I lost track of time

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Lets be honest, it has been a while since I wrote a blog post hasn’t it? – longer than the awkward silence following a spectacular joke fail but not quite long enough to forget that I am British and attempt comedy at least three times in ever sentence, so get ready I have a lot of pent up bad jokeishness to release on you.

If we were to measure the time I have been neglecting this blog in beard length, it might look a little something like this – I think you will agree, the visual helps. Ahh Jolie, theres a reason we are no longer together. NB – If you own the rights to this picture then please don’t sur me – theres a good man, or woman.

The UK is no more….

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For me anyway, don’t worry, it hasn’t been destroyed or anything. As a quick update, I am now living in the US, (mainly because the English accent works so well over here) and have slightly reduced the jet-setting lifestyle – for how long, we shall see – probably until my mistermeaners around the world catch up with me.

The Reason For This Post

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A couple of posts piqued my interest recently, mainly “A Day In The Life Of…” posts by Neil Patel and Henri Junttilla, both of whom are well worth following if you do not already.

I find it fascinating to delve briefly into the lives and habits of different people during an average day to see how they tick, and it also satisfies my dark voyeuristic nature. I’m kidding of course, I don’t find it fascinating.

And so like all creative individuals of raw, unbridled talent before me, I have straight up gone and stolen other peoples ideas and will now shamelessly claim them as my own. Here is my third “A Day In The Life Of…” posts to followup the previous “A Day In The Life Of A Traveling Entrepreneur“ and “3 Months In The Life Of A Travelling Entrepreneur”, both of which were surprisingly popular you dark, voyeuristic readers you.

Granted, this might get me into trouble as some of the people I mention will no doubt read this as it gets posted on my Facebook wall. If you are one of these people, so sue me, and if you happen to be Mark Zuckerburg (founder of Facebook for anyone living under a rock) and are reading this (unlikely) then “damn you, you geeky self made genius, Facebook is killing me”

24 Hours In My Life ( Zero Convictions)

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Here’s how my typical day looks at the moment. I pretty high on Red Bull right now so I may just throw in some outlandish lies into the mix, see if you can spot them.

I'm living here

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I'm Driving This

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10am: Wake up. Personally I believe it should be law that no one need rise before this time, anything beforehand is just unGodly.

10am-10.30: Protein Shake and breakfast while scanning “7 Life System“, check bank accounts, do Facebook (I only check this once a day – cue jaw drop but people, I choose life), check company profits for the last 24 hours, and watch a TED.com episode. I tried running early in the morning for a while, this lasted exactly one run and six near lorry collisions later to decided that any physical exercise before 12 is just suicidal.

10.30 – 12:00: Answer all emails, 15 minute Skype catchup with business partner, official business work and other such necessities. This is the only time I check email in a 24 hour period people, nothing is too important to wait 24 hours. The trick is to always either answer the mail or deleted it – never flag, it will not get done.

12.00 – 2.00: Food and workout. I found a great American store called Super Target which seems solely founded to ensure that I never have to cook again in my life. Bless you Super Target founder. Usual a salad and a ton of chicken or the odd DoDo, though just recently the slow carb meal thing aka Tim Ferris “4 Hour Workweek.” After lunch I usually head over the road to my cousins place to work out with what seems like the rest of the population in Kansas city but I am reliably informed is actually just the girls we hang out with on a regular basis and presumably like.

2.00 – 6.00: Business Development. This varies but I am usual out the house and either working on real estate deals, in meetings for new businesses or belting out  ”Free Falling” (original version, none of that John Mayer crap) with the windows down in the Cadillac – (I am loved by the neighbourhood for this, I can tell). Currently launching a gym franchise and a magazine as well as a new property management business model so things are a little full – thankfully all my other partners are smarter than I am so things are going well.

This is cool, we are building a warehouse for EFS.

EFS Warehouse

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6.00 – 8.00: Food, try to get a run in, usually distracted by movies. Food in America is awesome.

