You have to sell yourself….

Artists, doctors, social workers, IT professionals, accountants, medical professionals, designers, business people…..Everyone needs to sell themself in some way or another. You could have the best thing, the best skills, the best way to help people – but you need to spread the word and get people to listen, to try it…..no matter what role you have in life, you need to sell yourself.

With that said, here is a good article that sums it up — especially what selling is and isn’t….see the bold bullets below…

—

What To Do If You Hate “Selling Yourself”

By Jason Leister

I really never had what it takes to succeed inside a corporation of any size. Just like when I was working as a church musician, I had two fundamental flaws:

1. I couldn’t help speaking my mind.
2. I got really angry at jerks in positions of power.

The worst part was, I’d sometimes do both of those things at the very same time.

So it’s no surprise that I’m not navigating the political maze of some big company somewhere. I just wasn’t made to do that. Instead, I trudged off into the big bad world to work for myself. The majority of my experience is in and around the service businesses I started.

As a new business owner, I had a big obstacle to work through. The obstacle was the “artist” mentality I had brought with me from my former life as a musician. When you’re young and naive, you think that “how well you play” is the deciding factor for how your career is going to go.

This could not be further from the truth, of course. Let me explain…

Service professionals sometimes fall into the same trap. It’s easy to think the level of your expertise is the deciding factor in your success. Sadly, this isn’t how it works.

As Zig Ziglar says, “Nothing happens until someone sells something.”

And there’s the rub for the service professional. In order to build a successful business, you actually have to figure out how to sell yourself. Either you figure that out, or you go hungry.

For some reason, I grew up with a very bad view of salespeople. They were a kind of lower level human that manipulated other people in order to buy fancy cars and big houses.

Isn’t it odd that I ended up in a position where I either “sell” or my kids don’t eat? Kind of funny really. (But I’m used to it dear Universe…)

Why Car Salesmen Have It So Wrong

My first real attempt at “selling myself” was in the car business. I didn’t do very well because I had no idea what I was doing. Plus, I was surrounded by “successful” salespeople who only knew one way to sell.

The method was to spot the prey, chase it down, and hang on for dear life.

I’m hardly an “alpha-male,” so you can imagine how well that worked out for me. I should have seen the clues even back then. For some reason, the only cars I could sell were Corvettes to middle-aged affluent men.

You don’t sell those guys with brute force. You simply go along on the test drive (wear your seatbelt), allow them to talk, ask them questions, and watch them sell themselves.

No wonder people have such a hard time “selling themselves.” For many folks, the only type of selling they’ve ever seen is the brute force variety that makes your skin crawl.

I had no idea back then that there was a completely different type of “selling.” It was one where the customer actually walked away happy instead of leaving beaten and bruised from battle.

This other type of selling was something I could get behind because, to the customer or client, it didn’t even feel like selling.

How to Dissolve Your Internal Blocks About “Selling Yourself”

Let me make a suggestion:

If you have internal blocks about “selling,” then being in a service business focused on selling yourself is going to come with some serious struggle.

You’ll kind of be fighting yourself… forever. And don’t think your clients can’t feel that. It’s not at the level of thought, of course, it’s deeper. But they can feel even you aren’t “all in” about the “product” (you) they are looking to buy. And they will respond accordingly.

As I got a little bit wiser, I realized that if I was going to do this, I had to redefine what exactly “selling” meant.

When I started, it was clear to me that selling meant imposing my will on another. That’s what it looked like, anyway. And I think a lot of people probably do view it that way.

These days, I’ve completely flipped my thinking about selling around. A total 180 degree turn.

• Selling is not pushing a product you want to sell down someone’s throat.
• Selling is setting up a beautiful table full of food and inviting starving guests to take a seat.
• Selling is connecting a human being’s pain with something that can relieve that pain.
• Selling is being committed to helping make someone’s life better tomorrow than it is today.

Do you realize what’s missing in all of these new scenarios? What’s missing is any focus on you!

And that’s how you remove your internal blocks about selling yourself. You take the focus off of you, you take the focus off what you want to achieve, and you truly show up and serve someone. Yes, service is not limited to just clients, you can do it all along the way… even with prospects that never become clients.

Try that a few times and see what happens. What happens when you “need nothing” and you walk around broadcasting that to your clients?

