Finding your Passion in Business

Last week we discussed reviewing where we were in business and setting goals for where we want to be by the end of this year.  While we were discussing goal-setting, I mentioned that it was not only important to set obtainable goals, but to set goals that you were passionate about. 

This week we are going to explore a some possible ways that you can find your passion in business.  Let's first define Passion:  "Passion is a term that is often applied to a very strong feeling about a person or a thing.  It is an intense emotion, compelling feeling, enthusiasm or a desire for something." - Wikipedia definition

If you are in a home-based business, or are managing a small business. it is highly likely that you were extremely passionate about the business you got involved in.  The problem is that running a business, especially a home-based business, can be very time consuming and tiring.  After a while, you may start to wonder why you ever thought you wanted to be in business for yourself in the first place. 

If you are still working your business, you may need to rediscover the passion in your business.  It could be helpful to sit down and write down all the reasons WHY you got involved in that business originally.  Sometimes, when you go back to the beginning, you can rediscover the passion that inspired you to start your own business.  As you rediscover your passion, write down the points that you feel very strongly about.  You want to remember those aspects of your business when times start getting difficult again.  Do not focus on the negative aspect of your business, everyone has tough times, and focusing on the negative will not allow you to capture the passion (positive passion) that you were hoping to discover. 

Once you are able to rekindle the passion you had at the outset, now would be the time to start setting goals for the future.  If you had focused on the negatives of your business, odds are that your goals would not be all that they should be and you could very well start a downward spiral of your business.  As you start defining your goals, always be sure to verify that you are passionate about the goals you are setting.  You should be very passionate about all of your big, long-term goals because if you are not, there is a very high likelihood that you will not achieve those goals. 

Make sure your goals are realistic, but that they are also designed to push you and your business to greater heights.  If you can set long-term goals that you feel very strongly about, then it will be so much easier to remain motivated and passionate  as you work towards those goals.  After your "big" goals are set, then you can start designing those smaller, stepping-stone goals, that will help you to attain your "big" goal.  Again, if you are passionate about the end result, you will find a much stronger motivation to continue working towards that goal, despite any road-blocks that will appear.

Sometimes you may discover that you cannot recapture the passion you once had.  If you feel you are in that position, before you do anything rash, talk to some other small business owners.  Ask them how they managed to work through their challenges.  As we discussed last week, talk to successful people.  Do not waste your precious time and energy talking to people who feel your passion is misplaced or misguided. 

Continue to strive to be passionate in your business, and strive to provide the best services to your customers.  By providing the best for everyone, in the long run, your business will prosper.    One critical key to success in business is finding your passion in business. 

If you are looking for some business opportunity to get involved with, perhaps we can be of assistance.  If you do not see anything that triggers your passion, perhaps you can use some of the ideas from the website to discover what you are truly passionate about.  As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.

Until next week...keep the passion...

Motivational Wednesdays

HAPPY WEDNESDAY!!!! Bet you thought I wouldn't be here tonight...HA had you fooled didn't I? Since I have been seriously challenged lately, I thought that tonight would provide a great opportunity to talk about some motivational techniques so that you too can possibly get more things done. Welcome to my Motivational Wednesday...

Since Wednesdays are typically the middle of a "standard" work week, many people have also called Wednesday's "hump-days". Wednesdays are a bit tough because you have struggled for two days to get here, but then the good news is that you only have 2 more days to the weekend. Since I personally do have trouble with motivation on Wednesdays (in particular...) I have started once again to pick up some motivational techniques so that I can get through the day and accomplish all the tasks I do have on my list, that I REALLY didn't want to finish. You all know THOSE tasks, the ones that NEED to be done, but you don't want to do them? (that is not to say I don't enjoy writing this Blog, I just noticed that I am seriously lacking in motivation all day on Wednesdays...)

One way to stay motivated is to reduce boredom and to understand what it is you do that may make you particularly bored. Being bored is a great way to lose motivation.... Being bored makes the day appear to go slower, being bored can easily lead to over-eating and being bored can make you grumpy. Identify what makes you bored and strive to eliminate that boredom. The real challenge comes when there is a task or core that you MUST do but it is supremely boring. The key here is to identify that task, and get it done as quickly as possible, because the more you put it off (because it is soooo darned boring) the more you will not get anything else done either. Boredom can really kill any motivation. If you know what your triggers are for boring tasks, find ways to avoid those triggers, even while completing that task. This is not easy by any stretch of the imagination, but once you master it, you can make those boring chores a lot easier to deal with. They may still be boring, but you have learned to cope with that. Personally, I strive to get the really boring tasks done as fast as possible...sort of like taking nasty medicine. Get it done fast and then reward yourself for a job well done....works for me.

Another trick to keep motivation up is to switch tasks so you don't get too bored doing one task. Strive to work on a few small, easy tasks and use them to break up what could be a long, drawn-out and possibly boring task. Pick up those small tasks when you are almost at your wits end when working on that big project. The little tasks completed will provide you a great sense of accomplishment and will help to keep you motivated to finish that large project you were working on. Also, buy taking a break from one project, and completing another, when you return to the original project at hand, you may find solutions that you didn't realized existed. Taking a break provides you with the opportunity to take a fresh look at an old task.

Lastly, to stay motivated and on task, remember to reward yourself for a job well done. You don't need to go to extremes, but if there is something small that you really like doing, reward yourself with whatever that is after you complete a task, even a boring task. By rewarding yourself for a job well done, you create a positive habit that will assist you in staying motivated and completing other projects. You could even look forward to completing tasks so that you can gather your own personal reward. This small reward could be as simple as a small cup of ice cream, or playing a quick game, or even taking a relaxing shower or swim. You can then be motivated to quickly complete your project so that you can reap your reward.

Hopefully some of these tips will help you to stay on task, remain motivated and finish those projects that have been dogging you for the longest time.

If I don't talk to you on Friday, have a great weekend and we will chat again on Monday.

Until then...

A Fortunate Failure

Many times we have tried and failed at projects. Some people view those failures as the end, but the majority of failures are actually blessings in disguise.

Webster's Dictionary defines Failure as an "omission of occurrence or performance; specifically: a failing to perform a duty or expected action." A second definition for Failure is "lack of success".

There have been many times in my lifetime that I have failed at something I hoped to do. Each time after the failure, when looking back at the entire specific situation, it was determined that the failure was actually a blessing in disguise. Failures are really just temporary. Depending on how you view "failures" each failure can be a blessing.

If you talk to a door-to-door salesman, every time someone says "No" to them, that can be construed as a failure, but the successful salesman looks at that 'failure' as a blessing, because now he can move onto the next person who will listen and possibly accept his offer. If you don't fail at something, then how are you going to learn to do it better in the future. We all didn't start walking the minute we put our minds to it. We all failed in our first attempts at walking. The blessing is that as we try and fail at something, we have learned not to do that particular thing again because it doesn't work...

So much for generalities, let's get specific. A very recent event for me was interviewing for a particular project. I did not get the project, so you could say that I failed at the interview. The failure was a major blessing for me though. What has come to light is that the project I would have been involved in would have only worked for a month or two at most before it imploded. If I had quit my current direction, I would have worked at another task, and essentially wasted a lot of my time working at something that was ultimately doomed to fail. The blessing is that I did not uproot and did not change what I was doing for this new project. If I had not failed at first, I would have lost momentum in my current set of projects and may not have been able to get back on track with everything else that I have been working on.