Bloc Burger

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The place I forget, but it's awesome

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8.00 – 12.00: Social. Varies significantly but usual involves me getting my ass kicked at basketball, getting my ass kicked in poker, getting my ass kicked for talking at the cinema, scrapping my ass off roading, getting my ass kicked for hitting on the waitress at dinner, getting my ass kicked for splashing in the pool, simply getting my ass kicked for trying to be funny or sometimes just getting my ass kicked and no one tells me the reason. Fortunately the fact that I am currently dating Anne Hathaway helps.

Off Roading

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Kansas City Group

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Kansas Night Life

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12.00-2.00: Focussed business. I am a bit of a night owl and unfortunately real business has to take place. Heres my week structure.

Mondays – Brand and Marketing for current companies – Analytics, advertising, development, split testing, market analysis, comeption analysis and other wonderfully geeky things.

Tuesdays – Staff Stuff – All the guys that are part of my teams update me on Tuesdays so I go through all that and make sure everyone is moving forward and no one has died, that kind of thing.

Wednesdays - System improvements on websites, business practices and all other manner of things that will make my life easier in the future. I also factor in some time to learn new jokes, the Americans love it.

Thursdays and Fridays – New ventures. Whatever ideas I am playing with this is the time I focus on testing or developing them.

Saturdays – Hell no. Ok, thats a lie, sometime as I am writing this on a Sat evening – sad isn’t it.

Sundays – Hell no. Sunday is my day off. Though I should stop saying hell, a seven year old kid told me so then other day – I am shamed.

1:50 – 2:00: I set the mission critical tasks for the next week and do a quick bit of very manly journaling (It’s manly you doubters, I use words like “Hence”, “Ego” and “Visa vie”)

2:00-10:00: Sleep. I have tried all the different sleep patterns including polyphasic and for me, without 8 hours core I am just not a happy bunny – don’t judge me, I love my bed, it is comfy and made of real puppies.

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Some oddities

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Just so I can one up everyone else writing a “Day in…” post I thought I would include some little quirks of mine that help me be productive.

1. I only check and answer email once a day and never receive it on my Iphone. Again, I choose life and not becoming some crazed message answering service. Sometimes you do have to answer the inevitable “Why the hell (there’s the hell again) don’t you answer your phone?” questions. Here you have two options, 1. kindly explain the reason with humility and compassion or 2. Get new friends. I generally rarely use the former.

2. I tend to rarely answer my phone or texts as soon as they come in. Almost always I wait until I have finished what I was doing before replying or calling the person back. It is never life or death.

3. I 80/20 everything.

4. I time box everything.

5. I tend to wear a cape about 78% of the time. It just completes the outfit.

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See you in 4,576 hours – possibly

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And there you have it, you may hear again from me sometime soon or maybe not for another 6-8 months. Either way, after three days please just presume I have either been arrested for a super sexy crime, died or run away to join the circus – and not necessarily in that order.

A Day In The Life Of A [Slightly More Grounded] Travelling Entrepreneur is a post from: thelifething.com
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Read Time: About 3 Minutes

Nb// Make sure you increase your sexiness by clicking the re-tweet button on the right.

Ok so this isn’t the most thought out post in the world, I was running low on ideas and this was Marho’s, (my former business partner) best input.

So, sitting here munching through my third cookie I must now attempt to explain with as much jargon as humanly possible why it is important, nay vital, to have an ample supply of “Tesco” brand Finest cookies at business lunch meetings or any important business meetings of any kind. This is important people, listen up.

The Importance Of Being Fine

Before we begin, I believe it is important to clarify why exactly it is imperative to have “Tesco” brand cookies and why they need to be of the finest variety. For this I will have to consult Marho again, he being a more travelled cookie connoisseur.

Marho says;

“Before we establish the reason for the brand we must first focus on the cultural connotations of the cookie. The cookie stands for youth, for freedom, for the active pursuit of pleasure…ment. Have you ever looked into the eyes of a nine year old child standing with a fresh cookie in his hand; the wide, glassy eyed expression of someone who has, for one small smitten of a moment attained the meaning of life….one who has….

It has to be said that I stopped listening at this point as we were never going to get any work done in this fashion. I think though, that the general gist of what he was saying is “The reason it is essential to have the finest variety of cookie is simply “because they are tasty as” so to speak.

