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Telecommute Job Online COVID Pandemic Edition by David M Masters

Telecommute or Move Your Job Online Keep your job work from home working remotely or telecommuting Create and maximize your financial abundance during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Employees, small business owners, organizations, industries, corporations, and families who have been negatively affected by the issues surrounding the pandemic will benefit from this COVID edition of Telecommute Job Online, delineating the vast opportunities which can be taken advantage of in these unprecedented times.

With this book, you will be able to transition from the low end of the spectrum, whether you are an employee or an employer. You can easily move from one level to the next using the tips, tools, and techniques that Masters provides in detail.

Employees are bargaining for the best possible accommodations and enjoying freedom, enjoying all the benefits of telecommuting, and working from home, and they are loving it.

Most businesses are on either end of the spectrum, on the verge of bankruptcy, or profiting wildly, taking advantage of every opportunity.

Whether you need to get a job, save your business, or spread your wings to fly in the new business economy that is expanding at a rate never before seen in America.

As a business consultant, Masters is fortunate enough to be in the trenches of this pandemic, seeing how employees and businesses are struggling to survive during the most difficult of times to be visited on this generation. If you are focused upon the media reports, your outlook would be fearful and you might be counted among the millions of people who are suffering the effects of this COVID-crisis, including depression, any variety of mental illness, and suicidal ideation.

At the same time, businesses, are adapting, retooling, and taking advantage of these tough times, and enjoying the profits from doing so. Employees are bargaining for the best possible accommodations and enjoying freedom, enjoying all the benefits of telecommuting and working from home, and they are loving it.

Amidst all the chaos, more Americans are starting new businesses more than at any other time in history.

Shouldn’t you count yourself among those thriving? These pages are for you, the employee, the small business owner, and the latent entrepreneur. Take this opportunity to reclaim your powerful life, achieve your highest and best, live a better life, your best life, and make the world a better place.

David M Masters is a father, grandfather, entrepreneur, business consultant, Olympia Life Coach, lead trainer, and founding member of St. Paul’s Free University.

He now enjoys helping others achieve their highest and best while celebrating life from his headquarters located in the scenic Pacific Northwest in Washington State.

For more information on the author visit davidmmasters.com

Telecommute Job Online COVID Pandemic Edition by David M Masters

 

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How to Create and Maximize Your Elevator Speech

Your elevator speech is that 30-second spiel you have memorized that you can quickly and easily recite any time that you have at least a minute to interact with anyone, like sharing a ride in an elevator, hence the term elevator speech. Skillful businesspeople know how to create and maximize your elevator speech, and here is how it is done.

What is Your Purpose?

Before you start your script you need to know what your purpose is so that you know what you want to be included in your speech. Make a list. No need to think it through too much, just get an idea of what you want other people to know about you and what you do. Chances are you will have enough ideas that you could never condense them all down to 30-seconds, and that is good.

Now that you have your list, go through and cut it down to things you want to say,

1. About You
2. What You Offer
3. Why You?
4. How You Do It
5. What They Can Do

Not an easy task to whittle everything down to 8 to 10 sentences that you can speak definitively in 25 to 30 seconds, right?

About You

You want to detail information about you, your business or company. It is good to tell them something about you that they are not likely to hear from anyone else, something that makes you and/or your company stand out.

What You Offer

Give an example of what you do, resulting in an outcome that most anyone could find agreeable or even desirable.

Why You?

This is where you disclose the benefits enjoyed by your clients, include problems your clients faced and solutions that you provided (that couldn’t be found otherwise).

How You Do It

Give an example of the steps you would go through to help someone with your solution to their problem.

What They Can Do

This is the part that is normally left out, a call to action. Tell them what they can do right now. Take your business card and call for an appointment? Whatever it is, tell them to take an action of some kind, and check back with you after they have done it. Then end your elevator speech with a quick question.

Something like,

“If you could have it any way you wanted it, what would that look like?”

