Entrepreneur Magazine is not just for startups and small businesses. It is a fantastic resource for sales professionals and business leaders at organizations of any size.

I just re-discovered Entrepreneur Magazine when I was looking for reading material for an airplane ride. I had perused the magazine rack for something different and new- and the August 2009 issue caught my eye.

I plunked down the $4.99 and read the magazine page by page (didn’t just skim) and was impressed with the original, interesting and valuable content. It was fun, cutting edge and written in a compelling way. When I got back from my trip, I dug up a number of back issues and read them as well. A good portion of their content is also available online at entrepreneur.com.

Here are some of the things I like most about the magazine…

Do More With Less

A key theme in every issue is how to get things done on a limited budget, often referred to as “boot strapping”. As more and more large companies cut back on staff and their budgets, they need creative ideas to still get the job done and they can learn a lot from the Entrepreneur Magazine articles. For example, the February 2009 issue had an article titled “Year of The Bootstrapper” which profiled three business owners who achieved incredible growth with hard work- yet minimal or creative investments.

Buzz, Buzz, Buzzwords

Since I am an Internet addict and devotee to Twitter, I thought I was up to date on all of the recent buzzwords. I am usually not a fan of the “gobblygook”- as David Meerman Scott would say, but the magazine introduced me to a few new phrases that I really like. For example…

• Angry Garden Salad: A slang term for a poorly designed and incorrectly coded website interface

• Google Slap: When your search engine rankings take an unexpected nose dive. Often this is the result of a search engine changing its ranking methodology.

As business leaders, we should have our pulse on the hot trends and buzzwords. (In case we need to slip them into a conversation.) You can check out their entire list of terms in the article “Lingo for thriving in a web economy”. And, they introduce new “hot lingo” in almost every issue.

Guy Shares His Internet & Sales, Dos and Don’ts

One of Entrepreneur’s monthly feature writers is Guy Kawasaki who is the co-founder of Alltop.com, Director of Garage Technology Ventures, author of 9 Books (blah blah blah) and he tends to write about Internet and Sales Related Do’s and Don’t’s. I love his stuff! It is so easy to read, makes complete sense and his ideas can be implemented by companies large and small.

I loved the article in the June issue called “Website Marketing Turnoffs”. I agreed 100% with his list of 13 issues including “not allowing email addresses as user names” and “limiting contact to email”.

Also fun was “8 Ways to ‘Bring It’. Drive your competitors crazy while driving your company to success.”  Guy says that “It’s OK to play with your competitors’ minds.” Find out why…

Click here for a list of recent Guy articles on the Entrepreneur.com archive.

Tweet Happy

In every issue there are a significant number of articles about how to leverage social networking sites, especially Twitter, to support your business. Even though I use Twitter daily, I learn something new in every issue from Tweet Beep (The Twitter version of Google Alerts) to new metric tools such as Twitoaster and ViralHeat

A Good Makeover

Most women love a good makeover show and Entrepreneur gives you a taste of one with their website, marketing piece and logo make-over monthly features. Sometimes they choose a website or logo and recommend changes. Other times they profile before and after case studies and weigh in on what works and what doesn’t. I find it very interesting. Next time I design a new website from scratch I plan to refer back to those articles. Their feedback is right on.

For example, their “Five Great- and Necessary Website Makeover” article profiled patriotconsulting.com, coffeecakes.com, fairytalebrownies.com and two others.

Website or Magazine ?

The one thing I don’t like about the magazine is the big push about Franchises. In almost every issue there are pages and pages of advertisements devoted to this topic and “frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn”.   But, I do find the magazine easier to read than the articles online and I like the layout & pretty pictures.

The majority of the magazine content is also available online and they have an effective search function which makes back articles easy to find.  Their online “Ask Entrepreneur” is kinda like LinkedIn Answers but only experts provide responses.The website also has links to sister publications like Women Entrepreneur.   Every month they get about 1 million total visitors and between 600-800K of unique visitors. (Source: Compete.com)