The Importance Of Cookies In Business Meetings

Now to the importance of “Tesco’s” finest cookies and the fundamental role they play in a perfect business meeting. After further discussion and research I have tried to summarise the main ideas into 5 core points or batches – pun intended.

1. Creativity. No one cookie is every the same and there are 19,673 proven and documented ways in which to devour any one cookie, for a full list go to www.theartofcookiemunching.com. Presuming an average cookie consumption of 3.46 per meeting, you will be creatively engaged in discovering each of the polishing off methods for at least 5686 (rounded to the nearest meeting) business meetings, which, unless your business is actually planning business meetings or you are a project manager, should have you set for life.

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2. Energy. Everyone knows that the easiest place to fall asleep in work, unless you are a doctor in the on call room, is in a business meeting. Chowing down on some cookies will give you the sugar high you need to at least feign interest a basic level of interest that will stop you from getting fired.

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3. Social Lifesaver. The activity of heavy cookie consuming gives you something to do during those awkward silent lapses when everyone has ran out of things to say but you still have the room booked for another 25 minutes and dammit if your not going to use them.

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4. Bartering chips. If someone has the upper hand on crushing one of your proposals that is likely to cost millions and probably not do very much anyway just offer them a chocolate chip for their silence. It’s surprising how weak the human mind can be.

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5. Makeshift Frisbees. Enough said. The double chocolate ones are especially good.

And there you have it, a complete waste of a post based around cookies in the workplace. Now, had you been eating a cookie while reading this then the whole experience would have been much more enjoyable, so there you go. My suggestion would be to go out and buy some cookies and then re-read this post while munching them.

The Art Of Corporate Meetings And Cookie Munching is a post from: thelifething.com
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A Surfer asks about entrepreneurship, a non surfer answers.

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Read time: Approx. 5 Mins (1155 words)

As some of you may know, I try to answer one reader email a month and this month the email that grabbed my attention was this one from a Falmouth based surfer called Archie who wanted some advice on starting a business out of university. Well Archie, here’s what I reckon…

If you have a question or want some advice on any topic covered by thelifething then drop me an email to jonny@thelifething.com.

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“My name is Archie, I’m a surfer, studying in Falmouth. I’ve read a lot of your blog and it really relates to me and my situation, the whole dead fish economics is a very powerful article, keep it up.

I have a question about start-ups and uni. Having been studying for two years now, I’m just starting my third, (well I’m four weeks in), I’m looking forward to starting a company by the time I leave uni, to fund my travels. I want to know what you did at uni, did you just focus on your course or did you begin by getting businesses going at the same time? How did you start properly? Was it the four hour work week that got you going in the direction you’re in?

I’m interested.

Also, if you’re down in cornwall at this winter, email me, it would be good to meet and go for a surf when its pumping.

Cheers

Archie

So I am just going to dive right in an answer the questions without any intro.

What did you do at university?

I studied Industrial Design, which is best described as a cross between product design and engineering with additional modules in marketing, psychology, business and economics.

Did you focus on the course or business?

While at university, from a professional stance at least, I was completely focussed on my course, trying to graduate with a first class honours degree and moving to the states to work for Apple. Being an entrepreneur was not on my radar at the time I started university, at least not for the first couple of years.

It was not until nearing the very end of my university life that I decided that I no longer wanted to work on the corporate ladder and instead wanted to own it.

I loved design, but I didn’t want to be stuck as a cubical designer being told what to design for the rest of my life. Life held too many other possibilities.

Did you get businesses going while at university?

Technically yes, though I didn’t think about it at the time.

Having paid my dues working behind the university bar for a few years I found that the long hours and low pay were not going to work for me as I was playing sports 6 days a week and also wanted a social life to fit around my study – I was rapidly running out of hours by having a normal job.

I thus started looking for other ways to make money.

As I was studying design I guess you could say I was the creative type and so I channelled that creativity into working as a freelance graphic designer. I learn’t how to use the software I would need and simply started marketing myself to people I talked to while working at the uni bar.

My first and most lucrative client was a guy I met one Friday night who was starting a company and had just got some funding, one thing led to another and I was his designer. The pay was a lot better than bar work and I practically quit the next day.

