NUGGETS - Page 2 of 6 - Nuggets of Wisdom from 40 Years of Self Employment

Asking for help

July 27, 2021 No Comments

What does helping mean to you?

I believe that people are basically good and want to help if they can. What do you believe?

Why did I call this post “may I help?”

One of the things I learned in 1980 when I became self-employed was to ask for and accept help. In the 90s, as part of all of his presentations Mark Victor Hansen, co-author of the Chicken Soup books, said to “Ask, ask, ask..” for sales, for knowledge when you didn’t know how to do something or from others who were experienced business owners.

In the 80s when we owned an Apple computer dealership, my partner and I would take one of our customers for lunch and pick his brain when we needed help. He’d been a startup once as we were now!

How did we ask?

The most important thing is that you don’t want to waste the time of the person you’re asking, so do the following things.

Be polite.

Tell them that you’d like their help and ask them if are they’re fine giving it.

Know what you want and be very specific about what you want the other person to do.

How do you and they feel?

We both feel good. To repeat what I started with, I believe that people are basically good and want to help if they can.

If you don’t ask, I believe you’re taking away the other person’s chance to feel good. They can always say no – it’s their choice.

My personal experience

Since the stroke in 2005 when I was 55, I’ve been a physically disabled person and need help frequently. As everyone with a disability does, I want to be treated as a person who can do most of the same things as you do. I just do these differently and more slowly.

Let me give you a few examples.

I can’t physically cook so buy frozen dinners and heat them in the microwave.
I can’t carry heavy things so either I put them on seat of my walker or I have someone lift them up to an accessible (to me) place.
I can’t open jars or containers so I wait until someone is coming here and ask them to do it for me.
Buttons are an issue so I buy tops that go over my head.

You get the idea.

I plan and make lists of things for people to do for me when they come here. Thank goodness that I’ve always been a planner and listmaker!

ASK for what you need!

My next post will be about how to ask when you see someone who YOU think needs help.

Marketing, Small Business, Startup

Networking: what do YOU want out of it? #1 of 3

July 5, 2021 No Comments

Networking is a marketing activity you need to do in business.

Do it regularly and frequently especially when you have a startup business. Should you expect to get leads from it right away? Yes and no.

Here are two stories. Deanne Kelleher of Kaos Group has talked about getting business from someone 8 years after she met them while networking. Instant gratification? Nope.

Laurie Bell of Moving Seniors With a Smile has talked about going to LOTS of networking events to talk about her business when it was new. Does she go to as many now? No – she doesn’t need to. Does she still go? Yes – to continue to be known.

What is your main reason for networking?

The first thing you need to do is think about your business and what you want to get out of attending the event. Decide whether you want to:

meet new people
promote your business
promote a particular product, service or workshop
get seen everywhere
check out the network to see if you can speak at it
hear a particular speaker
learn about a topic you’ve been studying
connect with others in the same situation as you
get a solution to a problem you have in business
or just get out of the house!

In order to do any of these (except the last one) you need to know your target market.

I’ve written two other posts you should read as well “11 Characteristics of a Network” and “How to Choose the Right Network for You”. This one should be the first one you read.

To sum up

decide why you’re going (this post gives you several reasons)
review what characteristics are important to you in a network (Read my post called 11 Characteristics of a network)
choose the right network for you (Read my post called How to choose the right network for you)

Does that help? Do you know why you’re going now?

To repeat – go to more than one session of a group. You can’t judge after just one visit.

Originally posted March 18, 2015

Beliefs and Views, Small Business

The best way to learn is to teach

June 29, 2021 No Comments

: Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

There are hundreds of reasons NOT to teach.

I’m not a “born” teacher.
I don’t know how to teach.
I don’t have the knowledge yet in my subject area.
I don’t like public speaking.
I’m not a techie so can’t use the technology tools necessary to do an online class.
I don’t have a group big enough to teach a seminar to.
I’m an introvert or I’m shy and don’t like big groups.

The fact is that these are just excuses. In fact, teaching is one of the best ways to learn – your subject matter, technology, speaking in public and the skills needed to teach.

There is also an answer for every one of the excuses.

“I don’t have a group big enough.” Get to know people who do have groups they influence and talk to them about publicizing your event or interviewing you about your subject on their webinar or podcast.

“I’m not a techie.” Learn the technology yourself and better yet get to know someone who’s already done several webinars.

“I’m not a teacher.” Everyone has had a good teacher at some time in their life. What was it that made them good? What did they do? Learn those things yourself. Take courses. Read articles about how to teach.

