American business travelers and others sojourning in Canada may be forgiven for wondering if our northern neighbors aren’t part of some great, unholy alliance forged to inflate the market share of internet telephony services.At least, once they’ve had a chance to calm down after the shock of seeing their next phone bill, according to Nick Yates.

Either by land-line or cellular, fees and charges are sure to stun the unsuspecting; and the electronic extortion cuts equally in both directions.  Who says the major carriers have lost their money-grabbing touch when it comes to overcharging for long distance?  No longer me.  On a recent business trip polar-ward my wife ran up charges of forty-five dollars for barely that many minutes of uneventful evening chitchat with me back home in the U.S.  Even though the international border was mere miles away.

This sort of robbery was exactly what NAFTA was designed to remedy — was it not, Mr. Yates asks us?

Purely as a defense, more and more business travelers are venturing into the imperfect world of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony to reach the home office or to tuck the kids in at night back home.  Skype, Gizmo5 and other solutions are becoming commonly used by the cognizant in an effort to hold down costs and keep those lines of communication open.

But be warned that the above strategy can add an “adventurous” element to a phone call — what with cosmic echoes and the other bizarre sound effects that fashion the commonest phone conversation into something closely resembling the sound track of “Star Trek.”  Often, all that’s missing is Scottie’s agitated voice screeching from the engine room “SHE’LL NEVER HOLD CAPTAIN!  YOU’VE GOT TO (etc., etc.)!!!”

Oh, and then there are the clauses, dependent or otherwise, that go missing from sentences utterly without warning, threatening to leave the listener in the dark about key bits of information!

The good news, however, is that many laptops now come with suitable built-in speakers which allow for surprisingly clear two-way communication using VoIP.  Otherwise, fifteen dollars buys a serviceable headset.

All the better to zoom through those time warps with?

If you are willing to take some risks, are really fed up with living under a boss, and think that all the uncertainty with jobs need not be faced because there are plenty of other things to do then you just might be the next big entrepreneur because you are already thinking like one. Before your start typing your resignation letter you should consider going through some entrepreneurship course so that you know exactly what you need to do as one.

If you do not have enough time to enroll in a regular course then do not stress it. You can always join a distance-learning course and attend classes on the Internet. In other words, you can learn entrepreneurship online. Not only is this convenient but it is also a whole lot cheaper. Many accredited universities also offer online programs for working professionals.

Here are some of the programs that would be of interest to you. If you have an associates degree or a high school diploma then you can opt for this course that teaches things like marketing management, entrepreneurial finance, product development, business law, and so on. If you want you could go for a bachelor’s degree course in Business Administration or Small Business and Entrepreneurship. If you are working full time then you should go for an Associate or Bachelor degree in Business Administration or Entrepreneurship that permits you to take classes on the Internet.

If you are already a graduate then you can also do your MBA (Master’s of Business Administration) online. The MBA course will teach you how to analyze your business and develop the right strategies, how to write business plans, and also introduce you to several case studies of businesses and their marketing strategies.
Business communication is another vital aspect of entrepreneurship and you can get a Masters of Arts in Business Communication from many good online universities.

Online education through a virtual campus is slightly different than attending a college full time but for the most part it is a good experience. Your classroom is waiting for your 24 hours a day and you can just hook up to the Internet and continue your education when you find convenient. Some universities even include video options where you can chat with faculty and other students to make the whole thing more personal.

Most of the discussions start with the question, “How can you be an entrepreneur?” and “What should be done to be a successful entrepreneur?” but the first question that must be dealt with is “Why do you want to be an entrepreneur?” Do you really want to be an entrepreneur? This is the first question that must be asked by anyone and everyone before thinking of starting any business venture? This is the moot question. And yes, first of all you would have to understand who is an entrepreneur? What is entrepreneurship per se?

The word entrepreneur comes from Latin. Entre-enter; pre-before; neur-nerve center. Taking its derivation we could understand entrepreneur as someone who enters the nerve center of a business that no one entered before and then makes changes to it that results in a paradigm shift in the whole process. An entrepreneur is the one who is willing to take risk in any business endeavor. Entrepreneurship is the art of finding an opportunity and then pursuing it to success. As a saying goes “brilliant people also see the same things that others do but they observe things that others don’t.” It is the same with entrepreneurs also. They come out with ideas that others don’t think about and that is why they become successful.

