Most successful entrepreneurs have a list of mentors and books that they have on hand acting as mantra for how we conduct and innovate our businesses. By being lucky enough to be one of those crazy work from home guys I find the discussions that I get going in my head from a good article or a book is needed to keep me sharp and often takes on the role of those old debates I used to get into with co-workers (Well that is the crazy shit I tell myself so I don’t attract attention to when I wander around my house in my robe yelling at myself).
Here is Part 1 of the books that always keep me challenged and pushing forward in my life and business even while wandering in my robe.
Trust your gut, the research is done and proven!
The Kolbe Concept and Kathy Kolbe’s work are both mind bending and life altering. These three books are a bit older now but they make no less of an impact now then they did when they were released.
When I was still working in a corporate environment doing marketing for a recruiting and coaching company I was introduced to the Kolbe A index. A test that validates our instincts and studies the Conative part of our brain. Kolbe Wisdom says that if we are free to be ourselves and faced with a task each of us will use a path of least resistance perfectly matched for ourselves to get to an outcome.
When I took the Kolbe A index and got my results it was one of the most liberating days of my entire life and gave permission to be who I am. I have long been branded on the ADD and ADHD scale but I and many other entrepreneurs will be happy to know that Kathy’s work attacks that the whole notion of this head on.
The impact of this work has been so great that I headed to Phoenix a few years ago to become a Kolbe Certified Consultant so I would be able to share this knowledge and coach people and businesses about it’s impact. So shameless plug time, if you have any questions about Kolbe don’t hesitate to contact me.
I have a lot more to say on the subject but I will do it in an upcoming series of articles, in the mean time if your are on twitter you need to be following @kathykolbe. At our growth seminar we were bugging Kolbe Corp that they need to be doing more in social media and now we have Kathy addicted to Twitter. Her tweets are always informative and will help to shed light on the tool.
Powered by Instinct: 5 Rules for Trusting Your Guts is a simple read done much like a conversation between two people. It might be to informal and lacking a bit of meat for some readers but it can be consumed in a few stress free hours.
The Conative Connection: Uncovering the Link Between Who You Are and How You Perform is Kathy’s first book and goes into a lot of the research, It was written in the 90’s so some of the research has changed but it is still very valuable information.
Pure Instinct: Business’ Untapped Resource This book goes into a lot of detail for how the Kolbe tools are used in a business group setting. I would suggest that you leave this one until you have a better understanding of the concept or if you like to read deep into a subject.
The “Secret” but built for Business without all the “When I wish Upon a Star” and still sit on my ass all this free money will come to me.
When I was on the road to getting the hell out of the corporate world and was looking for guidance for how I could take my small side evening business and make it more then just a hobby I got caught up in the whole “The Secret” movie explosion.
Do I regret it, not a chance. I credit myself with taking the time to study and listen to what the teachers from the movie were actually saying. In my opinion that 90 min movie will go down as one of the best pieces of marketing ever. Most of all it opened a dialogue to make it acceptable to say things like you are a business person who meditates.
If you take the time to look at the other coaching the teachers do you will understand that the Law of Attraction is only one law and a starting point. During the movie John Assaraf was the person in the movie that resonated most with me, I think because he came to it from a business perspective. I was on a conference call with him and his OneCoach partner Murray Smith when he said we all need to remember the next most important universal law, The Law of “GOYA” or GET OFF YOUR ASS. If you just sit on your couch and ask the universe to give you everything eventually they will come and take your house from around you and your seat out from under you.
From that I joined the OneCoach’s Business Mastery Program that taught me how to put the right things in the right order to create a successful business.
John and Murray took the process they were teaching clients with great success and published The Answer: Grow Any Business, Achieve Financial Freedom, and Live an Extraordinary Life It is a great read and provides a very good framework to help make sure as a business owner you doing the highest income producing activities that are right for your specific business.
I will be back with part two of my book list very soon. I also want to hear about your great reads and resources. I am an avid business, marketing and personal development reader so I am always on the look out for new concepts.
