I’ll continue to post on this site for small business – tips, suggestions, etc. so if you like being here, stay – there’ll be more.

But . . . . go outside the main stream services and products just a little and . . . . BANG!  . . . . your time disappears into a black hole of technological marvels all telling you what each widget can do.  Great! 

Lots of great programmers coming up with lots of new tools.  What they don’t tell you, are the glitches with applying each one.  You have to go here and you have to go there and you have to ask this person and that other support person and then you have to ask more questions (because they know their stuff but you don’t know what they know) - the time consumption is horrendous!  And, of course, you find out in articles that if you happen to pick the wrong basic thing and combine it with another wrong basic thing, you’ll have to start all over again!!! 

The industry is so segmented and each component is so specialized, there’s no one out there thinking through the business aspects and linking everything.  – oh – correction – there could be – but another chunk of hours trying to find them because you’re likely not using the right terminology! . . . .I could be asking for an orange but I was suppose to ask for a navel orange . . . !!!!

Yes, it’s okay to have specializations – it’s necessary – the same as a mall – you have a clothing store, a shoe store, a drug store, a grocery store but they are all linked into one common thread – shopping and there’s a path from store to store.  Stores display their wares – warts and all – and store people help you figure out if something is right or wrong for you.

For instance, someone told me to start a blog on WordPress so I did and I have found it to be a very interesting process.  Because I’m learning, I have been doing a lot of research and am now starting to understand how I turn blogging into an on-line business. 

So, I think up an idea, I want to try it only to find out that I cannot do that on .com but I need to go now to .org of the same name company - huh????  For non-techie’s, this simply doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.  Why not just simply include it in upgrades and make it seamless for the consumer.

So now I have to figure out the difference between the two, find a web host, download .org software, and I’m on my own for all kinds of things like controlling spam.   Makes no sense at all to me.

If I were the company, I’d make it possible to add on some widgets on the sidebar the same as Blogger does – I don’t have to go to Blogger.org to do it – and I still get all the same coverage as just the regular old Blogger – simple – easy! 

I have spent hours now talking to AWebber who are so terrific in explaning technology easily and making their services so user friendly, it’s incredible!  If all online services studied AWebber about how to explain their to services to clients and how to make their product easy to use as well as how to use their product with other products, then all of this process would be simple.  AWebber know their stuff and are willing to help – they know they are the technology experts and the people using their services are often not nor do clients have the time to “figure it all out”.

So, the moral of the story – technology can chew up time like there is no tomorrow.  If you are entering into a new part of the technology world, expect to spend a huge amount of time sorting what’s what and practically becoming a techie yourself. 

It’s like this – getting into new technology is like buying a car in parts – you have to research and pick your own body, engine, drive shaft, transmission, ignition, etc  and understand what each part does, figure out if they are compatible and then you have to put it together yourself, do the mechanical repairs yourself and monitor your car with all kinds of gadgets to make sure it’s all working properly!  Oh, yes, and you’d have to know little tricks too like adding the transmission fluid – if you didn’t know these tiny little facts that likely no parts person would tell you, your transmission won’t work!  If anyone had to buy a car this way, there would be few people buying cars – in fact, the car industry would likely never sold a one!

They say, well, there are techies who can help you.  Ah . . . . but . . . . that’s a whole other story altogether – which one?  for what purpose?  Unlike a car, there is no car mechanic who knows all the systems, how they are all work together and how to fix problems.  No, in technology, even for a small thing like a small website, you need a designer, a graphic designer, a SEO expert,  and the list goes on for just a simple website.

  Yes, you say, well get one already made.  Really?  Then, you have to figure out if the the company which is offering these “ready mades” will stay in business, are they reputable, do they offer large enough bandwidth, the amount of downtime they experience or not and the list goes on and on and on and on.  And, when you do arrive at the be all and end all of prefab websites, then you have to figure out all the plugins, shopping cards, merchant accounts, entering new products, creating new descriptions, uploading pictures (& hosting picture), and, there again, the list goes on and on and on.  See a Yahoo store – so popular today and some of the best prefabs you can get  - but it takes 1Choice 4 You – a whole company – to help you put it together properly so it all works as well as possible!  Great looking stores – prefab – but, again, it chews up time like mad!  Yes, it’s true – you can go to forums and blogs and get help – guess what???  More time is chewed up finding the good forums/blogs/etc. . . . .

And that time doesn’t include all the other things you need to do in order to give it your best shot at creating a viable business – business plans, product sourcing, capitalization, newsletters, customer service, etc. etc. etc. 