After watching others suffer in the project that I didn't get, I am very pleased that I failed to land the project in the first place. It was a major blessing to have failed at that.

Even business failures are usually blessings in disguise. I have met many business owners who attempted new product lines that ultimately failed. In the long run, these same business owners looked back over their failures and successes and actually believe that it was the failures they made that ultimately caused them to become the successful business people they are now. Even Thomas Alva refined the prior failures of the incandescent light to create the early commercial version of the light bulb. Those early failures became blessings for us.

In a nutshell, even if you fail at something you are currently working on, do not take that failure as the virtual 'end of the world'. It is my belief that the majority of the failures (both in business and in our personal life) we encounter turn out to be blessings in disguise. Each failure is one more step closer toward that success you continue to drive for.

Until tomorrow...

Millionaire Focus on Larry Ellison

Welcome to tonight's Millionaire Focus. Tonight we are going to briefly look at Larry Ellison and perhaps glean some gems on how he became Forbes sixth richest person in the world. As of 2010 Larry Ellison has a personal wealth of about $27 billion.

For those of you who may not have heard of Larry Ellison, he is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Oracle Corporation. Oracle is a major enterprise software company that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products, in particular, database management systems. Larry Ellison came from humble beginnings, he was born in New York City, to a 19-year old unwed Jewish mother. He was given (at his mother's request) to his aunt and uncle in Chicago to raise and was adopted by them when he was 9 months old. He grew up in a middle-class Jewish neighborhood. He left the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign at the end of his second year, spent a summer in Northern California, then attended the University of Chicago for one term which is where he first encountered computer designing.

He became a computer programmer for Ampex Corporation where his primary project was crafting a large-scale database for the CIA. This database was code-named "Oracle". He then put up $2,000 of his own money to start Software Development Laboratories in 1977, in partnership with Robert Miner, his boss from Ampex. The new company was renamed Relational Software Inc in 1979. It was here that he prepared to release Oracle Version 2, a commercial database system. In an interesting note, he never released a Version 1 because Larry Ellison observed that people did not typically purchase Version 1 of any new software because Version 1's were typcially buggy. So, as a marketing tactic, his first release of Oracle was Version 2, which by the way, was as buggy as any Version 1 would be. This Version 2 sold well and in 1983 the company was again renamed, this time after it's flagship product, Oracle. Oracle Corporation went public in 1986, was on the verge of bankruptcy by 1990 but has since rebounded and has been profitable ever since.

Larry Ellison plays as hard as he works. He co-owns the sixth largest yacht in the world, named Rising Sun. He is also a financier of BMW Oracle Racing which in the 2007 America's Cup was the Challenger of Record. They were eliminated from the 2007 Louis Vuitton Cup challenger selection series in the semi-finals. On February 14, 2010, Ellison's yacht, (Ellison was a crew member for this race) USA 17, won the second race of the 33rd America's Cup. Ellison and his BMW Oracle team became the first challengers to win a "deed of gift" match. The Cup returned to American shores for the first time since 1995.

Larry Ellison is also a licensed pilot and has owned several aircraft, including fighter jets. He owns many exotic cars and has styled his home in Woodside, California, after feudal Japanese architecture, complete with a man-made 2.3 acre lake. In 2004 and 2005, Larry Ellison purchased more than 12 properties in Malibu, California. His entertainment system cost $1 million and includes a rock concert-sized video projector at one end of a drained swimming pool.

As a balance, Larry Ellison has also made considerable charitable donations to various organizations. In 2004 Forbes noted that Ellison had donated $151,092,103 in the preceeding year, or about 1% of his estimated personal wealth. In August of this year, it has been reported that Larry Ellison is one of the 40 billionaires who has signed "The Giving Pledge". Ellison wrote: "Many years ago, I put virtually all of my assets into a trust with the intent of giving away at least 95% of my wealth to charitable causes. I have already given hundreds of millions of dollars to medical research and education, and I will give billions more over time. Until now, I have done this giving quietly - because I have long believed that charitable giving is a personal and private matter."

Hopefully, as we all work towards our own personal Millionaire and Billionaire status, we too will remember to be generous with our charitable contributions. We all have the ability to come from humble beginnings and work to become financially free. Hopefully there were some tidbits of information from Larry Ellison's examples that you will be able to use in your business ventures.

If you are searching for a business opportunity to get involved in, please feel free to visit our website for some second income ideas. We would be more than willing to answer your questions regarding starting a home-based business or how to begin to build a second income.

Until tomorrow...

Growing your Business

Last night we reviewed some ideas on new business opportunities. Tonight we are going to briefly cover other ideas on growing your business. When the economy is great, money flows easily and readily. When the economy is robust, even poorly run businesses survive. They say that money cures many evils, which is true. But when the money flow slows, or even comes to a halt, that is when we separate the good from the poorly run businesses.

As money coming in slows down, many business owners finally take a good hard look at their financial statements (sometimes this is the first time they have looked in a very long time) and start finding ways to reduce expenses or basically cut costs. It is in times like these where you find the efficient businesses begin to grow. In times of economic downturns many new business opportunities spring up, filling the gap from those that no longer exist. It is less expensive to find rental space, products may cost less and more companies and people are more willing to sell at lower prices.

If you want your business to grow though, you always have to remember the customer. Continue to build your long-relationship with them. Don't forget to do a follow up call, find out if the customer is happy with your product or service. Find out what else they would like to see you provide. They may offer some very helpful insights into growing your business or product line. Keep your customers happy because they are one of the best marketing tools that you have. If your customers are happy, they will do all the advertising for you at no cost to you. But, conversely, if your customers are unhappy with your business, product or services, they will tell more people than you could ever reach with expensive advertising campaigns.

As we have discussed before, the customer is king and they are your best marketing tool. Be sure that you have under-promised and over-delivered. Always smile, and smile honestly, do not put on a fake smile, the customers can tell the difference. If you are having a bad day, strive to not let that problem run over onto your sales floor so that the customers may experience it too. Be sincere, and most importantly, be honest with your customers. They will remember and reward you with your honesty by keeping a long-term relationship with you.

If you have a list of customers who have utilized your products or services in the past, don't be afraid to send them a brief newsletter, letting them know what is happening and what new promotions you may currently have in place. You may be surprised to see some older customers come back because of your brief newsletter. In your newsletter, do not try to sell your customers something, more importantly, offer a service for them. Become a "go-to" source of information for your customer. Allow them to feel comfortable asking you questions without them fearing you are going to push a sale onto them. You want your customers to see you as a valuable asset, not someone to be avoided.

If you keep your communications up with your current and old customer base, you may be surprised at the positive response you receive. Don't send them countless messages about sales, send a brief, monthly newsletter and perhaps sprinkle that newsletter with some fun anecdote's. People are always looking for something to feel good about, perhaps provide a positive, or inspirational story (again brief) and you may discover your customers looking forward to your monthly missives. If they like what they read, they may even share your newsletters with others, again advertising for you.

The benefit for keeping the message short should be obvious. How many of us have time to read all of the messages from our Inbox anymore? Keep your message short, don't advertise too hard, and allow your customers to have fun reading your monthly message.

Hopefully these ideas were helpful and will benefit you in growing your business.

