Welcome back. PositiveCapitalism Startup 2.0

While 2008 left me with a few screw-ups, 2009 already is turning out better. While it seems odd to start up again during a recession, nothing more can convince me its an horrible time to. If you look at the previous web 2.0 startups, such as Facebook, and Google(well..they got big during the recession, but started just before) they were building up while the rest of the world was hoarding their money from any outside influence. The mantra of “finding a need and filling it” stills stays true in this time. Their also some other good reasons to start.

1. Gas prices have dropped, big time- Gas may have prevented money for some low wage earners(say 12 bucks an hour or lower) from saving up for starting a small side business. If you still have your job, you might notice that you have some small cash flowing in. My savings are at least 20-30 dollars per fill up. Instead of buying t-bone steak, or eating out 2  times more a week, with this savings, you could place some of it aside to build up some capital.

2. Price of equipment purchases have dropped in some cases by 12%-40%- the price of an computer LCD 22 inch monitor use to run $279(US) on average. Now its less than $180(and that’s with the after Christmas sales, or really not on sale) for even an high end one. The netbook, if you can type on reduced sized keyboards(or plug in your own), you can have a laptop starting at $279. Intel has released a new CPU line, dropping prices pretty low in some cases(quad core processor for $180). Goods like desks and such really have stayed the same, but they weren’t that expensive to begin with(50 dollars buys you a basic top with 4 legs at ikea, and it looks quite nice). So deals are going to be plenty, and you won’t have to wait or try to fight with someone to get it, and still walk away getting something at a decent price, and quality.

3. Outsourced labor competition may go up- While some are laid off from work, some might resort to doing work on rent-a-coder and other outsourcing/temp. Agencies. Using outsourced workers(and they don’t have to be in a different country, they can be from here) and paying them 12-30 bucks an hour for 1-3 hours worth of work, will help you get the ball rolling in an area your struggling with. At the same time your putting food on the table for someone else. If you been recently laid off, this might be a great time to outsource your talents, you excel at. You can do do a few hours a day of outsourced work, while looking for a job. Who knows you might find the freelance gig enjoyable, and drop the job search.

There is only one bad thing about recessions. It requires a lot more pacence with customers. They might move a bit slower sometimes. They might research a product a bit more or give it 24 hours to think about it. But the needs and wants still remain. Figuring out a strategy to meet this slowdown, is a key. But, if you work with them, and give a good product or compelling reason, they will buy.

So Welcome to my relaunch(third time a charm!), and hopefully yours.

 

Gaining Momentum, While Facing Burnout

In the past 2 weeks, I had a bout of sher laziness and burnout. Which was kind of odd. I had all my blog articles ready to be typed in, yet somehow I couldn’t even lift my hands to type on the keyboard. While I could rattle on how the constant loss of moving caused me to lose my business momentum and so on, I decided to instead talk about ways to prevent burnouts and possibly recover from them.

Burnouts are harder to deal with in beginner home businesses. Its frustrating to do so much work yourself, even if its less than what you might do in a typical workday, at your job; then have no results seem to happen. Its also common to have unrealistic expectations regarding your results. You can have burnouts in a mental sense, a financial sense, or a physical loss sense(loss of property, or even loss of energy, due to bad health or stress) Most blogs think burnouts are a matter of self control. Even the most productive, end up throwing their systems away for a day or two, or at least they take an afternoon nap! So maybe taking the idea of rest, instead of self control is better. Take 1-2 days off your business, like you would do from work. If your most productive days are your weekends, just use another time in the evening to work something else.  Sunday and Mondays are my days off, for example. Use this time to tend to another hobby, maybe catch up on the tv shows(DVR’s are huge time savers) or play a video game. I try to balance my hobbies too, instead of going hardcore at one for one month and then moving on to the next one for another. This way I don’t end up crashing, even as OC it sounds, plus that behavior could translate out into your business without knowing. Aside from giving your business its own weekend, the ability to start moving again when you burn completely out, is a hard one. Its just a matter of just doing it. Slowly creep back, lower the size of your to do list even if its down to one thing, just make it count.

Financial Burnout
Its really easy to not spend any capital investing in your home business. In these internet days, its even easier. However, some capital will be needed to sustain and grow, or step up to the next level. It doesn’t have to be much.
Where I was personally hit by when to start using capital, was when I was learning at Wealthy Affiliate, where they teach about starting out with bum marketing, where you use free resources, and write product reviews, and other articles about products. The amount of volume needed to get a bite, is understated a bit, but its easy to get burned out(mentally, not financially, unless your buying products at the same time), by not getting any traffic. I needed to make some changes, by increasing not only my volume, but maybe investing in creating websites to drive traffic to. That requires investing in a domain, which is less than 10 dollars a year(my WA membership includes hosting). But, its easy to say, no I don’t need to spend any money in till I make a profit to reinvest, even more so if you have an entirely broke mindset. So, you keep getting burned by not having any bites(mental) and you cannot then fulfill your money goals, when you could just spend some money you would spend anyways in investing in your business. The opposite can happen too. You spend too much on everything about learning, and not starting on doing, or you end up spending too much on towards a problem that need to be more tweaked or dropped, instead of its capital(*cough* our government *cough*).
Instead of becoming like the many who spend and end up failing before they could make it, just adjust capital slowly, from your own sources, making sure that it will truly benefit you in the long term.

