Entrepreneurs-Journey.com

This is a guest post by Blog Mastermind graduate student, Francis Wade, who you may recognize as the time management expert with the Jamaican accent from his testimonial video. You can read about Francis and find more of his time management tips at his blog - http://2time-sys.com.

Managing your time = Managing your money

This simple equation has driven entrepreneurs from one time management class to another in search of tips that will transform them into ultra-productive professionals.

Most courses on time management run for two days, where you learn a new system of habits developed by someone who has invented a way to be more productive. The new system works so well for the inventor that he/she decides to package the approach into a detailed prescription to be followed by everyone.

The problem is, why should a time management system that works for the “expert” in their New York corporate world work for your internet business run out of your bedroom in Hawaii? You live a different life, with a need for flexible hours (i.e. midnight shifts included), and you don’t have the luxury of a secretary, IT support and real vacations away from email.

Plus there’s that habit that you have of taking a mid-afternoon nap… which you are sure helps you…to say nothing of the difference between the culture of Honolulu and Wall Street!

Instead of telling you to “follow me,” why can’t they tell you how to do something similar to what they did, so that you can also invent a time management system of your own? Did they follow some kind of method that you could use, and is there a process to follow, or were they just very smart or extremely lucky? You are a different animal, and you know that your habits are different from theirs, so why should you be expected to be successful following their system?

The fact is that most people who take time management courses have a hard time implementing a whole bunch of new, foreign habits all at once. Habits are hard to break, and the 101 new habits and 66 new tips in the new system they are learning are just impossible to learn overnight.

But, you give it a good try and it works - for a while - until the first crisis hits and you do what we all do — go back to what’s familiar. We feel bad, and we wonder how something that seemed so easy in class could be so hard to do in reality.

But in the back of our minds, we still want to be more productive and need to find a way to harness the insights that exist in all the programs out there… but who has time to attend them all?

The Solution

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I’m in Hawaii now having come up from Fiji on my way to Canada. I’m presently typing this at a cafe on the top floor of the Ala Moana shopping center - the largest mall in Hawaii.

Typing on the third floor of the Ala Moana Center in Hawaii

In response to my recent blog posts written from places around the world, many people expressed a strong desire to emulate what I’m doing now - traveling and working in a functional and balanced manner (just without getting sick like I did!).

I’ve also had a couple of people email me explaining how they are also traveling the world and running their Internet business and how they believe more people could do the same, if only the knowledge of how to do so was out there.

In the spirit of helping others realize their dream of the traveling lifestyle, I’m going to present some tips to help you travel and run a successful business at the same time. I hope these ideas motivate you towards actually beginning the process of planning your trip, rather than constantly dreaming about it and putting it off until you have “more money” or “more time” or whatever belief that holds you back.

I don’t have a family traveling with me and I realize for many of you there are spouses and kids to consider too. Just remember your loved ones are variables you need to accommodate, they should not be reasons for not going, assuming the family are happy to come along.

It’s acceptable to hold off travel until children are out of school or independent, if you don’t want to disrupt their life. However the tips I’m about to present can certainly be applied to summer holidays and most of them apply just as well to any person who runs a business and wants more freedom.

Let’s get to it…

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Recently I was the willing target of several audio interviews. The topic of course, was blogging, however as is customary, most interviews begin with a little background study of the person in question.

As a result of telling my recent business history I found myself reminiscing about some of the ventures I was involved in during the previous 8 years or so. Most of them were online enterprises, but there was one experience where I was running a start-up based in the real world, an English tutoring school called “Aussie Tutor”.

If you dig into my earlier archives you will find several posts and podcasts were I mentioned my English school. It was an interesting time in my life, which taught me many lessons about business and in particular what I want from a business and what I don’t want.

Working 9 to 5 by Choice

While in charge of my school I came to fully realize what I had always known - I do not like having to be anywhere nine-to-five, five days a week.

Before I avoided a full time job specifically because of not wanting to be anywhere for such long periods of time to work for someone else. Not surprisingly, despite working for myself, I still did not like that I had to be somewhere during working hours.

Unfortunately, as a business with a physical premises, the English school demanded my presence every day unless I was willing to forgo any possible patronage that might walk in off the street. Ironically, despite my immaculate attendance, many days my English school was empty and I spent the time working online.

