Sometimes You Have To Reach Out And Touch Someone
One of the hardest things to do is connecting to people. Networking can be as challenging as finding a girlfriend. You think you have potential and then you realized that you went down the wrong alley.
Well it is time to try for another route that is worth mentioning. I recently signed up for Twitter and Squidoo. Both of which are social media giants. They help to connect people and are worth spending some time on. Here is my Twitter page and my Squidoo lens for anyone that is interested or bored.
Internet Business Opportunity Squidoo lens
I am really curious about opinions and feelings on both of these tools. Do you have any good ways to use them that have been beneficial? If so spill your guts below and we can follow each other, tweet, squidoo it up, or whatever floats your boat!
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Filed Under Miscellaneous | 34 Comments
How To Create A Legitimate Product For Your Home Based Business Opportunity
How do you turn the light on for your personal creativity?
A night-duty telegrapher was looking for a way to get out of his job. He was probably the fastest hands east of the Mississippi. Unfortunately, he liked his job about as much as a mouth full of gasoline. He wanted to do two things instead and just these two things: get plastered and meet women at local bars.
His big hurdle was that every hour he was required to key in the number 6 to show he was still there. You have to imagine how stir crazy this young man got working at this tedious job.
He spent several days putting together a machine that would automatically key in the number 6 every hour on the hour. This invention worked for a while allowing the young man to enjoy many local establishments and everything the nightlife had to offer. Eventually his boss came in late one night without warning, and that was the end of that job. Nice invention though.
If you are wondering if that young man made anything of his life, well he did. You might have heard of him: Thomas Alva Edison.
Inventions are inspired by many different events for many unique purposes. The problem is you can’t force magic to happen with an invention for your legitimate home based business opportunity. There are ways to help get the creative juices flowing.
Get Down And Dirty!
The first step is you absolutely must get your hands dirty. There is way too much time spent on focus groups, surveys, and countless other “planning” events.
Stop having meetings, no more cultivating financial plans and projections, and please throw your business jargon filled mission statement into a folder and lock it away.
Businesses explode because they get their hands dirty and others waste millions on planning. No business idea is 100% full proof the first time. It is a growing process like being a parent for your first child.
Start creating a prototype or providing a service that is going to get you paid. Start your website, write content and build links. Write the software now to your next big product.
You might say, “Well Cade, you said you have to find out what your customer wants!” I will respond with yes and then probably smack you…no not really.
Show them something first before you improve on it. Your goal should be to create a product that is good. Then let your customers tell you how to make it great.
If that means you have to give it for free, on a trial basis, or for a discount then you do that. The profit you make, if any, will not be the dollar bills in your bank account, but the priceless feedback from your clients.
Smells Like Innovation
Michael Kittredge, founder of the Yankee Candle Company, began his business by walking door to door to sell his candles he made from melted crayons. He would ask people each time after they bought a candle what they would do to improve the product. Many responded that he needed to add something that would give it a scent that would match the color.
He simply did what was suggested and he made a fortune. Customer feedback would not have happened if Kittredge didn’t decide to melt crayons.
I understand if you say, “I don’t even know where to start. I don’t want to invent the light bulb or make candles.”
So what can you do to prime the pump?
There are several ways to foster your creativity:
- OH! Me, me, me!: One of the best ways that entrepreneurs create a product or service is by being the customer. You are already interested in the product you are providing to customers. Since you are a part of your own customer base, you understand what a customer loves and hates about the competition’s products. Think about products or services you use day in and day out. What do you like about them? What would you change to make your life easier?
- What does he know!?: There are countless entrepreneurs right now working day in and day out in the ranks of great companies. They are talented people that just haven’t figured it all out yet. They have a responsibility for an aspect of the company, but no one will listen to their ideas. They are surrounded by prideful, ignorant managers. If this is you, then this is the perfect time to try to cultivate the product or improve it on your own. You might have to do it at home to avoid being fired too early for your own financial good.
- I don’t know what that means, but I don’t like it!: Often we are completely foreign to the product or service of an industry. We might have no background and very little use of a product, but we see something in society that we can take advantage of. One of the smartest things you can do is find a business partner that has background in this area and court this person to join in your venture. This can save you a lot of wasted time.
- Where is my hammer?: The last way can be the hardest and the easiest all in one. You might have no background in an area, but you just establish something you thought of in your mind that you have never seen before. For some it is harder to be creative than others, but what is nice is that you are not boxed in by a jaded industry with rules. Your mind has no bounds, and I would say the best way to stimulate this is by reading many, many books. Fill your well with related industry books, trade magazines and blogs. Edison, although enjoying the night clubs, actually read Newton’s Principia Mathematica, Parker’s Natural and Experimental Philosophy, and Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by the time he was 12.
These are the general starting points for you to come up with an exciting new brand. Whatever you do you need to provide value as a work at home business opportunity. The truth is the more passionate you become about it, the more you will read about it, talk to people about it, read content about it, and eventually figure it out.
Here is your assignment:
1. Spend at least one hour a day reading about innovation and business concepts (or whatever stimulates your mind).
2. Right after reading spend an hour pondering and writing ideas down on some savable document.
3. Carry a notepad and pen (or a pda/cell phone) that you can keep notes of daily experiences that you would change.
Inspiration comes in the most interesting circumstances, just ask Edison.