Well, you tend to get everything… and more.

–

Jason Leister is a direct response copywriter, internet entrepreneur and editor of the daily e-letter, The Client Letter, where he empowers independent professionals who work with clients. He has seven kids and lives and works in the mountains of Arizona

Quick thoughts on achievement

Like many other times, I feel compelled to pass along a good post by someone….

———————————–

Four things you must master this week to advance more quickly:

1. Your Desire. If you are unclear about what you want from the world this week, the world will simply take from you what it desires – your time, energy, focus, and goals will be ‘their’ goals versus your goals. It is never to late to sit down with a pen and paper and write your own manifesto for what you desire of life personally and professionally. Remember: No clarity, no change. No goals, no growth.

2. Your Direction. Now that you know what you want, what is Step 1-5 in getting there? What knowledge, skills, abilities, resources, and support must you start acquiring in order to make your dreams come to fruition in concrete and accelerated ways?

3. Your Discipline. What habits and habits will you form and stick to EVERY day and EVERY week in order to move yourself forward with real fire and momentum.

4. Your Distractions. What will you STOP paying attention to? Where will you no longer give your time and energy? How will you minimize distractions and stay on purpose? The secret to success: Focus. Focus. Focus.

Now go kick some butt this week my friends,

Brendon Burchard – Live. Love. Matter.

Full video training and transcripts on this topic on the blog:http://tmblr.co/ZTb1Dv1NBfF3h

