The Struggle These Days…

… Perfectly explained by Seth Godin in his Blog today.

I’m a big fan of Seth’s Blog and always recommend it and his books to people I mentor.

If you can only subscribe to ONE blog, make it Seth’s.

Anxiously Awaiting Finalist Results in Intuit’s Small Business United Contest

The judges are judging, the votes are being tallied. Tomorrow I will find out if my video submission won my company a small business grant from Intuit.

You can’t vote on it any more, but please come watch my video and be inspired!
Fingers crossed, my friends!

SMiles and Aloha,
Donna

I’m a Finalist in the Intuit Small Business Grant Contest!

Wow, I’m so excited!
Thanks to all of you who voted and the judges, who found my story compelling enough to select it as one of the top 50, I win 5K and get to compete in the next round (with a video I make) for an additional 10K or better yet, 25K grant!

Read my winning story here: Passages
and see what you think!

My video will be posted by the 18th and then another (shorter) frenzy of voting begins then.
Stay tuned! I will need your vote then too!

Smiles,
Donna

More Great Insight from Seth Godin

Gotta love Seth. He always writes things that resonate so deeply with my own business ethics and style.

Here is a recent post of his that I think can be really helpful to many who are finding themselves stuck or scared with their business and wondering where is it going in this recession?

“When industry norms start to die, people panic. It’s difficult to change when you think that you must change everything in order to succeed. Changing everything is too difficult.

Consider for a minute the pivot points available to you:

* Keep the machines in your factory, but change what they make.
* Keep your customers, but change what you sell to them.
* Keep your providers, but change the profit structure…”

Read the rest of this article here…

And for inspiration, here’s a beautiful image from David Pu’u.

The Times They Are a Changin’

This brilliant post by Seth Godin applies to many industries/sectors.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/02/music-vs-the-music-industry.html

Think in terms of your own gig while you are reading it.

I know why I never marched to the beat of the fashion industry drum with my brand Betty Belts.
I never really believed in the status quo.

Smiles,
Donna

Transparency

Today, Seth Godin, one of my favorite sources for inspiration in business, wrote a post on his blog about transparency and ethics in business. Someone raised the question about whether or not one could succeed in business without getting their hands dirty. Of course that depends on how you measure success…

I don’t make a lot of money running my six year old business Betty Belts, but everyone gets paid, everyone is happy, good vibes flow into the products, and I can sleep well at night. I don’t have much in the bank and sometimes it’s hard to make ends meet, but many tell me I am living the dream: living close to the beach, running an ethical business, traveling a bit, surfing a lot, giving back and inspiring a whole lot of people with my ethically made designs and down to earth philosophy.
They are right. And I couldn’t do it any other way.

There’s a reason I refuse to sell my brand to “the evil empire” big box retailers (you know who they are) and others who disguise themselves as authentic retailers, but are anything but.
Just say no.

I’ve been waiting to see terms like “ethical” and “transparency” finally become buzzwords, moving beyond simply “green” and “eco-friendly”, which is good, but isn’t enough. Changing the way we think about how/where/why we spend our money.