Entrepreneurial Holiday Guilt For Creative Professionals ...

Guilt, guilt, guilt. Guilt is a terrible feeling and is often self-inflicted by creative entrepreneurs, especially during the holidays. 

Most people who work for themselves say they chose to do so because they wanted to “control their time.” People who value time over money, recognize that time is a precious commodity that cannot be created, bought, or borrowed. You have to use it wisely or else it is gone.

Having the luxury to control how, with whom, and where you spend your time is one of the bonuses of working for yourself. So, why is it that an overwhelming number of entrepreneurs also say they feel guilty when they are not working on their businesses or with a client between the hours of 9 to 5 ? 

To be truly happy and successful as an entrepreneur, you must break the corporate-created walls of time and learn how to set your day according to your needs and the needs of your clients. There is no law chaining you to your desk eight hours a day between 9am and 5pm. 

Here’s my advice: stop feeling guilty about when you are working and when you are not, and ditch the idea of playing by rules set up by other organizations. Make sure you benefit from the freedom of entrepreneurship and maximize your time by performing regular activities such as food shopping at off times like 10am on a Tuesday or having your teeth cleaned at 2pm on a Monday ! You will spend less time waiting in line, you will be less stressed, and actually have more time to devote to your clients and other activities, then if you did those things at the weekend or during a busier time.

And be sure to take a day or two off during the holidays to go gift shopping, ice-skating, or to decorate your home! Give yourself permission to enjoy your life and do something for yourself, even if it is on a week day between nine and five. You deserve it.

http://plrplr.com/5342/entrepreneurial-holiday-guilt-for-creative-professionals/

The Seven Secrets of the Success of Steve Jobs

Great, short video that sums up the seven "secrets" behind the success of Steve Jobs ... 

What Is Affiliate Marketing ?

The Basics

Affiliate marketing is a multi-billion dollar industry.  You would probably be amazed at how widely spread it is. But what is this thing ? Actually it is simply selling other people’s stuff - that’s all ! And it is also one of the most lucrative ways to make money online. It has made hundreds of thousands of people millionaires and many more make a living this way. But it is a business like any other and if you want to be profitable, you need to take it seriously. However, the purpose of this article is not to deeply explore affiliate marketing, but to give you a basic idea of what it is and how you can make money with it.

What Exactly Affiliate Marketing Is…

What Is Affiliate Marketing, pic sxc.hu

To be clearer, let’s take a look at an example … Imagine that John is an expert in making websites. He has something valuable – knowledge, that could help other people to make their own sites themselves. So John decides to create an e-book entitled “Build a Site in 5 Steps!”. That’s great, he writes it in a couple of weeks and puts a price tag of $50 for it. As a main marketing strategy, he chooses to use affiliate marketing. So he creates a site for his product and offers anyone the opportunity to sell his book for a commission of 50% of the price or $25. Michael comes across this offer, and he thinks that he can offer this book to the visitors of his site about web design. He writes an article about the book and includes a link (containing his affiliate id) to John's site.  Some of his visitors come across the article and after reading it, they click on the link and go straight to the e-book’s offer page. If someone decides to buy, she pays $50 for the book to John, and then John pays $25 commission to Michael for leading the customer. And this way everyone is happy! The buyer gets the book they want, the promoter gets paid, and the author receives the other half.

This is a pretty cool marketing strategy for John, because if his product is really good, it will sell well and he can attract a whole army of sellers marketing his product for him.

This is a good business for Michael (the affiliate marketer), who has no product of his own, but who gets half of the price as commission, simply for selling John’s stuff.

How to Make Money With Affiliate Marketing

So now you know how it works, you can try it yourself. The best thing is that you have nothing to lose! If you sell – you get a pay, if you don’t sell – you lose nothing! But where to start?

