Wealth Seeker, Wealth Creator - Start-Up Biz Insights

Breakthroughs And Breakouts - Shifting The Paradigms!

2006-08-28T01:26:00.000-05:00

Time flies, and sometimes it escapes. Nearly two months' time elapsed. The ebb and momentum flow of action and reaction to what's happening and what we're trying to make happen, completing the everyday tasks and raising the excitement levels, making money from five clients and figuring out how to invest the revenues to keep the potential calls and client prospects rolling.

The unexpected always happens when you aren't looking. Can we make excuses for what we didn't see coming but should have? We can but you don't want to hear them. Suffice it to say we haven't matched the cash growth curve I predicted on July 1. Reasons? Read the previous posts and you'll see a lot of them! But I still think we have a chance to make our original dream a reality - even though we're swinging into the dog days of picking up paying clients, because it's always hard to compete with school clothes, Halloween costumes, turkeys and Santa Claus! Still, we can tap into the plans and dreams of those who are looking ahead to 2007 and 2008. There's an election in two months, another one four months after that, and the big one in 2008.

We're at day 59 and about $1,500.00 toward our goal of $1 million net cash by December 31! You can read all the stories of people starting with $500.00 and making $5 million and know that it's possible, but the devil is in the doing. I figured out that we need 1,000 clients averaging $1,500 each for a net of $1 million cash. 100 clients averaging $15,000 each gives us the same number but the carrying costs and expenses are radically different for a $1,500 sale than a $15,000 sale. Can we sell 10,000 of an item at $150 per item? If we could we'd reach the same $1,500,000. The marketing and promotional plans we crafted in July are still on the table now and I know we can execute those plans more efficiently. We're still in the first half; we'll make our adjustments at half-time.

Day 46 - The Word Is Spreading!

2006-08-15T14:23:00.000-05:00

I'm getting a fresh burst of energy! Everyone likes my work and all five of my clients are paying me and recommending me to others. My profit picture is improving: so far I've grossed $1,000 in fees off the original $100 investment. I haven't shared all of the thinking I've been doing about how to drive the project forward because truthfully I'm still figuring a great many of the steps out myself, but two truths that are obvious to me (but not always to everyone else) which were reiterated in an article a friend of mine read to me - you can't make a million dollars working for someone else and you have to pay yourself first before you pay any bills or any other expenses.

All things seem urgent when they aren't - and all things seem important when they aren't. Think about it1 When some money comes your way -whether it's one dollar or ten thousand dollars - what are the first thoughts that come to mind? Be truthful - aren't you immediately thinking, "What can I buy? How can I spend this money?" Those thoughts are the ones that immediately invade your mind - "I've got some money now, how can I spend it?" There are always temptatioons that creep into your conscious and subconscious thoughts that seem to compel you to spend your money on whatever needs or wants appear to be tugging at your mind in the moments right after you get your money.

We're all victims of the subconscious programming that directs us to spend instead of save, to expend instead of conserve. Americans are the world's biggest consumers and not coincidentally the world's worst savers. We save about 4% of our income versus an average 10% for the rest of the world and 20% for the Japanese.

I'm learning how to save and manage my cash flow and reinvest it - in marketing and promotional strategies and tools - to generate a consistently growing long term cash stream.

Day 42 - Expanding Our Client Base!

2006-08-11T22:08:00.000-05:00

42 days gone, 142 days left and counting. Am I having fun? Am I enjoying this trip to the place I said I wanted to go when we started this six-month journey - wealth and independence? My motto always is "If it ain't fun why are you doing it?"

So far, not traveling as fast as I planned, but as Robert Schuller says, "Inch by inch, anything's a cinch." Since our last post, we completed our presentations to all five of the client prospects we acquired through our first mailing. All five prospects are now clients who agreed to hire us to perform our grantwriting/technology/consulting services. We finished a grants proposal for our first client, who paid us our writing fee, which put our business "in the black". Retainer fees from our four additional clients should be in our hands next week. Five clients are great but we need many more to have any chance of making this project work. And we need to bring some fun into the game.

The bottom line of business - make a profit. The real deal in business - make money and have fun.

We're not far enough along where I can say what I want to do for fun to celebrate, but I decided that the journey is important enough to me that we need some milestones to mark so here they are:

10% - $100,000.00
25% - $250,000.00
50% - $500,000.00
75% - $750,000.00
100% - 1,000,000.00

I'm gonna post this bit; I'll be back in a few hours.

Client Number One - Signed, Sealed, Delivered!

2006-08-05T20:51:00.000-05:00

The "One Million Dollars In 184 Days" Project produced its first paid client Friday. On an initial investment of $100.00, we acquired five (5) client prospects; our first paid client, an Executive Director of one of Chicago's most well known non-profit agencies, hired us to write a proposal design a website, and handle some technology services for her agency. In addition to the retainer she paid us, we may, before the end of the year, receive additional fees that may total as much as five figures, depending on how well we perform our grantwriting services. I hoisted a silent toast to our breakthrough; there's a lot of work to do, but we've taken an important first step.

Here's something very important about what we've accomplished: our venture is now profitably "in the black". I've always believed that no business ever went under that made a profit, even if that profit is only 1% after all taxes and expenses have been paid.

