Only a few weeks ago I had realized that I needed to put things aside from work in better balance in my life, and also take some time to get organized. So far, things have stayed organized, but I would have expected that I would be spending more time looking for a job and less time on the business.
Debbie will be working for the next 3 months, so our thought was to figure out how to transition into finding full time employment for myself in that timeframe. I have talked to a number of people about my business and how best to make the transition, but instead of finding good ways to wind down or scale back the business, they have given me lots of ways to expand and improve the business.
On one hand I would be content to taking a job I don't particularly like and work on the business part time until things pick up, but on the other, as I speak to and hear about how other people around me started their business, it seems obvious Debbie and I have some huge advantages that most other people didn't. Some of these advantages include: 1) A good amount of money set aside in savings 2) 80% of our health care paid for from my past job for about a year 3) Living in a triplex which helps pay for the mortgage, and the ability to quickly move and rent it and live somewhere else if needed 4) Access to a large network of like minded entrepreneurs who are going through the same process or have succeeded, and have the same moral beliefs 5) A business which requires very little monthly overhead.
So really, the only thing in the negative column (and obviously is pretty big!) is the fact that the business is not presently providing an income we could live off of. If it were, I think both Debbie and I would be very content with where we are. Ok, I know that sounds a bit obvious, aren't most people happy when their bills are being paid?
What I mean by that for a long time I have been trying to find a job that I love and that I'm good at. Debbie and I are never content to just "pay the bills". We don't want to live the standard American dream, but we want to be able to do mission work 2 months out of the year, and have jobs that are more flexible, and fulfilling. If we were satisfied with normal, we wouldn't have left Detroit, or gone to Pennsylvania, or ultimately moved back to Wisconsin.
So far with the business, it looks like we're really on the right track as far as finding a job that I love and is fulfilling, would allow for a flexible schedule, and has the potential to make much more than a standard salary.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Friday Meeting
Friday night I had a real good meeting with a lady who advises midsized companies and CEOs/managers about the direction to take their company. We met on a plane a few years back when she was working for the Palin campaign. Turns out she lives about 15 minutes south of Debbies parents. We've kept in touch since we have a common interest in missions work, and a few weeks back I e-mailed her asking her for some advice for the direction to head with my business.
She generously offered to meet with me for two hours free of charge (I found out later she normally charges $350 / hour, so it was a real blessing!). She had some excellent advice and suggestions for me. Basically I've got these bits and pieces that are good, but I need to work out the rest of the details for my business. For instance, I have a marketing CD that's good and a marketing plan to get someone on the phone, but I don't yet have a good follow up strategy for what to do after they watch the demo, or how to close a sale.
Also, I don't yet have a website up, and she strongly suggested I focus on getting that up and running, especially since my product is web based.
In general, I think I'm starting to transform the business and my mentality from some guy who has a unique technology to sell, into a marketing company that offers unique and custom, interactive solutions. The difference was apparent when we discussed a potential client of mine. I told her that after I complete my first project for them, I was planning on approaching them for hire on a part time basis for an even bigger project I thought they might go for. She suggested that instead, I offer that they take me on retainer for say 6 months, where I'd get a fixed fee each month and block out a fixed number of hours each month.
On one hand it seems a bit crazy for me to be talking about retainers and such, but on the other hand, I can see that if I'm offering a technology and marketing plan available nowhere else, and they are concerned that the competition might use my technology that this arrangement would make sense.
So I guess the bottom line is I'm starting to put all the pieces together to form a fully integrated business, and that's exciting. Even if I change the products, technologies, or area I market to tomorrow, once I get the business methods and procedures in place, I'll be able to quickly adapt and refocus or branch out what I do.
I'll have to end it there, but there's a bit more to the story I'll have to pick up with later...
She generously offered to meet with me for two hours free of charge (I found out later she normally charges $350 / hour, so it was a real blessing!). She had some excellent advice and suggestions for me. Basically I've got these bits and pieces that are good, but I need to work out the rest of the details for my business. For instance, I have a marketing CD that's good and a marketing plan to get someone on the phone, but I don't yet have a good follow up strategy for what to do after they watch the demo, or how to close a sale.
Also, I don't yet have a website up, and she strongly suggested I focus on getting that up and running, especially since my product is web based.