If you are looking for an additional income stream, we do offer some small business opportunities. Feel free to review our website for ideas and contact us with any questions you may have.

Until tomorrow...

Millionaire Focus

Welcome to this week's Millionaire Focus. Tonight we are going to briefly cover one of Forbes' Richest People, Isaac Perlmutter. Most likely many of you have not heard of this person, but if you were involved in watching Marvel Comics over the last 7 years. He is noted as a a new billionaire who flipped Marvel Entertainment to Disney for $4 billion dollars. Isaac netted nearly $900 million in cash and 20 million shares of Disney in the transaction.

We strive to bring you not just interesting people to read about in this Millionaire Focus but also struggle to locate millionaires who are self-made. Isaac Perlmutter is on such billionaire. Despite the large deal with Disney, Isaac Perlmutter has kept a very low profile. Apparently he is so shy of publicity that he attends movie premiers in disguise. He has gotten so good at disguising himself that at the premier of Iron Man not even his close friends recognized him.

It has been difficult gathering information of Perlmutter's early years other than that he was born in 1945 in what was to become Israel. He fought during the Israeli Six Day War in 1967 and soon after came to America with about $250 in his pocket. When first in America, he would sell toys and beauty products on the street. His first fortune was made selling surplus goods to dollar stores after he taught himself how to read balance sheets. Isaac Perlmutter had a knack for finding distressed businesses and at one point owned a controlling interest in Victor Kiam's electric razor manufacturer Remington Products.

His comfort was in the toy market though. He first encountered his future partner, Avu Arad, during a dispute over royalty payments. In 1990 they teamed up to run Toy Biz and struck a deal with Marvel's then owner Perelman to sell action figures based on Marvel characters. When Marvel got into financial problems, Perlmutter and Arad jumped in to acquire Marvel. Even after the acquisition of Marvel Entertainment by the Walt Disney Company came in 2009, he remains CEO of Marvel Entertainment.

Perlmutter shuns the trappings of wealth, with his only known indulgence being tennis. He likes to observe and absorb what is going on around him without needing to be in the middle. He seems to be the kind of person you wouldn't notice in a room. He is well known for penny-pinching and he watches all costs, no matter how small. Even though penny-pinching can be thought of as a negative, Perlmutter was able to help turn around Marvel with his ability to watch costs. One colleague notes that Perlmutter may now be a mogul of enormous wealth, "but he knows the value of a buck."

Hopefully you enjoyed this week's Millionaire Focus and found some tidbits to help you with your own business dealings. As you can see, being in the right place at the right time, along with staying alert can possibly bring you from rags to riches.

Until tomorrow...

Where is your business focusing?

When asked about his outstanding performance on the ice, Wayne Gretzky replied, "A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be."

The million dollar question for any business entrepreneur is basically, where is business going to be in 1-year, 3-, 5- and hopefully 10-years out. Where is your business focusing? Where do you see your business and yourself in the the next 3 years? If things were going according to your master plan, where do you see yourself an your business in the next 5 and 10 years? As you may be struggling with business today, it is very easy to get caught up in the minutia and forget about your long-term focus.

Now is the time to review your business plan, and measure your current success against the goals you set in your business plan. Mark every success and celebrate it. As you find areas you may have fallen short in, do not berate or punish yourself, but look at the underlying reason why you did not achieve that particular goal and then find ways to improve so that during the next measurement period, you will hopefully meet or exceed your goals. You need to keep your business focused on both the long- and the short-term goals.

If you focus only on your short-term goals, you may lose sight of where you ultimately want your business to grow. It is like looking directly at your feet while you are walking down a sidewalk. Even if you use the cracks along the side of the sidewalk to guide you, you will get off track and possibly wander off the sidewalk. Even if you do stay on the walkway, you will not be moving forward very effectively. If you set your eyes ahead of your feet as you walk, you will observe obstacles and barriers to your way before you come upon them. By focusing forward (not too far) you are able to see and anticipate potential problems and begin working on a solution now instead of going head-first into the obstacle and getting tangled up in it.

Focusing your business goals is the same thing. You need to look ahead an anticipate problems and challenges. No matter how well you plan, there will be problems to deal with. That is life, don't dwell on the bad parts, focus on what you are going to do to get past those proverbial bumps in the road. Do not take a Pollyanna attitude about your business either. There will be situations that will not be easy to navigate through. There may even be situations that you cannot get past. The difference is, if you anticipated the situation, or if you saw it before it became a huge problem, you may have been able to mitigate the damage to your business.

Don't let your feelings of self-doubt, insecurity and vulnerability affect your business plan. You most likely made a good plan, hopefully you had others review it for reasonableness, so, stick with your plan, adjust to accommodate your current situation and continue moving forward with your business. Don't let any negative emotions you may be having damage your business. When we feel down or negative about the business, that is not the time to make significant business decisions because those decisions may result in financial losses, lost jobs or bankruptcies.

Tomorrow we will continue along these same lines and debunk some myths about attitude. We will provide tips on what you can do to combat these false beliefs and help your business to grow. Where is your business focusing?

If you are looking for an income opportunity, we may have something that would interest you. Please feel free to contact us with any questions you may have.

Until tomorrow...

Discovering a Business Breakthrough

I have been talking at length about home based businesses and presenting various ideas on how to grow your business. Some of you may have been in business for several years and may be currently stuck in the proverbial rut with your current small business. It is times like this when you need to find that business breakthrough that will propel your business into the next level. For many of us with a small business, it is hard to find the time to discover a business breakthrough. We have our hands full with the day-to-day processes, sales and associated issues and concerns.

Tonight I would like to suggest a few different ways to view your current business. By taking an outside view of your business, you may find that critical breakthrough that you have been searching for. Most of the time we need to step back from what we do to take a fresh look at our businesses. It is very hard to do when you have so much that must be completed on a daily basis. You end up getting into a routine and not even realizing that you are doing the same thing day in and day out. That is when your business may become stagnant. Hopefully these questions will help to get your creative juices stirring.

These ideas are similar to free-association, hopefully they will get you looking at your current business situation in new and different ways. It is very difficult to discover new and better ways to do things if you don't have an uninterested third party looking at what you are doing and asking questions. This is a way that we can simulate an uninterested stranger looking at your business and asking questions.

How do you see your products or services changes in the next 3-5 years? Do you see yourself adding or removing product or service lines? If so, why would you change? If you changed products, why did you offer the products in the first place?

Is there a new way to market your product to your customer base? Is your product environmentally friendly? What does your product do that your competitor doesn't do? Is there some off-the wall use for your product that works, but you never tell your customers about? If so, why don't you talk about it? Sometimes a new application for your product can revitalize sales.

Can your products be used by children? Or, if you have products for children, can they also be used by adults? What would need to be adjusted if you changed your demographics?

Is there a different way you can introduce your products to new customers? Do you have testimonials? If not, why not? If you do, are they current? I many businesses I have visited, I have noticed that many testimonials hanging on the walls are years old. Does this describe your business? If you walked into another business and saw testimonials years old, what would go through your mind?

Can you do any word association with your products? Is there a way you can create a silly jingle for your products or services? (i.e. wacky widgets, squeaky clean mouse car cleaners, donut dusters) Even if you don't publish your jingle, it may be enough to get you thinking about your product or service in a new light. That may then suggest other marketing ideas for you. Have fun with the jingle, the only person who may ever hear it could be you. Be sure to record all of your attempts, then come back to your attempts another day. Taking several days to create a jingle and then review it may help to again find new advertising ideas.