It didn’t take long for me to realize, despite my passion for the idea and my entrepreneurial spirit, my tutoring service was not going to work unless I made a significant commitment to it. I would need to either shut it down, or invest money and time and treat it like a true start-up.

At the time I had a growing Internet based business demanding my attention that was profitable (BetterEdit - an online proofreading service I sold in 2007). It wasn’t too hard to decide what to do next. I closed down Aussie Tutor, broke my lease and went back to working at home.

A Web Based Life

I am very thankful that I grew up during a period where the Internet also grew up. My very first casual job was web based (crafting websites for the business school at university) and my very first self created income stream came from the Internet too.

I can’t remember what life was like before the Internet, but I know it wasn’t nearly as good as it is now.

Tomorrow I hop on a plane and fly to Fiji. I’ll be there for 5 days before I board another plane where I’ll head to Hawaii. I’ll spend a week in the land of aloha, before jumping on another flight, this time to Vancouver, where a week of fun awaits. I’ll then make a short flight to Winnipeg, visit my grandmother, before settling in Toronto for 5 months. I intend to visit the USA for conferences and other fun things during my time in Canada too.

In Fiji I will be in a hotel but during the rest of my travels I’m staying in rented apartments with kitchens, private double beds and all the usual trimmings, at two thirds the price of equivalent standard hotels (I’m practicing a little 4-Hour Work Week accommodation hunting). I’ll have ample time and funds to do what I want and it’s all thanks to the World Wide Web. There’s not many occupations today that grant you this much freedom.

Ever present during this trip will be my laptop. My computer that connects me to the online world will serve as a communication tool to keep in touch with friends, family and colleagues. I’ll blog, create content, work on products, market, network and effectively live a very similar life to what I usually do at home in Brisbane.

The scenery might change, but the purpose and lifestyle doesn’t - and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Live the Stereotype - Laptop on the Beach

We all know the archetypical image of the entrepreneur sitting on the beach with their laptop, logging on to check how much money they made during the previous night and then settling back to a day full of sun, sand and sleep - a perpetual holiday.

I’ve already written about my disdain for the traditional non-working holiday, however the gist of the laptop on the beach image is definitely something I appreciate because it represents fantastic freedom. A business that can function - and even grow - despite your absence or location in the world, and the freedom to choose when to work, how to work and what to work on, is a great business.

This is a far cry from waking up at 8am to open the doors to a 3rd floor English tutoring school.

How To Build a Framework for Life Portability

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By Adnan from Blogtrepreneur

When Yaro asked for readers’ contributions for July, I decided that I should really dig deep into my entrepreneurial spirit to ask myself How Do You Become A Successful Entrepreneur? Now this article definitely is not the be all and end all of ways to become a winner in business online or offline, but some of the points I will make should help you to firmly establish yourself in the world of entrepreneurship, and should hopefully distinguish you from the huge crowd of money-making hopefuls.

Successful entrepreneurs need to see success. Many of the top businessmen around have seen a product and the associated success that could possibly come with it. Take Michael Dell for example. He believed in the potential of computers way ahead of his time, and built a business from his dorm room. Once you have managed to visualize your success, planning the road to this achievement is a must.

If you don’t plan extensively about your new idea or concept, without thinking ahead, you might encounter unforeseen difficulties with management or cashflow. I recommend using a business plan which incorporates:

• What your product/idea is.
• How does it differ from other products and how will it make you become successful.
• Who your audience is.
• What money you need to spend in terms of product cost, advertising, shipping, staff, and so on.
• What profits you are hoping to make.

Perseverance is also key in becoming a full-time entrepreneur. For me, this is essential especially in the blogging field, as in order to maintain a good readership and a good income if you are using ads on your site, you need to post regularly and with quality content. Bloggers in particular are more likely to experience burn-out if they work too hard, and can also experience a drought in terms of traffic if they slacken the pace. A true entrepreneur will be able to prevent the feeling of being “burnt out” if they know what their goals are, and if they love the task of always having to meet deadlines. Discipline is also the key in this field, as an entrepreneur must work hard in order to achieve. We often see “Get Rich Quick Schemes” and let me tell you that in 99.9% of these cases, obtaining money quickly is just not possible. I have finally learnt (through many financial losses) that only discipline and hard work can result in rewards.

