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Thiscommitment that you are making to yourself is not the easiest one to keep. Itwill require you to take stock regularly as you grow in experience and makechanges and adjustments.
Agood thing to remember is to always stay positive with yourself. Making amistake is a good thing because this is how you learn. No one ever learns fromcomplacency - one only learns from strife and that is usually spelled"mistake".
Alwaysbe precise so that you can be clear about what you are doing. Keep goodrecords. Being sloppy with your record-keeping will not allow you to be able totrack your progress.
Makea schedule for yourself and set priorities. This is going to be a necessity, sothat you do not get overwhelmed with details. Starting a business is filledwith enormous amounts of detail and you must consider this reality.
Areyour goals realistic ones? This is another question to ask of yourself.
ACHIEVING A GOAL
Whenyou have achieved a goal - reward yourself accordingly. This is what will buildyour self-confidence. This is also the time to take a review of your goals.Were they too easy to achieve? If so, make them a bit harder. If they took waytoo long - much longer than you anticipated - make the next goals a littleeasier. If you learned something that would want you to change other goals,then do so. Learning is good. If you found something particularly difficult todo, then maybe you need to have some schooling to learn a new process. Takecare of it.
Everythingyou learn is a priceless jewel. Just feed all of this information back intoyour goal setting process and make it work for you.
SMART
There is a measure used in business to decide if something is goodto do. We ask if the action or decision is SMART.
Specific - Measurable - Attainable - Relevant - Time-Bound
This is a good way to look at yourself and your goals. If yourgoals are SMART ones then your venture will be a SUCCESS.
Forany questions, please do not hesitate to call. Our telephone number is 1-888-877-3336
Connect organizations spending money with ways to save money.
This requires truly creative thinking. There isn't anything that cannot be outsourced today -and outsourcing saves companies money. So throw your eyes out of focus and look around you. What do you see that can be outsourced by a company that you know,that you can arrange. Put the proposal together and present it. Then ask as your fee a percentage of the savings. Then do it again.
Connect like-minded people into a movement.
We've seen plenty of headstrong bootstrapped entrepreneurs turn a blog into the cornerstone of a multi-million dollar empire. The secret: they don't write their message for everyone. Instead, they use the blog as the center connecting point for a niche, and then go from there. It's easy to list the tech successes, but there are literally 10,000 other niches just waiting for someone to connect them.
Theoperative word here is niche - your corner of the world - that special groupthat is interested in the same things as you. Connect the niches - that is thisconnection. One message that suits all.
Connect people buying with people who are selling.
You know how to use Craigslist and eBay to buy and sell... but most people don't.How about finding people in your town with junk that needs removing, items that need selling, odd jobs that need filling... and then, for a fee, solve their problems using your laptop and these existing networks? Imagine the power, justto pick one example, of building an email alert list of 500 garage sale bargain hunters. Every time you email them, they show up. Now, you can walk into any home in any town and guarantee the biggest garage sale success they've ever seen... and you have the photos to prove it. As long as you protect the list and do for them, not to them, this asset increases in value.
And then be super smart and take two of these ideas and tie them together. Do the garage sales and write about them in your own newspaper.
When is the best time to start these new businesses?
The best time to do any of these projects was five years ago, so that today you'd be earning thousands of dollars a week. Too late. The second best time to start is NOW. So don't delay and get yourself going and make 2009-2010 a time to remember.
Manypeople - whether they realize it or not - let the fear of working from home bethe biggest hurdle that they have to jump in the start-up of their business.The belief that they lack the discipline to effectively communicate withothers, that they would be too distracted, lured away by household chores,tempted by the television or challenged by the obligations of parenthood, stopsthem from ever truly giving themselves a chance. And often, they don't evenrealize that this is going on - it is almost subliminal.
Whatis not recognized is that the typical office has its own set of environmentaldistractions. Chatty neighbors, endless meetings, the loss of concentration,petty jealousies, angry co-workers and belligerent bosses. Of course, workingin an office has its positive aspects also - the sense of community. This isthe big lack that one has when one starts a business at home and this aspect of"community" must be created by all businesses that start as solos.
Sowhat are we really saying here - because most of us involved with iSpeedway aredoing our businesses from home. What are the special needs that we have - thespecial environment that we must put into place and the special tools that weneed to create for ourselves.
This month we are starting a series to deal with these issues.
Thefirst thing you need to understand is what you do have - your strengths. Whatis it that we all have? It is the ability to make this business work, if we arewilling to climb out of ourselves and do so. You have already purchased thebest technology in the business - now you have to couple with it -- the bestattitude.
Doyou have all of the information you need? You bet you do. As long as you haveaccess to the internet, you have all the information you could possibly need oruse. In fact, having information is never our problem - it always centersaround what we do with it and what our attitude is.
Let's get back to the basics and start with ten fundamentals.
First - get in the mood to succeed now and notlater.
Second - find your music and know what it isthat you want this business to do and to look like, when you get it up andgoing.
Third - make sure that you give your businessan atmosphere that allows it to grow. A hostile environment will not work. Ifyour family members are negative and are tearing down the business, either dealwith them directly and get the situation turned around, or if that cannot beaccomplished, then consider removing the business from this environment orconsider whether this business is for you.