Though many see freelance work as a mini business, and in some respects it is, I still view it as being self employed because I still had to give up my time in order to make money, just not as much of it as I would have to working behind bar. What it did give me was my first lessons in marketing and customer satisfaction.

How did you start properly?

My first real business was started a few months after leaving university. By this time, and over the last few months of university, my passion for being an employee for Apple had died and my desire for creating businesses was fully born, so I went looking for a market to tap.

My first official Ltd company focussed on creating funky and desirable soil-less biospheres for the UK yuppie market that would allow our customers to grow their own fruit and veg, a growing trend in the UK, without the need for donning wellies and getting rained on at the weekends. My company “Nurtur” brought garden allotments into the home.

I partnered with a good friend of mine, drew up the concept sketches and went in search of funding.

Through an early investor and various competition wins we had the money in place to develop my designs.

This was all exciting stuff and we thought we would be millionaires. Long story short, it failed after 18 months. Not because the product was bad, they were popular and sold well, but the systems we built around the product, which is the real “business”, were poor mainly because I was not a good enough entrepreneur. I had a lot of learning to do.

Was it the four hour workweek?

Ahh yes, that old question. I read Tim Ferris’ book back in 2006 as I was close to graduating and so I am sure that it played a part. However, Tim’s focus on creating “muses” that fund a lifestyle, though intriguing, were not completely in line with my thinking. I wanted to create and develop creative businesses not simply systems that made passive income.

It’s a great book and will get you thinking but it doesn’t solve all life’s little problems.

Top Entrepreneur Advice

So Archie, my best advice to you if you want to start a business is to just get out there and do it. Read everything you can on entrepreneurship and what it takes to become an entrepreneur and then focus on anything that is going to build those skills that you need – skills including business systems, marketing, sales, communications, legal, creativity and economics.

Being an entrepreneur is an awesome ambition, but it means you will  have to develop yourself more than anyone else you know because in the future you won’t just have one job, you will have 10 and you will need to be competent in all of them.

It is one incredible roller coaster ride but like becoming an expert in anything, if you want to be a successful entrepreneur with successful businesses you have to dedicate yourself to learning the art…and failing a crap load of times.

If you do however manage to make it, you will achieve what very few people in life manage…complete freedom of money, time and fear. It is worth the sacrifice in my opinion.

How University Awoke My Entrepreneurial Passion – Another Reader Email Answered is a post from: thelifething.com
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The Cost Of Not Having A Mentor And How To Change That

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In this article we explore:

30 Second Summary

The Mentor Relationship – Yoda/Skywalker

What a good mentor will do for you

A good mentor will do three thing:

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A good mentor needs only:

How To Find A Great Mentor

If you don’t know that we are now in the Information age and no longer in the industrial one then you will be playing the money game by the wrong set of rules and you are throwing money away because of it. Stop it now in less than an hour.

[The CHOOSE ebook] is brilliant ! The design is fucking cool – I have never seen such a visual ebook in my life before ! I especially love [it's] take on money and the teaching part, very kick ass ! The way [the book] presents the information is both entertaining and valuable, it was a pleasure to read through.” - Mars Dorian

Get the CHOOSE ebook now and start playing by the new rules. [Buy Now]

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The Three Things You Can Do Right Now To Find Your First Or Next Mentor

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Would You Like To Be Mentored By Me?

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How Kick Ass Mentorship Will Make Your Life More Awesome is a post from: thelifething.com
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A Simply Epic Video, nothing more to say.

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Click here if you can’t see the video.

Where Do Good Ideas Come From? is a post from: thelifething.com
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There are 232 Billion websites in the world. Here are the top million.

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To finish this little mini series on Info graphs I came across this neat little number. Perhaps your site is on there. Click the image for a larger view.

Top Million Websites In The World – A Visualisation is a post from: thelifething.com
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Being Skint Doesn’t have to get in the way of succeeding

As a young entrepreneur seeking his fortune there will be inevitable times when you are, to give the situation it’s technical name, skint. This situation however, does not have to mean that you need not invest in the tools of your future success and thus I have highlighted 5 excellent purchases that even an incredibly skint young entrepreneur could afford. First step – theses 5 purchases, next step – Ferrari (possibly with a few more steps in between)

Highlighter

The humble highlighter – a crazy, fluorescent vessel of vivid, translucent color just waiting to be released onto any and all unsuspecting paper like surfaces. If you have never got into the habit of using a highlighter then prepare to make way for a new best friend.