What’s in it for me?

Remember, there is only one thing that anyone is listening to when you are talking to them in your 30-second elevator speech (and almost any other time you are speaking) and it is, “What’s in it for me?”

Know that you know this, don’t waste your breath unless you are conveying something that interests or deeply-connects to something that your listener wants.

Make the most of this precious, possibly one-time, 30-second interaction.

Even if your elevator speech doesn’t have anything of substance that interests the person you are talking to, if it is powerful enough, they will refer your offer to someone who is in need of what you have to offer.

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How to Turn Your Hobby into a Business

You know that thing that you love to do? The thing that you would do when you have some free time? That thing that you enjoy doing and you see time just fly away when you are doing it? What if you could make money doing it? You could join others who learned how to turn your hobby into a business.

What if the money you could make from your hobby was many times what you would make working a regular job? Many people are doing just that, right now, turning their hobbies into wealth-generating machines and having so much fun doing it.

Most people think that making an incredible income doing something you love so much is just not possible. Anything is possible if you know how to turn your hobby into a business.

You might have a hobby that you love to do in your free time, like archery, playing guitar, web site design, woodworking, painting, baking, interior design, landscaping, quilting, dog training, or horse riding, just to name a few.

Why don’t more people take the steps necessary to make a business out of their favorite hobbies? The two biggest reasons are fear and unworthiness. Mostly fear of failure and unworthiness, such as not feeling as though you are qualified enough, do not have a teaching certificate, not formally educated, or any of the other things your negative self is whispering in your ear.

Maybe that would dissuade the average Joe or Jane to avoid pursuing such a dream, but not you. You got this.

Start from the start and create a plan that will account for taking you from ground zero to where you want to ultimately be in your wildest dreams. Your plan should include a starting point where you provide your product or service in exchange for cash part-time. If you are going to self-finance make sure it includes a method of handling finances in such a way as to be able to continually expand your business so that you can serve more people.

And the end of your plan, include a vision of your hobby as a massively successful business, and what you are going to do with it. Will you sell it? Or pass it onto your heirs? Write it down.

Do not take this too seriously nor let the details keep you from moving forward. Your plan is not written in stone and is subject to change along the way.

Sell Your Product or Service

Your dream does not actually start until someone has paid you for our product or service. The first sale is the hardest, then it is downhill from there. If you are just getting started, you may have to offer a free trial to gain interest in your offering.

If you are selling a product, you will need to place some advertising in inexpensive classified ads or use Internet resources, such as online stores or social media.

This is when you start selling your product or service and grow your sales exponentially.

Manage Yourself

Essentially you are your own boss, and there is an incredible amount of freedom you can gain from being the boss of you but remember this is not a hobby anymore It is time to put your hand to the plow. No one is going to keep you accountable but yourself.

Make time to grow your hobby into a business even if it means getting up before the crack of dawn or working on your dream into the late hours of the night, if necessary.

Web Presence

If you are going to do business in today’s marketplace you need to have an online presence. This is the least expensive and most effective method to build your brand and identity. To start off, you will need a web site.

Go to GoDaddy and buy a (insert-name-of-your-hobby-business-name-with-no-spaces) dot com. Keep in mind that if your first choice is not available, GoDaddy will recommend alternatives to dot-coms. Don’t fall for it. Dot-coms are the preference, and people will type “.com” simply out of reflex, and you don’t want to send your traffic to someone else’s web site.

GoDaddy will give you a free limited website, which is good enough to get you started, or you can install and use a WordPress-powered website. They are easy to figure out, and they are nearly limitless in the things that you can do with them. If setting up your web site seems too complicated and you are not able to figure it out, you can find someone to do this for you.

People will need a way to find your contact information and the first place they look these days is online, so if you expect to be found by anyone you must be there.

