I have a love for biographies, either business or celebrity. I don't go after current pop-icons, but older entertainers who have been around the block. Their lives offer lessons anyone can learn from, and I realized last night, that they offer great business lessons as well.

Entertainers are Entrepreneurs too.

If you think about it, they are in the business of promoting themselves. That is what an entrepreneur does as well. We promote our product, service and ourself (if we're smart). Well, Steve Martin's autobiography has some great lessons in patience, persistence and innovation - the same things that make a great business person.

These are 5 lessons you can learn, and in the podcast, I go into details of Martin's life and how we can apply these lessons to our own businesses:

1. There are NO overnight successes.
2. Timing is everything.
3. We start by borrowing, but become successful by innovating.
4. Sometimes the best ideas arise out of problems.
5. Sometimes the best ideas need to be dropped.

I'd love to hear feedback from you. I've added the podcast to FriendFeed because it allows commenting, and have posted a place for you to comment on episodes at http://www.BrainStormBusinessPodcast.com. Let's see how it works!

Penny Haynes, Commercial Creation Center

In today's Brain Storm! Business Podcast, we will discuss (in passing) Obama's flawless marketing campaign, as well as ZipCar's 7 point strategy to break out of the old mold and move from $2 million to $100 million in revenues.

As I said, I only mention Obama's campaign in passing, but thought it deserved mention. A vague but energizing word (Change), celebrity endorsements, the use of social media, and the targeting of an untapped generation of typically unmotivated (and uninformed) voters worked wonders.

As for ZipCar, this podcast is based on an article from one of my 2 favorite magazines (Fast Company and Inc). You can find it at http://www.inc.com/magazine/20080301/how-fast-can-this-thing-go-anyway.html to read the details for yourself. I love stories that detail the exact steps people have taken to build or improve a business (or to ruin it, so we can learn our lessons through them).

The ideas that I took away with me included focusing on a small target area and perfecting your business there before expanding. Get it right, then duplicate it in other areas. Don't go for funding until you've got something solid. I also love the tweeks they applied to better market to different areas, and how they kept their clientele (and the client's desired result from using their service) in mind, and made changes accordingly. Best of all, they went after a target market NO car rental company in their right mind wanted, and got someone else to cover the risk factor for them!

I'd love to hear from you regarding which of these 7 strategic steps could you apply first? How could you apply it? (And WILL you apply it???) Let me know by sending me an email at penny@1stpod.com. Until then, have a great week!

Penny Haynes, http://www.CommercialCreationCenter.com

In today's Brain Storm! Business Podcast, we will talk about the cover story of Inc. magazine - Kevin Rose of Digg, Pownce & Revision3. He is the media mogul of the future, or so they say. But what impresses people the most about him is his persona.

He's accessible. He drinks beer and parties with geeks. He tells dirty jokes on internet tv. Or does he?

He admits that he has one persona for doing business, and another one for promoting business. In today's business podcast, we talk about YOUR business persona and mine. The people who know me - long term clients - have one persona about me. But I'm afraid I'm putting off another persona (one that may not be helping me) to everyone else.

I'd love to know what you think your persona is, what your customers say it is, and what you think it SHOULD be in order to best promote and build your business. Email me at penny@1stpod.com, or DM me via Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/pennyhaynes.

Oh, and remember that you need to subscribe to the NEW feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/brainstormbusinesspodcast, or the original feed which is at http://allbusinessmagazine.com/data/users/Online-Community-Magazines/Brain-Storm-Business-Podcast.xml

We have a separate email subscription program built in over there, so if you would like to keep receiving Brain Storm Business Podcast (which as you can see, I have just started back up again), you can go to:

http://www.allbusinessmagazine.com/broadcast.php?IdChan=48

and click on the Email Icon to subscribe.

Or, you can fill out this form to subscribe. By December, this old email subscription list will be inactive. (When you put your email address in the box below, it will take you to AllBusinessMagazine to complete your subscription. You'll get an email with an activation link. Then you'll automatically start getting ONLY Brain Storm Business Podcasts.)

Thanks for being on the first part of my podcasting journey with me. Now it's time to start the second part, now that the Commercial Creation Center has gone live.

Brief review of what has happened over the past 4 months: my programmers abandoned me mid-project, leaving me with promises I had made to others regarding availability. My immediate reaction was to have a panic attack and breathe into a paper bag. My other strategy was not getting out of bed out of sheer terror of what other bad news the day would bring.

