Sheri Schmelzer: Earning Millions from Crocs Decorations

Crocs are the very popular resin clogs dotted with holes and comes in every color, from pinks to blues to yellows to blacks. They are ugly shoes, but both adults and children love them. In fact, the company grew from $1 million in revenue in 2003 to a projected $322 million in 2007.

Given the tremendous popularity of croc shoes, Sheri Schmelzer decided to ride the wave and offer products that would allow users to customize their croc shoes.

A stay at home mom, Sheri and her three daughters had an idea in 2005 to personalize and decorate the holes of their crocs (they owned 12 pairs at the time) with unique charms made from rhinestones and clay that would fit in the holes of the shoes. Hence, Jibbitz was born.

Jibbitz croc charms come in a wide variety of designs, ranging from superheroes like Spiderman to sports to Scoop the Digger to beer mugs. Sheri is the chief designer, while her husband runs the business as CEO.

Her business sold about 300 designs of charms for crocs and she was able to sign up more than 4,000 retail outlets. In December 2006, Crocs the company bought Jibbitz for $20 million with Sheri and her husband remaining on board.

Sheri proves that inspiration for successful businesses are everywhere -- you just have to look closely. While others merely see the holes in Croc shoes as plain holes, Sheri saw the business potential of those holes -- and earned her millions.

Christy Webber: Success in the Landscaping Business

Christy Webber is one of the most succcessful landscape and lawncare business owners today. She is the founder of Christy Webber Landscapes , a full-service landscape provider, offering landscape design, construction, and landscape maintenance programs to residential, commercial and municipal properties throughout Chicago.

Her company, which she built from the ground up in 1990, is ranked by Lawn and Landscape Magazine as one of the top companies in this industry in terms of revenues. She started mowing lawns when she was a student for extra money, but sold the first business to start a teaching career. However, she realized that teaching was not for her and restarted her lawn care business. She started Christy Webber Landscapes in 1988 with only two people working out of her home.

Today, her company's 2007 revenue is estimated to be at $18.2 million!

A very hands-on business owner, Christy's tip to other business owners:

"It's important to surround yourself with the right people who know what they're doing. For example, I don't know where I'd be right now without my CFO. He's taught me how to be smart when it comes from borrowing money and provided me with valuable insight when it came to the company's finances. I could never have achieved this success if not for these people around me. That's the key to running a business this size."

11 Simple Secrets of Successful Entrepreneurship

According to the new book "Beat the System" by Robert W. MacDonald (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; October 2007) the key to becoming an entrepreneur lies in the implementation of basic concepts and, there are only 11 simple secrets to learn to make it happen.

Here are the secrets to successful entrepreneurship:

• Secret 1: Build parallel interests.
• Secret 2: Be an architect of the future.
• Secret 3: Be decisive, multifaceted, and ethical to a fault.
• Secret 4: Know the risk -- measure the reward.
• Secret 5: Communication -- be a shower not a teller.
• Secret 6: Power to the people.
• Secret 7: Become a trust builder.
• Secret 8: Sharing wealth increases wealth.
• Secret 9: Be constant, consistent, and concise.
• Secret 10: Treat important people like important people.
• Secret 11: Do simple things -- simply do them.

Read an excerpt of the book "Beat the System"

Nancy Jarecki: Success with an Unconventional Beauty Product

The best business ideas sometimes come from the most seemingly mundane problems -- and providing the means to address them.

Nancy Jarecki was in a hair salon in Rome when she noticed that some women after having their hair colored would linger at the door, only to leave when given small doggie bags. Asking one of the colorists, she learned that the women were waiting to get a hair coloring kit so their hair "down there" can match their new hair color.

Apparently, women everywhere get so frustrated with mismatched hair colors in their bodies. Blondes want to be true blondes and have their hair down there sport the same shade; and so do redheads and other colors!