Once you have your dot-com and basic website in place, you can expand into branded social media, like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube (yes, post videos about you and your product or service). These are the places where your audience is spending their time, and you can hang out there for free. Of course, advertising on these platforms is also an option.

Word of Mouth

The most truly organic method of promoting your business is word of mouth. That means as a new hobby-business owner you will need to get out there and talk about what you do. To effectively communicate what you do in any situation, you need to have your 30-second elevator speech down pat.

That means having a script that spells out your story in 80 to 90 words only. Your elevator pitch tells who you are, what you do, and why people need or want what you do in half-a-minute. Once you have this memorized you can maximize your exposure to anyone you come across in no time (well, in less than a minute).

Write it, memorize it, practice it, and change your elevator speech as often as necessary. Next, you will need to get out there, where your potential clients might be in the real world, and when you are not where your people might be, connect with other business owners, go to meetings where they are at, join associations and clubs, and get to know them.

You will be surprised by how supportive business owners to other business owners with whom they are acquainted. They can help you build your business from the inside out by giving advice, and may even participate in a promotional effort with you, if they like you (so please try to be likable). If you haven’t read it already, get and read the classic book, “How to win Friends & Influence People” by Dale Carnegie.

Be Diligent

Being diligent means you are taking this seriously. You are going to treat this business, even though it is based on a hobby, just like a real business. That means, doing the work, just as though someone else was paying you to do it. Even though you may not be being paid in the beginning you are building sweat equity which will allow you to reap financial rewards in the future.

This is how you will build your hobby into a business that will free you from your day job, or having to compromise your life by bowing down to an employer who doesn’t truly appreciate you and everything you could potentially give to the employer or the world.

Ince you have achieved a certain degree of success with your hobby, you may be looking for other opportunities to build other businesses as well.

It is Never Over

For most business owners, it is never over. One successful business is not satisfactory enough, plus you never know when the bottom might fall out of your hobby, and people just don’t want to do that anymore.

Diversification, having more than one business, will help protect you from the ups and downs of running a business, especially if you have a business that is seasonal. Having an anti-cyclical business as well, one that is also seasonal but is busy during the slow times of your hobby business is your key to true independence.

Keep doing your research, learning new skills, and expanding your knowledgebase.

 

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Succeed with Your New Startup Business Against the Odds

Some people are born with it, others need a little nudge to get them going. Either way, you are choosing to start clearing your own path to start a business, now, against all odds. Regardless of what it may look or feel like, you can stack the deck so that the cards are in your favor, so you can succeed with your new startup business against the odds.

7 Steps to Success Against the Odds

1. Have a Clear Vision

Start with a plan, and using your imagination, see your business at the height of success, of you were able to launch your business, and everything went your way, what would your business look like in five years? In ten years?

In the beginning, also have the end in mind. Will you sell your business and retire, start another one, pass it onto your heirs, or will you keep it to add to your growing portfolio of businesses?

Feel into the vision of the life of your business before you open for business, and document you’re doing so.

2. Know Your Why

This is the reason you are starting your business and why you are doing it now, and it has to be more than for money. Income is not enough of a why to get you through the tough times, and your why will be different than anyone else’s. What drives you to start a business against the odds?

Is it to provide for your family? To build a fortune to leave to your heirs? To help others who you feel compassionate towards? To break you and your family out of the trap of poverty? To make a stand against “the man” and to break free from wage-earning prison? To be an inspiration to others who doubt that breaking free is not possible for themselves?

Why? Make your why as powerful and you can, because the strength of your why will help empower you to push-though when the going gets rough. When you are face-to-face with what seems to be insurmountable circumstances, remember your why. This is how you succeed against the odds.

3. Personal Mission Statement

Once you know your why, you can craft your personal mission statement. Before you start creating your business mission statement and plan, start with you, your personal mission statement. Incorporate your vision, your why, and your core values. This defines you and helps you to make decisions based on what serves you and your highest and best. Let this define the kind of business owner you are and the kind of businessperson you want to be in the future.