Like many would-be entrepreneurs, I've started new businesses and invested thousands or tens of thousands of dollars into equipment purchases, space rental, advertising and promotion, even staff hires - before I ever even had ONE PAID CLIENT to support my new business. I believe that 80% of all new businesses fail to survive their first three years of operation for one reason - they don't attract enough revenue from paying clients to cover expenses and generate a consistent profit.

The most important document you'll ever create in managing your new business enterprise is something accountants call a "P & L" statement. It's a month-by-month account of your expenses and income. Each month you spend more than you earn, you're in "the red", as accountants describe a business operating at a deficit. Each month your business generates more income than you spend in expenses, you're in "the black", or operating at a profit.

We started in July 2006. So our current P & L would look something like:

July 2006: Startup capital: $100.00
Expenses: $94.00
Income for July: $0.00
Net after expenses: $6.00

August 2006: Cash position at start of month: $6.00
Income from 1st client: $500.00
Expenses: $0.00 so far (no rent, phone, or other overhead expenses)
Net after expenses: $500.00 + $6.00 = $506.00

Today is August 5, so we're 36 days into the "One Million Dollars In 184 Days" project. Our cash position is $506.00. Our business is operating "in the black". Our challenge now: to invest our cash in ways that will grow the business and keep us operating at a profit.

That's Phase 1, Plan B.

Our First Paid Client! It's On Now!

2006-08-03T21:15:00.000-05:00

Now we can have some fun! We got our first paid client - an Executive Director of a not-for-profit agency hired me to develop funding proposals for some new programs she wants to launch! Our presentations with the other four clients we recruited through our mailing and calls seemed to be very well-received! One of them, a pastor brought in to revitalize a small church in a low-income community, wants to hire me for technology services and program development!

The plan: close both deals on Friday, and see what we collect. Then launch Phase 1, Part B our project - earn $1,000,000 cash in 184 days. You're wondering what Part B is? You'll find out Saturday! I'm taking Friday off - it's my son's 3rd birthday!

Day 34: Startup capital: $100.00
Spent: $94.00
Current Balance: $6.00
Potential Income: TBA Saturday!

30 Days Into The Project - Five Prospects, Zero Dollars

2006-07-30T23:02:00.000-05:00

I can believe this is the 30th day of our project - this month's been full of drama and angst; it's felt more like two months than 30 days.

Haven't made much progress in generating new clients and revenues; three calls from the mailing and two prospects gleaned from some Friday followup calls equals a yield of five client prospects and zero revenue dollars for our project's first thirty days.

We launched our new business project with $100.00, whuich forced us to focus on guerilla grind-it-out marketing techniques like a 100-letter mailing, e-mails and phone calls. My criteria for declaring the initial marketing effort success: acquire one paying client from the initial snail mailing, calls and e-mails;. With five prospects identified and scheduled for appointment, we do have a shot at snaring that first paid client.

Looking back on the first 30 days, how can we improve our marketing efforts?

Make sure the snail mailings go out on time.
Create a larger prospect list.
Call more prospects.
Develop a larger targeted e-mail list.
Design paper and electronic newsletters (*.pdf format) for distribution to the e-mail list.
Acquire more startup capital.

Our total results for July 2006:

Day 30: Startup capital: $100.00
Invested: $94.00
Balance: $6.00
Income: $0.00
Calls from mailing: 3
Prospects recruited from phone calls: 2
Total prospects: 5
Presentation appointments: 5

A Broken Bone - An Unbroken Spirit!

2006-07-26T20:06:00.000-05:00

I promised you a follow-up on the results of my July 24th appointments. Well, a broken bone got in the way of those appointments. Not mine, my nearly three year old son's, who suffered a hairline fracture in his upper left leg after his older, three-times-his size brother stepped on his leg during some ill-advised roughhousing.

So I had to take my 35-month old son to the emergency room on Monday after listening to him howl in pain all of late Sunday night and early Monday morning. When the incident happened, the first thing he said to me as he crawled from his room to ours was, "Daddy, my leg is broken." I told him, "No, Xavier, it's not broken." But an emergency room visit and three x-rays confirmed that he had a fracture in his upper left leg. They fitted him with a plaster cast Monday afternoon; from my observation, he's a bit pissed at losing a lot of his mobility but otherwise seems to be taking, rather better than I would have, the prospect of having a cast on his leg through his birthday August 4 and for the next four (4) to six (6) weeks.

So I had to reschedule those appointments for next Monday. Fortunately, my client prospects understood and had no problem with the rescheduling. And we got another call from our mailing, and I was able to arrange an appointment for next Monday for this third prospect.

I've decided to spend Friday and the weekend making some follow-up calls to the propsects we targeted with our mailing. Perhaps our followup efforts will generate some new appointments. Tomorrow and Friday, I'll share some other blogging resources I've found. Monday, we'll keep our appointments and let you know what happened.

Our First Two Client Prospects = Potential Income From The Project

2006-07-22T19:09:00.000-05:00

If we were talking about the shuttle launch, we'd say, "We have liftoff!" At the Indy 500, the announcer shouts over the roar of the engines, "The race is underway." My favorite horseracing announcer used to scream as the horses lurch from the starting gate, "And they're off!"