This is as much your blog as it is mine and now the blog is yours.
Let me ask you what is your single most important question about legitimate home based business opportunities?
What brought you to Write To Right?
What would you want to see more of on this site about legitimate home business opportunities that would excite you, but you can’t find?
This is your chance to make this site better one comment at a time. Feel comfortable to express your inner feelings and don’t hold anything back!
If you liked this post then make sure to subscribe to Write To Right for more information on starting a successful business.
Filed Under Home Based Business Opportunities, Starting A Business | 25 Comments
Finding Purpose When You Work At Home With A Home Business Opportunity
“Strange, isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?”
- Clarence, “It’s A Wonderful Life”
“I wanna live again! Please let me live again!” I know many of you think of this phrase not just from Jimmy Stewart in “It’s A Wonderful Life”, but I am sure a lot of you have that on repeat in your mind at your job. You are looking for any way out, and you have this big business idea that is finally going to solve your problems.
You toss your letter of resignation on the desk of your cranky, cigar smokin’ boss and kindly flip him the bird as you walk out. You walk into your home triumphant, and you kiss your spouse hello. You hold your kids tight knowing now you will see them grow up, and you know it truly is a wonderful life.
Next day you wake up, sober after being drunk on freedom, and suddenly you have a cold sweat. The shock and fear sets in that now you are finally on your own. It is solely up to you to decide your financial future with your home business opportunity, not to mention the responsibility you have for family members.
It can be a scary feeling to start your own business. There are so many aspects you have to worry about now that didn’t even cross your mind as an employee.
You ask yourself, “How am I going to get this widget together? Where am I going to get the funds to put said widget together? Who will I market to and how do I know they will like it? What customer service issues do I have to worry about when it comes to the widget? And that leads to my question about legal protection in case someone tries to sue me because they slipped on the widget.”
The list of questions go on and on as you piece together your work at home business opportunity. You have so many “what if’s” in your mind that your head is about to explode like a Fourth of July firework.
What makes it harder is now you have to work at your office at home where you have distractions from your spouse needing you to run this errand, your kids running in and out of the room, and construction workers coming into the house to fix appliances now that you are on your way to being a millionaire.
Basically, the stress can be so overwhelming, you wonder if your old boss couldn’t see the gesture you gave him through all the cigar smoke when you left so you could crawl back to your old job. Before you get could feet and put your resume back together, let’s take a look at your situation.
Serving A Need In Society
“The more good I do, the more money has come in. You have to learn to give. You’re not born to give. You’re born selfish.”
-Ted Turner, CEO of Turner Broadcasting
Many people doubt they can be an entrepreneur, but the truth is you decide whether or not to kindle that spirit within. The biggest way to access this internal John D. Rockefeller is through one word: Purpose.
There is no amount of money, accolades, commodities, or business growth that can compensate for finding a true passionate reason for your business.
In order to figure out what your passion is there are several general areas that will fuel your passion:
- wanting to improve the world
- seeing some wrong in society that you want to make right
- preserving a good quality of society that is about to fade out
- or improving the quality of life for your community
The essence here is that you want to establish something that will improve the way of society as we see it.
For the longest time America was just another country with a lot of land. There involvement in trade and global financial success was limited.
Then Andrew Carnegie came a long and created Carnegie steel. He created huge business partnerships with many of his competitors (one his former boss) and fused together a conglomerate that raked in millions.
John D. Rockefeller started Standard Oil and sliced through the competition. He would offer a fair price to buy people out or drive them out of business. He would show his competition his books and control of the oil industry. Once they saw they had no option but to take the buyout, Rockefeller would always get his way. Eventually legal action had to be taken against him to break up the monopoly through anti-trust laws.
Both of these gentlemen, along with other contributors at the turn of the century, created a fortune and prominence for this country that we still live off of today. Their passions were manifested in completely different ways. Carnegie was known for joint ventures, Rockefeller for smashing the competition.
No matter what your feelings were on either of them, both had a sincere passion and a clear vision of what they were doing, and no hurdle would get in their way.
Direction
“Concentration is my motto - first honesty, then industry, then concentration.”
-Andrew Carnegie
In order to get this vision or find true purpose you have to have a very clear business plan and motto. You have to know exactly what you are doing day in and day out that is driving you to success.
Figure out in one sentence your (BI) Business Intent. This sentence should be the long term goal of what your business will provide society. Keep it short and simple.
When you have this nailed down then follow after Bill Kelleher, one of the founders of Southwest, and make sure that every action you take in business–political, financial, operations, product design, etc–will follow this one motto.
This will clear up confusion for you and your business associates. It will keep you focused on work instead of batting around ideas and never really getting anything done.
Jimmy Stewart got a second chance to live again and so can you. So stop thinking about going back to that boss, you have made the decision. Now stick with it and get your hands dirty in the work.
This is as much your blog as it is mine and now the blog is yours.
Let me ask you what is your single most important question about work at home business opportunities?
What brought you to Write To Right?
What would you want to see more of on this site about work at home business opportunities that would excite you, but you can’t find?
This is your chance to make this site better one comment at a time. Feel comfortable to express your inner feelings and don’t hold anything back!
If you liked this post then make sure to subscribe to Write To Right for more information on starting a successful business.
Filed Under Home Based Business Opportunities, Small Business Opportunities, Starting A Business | 9 Comments
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