As many of us are human we are therefore not especially adept at remembering large amounts of data and as this is 2010 we are subjected to an insane amount of it. The highlighter is your pathfinder to carving out the most relevant and important informations in the crashing waves of information overflow.

In my house, you will know if I have read a book as they will be covered in highlighter and penned notes. I like not just to read but to devour words as I believe it is essential for true comprehension. The highlighter will help you in this. It will also save you time as you come back to review old books and works already read by taking you straight to the juicy bits.

Get yourself a stash of highlighters and start getting busy, even downright naughty in your quest for knowledge and understanding though keep it out of the bedroom environment and be careful not to start getting addicted to the toxin induced high.

Post It Notes

The thing I love most about post-it notes, apart from their crazy, crazy color schemes is their size. The frankly tiny foot print of the standard 3 inch post-it note dramatically reduces the amount of words you can fit on each one – and it is for this sole reason that I so passionately recommend them for planning.

The post-it note forces you to focus only on what is most important and to be precise, there is no room for anything else. I use post-its to plan each day using my 7 Life System, to make notes on phone conversations, to plan projects, write love letters, write shopping lists and sketch design ideas. Ok, I am joking about the love letters.

Chewing Gum

Gum is an excellent success tool for two reasons.

1. It ensures that you have a fresh minty breath escaping your vocal region whenever you come into contact with one of the most important assets for success: other people.
2. It always gives you a natural “in” for almost any situation.

No matter how attractive, talented, loaded or creative you are if it smells like a trawler of dead fish has just been dumped nearby on a hot summers day then people are going to rightfully do their best to avoid you. For the sake of a few cent don’t make this costly mistake.

Offering gum is a great icebreaker in any situation. I always carry a pack with me as a guaranteed fall back to social interaction if no other “in” presents itself. Though $1000 courses on successful human interaction may pay dividends a pack of chewing gum will give you instant returns and costs next to nothing.

Chocolate

Sometimes life throws you a curveball. If you are a budding entrepreneur then more often than not it can seem like you are in a batting cage facing a ball pitching machine set on full swing.

Chocolate helps. For real. A small amount of good quality chocolate has over 300 chemicals that have numerous and varied effect on the brain including releasing endorphins which make you happier. Its naturally low melting point and creamy texture also help promote a feeling of calm.

Life won’t always go your way, but for under a dollar you can take the edge of and get back to focussing on success more quickly.

An Elastic Band

This is an old trick and I am not sure who get the credit for coming up with it but a simple elastic band around the wrist can be one of the greatest tools in the world for habit change.

The basic principle of changing  habit is to reinforce a new behavior in place of the old one, NOT as many people think by simply stopping the old behavior. Thus the elastic band round the wrist comes into play.

Every time you find yourself falling into the old, unwanted habit, say negative thought, you need to break the thinking pattern for you subconscious. This is done with a quick sharp snap of the elastic band on your wrist. It hurts, trust me I know, and that is the point. Negative thinking, in this instant, starts to be associated with pain and positive thinking with a noticeable absence of pain and thus your subconscious naturally starts to lean towards more positive thinking. Basic Pavlovian theory in action, we can condition our thinking for less than a dollar.

5 Purchases Under A Dollar To Help You Succeed In Life is a post from: thelifething.com
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How “Delivering Happiness” turned into a $1.2 Billion dollar success.

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Ok, I feel that twinge of jealousy again and this time with very good reason. Here is that reason.

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Why Read?

Let me introduce you to Tony Hsieh

In 1999, at the age of twenty-four, Tony Hsieh (pronounced Shay) sold LinkExchange, the company he cofounded, to Microsoft for $265 million. He then joined Zappos as an adviser and investor, and eventually became CEO. He helped Zappos grow from almost nothing to over $1 billion in gross merchandise sales annually, while simultaneously making Fortune magazine’s annual “Best Places to Work For” list. Hsieh currently lives in Las Vegas and sort of has a cat.

He is now 36 and still rocking the entrepreneurial world.