On day 20 of our project to generate $1 million cash in 184 days, we finally got two calls from our first mailing of 100 packages. A pastor from a Southside Chicago church and the executive director of a small not-for-profit organization called, referenced the mailing and asked us about the services we offer. After a brief chat, each invited me to make an appointment to meet in person to discuss in detail the services we can offer. So we've achieved two small victories - a response to the mailing and an invitation to schedule a face-to-face meeting.

I did some research on direct marketing response rates and learned that 2 responses out of 100 mailings is about average. Of course, generating a phone call is only step one; the object is to convert a prospect into a paying client. I know that people spend money with people they like and trust, and that the face to face meeting will be the key to closing the sale, to establishing trust and the feeling in each of these prospects that I can offer them something of value.

Because I've had a lot of experience in "pitching" services to clients, I know that for most small clients, price becomes the key factor in whether or not they hire me and pay me a retainer. My goal is to propose a fee for my services that I consider fair and reasonable. I don't pitch "lowball" fees any more because I discovered that, besides leaving me feeling cheated and dissatisfied when I offer a fee that is less than what I feel should be charged for the work, if clients perceive your fee as being too low, they will be suspicious of your competence and ability to deliver on the services you offer.

I also resolved for myself that any client who won't pay me a retainer (at least 50% of any fee we negotiate), isn't serious about hiring me. Especially in the services consulting field, I've learned that a client demosntrates how impressed they are with your services, prior track record, presentation, and value as a professional services provider by whether or not they agree to seal the deal with a letter of understanding and a retainer payment. My experiences have demonstrated that serious clients will always sign a letter of understanding and pay you a retainer.

So we've got two potential clients and two appointments on Monday. We'll let you know what happens.

Day 20 - $0.00 Income
Two responses to the mailing.
Day 21 - $0.00 Income
Two appointments set with prospects for July 24, 2006.

Do We Have Our First Client?

2006-07-21T07:49:00.000-05:00

We received two calls yesterday (July 20th) from our mailing. The follow-up happens today! Let's see what happens.

Day 19 And Counting - Eliminating The "Famine" Periods!

2006-07-19T20:32:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow will be 20 days into the project, and we haven't acquired a single client from our first mailing. I'm not really nervous or disappointed in our progress so far; if you've been following the blog, you know that we didn't really get our mailing out until a few days ago; illness and family matters interfered with the smooth launch of the project. All of my entrepreneurial life, I've experienced many periods of the proverbial "feast or famine." One reason I am excited about launching this project is that with the success of the project I hope to finally eliminate those "famine" periods.

When I was by myself of course I could handle the "down" times of the entrepreneurial life more easily (or at least I thought I was handling those valleys - as I look back they probably were harder on me than I admitted at those times). Now, with a 3-year old, 8 year old and 10 year old asking for dollars every minute and bills hitting the mailbox on a monthly basis, those short money periods hit especially hard.

I believe that on December 31, 2006, when I count up the cash totals from our six-month project, one by-product of its success is that we'll kiss those "famine" periods goodbye.

100 Clients From Newspapers, Magazines And Directories!

2006-07-18T20:16:00.000-05:00

I've reviewed the past 20 years of my business life, and one truth jumps out: the more clients you have and potential clients you are attracting, the more successful your business operations are and will be. A simplistic truth but one that the vast majority of would-be entrepreneurs I've ever known don't seem to accept.

That's why I like the client-acquisition mentality this project allows me to promote - and why I think that the techniques we'll put into action for acquiring and capturing the attention and buisness of clients are the key to why we'll reach our goal in December 2006.

I've been building a contact list of potential clients by picking up local community newswpapers, shoppers, business cards and community business directories. I consider new business owners a particularly fertile client source. I learned that new business owners who create a business under an assumed name must advertise the new business name and their ownership in the business classified ad section. So from a classified listing placed by a new business owner, I can get the legal business name, legal owner's name, business address and owner's address - absolutely free! Wow!

Building The Client List - Tips And Strategies

2006-07-17T05:05:00.000-05:00

A client that pays you for what you do or sell - the paying client is the engine that drives any successful business enterprise. A painful lesson I've learned - clients that don't pay aren't clients, they are liabilities that will kill your spirit and sink your business aspirations.

How can we identify, entice and capture clients that can and will pay us for our services or products? In launching my project, I know I have to use what Jay Conrad Levinson calls Guerilla Marketing strategies to build my client base, since I don't have any money yet to create or purchase newspaper ad space or tv/radio time.

I'm studying Levinson's Guerilla Marketing book and website. Seth Godin is a marketing guru who seems to be well-regarded, so I'm reading his blog. Shel Horowitz (Frugal Marketing) and Robert Allen (Multiple Streams Of Income) are two other sources from which I'm culling tips and strategies. I want to learn as many helpful ideas as I can.

More on our client list development in the next post.

Hooking Up New Blog Promotional Tools!

2006-07-16T22:39:00.000-05:00

Every day you learn something new. I read an article on blogging by Brent Leary in the Black Pages Monthly Newspaper and picked up info on two excellent blog marketing tools: Feedblitz and Feedburner. One tool allows subscribers to receive your new blog posts automatically through their e-mail addresses; the other turns your blog into an online feed that can contain your blog posts, photos and other add-ins, allows you to track your blog visitors and does a great deal more.

