All posts tagged with "Business"
A New Outlook for 2010
Lets put 2009 behind us, and move on to 2010. I don't have anything against 2009, it was a pretty good year for me personally, but I'm going to make 2010 even better. Now is that time when I look back at the current year and pull out all the achievements and failures. And this year there were plenty of both.
Looking back and learning from the past is important, however moving forward and planing for the future is even more important. That's why starting today, my goal as well as the content for this blog is changing. There is going to be only one theme, and that's "BECOME MY OWN BOSS".
No more working for the man. Nope, I'm going to put every effort into my other ventures and see if I can sustain my lifestyle without a "real" job. Here's how I plan to do it.
Putting Things On eBay
So I decided to get the eBay thing working for me a bit. If we are going to make money, then selling is the only way I know how to generate income. You have to sell something to get money right? That "something" either needs to be a product or a service, and since I already have an eBay store setup, that seems like the perfect first place to start selling.
The first thing I needed to considered is what am I actually going to sell? With eBay, just about everything known to man is for sale on their site, so whatever it is, it needs to be unique. More importantly, it needs to be something that people will buy. So I started to think about the things that I would buy, or have purchased to see if any of those might be something up my alley.
With a little investigation, I think that there is such a product that I can produce and sell rather well on eBay.
Let People Know What You Do
I know this sounds simple doesn't it? However, how many people besides the ones you communicate with on a daily basis, actually know what you do for a living? Do you have a business card that you hand out whenever you meet someone new? Do you have a little book that you carry around jotting down notes as you speak to new clients?
If you don't have any of those, then you should get them. Keeping track of your contacts is utterly important, and you should utilize any and all ideas for keeping them up to date. My weapon of choice is the cheap and easy business card.
You Know More Than You Think
Is there something in your life that you absolutely love doing? Do you have a passion for something, like a hobby that you would love to make some money from? Have you ever told someone you would like to go into business doing one of your hobbies, only to have them say: "You can't make money doing that"? If your like me, then you have answered yes to almost all of those questions.
I'm a firm believer that you can make money doing the things that your passionate about. Usually the things you are the most passionate about are the areas where you know a lot about the subject. To enjoy something typically means that you immerse yourself in it. Naturally that means you'd likely have a lot of knowledge on this subject.
What you may not know, is that others most likely desire the information that you already know, and you probably know more than you think.
Don't Give Up That Latte
When I started my business, I did what everybody else seems to do, tell your friends and family about your new idea. After thinking about that a bit, that was probably one of my larger mistakes. Your idea is exciting to you, primarily because it's your idea, and not someone else's. Don't be surprised when someone eventually tells you that "you can't make money from that" or "there is no money in this". I don't know about you, but I'm rather lucky because all of my friends and family are business experts, yet only a handful of them run their own business.
One of the pieces of advice that I was told over and over again, was that if I was going to start my own business, then I needed to start saving every last cent and use it to fund this adventure. They all told me how much I was going to have to "sacrifice" in order to get this off the ground and running.
Did that mean I was going to have to give up my morning latte? Was I going to have to start walking to the grocery store instead of using my car? Did I need to shut off the heat in the winter and buy everyone an extra blanket to stay warm?
It's Been Really Busy
My initial goal of this website was to share the ways I would go about making a few extra dollars per month, in hopes that I would eventually be able to replace my day job.
Well I'm happy to report that I was so busy in January and February that I almost completely ignored this blog. I still checked in and answered the emails that I got, but I didn't have time to share what I had learned. I thought this might be a good time to reflect on the last few months and put down some notes about what's been going on.
Working For The Man
So I haven't kept up on this blog as much as I would have liked. However I do have a really good, if not entirely fabulous reason for skipping out on the whole blogging idea. I've been working my butt off to get my own thing going and depend less on my 9 to 5. However, nobody said it would be easy, and it takes dedication day in and day out to stay the course.
One thing that I've noticed is that it's almost impossible to capture all of your lessons learned. I've been learning something new on a daily basis, and I don't see that stopping any time soon. Probably the most important thing that I have learned is ....
Time To Get Moving
For the past several months, I've been on a project of my own and had all the dreams and expectations of finally leaving my 9 - 5 and doing this full time. Sometimes it's important to reset expectations, and possibly investigate additional opportunities.
It's dawned on me that the people that are making the most money online are those that are gathering information (that is freely available by the way), repackaging that information, and then selling it. Not only are they selling it, but they are giving other a slice of the action when someone else sells it for them.
Categories
Archives