Another term which has found a lot of popularity in recent time is a technopreneur. Well, a technopreneur could be understood as an entrepreneur in a business related to technology. It is generally seen that a technopreneur generally has some kind of proprietary and patentable intellectual property rights that he commercializes and reaps benefits out of it. Technopreneurship is a term which is generally used for software companies.

Now let’s talk about our earlier question. Why entrepreneurship? Why are you thinking of being an entrepreneur? Do you really want to be an entrepreneur or is there some kind of compulsion to be an entrepreneur? Is it because you don’t have any job or you currently find yourself out of job? There are many who get into the field because that is what his father and forefathers have been doing. Well, after all, it is their family business. And there is another category that interests me the most. It is the one where people claim that they want to be entrepreneurs for the very simple reason that they want to be entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship is in their blood.

It is for you to ask yourself. Why do you want to be an entrepreneur? I would like to tell you one thing. Entrepreneurship can really prove very rewarding but and this is a very big but, it is very risky and not easy. Until and unless you are ready to slug it out till the end, the chances of success are very limited. If you are fed up with you daily office routine and want to try your hands in entrepreneurship, let me tell you that the time you would have to spend for your own company would be far more. The effort that you would have to make would be far greater than what you have been making. There has never been any short cut to success and there would never be any. But yes, when you really become successful, the rewards compensate for everything.

It is a question of conditionality. No one word answer can make a complete solution and it varies depends on each one. Any how, the simple short cut to become a successful business man is to adopt a winning business strategy. But, a good business strategy cannot become a winning formula, if the entrepreneur does not posses the basic business skills. Hence, evaluate yourself critically, before you leap into the business.

Business is an entrepreneurship, run by you. To run the business, you must have the attitude to win. Life is not a bed of roses, but, business is worse, it is full of thorns. The setbacks in the business are most unexpected. Hence, you must be mentally prepared to overcome the hassles that come in the journey. The lives of the famous business people show that these hardships were actually the motivating factor behind their success. Hence, the motto of successful business men must be ‘failure is a stepping stone of success’.

Apart from the infrastructure, business is built up on the interpersonal relationships. You must be a good communicator, who can gain confidence of others. The communicational intelligence is the basis of the interpersonal relations and the building up of a good rapport between you and your employees, is essential to lay a strong business foundation. Also, be conscious while the selection of the employees since they are the back bone of the business. The success to attain the assurance of the employees is an indication of your success in the future.

More than all these factors, discipline is the most important quality that a business man has to posses. Discipline implies both self discipline and financial discipline. The past stories prove that the lack of the discipline is the triggering factor behind the failure of most of the establishments. Financial discipline is inevitable since business is the rolling of the money. The finance strategy is based on the mode of the business.

To start up the business, the basic idea must be attractive. In the world of globalization, the competition is high and a substantial idea can only withstand. As the freshness of the idea increases, the chance to succeed also increases. Any how, the idea must be practically viable. “Well begun is half done”. You can seek the help of some consultancies to help you to plan well before you launch. In addition to a catchy idea, potential marketing strategies are also essential to succeed in the business. You must essentially know what the target customers require and also be thorough with the latest developments and trends in the field since customers are always seeking the latest.

Level of service and quality of your work will be the main deciding factors for your success in the business. The customers expect pleasing behavior from you and if you could succeed to satisfy them. But, it does not mean that you have to show unrestricted lenience. Efficient staff can assist you to grab the confidence of the customers. However, your direct supervision is inevitable to coordinate it. Keep in mind to look over every unit of the department since the perfect functioning of all the departments is equally important to mold your business.

To add on, the spirit to excel is the necessary prerequisite to become a successful business man. Wise people used to compare an upcoming business man to a spider. As you know, spider does not give up its job to make the net, till it succeeds. Like that the business man also has to work till he succeeds. Remember, no business empire was built in a day; you have to wait for a little time to establish. The perseverance to win will help you to become a successful businessman one day.

Saying says that ‘Dream for the sky, then, at least a handful will be yours’. But, to become a successful businessman, your attitude must be to ‘dream the sky and ensure that you are at sky’. Try and try, till you succeed.