I've had this blog over five years now; when I originally started it on Blogger, I posted entries sporadically, which I hear is true of most bloggers because I really didn't understand what a blog was and how I could use it effectively as a communications tool and journal. As a columnist, I've written thousands of words intended for a one-way communcation between myself and an audience I thought would be interested in what I wrote. Now I see that a blog can be much more effective communications tool than a column can ever be, because through a blog, you can create an interactive communications link between yourself and a much wider audience than could ever be reached with a column in one or even one hundred newspapers. Through these new promotional tools, I can share my ideas, tips and strategies and people can comment, send me feedback and ideas that enrich me and hopefully everyone who follows my blog.

My project is providing me an opportunity to do with this blog what I always wanted to do with my columns: create a dialogue about business development, wealth creation and success that can really have a far-ranging impact.

Day 16 total: $0.00 income so far.

Day 12, 13, 14, 15 - Mailing Materials Are Finished!

2006-07-15T20:05:00.000-05:00

I finally finished the five flyers for the mailout. I'm mailing the flyer package to a list of 100 targeted clients. The five flyers describe grantwriting, business plan writing, investment packages, organizational development, and business/not-for-profit startup.

I chose these services because they reflect my work of the past 15 years. Since about 1991, I've completed tasks reflecting those services for hundreds of individuals starting for-profit and/or not-for-profit business enterprises. I'm planning to offer those services through new info channels and promote them differently than in past years. I believe that the new promotional strategies and tools I've found and will use (strategies and tools that are available to anyone, by the way) will drive revenues and profits to levels that for me are unprecedented. As I work through the new strategies, I'll share some insights with you.

Alex Tew says that to achieve great success, you have to create and own a totally new idea or concept that no one else has thought of. Doing so worked for him. I think you can also put a new marketing twist on tried and true concepts.

Tew was a natural marketer and promoter who compartmentalized a unqiue view of a webpage and sold it to others. Most of us aren't natively blessed with those skills. But many of us do conjure up uniquely beneficial insights that only we can see. Those insights emerge when we break out of our comfortable secure thoughts and start "thinking outside the box". Andcthey become financially beneficial when we expand our sphere of influence to others who can recognize our "out of the box" insights and how they add value to their lives or activities. Unfortunately we live in fear of being unique and different. Too many of us want comfortable conformity.

Farrah Gray, the 21 year old Reallionaire, says that "comfort is the enemy of greatness." At 6 years old, he learned how to overcome the complacency that he saw ensnaring people in mediocre, desperate lives. How did he achieve the financial plateaus few others even envision? He made a decision and a choice. He allowed himself to think outside the box and visualize the improbable as possible. As an eight-year old entreprenreur, he printed up and distributed cards that described himself as a "21st century CEO." By the time he was 12, he had a Wall Street Office, and he was a millionaire before his 15th birthday. Today at 22, he wears $1,500 suits and $1,600 watches. He believed that anything is possible and then went out and actualized his beliefs.

Day 12, 13, 14, 15 Totals: No income to report yet. We'll see you tomorrow with the latest updates and insights.

Sickness Stopped The Show - But We're Back On Track!

2006-07-11T10:08:00.000-05:00

Unexpected sudden illness can knock you out and make you realize how important your health really is. I caught a nasty bug on Friday which had me vomiting, feeling chills and fever at the same time (a strange sensation). I didn't touch the computer for four days. I finally started feeling a bit better Monday night.

Today is Tuesday, the 11th, and I'm back at it and, after reading that Kyle McDonald, the guy who set out to trade a red paperclip for a house, actually succeeded, more determined than ever to make this project work.

Here's where we are:

Starting Cash Bank: $100.00
Start Date: July 1, 2006
Spent: $50.00 - Design/Printing Of Flyers
$39.00 - Stamps
$5.00 - 100 envelopes
Balance: $6.00 Cash Income: $0.00
Day 7: Balance: $6.00
Day 8: Balance: $6.00
Day 9: Balance: $6.00
Day 10: Balance: $6.00

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

2006-07-07T22:06:00.000-05:00

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!

2006-07-05T10:23:00.001-05:00

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

2006-07-03T21:16:00.000-05:00

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

2006-07-02T04:17:00.000-05:00

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.

Ten Minutes To Launch Of The Million Dollars In 184 Days Project

2006-06-30T23:56:00.000-05:00

Less than ten minutes to project launch. It's on. Wish us luck. Let's see if we end up with a million dollars on December 31, 2006.

48 Hour Countdown: 2 Days To Project Launch: $1 Million In 184 Days

2006-06-28T19:28:00.001-05:00

I haven't posted in a couple weeks (which, thankfully, is shorter time between posts than the two years between posts in 2004). I'm starting the countdown to the kickoff of my project to generate $1 million cash in 184 days (am I tipping the IRS off to something big? Naw, I'm not doing anything but reaching for the American dream, and if I make it, the feds will benefit - and maybe they'll finally do something useful with my tax dollars!)

Saturday's the launch, and here's how we'll chronicle the 184 days:

Starting amount: $100.00

We'll post each day's starting cash bank and ending cash balance by 9:00 p.m. each night on the blog.