So what is YOUR excuse?

What is teaching?

Teaching is much more than delivering information. People can find information on the internet. It’s taking that information and translating it to knowledge so people can use that same information to reach their objectives. It means that you deliver knowledge.

Wisdom means that you have the ability to make judgments and decisions. Wisdom is an intangible quality gained through your experiences and through learning more about your subject.

Information leads to knowledge leads to wisdom.

Let me repeat – teaching is the best way to learn something new – your subject matter, technology, speaking in public and the skills needed to teach.

It’s also a way to keep young when you’re older. You already have the knowledge and experience. Why not share it with others! Teaching IS sharing.

Beliefs and Views

What I realized at a women’s network

June 20, 2021 No Comments

I’ve merged 2 pictures of people at tables You can see the overlap!

(Written in October 2017 before the lockdown in Ontario) I looked around the table at a network I attended and realized that nearly all of the women were in their 20s, 30s and early 40s. There were only a couple of us in our late 60s.

When they got an insight from something someone said, I smiled. I already knew what they had just realized. I couldn’t remember when I learned it since my realization of it had come many years before. It had become embedded in my knowledge and DNA and was second nature to me now.

I wanted to tell all of them that whatever they do or decide to do, their decisions all work out no matter what. There is no right way or wrong way to do something. As Yoda is quoted “There is no maybe. There is only do.”

It’s their life and all they can do is live in the moment. Timing doesn’t matter. Whatever choices they make and whenever they make them, they are right for them at the time. They don’t have to know everything. Experience teaches one.

Learn from those who have already done what you want to do – your elders.

What do you want to pass on when you’re older? Tell me and them.

Beliefs and Views

Let yourself feel the fear and do it anyway

June 12, 2021 No Comments

Did you feel afraid when you saw this picture? Would you do this anyway?

In 1984, I sailed in the British Virgin Islands for two weeks with the man with whom I was in a relationship. We rented a 39 foot sailboat and the two of us set off. Picture it – blue water and skies, beaches, many islands and for him lots of scuba diving. It was a wonderful trip full of adventure, predicaments, learning, and new experiences.

What does this have to do fear? Let me set the stage.

Before I begin I need to tell you that I don’t know how to swim. When people ask me why I sail if I can’t swim, I answer ” I don’t fall off the boat!” Also that’s why I only sail on keel boats – they don’t tip.

Back to the story.

We had a dinghy tied to our sailboat so we could go ashore at each of the many beaches on the islands. One time there was a coral reef with large waves that kept us from one of those beaches. We fought about the danger of taking the dinghy to get to it and in the end we didn’t. Later that day over dinner in our sailboat we talked about it. I said I had been afraid and fear was what held me back. I also said that I didn’t think he felt fear of anything.

Boy was I wrong! He said that he always felt fear but never let it stop him from doing things he wanted to do. His revelation left me speechless.

I had to change the way I thought about fear and thus acted or didn’t. It made me become aware of fear and how I let it dictate me.

In 1987, I bought the book Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Dr. Susan Jeffers. When I read it I thought about that saiIing episode and how I’d allowed fear to affect my choices in life.

I still feel fear but I recognize it. I have many fears like all people do. Mine include a fear of heights, fear of snakes, fear of drowning since I can’t swim and fear of taking drugs that are new to me. When I look at them I know that none of them stop me from living my life.

I don’t let fear have the power over me that it used to. I CHOOSE how long I allow myself to keep feeling it and how I react to it.

How often have you let fear run your life?

Beliefs and Views

Are you paralyzed by choices?

June 5, 2021 No Comments

Everything in life is a choice.

Some of them are more evident than others. If you look at everything you do, you’ll see that 99% of the time you made a choice.

What do I mean by evident? In this case, it means that you’re aware that you are making a choice.

You choose to cross a street at a certain time. You may leave work at a different time every day and therefore ride a different bus home each time. You choose what book to read, what TV show to watch, what to wear, what to eat …. you can see how life is made up of many small choices every day.

Kinds of choices

There are at least four kinds: easy choices, difficult choices, life-altering and life-or-death choices.

1. Easy choices relate to preferences. What do you prefer at that time.

Examples include choosing a flavour of ice cream, a colour of a sweater, a style of pants, what kind of cereal to eat for breakfast, what TV show to watch or what book to read.