Good reads have done a great article on him as part of his new book marketing campaign ( no affiliation link). I have taken out some of the more excellent bits from the interview.

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How To Deliver Happiness

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1. Create Something Meaningful

You really get a sense from watching Videos of Tony and the people that work for him that he is simply bursting with genuine passion and kid-like enthusiasm. An infectious combination.

Whatever your passion or interest, is it meaningful? It need only be meaningful to you, but it needs to be meaningful to someone. Nothing was ever built successfully and has lasted that was founded on a strong reason d’entre or reason for being.

Check out his talk on Delivering Happiness

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2. The Value Of Values

In my post A Simple Structure That Will Change Your Life the Seven Life system has your core 7 “Principles” or “Values” right at the top of the tree.

Tony also places a huge emphasis on the necessity off having these core values, even to the point of firing individuals who may be profitable short term, but risk the long term health of the company because they do not buy into the same value system as the rest of the team.

Having a set of core values is essential to your success. It focuses you, gives your success a framework of integrity and ultimately is reflected in anything you do.

Check out the Zappos 10 core values video.

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3. Don’t Just Write Down Your Values, Live Them

Zappos has a great culture of seriously “Going the extra mile”, especially when it comes to the hiring process. They go so far as to interviewing the drivers of the interviewee at the end of the day to find out what they are like “off camera”. It is no doubt this commitment to hiring the very best match of employee that has seen their company take off.

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4. Do The Opposite Of Everything

“Basically I try to do the opposite of what everyone is doing in the industry” Tony.

Simply philosophy. Risky philosophy. Successful philosophy. Something to reflect on.

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Wrapping Up

Tony is a great inspiration to Entrepreneurs everywhere – let us focus on “Delivering Happiness” to our customers, readers, friends, family and all those we know.

There is also an awesome free audio book on Tribal Leadership which you can download here.

Delivering Happiness: Great Advice From A 1.2 Billion Dollar Shoe Seller is a post from: thelifething.com
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Overview (750 Words)

This is a guest post from CPF Joel Ohman.

Author Bio: Joel Ohman is a Certified Financial Planner™ and serial entrepreneur that has founded 5 different startup companies. One of his most recent ventures is a company that owns and operates a number of different consumer personal finance websites including an insurance quotes website and a website for doing car insurance comparisons. Joel is a first time guest writer at The Life Thing and he recommends that you check out the “5 Whopping Lies” post written by Jonny for a great read (after reading this article of course!)

The magic key to becoming a successful entrepreneur is to just do it. OK, article over – have a comment? Just kidding, just kidding.

In all reality, while there is undoubtedly a gigantic advantage gained by the individual who just jumps in feet first to begin their entrepreneurial endeavor as opposed to those who just love to talk about starting a business “someday” it wouldn’t be very helpful at all if that was the only piece of advice I gave you so here are some practical tips for becoming a successful entrepreneur (and then please chime in via the comments below with any tips of your own that you would like to add):

More Paw Work & Less Jaw Work

Do you ever get the feeling that every single person on the planet has at least once in their lives uttered the phrase “I should start a business” or “I have a great business idea” or “Some day when I get the time I should really do my own thing”? Everyone and their uncle finds it easy to talk about “doing their own thing” and fantasize about being their own boss but when it comes right down to it all of that talk is just that – talk.

Why not turn off the TV and work on your business for 3-4 hours every night when you get home from your “day job”? Sure, it’s a sacrifice but you will be surprised at what you can accomplish with just those few hours every night. Quit talking about it and start doing it!

Fill a Real Need (Maybe Your Own)

Many would be entrepreneurs think that they need to think of an absurdly clever “out of this world” idea for a business venture that no one has ever thought of before. Sure, sometimes those flashes of inspiration are nice but there is no need to rack your brain and pray for a bolt of lightning to give you the idea of a lifetime.

Simply pay attention to the world around you and look for little opportunities to fill the needs of people around you.

In fact, one of the ways that many successful entrepreneurs have found their business model is when they start out to “scratch their own itch” and create a product or service that fills a need that they personally have. Be your own customer and design the perfect product/service for yourself and the many others like you!