In general, I think I'm starting to transform the business and my mentality from some guy who has a unique technology to sell, into a marketing company that offers unique and custom, interactive solutions. The difference was apparent when we discussed a potential client of mine. I told her that after I complete my first project for them, I was planning on approaching them for hire on a part time basis for an even bigger project I thought they might go for. She suggested that instead, I offer that they take me on retainer for say 6 months, where I'd get a fixed fee each month and block out a fixed number of hours each month.
On one hand it seems a bit crazy for me to be talking about retainers and such, but on the other hand, I can see that if I'm offering a technology and marketing plan available nowhere else, and they are concerned that the competition might use my technology that this arrangement would make sense.
So I guess the bottom line is I'm starting to put all the pieces together to form a fully integrated business, and that's exciting. Even if I change the products, technologies, or area I market to tomorrow, once I get the business methods and procedures in place, I'll be able to quickly adapt and refocus or branch out what I do.
I'll have to end it there, but there's a bit more to the story I'll have to pick up with later...
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
With my headphones on
Gotta keep this short for now, but things have been going quite well this week. The house is much cleaner, and things are getting more organized. Debbie and I have been getting our training in for the half marathon, and eating healthy too.We're trying something a little different in working on the business. I'm trying the late shift, from 6pm-midnight. Monday night I went to a coffee shop and worked for a number of hours which seemed to work, tonight I'm going to try and do the same. I just found out that Buffalo Wild Wings is open until 2am, and they have free wifi. Sweet. True it's more noisy and hectic than a coffee shop, but with my Etymotic Research headphones in, I won't hear a thing other than my sweet sweet music.
Speaking of trying something new, today I pushed Elliana in our jogging stroller for my 5 mile run. The theory was that she could sleep and I could exercise. Throw in the fact that I was listening to a podcast on business technology, and we're talking some crazy multitasking going on. I only listened to the podcast in one ear, and it actually seemed to work pretty well. I'd stop every so often to check on Elliana and she actually slept for most of the time. I'm calling the run a success. I'm thinking about hooking up some portable speakers so I don't have any earphones in and running with that on a future jog.
We'll see if I can find a balance between working late hours, keeping things organized and the house clean, taking care of Elliana, and spending time with Debbie. Maybe with a bit more tweaking and organization we'll be humming right along...
Speaking of trying something new, today I pushed Elliana in our jogging stroller for my 5 mile run. The theory was that she could sleep and I could exercise. Throw in the fact that I was listening to a podcast on business technology, and we're talking some crazy multitasking going on. I only listened to the podcast in one ear, and it actually seemed to work pretty well. I'd stop every so often to check on Elliana and she actually slept for most of the time. I'm calling the run a success. I'm thinking about hooking up some portable speakers so I don't have any earphones in and running with that on a future jog.
We'll see if I can find a balance between working late hours, keeping things organized and the house clean, taking care of Elliana, and spending time with Debbie. Maybe with a bit more tweaking and organization we'll be humming right along...
Monday, April 19, 2010
Freeze Tag, Spiderwebs, and Manifest Destiny
In my quest for wise council these past few weeks during a pivotal point in the development of my business, I went back to the resources I've used in the past. I think it's very interesting to see how groups are often times so interconnected and integral in each others success, as in this example.
Back when I was starting off on my quest, I listened and read a lot of stuff by Dan Miller. Through his site I found a coach named Jay who gave me some good advice last October. I reconnected with Jay recently, and he suggested that I take a look a the site podcastanswerman.com where a guy with a similar background to mine has been very successful selling hardware, and consulting with podcasting. His name is Cliff.
As it turns out, Dan Miller had also been instrumental in Cliff's success. Cliff currently charges $150/hour for his expertise, and has started charging $2,500 a day for on site support.After about 2 years of part time and 2 years of full time work on his business, he's on track to make $10,000 a month, with lots of potential for this to keep increasing as he fine tunes his business.
While I was waiting to hear back from Coach Jay, I had written Dan Miller about a business question, and he had recommended I speak to a guy named Justin. Looking on Justin's website, he's become successful in his own right, and just two weeks ago had Podcast Cliff on his show talking about his success.
One common denominator in listening to each persons story of success is that they had surrounded themselves with a group of successful people, and had also reciprocated the help to others along the way.
A second common thread seems to be that in making their needs and goals known, those coaching and supporting them seemed to be more than happy to come to their aid. For instance, Podcast Cliff had mentioned on his show that one dream of his was to interview Dan Miller. A few weeks later, Dan was interviewing on his show.