2. Difficult choices include things like choosing a desk, a computer, a new mattress or an air conditioner.

These are ones where you have to develop questions and answers before you pick one. They could require research. Questions include what do you want the computer for? How much memory do you need? Do you want to be able to add memory? Do you need to carry it with you? How big a screen do you need?

3. Life-altering choices are about things such as whether to get married, whether to get a divorce, how to decide which job to take or whether to leave your job and start your own business.

Life-altering ones are just as the name suggests. They will change your life for the long term. In 1972, I decided to become schoolteacher. After eight years I left teaching to become self-employed. That was a life altering choice!

Choosing not to have kids is another example of a life-altering and a long term decision.

You see what I mean.

4. Life-or-death choices need no explanation. In my case, if I need a blood test to check my blood thinner level (INR) I get it. If I need a blood transfusion, I go and get one. If you’re in a car accident and injured, you go to emergency. If you find a lump in your breast, you get it checked right away.

Are you paralyzed when faced with some choices?

You may be paralyzed to make some choices especially the life altering ones.

Fear of the unknown is often what’s holding you back. I know it does me. I do two things when I feel frightened of making a choice.

One, I call a friend and talk through my feelings. I’m not looking for a solution but rather someone who will listen, let me talk, ask a few questions, let me “vent”, and most of all, not judge.

The second thing I do is to get more information. I go online to learn more and I call someone I know who’s already made the decision facing me, or a friend who I trust. For example, in 1980 when I was thinking about becoming self employed, there was no internet so I talked with a few store owners (the only people who I knew that were self employed.) Nowadays, I use the internet to search.

Another example was deciding whether to take a particular drug for my rare blood condition. I looked up the drug online and made a list of questions I needed answered. I then took those questions with me to my haematologist and to the specialist to whom he referred me. Both times I took my brother and I recorded the sessions (with their permission).

Does this help you?

I hope it does. You see, I don’t make life altering decisions alone. It’s better to be open with friends about your dilemma.

Even though the final decision is yours to make, it helps to talk about it. You feel supported as I always do.

What do you do when you have a difficult choice to make? How do you make your decision?

Beliefs and Views

Do you expect good or bad outcomes?

May 22, 2021 No Comments

If you expect something to go wrong, it does. If you expect things will go okay, they do.

I had a “thing” on my shin. It was there for six months before called my family doctor about it.

Before I called her, I looked up a clinic nearby and got the name of a dermatologist so when my family doctor asked me to whom she should send the referral, I was able to give her the doctor’s name at that clinic.

Six weeks later, I had a phone appointment with the dermatologist to whom I had emailed the photo of the “thing”. She looked at it then said she couldn’t tell what it was and that I should come for an in-person appointment the following week. I did and she cut out the “thing” on my leg and called me with the results of the biopsy three weeks later.

I went back in one month for another treatment at which time she said that I didn’t have to come back for one year.

My point is that I assumed things would go fine.

It never crossed my mind that they wouldn’t. I thought that six weeks to get a dermatologist appointment was quick. I also believed the dermatologist knew what she was doing was the right thing. I trusted her.

Someone could have looked at what happened and thought the opposite. That things would not go fine. That six weeks was too long to wait for the referral. That the doctor’s diagnosis wasn’t right so went to another doctor … and another.

My question is, was my outcome a result of positive expectations? Flexibility? Acceptance? All of those?

What do you believe?

Startup

8 Actions for a startup – #7 find and follow blogs

May 21, 2021 No Comments

A blog or website is essential for business.

What is a blog?

A blog is a discussion or informational site consisting of individual entries called blog posts. Blogs have been around since 1993.

Here’s a definition that Darren Rowse of Problogger used from Wikipedia “A blog is a website in which items are posted on a regular basis. The term blog is a shortened form of weblog or web log. Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding an article to an existing blog is called blogging”.

Individual articles on a blog are called “blog posts,” “posts” or “entries”. A person who posts these entries is called a “blogger”. A blog comprises text, hypertext, images, and links to other web pages, video, audio or other files….”

All businesses and many individuals have them.

Should you have a blog for your business?

Yes.

QUESTION: “If a blog is defined as a website and I need to have a website for my business, what’s the difference between a blog and a website?”

MY ANSWER: Simply put, a website costs more than a blog.

It costs your time to decide what you want it to look like and the number and topics of pages to have.

2. It costs to hire a website developer and a copywriter if you don’t write your own content.

3. When you decide to have a website there are two more things you need to buy – a domain name (the name of your business or yourself) and a host (somewhere to keep it). The domain costs about $7 U.S. the first year but after that about $15 U.S. annually. The monthly hosting costs are anywhere from $7.95 U.S. to $14.95 U.S.