Start Out Small

If you think that every successful entrepreneur begins by trekking around Silicon Valley making pitches to venture capitalists, hedge funds, and angel investors for millions of start up funding then you are mistaken.

According to the Kauffman Foundation’s study on entrepreneurial credit card debt 58% of entrepreneurs start out small and just use their own credit cards to fund their business in the first year of operations but watch out because most credit cards carry exorbitant interest rates. The study found that those with ongoing high credit card balances have a reduced likelihood of success as the study found that having credit card debt will reduce the likelihood that a business will survive its first three years of operations. You will do best to avoid using credit cards as a startup financing tool if at all possible as you can see from the study and also from the lifetime cost of credit calculator that shows that the true cost of using credit cards and not paying off the balance in full each month is much higher than you might think.

The beauty of starting out small is that it gives you the freedom to test out your business idea and if it proves profitable then great and if not then you can simply move on to the next idea without having overextended yourself and bet the farm on one idea.

In the “age of the Internet” it’s amazing what you can accomplish with just a domain name, a website, and a server.

Start out small, test your idea, and then if your idea is profitable then build a system to scale your business up quickly!

What do YOU Think?

What are some things that you think hold people back from attempting a new business venture and/or succeeding as an entrepreneur?

If you are already enjoying success as an entrepreneur then what is the #1 piece of advice that you would give to would be entrepreneurs?

How important do you think startup capital (money) is for the success of most small businesses?

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As some of you will know I am currently lost somewhere in the South of India (update: I am not this is an old post), fighting off advancing hordes of fire ants, being bled dry by ravenous mosquitoes, and sharing my bed with Chernobyl sized cockroaches…that and having a wicked time traveling. On my travels I tend to bump into people and they tend to get me thinking, which is never safe for anyone.

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Why Read? (1500 words)

This post highlights a few lessons the Indian street sellers have taught me about business success which all you business owners and bloggers out there would be wise to check out. I reckon anyway…just read it.

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Research Experiment 101

Rickshaw drivers, stall sellers and shop owners abound on the sidewalks all over India and they all have one simple aim in mind – to peddle as much of whatever it is they are selling or dealing in while avoiding the sun.

An amiable goal to be sure, and one that almost every successful Western business is also pursuing apart from the sun bit – increasing sales in order to make increase profits and keep shareholders happy.

However what this small mini ecosystem of people creates is an interesting small scale reflection of the larger business world and thus from this we can divulge some common business success ideas and see them operate in a short term, local environment. Here are the three major ones I have been thinking about.

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1. Being Genuinely Interested In Your Customers

Anyone with white skin get mercilessly harassed in India and are pretty much universally regarded as walking, breathing ATM machines. How many of you treat your customers the same.

Over time in India, one develops coping mechanisms to handle the harassment and one of the first to develop is a capability to ignore Indians that can appear interested in you but are really only interested in selling you something. These make up about 95% of the people that approach you. The most overused opening line is “Where are you from?” followed by “You want x,y,z?” without variation or indeed waiting for a reply. They have no interest in you and can’t even be bothered to learn your name, all they want is to sell something and move on.

Generally I punch these people in the face (in my minds eye obviously, I am not insane).

Every so often, but rarely, someone gets past my guard and asks a different, seemingly more genuine question and even more rarely some just want to speak in English, even rarer still (this has happened twice and I have been in India almost 7 weeks) someone genuinely wants to know what your name is, how you are enjoying India and where you are planning on going next.

Just by showing some sort of genuine interest in the potential customer is enough to at least get me to stop. Most then ruin this by trying to sell to me after a few sentences and are promptly ignored. Those that show more genuine interest in me I have more time for and eventually when they mention what their business is I have more time to listen to them.

The same goes for our businesses in the Western world, we all seem so keen on selling to people we forget that every business is people focussed and our focus, as business owners, should be on our customers and finding out what they really need, then solving their problems to the very best of our ability, not just selling more things to them.

If our businesses are only about the bottom line and not about the customers, they will never become successful.

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2. Offer A Product Or Service Of Value

Of the few that do finally get me to stop and listen because they first show interest in me, as a person and not a customer, almost all then go on and ruin it by trying to sell me crap of absolutely no value to me.