In a way, this is similar to the idea of manifest destiny where you focus on a goal, make your goal known verbally, and it happens. To be fair, it's not in a lot of ways in that the driving mechanism isn't some cosmic force that you've harnessed, or some deity which must do your bidding, but instead when someone goes out on a limb to make known a goal (and open themselves up for failure in front of friends and family) often times people seem to step in to give them a hand.
How does freeze tag fit into this? Well, it also seems to me that another key element to being successful is being part of a group that have that 1)share a similar outlook on life, 2)are willing to help, and 3) you must also be "in the game" of trying to succeed to get this help.
Dan Miller, and the people in his network who have succeeded and are more than willing to help others succeed no doubt cross paths with people who could be helped by them on a daily basis. However, many are either afraid, complacent, lazy, or too proud to take the steps needed to be in a position to be helped. So in a way, they are frozen in life, and missing out on great opportunities available to them.
To be fair, I am sure there are plenty of people as well who are in a tough spot in life despite their best efforts. I am just speaking of those who fail to act, and just assume there is no way out of their situation without putting in the legwork to find out. They are not "in the game".
Back when I was starting off on my quest, I listened and read a lot of stuff by Dan Miller. Through his site I found a coach named Jay who gave me some good advice last October. I reconnected with Jay recently, and he suggested that I take a look a the site podcastanswerman.com where a guy with a similar background to mine has been very successful selling hardware, and consulting with podcasting. His name is Cliff.
As it turns out, Dan Miller had also been instrumental in Cliff's success. Cliff currently charges $150/hour for his expertise, and has started charging $2,500 a day for on site support.After about 2 years of part time and 2 years of full time work on his business, he's on track to make $10,000 a month, with lots of potential for this to keep increasing as he fine tunes his business.
While I was waiting to hear back from Coach Jay, I had written Dan Miller about a business question, and he had recommended I speak to a guy named Justin. Looking on Justin's website, he's become successful in his own right, and just two weeks ago had Podcast Cliff on his show talking about his success.
One common denominator in listening to each persons story of success is that they had surrounded themselves with a group of successful people, and had also reciprocated the help to others along the way.
A second common thread seems to be that in making their needs and goals known, those coaching and supporting them seemed to be more than happy to come to their aid. For instance, Podcast Cliff had mentioned on his show that one dream of his was to interview Dan Miller. A few weeks later, Dan was interviewing on his show.
In a way, this is similar to the idea of manifest destiny where you focus on a goal, make your goal known verbally, and it happens. To be fair, it's not in a lot of ways in that the driving mechanism isn't some cosmic force that you've harnessed, or some deity which must do your bidding, but instead when someone goes out on a limb to make known a goal (and open themselves up for failure in front of friends and family) often times people seem to step in to give them a hand.
How does freeze tag fit into this? Well, it also seems to me that another key element to being successful is being part of a group that have that 1)share a similar outlook on life, 2)are willing to help, and 3) you must also be "in the game" of trying to succeed to get this help.
Dan Miller, and the people in his network who have succeeded and are more than willing to help others succeed no doubt cross paths with people who could be helped by them on a daily basis. However, many are either afraid, complacent, lazy, or too proud to take the steps needed to be in a position to be helped. So in a way, they are frozen in life, and missing out on great opportunities available to them.
To be fair, I am sure there are plenty of people as well who are in a tough spot in life despite their best efforts. I am just speaking of those who fail to act, and just assume there is no way out of their situation without putting in the legwork to find out. They are not "in the game".
Thursday, April 15, 2010
The balanced life
It's about 10:45 and I just got done with my sales calls for the day, so I figured I'd take a short break and catch people up on the past week.
For the past four months I've been working really hard on the business. One thing I'm pretty pleased with is my sustained hard work over a number of months. As I've mentioned before, for much of my professional career I felt like I was just drifting along, not being too challenged, and not reaching my potential. When I trained for my first marathon a few years ago, that was really the first time in my life that I felt really pushed and challenged, and really proud of accomplishing that goal.
So on the whole, I'm pleased with what I've accomplished so far this year. That being said, one thing that got my attention in a recent podcast from Dan Miller was the idea that when your work consumes you, you start to borrow from the success in the other areas of your life. My fitness level has definitely suffered the past few months, and it's been stressful on Debbie as well.
