Are You Productive?
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Are you productive? If you sat down and worked it out, how many hours a day do you spend advancing your business?
Many of us spend our time on unproductive tasks. Yes they have to be done, I’m not arguing about but they don’t advance you business. What does advancing your business mean?
Adding to the bottom line.
Each business is different so different things add to the bottom line. But hear are some common things which aren’t…
meetings
learning
dealing with emails
delivery of service
customer service
social media
Yes they all have to be done…well may be not meetings… but they don’t bring in new business directly. Why do them then? Well if you don’t deliver the service then you are going to get refund requests. Others will help with market leadership etc.
So what sort of things advance the business?
Product creation
Prospecting
Increase traffic (if you are an internet business)
Increase conversion
When you are growing your business you need to dedicate some time each day in advancing your business.
I would advise that you schedule an hour or two each day to these productive type activities. If you aren’t used to doing them then it may seem strange.
In my kind of business i.e. the online business people can spend over 8 hours day working in front of the computer but they don’t get anywhere. Why is that? Well they are not focusing on the right activities.
What you need to do is write down the things that you advance your business. They are new products, more services, more customers, better conversion, and new markets etc.
Once you have these you drill down further i.e. if you are an internet business trying to get more customers then how are you going to achieve that? Well better rankings in the search engines… that means seo… what seo activities are there?
You should then have a productive activity that the more you do of it… the more customers you get and the better your business does.
You then schedule a slot in each day to do this activity.
I will explain more about how I do that in my next post.
Mentor Programs – Do You Need a Mentor?
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I love reading about other successful entrepreneurs. I think that reasons for that is that they inspire me and give me ideas. They can act like mentors.
I actually have a mentor for this year. My mentor is Ed Dale from the Thirty Day Challenge. He is a successful entrepreneur. I will probably write a little more about him in future posts but for now I will write about why I chose him.
I decided that I was going to start my journey to try and become a successful entrepreneur this year.
I was passionate about that.
But…
I didn’t have a passion about an individual idea as such. You know that burning idea that a lot of people have that drives them to spend their entire savings on prototypes for many years.
I didn’t set out with the idea of getting a mentor either. I had already decided to go part time. It is just around that time I noticed that Ed Dale was offering a mentorship program.
The program had limited places and I only found out about it a few days later than others. I watched his video about it Saturday morning. Decided about 5 minutes into it that it was for me.
I wrote my application on the Sunday then wired my money to him on the Monday.
That is right you had to send your $5,000 up front before you had an interview and been accepted. I had no problem doing that…I trusted him.
I then had an email back saying he had received everything and arranged a Skype interview. I prepared for the interview and although felt a little nervous did well enough to be accepted.
I am not sure how many people were finally accepted but I am pretty sure over 100 people applied.
I decided to do the mentor program for a number of reasons.
Ed Dale is a proven successful entrepreneur in the area that I wanted to get into.
I was starting something new and it is nice to have someone who is that successful look over your shoulder and if you are going in completely the wrong direction for them to tell you.
Finally, $5,000 is a lot of money. Given my current position it seems even more. If you spend that kind of money are you going to follow through with it?? I know I am!
I will keep you updated about how it goes.
Update On Yesterday’s post
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This is an update on yesterday’s post. I know this isn’t a blog on investing, it is a blog about trying to be a successful entrepreneur but it explains why I’m not writing much today.
After selling out of that stock yesterday I put on my Bloomberg App on iPhone just to see how the markets got on. That share was still on my watchlist so it gave me a price update. You can guess what I’m going to tell you next can’t you.
Yes it was up… it was up a lot.
It finished the day up over 26%. That is right…26%!
To say I am gutted is a major understatement.
It leaves me questioning my decision making and is a huge blow to my confidence. Will I be able to trust my decision making in the future? Will I take that right opportunity?
Risks and Diversification
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To be a successful entrepreneur you have to take risks don’t you? Are you risk taker? Am I?
I think I am a risk taker and this is a sad story (to me) which demonstrates that. Wanting to be a successful entrepreneur I have always been fascinated by the stock market.
As soon as I saved up enough money I started investing. Like many of us I read pieces in the financial pages and took my advice from there. I then progressed to developing my own system… a system that has worked out rather well.
But I broke the system. I bought a company that the system would never let me do. I thought I was taking a calculated risk. It was a risk but I was young and had no commitments (at the time).
Anyway after buying the price kept coming down. To me that meant that it was even more of a bargain. Right?
I then found out a bit of news that brought the share price down. That increased my knowledge of the company and actually increased my confidence thinking I knew what I was doing.
As the price came down I kept buying more.
The price then stayed at a level so I thought it is now or never and bought a lot more. It stayed were it was for a couple of months.
Then the share price started to move. It started to move up very quickly.
“I was right!” about the company I thought and the share price was reflecting that. So I bought more!
Up it went and I had broken even… this will be one to tell the grandchildren about I thought.
Then it stopped and the stock plummeted. This time I knew it was bad, I knew I had made a mistake.
The price was falling quickly and I couldn’t get out, only managed to get a small chunk out.
It then reached its previous bottom and again has stayed there for a while.
It was different this time. I have commitments now so I wasn’t sure of what to do. It wasn’t until this point that I was ever worried about it… but now I was… very worried.
I started to panic as it started to move lower again. This is the first time I started to worry about investing so I knew it was a bad sign. I liquidated my position this morning.
The loss was big… nearly 1 year’s net salary and when you think about you have worked a year for nothing then that is frightening.
……………………………
The question now is how do I react. To be honest I don’t feel good. There is a bit of relief there but have to say I am gutted.
Yes I think I am a risk taker but I obviously got this one wrong. That will happen to risk takers and a lot of successful entrepreneurs.
Warren Buffett said about diversification to put all your eggs in one basket and watch it very carefully. I wasn’t watching carefully enough.
Successful entrepreneurs often don’t diversify. Their entire wealth and future is often tied up in their business. This means that it could all disappear very quickly and you have to be prepared for that.
Yes to be a successful entrepreneur you need to take risks but you need to fully know what you are doing.
I think the key is to know your business and know yourself.
Other Big News
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We are still playing catch up on where I currently am and why it will be a big year for me… possibly the biggest.
My Girlfriend is pregnant. Yes we are having a baby in December. We are both over the moon and very excited.
Yes it really couldn’t get any bigger could it?
This does pile the pressure on a bit. I am only on a part time salary now. I have been ok for the first few months. Obviously I haven’t been saving as much, in fact nothing at all. As a natural saver this is hard for me. I want to see my wealth going up every month.
I have switched monetary saving into investing in my time… time in my new business to try and become a successful entrepreneur.
I will be struggling soon though if it doesn’t start to generate any money. My girlfriend will be going on maternity leave. While she gets great benefits, 6 months of full pay, 3 months at half pay and nothing for the final 3 months, it does mean a lot less money coming into the household for the next 12 months.
Not only less money but extra expenditure too.
I am a little worried about the finances I have to admit.
Having said that what a year to be at home more? I am sure I will look back on this and be grateful that I had the opportunity to see more of the baby.
I am also sure that my goal of being a successful entrepreneur would’ve been at risk if I hadn’t gone part time. How many people can start business, have a baby while carrying out a full time job?
Yes there will be some but I doubt I could.
I probably would have put it off for a couple of years and you and I both now that if I had done that it would’ve never have happened.