Looking for a Business Opportunity

All right, that question can go either direction. Am I looking for a business opportunity, or are you looking for a business opportunity? For the record, I am ALWAYS looking for business opportunities, if I didn't then I would stagnate (not literally). By always looking for the newest trends, newest products, or just different opportunities, I keep my own ideas fresh. There is also the distinct possibility that I will find an awesome business opportunity to incorporate.

So, the million dollar question that is most likely burning in the back of you head is... what business opportunity should I get involved in, and is it legitimate? Unfortunately, that is a very difficult question. There are so many "business opportunities" out there that really aren't opportunities (at least not for us) and won't turn into a legitimate business. You don't necessarily want to throw your money away, yet you don't want to miss an up-and coming opportunity either.

There are so many new and very good pitch-men (or pitch-people) out there, that you really have to do your homework before putting money into any opportunity. Tonight I am going to suggest a few places you can look for your next opportunity and let you decide if anything looks interesting. Perhaps, with the ideas I throw out there, they will trigger something that will cause you to discover an opportunity that has not been mentioned.

You may also be wondering, why would anyone want to get involved in a new business opportunity in today's depressed economy. The answer is really pretty simple. Costs of buildings/rentals are low, product costs are going down, and people are motivated to sell stuff for relatively low prices in order to drive business. If you are able to get a business up and running in this economy, think of how successful you will be when the economy picks up (and yes, it will get better...eventually). So, now is a great time to start a business, either a home-based business or a brick-and-mortar business.

If you want to get started on a business, but don't know what you want to do, here is some food for thought: do you have the ability to help others live better for less money? Are you able to help others to trim their expenses and still live comfortably? There is a huge demand for people with that talent right now. Do you have ideas for helping cars to increase their fuel mileage? Can you organize car and van pools to help people save on fuel costs? How about helping people collect coupons (perhaps you provide the coupon service for a small fee...) so they can save at the store? Can you help people invest in higher yield investments?

If you are looking for a business opportunity in today's market, you need to look at what people are complaining about and see if you have the particular skill set to resolve their problem. Don't just take one person's problem and strive to correct it, but find a common theme and then see if you can find a solution to the overall problem. That can become a very lucrative business segment for you.

These are just a very few ideas that are out there to generate a business opportunity. The overall key is to find a need and fill that common need. That way your customers win and you win.

If you would like some other business opportunity ideas, please feel free to visit our website. We can help you start your own vehicle detailing service, or we can show you how Pre-Paid Legal could help you, or we can introduce you to our Stem Cell Nutritional line that has the ability to provide you an additional income stream. We would be more than willing to talk with you about your thoughts and ideas and answer any questions you may have. Happy business opportunity hunting...

Until tomorrow...

What is My Greatest Achievement

While searching for an interesting topic for tonight's blog, I came across a great question from Plinky.com. Tonight I am going to answer the question, what's your greatest achievement? How many of us can actually answer that question? There are so many small achievements to be proud of, but to find one that you would classify your 'greatest", well that takes some serious thought.My greatest achievement to date is having started Hawgwash, LLC and kept it running successfully for over 4 years. We have beaten the odds for new start-up companies so far. This January Hawgwash, LLC will be 5 years old. This is a huge achievement, especially since we have had a declining economy for most of those 5 years. (no the decline in the economy is not because we started Hawgwash, LLC)

I had been a corporate person for the majority of my adult life, working my way up from general sales, into accounting and finance. It had been tough, slowly climbing from rung to rung, long hours, minimal pay increases, but with time I succeeded in the corporate world. The difference was that I was still working for someone else, helping them to get rich. Four and a half years ago, with help from Steve, I left the corporate world to start Hawgwash, LLC.


We now travel around the country, from various shows (Motorcycle Rallies, Car rallies, RV Rallies) meeting the neatest people and promoting our products ad services. When we first started Hawgwash, LLC, we had a pretty basic business plan and a limited product offering. We were the Waterless Cleaning people. We would detail cars, trucks, motorcycles, boats and RV. Basically any vehicle you had, if it had decent paint on it, we would clean it for you.


As the economy started changing, we started adjusting our marketing strategy and expanding our product line. Our initial products went from the waterless cleaning items, to towels and additional cleaning supplies. At the suggestion of a good vendor friend of ours, we began carrying other items not specifically related to waterless cleaning techonolgy. This way, if we were in an area where they could care less about keeping the paint of their vehicle clean, we had other product offerings to entice customers.


We continued experimenting with other product offerings and removed products that did not produce solid results. As time goes on, we will continue to expand our products and services, always on the lookout to provide the best of the best for our customers. This philosophy has served us well over the years and we will continue to review products and services to be sure we are providing the best value for our customers


Because of our constant search, we have changed our goal of Hawgwash, LLC. We are not just the waterless people anymore, but are now Second Income Specialists. We offer several small business opportunities for people looking for a second or additional income stream. We have business offerings in the legal, nutritional and waterless technology fields. We are always open for questions and are more than willing to help guide people to find an opportunity that best suits their needs, even if it is an opportunity that we do not work with.