Hopefully some of these questions will trigger other ideas for you, they are not meant to be followed religiously, but they are intended to get your creative ideas flowing so that you can come up with even more creative ideas for your specific products or services. With luck you will discover a business breakthrough that will allow your business to be even more profitable than it currently is.

Check out our website if you are interested in adding a second income to your current portfolio. We may have something that will compliment what you are currently doing, or we may have an opportunity that will expand what you want to do.

Until tomorrow...

4 Tips to keep moving your small business forward

Tonight we are going to cover 4 tips to keeping your small business moving forward. In the current economy, it is very easy to find that your business is not moving forward and may even be moving backwards. Instead of considering packing it all in and calling it quits, now is the time to get back to basics. New, trendy ideas right now are not what is going to gain your customers' trust, they are tired of empty promises. What is really going to resonate with your customers is good, old fashioned customer service.

As we have become more digitized, we are losing the personal touch with people, in particular our customers. How many people now choose to order products directly from the Internet instead of dealing directly with a living, breathing person. Granted, since we are all so busy, it is extremely easy to order products and some services over the Internet, but now is the time to find a way to personalize your customer's Internet experience. So many websites gather e-mail addresses, names, phone numbers, but none the ones I have seen actually thank you for providing that information. I am personally uncomfortable providing all that information when I know what I want to order. I worry about receiving mountains of junk e-mail after submitting that information. It is important as a small business to collect this information, but perhaps instead of collecting it in order to send out more marketing pieces, perhaps you would want to send out a nice, homey, friendly (and SHORT) letter to your customers, thanking them for their patronage. Do not sell them anything, just thank them for coming to you with their request. If you want to open a dialog with them, ask them for any suggestions to improve their shopping experience. I like to periodically (about once or twice a year) send just a little news letter that is entertaining. I will not sell anything directly, but will provide my website and phone number at the bottom if the recipients are interested. You want your customers curious and happy about receiving occasional messages, not dreading all your selling pieces. This friendly, fun newsletter will keep your name uppermost in your customer's mind without all the negative feelings.

Another suggestion to keep your business moving forward is to do the right thing for your customers, even if may not be the most profitable thing for you to do. Customers will remember a bad experience 3 times longer than they will remember a positive experience. If there is a problem with your customer's order and you catch it before your customer does, do the right thing and correct the error instead of waiting for the customer to come to you. It may hurt initially, but your customer will remember your diligence far longer than your brief pain. Your customer will happily tell all their friends about your integrity and honesty when you correct a problem before they even knew about it. Sitting back and hoping the customer will not notice a problem is not realistic. Sometimes customers will discover a problem and if it is minor, will not let you know. The downside is that they will probably not ever shop with you again. You may not know how many customers you lose this way, you may just notice a decrease in customer activity. If you find a problem, be proactive, let your customers know and resolve it without being asked to. This gesture will increase your loyal customer base much faster than you can imagine.

The third tip is to treat your customers like family. No, not like a dysfunctional family, but care for them. Listen to their concerns, because those concerns may provide clues for you to assist your customers further. Families talk with each other, air their concerns and offer support to each other. Do the same for your customers. Listen to their concerns, strive to assist them where you can, and honestly care about their well being. You have to honestly care because your customers will know if you are not sincere. Your customers will return to you more often if you stop to listen to what their needs are instead of trying to tell them what you believe they need. Family strives to help each other for the betterment of the whole, you should do the same for your customers. Then both you and your customers will win.

The last tip to help move your business forward is to over deliver on your promises. This all goes back to good customer service. I am not suggesting always giving more product than what the customer purchased, but to be sure you go above and beyond what your customer was expecting. Remember the days of the "bakers dozen"? If you purchased a dozen donuts, the baker might throw in an extra donut. Didn't you feel special when you found that extra donut? Do a little something extra for your customer. It does not need to be expensive, but provide a little extra service or product so that your customer will be smiling when they see what they have. Especially now, when money is tight, based on your customers' needs, find something small, that won't impact your business financially, but will give great pleasure to your customers when they get a little extra something with their purchase. If you have products to deliver, always be sure to deliver on or before the date you told your customer. They will always appreciate accurate and timely deliveries.

Following these for tips may make the difference between remaining successful or closing your doors. Remember to treat your customers with respect, do what is right, not what you think you can get away with, care for your customers like you would your family and lastly over deliver on what you promise. These four tips will pay dividends for years to come.

If you are looking for a business opportunity that requires minimal cash outlay, check our our website. We offer business opportunities in stem cell nutrition, Pre-Paid legal services and Mona Vie - a nutritional drink. We can also help you start up your own waterless technology vehicle detailing business if that is what you are interested in. Please feel free to contact us with any questions you may have.

Until tomorrow...

Millionaire Focus

Hi guys, sorry about being offline for the last 2 days. As you know, I have been taking Saturday's off, but this last Friday, I was so tired after it got dark, I fell asleep. I then intended to post on Saturday to make up for my missed Friday, but again fell asleep. I guess I needed the rest. I am back in the saddle this evening and will pick up tonight where we should have been on Friday - Millionaire Focus.

Tonight, we are going to cover some spending tips that are used by various modern millionaires. As we have discovered in prior posts, many of our modern millionaires do not spend money like we had seen in the past. Many do not go in for the gigantic estates, the fancy cars, etc. Many modern millionaires are much more frugal and it could be useful to see what they do and perhaps mimic some of their behaviors.

Forbes posts a list of the world's billionaires, and as of 2010, Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helu (Carlos Slim) currently holds the number one spot for being the world's richest billionaires. He is now richer than Bill Gates ad Warren Buffett as being the wealthiest person on earth. He is also known for his frugality. His net worth is somewhere around 60.6 billion dollars. What that means to you and me is that he can spend $1,150 a minute for the next 100 years before he runs out of money. What would you do with that much money.

Part of Carlos' frugality includes living in the same home for more than 40 years. Just because you have the money does not necessarily mean you need to get a larger home. The key is to keep your home simple, get the best you can, within your means. Before you go out and purchase that huge mansion, ask yourself, do you REALLY need all that extra space? With a larger home comes larger maintenance costs (electric, water, cleaning, etc.). Consider all the costs involved with a larger home and determine if the larger home is necessary for your comfort, or if you are just looking for a larger, more expensive home because you want to impress friends and neighbors. By keeping your home simple, you should be keeping your costs more reasonable. Just because you may be making large quantities of money now, does not mean that cash flow will continue indefinitely. By keeping things simple, you are increasing your chances of success for the long term.

Another trick many millionaires use it to purchase their clothes off the rack. Do you really have to have that designer outfit that costs hundreds of dollars? Will anyone really care how much you spent on your clothes. Make sure you have good quality clothes, but you do not need to go overboard on clothing. Some frugal billionaires believe it is not worth the effort or expense to purchase designer clothing. Heck, you may meet some billionaires who predominantly wear jeans and a t-shirt. It is not the clothes that make the person, but rather the person who makes the clothes.

Carlos Slim also does not own a yacht or a plane. He does not spend on any luxury items that he does not need. The key to remaining wealthy is to reduce the amount that you spend. If you do not purchase what you don't need, you can invest your money elsewhere, where it will work for you instead. You should not be working for all the "toys" you purchase. Making your money work for you instead of the other way around will help you to continue to grow rich. Another billionaire who skips many luxury items is Warren Buffett. He believes that "Most toys are just a pain in the neck."

