There’s a great business metaphor featured in the book Blue Oceans Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne. The gist is: Find “Blue Oceans” to operate a business in, free from competition. Avoid the bloody “Red Oceans” where everyone is fighting it out. As you develop business ideas and markets, keep this in mind. The best and easiest thing to do is: don’t...
When speaking to people today starting out their businesses, one of the pieces of advice I will generally give is that this is going to take longer than you thought or hoped for. My rule of thumb, based on my own experiences, is that you better be committed to seeing it through for 3 years. Three years to figure out your market, grow the business to something that can support your goal of success...
In hindsight, I am so glad I was unable to access debt or credit during my struggling years. At the time I wished I could, I thought it would make my life easier. I see now it would have set a trap that would have been very difficult to get out of. It forced me to be resourceful. Because I couldn’t just charge something to a credit card, I had to come up with other solutions. When...
There’s a quote, attributed to Jim Rohn, that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. I’ve only recently become familiar with that quote, but realized it has come to play with me many times over my life. Often as I’ve started new ventures, as I was immersed in it, the people I was around were also in that world. We all fed off each other. As each of us...
Here is a link to a TED Talk from Tim Ferris that I found quite helpful. Instead of “Goal Setting”, Tim talks about “Fear Setting”. I used his literal exercise outlined in this video to help break some of my inertia I was dealing with in my life. Inertia from fear. I was paralyzed from making any changes and was suffering because of it. I worked it out, and that enabled me...
There’s a few stories from history of early explorers literally burning their ships, so that there was no way to go home, and the men were then committed to success or die. I realized as part of my story, I had done a figurative “burning of the ship” as I embarked on new business ventures. I purposely avoided getting a job, or any other work, other than attempt at building my...
If you’re struggling, it’s easy to come up with a list of people or things to blame for your lack of success. “I blame my parents” “I blame the economy” “I blame The Man” “I blame my debt” “I blame society” “I blame Trump” etc… I’m not even going to disagree with any of those statements as they apply...
One thing that has saved my ass over and over again is whenever I’ve had a business idea I’ve always worked it on “on paper” first. I usually use Excel. Back in my music promoting days, every event I ever planned I calculated in Excel. I still have all my old files and they are interesting to review. There is no “rocket science” about them, but they track all...
I like setting goals. Measurable and achievable ones. I also like having fun with them. If I can turn them into a game, even better. A tool I’ve used multiple times is the “money thermometer”. The same kind that you see charities use to show their fundraising. They are used a lot because they are clear and it is fun to watch rise. I’ve done these types of thermometers for...
For a long time I spent what I had. Whatever that was in the bank, or laying around, that was what I had. As I watched those numbers dwindle, I’d try and cut my spending down. But in the end, there really was no plan or strategy. It’s also a fallacy to believe just because you have little to no money, that you are spending that money wisely. I guarantee if you have little money, with...