If you are interested in what we have to offer, or have questions, please check out our website at www.hawgwash.net or feel free to e-mail us. We welcome your comments and suggestions. As you can see, after almost 5 years, I am still very proud of this business of ours, Hawgwash, LLC. I consider it my greatest achievement to date.


Until tomorrow...

Need for Small Business Motivation

How do you stay motivated in your small business when it feels like you are continually struggling? You start struggling with the tough questions: is now the right time for my business; do I have the right product and service mix for the current customer base and lastly, should I call it quits? These same questions have most likely plagued all small business owners at some point (or at many points) of their business career. There is a very strong need for small business motivation. It is very tough right now to remain successful and when times get tough, it is hard to remain motivated to keep your small business going.

We have discussed in other articles the need to keep an eye on your competition to see what they are doing correctly or incorrectly. Then you strive to fill the gaps that your competition cannot fill. We have also discussed keeping your products and services appropriate for your customer base, changing or adjusting products and services as your client tastes change. What we didn't review lately is how to remain motivated while you are working to keep your small business profitable and hopefully growing.

One way to know you are going in the right direction with your business is to regularly measure your progress against your established milestones. These metrics should have been included in your business plan, but if you did not include any measurements for growth, now would be a good time to get those benchmarks developed. By measuring your existing business metrics against what you believe should be, you are able to verify either improvement or problems. Either way, you will be motivated, if you are doing better than expected, you will be motivated to continue the momentum. If you are not doing as well as expected, then you are more motivated to get your small business back on the path to financial success. Either way, instead of worrying about where your business might be, you have measured your current business standings and know for certain where you should be taking your business going forward.

Another way to stay motivated with your small business is to talk to others about what you are doing and what you plan on doing in the near future with your business. Because you have taken your ideas out into the light (talking to people) you are now making yourself more accountable for your plans, others will begin asking how you are progressing. Knowing that you have others watching with interest your success will help keep you motivated and continue on with the plans you had discussed. Sometimes we come up with so many plans, we get overwhelmed and end up not implementing any plans. By discussing these new ideas with close friends or other business associates, you can manage and prioritize the ideas (some for implementation now, others for implementation down the road) and then remain motivated to keep your new ideas moving into your business.

Lastly, remember that difficulty is part of being in business. If you look at almost anyone who has started and run a small business, most of the time the business did not grow without difficulties. You need to understand and appreciate that you will be working under pressure (a lot with a new business start-up). Some tasks will be much more difficult than other tasks, and all tasks will most likely be more difficult than you first thought they would be. The difficulty of the task should not stop you from performing the task, just keep in mind it will most likely be challenging. If it was easy to start and continue to run a small business, everyone and their brother would be in a small business. The motivation here is knowing that everyone who has started a small business has experienced difficulties. The bigger motivation is knowing that once you have passed that difficult stage, you can look back and appreciate where you came from and enjoy where you currently are. Remember, odds are that if the task is difficult, the rewards will be higher, and the personal satisfaction will be greater once you have completed the task.

Hopefully these points will help you to remain motivated while you are building your small business. The current economic times are very tough, many businesses are shutting their doors, now is the time to really focus on keeping your business successful because once the economy starts on it's upswing (and yes, it will come up again) you will be riding the front of that wave and wonder why you questioned your business.

If you are looking for a second (or third, or fourth...) income along the lines of a home based business, we may have something that would interest you (www.hawgwash.net). We offer business opportunities in StemTech (adult stem cell nutritionals), Pre-Paid Legal, Waterless cleaning technology and in Mona Vie nutritional drinks. These business opportunities all have a great pay plan and are very reliable business opportunities. Please feel free to contact us with any questions regarding these or any other business opportunity you are considering.

Until tomorrow...

Are you Healthy?

Today we are going to change the topic a bit. We have talked much about what is going on, where we have been in the last 2 months, and our pet's health. But beyond all of those items, tie biggest question that you need to ask yourself is, Are you Healthy?

If you are not healthy, you cannot do a fraction of the things you want to do. Not only that, but your attitude may also reflect your declining health. If you are not healthy, you will find yourself doing less and less and before you know it, you are letting things fall apart around you. The funny thing is, if you are not healthy, you may not even notice that you are letting little things slip at first. Sometimes you may look at a task that you would have in the past taken for granted, and decided that the task was too much for you to handle now. If that starts happening, you need to ask, are you healthy?

"A life filled with quality in work, thoughts, companions and activities can strengthen your natural immunity to germs, viruses and negative hereditary influences". - Stephen Blauer

You may have noticed that when you don't feel great, not sick, but just tired, that little tasks seem insurmountable. Most likely those tasks seem so difficult because your body is trying to heal itself and doesn't want to be distracted being forced to do other things. In this busy world we are currently in, and especially in this extremely stressful job market, it is very easy to forget to listen to your body and determine if you are healthy. Many people get really stressed about their financial situation (actually, I don't know ANYBODY who doesn't get stressed about that..) I realize that the term "healthy" is a relative term, but you know when you are not performing at your best, or when you are feeling run-down. It is important to at least listen to your body and be aware that something may not be good. As you become less healthy, you may also tend to make bad business desisions. It is critical to remain healthy so that you can make the best decisions possible when decisions are needed.

