Wealth and Wisdom

Several months ago we did some soul searching. We looked at our business activities, the results we were achieving, and what direction we want to move. Most were moving in the right direction needing just a few minor modifications.

Wealth and Wisdom was a different story.

We started Wealth and Wisdom as a site to provide small businesses and micro-entrepreneurs resources. Our plan was to become the place to go if you needed tools, products, or advice. Wanting to stay at the forefront of technology, we investigated RSS feeds and blogs.

And somehow I co-opted the entire enterprise to become my bully pulpit. In the process it became another obligation: I must post every week no matter what. None of this helped us move towards freedom.

So we changed priorities and focused our energy on building our other businesses. We also stopped trying to force Wealth and Wisdom into a cash machine, and kept it dedicated to our journey as entrepreneurs.

And now to the excuses

At the same time, life has gotten complicated. Selling our house, working hard to hit my sales quota (day job), building two side businesses, family, etc….These have all absorbed a ton of time. Things like blogging took a back seat.

Yep, it’s an excuse. These was always an hour each week to post. And now that the pressure is off me to make it profitable, I can write the things I want. I can explore my continuous personal development. I can write about the things I learn while growing our businesses. I can write about my job and not worry that it makes me less of a guru.

Going forward

I still plan on posting regularly. I enjoy writing, and getting it on paper (or the screen) helps me clear my head, organize my thoughts, and work through challenges. I also have enjoyed building my own little corner of cyberspace. I am thankful that you have stuck with me, some of you for over two years!

Tags: Life balance

When we get buried in the day to day, we often forget what we’ve accomplished and learned. It can seem like we are standing still, especially when you haven’t achieved one or more of you major goals. This is one reason why it is so important to do periodic reviews. It’s also one of the magical things about heading into New Years, as this holiday tends to make us think back over our previous year and forward to the next.

Looking back, 2009 has been a roller coaster

• New government which has created a ton of strife. New regulations and laws looming that will change the face of this country (I’ll leave it to you to decide if it’s for better or for worse!)
• The economy degraded even further, and any recovery we’ve seen has been limited at best.
• The budget deficit has exploded as government spending has reached record levels.
• The dollar is plummeting.
• Housing sales are slow, there is a glut of foreclosures in the system, and a new wave of foreclosures is on the horizon.

All of this change will impact our lives. We have a choice on whether we will sit back and let life push us this way and that. This will test us, and while it will be challenging, it will also present some of the best opportunities we’ve seen in decades. It is our choice whether we are full of fear or hope, see crisis or opportunity, excel or drown in the turmoil.

Wealth and Wisdom has had quite a year

OK, maybe not the blog itself, but our life has been pretty full. From vacations to job changes to business launches, we’ve had a full and eventful 2009:

• Wrote a book about hacking your college degree: This alone has been an amazing trip and we’ve learned a lot. Marketing, Adwords, copywriting, writing and editing, web site design, setting price levels, list building….You get the picture!
• My JOB: yep, I still straddle being an employee and an entrepreneur, somewhat because we are not ready to go full time, mostly because I’ve enjoyed what I’m doing. This part of my life has been an event. 2008 I was the number one salesman in my company. 2009 I was number three. Since there are between 300 and 400 salesmen…this is a big accomplishment. But it hasn’t all been positive. My company reorganized and we spent six months wondering about how our jobs would change. I said goodbye to several good friends as they took opportunities with our competition. I’ve dealt with red tape and bureaucracy that drives me crazy.
• We’ve taken three amazing vacations: one a cruise in South America, one a Mediterranean cruise, one a trip to St. Maarten. Wow!
• We’ve found internet based business to be extremely challenging and frustrating. On the surface, it should be easy. We’ve started and run several successful brick and mortar businesses. I’ve run and managed a couple businesses. I’m one of the top salesmen and an acknowledged expert in my industry. But internet marketing requires a different skill set. It’s taken a while, but we’ve pretty much finally figured it out. Now it’s time to apply what we’ve learned.
• Started exploring other business opportunities. I’m a firm believer in having multiple businesses in place, especially if you can automate / outsource them and create passive streams of income. One business didn’t work, but the basic model is fantastic. We just need to find a better product. The other model is being developed and is looking like it could be a blockbuster. Remember how I said we could chose whether to see opportunity or crisis? I chose to find solutions to a major problem and create a business.
• Wealth and Wisdom has been stagnant. Two years ago we had grand plans for Wealth and Wisdom, but we never acted on those plans. Instead it has wandered along and almost become an outlet for my thoughts and a journal of my growth as an entrepreneur.
• My racquetball game has improved and I’m close to leaping to the next level. While I’ve had some ups and downs, much of that is having to internalize strategies and skills, which cause me to think too much and not execute. Perhaps most importantly I’ve discovered that I don’t like playing in extremely competitive venues. Not because I’m not capable, but because I don’t enjoy it. I find it brings out the worst in people and that isn’t why I play.
• Our son turned 16. Need I say more?

Coming up in 2010

2010 should be an eventful and profitable year. As we bring our businesses on line, as we learn and grow, we will share it with you. This includes our view on the changes to our government and economy. Don’t worry, we aren’t going political on you, we’ll be focusing on what to do to protect yourself and find the opportunities.