As we continue our our odyssey of examining millionaires and billionaires, we will most likely continue to discover a commonality, that most of these people are extremely frugal. If we can reduce the amount of money we spend on things we really don't need (analyzing want versus needs...) we stand a better chance of keeping our money where it belongs, in investments. If we spend less than we make, and reinvest the money we have saved, then there is a good chance that we too can enter the ranks of the millionaires. If nothing else, we will become richer without having to work much harder.

If you are looking for a second income stream to help build your cash portfolio, you may find some interesting business opportunities on our website. Please feel free to contact us with any questions regarding the business opportunities we offer. If we don't have what you are looking for, we may be able to at least point you in the right direction.

Until tomorrow...

Millionaire Focus on Theo Albrecht

Our millionaire focus on Theo Albrecht was more challenging than I had originally thought it would be. He was notoriously shy, and stayed away from publicity as much as possible. Both he and his older brother, Karl, are self-made millionaires, building their empire from their mother's corner grocery store in Essen.

Their company's focus was on spending almost nothing on advertising and by simplifying their inventory. They stocked only a fraction of the products that would usually be found in a standard grocery store. Their motto was: "concentrating on the basics: a limited selection of goods for daily needs." This is a concept that we as small business owners should take to heart. I have found that we have been pressured to carry a larger variety of products to appeal to a broader audience. The real key is to carry a limited selection of fast-selling products so that you can increase order volume and reduce handling costs. The Albrecht family purchased the U.S. chain, Trader Joe's in 1979.

Theo was such a thrifty person, that when he was kidnapped in 1971, he negotiated with his captors and was able to reduce his own ransom down to 7 million Deutsche marks (about $2 million dollars). Not only did he reduce his own ransom, but he was able to win a tax dispute with the German government over whether the ransom was a business expense.

Theo was the epitome of thrifty, a lesson we can all learn from. With the internet, we can do a lot of advertising for minimal or no money. This current economy has taught us that we are all able to become more frugal and get as much work done with less money. With luck, as the economy improves (hopefully sometime this century...) we will not forget the lessons we have learned about being frugal and continue to grow our businesses smarter.

If you are looking for a small, home based business opportunity, please check out our website. We may have something that would interest you. As always, we would love to talk with you if you have questions or want guidance.

Until tomorrow...

Would you rather have ten thousand dollars now?

Wow, what a question. Actually it is a partial question that was brought up in a conversation yesterday with regards to working your own home based business. There was frustration in the slow growth of the business and the other person commented about the "Penny Doubled Concept". The full question is, would you rather have $10,000.00 now or a penny doubled every day for a month. So we explored this concept with an eye towards working a home based business.

I bet your initial reaction would be to take the ten thousand dollars today and run. If you first think about it, today you get a penny, tomorrow you get two pennies, the day after that, you get four pennies. Initially, the growth looks very slow and painful. Just like starting a home-based business. You start your business and if you are lucky, you will start getting business, but usually it is in very small increments and can be painful at how slowly your business activities will grow.

If you follow the penny doubled concept through the 30 days though, the story looks different. Continue doubling the pennies each day. Compounding starts looking really good. By the time you get to 15 days, with doubling your penny every day, you will have $163.84. Heck, that really doesn't look like much after 15 days does it? Again, after perhaps a few months in your home-based business, it may not look like much either. You will most likely have more sales, but still not the amount of sales you had originally projected. Half-way through your business year, you may be getting worried about your home-based business being profitable over the long haul. But, you really do need to hang on because we haven't finished compounding that one penny doubled....

If on day 15 you $163.84, on day 16 you would have $327.68, looking better, the next day, you would have $655.36. Now the numbers are really starting to grow. By day 20 you would have earned $5,242.88, by day 25 you would have $167,772.16. Wow, that was only 25 days of doubling that one penny. By day 30 if you continued to double the money, you would have earned $5,368,709.12. In just 30 days!

Move this concept to your business. If you strive to double your new customers once a month (keeping the initial customers) then think of how large your business will be in 30 months. Granted this is a relatively extreme example, but the point is that persistence does pay off even in starting up a small home based businesses. You will start off slow. You will get one or two people purchasing from you. Then eventually those happy customers will tell some of their friends and one or two of them will come in and become a customer of yours. If you continue that trend, you are basically copying the Penny Doubling Concept. The main object here is to be persistent and not to get discouraged. Tenacity and persistence will pay out in the end.

Until tomorrow...

Who wants to be a Millionaire?

Who wants to be a Millionaire? I know there are a lot of people out there who would love to become a millionaire. I would like to count myself as one of those people too. The tough question is how much do you want to be a millionaire? Are you one of those who sits on a chair or couch watching the TV show "Who wants to be a Millionaire?" and wish you were one of those contestants? Did you do anything to even try to be on that game show? Has anyone looked at the chances contestants have to get on the show, let alone win a million dollars?

In actuality there are a lot more millionaires among us than you would think. Many people believe that millionaires were either born into the money or just plain lucky. In actuality, that is not the case. Millionaires are made more than they are born into money. A lot of how a millionaire is made is in how they think, versus how the middle-class people think. Millionaires think in the long-term. They are looking 5 and 10 and 15 years into the future. Middle class people tend to worry more about what is going to happen tomorrow or next month. Short-term thinking will not allow you to take some necessary risks.

Millionaires are willing to take risks. They may lose everything several times, but they never quit. The middle class will play it safe with their money rather than commit to losing anything today. Every success story came with some risk involved. The key is to make calculated decisions and take calculated risks. Do not enter into opportunities randomly, you need to research and do your homework. You need to continually learn and grow in your knowledge. If you stop learning, you will become stagnated and you will not learn any additional techniques or opportunities that my turn you into the next millionaire.

The only way you are going to head on the road to becoming a millionaire is to begin to take calculated risks. Life is about risks. Opportunities are always risky, the key is to be sure you understand the opportunity before you get involved with it. I am not suggesting you jump into any opportunity that comes your way. You need to become educated on that opportunity, otherwise you are really doing nothing more than throwing money at a chance, just like at a slot machine. There is risk putting money into the slot machines, yet people do it every day, with loads of money. If they are willing to take that kind of risk, why wouldn't they want to do a little research and put their money on a better return on that risk? That question has always hounded me. Why put money into a machine that you really know nothing about except the odds of you winning back some money? Why not put that same money into something that has a higher chance of returning more money to you? Perhaps it is because people are lazy, and don't want to research. Me, I don't like gambling, not for ethical reasons, but because I see the return on investment to be minuscule. I would rather take my chances with a business opportunity that may fail, but then again, it may be a great opportunity.

I would never know if the opportunity is good if I didn't look into it and research. The Internet is a great venue to research almost anything. If you get into an opportunity and get burned because you didn't do you homework, shame on you. Taking risks does not mean just taking a shot in the dark, but rather taking a calculated chance that you will succeed. People put money in certain slot machines because they may have seen someone winning consistently with that particular machine. At least those people did a little homework on the machines.