I've been thinking about all this for about a week, and just yesterday we put Elliana in daycare for half a day for the 2nd time ever. I dropped her off at 8am, and we got a call at 10am that she'd just woken up from a nap, didn't recognize the lady at the nursery (the person in the nursery switched with someone else while she was sleeping) and she was crying pretty hard.
So I rushed over there, and picked her up from the daycare. That got me thinking about how much of a strain my working so much on the business was affecting both Debbie and Elliana. When I got home, Elliana went down for a nap, and I started thinking about all the things I'd heard lately about balance in ones life.
Looking around the house, the place was a mess, and I realized that one of the reasons was that since we had Elliana last August, we kind of just put her baby stuff in the living room, I'd crammed my workspace at the other end of the living room with no good place to keep everything organized, and really, the house was kind of a metaphor for the face that for the past 9 months, a lot of things have just happened without us taking the time to organize or put in place systems to keep our lives and house organized and in balance.
So I spent all day yesterday rearranging our downstairs, the closets, basement, my workspace, etc. I also think it's pretty clear that I need to dial down the efforts on the business a notch and get organized.
Debbie gets stressed when the house is a mess, and it will make it much easier and less stressful on everyone if we get the house and our lives more organized. So probably for the next few weeks we'll be organizing the house, putting into place methods to keep our lives and paperwork, and schedules more organized and more balanced.
My next entry I'll talk a bit more on the business side and how dialing things down a notch seems to fit in with how things are going with the business as well.
For the past four months I've been working really hard on the business. One thing I'm pretty pleased with is my sustained hard work over a number of months. As I've mentioned before, for much of my professional career I felt like I was just drifting along, not being too challenged, and not reaching my potential. When I trained for my first marathon a few years ago, that was really the first time in my life that I felt really pushed and challenged, and really proud of accomplishing that goal.
So on the whole, I'm pleased with what I've accomplished so far this year. That being said, one thing that got my attention in a recent podcast from Dan Miller was the idea that when your work consumes you, you start to borrow from the success in the other areas of your life. My fitness level has definitely suffered the past few months, and it's been stressful on Debbie as well.
I've been thinking about all this for about a week, and just yesterday we put Elliana in daycare for half a day for the 2nd time ever. I dropped her off at 8am, and we got a call at 10am that she'd just woken up from a nap, didn't recognize the lady at the nursery (the person in the nursery switched with someone else while she was sleeping) and she was crying pretty hard.
So I rushed over there, and picked her up from the daycare. That got me thinking about how much of a strain my working so much on the business was affecting both Debbie and Elliana. When I got home, Elliana went down for a nap, and I started thinking about all the things I'd heard lately about balance in ones life.
Looking around the house, the place was a mess, and I realized that one of the reasons was that since we had Elliana last August, we kind of just put her baby stuff in the living room, I'd crammed my workspace at the other end of the living room with no good place to keep everything organized, and really, the house was kind of a metaphor for the face that for the past 9 months, a lot of things have just happened without us taking the time to organize or put in place systems to keep our lives and house organized and in balance.
So I spent all day yesterday rearranging our downstairs, the closets, basement, my workspace, etc. I also think it's pretty clear that I need to dial down the efforts on the business a notch and get organized.
Debbie gets stressed when the house is a mess, and it will make it much easier and less stressful on everyone if we get the house and our lives more organized. So probably for the next few weeks we'll be organizing the house, putting into place methods to keep our lives and paperwork, and schedules more organized and more balanced.
My next entry I'll talk a bit more on the business side and how dialing things down a notch seems to fit in with how things are going with the business as well.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Expanding the territory
One of the things in the back of my mind lately has been the fact that the target market for my current product is rather small. It's only a matter of time before I contact all the major players in the industry, and have either made sales, or been turned down. I don't want to have to start from scratch with something completely new, and so I'm going to need some new direction to head.
I contacted a career coach who had given me some good suggestions last October when I was starting off, and we had an excellent talk today. He not only gave me some really good suggestions, but he also has contacts to help get the ball rolling on the marketing end.
One of these suggestions is the hearing aid industry. I could characterize the various forms of hearing loss in an interactive demo, and create applications for hearing aid manufactures, educators of the workplace, etc. With a huge baby boomer population needing hearing aids, and over 30 million Americans with some form of hearing loss right now, this does seem like a large enough market to keep me busy for some time. Also, my career coach just happens to be on the board of directors for a large disibility board, and has a lot of contacts in the industry.