Courage to Take that First Step

A good article from Craig Ballantyne and Early to Rise… Action Takers Rule the World As Mark Ford correctly points out in his book, “The Reluctant Entrepreneur”, most business owners do not bet the farm. They take little bets. Little bets start with having the courage to take the first step. Today, Ryan Murdock shows you how. I did it, he did it, and you can do it too.Craig Ballantyne”If you’re always thinking about possibility, you’ll find it. You’ll always be creating your future.” – Sir Ken Robinson How to Find the Courage to Take that First Step by Ryan Murdock It was 9:30am on a Wednesday. And I was sitting in a bathroom stall in an office building in Ottawa writing Communist slogans on the toilet paper. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t a Communist by any possible stretch of the imagination. I was doing this in an effort to stay sane. Working as a temp in a government office where not a single person bothered to learn my name was starting to get me down, and drastic measures were called for. And so each morning on my break I stuck a felt tipped marker in my back pocket and went to the toilet. I rolled down the paper and wrote things like “Power to the People!” or “The Party is Always Right”. And then I rolled it back up again. I spent the rest of my mornings unfastening endless piles of research grant applications and putting them into a different order, because the applicants hadn’t followed the directions. I was grateful for the money, of course. But it was mind numbingly boring. Whenever I began to feel my soul draining out of me, I pictured some guy in the bathroom peeling off a strip of toilet paper and finding one of those slogans. His first reaction was likely to be, “What the….?” quickly followed by, “Why…?” And then hopefully he’d start laughing like he hadn’t laughed in years. I wanted to bring a little sunshine into that otherwise grey world. I hated that job. I hated every job I ever had. I woke up swearing every morning. I swore in the shower and I muttered profanity under my breath all the way to work. I felt useless because the work I was doing had no meaning. I wasn’t drawing on my talents. I wasn’t making the world a better place. And I felt trapped because the pay I earned was barely enough to live on, and I didn’t have any savings. I wanted to write, and I knew my words would add value to other people’s lives. But I couldn’t see a way to make enough money to survive at it. I finally reached a point where that didn’t matter anymore. I couldn’t imagine a more miserable life than the one I was already in. And so I vowed to make a living by doing what I loved — or starve to death trying. And I meant it in every fiber of my being. When the contract ended, I asked the temp agency to remove my name from their list. And that was the last actual “job” I ever had. Since then I’ve met an awful lot of people who feel trapped by the miserable circumstances of their lives. They’re completely unhappy. But when I ask them why they don’t change, they say they’re afraid to take the first step. Well I’ll let you in on a secret… You don’t need courage to take that first step. You just need to focus on two things: hate and desperation. You already know that I hated my old job so much that even the worst failure was better than going back to that office. But where does “desperation” come in? Fast forward to a couple years later. I was earning a little money from my writing, but we were still living on my wife’s salary as a translator in the automotive industry. Payment for freelance work was irregular at best, and I needed money to pay some bills. Badly. By the middle of next week. And I had no idea how I was going to get it. I had no one to borrow from. I didn’t have a job. And I wasn’t expecting checks from any magazine publishers either — not that you can ever count on “Check’s in the mail” from them! What did I do? I drew on everything I learned in my 20+ years of martial arts training. It was the only other thing I could consider myself a legitimate “expert” in. I drove over to Future Shop and bought a mini-DV video camera and some editing software with my credit card. Then I sat down with a paper and pencil and wrote a list of every crazy push up variation I could think of. I got on the floor and made up a bunch of new ones too. I filmed it all as a 25-minute tutorial, named it Beyond Pushups, uploaded it to a website called E-Junkie, and linked it to my PayPal account. And then I posted a teaser and description of my program on a fitness forum where I was a certified coach, and I emailed the link to everyone I knew. I set the price at $10. My wife didn’t think I’d even be able to pay for the camera. She gave me a smug look and said, “And then what are you going to do?” I plugged my ears and went to bed. And when I woke up the next morning, I had $1,000 in my PayPal account. I paid off the camera and software immediately, and still made a nice little profit. I ended up filming several more of those downloadable tutorials in the following months. One on ab exercise variations, one on ankle strength, and one on mobility drills using a stick. My audience loved them. Each one sold better than the previous installment, and always for $10. People would write to me and say, “Why are you giving this away for so little? You could easily make it into a full DVD!” But I didn’t raise the price. I over delivered and built loyalty and trust with my audience instead. And six months later, I coauthored a larger online product with a friend. We called it Bodyweight Exercise Revolution and it made $10,000 in its first month. Fast forward again — this time by 3 or 4 years. That coauthored program evolved into a business partnership. Adam Steer and I created and sold many more online fitness programs through a site called BodyweightCoach.com. And today we’ve got a seven figure business called Shapeshifter Media, where we help other new authors publish their work in the online fitness niche. So yeah, that’s what I tell people when they ask me, “How do you get the courage to take that first step?” In my experience you need two things: 1) Hate: you have to hate where you are right now so much that staying the same is far worse than the discomfort it’ll take you to change. 2) Desperation: sometimes you have to back yourself into a corner so you’re forced to come up with creative solutions. I hated my job so much that staying there was worse than the risk of trying to live my dream and starving to death. And I needed that moment of desperation — having bills to pay but no money to pay them with — to free up my imagination so it could find a creative solution. But thankfully you don’t have to do anything dumb to get that desperation. There’s no need to go into massive debt, or poke a lion with a stick. It can be something as simple as setting a really tight deadline. Or buying a one-way ticket to a place you’re scared to travel. Try it today. Rig the game in your favor and commit to your goal in public. You’ll be amazed at the creative solutions you come up with. And don’t sweat it too much if you hate your current circumstances with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. I hated mine too. Transform that energy into positive momentum instead. Tell us what first step you are ready to take. Rate today’s article

[Ed. Note: Ryan Murdock is the author of Personal Freedom: A Guide to Creating the Life of Your Dreams. When not helping people find their own brand of personal freedom, Ryan travels the world’s marginal places as Editor-at-Large (Europe) for Outpost magazine. He recently released his first travel book, called Vagabond Dreams: Road Wisdom from Central America

Make THE decision in the right state of mind

Here is a great video that can help anyone with a tough decision, a tough situation, facing a situation or challenge that brings fear.

We all have to go outside a comfort level, we need to handle things without fear.

Our story can empower us or limit us.

http://getrmt.com/v1.php

Feel Important !

When you’re with a group of people, how do you want to feel?
Think about it….whether it is at work or socially…..

….in most cases people want to feel important (among other things)!

When someone in your past has treated you as an important person, or someone listens to you and your thoughts, or you’re a client and they treat you like a VIP – you feel important and that feels good.

Maybe you have a friend, a teacher, a mentor – someone that truly thinks you are important and they treat you that way.

You feel pretty good right?

You feel like you’re special, like you can do things and you have more confidence.

Do you make or let others feel important?

I know a gentleman, I don’t get a chance to see him much anymore, but he always made me feel special. He listened to me and I could tell he valued what I said.