You say, well, if you had a brick and mortar store, you’d have to do leasehold improvements too – maybe – and once done, it was done – not so with websites – you continually have to work on them and keep them fresh.  Then you have to be connected to Twitter, Facebook, LindedIn – then you have webcasts, podcasts, webinars, etc.  And you have to intergrate all the old fashioned stuff too into your business plan - and both kinds – traditional paper and untraditional online advertising and promotion!

We are so connected to the internet now and the industry is still so “unconnected”, the challenges for the average person are overwhelming not to mention trying to understand lingo and instructions that don’t work because they missed a few steps that “you, the customer, should have known”. 

Lots of great people in the industry – great online help in some cases – but if they only could sit where I sit and so many other people are sitting, they would be amazed at the maze created by the internet and technology.  It’s no wonder that many people just sparingly use the internet for find a phone number or get an answer to a question but to actually use the internet in any other way for most people is very, very difficult and time consuming.

For instance, if my blogging software company just made a “mall” type service as its business, it could be making a lot of money.  A person shouldn’t have to know from the beginning that there are 2 different categories of  – .com and .org and that each allow the user to do different things.  Make it one company – one thing - then offer people options as people who choose to grow with the software can take advantage of. 

Yes, the Support at has been terrific in answering questions but after 3 days I still have no idea what the transfer will take in order to do what I want to do.  It should be seamless – what I want to do is so simple, it should be seamless and should really take no more than a few clicks to accomplish – it’s just a matter of adding an opt in box onto my blog – simple.  Over 3 days of trying to get that done and I’m still nowhere!  All I wanted was to put an opt in box on my blog from AWebber!  That’s all – and all of this for just that!

So . . . small business people . . . be prepared for a long haul or throw money at it – and, then, again, you’ll have to make sure the money goes to the right people to do right things for what you want – in addition to just regular ‘getting into business’ processes.  Prepare for one heck of a journey!

If you think of your business this way, then it’s not surprising that, at times, you’ll feel what you feel as the circumstances of surrounding your business change.  Accept it.  Work with it.  Weather the storms no matter how great or turbulent or devasting – know they’re coming and so is the sunshine – good times, profitable times in your business.  That’s why it’s good to plan and work with your plan constantly to make the necessary adjustments for the business climate at any given moment.  What you can foresee, you can adjust for – if you don’t know the weather report, you’ll not bring your umbrella!

Time spent reviewing and adjusting your plan is time well spent – every single week – make it a habit that every Friday you review your plan and make the changes – better to make tiny incremental changes than to face a hurricane!

Think about that little known fact -

It requires 22 trees to produce the amount of oxygen consumed by one person. (An acre of trees produces enough oxygen for 18 people). This data comes from the Northwest Territories Forest Management site: http://forestmanagement.enr.gov.nt.ca/forest_education/amazing_tree_facts.htm

So . . . . what do you think of that?  Will you be a little more concerned about trees from now on? 

Your response might be:  there are millions of trees in the world?  Are there?  How many millions of trees do we need to produce enough oxygen for 6 billion people on this earth?  Take 6 billion and divide it by the number of acres required to produce enough oxygen for 18 people to breath – incredible, isn’t it? 

If you need a visual, watch some old movies from the 30′s, 40′s and 50′s – notice how few people are on the streets, in cars, in airports – anywhere the movie includes.  Now, watch a modern day movie from the same city – if you have never noticed it before, you will now – it’s astonishing!

There are 36,794,240,000 acres on the earth, 9 trillion of which is water.  Taking into account that you can grow 700 average trees on an acre, you can begin to see the enormity of the issue.  Now think of the other parts of the earth on which you can’t grow trees – high mountain peaks, marshy areas, tundra, North and South Poles, Greenland, deserts . . . . get the picture?

We think we have a lot of space, a lot of trees but really, do we have enough?  Is it any wonder that we have global warming and we are charging forward towards big problems.

Then think about all the pollutants we create – how does that impact the ability for trees to grow?

It’s an important topic – very important to your life and to the lives of those you care about –

When you think about time, think about how long it takes a tree to grow.  Think about how many trees in your town or city have disappeared because of urban sprawl and how many have been replaced.  Think of how much the quality of your life has diminished because all these trees have disappeared.  Is it any wonder that smog is “normal”?

When it comes to time and money, it costs you big time!  How?  Because governments have environmental programs to clean up messes created by whomever.  The more the environment needs cleaning up, the higher your taxes because, let’s face it, without the money from your pocket, governments have no money!  It’s your money they are spending!  A government, per se, has no money.

Next time you see a tree cut – call up city hall and find out when that tree will be replaced – as the smog grows, so will your taxes because all kinds of programs will be necessary to undue the damage just so you can breath!  Quite a thought, isn’t it – so you can breath without the air making you sick or worse, killing you!