CLICKBANK.COM is the oldest, most trusted and reliable place to start.  It is the biggest affiliate site nowadays - to promote other people’s products (on your blog, webite or via email) for free or create your own product and list it there to be promoted. Creating a product is not that hard, if you are good at something you can make an e-book and then a decent income, Just register with CLICKBANK.COM and you can start right away ....

http://businessideaslab.com/affiliate-marketing/

How To Win Clients Your First Week In Business

Entrepreneurs often have the mentality, "If you build it, they will come." And often they are disappointed. Just because you launch a company, you can't expect clients to be knocking down your door, begging to sign up for your service or buy your product. Building a company and generating revenue takes time. I advise new entrepreneurs that it often takes several months -- if not longer -- to win that critical first client.  

So imagine my surprise when I received a note from my colleague Melissa Ford Holloway announcing she had four clients and four prospective clients in her first week of being open. How is this possible?

Here are the strategies she used in getting her business off the ground immediately.

Boost your confidence. Many new entrepreneurs are hesitant to go “all in” at first. What will their reception be in the marketplace? What if no one wants to hire them? What if everyone else has a better product or better skills?

But Holloway was able to launch with confidence -- and display that to prospective clients -- because she knew how she stacked up.

“Over the past few years at the agency where I worked for four years, I had to fix freelancers' work on several occasions. It hit me that if they are getting work at their skill level, and my skill level is higher, I had nothing to fear," she says. 

Network strategically. You don’t want to wait until after you’ve launched your business to look for clients. Start planning in advance. 

“A few weeks before I resigned from my last full-time job, I thought about people I've worked with in the past who have moved into senior roles,” she said. “I started booking coffees and lunches with people I could trust not to spread the word that I was on the move.”

Those people were able to provide immediate advice and referrals -- and the first day Holloway updated her LinkedIn profile, she received several inquiries.

Don’t be afraid to cold call. We’d all love to have clients begging to work with us right away, but at first, you may need to grease the wheels. Some hesitate to try cold calls, but when done well, they can be an effective option.

“I started phoning up advertising agencies to ask who I would need to meet to discuss my work as a freelancer,”Holloway said. Once she was able to connect to the right people, Holloway asked for their email address to send a short note along with her CV. And most agencies responded well to this strategy.  

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/236217

The Ten Myths of Entrepreneurship ...

Watch this great 10-minute video ... 

What's It Like Being Self Employed ?

Interesting item on Radio 4 today about the fact that self employment is booming.  In fact, research published last week showed that we are becoming the work-for-yourself capital of Western Europe - more people are their own boss here than in France, Germany or any of the Nordic or Baltic states. 

You can listen here ... http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04dm5qn

Seven Ludicrous Lies You Keep Telling Yourself

There are so many lies that society ingrained inside of you, that you adopted as your own. From your parents to your teachers, these lies snuck into your life, without you even realizing it.

Now it’s time to uncover them to achieve the success you truly deserve.

Here are 7 ludicrous lies you tell yourself that keep you away from success. 

1. I Shouldn’t Fail

The most successful people fail and they fail often. If you want to speed up your path to success, take goal-aligned actions that are above what you think you’re capable of every single day.

Failing involves trying and moving out of your comfort zone.  If you avoid the risk of failing, you are setting yourself up for failure by default.

Remember: “When we give ourselves permission to fail, we, at the same time, give ourselves permission to excel.” ~ Eloise Ristad

2. I Shouldn’t Be Scared

We live in a society that tells us, “you must overcome your fears and radically eliminate them”. This makes us thrive towards an unrealistic state that we may never achieve.

Fear will only disappear when you do nothing, try nothing, be nothing.

It disappears when you stay within your comfort zone and avoid taking any kind of risks – but for that, you pay the price of a boring life.

The difference between those who succeed and those who don’t is not their degree of fear – but how they respond to it.

As Stephen Pressfield famously wrote in the ‘War of Art’:

Accept your fears and use it as a catapult for progress by doing what needs to get done.

3. I Should Be Able To Do It Alone

Successful people create an environment that supports their goals and surrounds themselves with the right people. You don’t have to do it alone and find all the answers yourself.  A friend of mine once said: “The more you ask, the more you can get.”

If asking makes you feel uncomfortable, become a giver. A person that gives feels no discomfort in asking, they see it as a mutual exchange of love.