But eventually, I had to push myself beyond my fears and pick up the project, re-learn VB6, learn php and mySQL, learn about Active X programs, and learn more about xml. It has been horribly challenging, but in the end, I have to say it was worth it. Now, I have more valuable skills and basically the ability to program whatever the heck I dream of - without hiring someone else. Of course, I do have a "Technical Advisor" whom I refer to as Yoda, without whom I never could have learned as fast, nor could have dealt with the technical support issues. YODA rules!

So today's business podcast is just a quick re-introduction of myself to you, sharing a few lessons learned, and the public intention to return to podcasting now that I have the time to do so. Also, I want you to know that we'll be permanently moving the Brain Storm podcast RSS feed. It will all go through FeedBurner at http://feeds.feedburner.com/brainstormbusinesspodcast. I've had that feed for a while and put the quikonnex feed through it. Now, my new feed is coming off of one of my Online Community Magazines (http://www.AllBusinessMagazine.com) - so I'll assign it to Feedburner.

Well, that's all for today. I'm looking forward to reviewing my stack of business magazines and sharing with you the cool stuff that we can all learn from.

Penny Haynes, Commercial Creation Center & Online Community Magazines

P.S. Combination video made with the CCC: http://tinyurl.com/ccc-creativemom

FREEBIES, freebies, freebies! In honor of Effective Communications Month – a real honest-to-goodness holiday listed in Chase’s Calendar of Events—throughout the month of June, you can pick up loads of FREE fabulous tools to help you communicate more effectively in your business with your customers, clients and prospects so you can enjoy greater success.

My colleague, communication expert, Felicia Slattery, has pulled together some of the world’s best and brightest to give you a one-stop shop to pick up all things related to getting you the results and success you want.

There is nothing to buy. This isn’t some teaser offer where you only get to see what’s listed and then have to buy something in order to get the goods. This is completely 100% free to you. That’s right -- we’re doing a real giveaway going on until the end of June.

You’ll get tips on organizing (because you can’t communicate if you can’t find your phone or keyboard!), podcasting (I'm GIVING AWAY my $20 Podcasting Handbook multimedia ebook and a 2 week trial of my Commercial Creation Center software), writing your book, search engine optimization (so people can find you to communicate with you!) public speaking, and so much more. Overall you’ll find more than 20 freebies designed especially for you. It’s going on right now until June 30.

Tell all your friends. And go right away to: http://www.effectivecommunicationsgiveaway.com/ and let the experts shower you with gifts!

See you there!

Penny Haynes, Online Community Magazines & The Commercial Creation Center

Some of the funniest things are the truest things - stuff we couldn't make up...

Online Community Magazines is a community-based business opportunity requiring no out-of-pocket investment. The proprietary software allows Owners to provide easy multimedia marketing for members of their online or offline community. Discounts apply for veterans and people with disabilities.

The key to the success of Online Community Magazines are the individual owners

Holly Springs, GA (PRWEB) April 29, 2008 -- Online Community Magazines is now accepting applications for new community installations of its online multimedia marketing software. Owners of this work at home business opportunity provide affordable online marketing services and easy multimedia production tools to members of their community. Only one Magazine is installed per geographic territory or online niche or industry, and applicants must pre-qualify for ownership by acquiring 10 charter magazine members prior to opening.

AroundCherokeeCounty.com, an Online Community Magazine

This unique pre-qualification system makes Online Community Magazines a perfect work at home business opportunity for people with disabilities and war veterans, as well as unemployed sales professionals. In place of financial investment, they are required to prove their ability to gain new accounts within their chosen community. This allows potential owners to verify that they will be successful at running a multimedia magazine for their community, as well as provide them with opening content for their Online Community Magazine.

"The key to the success of Online Community Magazines are the individual owners," says Penny Haynes, CEO of Encouraging Enterprises, Inc., and designer of the software. "They must be a member of the community which the magazine serves, and must be available to their community during business hours. No technological knowledge is needed because the software is intended for use by internet novices. However, complete software training is provided, as well as suggested sales and marketing scripts and materials. The most critical requirements are salesmanship, an urgent desire to succeed, and knowledge of the community and its members."

The Online Community Magazines software can be used as a multimedia business directory, multimedia content creation system, and community internet tv and radio site. Features of the software include RSS, podcasting, blogging, social bookmarking, email subscriptions, a forum, FAQ and community coupon site. For more information about the software or business opportunity, go to http://www.OnlineCommunityMagazines.com.

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