entrepreneur

I’ve got an assignment for anyone who plans to attend the 2009 NACLNC^® Conference in San Antonio, March 12-13, 2009.

Between now and March 12th, you must go and see the movie Slumdog Millionaire. That movie won 5 Critics Choice awards, 4 Golden Globes^® and garnered 10 Oscar^® nominations.

Why am I assigning you a movie? This film is full of lessons for beginning, and seasoned, entrepreneurs. It’s a fictional story of the life of an orphan, Jamal Malik, growing up in Mumbai, India, who miraculously appears on the Indian version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire.”

Here’s the deal. I was reluctant to see the film. The last Danny Boyle film I remember seeing was Trainspotting and I walked out. So, Tom and I went into this one dragging our heels and figuring we’d at least enjoy a big bag of popcorn, if not the movie.

The film didn’t start off too promising, but as soon as the first flashback of young Jamal playing cricket started I was hooked! I don’t rave about movies. Ever. But in this case, I’m raving and I’m challenging every Certified Legal Nurse Consultant planning on attending our NACLNC^® Conference in March to see this movie before you come to San Antonio.

I challenge you to identify all the maverick entrepreneurial techniques Jamal and his brother employ during the film. I will warn you, this movie is a rollercoaster of sights and thoughts that may upset you. If you haven’t been to the third world, this is as close as you need to get. If you have been, you’ll laugh through your tears. In the end though, you’ll be rewarded.

Go see it – take your significant other(s). Hold hands, eat popcorn and enjoy the ride.

Success Is Inside!

P.S. If you identify any entrepreneurial techniques you can apply to your legal nurse consulting business, post them here and we can all discuss them.

P.P.S. Stay for the closing credits – it’s classic Bollywood!

Dear President Obama,

Congratulations on becoming the 44th president of the United States. Americans have hired you to manage our country and to fix the economic crisis you have inherited. To accomplish this, you need to act like an entrepreneur – not a politician. Entrepreneurs thrive on crisis, knowing that from the center of it huge opportunities arise for growth and profit.

Break the Succession of Bad Ideas

Entrepreneurs witness their executive managers clinging to their ideas – even bad ones. Once ideas are entrenched it is painful to shake free of them, no matter how harmful they may be to the business. I have had to compel executives to abandon projects in which we invested thousands of dollars and uncountable hours. It is a dirty deed, but it is my job to lead the company in the right direction. Your job, like mine, is to recognize and break the succession of bad ideas.

To right the economy, I recommend you start with the worst idea of all – the bloated, loophole-ridden Tax Code that is unintelligible to even the most expert tax preparers, the IRS itself and especially the small business owner. Just keeping up with my equipment depreciation schedule gives me a migraine. On top of that, thinking about the amount of tax I owe on inventory I haven’t sold, and on accrued income from installment payments I haven’t yet collected, plus the reporting and compliance requirements makes me wonder why I got into business in the first place. Entrepreneurship, like the presidency, is not for the faint of heart. Fortunately for the twenty-five people I employ and the Certified Legal Nurse Consultants I service, my entrepreneurial spirit forges on.

Business cannot thrive on outdated systems, nor can successful entrepreneurs afford to make business more complex than it needs to be. To repair the economy, apply the entrepreneurial art of simplicity by eradicating the Tax Code. Replace it with a simple national sales tax, and eliminate all other taxes, including corporate and individual income, payroll, capital gains and estate taxes. This would wipe out layers of bureaucracy and save taxpayers billions of dollars. Give refunds back to lower income families to keep them whole.

Don’t Stifle Ambition

Americans are greedy and that’s not all bad. Entrepreneurs are too. The desire for more and better drives us to innovate, making us the strongest country in the world. Give entrepreneurs their credit back so that they can focus on what they do best – create jobs, generate income and stimulate the economy.

Aspiring and active business owners who have great credit histories are being denied the credit they need to launch and grow businesses. This unavailability of credit is crippling innovation and productivity. America cannot afford to drive entrepreneurs out of business. Small businesses and the people they employ cannot wait six to twelve months for a trickle of credit.

Give some of that bailout money to the entities that are making loans and make sure that it is used towards affordable loans for entrepreneurs with strong business plans and good credit. Small business creates more jobs than any other sector of the economy. Americans will feel safe to go shopping, buy a new car or invest in a home when the companies they work for are flourishing again.

Stop the Stealing

Americans expect to pay taxes, but we are no longer willing to bankroll the government’s mismanagement and self-interest. It is time to stop the stealing – the excessive, irresponsible spending and ever-increasing federal budgets. Do not make a commodity of the American people who struggle to buy groceries and pump gas. Take the pork away from the pigs.

Entrepreneurs all over America are slashing their budgets by as much as 30% to stay profitable. At my company, if a project cannot justify its budget, it is gone. We budget for results – not for a bigger budget the next year. It is time to skip the buzzwords and feel-good phrases. Americans have heard the rhetoric, now we want results. Prove that you can run our government as lean and clean as a successful entrepreneurial business.

Today when you take office, implement a plan to assure the bailout is handled responsibly and with accountability. The kind of behavior that occurred in the lending industry would never have been tolerated or even possible in a small business. Make sure that individuals benefit from the bailout – not just the companies that created the problems. Use the money for what it was intended for and don’t dilute it with unintended uses and handouts to companies on the fringes of the issue.

Every Act Counts

You have brought hope and inspiration back to the people of the United States. You have four years until your first real performance evaluation. That is a luxury few entrepreneurs enjoy. Even so, you have a responsibility to act quickly and decisively. Make every act count. Then we’ll decide whether or not you get to keep your job as head of the most important business in the world.

Vickie L. Milazzo, RN, MSN, JD

You’ve heard the news: bailouts for this industry, bailouts for that industry, bailouts for everyone except for the honest business woman or man. It seems like you have to be a pretty big crook or a terrible money manager to get a bailout from the government.

This morning, over some healthy green tea, my staff and I discussed what a government bailout might look like for the average entrepreneur:

• A pair of rose-colored glasses to help you to see the financial news in a better light.
• A lottery ticket to give you something for your retirement fund that has better odds than the stock market.
• A used TSA quart-size baggie containing leftover government office supplies (that you and I paid for anyway) such as bent paperclips, broken black binder clamps, stump-ends of staples and an empty bottle of white glue to help keep your business together.
• A roll of duct tape in case the above fails (BTW – here in Texas my friends call it “hunnert-mile-an-hour tape” and you can too – when your business gets rolling again).
• An open, and partially consumed, bottle of Jack Daniels (probably from the Treasury Secretary’s liquor cabinet) to help take your mind off your financial problems.
• A bottle of extra-strength Tylenol^® to help cure the effects of your late-nite discourse with “Gentleman Jack.”
• A bag of generic coffee to give you something to wash down the Tylenol^® that morning and give you the energy to go to work and focus on your business (and not the economy).
• And finally, a Travel Doodle Pro to help you stay in communication with your office after your Blackberry^® account is cancelled.

All of this would arrive postage due, in a damaged box, courtesy of the folks who brought you the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the Big Three bailout.

I’m hoping that it doesn’t come to this, but in a world that’s seeing its first big nursing layoffs, I’m glad I work in what my friend, Dale Barnes, (Check back for an upcoming interview with Dale) calls a recession-proof profession, legal nurse consulting. One thing’s for sure – the stock market may run short of money, but America will never run short of attorneys!

If the government is going to let the auto industry suffer and die, it won’t help entrepreneurs either. Don’t wait for the government to bail you out. Only you can bail yourself out.

Success Is Inside!