The key here is to overcome your fear of taking risks by obtaining knowledge about the opportunity you are looking into. While you are exploring possibilities, be sure you know what the worst thing that can happen would be. If you are willing to accept the worst possible outcome, (and you can anticipate the best or a reasonable outcome), then this may be an opportunity that will work for you. You never know if you don't try. Just be sure you are comfortable with the knowledge that you may fall flat on your face. I bet you didn't get on a bicycle and ride it successfully the first time around. Just like in business, it takes practice.

So, keep researching, ask questions, test the waters, but once you have the knowledge, don't be afraid to take risks. Then others will ask you how you became a millionaire.

If you are looking for a second income opportunity, we may have something that would interest you. We offer opportunities in legal, nutritional and waterless technology products. If you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail us at hawgwash1@yahoo.com. We would love to hear from you and answer any questions you may have.

Until tomorrow...

How do I know my business is successful?

Almost three weeks ago we spent several days talking about how to create a basic business plan. Now that you may have written up a rough draft, your next question may be, "How do I know my business is successful?" As you know, success can be measured several different ways, different people have different opinions regarding what success really is. Today our focus is on creating a basic income and loss worksheet so you can determine if your business is bringing in more money than you are spending (one way to define if your business is successful).

In your business plan, you should have decided approximately how much money you planned on spending to get the business going and about how much money you want in return. Today we are going to break down the basics of an Income/Loss statement so that you can determine if you are spending more money than you are getting in return. We are not going to get into high-level accounting here so don't worry. If you already have an accountant working for you, this may help you to understand what they do for you and your business.

An Income/Loss Statement (also known as a Profit and Loss statement or P&L for short) is a standardized method for tracking if your business is making or losing money (determining if your business is successful). The first portion of the Income Statement is to identify exactly what money is coming into your business. The statement typically covers a one month period. There may be different types of income generated by your business, so to make things simple, let's assume that you sell products to people. If you sell different items, you may want to track each item separately. You can use Excel, or some other basic worksheet program to generate a basic Income/Loss Statement. On your spreadsheet, you will want to identify all the items you will be selling. Record the sales for each item from your receipts and then note those numbers down on your worksheet. After you have recorded all the sales for your items, total them up and you have your total Gross Sales for the month.

The next section is to record what you spent to get those items. Cost is what you spent out of pocket to acquire the items you are selling. If you purchased Item 1 for $2.50, and you sold 2 of them in a month, your cost for Item 1 would be $2.50 x 2 or $5.00. So to record your costs, you need to know how many items you sold and how much those items cost you. If, at the end of the month, you still have Item 2 in stock and did not sell it, you do not record the cost for that item. You only record costs for the items you actually sold in that particular month. Your costs for your inventory do not include any electricity, travel, entertainment, etc. type of expenses. Those types of money out are recorded elsewhere. In the Cost section, all you record is how much it cost you to purchase the particular item you are selling.

Once you have recorded your costs for the month, then to figure out your Gross Profit, take your sales, subtract from it your costs, and you end up with your Gross Profit. In the example provided, if your total sales are $35.00 and your total costs are $22.00, then your Gross Profit would be $13.00. So far so good, at this point, you are bringing in more money than you spent. So far your business is successful. Remember, you are only noting sales and costs for a specific month. Do not bring costs or sales forward from other months at this point in time.

Your next item on the Profit/Loss Statement is to record all other expenses. In accounting, there are many, many different categories of expenses, but for tonight, we are going to keep this statement very basic. Also, the assumption is that your business is just starting, and you don't have a whole lot of categories of expenses yet. In your expenses, the best rule of thumb you can use, is did these expenses occur because of your business? For instance, if you eat breakfast every day, even when not doing your business, that cost of breakfast is not to be included as an expense for your business. If, you don't normally go out for breakfast, but this time you did in order to meet someone and show them your products, then that expense for breakfast is related to your business and that should be recorded on your Profit / Loss Statement.

After you have added all the expenses together and totalled them, to determine your Income/Loss for the month, take your Total Gross Profit and subtract from it your Total Expenses. In the example listed, your business is successful for this month because your Total Gross Profit is higher than your Total Expenses.

Please keep in mind, this is a very simplified Income/Loss (or Profit/Loss) statement. The intent here is to help you start looking at your business from a numbers perspective so that you can start measuring your business success by how much money comes in versus how much money goes out.

If you have questions regarding the basic Income/Loss statement, please feel free to contact me at hawgwash1@yahoo.com. If you are interested in starting up a home based business of your own and are not sure where to start, please take a look at http://www.hawgwash.net/ to see if anything there might tickle your fancy.

Until tomorrow...

Basics of a Business Plan - Continued

Last night we introduced some of the basic components of a general business plan. To recap, in order for you to be able to grow and develop your business, it is best to develop a basic business plan. This business plan will become your road map towards your success. The key components we have covered so far are your goals and objectives for the new business, market opportunity, and products. Your business plan will ultimately outline your goals and expectations for your home based business. Tonight, as promised we are going to briefly cover the remaining aspects of a business plan.

Marketing your new home based business is critical. You may decide to go into a business venture, but if you don't tell anybody about it, who would know to come to you to purchase your product or service? In several prior blogs, we covered different types of marketing of your business. What you want to do in your business plan is to note which ones you believe will work best for the business opportunity you have chosen to get involved with. You cannot make money if you do not have some form of a marketing plan sketched out. Our initial marketing plan was to go to as many motorcycle rallies as possible (preferably one every weekend), set up a booth and let people see that we were in business and demonstrate our Waterless Technology products for them. If they showed an interest in the business opportunity, we would exchange contact information and follow up after the show. If they were just interested in the product, we made sure to have enough product on hand at each event to sell to people. We also made sure that every piece of literature and bottle of product that went out had our contact information on it. This way, when the customers wanted to purchase more product, all they had to do was to look at the bottle, find our contact information and call us to reorder.

This is a simple and relatively low-cost marketing plan, but has been very effective. We have since expanded our marketing plan, but our initial plan was just to go out and do as many shows as possible, with as much face time with the customer as possible.

Another item you need to include in your business plan is where are you going to conduct your business? We are assume a home based business is out of the home, OK, where in your home are you going to create that home office? This is a legitimate question, especially if your home does not have a lot of extra space. You need to dedicate a specific area for your business. You may ultimately want to start in a room out of your home, but want to grow into an office outside of the home. If that is a goal, be sure to include it in your plan. This provides you something to work for and measure your success against. Like the other items you record in your business plan, be specific. What equipment are you going to need to conduct your business? Do you need a computer? Is the computer you may have going to work for you? What types of office supplies are you going to need? Are you going to need an area to store product? If so, how large an area are you able to dedicate to product?

Then, as you are working on those questions, the finance question comes up. How much product do you plan on keeping physically in your home office? How much product do you need to get your business started? You need to identify the initial financial start up costs for your business. You may be surprised how much it costs even to get a basic office set up in your home. Write down in your business plan how much you expect to spend to get started in your business. Be sure to include any start-up fees for the business opportunity, any initial inventory costs, any additional office equipment you may need (new computer, desk, etc.), are there any additional Internet costs that will be incurred, do you need a dedicated phone line? Several of these questions may not be necessary, but it pays to look at all aspects, so when you do start moving forward on your business opportunity, you are aware of the expected cash outlay. It is always best to anticipate the first expenditures in the business.