“The strong individual is the one who asks for help when he needs it.  ~ Rona Barret 

4. My Circumstances Are My Problem

People view the problems that they encounter external to themselves. They blame others for what is happening or not happening. They blame the economy, the environment or anything else they can find.

Life is a projection and your problems are mere delusions of your thinking. In the philosopher’s notes on ‘Love What Is’ by Byron Katie, there is a great little story that goes like this:

Imagine you’re in the cinema watching a movie. When the movie starts, you notice some smudge on the screen. So, you get up and try to wipe it off – but it doesn’t go away. You try harder and harder, but nothing changes. You get frustrated and annoyed and can’t enjoy the movie anymore.

The problem was never the screen but rather the projector that had smudge on its lens. Your mind is the projector and your life the movie screen. If you see smudge on the screen, you don’t need to wipe down the screen – but the projector that projects it.

Don’t go through life thinking you need to change the “movie screen” – your life – instead change the projector by changing the way you think.

5. I Shouldn’t Struggle

Your struggles are not your problem – your response to them is.  Some say the word struggle derived from Proto-Germanic “strūkōną” – “to be stiff”. When you struggle, you don’t flow with life, accept, and embrace life as it comes.

What if you see your struggles as gifts that give you the optimal opportunities to grow, develop and mature? Eliminate the idea of struggles and problems: Life either presents itself as “blissful experiences or as blissful opportunities to learn”.

“Education comes from within; you get it by struggle and effort and thought.“ ~ Napoleon Hill

6. I Just Need To Fix My Weaknesses

Your areas of strength offer the biggest room for personal growth. Instead of wasting your time fixing weaknesses, going from terrible to mediocre, spend your time and energy to develop excellence. This can only be achieved by focusing on your natural talents and developing them into strengths.

Successful people are not well-rounded, instead they capitalize on their strengths and manage around their weaknesses. By fixing your weaknesses, you ultimately aim for average. It’s not the path to glory.

Play to win instead of play not to lose.

“Emphasize strengths, don’t fix weaknesses.” ~ Tim Ferriss

7. I Need To Have The End In Mind

Stephen Covey talked about beginning with the end in mind, having a clear focus on where you are heading. But constant thinking about your goals means being mentally in the future, disengaged from the current moment.

Being mindfully present in the now with focused attention on the task, is the key ingredient for high performance.

In his book ‘Overachievement’, psychologist John Eliot explains that overachievers act in the “trusting mindset”, being total engaged in what they are doing, without thought.

To live your best life, be present and mentally engaged in the now.  Success starts in this very moment, with the choices you make right now.

Yes, keep the end in my mind. Plan, dream and visualize – but have the “present moment” more present in mind. Will Smith was right when he said:

 http://addicted2success.com/life/7-ludicrous-lies-you-keep-telling-yourself/

How To Never Give Up On Becoming An Entrepreneur

If you are thinking about giving up right now, wait until you read this. Here is why – your worst days come right before success. There are 7 big reasons why you should never give up.

How To Never Give Up

Let’s go through each step together.

1. Stay alive. As long as you are alive, anything is still possible.

2. Lower your expectations.

Most successes are not overnight successes. It’s the job of every PR company hired by a newly successful startup to make that startup look like an overnight success. You hear things like, “They just hacked this in a couple nights on the weekend, and a week later got a million users” or “it was just a hobby they were doing on the side, but then one day the site crashed because of traffic.”

Some of these stories are true, but for most of them – you will never know the whole story. Guessing how others succeed is wasting your time. Paul Graham warns every batch of founders at Y Combinator that only 1% of them will experience success really fast. What ends up happening is founders all expect they will be that 1%. You can work for it. But you can’t expect it. Lower your expectations.

3. Remember that you are stronger than you think.

At times, you might privately think to yourself that you can’t handle the pressure. You have to persist. And just doing the same thing is not enough. You must try different things before you learn what works. Let’s say of the 99 things you have tried, nothing works well. Will you try the 100th thing? If you think about it, the 99 failures have almost no bearing on the success of the following one, as long as you are trying different things.