Again here are the books I talked about in this post:
Powered by Instinct: 5 Rules for Trusting Your Guts by Kathy Kolbe
The Conative Connection: by Kathy Kolbe
Pure Instinct: Business’ Untapped Resource by Kathy Kolbe
and The Answer by John Assaraf and Murray Smith
This is a difficult question for any small business owner to answer as incorporating a business has plenty of legal and tax-based advantages, but can also be a potential minefield, a massive expense, and ultimately not worth the hassle for the gains and returns made.
So, before we go any further, let’s take a quick look at the major advantages of incorporating your business. First up, there’s limited liability—probably the single most attractive benefit of incorporation. As a sole trader or partnership, if the business incurs debts then you personally may be forced to liquidate or turn over assets to pay for them. This can include homes, property, vehicles—fortunately, your dog will remain safe from these legal actions. As a corporation, the corporate entity takes on the financial responsibility of guaranteeing any loans made, meaning that investors and shareholders are only responsible for what they put in to the company.
Secondly, incorporation grants a much greater degree of income control to the shareholders and executives. By incorporating your small business, you give yourself the option of determining precisely when you, as a shareholder, receive income, which can definitely work in your favor tax-wise. Instead of getting your income when it’s received, being incorporated allows you to receive a dividend based on your share value at a time when the taxation environment is more to your advantage.
Another advantage of this is that anybody can be a shareholder—your spouse, your kids, heck, even old Uncle Albert, if needs be—meaning that income can be divided among family members in different taxation brackets. This is a nifty little benefit if you want the taxman to keep his grubby little paws off your family’s hard-earned cash!
Unlike sole traders, who can tail off if the owner dies or retires, corporations exist in perpetuity which allows the ownership to change through whatever reason and still carry on existing as a legal and commercial entity long after the esteemed founder has shuffled off this mortal coil (or earned a stack of cash and run off to Honolulu to spend their retirement drinking piña colada and debating the merits of the grass skirt.)
Lastly, there’s the fact that people are more likely to do business with a company with Inc., Llc., Ltd. or Corp. after the name. Contractors may find, for example, that certain companies will only deal with incorporated companies as it gives them an air of legitimacy and helps reduce the risk of becoming associated with a rogue or fly-by-night outfit.
However, despite all the great-sounding benefits, incorporation does have its drawbacks. For example, be prepared for you paperwork to go through the roof. You may find yourself needing to hire a lawyer or accountant to help yourself through the arcane process of incorporation, and to deal with the red tape to come afterwards. It is an expensive process to begin with, so make sure that the potential tax pitfalls are not more than you stand to gain from the process. Have an accountant look at your finances and give you proper, personalized advice before you decide to take the plunge.
Not only can you find articles to help your small business succeed from right here at the Bootstrapping Blog, but you can also find other great articles, tips and tricks from other great websites as well from around the web. I regularly read every one of these websites and know that the information listed on them will be a great addition to your daily reading. I will be doing these types of articles once or twice a month in order to give my readers something extra and showcase other great business articles from around the web.
How to ensure your business will succeed – This is a great, short article that gives a solid piece of advice to grow your business with minimal risk. Well worth the read, and the main reason it’s #1 on the list this week.
What produces great companies? – Trizle offers an awesome article and a great writing style that gets you involved in their writing. Going from Passion to profit is something I’ve wrote about before and this article over at Trizle does a great job of beating it into your head. Definitely worth the read.
Word of mouth marketing: Don’t piss people off – Well, the title speaks for itself, and Naomi does an awesome job of getting the point across. She’s a writer who I could read all day. Yes, she swears a LOT, but the message is still the same, so why should it even matter? Kudo’s to Naomi as well for all of her success and recent e-book success.
Old school marketing for old school clients – For all of us who are technology driven, this is a nice wake up call; not all of your clients will know what “web 2.0″ – “twitter” or “rss” is and they also won’t respond to marketing that doesn’t seem “normal” to them. You’ve got to cater to your clients thoughts, and this article does a great breakdown of this topic.