I know that he was much smarter than I was and I probably didn’t have much new to say or much to add to his knowledge on things, but he never acted that way.

I had the chance to see him out in public somewhere – a group of us had to go to the supermarket to buy food for an activity.

It was amazing, he asked a clerk where something was and he made that clerk feel special! The guy left smiling and had a spring in his step!

Later at the cashier, he made her feel special, too! She smiled to herself and looked happy doing her job.

I wish I noticed more what he said – it wasn’t much….it was a few passing words, a smile, a question or two perhaps – but the ‘special’ part was no more than 2 minutes – probably 1 minute.

Some people are born with the gift, like he was, but we all can develop it.

Think of ways that you can make others feel special each day.

At work – your boss, co-workers, your clients, your support team, etc.

At home – your spouse, your children, neighbors

In life – friends, mentors, protégés, community members

It doesn’t matter what your job or career is – whether you’re in sales, teaching, medicine, art – making others feel important will help you and help them – and help you accomplish your mission – whatever that is.

Here’s a set of good Questions of Power:

1. How can I make others feel important each day?
2. What things can I say or to make others feel important?
3. What makes me feel important?
4. Why do I feel important?

Everyone  has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, ‘Make me feel important.’  Never forget this message when working with people. – Mary Kay  Ash
Thanks!
www.onewebstrategy.com

The top 10 things people claim to have taken for granted

A single item today – this from Michael Dooley of http://www.tut.com aka The Universe

The top 10 things people claim to have taken for granted, when they were alive:

10. How important they were to so many.
9. How easy life was when they stopped struggling.
8. That all of their prayers and thoughts were heard.
7. That there really were no coincidences.
6. How far ripples of their kindness actually spread.
5. What really was important: happiness, friends, love.
4. That any and all of their dreams could have come true.
3. How good looking and fun they always were.
2. How much guidance they received, whenever they asked for help.
1. That God was alive in everything, including themselves.

As expressed by the recently departed, fresh after their life-review on the big, BIG screen.

Ah-so,
The Universe

RE: Ideas to better engage your clients!

RE: Ideas to better engage your clients!

Hello!  I am constantly reading good books and trying to stay up on the latest trends, etc.

Recently I came across something and I’m sharing it with several area firms and I wanted to include you in on it too.

First, it is not my main line of business, although I do assist clients in many ways, I do not proclaim to be a retail expert of any kind. Maybe I can help you in some ways, we can discuss. Otherwise, this is just a FYI.

Regardless, here is a quick summary of 3 that may lead to another idea or two…

Burberry in London – The main Burberry store in London is a cutting edge store that uses existing technology to improve client interaction. Maybe you can learn from some of their strategies.

Outside the store, there are cameras that use facial recognition software so that they can recognize clients and relay information to the retail associates inside – they can greet them when they walk in! This technology is currently not being used outside because clarification is needed on privacy law in the public domain.

Inside the store, this technology is useable. First, the walls are ‘tiled’ with very large TV flat screen TVs that are located all around the store. Either by that method or others, when someone enters, the technology identifies the client and accesses the client’s cumulative purchases from Burberry. It sends sales clerks suggestions for future purchases and past purchases. It automatically then creates a custom presentation on the walls of the store showing these items – then it pulls items from an algorithm about future suggested purchases. When there are multiple clients in the store, there is a slideshow of sorts that presents the cumulative history and possible future purchases for all of the clients.

When a client moves or picks an item off the rack/shelf, it triggers the RFD in the item which then triggers a custom presentation on the nearest wall monitor(s) – example, you pick up a raincoat off the rack – on the wall monitors it shows different models wearing the raincoat, shows craftsmen making the raincoat, and other accessories that often go with the raincoat – almost immediately.