4. Fake it. Other people will do the same. They will never give up, why would you?

Fake success. Everyone does. You should as well. Don’t lie, but act as if you already succeeded. It makes a difference.

5. Don’t compare yourself to people who already succeeded.

Never give up if Bob is doing great. You never know how he is really doing.  Even if you think you know, you don’t.

After you have done all of this, you will fall into the dip. It’s the lowest point in your whole journey, a hopeless-looking place that comes right before success – Seth Godin wrote an entire book about it. If this sounds like baseless motivational talk, think again. When you fall really low, take a bunch of risks and fail people around you, you have nothing to lose – and that is exactly the time you are likely to take your biggest risk and possibly succeed.

Most people who look at this infographic think that they are stuck in the dip. The trick is that if you are stuck, you have to keep moving. And sometimes that means going back to square one. If nothing else, never give up because you only might have one last thing to overcome. Now stand up and say to yourself as loud as you can, “Never give up! Never Give up! Never Give up!”

http://fundersandfounders.com/how-to-never-give-up-becoming-entrepreneur/

Alan Sugar's - Words of Wisdom

Half Of Us Think We Are In The Wrong Career

Interesting piece in The Daily Mail last week, saying that half of Britons hate their jobs so much that they think they're in the wrong career.

Research has revealed that a quarter of us would even describe ourselves as 'poor employees' because we are so unhappy and 49% are thinking seriously about finding a new role.

One in five of the 2,000 workers surveyed blame their misery on their job being 'meaningless' and too stressful. Half feel they have gone as far as they can in their profession and 15% think their hours are too long.

The study also found that 70% of us would now considering working for ourselves.  Owning a cafe or a B&B, or writing a novel, were the most popular alternatives. 

Colin Swain of small business banking firm Kalixa Pro, which commissioned the study, said "It's shocking to see so many people are unhappy in their jobs, but great to see some are turning their dreams into a reality". 

Is it time to move on from just thinking or dreaming about starting your own business, to actually taking some action ?  What is the first step you need to take to turn that dream into a reality ? What needs to happen ... and what could you do TODAY to take that first step ? 

Make it a great day !

Love This Anita Roddick Quote ...

"If you think you’re too small to make a difference, you’ve never been to bed with a mosquito !! 

We’re all mosquitos here!"

Dragons Den: Deborah Meaden's Golden Rules for Business Success

James Caan : 'Want To Know A Great Way To Survive As A Start-Up ?'

The former Dragons' Den investor on why start-ups with an experienced mentor on board stand a much better chance of making it ... 

The UK has really caught start-up fever now, and it is something which genuinely delights me. There is undoubtedly a great entrepreneurial appetite in this country and the opportunity to take charge of your destiny and become your own boss is a fantastic one. 

Over the last two years, the number of start-ups launching per year in the UK has gone up to over 500,000, a rise of 19%.

But while this is great news for our burgeoning economy, it also carries a risk. If there’s one thing we should be aware of, it is making sure we have the infrastructure and support system to sustain this wave of enterprise.

According to research, 50% of start-ups fail within the first three years. And according to the Federation of Small Businesses, small businesses currently account for 47% of UK employment – that’s around 11 million jobs. It is therefore crucial we minimise the risk of these start-ups ceasing to trade as much as we can.

In an article written last year for the Guardian, Amanda Jobbins, chief marketing officer at Sage Group, said that start-ups need mentoring and support at least as much as they need financing:  “There is evidence that [mentorship] can and does work. 70% of small businesses that receive mentorship survive for five years or more,” she wrote.

A lack of support and advice is one of the fundamental reasons for business failures. There is no doubt people starting their own business are usually good at their jobs, but they don’t always realise they have to be good at a variety of other things as well – HR, financial planning, legal, admin, marketing, branding – the list goes on. I always urge people to hire experts in those areas but as the founder of a start-up you still need to have a good breadth of knowledge.