Back in New York, Nancy worked with gynecologists and manufacturers to create hair coloring kits specifically for the hair down there. She launched her company BettyBeauty offering her main product line called "Betty" whose tagline is "Color for the Hair Down There." She offers 5 shades now -- black, blonde, auburn, brown and pink (called "Fun"). The pink shade outsells the other shades seven to one (gasp! I suppose a lot of women want to be funky on the inside).

Sounds insane?

Well apparently, not so. Nancy's BettyBeauty company is expected to reach more than $1 million in sales this year, and she's coming up with new products -- all for the hair down there. Who knew that millions can be made from pampering the curlies down there?

Nancy's success comes from providing a great product to address a silent problem of women (and men, too). However, her connections also did help a lot in terms of getting funding for her business to securing publicity (she mingles with A-list celebrities from Tom Hanks to Vogue's editor Anna Wintour, who featured the product in her magazine)

Check out Nancy's BettyBeauty website and learn from her incredible story!

Betsy Fein: Rising from Unemployment to Clutter Buster Queen

One of the success stories we're working on right now is that of Betsy Fein, founder and President of ClutterBusters http://www.clutterbusters.com . ClutterBusters is a Maryland-based company that was started in 2002 and has since became one of the leading companies in the field of professional organizing.

Betsy started her professional organizing business shortly after being laid off from her job. Instead of trying to get back into the rat race, she decided to explore her options working from home and spending more time with her kids. Given the constant request of her friends for her help organizing their homes, she knew that professional organizing could be her ticket to her entrepreneurial journey.

After making some checks in her area, Betsy knew that there was a market that remains unfilled. With a capital of $5,000, she launched her business getting her first clients through advertising in the newspaper classifieds. Today, her business is expanding and she has launched her personal organizing franchise network.

Read and learn from Betsy's inspirational story .

J.B. Hunt: Maverick in the Trucking Industry

Do you need college to succeed? J.B. Hunt, founder of the trucking giant J.B. Hunt Transport Services, proved that you don't need college education to succeed in entrepreneurship and even become a billionaire.

Coming from a poor background in Arkansas, Johnnie Bryan Hunt Sr. quit school in 7th grade to work for his uncle's sawmill. He worked as a truck driver for $1.50 a day wages.

But what set him apart was his ability to see opportunities around him. As he drove in his truck across the state, he noticed that farmers simply burned unwanted hulls in the rice fields. He figured correctly that with the right machine, those hulls -- which were given for free if not burned -- could be used as animal bedding for the poultry industry.

And he was right. Starting his business in 1961, the conglomerate Tysons Foods was one of his first clients. A decade later, he changed the name of the business to J.B. Hunt Transport Services. From selling hulls, he has expanded his business into trucking services with Wal-Mart as one of his biggest customers. Throughout his entrepreneurial career, he was a pioneer who saw opportunities no one had before.

J.B. Hunt died in 2004, but left an empire worth about $3.3 billion in revenue employing 28,000 people. Definitely not bad for a guy who finished only 7th grade.

You can read J.B. Hunt's story in World Trade magazine

Sharon Doherty: Success in Exporting

Sharon Doherty is the president of a small company in Ohio called Vellus Products Inc. http://www.vellus.com/ that creates a line of pet grooming products from shampoos, detanglers to brushing sprays.

She realized that her products have worldwide appeal, and found a tremendous market outside of the United States. It all started in 1993 when a Taiwanese buyer sampled her products in decided to sell them in Taiwan. Since then, she has researched potential market outside of the US, enlisting the help of the U.S. Export Assistance Center.

In the January issue of the magazine World Trade , Doherty shares the lessons she learned on how to succeed in exporting:

1. Know whom you are dealing with - developing business relationships is critical to exporting. She even gives advice to her foreign distributors, as this helps build long-term relationships.
2. Do a background check on potential partners - you can be duped out there, and to avoid that you need to research and get as much information about your potential partner. The wrong choice can cost you time and money.
3. Learn the culture. It is important to learn the cultures of different countries, particularly how they do business and how they look at your type of products.
4. Enjoy the ride. Have fun through it all.