TESCO – a grocery corporation in South Korea has been on the cutting edge for sometime. The subway system there is integral to many, many city residents. Therefore the company got permission and paid to put up photos of many of its most popular grocery items on the walls of the subway. I saw photos and it literally covered most of one area from top to bottom. People can stroll along the wall, scan a code with their phone and order it by phone. In some cases the items are simply “pulled” for later pick up at the store, so all are in a basket conveniently ready to go in minutes. In other cases, Tesco is experimenting with delivery to certain local spots in the city. For instance they may delivery to a neighborhood store, similar to a UPS or FedEx/Kinkos location and they text or notify the customer when it is going to be there so they can pickup. This works well in South Korea with its dense and centralized city dwellings. There is a quick video about this on http://youtu.be/fGaVFRzTTP4

Mercedes: They are doing this in Australia to a large degree…Mercedes Dealers will offer varied services for clients while going to and from the airport, traveling for pleasure or business. Often the Mercedes dealer has a kiosk at a major airport. The client can either get a ride to the airport or in other cases, they can arrive at the airport and after checking in for their flight, they can go to the kiosk and check in ….. While they are away, their car is serviced/repaired and cleaned/washed. Clients can also leave clothes in the car to be dry-cleaned. The clients are often able to ride a golf-cart from the Mercedes kiosk to their gates (inside the airport).

After the client arrives/returns they are likewise given assistance and attention. In the case of the dealership that operates from parking at/near the airport: One dealer at least often will park the client’s car next to a new demo of a superior model (if the client has a C-Class, they park a newer E-Class next to it). The client is invited to leave their car and take the nicer, newer demo home for a period of time.

Figures vary but sales are up!

Interesting stuff. I hope it helps you!

Suggested reading: FLIP! By Peter Sheahan / Abundance by Peter Diamandis / Switch by the Heath Bros. /  Freakonomics 1 and 2

.

.

.

🙂

My Story, Chapter 5

Continued….

…Fast forward a few years…..After our firm lost 90% of our income from the one factory going direct nationwide, I struggled a few years finding what the next step was and despite the fact that I was working full time I didn’t take any salary the first year after we lost the big chunk of income. I was working and acting on faith. I had saved and invested for the past few years and I’m glad that I did because I was able to live off that while I rebuilt the business. My father had retired and I was running the business full time.

I had to search and find companies and products that I could represent and sell that would start to replace that income. It was a scary and exciting time. It was easier perhaps, because I had few responsibilities. There were some ups and downs in the business and in the economy but life was good for a single guy.

I had a great group of friends from college with which I still hung out. We called ourselves the Dudes. Now, after college, life and work sometimes got in the way. However, we still found time for roadtrips, parties, and other fun things. I have lots of good memories of laughs, practical jokes, talking, hanging out, traveling.

So one summer, our next fun thing was the Jimmy Buffett concert. I didn’t even like Jimmy Buffett but it was a chance to hang out with my friends and to have some fun in the sun……in a parking lot somewhere outside of Pittsburgh. So we packed into my white mini-van and drove. We sat in the parking lot and tail-gated. Frankly I don’t think that I even went in to watch the concert……

So we were partying, having fun…. Just as you do when you tailgate, we were walking around, mingling, and others were coming around to our spot. There I saw Jill again. (Jill was a friend from college who was always nice to talk with … I knew some of the people she dated and she knew some of the people I dated during college)..For the past 2 years, Jill was away at graduate school in North Carolina. Now back in town, she was with her sisters at the concert.

The concert came and went. A few weeks later my buddy from Maryland asked the Dudes to a hotel in Pennsylvania while they were in town for a wedding. For whatever reason, I faxed Jill to let her know we were going there and she was welcome to meet us. (before texting and email, faxing was an easy way to communicate-AOL was still in the early stages) At that point I still thought of Jill as a friend and I wanted to include her with my other close friends.

Jill came and we all had a good time. The next day everyone went their separate ways. Jill and I decided to go have lunch at Wendy’s. I don’t know what was in the Frosty that day but we laughed and had a good time. I made dumb jokes and she laughed. Something had clicked from the evening before. Somewhere in there we decided that we were fond of each and we began to date.

It was a different feeling, it was an attraction, sure, but it was also a head and heart sort of thing. I recall saying to myself, “She’s pretty, smart, funny. We’re good friends, I respect her, I have a great time with her, we can talk about things, we have great families.” I hadn’t seen it before that moment but we were a great fit. We liked spending time with each other and trusted one another. We could talk about anything. There were feelings there. From what started as an immature relationship as friends in college grew to that of young adults taking on life together.