4. Consider Failure

Understand that failure is a necessary component of success, therefore it is important not to look at failures in your business as failures but as invaluable information gathering data. Throughout your business journey, you will try things, like promotional campaigns, some will fail, so you examine them to find out what went wrong.

Do not look at failure as if it is were a single devastating final blow. If you get kicked off the horse, get back on quickly as possible, even if your business ends up not working out as you had planned, do the same thing. Look at every detail, extract the learning, and try something else.

Also, keeping an eye on the failures of others can help you learn from their mistakes (which doesn’t cost you anything) and figure out a better way to connect to your market.

When you do fail (and you will) fail forward.

5. Create a Team

It is hard to start your business venture from scratch, but you can help to support yourself, your vision, and your business by creating a team to launch in concert with. By having co-founders, you can have a camaraderie of cohorts to support you and give constructive criticism along the way. This can help ease the pain of those moments when things look less than optimistic. “We are doing this together” is more comforting than “I am doing this all by myself.”

Plus, having different perspectives to draw upon is invaluable, and masterminding with a group of supportive individuals can help you to access knowledge and inspiration that would not be accessible any other way.

6. Network with Businesspeople

Keeping your ear to the ground, you can hear or feel challenges as they are headed your way. Some of the obstacles that your business will be facing will also be coming to other types of businesses, or maybe they’ve already leaped over the hurdle and can help to prepare you for what is coming.

Join a group of business owners and/or entrepreneurs and participate in the meetings. This would be a good reason to join a local chamber of commerce, to network with other business owners. Many businesspeople join a Chamber of Commerce to make more money: Not the right motivation (plus, this is not a very good method to accomplish making more money), but the networking, connecting with other businesspeople is priceless.

7. Your Contribution

Looking at and maintaining the contribution of your business to your community, the greater community, and the world, is empowerment realized by you, your clients, and supporters. How are you giving, giving back, and helping to make the world a better place through your business efforts?

Are you offering employment opportunities, enriching the lives of participants, clients, and the recipients of your products and services?

How are you and your business impacting the world and the planet for future generations?

This is your legacy.

 

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Building Your Business on Nearly Nothing

You have done some research test marketing and have a good idea that your good idea is worth taking to the next level, but you still have little or no financial wherewithal to do so, no problem. No need to walk away from your project. Instead, start building your business on nearly nothing by expanding the possibilities. Let us take a look at the many ways you can build your business with a limited budget.

Self-financing

While you have been starting your business with little or nothing, you have been selling your product and service and saving your profits to reinvest into your business expansion. This is one of the ways you can capitalize your business venture. Make sure that you are smart about how you invest your profits because it makes a difference.

Make a Plan

Chart out a six-month course. Be honest with yourself. Know what you want your goals to be, how much revenue you will need to make it through the six months, how much income you will have, and how much you have saved up from past profits. Allow a certain percentage for miscalculations and prepare for contingencies that were unaccounted for (because you never really know what to expect until you are in the midst of the game).

Top 10 Ways to Build Your Business with Little or No Money

1. Watch Your Expenses

You can maximize your limited budget by playing it smart. Outsource to your heart’s content. Instead of hiring someone to perform a task for your business, find someone who offers that service to business on an a la carte basis. Just pay for what you need piecemeal, no need to hire someone full-time.

Apply this principle to everything you can.

In the beginning, lease, do not buy. This goes for everything from real estate to business furnishings. In this way, you can have more available cash in these critical first stages, when your survivability is of primary importance.

In-house Funding Sources

2. Offer Memberships

You can offer memberships, where your customers pay a fee for members-only discounts or premium services.

3. Offer Packages

Package purchased can raise revenue that you can use today against goods or services at a later date, like by 12 for the price of 10 by paying in advance and get 2 free.