It is no wonder then that people can become overwhelmed by the task – I am most active in the recruitment sector and studies show that only 15% of companies in this sector ever get revenues of over £1m and a headcount of over 10. During the recession years, where the economy was at its worst, I personally backed six entrepreneurs to start their own recruitment businesses, and they all reached those targets within 12 months. I believe a key reason for this was the culture of mentoring that we all insisted upon.

It is critical to get experts on board as soon as you can. You should look for people who have already done what you are setting out to achieve, and know your industry. You may have seen recently that I launched the Recruitment Entrepreneur Initiative, where I offer mentoring as well as capital to people that want to start their own recruitment business.

Having been in the industry for over 30 years, I have seen the ups and downs you can face, and like a lot of entrepreneurs I feel it is my duty to pass this knowledge on.

For example, in the early 90s my business went through the recession for the first time. Fortunately we got through it, and the main positive to come out of it was that I am now able to share this experience with all the CEOs and businesses I invest in.

And every applicant I have met through the initiative has told me the same thing – they are looking for a support network as well as capital.

Whichever sector you are operating in, there will always be plenty of specialist investors for you to target. Whether you are in the business of providing a product or a service, whether you are launching in the UK or expanding overseas, I passionately encourage you to find yourself an expert. Get this right – and you are giving yourself a head start.

http://startups.co.uk/james-caan-want-to-know-a-great-way-to-survive-as-a-start-up/

3 Low-Cost Ideas To Start A Home Business

The business life is often characterized by uber-professionalism: avant-garde office designs, Brazilian redwood conference tables and crisp, tailored suits and ties.

But who said you can’t make money sitting in sweatpants at the kitchen table? Nobody!

Income.com wants you to know the opportunity to make money is extended to any entrepreneur willing to take advantage of it, regardless of location or capabilities. As such, many are realizing that starting a home-based small business at a low cost is the best option to break into the business world.

There are quite a number of benefits to home businesses – they cultivate loyal customers, make you a local authority and give you free reign over decision-making and operations – but the key to starting a successful home business is finding the right low-cost idea to run with.

There’s no shortage of viable ideas for starting a small business, but here are a few that could prove to be your best bet at a home business venture.

Tutoring

There’s little else more important than educating the youth, so why not do your part in advancing the cause and make some money while you’re at it? Are you a history buff? Do you know the quadratic formula like the back of your hand, or harbour a secret love for Isaac Newton? Your intellectual talents may earn you some extra green if you start a home-based tutoring business that caters to local students in need of some extra tutelage on all things grammar.

Get the word out amongst parents and neighbours in order to market your services. You can even pay the department heads at your local schools a visit to lobby for a partnership.

Financial Services

There’s a massive demand for financial services because of complex tax code regulations and the absolute need for compliance in financial matters. Small-business owners with prior knowledge of financial matters by way of a college degree, previous employment or skills picked up while out “entrepreneuring” can parlay that fiscal ingenuity into big money.

A recent survey by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) found 91 percent of small-business owners paid a tax preparer to handle their filings. Whether it’s accounting, tax preparation, business finance consulting or serving as a sales advisor, a startup in financial services is a top idea to start a home business.

Virtual Assistant

The buzzword of the past couple years since the recession hit is “outsourcing.” But instead of outsourcing manufacturing jobs to less costly labour markets, a rash of companies are outsourcing secretarial duties and other tasks to virtual home-based assistants.

You can stand to profit off such a trend by establishing your own virtual assistant service out of a home office. Companies are in the market for a number of services: client management, administrative jobs, copywriting. Just remember, you’ll need to fit your setup with a digital infrastructure that enables telecommuting and online video chatting, as you’ll most likely never be in physical contact with whomever you work for.

Income.com knows it can be hard to get out of your comfort zone, but what’s so wrong with staying in it – so long as you’re making money? As such, starting a home-based small business is a low-cost, profitable option for many entrepreneurs looking to make a name for themselves in a local market. Whether you tutor students on the side, supply financial consulting or take care of office jobs remotely, home businesses can make an entrepreneur out of anyone.

http://income.com/1945/3-low-cost-ideas-to-start-a-home-business/