Archive for Business Basics
How to keep up with your business reading
Posted by: | CommentsAny business person worth his or her salt is a voracious reader. Books are an inexpensive way to learn new skills, get new ideas, and stay on top of your industry without leaving the office. No need to dress up, drive across town (or across country) to attend an expensive workshop. And if you missed something or didn’t understand it, you can turn back a page and reread it.
And I love books. Forget shoes, for me there’s nothing better than wandering the isles of a good bookstore. It might even rival a computer store for pure fun factor.
There’s nothing more exciting than having $100 to spend on books. Even a spare $20 gets me going. You can’t get anything really exciting at the computer store for 20 bucks.
But there’s a downside to my love of books. There’s so much to do and so much to learn. I just can’t keep up.
The photo attached to this article is my current stack of non-fiction reading. Each of these books is on the go. Only two are library books. The rest I picked up somewhere along the way. And yes, I understand the irony of having Getting Things Done be one of the books I haven’t quite managed to finish.
These are all great books. I’m enjoying the read but I’m not getting through them. One of the library books has already been renewed once. I just spend so much time reading – emails, RSS feeds, websites, my own work – that I just can’t bring myself to read non-fiction for long periods of time.
Hence the stack of on-the-go books.
However, I have discovered a secret to getting through books faster. Read More→
Help! I’m locked out of my blog!
Posted by: | CommentsLast week I had a heart-stopping moment. It started out as a normal day. I was logging into the admin section of the blog and was notified that my password was incorrect. Since I have my password saved on my desktop machine, rather than typing it in manually, I was somewhat puzzled but I re-typed the password.
Still no go.
So I calmly clicked the “forgot my password” link. WordPress sent me an email with a link to change my password. I went to my inbox and clicked the link. I was then told I’d get a second email with my new, temporary password.
I waited.
And waited.
No new password.
So I tried again. Got the email with the link to change my password, but never received a new password.
Panic started to set in.
Then I remembered I’d had a friend look at the back-end of my blog when I’d had a problem with something. Problem solved! I asked if he remembered the password I gave him.
No.
Scrolled through our Skype chats to see if it was recorded there.
No dice.
My friend suggested Read More→
Boomers Are One Third More Likely to Start a Business
Posted by: | CommentsThanks to my colleague Jeff Apton, I recently discovered the report The Coming Entrepreneurship Boom from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. This study states that in the United States an entrepreneurial boom is looming; a boom created by baby boomers.
Apparently, Americans aged 55 to 64 are more likely to become entrepreneurs than those aged 20 to 34. For many people this statistic is counter-intuitive. Younger people are more likely to take risks, right?
Wrong! According to this particular study, “In every single year from 1996 to 2007, Americans between the ages of 55 and 64 had a higher rate of entrepreneurial activity than those aged 20-34.”
How much higher? One third.
But that’s not all. The study also notes that “a longitudinal survey of nearly 5,000 companies that began in 2004, two-thirds of firm founders are between the ages of 35 and 54.”
What are the causes of this baby boomer boom? The study suggests Read More→
What’s your relationship with money?
Posted by: | CommentsIf you are in business you must focus on making a profit. Without profit, without earning descent money, you don’t have a business, you have a hobby.
Putting your focus on profit doesn’t make you a Ferengi. It is a necessary part of the business world. When you have a j-o-b, someone else is responsible for marketing, office space, administration and designing a business plan. You show up, do your job and get paid for your time.
But when you own your own business, even if you have employees, you are ultimately responsible for every part of your business. That’s why you charge a higher hourly rate than you would if you worked for someone else. Very few entrepreneurs bill 40 hours per week.
But in spite of this, many entrepreneurs have an uneasy relationship with money. And it is a relationship, as I was reminded by Iyabo Asani in a teleseminar I attended last night. In this teleseminar she said that money represents an exchange of energy. You provide a services (expend energy) and the customer gives you money in exchange.
However, if you have a problem relationship with money, it spills over into other parts of your business life. If you always feel there is never enough money, then it is often because you lack value in yourself. This can manifest itself in a lack of clients or in attracting clients who can’t or won’t pay what you’re worth.
What Iyabo said made a lot of sense to me. I know in my own life, my relationship with money hasn’t always run smooth. I don’t come from an entrepreneurial background so making money isn’t always seen as a good thing. This makes for some interesting thought processes when you’re in business, let me tell you.
However, when I focus on money, when I focus on cleaning up my relationship with money, things improve.
How? Read More→
My Secret Get-Through-the-Day Strategy
Posted by: | CommentsI have a confession to make. Even though I’m an adult – a middle-aged one at that – and I’m not currently parenting a breastfeeding baby, I nap. There, I’ve said it. I’m a napper.
Oh, it’s not like I nap every day. If you call me at 2 p.m. and I don’t answer, it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m in snoozville. It’s much more likely that I’m taking a late lunch or I can’t locate the cordless phone.
But the truth is, at least a few times a month, I will lay down after lunch and sleep.
How did this happen? It’s not like I’ve always been a napper. I can even remember in kindergarten (yes, waaaaaaaaay back then) laying on the floor and wishing “nap time” would hurry up and finish so I could get on with things.
So if at the ripe old age of five I was able to make it through the afternoon, why can’t I now?
There’s a couple of things at play. First, it is not at all uncommon for me to be sitting at my computer by 4 a.m. In fact, I prefer days when I get up that early. Think of it: I can have three and a half hours of work done before I even wake my son up for school. By noon, I’ve put in a full day. If I want to take the afternoon off and watch a movie, read a trashy novel, or even take a nap, I can easily do it without feeling guilty.
And if I work until my son gets home at 3:30 I can really get a lot accomplished.
Now it’s not as if I set my alarm for 4 a.m. and force myself out of bed. Far from it. My alarm is usually set for 6. However, very frequently I wake up a 4 a.m. And it’s not one of those groggy, peer at the clock, get up, stumble to the bathroom and then decide whether or not to go back to sleep. Most days when I wake up at 4 I’m wide awake. If I resist and try to stay in bed, sleep won’t come. Over time, I’ve learned when I wake up at 4, I might as well get up.
However, the 4 a.m. mornings are not usually the days I nap. Read More→