Most are peddling cheap goods for extortionate prices or services I couldn’t possibly have a use for. Few, if any are actually selling anything that I might actually want and none are at a reasonable price. Therefore I have yet to buy anything from any street seller in India.

In our own businesses, it is easy to charge too much and offer too little and then wonder why the sales are not pouring in. The really successful businesses in the world offer a lot of value and cost their product appropriately, not too high and not too low, but correct for the value they are offering.

I own Apple products, they cost a lot but they give a huge amount of value. I get more value from my Macbook Pro then the money I paid for it. Sony Vaio, however, charge around the same amount as Apple but offer no where near the value, and thus their product is overpriced in my eyes and probably the major reason why their sales are nowhere near the level of Apple. Being expensive isn’t a bad thing, as long as you are offering the value that justifies the cost. Sony can kiss my ass.

The street sellers fail on both accounts, they solve none of my problems and they give me no value and so they make few sales and none from me, no matter how much time and effort they put in. They would be better spending that time finding out what I need and then finding a way to offer me good value to justify their prices. “Because I need to feed my kids is not good enough” I have been reliably informed that most of them don’t have kids; lying to your customers is also not good business – take note Indians.

This was a wakeup call for me in my own business as I began to wonder if I was offering enough value to my customers after a dip in sales. I came to the conclusion that I was offering value but it wasn’t enough, I needed to offer more to justify the price. Thus I will be implementing changes to my company over the next month or so to add more value for my customers.

The reason I spent a long time recently redesigning my site was to offer more value to you, my blog customers. I wanted the free content to be easily assessable to you and to make sure you didn’t have to crawl through thousands of words to find the information you want and will help you. I wanted to offer more value, I hope you agree the changes have done that.

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3. Find Your Niche

All the Indian street sellers are all selling the same thing. The market for just about every piece of crap jewelry or overpriced taxi ride is completely saturated.

In such a massively saturated market one would have thought that some initiative would spawn niche markets among this community, offering products and services that people actually need. It seems not.

From the outside it appears obvious to us but then how many of us have created businesses in niches that are completely saturated also. Think website design, print, marketing, blogging and SEO. All these markets are incredibly competitive and yet so many people go into them thinking they can make it big offering less than whats already there. Either you offer substantially more than whats on offer in a competitive market or you will drown. Better to focus on a less competitive niche and become a leader in this.

My business is in a very small but lucrative niche, however competition is starting to spring up and so I have to start offering more value then anyone else in order to stay on top. This is the challenge and the joy of running a business and is what, personally, I relish. The competition baby. Bring it, competitors.

For you bloggers out there, there is massive competition from incredible individuals of great talent who offer a lot. If you are serious about your blogging and want to make money off it then you have to offer more than these people and I know it’s a big ask. You have to offer value to your readers, if there is no value they will leave. The people I follow offer me a great amount of value.

Individuals like Glen from Viperchill offers incredible value on viral marketing and advice on SEO.

Colin from Exile Lifestyle offers great value on lifestyle design and free goodies for improvement. His is a blog I always benchmark mine against, if I am not offering at least as much as Col then something is wrong.

Cody from Thrilling Heroics offers insane value on marketing oneself online and is a great networker of influential people. He offers high quality free products and if I were to pay someone to develop my online presence I know from his blog that he would offer great value.

Definitely check this three awesome blogger out, you won’t be disappointed.

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To Sum Up

The Indians have been a incredible wake up call for me personally. I know the lessons but only by having had experienced the negative aspects of not following them have I realized that I need to change things. To be successful in Business or Blogging you have to be genuinely interested in your customers and solve their problems. You then need to offer incredible value to them, although this doesn’t necessarily mean your products have to be cheap. Finally you have to be sure you find a niche you can compete in. If you can compete in the saturated ones then great, if not then look for another or create your own.

Good luck with your businesses and blogs people.

Peace.

Critical Lessons For Business Success Demonstrated By Fantastically Annoying Indian Street Sellers is a post from: thelifething.com
Thanks for subscribing, you should now be at least twice as attractive to the opposite sex. Loyal reading of these articles increases your sexiness further. (Just so you know) r. thelifething.com - Life Design For A Designer Life...or something