man that grasped his opportunity with both hands. Russell Simmons is that man. The founder of Def Jam Records is undoubtedly a hip-hop pioneer and gave so much to his generation as well as future generations.

Growing Up

Russell Simmons was born on October 4, 1957 in Queens, New York and grew up in one of the roughest areas of the city. As such, he did fall in with a bad crowd and spent some of his formative years as a hustler on the streets. One thing he did have from his childhood though was a love of music and a drive to promote it as best as he could. He did get an education though and actually made the decision to go to City College of New York in Harlem in 1978. He studied sociology by day and promoted hip-hop gigs by night. However, the latter got the better of the former and he dropped out to follow his one true love.

The entrepreneur began promoting local music acts in New York and would wax lyrical about their talent if asked. It was while he was working the music scene that he met a college student by the name of Rick Rubin. Rubin and Simmons began to think that there was a better way to get the music of the likes of Kurtis Blow, Public Enemy, Run DMC and LL Cool J heard, and they founded Def Jam Records together in 1984. They soon found that their music was played on the radio on a regular basis and began to produce the albums of the stars mentioned above.

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How many business cards have you gathered since you’ve been in business? I’ve seen business owners with hundreds if not thousands of business cards stored in card boxes, in jacket pockets, stapled to diaries and contact details scribbled on bits of paper. 

Are you the same? Do you have hundreds of business cards lying around in various places?  

I’d like you to ask yourself a question…how effective are these business cards for you at the moment? 

A few years ago, I was in the same situation. I had piles of business cards. In fact, I remember I had to go out and buy two more business card boxes because I just did not have the space to hold them all. 

But I didn’t actually do anything with them. They were just sat there looking at me.  

Occasionally, if someone asked me for some contact details, I’d go through them quickly to find the right person, but rarely found the card I was looking for. 

Then I began to realise the power of contacting past contacts and it dawned on me that I would actually need to do something about my business cards. So, I painstakingly sat there and typed them all out onto a database on excel. 

Just putting these contacts somewhere made it possible for me to do something with them. For instance, I could: 

• Touch base with these contacts to find out how they were getting on.
• Make notes and colour code excel to show what was happening with each person.
• Find people quickly and easily.
• Produce reports and statistics if I needed to. 

The most important difference though was that I was able to follow up with people and start to build a relationship with them. Because I could touch base with people properly, I found it had a dramatic difference on my business and got me new customers. 

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On February 17, 2009 President Barack Obama signed the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009” (“ARRA of 2009) into law.  Section 1251 of the bill temporarily reduces the recognition period for “built-in” gains tax (BIG tax) on S Corporations from 10 years to 7 years for the 2009 and 2010 tax years.

Why is this important? 

Historically, if you were a shareholder in an S Corporation that converted from a C Corporation and sold the company within 10 years of the date of conversion, you would be subject to BIG tax.  For 2009 and 2010, that 10 year “recognition period” has been reduced to 7 years.  So, if you sell your S Corporation in 2009 or 2010 and it has been converted from a C Corporation at least 7 years prior, you will avoid the 35% BIG tax.  Companies originally organized as S Corporations have never, and remain, not subject to BIG tax.

A Closer Look

When you sell a C Corporation the proceeds from the sale of the assets are owned by the corporation.  They get taxed once at the corporate level (35%) and then again upon distribution to the shareholders where they are taxed at your personal rate.  This effective “double tax” makes it advantageous for the shareholders of a C Corporation to convert to an S Corporation prior to sale.  In an S Corporation the proceeds from sale are “passed through” directly to the shareholders and taxed ONLY at their individual tax rates.

Since the result of converting a C Corporation to an S Corporation is a reduction in revenue for the IRS, the IRS states that the conversion must occur prior to the recognition period or the proceeds from sale will be taxed on a prorated basis.

Example:

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Web design used to be strictly in HTML formatting and very few people were trained to create web pages.  Software was primarily used by businesses and companies to run more efficiently.  Today the industry for web design and for software development has grown by leaps and bounds.  It continues to be an industry that is ever changing.  Finding a software business for sale or even a web design business for sale is not very difficult at all.

Stages of Software Development
Most business people do not realize that software development follows a life cycle for the software.  There are different phases that software development includes before a piece of software is ever put onto the market.  Traditionally, one company will not handle every single aspect of the software development.  For example, testing and software development change requests are typically handled by one company.  Once the product is ready to hit the market, another company could handle the marketing, packaging and advertising aspects of the software development as the final stage.

When you find a software business for sale it is important to find out which phase of software development that the company specializes in.  Do they handle the final stage of marketing, packaging and advertising?  Do they design software ideas that are sold to other companies to actually produce?  Does the company specialize in the actual programming and testing of the software?