Then the logical transition from how much it will cost to start your business is, "when will I start making money to recover these costs?" This is the beginning of your budget. You have estimated your cash outlay, now you need to realistically estimate when you expect to see cash coming back in from your sales. If you are starting up in a new business opportunity, do not believe someone who tells you that you will make several thousand dollars the first month you are in business. It may happen, but it does not necessarily happen that often. Again, do your research. You already found out who is in the market, find out how long it took them to earn a significant income. Also find out how much time they dedicated to this business opportunity in order to make that significant income. That question can be your make-or -break decision. Realistically, when you start up a new home based business, it will consume a fairly large portion of your time. It is better to assume the worse, than to assume that you can put in an hour a day and make thousands in the month. That may occur down the road, but is highly unlikely in the first few months you are in business.

Build your income budget over a 12 month period so you have a virtual measuring stick. Be realistic in your income budget, but still, build it the way you would like to see your income grow. Then, once you have your income down, be sure to also track how many hours of work will be initially required to get to that income level. Some of those hours may not be realistic for your personal lifestyle. See if you can adjust to suit your needs. If you cannot get the income and the hours to work well for you, then perhaps this may not be the right opportunity for you. It is good to discover that now, instead of paying out all that money to get started and then discover that you do not have the time to dedicate to the business opportunity to earn the income you want.

After you have finished your budgeting process for a 12 month period, you have finished the basic business plan. Put it down for a day or so, and then re-read it. You may find that there are things that you wish to change or modify. Once you get the basic plan in a form and content that you are pleased with, have a friend or two review it for reasonableness. Keep an open mind when they provide input, you may not like their answers, but remember, you asked for their opinion. You may not choose to take their opinion, but, at least you now have been introduced to another point of view.

Lastly, once you are satisfied with your business plan, keep it out in a conspicuous place so you can reference it daily. Keep the budget posted on a wall so you can keep track of your success against your budgeted projections. Then, as days, weeks and months go by, you are measuring and reviewing your business and hopefully adjusting as you go. By the end of a 12 month period, you should have a very successful business on your hands.

If you are interested in starting a home based business, we may have some business opportunities that will meet your needs. Go to http://www.hawgwash.net/ to see what business opportunities we currently offer. If you have questions, please feel free to contact us at hawgwash1@yahoo.com. What we have on our website, may trigger some other ideas or desires for you, even if you don't see the specific opportunity on our site, we may be able to point you in the direction you wish to go. Please do not hesitate to contact us with your questions.

Until tomorrow...

Building your Business Plan

Did you develop a business plan when you started your home based business? Are you working on a business plan, or are you just doing what you think works? Keeping a focus on your home based business is critical to your business success. You are probably watching your business like a hawk, but are you following any type of business plan? Did you ever write one up? If so, how does your current business situation compare to what you planned? These are tough questions, and I would like to bet that many of us have a sketchy business plan, but really nothing significant written down.

There is a good reason to writing down a business plan. If you write down your plan, then you actually have created a map to follow to grow your business. I am not referring writing down the big ideas like, you will make the business successful, you will earn lots of money, etc. I am talking about a relatively concise business plan. If you go to the library and look up various business plans templates, some of them will cause you to run out of the room tearing out your hair screaming. The basic idea of the business plan is to create a road map of where you currently are and where you want to be in 6 months, 1 year, 5 years and 10 years.

Tonight we are going to start a short series on what to include in a business plan and why. Some of the business plan templates I have reviewed can be daunting. The plans look for an analysis of the market you are planning on entering, describing the past, present and future market behavior. They also should include some analysis of your competition, product comparison and positioning, communication strategies, how are you going to launch the business, budgeting, advertising, pricing, policies, distribution, and metrics for success. At first look, creating a business plan can be a terrifying experience. Sometimes it looks like you need to have a Master's degree just to write a business plan.

Our goal is to get you past that concern, and help you to write up your own roadmap to success. We want to take the fear out of creating a business plan, and want to make it relatively simple for anyone to develop a basic plan so you can stay focused on growing your new business opportunity. You don't build a house without a plan, so why would you consider starting a business without a plan for success?

If you really think about a what a business plan is, you should already have the information in your head. For instance, why did you want to get into a particular line of business? Intuitively, you believed there was a market out there for the products or services you want to sell. What a business plan really does is to force you to take that information out of your head and put it down on paper. You will find that once you put the ideas on paper, it becomes easier to look at the various ideas you have and determine how to improve those ideas.

The first draft of your business plan may just fit on one piece of paper. You want to outline what type of business you want to enter. Then, make notes of WHY you want to enter that business. By writing down these two things first may help you to not get into business ventures that someone else really believes you should get involved in. Even if you don't have a specific business opportunity in mind, if you write down what you want, your goals, thoughts and ideas, then when someone comes to you with an opportunity, you can take their idea and hold it against what you already know you want to do. A simple idea would be to take a plain sheet of paper, draw a line down the middle, and then label one column "Pros" and the other column "Cons" for the good and bad reasons for the proposed business opportunity.

If someone is trying to get you involved in a particular business, get as much information as possible from them, take notes, then write down what you like and don't like about the idea. You are not done yet, but this is where you start. Then, once you have the basic information written down, do your research, ask others who may be in a similar field, or go to the library and read up on the business opportunity. You can also do a lot of research on various businesses on the Internet. There is almost an endless supply of positive and negative feedback on various business proposals on the Internet. Read as much as you can about the area of interest, and make notes. Then add to your "Pro" and "Con" column. By now you should have a good idea if this is a business opportunity that you would want to consider pursuing.

Once you have decided on a business opportunity, now is the time to work on your business plan. Having the plan in your head is OK, but if you are working with a partner or spouse, they do not know everything that is bouncing around in your head. You need to write the plan down so that you and your partners are all on the same page with where you want to take the business. Doing this up front will alleviate a lot of misunderstanding and tension down the road. So, now you have a rough outline of your business plan. You have created a business idea, you may have briefly discussed what you are going to sell and you have an idea how you are going to get your hands on the product so that you can sell. You should also consider how you are going to market your business and how are you going to get the product delivered to the people who want to purchase.

Tomorrow we are going to briefly cover how to start writing the business plan by working with your initial outline and then expanding it. Do not think that once you have written your business plan you can't revise it. The goal here is to get your thoughts and ideas organized, take them out into the light to be sure they make sense and then essentially build a road map for how to get your home based business started and then how to help it grow and become prosperous.

Until tomorrow...

Do I really want to start a home based business?

Have you ever had one of those days when you just don't want to play anymore? You just want to pick up your marbles and go home? We have all experienced that feeling at some point or another. You may have had to deal with that feeling while on your job, or when you are faced with a difficult personal situation. Did you actually follow through on that desire? My bet is that even though you really, REALLY wanted to quit, you didn't. Somehow you found the strength, courage or both to continue, even though you wanted to throw in the towel.

No matter how difficult a situation may become, there are always opportunities to be found. I know that sounds like Pollyanna, but most successful businesses and people look for the opportunity, especially during tough times. Even in today's tough economy, there are more people now starting their own home based business than at any other time. If we all followed through on our desire to quit when times get tough, then nobody would attempt to start a new business when we can see how hard times are for everyone.

Perhaps Norman Vincent Peale said it best, "Problems are to the mind what exercise is to the muscle; they toughen and make strong."