4. Host a Sale

Have a sale. You can run a limited-time discount on goods or services and promote the heck out of it to your existing customers and invite people who may not have even heard of you, yet, to take advantage of the special offers.

5. Expand Your Services

Expanding your services is another excellent way to raise revenue. Give your existing customers more reasons to support you financially by giving them more ways to do so.

Outside Funding Sources

Even with the best plans, the day may come when you will need more cash than you are able to raise through making sales and watching your expenses. Don’t be shy about seeking out investors. Besides, you are not just monkeying around, your operation may be the next big thing! What an opportunity.

So, go ahead, approach your

6. Friends and Family

They can be investors and get a piece of the action, or you can just borrow money and agree to pay them back with interest, whichever way seems best to your supporters. Make sure you have it in writing, so there is no confusion later.

7. Finance Your Business Expansion with Crowdfunding

50 Billion dollars of funding is solid proof that crowdfunding works for raising the cash that has helped to launch or rescue business owners and entrepreneurs of all kinds. So, check out popular crowdfunding platforms, like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, GoFundMe, and Patreon, and find one that you think will work out best for you and your project. Don’t just put up a campaign willy-nilly. Research each platform and look for projects, like yours, that are received well by their audience, because each has its own following. This will maximize your fundraising efforts, and the best part is, crowdfunding money need never be repaid. It is a gift.

8. Get a Business Loan

You have built your business, and banks do offer loans to businesses. Generally, if you are thinking about taking out a small business loan, you should think about going to the ban that hosts your business account first. Online business loan brokerages are often more lenient but beware of the high-interest rates.

Also, see if you can get a business line of credit (LOC). This works like a credit card for your business expenses, and you only pay for the credit that you use.

9. Business Grants

Granted, business grants are harder to uncover and qualify for, but many clever entrepreneurs are keen at sniffing them out and landing them, which is an excellent skill set if you are so inclined. If not, you might seek the services of an experienced grant writer to do the heavy lifting for you. The best thing about grants is that they are gifts without any need to repay.

10. Angel Investors

Angel investors are wealthy individuals who invest venture capital in your business. The amounts offered are varied and do normally come with attachments. They may want repayment at high interest or a piece of the action. They want to be involved in the day-to-day operations or important management decisions. So, you are well-advised to check them out, look before you leap, and know what you are getting into before signing on the dotted line.

You can find angel investors online at AngelList, SeedInvest, and/or FundersClub.

 

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Start Your Business with No Money

You have an award-winning idea, and you are ready to take the world by storm, but you are on a budget or you may have no budget. You could just turn your back and walk away from this moment of inspiration or you could pull yourself up and start your business with no money.

The first thing you might tell yourself is that this is impossible, “I can’t start my own business with no money.” That negative voice inside you has a point, but tell it this, “Half of all businesses that are funded with all the money in the world fail!” They crash and burn in a flaming heap, leaving behind only dust.

On the other hand, many businesses are started with very little financial means and explode into huge financial empires. Is there a risk in trying to start a business from scratch with no money? Certainly, but there is risk in starting any venture, or anything for that matter, that you have not tried before.

There is nothing wrong with starting out small. In fact, it is a great way to test your idea to see if it is feasible with the least amount of risk.

Let’s say you want to open a craft store. Start with your own handmade wares and sell them at work, to friends and family members. In this way, you can test your market and work some of the production bugs out of your process. Then, you can test your offerings in the world by placing your items for sale on Etsy and eBay, and if you fare well there, branch off with your own web site. In this way, you can prove your idea and self-fund your business as you go, reinvesting your own profits as you are working to opening your store and building your empire one step upon the other.

There you have it. It is happening every day, and you can apply this principle of starting out exceedingly small, testing out your market approach, working out the kinks, building one layer upon the other, reinvesting your profits, and continually moving to the next level, until you reach your intended destination.

Use Free Business Startup Resources Online

You would be surprised to find out how many free tools there are on the Internet that you can use to test and build your business.