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Have you ever come across franchise reviews before? If you have then you may be interested in what they have to offer you. Well, if you are looking to invest in an established business to expand your entrepreneurial portfolio then a franchise will be a perfect choice or you. There are hundreds of franchises available at any given time so there is plenty of scope to give your business career a major boost, but how do you choose the right opportunity?

What Are Franchise Ratings And Reviews?

Franchise ratings and franchise reviews are effectively reports compiled by trusted sources. You can find those compiled by current franchisees, all of which will give their opinions on the franchisor in terms of support, training, costs and fees, and numerous other general factors. You can also find those compiled by independent companies. Independent companies look at completely different factors and thus the metrics by which the franchise ratings and franchise reviews are composed may give a different outcome to those by franchisees.

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So you fly somewhere exotic on holiday and you stop at the car rental booth the airport and choose from a whole host of cars that can get you around for the duration of your holiday. You travel on business, fly to the other side of the country and do exactly the same. Notice a pattern? If you, as a successful businessperson, add up just how much you spend every year on rental cars for business and pleasure and multiply that by several hundred thousand then you will be able to get a good idea of just how profitable the industry is. If you want another business to add to your investment portfolio and make you a lot of money then you should look into the car rental businesses for sale out there at the moment.

Profitability
The profitability of the individual car rental businesses for sale cannot really be estimated or generalized because every single car rental business for sale is different. One located at the airport, for example, may have a greater profitability than an independent business on the outskirts of town. As such, you need to assess the cash flow and accounts of the individual business before you buy a car rental business. You should have a gifted accountant look through them and give you an honest opinion, and then get a business consultant look through them and give you his or her independent opinion just to be sure that there is a consensus about the car rental business for sale in question.

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Walt Disney is a world famous name. It is well known as a result of animated cartoons and films that have been released over a period in excess of a hundred years. However, it is easy to forget that the name of Walt Disney was actually the name of a creative and innovative entrepreneur. Walt Disney the man is hardly forgotten but his entrepreneurial achievements tend to fall by the wayside when the success of the company is examined. As a result, let us take a look at the man himself.

The Early Years Of The Man

Walter Elias Disney was born on December 5, 1901 in Chicago, Illinois but spent little of his childhood there. His parents financially struggled and so took the opportunity to move to Marceline, Missouri when it presented itself. His father’s brother had bought farmland and needed help to tend it. As the young entrepreneur was left to his own devices and had little interaction with children of his own age in the rural setting, he began to find ways and means to entertain himself and drawing was undoubtedly his favorite pastime. When Disney was 10 years old when his family moved again to Kansas City. There he attended school and met a friend named Walter Pfeiffer. Pfeiffer’s family introduced the young entrepreneur to the theater and movies, which captured his attention and set him on the path to becoming a worldwide legend.

The Early Years Of Disney

Walt Disney embarked on his drawing career in 1919. He would draw for newspapers and movie theaters to create advertisements before joining the Kansas City Film Ad Company. It was there where he was introduced to animation, although he did not stay long before opening his own animations company. Although his animation career started off slowly with short cartoons at the local movie theater, his work soon became popular.

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Robert L Johnson is one of the most recognisable African American faces in the United States today. As an entrepreneur and a billionaire, Robert Johnson has worked hard to get to where he is today. As the creator and founder of Black Entertainment Television, Johnson has made a massive impact on the visibility of African American issues in the public eye. As such, the entrepreneur is one of the most esteemed figures in the world of the rich and successful today.

Humble Beginnings

Robert Johnson was born on April 8, 1946 in Hickory, Mississippi, the ninth of ten children. His parents moved after Mississippi soon after Johnson was born and so he spent the vast majority of his early year in Freeport, Illinois. The budding entrepreneur always excelled at his studies, so much so that he was accepted into the University of Illinois for a degree in history and then for his Master’s degree at Princeton. He graduated in 1972. Johnson always had aspirations that elevated him above his peers. He was proud of being an African American and vowed to use his own talents to promote pride as far as possible.

Robert Johnson In The Media

The entrepreneur liked the idea of using the media to communicate with his peers because it could reach a far wider audience than would be possible through any other medium. His business skills enabled him to get funding for his fledgling business and also enabled him to turn his dreams into a reality. In 1980, Black Entertainment Television was launched and purposely targeted Black Americans all over the country. It appeared on cable for two hours every week to begin with but popular demand soon mounted so the station broadcast daily and then all day. It was soon attracting the attention of people all over the country and its popularity grew in no time at all.

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