Physical Burnout
This is a combo of mental that goes with this. You get tired and your health isn’t so great. You decided to place it on hold till you have the time freedom. Or you get a physical loss, like your computer is stolen, or it becomes broken down. The health one is easy to answer, the loss and malfunction- not so much. here some guidelines.
The loss of equipment can be a nightmare without a backup. But sometimes you can lose your backup too! Push to saving as much data you can onto the the web, using an email account, or Google Docs, etc. I have some redundancy for my writings, since I write drafts in notebooks. If your data is small enough, save it to a USB thumbdrive and keep it on your keychain.
Normally also to keep in mind of computer breakdowns, its only due to one part of a system failing, not the entire system. So, it may not be the hard drive. If it is, normally its very audible, you hear more grinding and files seem to take a bit to open, than normal. Thats when you need to get that data off quickly! Keeping some cash to drop about 200 or so dollars on a older system with a CRT Monitor from a local mom and pop store, and a up to date burned dvd of Linux somewhere, could get you back working in till your able to replace it with insurance, or rebuild. Or just ask around, some geek might have a collection going that you could borrow some parts from.
For your health, just keep it in balance. If your relying on 3 red bulls a day to go, something out of whack. Take some time to balance some time in to exercise, and eat a bit better everyday.

Rebuilding from a burnout is hard work, and instead of just trying to get back into the swing of things again, it might be better to just keep things balance, and aim for it. Its harder to maintain it this way, but done in small ways, you will feel a lot less guilty when your not doing anything, and fight your fear of failure.  Plus, remember even the productivity bloggers have days when they chill out for a bit.

Tags: Procrastination, Burnout, productivity, home business

 

MyStrategicPlan/blog | The 5 Traps of Personal Performance Management

While I spend time working on part 2 on project, I found this posting about personal management, and all. Talks about some Traps you can run into.

MyStrategicPlan/blog | The 5 Traps of Personal Performance Management

Tags: PersonalManagement, Home business mangement

 

Developing My Sense Of Urgency

Building a muse, even a small one like mine, has been more about finding quick tips to avoid real work aka generating content. Its not that generating content is hard, or time consuming, its more like ” do I really want to?” type. This thought became more and more stronger not only in my business, but for everything I did from exercising to my obligations at work.
Before anyone screams manic depressive(going from super worker, to wanting to lay in a bed all day watching TV), all I really was facing is a bout of laziness and motivation. I was still interested in my muse, but I didn’t want to do the work. Obviously, when I didn’t work on it. Nothing happened, adding fuel to the fire, to continue the laziness.

Nowadays, with rising costs to live and not being in any situation to have a safety valve from it till things balance, I have developed a new sense of urgency. If I don’t build my business, well guess what?
I am going to be stuck in a endless loop of catch up to live. Its very depressing. It took us longer to feel the pinch than most, but when you do it turns into a a punch to the stomach. It literately, came on like, a switch, with this stark realization. I have to fight my sense of idleness, and really just do some things differently. Its really crazy, when you have some stuff that needs to be put out, and its just sitting there like its needs to be polished again and again, when its already good enough to go. Now, that laziness is sure beginning to sound like perfectionism, or the fear of failure. And quite frankly, the more I let this content sit, the more frustrating it will be if it doesn’t pan out.

 I have set up a counter, starting tonight. I have 60 days to build my muse and produce any income, even if its just one dollar in profit,  or else I need to pack my bags, and try a different tactic. For the next two months, I’m going to be journaling about this, to make sure I’m making progress. I will add a Facebook blog about it and edit it whenever I make changes. That way I won’t bore anyone with personal activities, unless your truly interested. The link will appear in a week(I mean it!). I hope it will inspire you and help you make less mistakes than I do. This blog focus will still be about general home business topics. I’ve been running out of contently lately due to..laziness, but I already brainstormed some ideas, that will pan out into something worth reading.

Now, excuse me, I have some work to tend to…

And its not organizing file folders(thats another topic, for a later time)

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: urgency, lazyness, muse building, home business building, getting work done, freaking out

 

A New, Directed Form of Daydreaming

As a new wealth builder, its easy to get caught up in what your life could be like in the future. You daydream about everything- From what cars your going to drive, to the size of your house(s), and just how everything is perfect. Let me pull you away from your dream of lounging by the pool with a fruity alcoholic drink at the Four-Seasons, and bring you back to the present.

Its easy to just get caught up in dreaming, it may however, lead to fear by blocking the real work from getting done. To make your ream reality, its going to take some hard work. If your struggling to just get started, one thing you can do is daydream, or create a vision about your steps. If the work seems tedious and/or hard, thinking about it in a dream state will make it easier when its time to get rolling. So, have a vision of yourself enjoying the work, knowing what it will bring. For example you using the computer, be vivid about the programs you have open and the websites opened in your web browser. And the feeling how your being productive. Instead of a image of just a computer screen and you typing like mad, and then you meet the mail man for your check from all your mad typing. Another example- you’re meeting with a potential customer. Imagine how and what you would say to him/her, how you peak his interest and him/her asking hard, skeptical questions, and you having the answers. Instead of a perfect sales pitch with a lot of fake smiles, without him asking questions, and you buying a new car, in the end.

By having a working vision, you prepare for the hard work ahead, so once you start, you will have more faith, and less fear of failure. Try vision planning today, if you know the steps you need to take. Keep believing in what your doing. By continually feeding yourself these visions, you can calm your critical subconscious mind and at the same time confirm your vision by doing the work as you imagined it, if not better.