Of course, we'll record each day's revenues and expenditures.

We'll use Quicken for tracking our transactions - income and expenses.

Up to the first $100,000.00 cash revenues, we'll handle the bookkeeping. At $100,000.00, we'll turn the cash management chores over to a CPA who will handle the recordkeeping the rest of the way to the $1 million.

Our CPA will prepare and manage all the records - clients, income, expenses, and net cash totals, and prepare monthly balance sheets.

At the end of the 184 days, on News Year's Eve - December 31, 2006 - our CPA will close and reconcile the books and we'll report a total - whatever amount is in our main account ledger, whether it's $1.00 or hopefully $1 million.

We won't post every detail of every transaction, but we'll feature some of the more interesting strategies we use to generate our daily cash totals. Remember we're starting a business that has one goal - to generate $1 million cash within 184 days (6 calendar months).

Achieving that goal, while it sounds ambitious, is, as we'll show you, eminently achievable, but requires planning, innovative and timely execution of targeted money making strategies, and a focus on finding and satisfying the customers we solicit who come to do business with us. After all, it's their belief and investment in the products and services we offer that will determine how successful our venture becomes.

Tomorrow: one day before the launch of our project, we'll share some simple yet effective marketing strategies that are FREE TO YOU, but are powerful revenue generators. Hey, we're starting with $100.00, so every penny has to work as hard as a dollar. See you tomorrow with the first of 184 days of tips, strategies, success stories, and a countdown to $1 million cash in 184 days.

Identify Your Skills, Talents And Believe In Yourself!

2006-06-10T18:16:00.000-05:00

"I'd like to go into business for myself but what could I do that someone else would buy?" Because I hear this statement from dozens of people every week. I've decided to explore two key issues: One, how to identify your marketable talents. And two, why it's important to develop positive self-belief.

I'm constantly amazed at how often I hear people say they work on jobs they do not like and make salaries with which they're not satisfied. When I suggest that they identify their real skills and interests - the activities that excite their passions - and focus their daily activities on finding jobs or starting businesses that will make their skills pay off, they stare at me with blank expression; as if to say working at what one likes is a blasphemy instead of a blessing.

The truth is every one of us has a talent or skill we enjoy, have mastered, and are renowned for among friends and relatives. Whether it's singing, writing, cooking, repairing cars, organizing parties, even babysitting, we use these talents or skills everyday. These same skills are your most valued assets and the keys to your success as a self-employed person.

Therefore, an individual who wants to go into business should begin by taking a daily activities inventory. Consider how you spend your time everyday. Are your daily activities consistent with your interests, goals and aspirations?

For example, do you like to type? Start a secretarial service! Are your friends always asking you to bring that favorite pie or dish to the family picnic? Why not consider starting a catering service? Do you receive a constant string of compliments for your fashion flair, color sense or custom designs? Maybe your future is as a fashion designer or image consultant.

To create your own job, you have to look at yourself as a collection of skills and talents that have value to yourself and others. Take note of the traits that others notice about you and comment on (either in admiration or envy). In the process of identifying your skills and talents, rank them in terms of your interest in them and their perceived value. Eventually, you will discover the assets that comprise your personal platform for supporting the business or job that can secure your economic future.

One saying we use at Self Employment Leadership Forum, Inc. (SELF) is "Before You Can Believe It, You've Got To Believe It." This means that before you can sell anything to anyone else or achieve any kind of success, you first have to sell it to and believe in yourself. A disturbing insight is how hard it is for people to see value in themselves and, therefore, their skills and talents. Ironically, in self-evaluation, people often devalue their own skills and talents, while others recognize, covet and even envy these attributes.

One student in our workshop, Denise Cribbs, related how at least 25 people had at one time or another asked her to bake a cake or prepare a meal for a church social or other event. Those people were acknowledging her cooking talents, offering, in most cases, to pay her. Yet Cribbs talked herself out of taking advantage of this economic opportunity, saying, "Cooking? No one would pay me to do that." Most of you will recognize this scenario of self-doubt and personal devaluation.

In another case, there's the late Azell Mance, a self-employed businessman fo 33 years, who created a second career for himself by writing and marketing a new book, "How To Buy A Car Without Getting Cheated". Mance managed to get the book into select Chicago Walgreens Drug Stores and bookstores and had inquiries about the book from as far away as California and Canada. He accomplished this despite the fact that he'd never written a book before in his life, and he published the book himself without support from a publishing house.

Mance's story illustrtes that he possesses two valuable attributes: an unquenchable belief in himself and the drive to turn his self-belief into profits. The seeds of success are within you and your belief in self. Jesse Jackson said, "Your attitude determines the altitude your aptitude will carry you to." To find your millions, you have to learn that you can achieve anything you believe you can.

Entrepreneurship Your Dream? Part Two

2006-06-10T17:28:00.000-05:00

Reprinted From Afrique Newsmagazine. Copyright 1993-2006 By Pierre A. Clark.

The Success Manifesto. Seven Concepts To Contemplate.

Our seven-part "Success Manifesto" sums up the attitude and course of action we believe you must take if you want to achieve the success you've always fantasized you wanted.