High stress levels can constrict circulation and can negatively affect the organs of the body. If you notice that you are under a lot of stress, you may want to consider some methods of relieving some of that stress [and no, shooting the object of your stress is NOT an option ;-)]. Some people believe that meditation is a good tool to promote relaxation and manage stress, others believe physical exercises can do the same. I know when I am really stressed, meditation is the last thing I need to do, I need the release of physical energy before I can even consider meditation. After a good work-out (which could simply just be a brisk walk outside for 30 minutes) I am much more inclined to effectively meditate, but that is me. Everyone has a different way of dealing with stress, and relieving it.

Physical activity does release endorphins, which do make you feel better. So, if you can do physical activity for a brief time, you may feel better and then be able to get a better perspective of how to handle the stressors of your life. Stress is a part of life, the key is to find ways to manage it so it doesn't manage you. If you continue to remain stressed, it is like having your body in overdrive for extended periods of time. That will wear your body down and you will start finding that you are not as healthy as you used to be.

Little things will wear you out, little annoyances will seem huge, you may find that you catch colds easier, or your allergies bug you more. If you start seeing some of these warning signs, take a step back and ask yourself, "Are you healthy?"

We at Hawgwash, LLC may have some nutritional items that could help reduce the effects of stress on your body, but you will need to not just rely on nutritional products to keep you healthy. Nutritionals are good in addition to a healthy lifestyle, but do not expect the nutritional products to "fix" all that is unhealthy in you. A sound nutrition and exercises plan are among the most important factors in reducing your stress levels. If you are interested in working towards improved health, please check out our website, we carry two types of nutritional products that may work well with your lifestyle. One is Stem Cell Nutritionals by STEMTech, which help support your natural stem cell physiology. The other nutritional product is a variety of juice blends by MonaVie.

If you have questions regarding either of these nutritional lines, please feel free to contact us at hawgwash1@yahoo.com. We would love to hear from you and we will strive to answer your questions quickly and accurately.

Until tomorrow...

What are Hemp Hearts?

Tonight was supposed to be the weekly update on my weight. Today started very early and I just plain forgot to get on the scale. There were a lot of things going through my mind, one of which was that we have only 14 more days before we hit the road for Run for the Wall. There is an amazing amount of work that needs to be completed before leaving for this 10-day odyssey across this wonderful country of ours.

Since I am not going to talk about my weight management today, I was struggling about what to enlighten everyone about. I struggled until the U.S. Postal Service placed a 5 pound box at my door this afternoon. At first I thought it was one of my regular product deliveries, except for the fact the box was oblong, not square, and it had "FRAGILE" and "THIS SIDE UP" plastered all over it. Now my interest was piqued. Even more interesting is that I had to sign for the box, which I never have to do on the regular product deliveries.

When I read the outside label, I noticed that this box came from Alberta (Canada, not New York...). Now, I was really wondering, what in the world was sent. Eagerly I took the box inside and carefully opened it. To my surprise, I found many small sample packages of "Hemp Hearts". I had forgotten that a few weeks ago, another nutritional company contacted me asking if I would consider carrying their line of nutritional products and they were going to send me some samples. Obviously I didn't think too much about the call, I get those types of calls fairly frequently, but this time, the company representative meant what they said.

What was sent were several samples of Hemp Hearts, two one-pound containers of Hemp Hearts (so we knew what the retail product packaging was like) and two samples of their "More than a Square Meal Bars". It is very rare for me to have a company so proud of their product that they would ship a full compliment of their products to sample. That in itself has me excited about this new opportunity. The other part is all that I have read about what Hemp Harts are and what they can do for your health.

Very briefly, Hemp Hearts look a little like Wheat Germ and are intended to be sprinkled over your food. The company highly recommends that you consume approximately 5 tablespoons of Hemp Hearts over yogurt and fruit (or vegetables) early in the morning. Hemp Hearts are shelled hemp seeds, but have 0.0% THC in them (so those of you thinking I am getting into something CRAZY...just forget it...). They are high in proteins, essential fats, natural vitamins. They are more balanced and digestible than any soy product, contain all the essential and Omega fats required for human health and contain more required amino acids (Proteins) than milk, meat or eggs.

There is a lot more about these Hemp Hearts than I have the time to cover tonight, I will be personally consuming the products starting first thing tomorrow morning and will continue to keep you posted on this new product that we may just add to our nutritional product line. Tomorrow I will cover more about what the company states Hemp Hearts can do for your health, and I will be your personal guinea pig to test the product on. If this is as good as the company professes, it will be on our website within the next few days...

Stay tuned. Until tomorrow...