I never looked back after that point. In my younger years I had been fickle and immature with some relationships. But when I thought about dating Jill, I thought, “Yes, this works, this makes sense, this feels right.” The relationship hit all cylinders; my mind, heart and body. I no longer considered dating others and no longer became distracted.

I continued to work in the business and tried to find the right fit for a company to represent. I found another company with a great product but it turned out the owner was taking all the profits and buying boats, etc. and didn’t bother to pay the bills. It’s tough for a manufacturing company to run when you don’t pay for the machinery. That company closed and I again had to start over. I found another company with really good people but their product line was limited and they started having quality issues. Soon because of customer feedback and quality issues, I split with them. It all started to work away at my credibility, since I was switching product lines.

I learned a lot about people, perserverance and life during that time. Many people stuck with me because of my dad, some because of me, some because of the product and / or service. Others took off in a heartbeat after years of working together and after giving them lots of free consulting and help.

I confess that I took some of these things personally, and my ego was bigger then, so it was tough. Plus I suddenly was earning much less despite working long hours, traveling many miles, and driving a white minivan. (A mini-van wasn’t great for a single guy in his mid-twenties!)

Cool, neat, little things happened to us when we were together….for instance one time we got bumped from a flight while we were flying to Florida. We got free first class tickets to anywhere in the continental U.S. So we picked the farthest point that sounded great – San Diego. We traveled to San Diego and experienced lots of great things – with trips to L.A. and Mexico. We again had cool experiences together there. San Diego grew on us.

Jill and I dated for a while but we didn’t want to wait too long to be married. We also didn’t really want all the big ‘fuss’ for our wedding. You see, the year we decided to get married, there were 15 other weddings…..we were invited to all 15. Jill and I were in about 7 of them, including her two sisters. It was crazy! Just think, we spent at least $50 (usually more) for a wedding, plus hotel and travel. That was an expensive year! Most of those weddings were crammed into September-December.

At first we were going to elope to the Outer Banks and come home married. But we decided not to do so, our families might have had hurt feelings, etc. So we decided to have a much smaller and elegant wedding. We wanted to pay for it all ourselves. I got a second job selling alarm systems. One large project paid for some of the reception, another paid for most of the honeymoon. Jill worked a second job and saved money for the wedding and other things. Our parents still wanted to help, so my parents helped by adding and upgrading the food. Jill’s parents helped with the wedding dress and photography.

Still, it felt good to pay for most of it ourselves. I was self-employed and I had decided to start attending the evening MBA program at Pitt. I enjoyed it but the classes after work were a bit tough, as were the payments. I did take out a loan for some of it and I tried to pay for some as I went.

After about a year, my new wife and I saved some money, used a small gift from my parents, and built a small Cape Cod. It was nice and simple. The upstairs and basement were left unfinished to save on dough. We were happy.

The thing about all of it was this- we were tight financially for some time. I actually had to ‘lean’ on my wife for 1-2 years as I rebuild the business, she often made more during the volatile time for me. Then I kept growing it.. She believed in me and I in her. Jill and her sisters were running a large child care center that eventually would have 80+kids.

(At this point I began to think about something that I’d see observe and feel for the rest of my life – it seemed that I was reaching out for a job, an opportunity, something that I was definitely capable of doing well – but I was pushed back. I think in some way I was being pushed or pulled back to where I was supposed to go. Maybe something inside of me or part of me was guiding me. Maybe it was God or something else. But so many times we all experience it – ‘that job would be great and I can do it ‘ then you apply and get smacked back royally. Maybe there’s a reason….almost like we’re being guided back onto the right path….)

I found some stability with my own business and really started to enjoy the MBA program. Many cool things were happening in our lives. Small things like the fact we got upgraded to a Penthouse suite with 3 bathrooms, a dining room with 10 chairs, full kitchen, den, living room, and skyline veranda in Toronto…..Big things like getting pregnant – we were expecting our first child!

Then I had a chance to move onto a totally different career. I got a job as an intelligence analyst. I felt like Jack Ryan from Tom Clancy’s series. I started working for the U.S. Department of Justice and I liked it for a while.

Leaving a cushy job – a good idea or bad idea?……..

My Story, Chapter 4

Continued…..

….so that fall I returned to college a new person….really I felt like a man for the first time ever. As I mentioned, people treated me differently. I had a new confidence and self-respect. I can tell you that my relationships, grades, and life were affected.

