I am a professional business speaker and my audiences are usually composed of small business owners, Internet business entrepreneurs and marketing professionals.

Last week I got to be a University Speaker again and it is truly a nice change.  In some ways, the advice you give to inexperienced (and some experienced) student entrepreneurs is a nice barometer to measure your progress.

It was a round table session at the Kent State University Entrepreneur’s Extravaganza and I found myself talking with small groups on simple things like:  What is a CRM?  Why you do not want to hire employees and get office space until after you have proven there is a market for the product or service.  Also, why it is unlikely to raise much money early on so it is better to build a business assuming you will have to self fund it.

A lot of the advice I gave was drastically different from what I would have said a few years back.  It was not that long ago I would have thought the credibility of a full time staff, office space, your own servers and your own phone system were an important part of having a business.  Now I would say that unless you really need it, those things are only for after you experience rapid growth – not before.

New entrepreneurs spend too much time thinking about having a business in the traditional sense, when they should be thinking about having a product or service with a nice profit margin from day one.