Tied in with this is the recognition that you, as an entrepreneur, never consider failure as an option. Too often these days, have I seen businesses or individuals deem themselves failed if they have not achieved a set of targets. Failure simply is not a word in the dictionary of an entrepreneur, as even if a project is not going well, an entrepreneur will find new ways of coping with the situation and will adjust his aims to fit in with the task in hand.

Entrepreneurs also need to manage their time properly. There’s no point in spending a whole day over a task, when in reality it will be cheaper and more effective to hire someone to help you with a certain task, thus enabling you to produce more profit. Delegating jobs and staff and being able to manage as well as bringing in the bucks is a true mark of an entrepreneur and one who knows what he is doing.

A successful entrepreneur must have an air or a grace about him that will demand respect from other individuals. I would like to say that I am a very friendly person, always looking for new contacts and always trying to network with others who share similar skills and attributes. At the same time, you must also conduct business in a very formal way, being punctual, polite and remaining cool under pressure.

Even with all these points, I feel that I have only scratched the surface on the make-up of a true entrepreneur. You may have other qualities which you might deem important, so please let me know if you think I have missed any out. Successful entrepreneurs are never secure in their field, although this may be the same with other “bog standard” jobs, however the rewards that can be obtained from having the mentioned attributes can be really substantial. By working hard and never giving up, you are bound to become a successful entrepreneur, all you have to do is believe.

Adnan
www.blogtrepreneur.com

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By Herb Firestone from SEO for Smart People.

If you’ve owned your own business before and you’re on the diving board trying to decide whether to dive headfirst back into the entrepreneurial pool, you’re not alone. If this is your situation, or even if you’re considering entrepreneurship for the first time, let’s just say, Yaro absolutely hit the nail on the head when he said, “When you own your own business you may not make any real money until you sell it.”

Not only was I able to sell my business and see some real cash, but imagine my surprise and good fortune when the purchaser agreed to take me and two of my employees along in the deal.

The benefits of working for someone else are obvious. There’s definitely something to be said for the security of a regular paycheck, direct deposited I might add, health insurance reliably taken care of, and even one paid day off per month, which you can save up and take all at the same time.

The advantages look even better when you apply the “Jeff Foxworthy” test as follows:

You know you own your own business when you’re always on call and must be ready, willing and able to do whatever it takes at any time of the day or night – same as Superman.

You know you own your own business when you’re simply expected to wear all the hats and do a little of everything.

On the other hand, you know you work for someone else when there’s serious specialization of tasks. There’s one person, for example, to handle domain registration and hosting, another for email and tech support; still another for logo and web design, two for programming, even more for seo, a project manager to stay on top of it all, a sales department with sales assistants, and especially a book-keeper to make the past due collection calls and a receptionist to keep the telemarketers away.

• You know you own your own business when your first three calls of the day are, “may I speak to the person who handles your advertising;” would you be able to help the children of the world today; and we’re the people who handle the copier in your office, when you know you don’t even have one?
• You know you own your own business when it’s the last day of the quarter and your 941 tax form is due, not to mention your Texas Workforce Commission report, and to add insult to injury, it’s payday besides.
• You know you own your own business when the air conditioning stops working, the electricity goes off, and the bathroom is flooded.
• You know you own your own business when you’re waiting in the checkout line at the office supply store and one of your employees calls on your cell phone to inform you that she won’t be coming in today … and by the way, we’re out of paper clips.

So, why on earth would anyone even consider leaving all that behind to return to entrepreneurship?

Could it be the thrill of the hunt, the excitement of the chase, the willingness to try, the challenge to get it done and the sense of accomplishment when you do?

So, what’s the solution? Get off the board, walk back around to the shallow end, and slowly reenter entrepreneurship by getting your feet wet one small step at a time.

With the fourth of July upon us, we in America love England and all, but without that entrepreneurial spirit of independence back in 1775, we’d probably still be paying taxes to the Queen today.

So that’s the why. But what about the “how, when and where?”

It only takes one word to answer the question, “how,” and that word is blogging. Where else but the blogosphere could you start a business for less than a hundred dollars, write a seven hundred word article, have it posted on someone else’s blog, and never even mention once what you’re selling?

The when could be today! For the “where,” visit my new blog, SEO for Smart People, Herb Firestone’s SEO blog, to see for yourself why, “when it comes to seo, there are no dummies!”

Herb Firestone
www.seoforsmartpeople.com

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