I went to the fitness center 4 or 5 times a week. I ate better. I worked in the office and carried a 90% load of schoolwork. My grades improved greatly. My professors noticed my change. I began to think differently.

My parents now went to Florida from January to April. They bought a small place there and had a great time – they deserved it. My dad played volleyball 4 or 5 days a week and softball once or twice a week. My mother and father rode there bikes around the park most of the day and they socialized. They looked and acted years younger.

Besides some basic challenges, the year went on well. My father had a minor set back the next year but recovered quickly. I continued to run the business mostly on my own, using my dad as a valuable consultant. I would bounce ideas and situations off of him and we’d work together. My father and I did travel together to some larger clients, some tradeshows and other business. I got to spend time with him as a boss, partner and for the first time friend. It was a great time and I am forever grateful for that time. As time went on, I began to inject more of my own ideas and personality into the business. I had much to learn.

The next year of college came and I continued to maintain the balance of work, school, and social life. I began to enjoy the bit of extra money that I started to gather. Life was good.

I began to really taste independence. When I say that, I mean it in a few ways….I tasted what it was like to earn money, to save money, and to invest it. I saw my money grow in my investments, so I understood the passive nature of investing.

By the nature of our business, we set up dealers, home centers, and distributors. They sold our products. We earned commission. That was pretty cool. We earned money whether we were golfing, driving, sleeping or whatever. Sure we had to offer support, service and coordinate deliveries….and yes set up new dealers, but it was cool when I understood that there was a recurring revenue of sorts happening there.

The other part of independence was that we were living one about 30 acres – about 10 acres of fields in front of the home and office, and the balance behind us in beautiful woods. There was a small hillside on the on side of the property so that we were in a nice little valley. Not far in the woods, we had a creek. You could sit in the office in mid-summer and open the windows to a great cool breeze. You could hear birds sing, hear the bubbling creek, and look out and see deer.

If you wanted to take a walk, go fishing, it was all possible. There was an independence so that we were not tied to a city building, hampered by a commute and traffic. We weren’t tied to one employer. We had the freedom of recurring income. The independence that all people experience when they first reach a certain level of income was there. Life was good.

Later in my life I got away from many of these things. I worked in the city and had a very long commute. I worked for controlling employers. I would spend years longing to get back to that independence – the feeling that I controlled my own life. I lost the recurring revenue and the almost passive nature of the income.  For many years, sometimes on purpose, sometimes because of circumstances around me, I lost independence. I can tell you this, it is much better, in so many ways, to be as independent as possible. I’ve had it and in some ways, I lost it.

—

As with any life event, I learned lessons. Among others, I learned the WORDS TO LIVE BY: Independence. Being free to act on your own, free to live where you want. I encourage you, define what independence means to you and what types of it are important to you.

—-

I really grew over a few years. I learned a lot. I took some risks. I made some mistakes. I had successes.

One of the companies was about 90% of our income. We were independent but when you looked at the finances of our business, we were very dependent on one company. It wasn’t by design but because that company had such a diverse nature of products and because of how the territory simply developed, we were tied to them.

One spring we got news that this company hired a new set of sales managers. We got the call that one was coming to our area and we had to set up some visits. We approached it with a great attitude but he was pretty tough to deal with. Even though he knew nothing of the industry, he came across as egotistical, typically interrupted people, and was not a pleasant guy to spend the guy with…..

….he came into town a few times that summer and he’d typically tick off clients wherever he visited. We’d ask for help solving problems but he never solved one of them. He often was late for appointments and was disrespectful to me and my father. Then one day he asked us to meet him somewhere far. So we got up at 5am, drove to see this guy and we got fired.

That year, that company let go of any and every representative like us across the country and they went with some in-house salaried people. (Within 12 months that company also let go that sales manager!) Things change. You must adapt!.

So we drove all the way home on that beautiful summer day. I could tell that my dad was very upset that suddenly the business had lost 90% of its cashflow and the legacy he wanted to leave was not going to be the same. We tried to enjoy the day and we discussed the exit strategy….we also began to think about what the next step would be………

….continued….