Simply think about what you might need to get your business going, and instead of thinking that you need to have it in the real world, like hiring somebody, or buying equipment, think instead of ways you can apply these principles to your virtual business that you are building online look for resources that are free to use – and use them!

Almost everything is there. Use Facebook, Etsy, and eBay. Need a graphic artist for marketing materials? Check out Canva and do it yourself. And the stuff that it looks like there is just no way around having to pay for it? Trade for it. More surprises will appear as you open yourself to opportunities you did not even know were there for the asking.

And you will also be impressed with what people are willing to do to help you out for as little as $5.00 on fiverr.com.

Next, you have to focus on building your business for nearly nothing.

 

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You Might be a Hypomanic Entrepreneur

If you are a serial entrepreneur, one who is specifically driven to excel and take your ventures and professional life to exceedingly more advanced levels, then you might be a hypomanic entrepreneur.

If you are an entrepreneur you probably share some common characteristic with other successful entrepreneurs, like

  • Visionary
  • Self-confidence
  • Creative
  • Nearly limitless ideas
  • Thinking outside the box
  • Juggling more than one subject at a time
  • Ability to imagine all the possibilities
  • Chart a path from here to where you want to go
  • Highly driven to do what it takes to succeed
  • Willing to take risks that benefit the “big picture”
  • Enough charisma to influence others to be supportive

Where do you think you get all of these attributes? Could it be that these are all signs of hypomania?

The DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition) has a simple test to evaluate whether you or your clients are hypomanic. The test says that hypomaniacs will have three or more of the following expressions of hypomania.

How Do You Score on the Hypomanic Test?

__ pressured speech (rapid talking)

__ inflated self-esteem or grandiosity

__ decreased need for sleep

__ flight of ideas (thoughts are racing)

__ easily distractible (attention deficit)

__ increase in psychomotor agitation (can’t sit still)

__ pleasurable activities with a potential downside (buying spree, sexual indiscretion, foolish business investments, etc.)

Most, if not all, successful entrepreneurs would certainly qualify as having three or more of the above attributes. If that sounds like you, you might be a hypomanic entrepreneur.

While not all hypomaniacs are not entrepreneurs, entrepreneurialism is an excellent venue for exercising the breadth of tendencies associated with hypomania and that is why you see so many of them finding this as an effective way to express themselves while embracing their eccentricities, while the rest of us watch with awe and wonder.

Hypomanic entrepreneurs can be found feeling creative, enthusiastic, courageous, powerful, and feeling as though they are on the leading edge of life.

There is some concern that hypomanic entrepreneurs are bipolar, and there is an indication that some are, but this seems to be triggered by exposure to a significant major depressive life event, which is referred to as bipolar type II, as opposed to bipolar (bipolar type I) or manic depression. Sufferers of bipolar type II can often return to normal life once they have processed their issues and feel as though their enthusiastic countenance has returned.

Business consultants can help their hypomanic entrepreneurs by leading them to value life balance, which they tend to disregard as a waste of time if they are fervently focused on a particular venture and also contemplating their next one.

Hypomanic entrepreneurs need to connect to others outside the work environment at a deeper level, find ways to have more meaningful relationships and love in their lives. They need to try to adjust their sleeping habits, pay more attention to maintaining a healthy diet, and getting into an exercise routine.

While hypomanic entrepreneurs don’t think they need our help, the best we can do, as consultants or support staff, is to continue being supportive and to encourage them to participate in a holistic healthy lifestyle which includes integrating a healthy mind, body, and soul. This will help them achieve their highest and best sustainably over time.

 

 

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Mental Health of Entrepreneurs

If you are thinking about starting your own business, you might like to be aware that half of all entrepreneurs have a variety of mental health concerns. Every other entrepreneur suffers from one or more mental illnesses such as ADD, ADHD, addiction, anxiety, bipolar disorder, depression, hypomania, impostor syndrome, narcissism, or sudden wealth syndrome, just to name a few, and a third of all entrepreneurs suffer from two or more mental disorders.