1. "You can be no more than what you choose to be...and no less than what you believe you are." A famous novelist once wrote, "We are the authors of our own lives." Only YOU can determine what you are and where you go. You make that determination with every act of your life, even if you don't act, because not to decide is, in fact, to decide...to do nothing.

2. "Each step on the road to success is a process of self-understanding...and a realization of self-worth." Successful people will tell you that achieving goals begins when you understand your fears...and confront them. Once they recognized that they were ususally better than they thought they were, and could accomplish more than they thought they could, they began to move ahead. So can you.

3. "Success is a habit...just like failure. Success is the habit of doing the right thing. Failure is the habit of doing the easy thing." Success is not easy to achieve. That's why so few people achieve it. Hard work, discipline, sacrifice...these traits are the habits of people who succeed.

4. "To be it and achieve it, you've got to believe it," James Allen said."Thoughts are things. As a man thinketh, so he is." If you can't visualize yourself as being successful, you will undoubtedly become what you visualize...a failure. So changing your thinking is key to changing your life.

5. "A dream without a plan is just a fantasy." Wally Famous Amos, the cookie millionaire, said, "Where do you start (in becoming successful)? Start right where you are." That's the first step. The second step is to create a plan to move beyond that point.

6. If you want to change your life, the place to start is with yourself. The saying goes, "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always be where you've always been." You need to reprogram your life, replace old patterns with new expectations.

7. "Association creates assimilation - if you want to learn to fly like an eagle, you've got to stay away from crows!" Negative thinking grows like weeds in an untended field. Banish those people in your life that starve your self-confidence and feed your self-doubt.

Starting a business takes more than wishing, hoping, dreaming and praying. The Bible teaches us that God helps those who help themselves. You can wish and hope for your life to be what you want it to be, or you can commit to a plan to make your dreams happen.

Entrepreneurship Your Dream? Stop Fantasizing And Start Doing!

2006-06-10T14:48:00.000-05:00

REPRINTED FROM AFRIQUE NEWSMAGAZINE - 1993

Column: "Employ Yourself" - Written By Pierre Clark. Copyright 1993-2006. All Rights Reserved.

Part 1: A Dream Without A Plan Is Just A Fantasy.(tm)

Most you know our signature saying at S.E.L.F., Inc. is "a dream without a plan is just a fantasy(tm)." This saying grew out of our esperience with hundreds of people who say they dream of success in their own businesses. However, we've learned that most people's hopes never progress beyond the daydreaming stage. Why? It's found that fear and a tendency to cling to familiar yet unfulfilling ways of living are crutches people lean on, sabotaging their own ambitions.

Previously, we've talked about practical methods of starting your own business. Yet there are many of you who still refuse to believe in your ability to put these simple methods to work.

The Capacity To Dream

The capacity to dream, to visualize an alternative reality, is a talent unique to man. Dreams, it has been said, are where ideas and desires begin and man has always been driven by them. Our awareness and evaluation of who and where we are and the perceived shortcomings of our current lifestyles, compel us to dream about being more, achieving more, being in better positions than we perceive we are at the moment.

We live our lives by the saying, "the grass is always greener on the other side," as so many of us wish we were somewhere else, doing something else or living a life we perceive to be more fulfilling and successful.

Nonetheless, most of us still live in dungeons of unrealized aspirations and frustrations, paralyzed into inaction by fears and doubts about our capacity to change our lives.

So we continue to do what we have always done, living our lives in the old comfortable, familiar patterns. We succumb to our own insecurities. We allow the skepticism of friends and family to crush our ambitions, because so many of us measure our own self-worth by what other people think of us. We succumb to the pressure to conform to the common denominator at which everyone else exists because it's easier, even if we admit to ourselves that place is not really where we want to be.

If It Is To Be, It's Up To Me.

It is our own self-perception and indecision, then, that has determined where we are now, and the eventual course of our lives. If we refuse to take action to make our lives better, it's not someone else's fault, it's our own fault for allowing our insecurities to take control. As Rev. Robert Schuller often says, "If it is to be, it's up to me."

Believing In The Dream

2006-06-09T19:58:00.000-05:00

If you've been an entrepreneur for any length of time you've likely had the conversation with someone: "When are you going to get the big break?" What that person (usually a spouse or other family member) is really asking is: "When are you going to make some real money? You've been pursuing this entrepreneurial dream for.." "..years and you still haven't made that million dollars you say you're going to make. What's the problem?"

I said I was going to stop dealing with those questions because in one way there's no point in talking with someone who is trapped in the myopia of low expectations but that's not true of everyone, I've come to realize. Some people just don't or can't see it because they exist in a world where limitless possibilities are a pipedream. They can't see themselves having the opportunity or ability to put themselves in the position to own a successful business, purchase a big home, buy that flashy luxury car.

I've been reading some of my old columns from the 1990s. Thirteen years ago, I think I was somewhat more willing to address the issues and doubts of people who didn't believe in the dream. I'm trying to find that energy again. So until I do, I'll be posting some of my old columns and sharing with those of you who weren't readers in the 1990s the thoughts and ideas that I shared with aspiring entrepreneurs in those days.

Guerilla Marketing - Promoting And Selling You By Any Means Necessary

2006-06-04T14:16:00.000-05:00

I haven't really started promoting our million dollar project yet and won't until July 1, the official launch date. The first two project websites will be up and our support resources will be in place.