How to Start Your Own Business

I came across this on Early To Rise. Good stuff, good article. http://www.earlytorise.com/

“Profit is a reward for satisfying the desires of others. The more you satisfy those desires, the more you will profit.” – Harry Browne

---

How to Start Your Own Home Business

By Bob Bly

I’ve started small home business in my 20s as well as in my 50s. Were there any differences in the process based on my age alone? Yes, and if you’re an over-50 entrepreneur, it helps to keep them in mind.
To begin with, when I was younger, I had the boundless optimization that is bred by the naivety of youth. I hadn’t been through much hardship in my life, and so didn’t think anything bad could really happen to me, including the possibility of my business failing. Therefore I went boldly forward with few resources or contingencies in place.
At 50, I had, like many people, been through some very serious problems in my life, including my wife being diagnosed (mistakenly, it turned out) with terminal cancer. Therefore, I considered the pros and cons of my new business plan more carefully, and should things have turned sour, I would not have been badly hurt.
Even though I had only a few thousand dollars in my bank account when I was in my early 20s, I felt more able to take risks because I also had relatively few financial responsibilities: no family, no mortgage, and (living in Manhattan) no car payments. Plus, when you’re young, if your business tanks and you lose it all, you have plenty of time to make it back.
You’d think older entrepreneurs with their greater net worth would be more financially courageous, but the opposite is often true. If you’re 50, and your business bombs and draws down your retirement nest egg, you may not have time or earning power to make it back. Therefore, many 50+ entrepreneurs are afraid to take big financial risks.
Yet for many of the over-50 entrepreneurs who are willing to take financial risks, the money to start a business is there. If I wanted to launch a business with $100,000 start-up costs, I could do it without borrowing. Yet on the TV show Shark Tank, you see people giving away 10 to 50 percent of their entrepreneurial ventures to investors who in exchange pay them a sum in the high five or low six figures.
Younger entrepreneurs are often fueled by boundless – and some might say naïve – optimism. Optimism propels people to action, which is a good thing, but it can give them unrealistic expectations, which isn’t so good.
As an old dog entrepreneur, you have to learn new tricks, and it may take a lot of practice to break old habits. For instance, my children laugh that when I need a business phone number, I look in the Yellow Pages and not Google. When my youngest son saw that AARP sent me a free transistor radio as a premium, he laughed again: “No one listens to the radio on a radio,” he said.
One of the things I envy younger entrepreneurs is their seemingly infinite energy. Some of the more famous Internet marketers I know go at their online business 24/7. I work hard too, but once I hit 50, I saw that my own energy had limits.
Perhaps the biggest difference between younger and older entrepreneurs is this: in their quest to be rich, many young entrepreneurs will do any kind of business as long as they think it can make them quick and significant bucks.
When you are over 50, you are far less willing to do whatever it takes just for money. You want to do what you want to do, when you want to do it. You are reluctant to bow to the will of others just for the money. Your work has to bring you pleasure. You don’t like being told what to do.
So how do you choose a business opportunity that meshes well with your personality, interests, and desires?
Career coach Valerie Young has her clients write a short composition describing their ideal day. You can do the same to discover what your ideal day would look like.
Would you spend it sitting in the backyard alone with your laptop — or working shoulder to shoulder with a team? Do you want afternoons free for fishing and golf? Can you stick to a schedule or do you crave freedom and flexibility? Do you want to make crafts or spend the day with kids? Do you see yourself in an office or outdoors?
Then it’s a matter of finding a vocation that allows you to live, as closely as you can, your ideal day – every day of the year. To find that vocation, make a list of your interests, passions, aptitudes, and favorite activities. Are any of these things other people would pay you to do or make? Those are the realistic options, unless you are independently wealthy.
How wealthy you are determines the degree of freedom you have in choosing your new business, profession, or vocation. Take stock of your financial situation. How much money do you have? Is it enough to retire? If your business failed and you lost money, would you still have enough to retire? Can you do whatever you want? Or does the need for money trump the need for self-fulfillment?
The bottom line: as an after-50 entrepreneur, you want and deserve to have a business that lets you live the life you want to live. And with a little planning, it can all be yours

[Ed. Note. Bob Bly is a freelance copywriter, information marketer, and the author of 80 books including Start Your Own Home Business After 50 (Quill Driver Books, 2013).]

www.checkoutEN.com

.

.