Knowing this tendency exists for one out of every two business owners who are taking charge and launching their own careers, enables you to keep an eye out for symptoms of mental illness that might be creeping up on you.

The savviest entrepreneurs have a coach, counselor, or therapist onboard to help keep abreast of any mental health challenges they may be facing. It is always good to have another set of eyes and ears nearby when you are exercising your entrepreneurial skills.

While you are keeping an eye on potential mental illness note that such challenges often are the breeding ground for unique, unparalleled breakthroughs. When a creative person is in the midst of a episodic mental state, often ideas come from places beyond our imagination, resulting in new scientific breakthroughs, creative artistic expression, and otherwise evasive business solutions.

The stigma associated with mental illness is often discarded on the behalf of entrepreneurs for it is recognized as necessary inconvenience with enormous benefit for the organization overall and can easily be regarded as the eccentricity of genius.

Business owners are revered as leaders of their organization and are expected to be resilient and strong, so they answer the call, and in effect operate under the premise or “fake it until you make it,” present a brave face under challenging circumstances so as to not cause fear within the troops.

Still, there is a dark side to mental health disorders that can be problematic, negatively affecting all areas of life, and entrepreneurs are twice as likely to be hospitalized for a psychiatric condition, or just as likely to have suicidal ideation. This is why maintaining a healthy balance in life and work is so important.

This requires a holistic approach to business and personal affairs, as well as preserving a sense of contribution, not just for the business, but for the community, and the greater community at large, which may include a spiritual component, if you are so inclined.

The days of sacrificing everything including family, friends, and self for the sake of the potential success of the business or organization and wearing your brave face regardless of the circumstances are fading into he past, as we realize that our entrepreneurial heroes are human beings, all with their own individual set of unique mental capabilities. Honoring their humanity and allowing them to be less-than-perfect is growing in popularity.

After all, we are all just doing the best we can with what we have, and everyone is entitled to his or her individual humanity. As we grow to accept this concept of our organizational leaders, this helps to build a confidence within us, that being a leader is not that much of a stretch, expanding our own possibilities.

The proper care of an entrepreneur would include a healthy diet, exercise, recreational (non-business-related) activities, and maintaining relationships with individuals outside the workplace.

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Are You a Business Owner or Entrepreneur?

In business consulting, it is important to know who your client is. There is a difference between one who is a business owner and the other is an entrepreneur. Which one are you?

Are you a business owner or entrepreneur?

While very similar, the basic differences between business owners and entrepreneurs are,

Business Owners
Entrepreneurs
Own a business Own (or have owned) many businesses
Focused on customers Focused on growth
Involved in operations Delegates day-to-day operations
Less likely to take risks More likely to take risks
More likely to start with funding More apt to create funding as they go
Focus on short-term goals Focus on long-term goals
Pass business on to heirs Sell the business (or add it to portfolio)
Generally in better health Generally in worse health

Business Owners

A business owner has bought an existing business or starts one from scratch that offers a particular product or service to a target market. They may own one or more companies. Tend to desire to achieve and maintain customer satisfaction. Like their businesses to be profitable but will settle for maintaining a marginal business, if the benefits of the client(s) are well received. They are responsible for the day-to-day operations of their businesses. They are enthusiastic about their business(es) and are generally organized and have the ability to set goals and achieve them.

Business owners can be perfectly content with running a business that is profitable. Business owners are often more connected to their businesses or in love with them and would be content with keeping them over a long period of time and passing them on to their heirs.

As a business owner, you are more concerned with the operations and being content with taking in more cash than it takes to operate your business daily and anticipating changes in the market, seasonal or otherwise, and preparing to deal with those changes as they come your way.