Fourth - learn how to use your website, notjust casually, but intimately and expertly.
Fifth - make sure that all the tools on yourwebsite are up and running.
Sixth - learn your product line and make surethat you are price competitive as best you can, but the most important issuehere will always be your product knowledge. This activity is going to take timeand consistent research. Do not think that this is a one-time activity. Stayingon top of a product line is on-going work.
Seventh - decide how you are going tocommunicate with your customers and then learn how to do it well.
Eight - choose what is going to be your"unique" positioning in the marketplace. What is going to make youdifferent from the next person?
Nine - develop a business plan and stick toit
Ten - choose a financial advisor, setyourself up with the proper accounts, and listen to what he or she tells you.
Connect advertisers to people who want to beadvertised to.
Dani Levy did this with Daily Candy, a company she recently soldfor more than a hundred million dollars. Daily Candy uses simple emailsoftware, there's no technology tricks involved. Instead, it's a simplepermission marketing business... hundreds of thousands of the right people,getting an anticipated, personal and relevant email every day. But - pleasetake note of something here. This only works if you earn true permission. Thatmeans people really want your email.
So how do you go about doing something like this? Over the pasttwo months, we have been suggesting just this sort of thing to you. You startwhere you live with those that you know - your family, your friends and yourneighbors. You start a local email newspaper or newsletter or whatever you wantto call it. It will be your social networking of the neighborhood. You getothers to contribute to it, so that they have a vested interest and then theywant to receive it and also send it out. Pictures are important and so easy topost.
Go to the local restaurants. They would love to advertise theirnew special lunch deals. Go to the food stores - they are flooding the paperswith their sales these days. Children's stores, toy stores, florists, etc. willall be interested in what you have to offer. You will not be expensive and ifyou can reach the buying public, then they are going to be interested in you.And if you can offer merchants the opportunity to do something special just forthem individually, they will love it even more.
Connect job hunters with jobs.
This sounds difficult but it is not. Just think about the realestate industry and all of its subsidiaries. The construction industry rightnow is filled with superstars with no place to go and they are all needy. Youcould collect them easily and get to know them.
But think about the following - when the economy is soft - what docorporations do? They use outside services to conserve cash. So you can puttogether teams of people, who can offer services to companies. Many of thesesuperstars are multi-gaited and can serve in numerous ways. If you are willingto do the research on the computer and find the people, put together theconcept with their resumes, send those resumes via email to corporations - youcan then manage the entity. You can place those teams. You will have to send alot of packages and you do not have to stick with just one industry.
There was a recent story of a start-up business with a new productthat needed to be manufactured and brought to market. It took 1200 letters - 14responses - to net the solid contract. You will see the product on storeshelves in six months. So don't expect a reaction from a few tries. You willhave to work.
Connect information seekers with information.
At a large scale, this is what Bloomberg did to make his fortune. But this isenough to be a full time job for a curious person with the generosity to shareuseful information.
If you are business-minded, look in your area for a subject thatyour local business community is interested in hearing about and then go forit. One of the things that always is of interest to people is what is going onin their community. No one in business today can keep up with the schedule ofevents and business meetings. That is because they are never listed in one,single place. Hopefully there is always that one person in each community whosupplies this information and takes on this chore and if you decide to do this,don't forget the non-profits.
If you like to just, plain help people, then how about researching where peoplecan find money? Who is lending? What are the terms? How much? Then write aboutit. Right now, people will run to get their hands on something like this. Thensell advertising.
Families need to send their children to college. How do they dothat in today's economy. Where can families find help?
There are many areas of interest out there for people today. Openyou eyes and ears and look and start publishing the information.
THE DOWNTURN
For those of us who have been around for a while, we have amessage for you - "The sky is not falling". "It may be raininghard, yes, and there might be some significant water damage, but the sky is notfalling. What we are experiencing is a business cycle and we will be hereagain."
If you say those words to someone who has lost their job, have hadtheir home foreclosed on, or their savings account dissipated, then theythrough their emotion are going to feel very differently. But for those of uswho have watched cycles like this before and have been on both ends of thespectrum, it is very easy to recognize a cycle when it arrives.
Headlines are depressing and unrelenting and most businesses haveseen their customers press the economic "pause" button. But we stillhave a strong fundamental economy and businesses that create technology andservices based on this technology, will continue to flourish.
So what does this all mean to you and the business that you havestarted? It means that you succumb to fear - the fear that you read in thenewspapers and listen to on the television is a waste of your energy and yourtime. You need to stay focused on your needs, your business and your future.You need to be proactive and not sit on your laurels "because things arebad". Today, it will be the early bird that will catch the worm and thebusiness people who are willing to put their shoulder to the wheel, who will beready to jump on the profits when the market rise begins.
Keep your own counsel - Don't listen to others -Believe in You - Have the courage to acknowledge and execute what you need.
Now is the time to position yourself by acknowledging the downturnbut planning for the upturn. It is a time to distinguish yourself and yourproduct line, your services to your customers and the re-establishment andreinforcement of your value propositions. Now is the time to take advantage ofthe fact that you have time to do all of these things.
The one thing it is not the time to do - it isnot the time to do nothing.