I am confident I can make some interesting interactive programs which will add value to indivuals or companies, but the marketing side is always key and not my strong suit, so going into an industry with access to major decision makers is going to be of huge benefit to me.
A second idea he suggested was offering a service to improve the sound quality of the voices for podcast hosts. I'd have a website where people would upload a sample of their speaking, and I would tweak it and improve it with say 10 different options for them to listen to and evaluate.
Well, I've got taxes to finish, some books on selling to read, and a demo to work on so I'll have to end this here.
I contacted a career coach who had given me some good suggestions last October when I was starting off, and we had an excellent talk today. He not only gave me some really good suggestions, but he also has contacts to help get the ball rolling on the marketing end.
One of these suggestions is the hearing aid industry. I could characterize the various forms of hearing loss in an interactive demo, and create applications for hearing aid manufactures, educators of the workplace, etc. With a huge baby boomer population needing hearing aids, and over 30 million Americans with some form of hearing loss right now, this does seem like a large enough market to keep me busy for some time. Also, my career coach just happens to be on the board of directors for a large disibility board, and has a lot of contacts in the industry.
I am confident I can make some interesting interactive programs which will add value to indivuals or companies, but the marketing side is always key and not my strong suit, so going into an industry with access to major decision makers is going to be of huge benefit to me.
A second idea he suggested was offering a service to improve the sound quality of the voices for podcast hosts. I'd have a website where people would upload a sample of their speaking, and I would tweak it and improve it with say 10 different options for them to listen to and evaluate.
Well, I've got taxes to finish, some books on selling to read, and a demo to work on so I'll have to end this here.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
The week of the sales call
If the Chinese named weeks instead of years, and I was the one in charge of the naming, I think I'd name this week "the week of the sales call" because it is the week I have been making sales calls. So I've managed to get a few people on the phone to pitch them my awesome products. I quickly realized however, that once you have someone on the phone, you have to have something to say to them. Should have thought that through I guess. Sure, I could sit down with someone face to face and tell them about how I could help them sell their products with my awesome software, etc. etc. but I think over the phone you have to be more structured. After all, they can just hang up. It's so easy, and tempting, and so impersonal talking to joe schmo on the phone.
How life was so much easier when I was just calling people and leaving messages, not actually talking to them. So anyway, the next step in my sales evolution is to write down not only my talking points, but my roadmap for a conversation, and contingencies for when things don't go as planned. What's the next step? Do I tell them I'll send them more info? Do I set up another meeting? Do I try and find their problems and outline some ways I could fix them specifically?
I've got some good books to read through this weekend so hopefully I can get down my plan of attack for Le Phonecalle, and the process from cold call to making the sale. Also got this nifty sales software to keep track of who I've talked with, where we left things, and my upcoming todo list. Software always saves the day. Maybe I should just develop software that manages your software. Speaking of which, let me just add that for the Iphone, Geodefense swarm is hands down the best game ever. If I was to develop a game, this would be what I'd model mine after. If I was at work at my previous job and not working for myself, I'd so be playing that game right now over lunch instead of writing an e-mail as a stall tactic to making my next cold call.
Well, the boss is looking over my shoulder, so I better go...
How life was so much easier when I was just calling people and leaving messages, not actually talking to them. So anyway, the next step in my sales evolution is to write down not only my talking points, but my roadmap for a conversation, and contingencies for when things don't go as planned. What's the next step? Do I tell them I'll send them more info? Do I set up another meeting? Do I try and find their problems and outline some ways I could fix them specifically?
I've got some good books to read through this weekend so hopefully I can get down my plan of attack for Le Phonecalle, and the process from cold call to making the sale. Also got this nifty sales software to keep track of who I've talked with, where we left things, and my upcoming todo list. Software always saves the day. Maybe I should just develop software that manages your software. Speaking of which, let me just add that for the Iphone, Geodefense swarm is hands down the best game ever. If I was to develop a game, this would be what I'd model mine after. If I was at work at my previous job and not working for myself, I'd so be playing that game right now over lunch instead of writing an e-mail as a stall tactic to making my next cold call.
Well, the boss is looking over my shoulder, so I better go...
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