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MidwestMagazine.com

This is our MM "Commentary" SECTION. Each month we will feature commentary from the Editor & CEO.

This month's COMMENTARY SECTION is sponsored by:

 

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My two cents worth

From the MM Editor & CEO

by: Edward Buy

Many of you who are reading our "On-Line" Magazine for the first time got here because of a link which you may have seen at another web site, or maybe you saw us mentioned in an e-mail newsletter. However you found us, I hope that you will tell your friends and co-workers about us.

From the outset, I have tried to build a better mousetrap, so to speak. If you have ever tried running your own business, as I have for the last fifteen years, you know how powerful good advice can be. All of us need mentors and advisors to steer us in the right direction.

Sometimes - as we saw in the case of the Titanic, the advice given to the captain was not very sound. The same thing can happen to you if you are just starting out in a new career, trying to grab a piece of the American Dream by starting your own business or even thinking about getting married for the first time - you need good advice. As a matter of fact, you need GREAT ADVICE!

Where can you turn for the right advice? Look around for successful people who are already doing what you would like to do someday. As you learn from them, they will consider you to be their friend.

Someday, you may have skills which will allow you to help them in an area with which they may not be too familiar. The one thing that you should do is help a novice or intern to get headed in the right direction.

A few years ago, I stood in line for over an hour at McCormick Place in Chicago waiting to get in to see the latest in computer equipment. I hate to wait. Being a resident of DuPage County, I figured that a computer EXPO in the Oak Brook area might be a fun project. Here is the logo we used:

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The one thing I knew was how to do my own PR and sell a product or service well. I also knew that I needed some advertising - so I called Jim Elsener, the publisher of The Business Ledger, for some advice on advertising and for his opinion on if he thought I could make a profit the very first year. He traded some ads in two issues of his publication for a booth at my Oak Brook Computer EXPO. After that we signed up 82 exhibitors including Microsoft and ANET. I consider Jim to be one of my mentors. Now that I have my own on-line publication, I thought it would be only fitting to say "Thanks Jim".

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Jim Elsener

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By the way - after we paid all of our vendors for printing, advertising, pipe & drape, catering, etc. we generated over $10,000.00 in profit for a one day event. We also had ten guest speakers and a luncheon going on during the EXPO.

I only wish that there were more people like Jim who would take the time to point people in the right direction. That is what made this country GREAT!