How do you find blogs ?

There are directories of blogs that you can go to. Go to google and type in “blog directories” and lists will come up. Each blog directory is good but choose the ones which publish to your target market.

How do you choose which blogs to follow?

Remember when I wrote about reading books I talked about how to choose them? Do the same thing for blogs.

Study blogs about your topic. It’s professional development or Research and Development and it should be ongoing.
Go beyond your topic. Stay at the leading edge. That’s how I learned about “neuromarketing”.
Find blogs about how to start a business and how to market. Remember that you can’t know too much.

What to do when you find them

Take a helicopter approach to finding them. Then shadow some of those.

Read them.
Study the content.
Learn from the “look and feel” of them. Does it attract you or not? What do you or don’t you like?
Sign up for and follow a few. You can always unsubscribe.
Look at their titles and what the author writes about.

Don’t start a blog yet.

Observe them to learn about blogging.

Then start your own blog – you can always create a website later and copy and paste or export the content to the blog there. In the meantime grow your business and direct people to your blog!

So … are you starting your business “on a shoestring”? You can do it by using a blog!

Choose a niche, write a business plan and a marketing plan for your business. Then have your own blog.

Comment here whether you’ve found blogs you like or whether this post is helpful to you. Let me know.

Originally posted February 27, 2012

Marketing

Is marketing art or science? Here’s what Seth Godin says

May 15, 2021 No Comments

photo credit: Capture Of Dreams via photopin cc

IS marketing an art or science? This is a great question that one should think about. Seth Godin‘s blog post (I get them delivered to my inbox regularly) answers this.

He begins by writing “It’s both, and that’s the problem. ….Some marketers are scientists. They test and measure. They do the math….The other marketers are artists. They inspire and challenge and connect..” We need both, don’t we.

Read what he has to say … Is Marketing an Art or Science?

I hope the article makes you look at your marketing in a new way. Tell me what YOU think!!

Originally posted on April 2, 2014

Marketing

6 Ways marketing and sales are different

May 14, 2021 No Comments

What do rubber ducks have to do with the differences between sales and marketing? They represent marketing.

Solopreneurs do both marketing and sales.

But do you know the difference between the two? In the 1980s I co-owned an Apple computer dealership here in Toronto. When we were tiny and worked from home, the line between sales and marketing was blurred since my partner did both of them. But as we grew we hired sales people to sell and my partner did the marketing.

I found out the differences then! Marketers market and sales people sell – right? But where does one end and the other begin. Here are six of the differences.

Marketing creates the demand and sales fulfills it. This is an example of a symbiotic relationship. One of the best articles I read about this uses a scene in the 2013 movie “The Wolf of Wall Street” where the main character tests his protégé’s understanding of sales by saying to him “Sell me this pen” and holding out his own pen. You can read this blog post here.

Here are the 6 differences

Marketing is one to many. Sales is one to one. I wrote an earlier post and put my version of a marketing and sales funnel in it to illustrate this. You can find it at Is Sales a Part of Marketing .
Marketing is data (or numbers) driven. Sales is relationship driven. When you choose your target market you often choose by the number of potential clients in this niche – start with a big number and then whittle it down to far fewer by choosing a “niche” or subset of this market.
Marketing people develop product or services. Salespeople don’t. Marketing includes research to find out what people want (and will pay for) and then creating it.
Marketing can’t be tracked. Sales can. The most successful trade show that we did with our Apple dealership was in 1986. We tracked the number of people who came to our booth. They dropped their business cards in a bowl and how many eventually bought. We had our salespeople call, set up interviews, write proposals and close. We saw first hand how symbiotic the relationship between marketing and sales really is.
Marketing looks after your brand’s reputation. Sales looks after what individuals think of you.
Marketing analyses gives you the big data. Marketing brings you the average result not the specifics. Sales takes care of the ambiguities and details of each person.
Marketing isn’t interactive. Sales is a conversation between two people.

See how they’re intertwined? In “big” businesses they’re two separate departments who often don’t interact with each other. One of the advantages you have as a solopreneur is that you do both.

Keep doing it yourself – that’s one of your competitive advantages as a solopreneur!

When you hire someone to do it for you, stay involved in all marketing and sales. Be sure the people selling or marketing you understand your brand and what you stand for and believe in.

Tell me whether you outsource or keep it for yourself to do. What have you had to do if you’ve hired someone?