As a prelude to the project launch I've been reviewing websites and blogs, and I keep running across this term "Web 2.0", which I've heard is supposed to describe the second wave of the Web and web usage in the 21st century. Hell, I guess I'm still getting acclimated to the first wave (I hear blogging, social network software, wikis, IM, and forums are part of the interactive nature of this second web wave and I'm familiar with all those forms of web expression).

What I know is true is that developing an interactive communicative relationship with the people whom you want to converse with, do business with, or partner with is critical to the development and expansion of any large scale project you are planning to launch. That's why I've been reviewing websites and blogs, to gain insight into how websites are developed, maintained and promoted today and the changing nature of interactive communications.

I consider myself a first adopter technocrat (I bought my first web server software package in 1994 before I even knew the difference between a URL and an IP address). So I had no problem with the interactive nature of web communications is the way we converse in the 21st century; if you're in business today your clients or potential customers, employees, partner and/or investors expect to be able to reach you through your website, e-mail, blog, discussion forum, e-mail newsletter, SMS text messaging, cell phone, IM (instant messaging), or combinations of all these now widely used forms of communications.

The all-encompassing nature of web communications today supports the concept of guerilla marketing, meaning the use of marketing strategies that operate outside the TV-newspaper-radio-billboard spectrum we commonly associate with mass marketing. But if you check the web's activities today, large companies have adopted the so-called guerilla marketing strategies because they in-fact generate better per-dollar-invested results than the traditional mass-marketing buys. People today expect one-on-one communication whether they are dealing with a billion dollar company or a one-person startup and when they look at your website, they can't tell just from looking at your site whether you have a billion dollars or one dollar in the bank.

What they want to know is: Where's your blog? What's your IM screen name? What's your e-mail address? Can I text message you? I asked you a question about your product or service, how come I can't find the answer on your site? Or I e-mailed you yesterday, why haven't I heard back by e-mail? I want to buy your product now; where's your online payment gateway? All these questions result from how the web has blown interactive communications wide open, changed the game, and ironically leveled the playing field while placing greater resp[onsibilities on us to get our messages out and stay in touch/stay connected. Promoting and selling you by any means necessary isn't a strategy any more, it's a necessity if you want to be in the game at all.

Entrepreneurial Creative - Liberating The Wealth Creator In Me!

2006-06-01T16:15:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted anything since last Friday. Stuff to do - holiday matters, following up on some consulting leads. It's June 1, less than one month to the launch of my million-dollar project. I'll be posting thoughts and ideas every day from now till the end of the year.

Just a note about my previous posts. I mentioned earlier that when you're writing a column or articles about wealth-building, starting a business, becoming financially independent, people want to know as much about you as about the subjects you're covering in those articles and columns.

So I mentioned some stuff about me, some incidents from my early life. But I suspect, as I found to be true when I was writing my columns in the 1990's, that many of you just want to discover from reading my columns the ideas and facts I can offer to you that will help you achieve whatever personal goals you've identified as important to you.

I'm going to recount other events in my life in future blog entries. But starting tomorrow, I'm going to narrow the focus of my posts to ideas and techniques and strategies and resources that you can immediately apply to your entrepreneurial pursuits. See you then.

An Entrepreneurial Creative - Photography, Productions, Promotion

2006-05-26T21:47:00.000-05:00

Photography represented my first entrepreneurial self-employment activity. I had a roommate at Harvard who'd been a free-lance photographer in Baltimore, and he suggested we get cameras and start shooting photos for enjoyment and some extra money. We got grants from Harvard's student aid office and we used the grants to buy single lens reflex cameras - he bought a Nikon F, I bought a slightly less expensive Minolta SRT-101 (still one of the best cameras I ever used).

We started photographing students, nature scenes, anything we could see. I didn't make much money but I really enjoyed the art of photography. My roommate JP was able to commandeer space on one of the upper floors of the freshman Union Hall and he set up a darkroom with enlargers, film tanks and development chemicals for black and white film (I think JP got a color enlarger later in the year). It was in that lab that I basically taught myself with help from JP how to process black and white film and print enlargements.

I really enjoyed photography, enjoyed it in fact more than the subjects I was studying. At that time Harvard didn't have a major in creative skills or photography or anything like that - Harvard was the classic Ivy League liberal arts college and we studied the core liberal arts subjects. I'd chosen chemical engineering(?) as my major and that's why I was enrolled in the classes that eventually proved to be my academic undoing - physical chemistry, organic chemistry, 2nd year calculus and differential equations. This was an academic schedule, as I reflect back on it, that would have done in any first year student much less one as ill-prepared for a rigorous study schedule as I was.

The only good thing - besides the fact that I actually survived the first semester with some good grades - that emerged from that first semester was the realization that photography brought me - I was a creative person, and a good one. After I left Harvard, came back to Chicago and enrolled in the University of Chicago, I was determined to pursue photography as an income source and a creative outlet.

Part Two - Journey From Wealth Seeker To Wealth Creator

2006-05-25T16:35:00.000-05:00

I graduated with honors from a Catholic High School In Chicago, Illinois and, after looking over a dozen scholarship offers accepted one at Harvard University. I had a National Achievement Scholarship for four years of college, some loans, and basic room and board.