They are looking ahead, at the next day, week, month, or quarter ahead to prepare to meet the needs of their business and any potential fluctuation and are more apt to have a list of tasks to move through on a regular basis.

Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs share many of the same characteristics of business owners, though they are more apt to take risks and are core creative, in that they are more likely to find creative methods to come up with new ideas, raise capital, start on a shoestring, or cut corners to achieve their goals.

Growing a business into a massive organization is a forward-looking premise of entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are more interested in starting businesses to grow them, add them to their long-standing portfolio or sell them at a substantial profit and move onto their next project.

Entrepreneurs are more focused on the intricate details of running their businesses, the psychology, the culture, the company image, the processes, and the marketing. They tend to be more passionate, aggressive, and seek to raise up people within the organization to take their place.

Entrepreneurs are visionaries, projecting out their tasks into the future, looking months or years into the future, and making plans to bring their vision to fruition. These plans are often key to attracting funding. The day-to-day operations are usually delegated to others.

Warning for Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurialism does come with an established set of caveats. They are more likely to suffer health risks due to their never-say-die or self-sacrificial approach to manifesting their vision at any cost. They are likely to ignore a healthy lifestyle of deeply connected relationships, healthy eating, and exercise, and are often not getting enough REM sleep. These are things to keep an eye on for business consultants who work with entrepreneurs.

Business owners are generally known to be in better health than entrepreneurs, but if you know that, you can encourage entrepreneurs to think about making personal health maintenance a part of their drive to succeed.

 

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Hiring Your Friends Good Idea or Bad?

When you first start hiring employees, you might do so following your personal standards. You might consider hiring your friends, relatives, former co-workers, people you think would appreciate what you are trying to do, who would support you, they might even agree to work for less than others to support your vision, and if you have to hire outside of who you know, you will hire as inexpensively as possible.

When you are just getting started, there is a huge advantage of hiring people who are willing to take a lower wage to help you out in your venture, but you will soon find out that if they are sacrificing for you, you will find yourself sacrificing for them. They will expect certain considerations in return.

Some expectations may include leniency in certain areas, forgiveness for tardiness, extra holiday time off, unexpected leave of absence, leaving work early, shrinkage (inventory or supplies taken home without notice or payment), and that is just the beginning.

As you start to hire on additional staff, these employees will expect special treatment, and will see themselves as having seniority over new staff, and will assume they are entitled to supervisory positions, even though it is not a part of their job specification or pay grade.

The line between management and camaraderie is blurred and difficult to maintain. Your people are more likely to feel like they can give you advice on how you are supposed to be running your business because of their pre-existing relationship. And when you lay down the law, they are less likely to take it seriously or will see themselves as exempt.

And that is assuming that the friend you hired is not a wolf in sheep’s clothing, looking for the right opportunity to take advantage, compromise, undermine, or embezzle.

Of course, this does not apply to everyone, but be aware nepotism is not viewed as integrous among other staff, weakens their confidence in the organization, and that these are things to be on the lookout for. If possible, you may be well advised to spend more on the staff that you hire if at all possible, and you will be miles ahead if you can pay someone more who is highly experienced and can take you to the next level.

As a general rule, the more expensive and qualified worker will save you money and bring so much more to the table in the long run.

One of my clients taught me an invaluable lesson in hiring and knowing when to let someone go. He says, “It is a balancing act.” You weigh their value by what they give against what they cost. “If their performance is more good than bad, you keep them. the moment it is more bad than good, you let them go.”

I have hired family and friends in the past. Not all of them turned out to be less than I expected. But if I had practiced the balancing act back then, things would have turned out far better for me. I have too much of a heart and am quick to cut some slack for employees that I am partial to. This cost both me and my business dearly, when I should have just put the wheels in motion to let them go as soon as they hit 49%. Lesson learned.

Do not take your hiring lightly and be sure to monitor your employee productivity so the earlier you can determine that they are more bad than good, then start looking for a more qualified replacement.