We’ve also finally defined our customer (Wealth and Wisdom), figured out our niche, and what our focus needs to be. Don’t worry, you’ll still see posts ranging from personal development to education to sales to business to personal finance. Wealth and Wisdom will still be a journal of our journey to entrepreneurship, and how we used our businesses to create freedom, wealth, and life balance. It will just be better defined and on purpose.

Tags: Entrepreneurship, Life balance, Wealth

The other day my wife and I were going through our business expenses. While this is a regular activity, this time we were challenging assumptions and looking for creative ways to cut costs while maintaining (or improving) our level of service.

One area that came up was our monthly payments to Aweber. When we first started out it seemed like an easy way to get started. One month for free. Only $20 per month until you really got things going. And compared to the other options we looked at it was a bargain. Heck, the autoresponders we looked at ranged from $497 to $1500. Ouch!

We looked to the “gurus” for advice, and the consistent answer we saw was “go with Aweber.” Let’s see…it’s cheaper, it’s easier, and the experts say use it…It seemed like a no brainer.

Flash forward two years

After a couple years we are reexamining our decision. First, it didn’t take us long to bump up against the lower cost ($20 per money) limits of 1000 subscribers. Since the 1000 subscribers is based on all of your lists combined (and we have quite a few), it didn’t take us long before our monthly fee went up significantly. Even if you were able to stay below the 1000 subscriber limit, your costs are $240 per year. At this rate, stand alone options start looking pretty good.

We started searching for stand alone options and examining the major services. We initially thought this would take a few hours, but boy were we wrong. It took us tens of hours, and could have easily expanded if we checked every program and script out there.

As this unraveled, we started to look at if from multiple angles. In our personal case, we had two business models that needed to be addressed. And as a service to our readers we expanded our review to other business models as well.

• Small / personal bloggers
• Business bloggers
• Hybrid blog / internet marketer
• Internet marketing
• Offline businesses with an online presence

Each has it’s own needs, and unless you spend a ton of money, not any one product works. In our case we needed two separate tools (I’m doing our final test with this blog post).

Over the next few weeks I’ll be writing up complete reviews on each product and service. In most cases I’ve actually installed and tested the product. We are also looking at packaging specific products with tools to make implementation easy.

Tags: Autoresponder, Entrepreneurship

Yesterday I reviewed Dan Boudreau’s book RiskBuster: Start or Grow Any Small Business, Wherever You Are With Whatever You Have, Right Now! Overall I was impressed with how Dan managed to go in depth while making the book easy to read. I was also impressed with the tools and forms that accompanied the book.

If you’re thinking about starting a business or getting serious about growing a business you already own, I can tell you this – no matter what your area of expertise, this book will give you the skills and confidence to make success happen!.

“This powerful, practical book shows you how to get onto the road of financial independence and then step on the gas.”

Brian Tracy – Author – “The Way to Wealth”

RiskBuster will empower you to tap into your entrepreneurial potential to build a thriving, profitable business venture. This step-by-step RoadMap makes it easy to research your business ideas, to determine feasibility, to write business plans for any purpose, and to start or grow your business confidently—even if you’ve never done any of these things before.

This is a Special Offer to you: When you buy the book today, you will be given access to over $1,000 in gifts from business experts like Rick Frishman, David Hancock, Jody Gabourie, Joanne Victoria, Warren Whitlock and Dr. Joe Rubino! But you have to buy it today!

To order your copy now, go to http://www.riskbuster.riskbuster.com

PS Take full advantage of this 24-hour Bonus Gift Offer and forward the link to your entrepreneur friends!

Tags: Entrepreneurship

Last year I was approached by Dan Boudreau to review his book Business Plan or BUST! While I was initially hesitant, I found the book to be an extremely thorough tool to write business plans. How through? It is focused on writing a 25 page business plan, which is good enough to pursue venture capitol or funding. It also showed you how to write a fast track plan for those of us who need something less.

It was a book I could completely endorse.

Well, tomorrow Dan is launching a new book. This time he is tackling starting a business. Since his background is in business planning, it makes sense that the entire book is built around business plans. He basically takes his book Business Plan or BUST! and builds on it. By the end of the book he will have shown you (step by step) how to find a niche, research your market, and build your business. Since this is all wrapped up in the business planning process, you also end up with a complete business plan.

I only have one issue with his book. I usually recommend entrepreneurs take a ready, fire, aim approach. In my experience this is best accomplished by a one or two page plan that becomes a living document. As you fine tune your product or service your business plan grows to match.

This is a minor issue. Even with the ready, fire, aim approach you need to do many of these steps. Most people just don’t formalize these steps, which I think is a mistake.

What this book does is show you how to do it. I’m sick and tired of “gurus” telling me what to do but leaving out all of the details. In the end you are left with a choice: spend hours figuring it out yourself or pay for yet another book or system. Contrast this with RiskBuster. In RiskBuster, Dan shows you what to do and gives you the tools you need. I can’t overemphasize how important this is for most people.

When is the book available?

RiskBuster’s official launch is at midnight tonight. As a special bonus Dan is offering 20 free gifts to Wealth and Wisdom readers. I’ll send out a post when it is live so you can all participate.

In keeping with the new FTC regulations, I need to disclose to you that I received a free copy of this book. I am not being compensated in any other  way.