Marketing essentials part 5: Behold the business card – Keeping up with the idea that old school marketing does work and should be applied, Small Fuel Marketing writes up the fifth part in their marketing essentials series which you should definitely take the time to read.
How to weather the storm by making your money work for you – ok, I thought I was the only one who used rediculously long article titles; I was wrong. Regardless of that, you will find some great advice here to help you properly manage your money. I’m slowly learning how to do this and it feels great to start seeing myself as “ahead” instead of “always catching up”.
Moving beyond freelancing: 4 insights to growing your design firm – Now this article from the Go Media team might be geared towards a design firm, but each of the 4 insights can be applied to any other business model.
If you could pick one of your favorite hobbies or past times and turn it into a money making business, what would it be? Give yourself a moment to reflect on the things you love and ask yourself this one important question: Why am I not doing this already? Struggling in a 9-5 world may seem like the obvious solution to life since thats what has been pushed on us our whole lives, but really breaking down what you love in your life and turning it into a profitable business is exactly what we should all be doing.
Who has a 9-5 and hates getting up in the morning and getting ready for work? I know a lot of people like that and I bet you do too, if you’re not one of those people yourself. I always ask them why they’re not doing something different. I try to implant this into friends and family all the time when they see that I am on my own, doing what I love to do, answering to no one, and making money at it. Now, I want to give you some thoughts to take with you today on turning your passion into profit and hopefully I will spark the fire inside of at least one my readers here.
Brainstorming your life
One of the first things you need to do is break down everything in your life and figure out exactly what it is you love to do. Maybe you love writing stories or blogging about your life. You might also love music or sports. Some people I know love to cook. Regardless of what it is, take out a sheet of paper and write down everything you love to do. Don’t worry about making it in order or neat and clean yet; we’ll be forming this all together throughout this article.
Forming opinions on your list
Once you have a list completed of the things you love we’ll want to figure out what about these things really makes you love them. If you chose sports as something you love, you could break it down and put that you love the competition of the game, the strength you need or endurance and skill. Maybe you just like the lifestyle these players have. The object here is to fill out your sheet with as many ideas as possible. Again, don’t worry if you’ve got them in order of your favorite to least favorite, the point is just to get things down on paper.
Profit finding brainstorms
This is where it can either get really fun, or really stressful, depending on how you look at things. I hope you look at it in an enjoyable way, because after all, we’re working on getting you outside of the cubicle and doing what you love! What I want you to do is sit down with that paper and give yourself 5-10 minutes for each topic you wrote down and really think about any ideas that could make money. From big to small, don’t let any idea go unnoticed. If it’s as realistic as selling t-shirts with slogans for sports teams on it, or advertising on CNN.com, you need to get it all down on paper. These ideas might spark some other thoughts or profitable ideas, so don’t let any of them go unnoticed.
Finalizing the list
This part is simple; go through everything you’ve written down and format the list in a good order so it’s easier to read and follow. Now, once you have the list done, step back and look at it for a minute; you’ve just written up the foundation of your new life! Regardless of what others might tell you, having the beginning thought about an action you’re wanting to take is the most fundamental thing you can do have when building your business, and you just did it. I’m sure out of your list you can find 1 thing that really doesn’t seem very hard to create as far as manual labor, pricing and marketing costs right?
The PROS of doing what you love
- You’re doing what you love
- You’re working for yourself
- You’re creating a life changing product
- You’re freeing yourself from dependency on the cubicle
- Potential profits are endless
- You have passion for your business
The CONS of doing what you love
- Finances aren’t promised; at first
- People might think you’re crazy
The final question to ask yourself
You might be wondering why the con list only has two items; I doubt you can come up with many more cons to doing what you love! In my opinion, there are many other additions you can add to either of these lists, but I believe these sum up the basics of them and really show you what you should could be doing with your life on either side of the fence. There is one last thing you have to ask yourself to make this whole process complete; Do I want to spend the rest of my life fulfilling someone else’s dreams or is it time to chase my own?