A real quick note to those of you looking to find a job, there are a couple good articles over at The Business of America is Business The festival of Job hunting.

Also there is a guest article over at Yaro’s site, Small Business Branding written by yours truly. Do quality work to build a quality brand

Building and defining your brand is one of the most time consuming projects that businesses tackle. It might even be something that you worry so much about that you lose a significant amount of sleep. Perhaps though, it is something that really small business owners shouldn’t worry about at all. If you work to produce the best product or service every time you do something, your brand will be reflected in a positive light. Even when you don’t necessarily produce your best work your brand is still reflected, so in fact branding is not something you need to consciously think about at all - you create one just by running your business.

One thing that is interesting about Buffalo, New York is how much everyone loves their darts. It’s easy to learn and fun to play. Accuracy and precision are another thing that aren’t quite so easy to master.

Being as I haven’t grown up playing darts, it’s not unreasonable to imagine that I am not very good at it.

But I have learned one thing that could translate to the business world. It may not be applicable in all circumstances, but what is? The lesson that I have learned is to chase opportunity, not you competitors.

In darts, if your opponent closes off the 20s, you go after the 19s. In business, if everyone is selling warm lemonade, you might go set up a chilled kool-aid stand. Then again, is that where the real opportunity lies? Perhaps you might start selling your competition lemons and ice cubes.

Always look for the opportunity and strive to reach the goals you set. That is where the real bucks will be made. Hey, if it was easy to become a millionaire then everyone would be doing it.

Here in the United States the cost of gasoline is roughly three dollars. That seems quite outrageous to most people that will freely share their opinion on the expensive liquid.

On the other hand, I think that oil is cheap. Even if crude did close at a new record high of $75.15 per barrel, I think it is still quite cheap. I don’t like spending $35 to fill up when I used to be able to do it for $20, but when you look at the amount of work required to get the gas from the ground or ocean floor and into my car, it certainly seems like I’m getting a heck of a deal.

Consider some of the other liquids that we buy such as milk and bottled water.
With bottled water the work involved is simply turning on a faucet and filling up the bottle. Ta-da, bottled water that can be sold at more than three dollars a gallon! Next we’ll look at milk. In order to get this it’s simply a matter of having some cows and then milking them. Okay so then you have to homogenize the milk and separate out the fat, but after that you’re good to go. Milk sells for roughly three dollars a gallon.

Now let’s take a look at getting gasoline from the ground and into your car. First, you have to find an oilfield that you can tap. You have to hire all kinds of engineers for this, particularly petroleum engineers and environmental engineers. All kinds of restrictions apply on where you can drill, how much you can take, and how the land is treated. All of these concerns can be big sinkholes for the investment.

Now that we have found some oil, or at least we think we have, it’s time to drill down to it. So we throw in tens of thousands of dollars getting the required machinery out to the field and getting the pump drilled, primed, and otherwise fired up.

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All weekend, I have been listening to the screams of eight children: Kool Aid! 25 cents!

Those kids seem to know a few secrets about business and money that we often forget.

They implement countless business techniques from location, location, location to commission-based selling without even knowing. I tell ya, those kids wouldn’t scream so loudly for so long to get customers if they were going to make a flat $5.15 no matter how much they shouted. They also know that every customer means direct profit—no middleman, no supplier expenses. Mom gives the sugar and mixture for free.

My neighborhood kids have all the advantage. But you know what? They’re not at any advantage over you and me. They’ve got all summer; we’ve got all our lives. They have nothing to lose; you have little to lose and lots of time to make up.

Maybe don’t go into the Kool Aid business—it’s saturated here! Though do go into business if you want an attempt at success. I’ve never heard a kid say, “Dang, I wish I didn’t spend all day selling Kool Aid when I could have drawn chalk pictures all day instead.”

Welcome to the carnival of business. It looks like everyone has quite a bit of reading to do because we’ve got a lot of great articles for you to read.

Scott Allen is up first with his article Pricing IS Marketing posted at About.com Entrepreneur’s Guide.

Shay has just launched his new web business Boomawang. It’s in the format of an online magazine coming out once a week. It looks good so far!

David Maister presents Alignment and Accountability posted at David Maister’s Passion, People and Principles.

Ohad Gliksman presents Google VS Microsoft posted at Ohad’s Internet News. See how google’s entrance into the online office application market will affect MS’s plans

Supermom_in_ny breaks down what her motivations are and asks what yours are Home Based Businesses: What Motivates Me to Succeed posted at Getting Out of Debt.

Steve presents Team Building - Four Stages posted at Small Business CEO.

Henry Habgood has an idea on how we should handle Customer Service for the e-business owner posted at The Online Lifestyle.

Trent presents Hewitt (HEW): When a Share Buyback Should be Viewed as a Warning posted at Stock Market Beat.

A Samuel presents Munich property shortage posted at Off Plan Properties Blog.

Chris Brunner is next up to help you start Reducing Taxable Income Through Retirement Funds posted at The Small Business Buzz.

Starling gives us some thoughts on Cruises and Cruising posted at The Business of America is Business.

Daniel Scocco presents First Mover Advantage Revisited posted at Future Tech Web.

Dave Lorenzo gives usStep One to a New E-mail Lifestyle posted at Career Intensity Blog - David V. Lorenzo.

Black presents Online business - Blogging money fantasy - can you make a living blogging posted at Leverage Your Effort.

Harrison presents The 10 “Q” in Business

I’m sure you have heard of Multi-Level-Marketing before, heck if you read Aridni just yesterday there was an article supporting it. Today’s article is not going to be quite as affirmative.

If I were to start up one of these companies, for the example we’ll call it “Todd’s super-cool MLM company” the first step I would take would be to find some product to sell. Okay how about we sell lemonade and lemonade accessories.

I’ll get my catalog all set up and good to go with all kinds of exotic lemons, juicers, squeezers, mixers, pitchers, and those big wooden spoons. Now it’s time to take TSCMC out to make some money.

I go around to some houses selling overpriced lemonade and find out one big thing. It’s only a matter of time before I discover that selling things is hard work and not very much fun.

My next step is to get an army of cronies to go door to door. I’ll sit at home watching movies while they fill the streets selling my lemonade and lemonade accessories. Now for every piece they sell we both make money.

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