Category: New Business Development

Yahoo has a list of
surprising six-figure jobs.
These jobs are almost all businesses.

Wayne Hoffman’s mind-reading business
earns him around $135,000 a year.

“Times were rough at first
and I had to bust my butt to get jobs,
but now I have to turn away business,
and I can take off time whenever I want.”

However, I found the comments
most interesting.
There’s ridicule
and mocking
and a thousand reasons
why these ideas wouldn’t work for them.

This is what any entrepreneur faces
when she is starting up her business.
Expect these reactions.
Don’t let them stop you.

In a recent episode
of CMT’s Naked,
country artist Kellie Pickler shares

“I do this for the right reasons.
I have to do this to live.
It is my food.”

That’s how I feel about writing
AND about business building.
I’m fortunate that there is money in it
but if there wasn’t,
I’d still be writing or building businesses.

And that’s a good thing
because currently there isn’t a lot of money in it.
Most entrepreneurs go through tough times,
times where money isn’t flowing,
acceptance isn’t there,
and they doubt themselves.

But they continue
because they don’t have another choice.
It is their food, their air.
And that’s why they eventually succeed.

If your business isn’t as important to you
as food,
you might be in the wrong business.

This TED talk
by Jennifer Pahlka,
the founder of Code For America,
is inspiring.

Code For America
is non-profit
providing fellowships
to top coders,
allowing them
to spend a year
writing programs and apps
for all levels of government.

As Jennifer Pahlka shares

“They haven’t given up on government.
They’re frustrated as hell about it
but they’re not complaining about it.
They’re fixing it.”

These codes and programs
are open source.
Once built,
they can benefit everyone everywhere.
And what amazes me
is what a difference a simple app
can make.

What can you do
to make the world you live in
a bit better?

I don’t have the most natural writing talent.
I certainly don’t have more than my share
of good luck.
I haven’t yet gotten that big break.

I can’t control those things.
I CAN control how hard I work
and this hard work has overcome
any shortfalls in talent
and luck.

Brooklyn Decker,
model turned actress,
shares

“If my skill and the talent aren’t there yet,
the work ethic is.
And at the beginning,
that’s all you can ask of yourself.
Eventually the skill will come,
but the hard work is something you can control.”*

Focus on the factors you can control.
One of these factors
is hard work.

*June 2012 Men’s Health

Yaro has a great post on building a presence online
and one of the negative outcomes
we all should expect.

“One of the outcomes
from being an information publisher
or any person who shares ideas online,
is that you are putting a piece of yourself
out there for others to see.
It’s inevitable that you will be judged
and because you are presenting yourself publicly,
others will feel it’s okay to judge you publicly as well.

This is especially true on the web,
where people feel safe to ridicule each other
because they are sitting at home
in front of their computer.”

I have a reader who reads
and writes a hateful review
for EVERY story I publish.
She has called me every nasty name
I can think of
and she hasn’t even met me.
She doesn’t know me at all.
I could be her neighbor, her best friend,
anyone.

I won’t and don’t lie.
It hurts.
But I keep writing
because none of my goals are
“To make Megan happy.”

One of the costs
of changing the world
is dealing with scrutiny.
Expect it.
Learn how to deal with it.
Don’t let it stop you.

In its simplest form,
a story is really a collection
of actions and reactions.
Something happens.
The character reacts, taking action.
This new action causes another reaction.

This mirrors reality.
We take action.
The world reacts to that action.

The more successful a person is,
the longer that person will wait
for a reaction,
but everyone wants a reaction.

Parents of toddlers know this.
Toddlers will misbehave
until they get a reaction.
The worst punishment is not to react.

What reaction we give,
whether or not we give a reaction
at all,
influences the person’s (company’s) next action.
Our reaction is as important
as the original action.

That’s why
great leaders guide actions
AND supply appropriate reactions.
These reactions are planned,
intentionally influencing the next action.

Seth Godin has a great post
about how the people around you
influence you.

I love this bit.

“The crowd has more influence on us
than we have on the crowd.
It’s not an accident that
breakthroughs in music, architecture,
software, athletics,
fashion and cuisine
come in bunches,
often geographic.”

This is why
the number one advice
I give to new writers
is to join a writing organization.

Surround yourself with the people
you want to be.

We often see entrepreneurs
who ‘do it all.’
Doing it all is possible.
Doing it all well
by yourself
isn’t.

Currently, my house is a mess.
The floors haven’t been swept
in months.
After 15 years in the house,
we still have primer (not paint) on the walls.

This is a conscious choice.
Spending time to clean
isn’t a priority.
I’m concentrating on
building the writing business,
and on my family.

Spending money to outsource
the cleaning
isn’t a priority either.
I’m choosing to spend the money
on businesses.

And that’s okay.
I’m fine (not happy but fine)
with the dirty house.

Because I’ve made the choice.

Accept that you might not do it all,
at least not now,
while you’re building your career or business.

A loved one
is always talking about
wanting to be at the top of his game.
The thing is…
he doesn’t want to do the work
to get there.

Sure, he works hard
but he doesn’t work
at the top of his game
hard.
He doesn’t invest weekends
or evenings.
He doesn’t hustle.

He doesn’t love his game enough
and want success enough
to do the work.
If I can see that,
everyone around him
must see it too.

If you want it,
TRULY want it,
you’ll work your ass off for it.

As business builders,
we have to predict
where we want the business to go.
A big part of that
is figuring out where the industry
is going.

Our industry is made up of
our competition,
our customers,
our suppliers,
and our partners.
The competition is unlikely to talk to us
but the other players will.
Knowing what they plan to do
will help us decide what we should do.

Jeff Hoffman,
a member of
Priceline.com’s founding team,
shares

“We went out to our customers,
suppliers, and partners,
and asked them what they thought
their future would look like.

We asked them how their needs would change,
how their company would change,
how their jobs would change,
how their buying habits would change.

We asked them which factors
in the world around them
worried them most about their future,
and which ones they were most excited about.”

This information will not only
help us predict the future
but it also helps us understand our partners.