Day 5, 6 and 7 - Still In The Prep Stage

I'm keeping up my posting schedule more efficiently than I ever have and I think the project is motivating me to maintain an up-to-date chronicle. I'll be able to look back on my postings as a written record of what took place - a diary of activities.

Days 5, 6 and 7 feel full and rushed because of many different family duties that eat time and challenge my concentration. But there are lessons for me to learn about time management and prioritizing my activities. So these responsibilities bring valuable insights as well.

I'm still working on the five (5) flyers for the mailout. I'll review my e-mail addresses and select the first hundred targeted addresses. I've looked at some e-mail management programs; Worldcast from Fairlogic is a very powerful e-mail program with an automatic e-mail verification feature. Topica, Yahoo Groups, MSN Groups and ICQ all offer e-mail discussion lists.

I have a web hosting service through which I can send out e-mail announcements using PHPList. I want to be able to just send out a bunch of e-mail messages but in this era of cracking down on spam I've got to look at a double opt-in process. Constant Contact and GOT Corporation offer e-mail management packages; I see a lot of businesses using Constant Contact.

My phone situation is interesting. I've got access to free Skype, Gizmoproject and LycosPhone inbound calling numbers as well as an inbound number from K7 that works along with two other sites I've signed up for: Podomatic and Youtube.

I've also signed up with Ourmedia.org to host some audio/video podcasts I'm preparing. I can call out on LycosPhone for 1 cent a minute and I've got access to Yahoo, MSN Messenger, and ICQ outbound calling. So I can make and receive many calls for a nominal fee. I loaded up ACT 2000, the old sales contact management software some months ago - I've got thousands of corporate and faith-based names and addresses and thousands of addresses on paper labels.

So I think I've got the tools and resources to stretch my initial $100.00 investment for maximum impact.

Daily totals:

Day 5: $100.00
Spent: $94.00
Income: $0.00

Day 6: $100.00
Spent: $94.00
Income: $0.00
Balance: $6.00

Day 7: No change so far.

Day 3 and 4: Off For The Holiday!

Did you enjoy your Fourth of July holiday? I had a good time playing a bit of softball (actually umpiring a pickup game with my kids and their cousins), eating some barbecue and snatching some R & R. Today, it's back to work on the project - finalizing the design of the flyers, narrowing the target mailing list to the first 100 potential clients, and reviewing our e-mail lists. We've installed Quicken and set it up to manage the cash expenditures and revenues from our venture.

As part of the project, we will set up ten web domains as mini-websites and service resources for our clients; we haven't generated enough cash yet to pay for the domains, but the domains opne of three priority purchases; the other two are a new cell phone and voice mail number for receiving calls.

Day 3 and 4 totals:

Cash Position: $100.00 on July 1, 2006
Spent: Flyer design and printing: $50.00
100 stamps: $39.00
100 envelopes: $5.00
Cash balance: $ 6.00

Letters will be mailed by July 7. We're launching an e-mail campaign to 100 selected e-mail addresses; the e-mails will contain an attached *.pdf file of one of the flyers we designed. We'll

The goal: recruit and acquire the first ten paid clients for our new venture.

Day 3 - $100.00 Invested, No Income Yet

It's the holiday and a slow day. Still trying to get to the writeup and layout of the flyers for the mailing package. I'm working on getting Quicken up for tracking cash flow. We need to identify client candidates for the mailing.

Day 3: $100.00 Total
Day 3 Total Allocation: $94.00
Day 3 Income: $0.00

Day 1 and Day 2 - First Two Days Of The Project

I missed posting on July 1, not intentionally because I had every intention of posting but the day's distractions caught up with me. These distractions made me reflect on just how hard it is to focus a singular concentration on a goal when you have family matters tugging at you like shopping for food, kids begging for your attention, (I took my son to the park today and played a little softball - lots of fun with him learning to swing a bat for the first time!), your wife staring at you and demanding her time as well.

But one reason I'm doing this is for them and I don't think that the everyday minutiate of family life should or will prevent me from accomplishing my goal or chronicling the journey in these posts.

I did do some things today. I found my starting $100.00 and also discovered that I have Quicken and Microsoft Money on the new computer a friend donated to use on a community project (yes, there are people out there who still do those things, and I thank God for VP, you know who you are). I accidentally deleted the software and had to reinstall it, and the reinstall took about 30 minutes. But I'm finalizing the setup now. I first used the DOS version of Quicken a decade ago to create a balance sheet for a non-profit agency I'd started. For my money, it still beats the hell out of Microsoft's offering, so I'm using Quicken for tracking all the income and expenditures.

I'll open a bank account for the cash I'm accumulating as soon as I collect enough revenues from my initial promotional efforts. Since nearly all the banks offer online account management that links transaction data to Quicken, I can handle the cash management chores much more easily than would have been possible even two years ago.

My stategy for leveraging this initial cash bank of $100.00 is this - use the cash to create a wide-ranging promotional strategy that allows me to promote myself and the services I will be offering in as many ways as the $100.00 will allow. Ultimately, a successful business depends on attracting and converting paying customers; sounds simple and obvious, but it's amazing how few business people really zero in on this truism. How many new entrepreneurs have you watched spend thousands of dollars on computers, furniture, office space, even staff, before they've earned the first dollar in revenue from a paying customer?

The mistake I think many new business people make is confusing the steps of physically setting up a new business with the fact of being in business. You are in business when you are generating a positive cash flow (profits) from customers paying you for the products and services you offer. The less you invest in non-revenue-producing startup expenses the more of your startup cash you can invest in the #1 task of operating and managing a new enterprise - customer acquisition.

That's why I'm investing my $100.00 like this:
Design and printing of 1000 promotional flyers - $50.00 ($25.00 for the design time and $25.00 for making copies at Office Depot/Staples)
100 stamps #@ .39 each - $39.00

I need a business phone number for calls, a mailing address, and a fax number. I already have several e-mail addresses, an Internet connection, and two computers - a laptop computer and desktop computer.

My wife is calling me. I'll be back in a few.