Throughout our life, we are faced with challenges. Each time we are faced with a difficult situation, we have to make a decision, do we quit, do we continue what we are doing, or do we try to find another way to deal with the problem? Marsha Petrie Sue would identify that situation as either having to "take it, leave it, or change it". Each challenge you are faced with may seem insurmountable at the time, but if you take the time to analyse the problem, perhaps a solution would present itself. Granted, one of the solutions could be to quit, but that may be one of many options available to you.

If you find yourself in a situation where your first reaction (not response, but gut reaction) is to just throw in the towel and quit, stop, and take a good hard look at what is going on. Quitting may be the right answer, but do not just rely on your 'gut' reaction because that reaction may be based on your limited experience in that specific situation. If you don't think you can find an alternate solution, seek advice from a colleague or professional in the specific field. You would want to talk to someone who you respect, but you need to keep an open mind when you ask for their advice. Be forewarned, the person you talk to may not agree with your initial assessment, or they even may suggest something that you do not like or do not agree with.

If the person whose advice you requested does not provide you the answer you were hoping to get, do not get mad at them. Remember, you asked their opinion, they gave their OPINION. Do not beat them up because you don't agree with their opinion. It is OK to not agree with an expert's opinion, but remember, you asked for the opinion, so you should at least honestly look at it before you dismiss it out-of-hand. If you are unsure of the answer, perhaps you would want to ask another expert for their observations. The key is to ask questions, and not to react if you hear the answer that you really didn't want to hear.

Perhaps you want to know if you should go into a new business venture. You have a friend in that particular field who has been in it for years, so you ask them if it would be a good opportunity for you. They may tell you that it is a bad idea for you to get involved. If you were excited about the opportunity, you may become angry with their answer. What you need to do before reacting, is to find out why they think the particular opportunity is something you don't want to get into. Is it because they are leaving the field because it is no longer producing as effectively? Perhaps they believe that your personality would not mesh well with that particular business opportunity. They are an expert in the field for a reason, do not dismiss their opinion just because it does not match the answer you wanted to hear. What you really want to hear is their view of the truth. Then you match up your views with theirs, compare the similarities and differences, and then make a responsible decision.

Your friends and family may want you to not start a new business venture because it scares them. It is OK to ask their opinion, but do not base you final decision on their opinion alone. Again, the key is to gather as much information on the subject you can and then to make a reasoned decision. If you reacted and did what everyone told you to do, you wouldn't get much satisfaction in your life because you were working on pleasing everyone else except yourself. Do you homework, ask a lot of questions, talk to experts or professionals in the field, and ask your friends. After gathering all that intelligence, then whatever decision you do make will have been reasoned and thought out, not based on unfounded reactions. Reactions are great in life-and-death situations, but in business, reactions can get in the way of reasoned thinking. Gut reactions are good and may help, but every successful business person will tell you that they became successful from hard work, research and thinking things through instead of working problems out with pure reactions.

Starting up a home based business now may be a great thing for you to do. You need to determine what you want out of the business for you and your family, and then determine if it will fit with your personality and lifestyle. Look for the good and the bad in the business idea before getting involved. If you know the down-sides, then if something does go wrong, you at least were prepared and may have even thought through an alternative solution. Taking chances is a scary process, but can be very rewarding if you have mitigated the risks and anticipated the problems.

If you have any questions regarding starting up your own home based business, please feel free to contact us at hawgwash1@yahoo.com. We will be willing to offer our advice, even if it is a business opportunity that we do not offer. Our goal is to help you to develop your own business and become your version of successful.

Until tomorrow...

Organization and your Home Based Business

We have been talking at length on techniques on how to make your home based business successful. Today we are going to talk about organization and how that can also make you more successful. Organization can take several different paths, today we are going to talk about organizing your work area. This is most likely an issue for may business owners and if you don't have a plan in place, you may be very unhappy with your situation.

For me, paperwork is my major downfall. I am organized in many aspects of the business, but when it comes to paperwork, well, controlled confusion is more the norm. When you are running your own home based business, paperwork can make or break your business. We are not only talking about filing appropriate taxes, paying bills, but also recording sales, purchases and expenses. Everyone should have some type of tracking system, even if it is a shoe box filled with receipts, but you do need to decide on some type of organization system. As you are trying to decide how to organize your paperwork, it is critical to be sure that the plan matches your particular organizational style. Just because the person down the road has this awesome filing system that works great for them, doesn't mean it is going to work well for you.

A shoebox filled with business receipts may be your best version of organization. The reason it is critical to have your business paperwork organized is because at some point in time you will be asked to validate a particular sale, purchase or expense. I am not just referring to an audit, but there may be times when a customer contests an invoice, or worse the bank challenges a credit card receipt. You need to be able to get your hands on the appropriate paperwork in a timely manner or you risk losing the sale. It is always such a satisfying feeling to be asked for information on a particular business transaction and to be able to produce the needed documents in a short period of time. How many times have you been asked to find a particular piece of paper and you find your heart starts racing because you are not sure WHERE that piece of paper may be.

Organization of your paperwork is also critical if you have warranties that have to be maintained. You may warranty work or products to customers, and you will most likely have warranties on the products you use. It is critical to be able to access that information quickly. If you are not a great person for keeping paperwork neat, one of the simplest methods I have seen is to have a shoebox and start putting all paperwork in it, organized by date. That way, you know all the pieces of paper are in one place, and if you knew the basic time when the event occurred, you would not have a difficult time locating the necessary document.

Another, slightly more technical method is to have four file folders. One is labeled sales, another is for inventory purchased, the third is for business expenses and the last is for any physical assets (tables, computers, programs) that you have purchased for the business. This way, every time you make a sale of either a product or service, you can place that sales receipt in the sales folder. Any time you purchase something to be sold for the business you put in the inventory folder, and anything else you purchase for the business (including office supplies, meals, meeting costs, utilities etc.) are put in the expense folder. Again, keep these receipts in date order for ease of filing later on. The physical asset folder will most likely have the least amount of receipts, but if there is a time that you need to find that computer warranty fast, you can go to that folder and produce the warranty in record time.

By having this slightly more detailed system of filing, you end up being able to sort through paperwork much faster. By the end of your fiscal year you then have the basic categories of revenue, costs and expenses already sorted for your accountant to handle. What we do is every evening, we empty our pockets and place the receipts in the appropriate folder. Then, when we have time, the recording of the information goes much faster.

The best part about this simplified system of filing is that you end up not having a desk covered in paperwork. How depressing is it when you walk into your office only to see your whole desk covered in papers? You may even end up shoving that pile of papers off to a corner of your desk so that you can get to work on the computer or telephone. How many times have you just added to that pile of papers, stating at the time you NEED to get that pile of papers under control? Think of how much more empowering it would feel if you just had those 4 folders on your desk or in your desk drawer with all the receipts neatly placed in them. Then you don't have the distraction or frustration of knowing that you have to get to the paperwork pile, the sorting is already basically completed. You can then focus on the main business at hand, making your home based business more successful than it was the day before.

There are more detailed methods of keeping your paperwork, but if you are the type of business owner that doesn't have a huge staff working for you, simplicity is key. If you have any questions regarding filing, or how to manage your paperwork, please feel free to contact us a hawgwash1@yahoo.com. We would be more than willing to assist you any way we can. If you are interested in starting your own business, check out our website, http://www.hawgwash.net/ for ideas. We are (almost) always available for questions.

Until tomorrow...