Happens to everyone – there’s a short solution to this issue and, later, when you need an idea, you’ll have a whole book to choose from.

Get yourself a spiral notebook – the hardcover type such as the Five Star series – in a size that is convenient for you.  Carry this notebook wherever you go at the office, at home, at the gym, when you go for a walk or a concert or a presentation – ideas are like that – you just never know when they’ll “hit”!  Have a place to write them down immediately – they are so fleeting!

Date the page – write it out.  You’ll be glad you did!

A professor mine in stats taught me a great lesson and certainly it has served me my whole life. 

He used to give us all the questions ahead of the exam which was quite unusual all in itself.  Here is how is system worked:

-  students were to practice answering each of the questions ahead of the exam.  Why?

-  because, at exam time, you were required to answer the questions in 60 words or less otherwise you were docked marks for every single word over 60!!!  Quite a concept, huh?

Well, it worked.  I can tell you it worked like a charm!  If you did the work ahead of exam time, you really, truly understood the concepts taught in the course.  The confidence it gave you was tremendous.  Why?  Because, in your mind, the concepts were very, very clear and understood so you could write them down often in less than 60 words. 

So when you see long, long writing about a topic and it seems to go around in circles which happens very frequently in today’s world, you know the person has no understanding of the topic so they try to bamboozle people with a lot of unnecessary words.  We say we have very little time and yet we tolerate this kind of communication.

Try it in your life – whenever you are vague about something – try writing the idea or concept in 60 words.  I guarantee one thing – if you can express it in 60 words or less, you’ll understand it.  It takes work, thinking and reworking the words until you reach the heart of the matter.

Sometimes, for short-term solutions, it’s great!  It gets a lot out of the way, solves an issue and away we go!

But when starting your own business, it’s really not the way to go.  You need to REALIZE what you’re getting into.  The romance of “being your own boss” is just that – romance – and as with every other type of marriage in the earthling universe, there’s knowledge, skills, work and understanding that keeps the marriage buoyant and thriving.  And don’t think of going out to get an MBA if you haven’t already got one – it won’t help you do what you need to do – there are other ways.

Tool:  So, begin with a list of what you know how to do and then beside it a list of what you don’t know how to do but you’ll need in your business.  For instance, most people in a job do one thing – they “do” marketing, manage a department, work in communications, sell, co-ordinate, etc.  There may be several components involved in each of these activities, however, the range is quite limited as compared to a business owner. 

Think of all the departments in a large corporation - simply go to the web to find this information if you don’t already know it or want to check that you have a complete list.

How long does it take to learn all of these things?  Depends whether you got the tradional way (university, college, etc.) or where you take shortcuts to getting just what you need for your particular enterprise.

Begin here in any case – make the list – figure it out.

http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20091031/BUSINESS/910310319/1003/business

Extroverts are energized by talking to people – they like to laugh, talk and just love to be around people.  Isolation is a real motivation killer for an extrovert.

Being an entrepreneur of a one-person company, of course, there will be a lot of time necessary spent alone doing proposals, reports, billing and a host of other tasks associated with a small business.

My advice to her:  after a great telephone conversation, take a break.  Make yourself a cup of tea, relax for 15-20 minutes, and then get back to work.  Even a short walk around the block will help.  It’s a way for an extrovert to “come down” from the high s/he gets from interacting with people.

So, if you’re an extrovert – try it – I know it works – it’s the only way because if you force yourself to get back to tasks right away, you’ll be hyper, uninterested in what you are doing and, maybe, even feel as though you’ll blow up if you sit and work.  The energy either has to be dissipated or used up before you can get back to the type of activity that is really not your preference. 

Oprah once said on her show something to the effect, “There’s a place for everyone.  You need to find that place with the right people where you fit in.”

Easier said then done, right?  It’s true – especially if you are in a particular profession or job which you love but you hate everything surrounding it – the politics, the atmosphere, the policies or even how some people are treated.  So what to do?

What do you like and dislike?  From the list of  your dislikes, what can you tolerate and what would you prefer didn’t exist at all?   What environment would you like to work in?  Define it for yourself. 

With this ammunition spelled out in writing – on paper or on a Word document, it’ll set up, in your mind, the situation which would work best for you.  Now that you have that awareness, you’ll be able to spot it when you see it – and it may not come through the usual channels.  This is the same as being in the market for a new car – you research and then decide exactly the car for you – isn’t it amazing how you see that car everywhere when you are aware of what you want?

How does this save time?  A positive environment well suited to you allows for greater productivity and creativity and less time on “forcing yourself” to ignore all the ways a place is not right for you.  Negative thoughts have a way of creeping in because the triggers are all around you whether or not you are conscious of them.  These thoughts waste valuable time and energy not to mention how they affect your overall well-being.