Now, no offense to Harvard University, which still counts me as a member of the class of '75, but I might have been better off matriculating at a university similar to the kind of small Catholic High School from which I graduated. Why? Because I often think I might have performed better at a smaller school, not because of the academics, but because of the personalized interaction a smaller college affords. Or maybe not.

My AP scores allowed me to take advantage of an offer to skip out of freshman year and start Harvard with what was called "sophomore standing". I came into the school big, bad, bold and ready, I thought, to kick ass, graduate and get out into the world.

Not quite. I spent one year at Harvard. Harvard didn't beat me, however, I beat myself by not studying hard enough and not being organized and focused enough. I did well my first semester and basically failed one class the second semester, and on the basis of that performance, the freshman dean at the time asked me to "take a year off". Harvard adopted this approach, I think to give first-year students struggling with college life an opportunity to clear their heads and come back when they could be more focused on college life.

I took the request as a rejection, however, and not wanting to come back to Chicago as someone who had been asked to leave Harvard (which would not have been as bad as it sounded, as it turns out, because Harvard requested that many students take that year off, and they then returned after a year, completed their four years and graduated with a Harvard degree, which is what I could have done with less of a prideful attitude than I adopted).

Instead of staying out for one year, coming back to Harvard and catching up, I decided to try to attend school in Chicago. And naturally, I chose the most prestigious school in Chicago - the U. of C. Now the U. of C., even though it was located in my hometown less than 25 minutes from where I grew up, was a place where if anything I felt even more isolated than I had at Harvard. I didn't live on campus, I was living at home. Worse, they accepted few of my credits from Harvard including my AP credits, which meant I started over as a freshman (I know, it sounds dumb now even as I'm writing it and what kind of advice was I getting then? Very little, and those few words came from people with no real sense of what was happening to me).

I enrolled in the economics program at U. C. but in less than a year I'd gone from a stellar student who was on track to graduate in three years from Harvard University to a lost freshman behind by a year if I stayed at UC. I barely attended classes that year at all and ended up that second year owing 2 different school loans, no scholarship and less than 2 years of credits from more than 2 years of work.

Now how did I end up from the academic circumstance I just described to a wealth creator, business owner, nationally known columnist, grantwriter and someone who has created a system to earn a million dollars cash in six month? Stay with me.

Chris Gardner - One More Example Of The Power Of Believing!

2006-05-24T08:22:00.000-05:00

I'll get back to my story tomorrow. I just ran across another story that I want to highlight about an individual who made it happen, who believed it could happen, and who didn't stop until it did happen! For all of you out there who are convinced the million-dollar journey can't happen for YOU!

Chris Gardner - Proof Positive That A Dream Without A Plan Is Just A Fantasy(tm), And To Be It, You've Got To Believe It(tm)!

"It ain't no mystery", says Chris Gardner, former homeless man and shelter dweller, now CEO of Gardner Rich & Company, a multi-million dollar investment management firm, when asked about the secret to his success. "Blocking, tackling, practice, practice, practice. But beyond that, find something you love, something that you're passionate about. Find something that the sun can't come up quick enough because you want to go do your thing. The money will come. And even if it don't come, it's more important to be happy."

The Journey From Wealth Seeker To Wealth Creator

2006-05-23T20:45:00.000-05:00

Nowadays it seems that people who read a column want to know as much or more about the writer than about the column's subject. Nothing wrong with that in one way I guess because I can agree that a great deal of the credibility of what one writes comes from who one is.

It is true of the best writing that somehow through the author's voice or use of language, the reader gets a sense of the author's life journey or what I call path to transformation and enlightenment about himself and the world he/she inhabits.

When I began writing this column, I wanted to share the knowledge I'd gained from at that time 20 years of experience pursuing the entrepreneurial dream. My struggles, failures and triumphs certainly informed the 250 plus columns I wrote over 7 years, but the focus was the information I had to share. The feedback I was receiving from readers told me I'd been fairly successful in delivering some useful info in an easy-to-digest style; I received letters from perhaps 2000 people who found the column and the information I shared useful to them in their own self-employment/entrepreneurship activities, and for people who desired financial independence, the column was there to validate the idea of creating your own job and business enterprise as an alternative to decades for someone else.

My target audience was low-income people who wanted a piece of the American dream; I wanted to demonstrate that by following some organizational, management and marketing principles they could successfully create their own job and establish their own business enterprise even with limited income and no business experience.

In the 1980s and 1990s entrepreneurship was more of a novelty, I think, just as the idea of owning your own personal computer seemed like a Star Trek fantasy. Just as PCs and cell phones emerged in the 1990's, so did hundreds of magazines that touted entrepreneurship as the pathway to financial freedom. Income Opportunities, Home Based Business, Entrepreneur, Business 2.0, Business Startups, even Fortune and Black Enterprise, whose articles in the past focused on existing businesses, now touted the entrepreneurial imperative. Near the end of the decade, Fast Company Magazine and Business 2.0 both championed the concept of YOU, Inc. - that is, YOU the individual as both small business and defining brand differentiating the person you are and seem to be to others.

You know how some kids grow up wanting to be an astronaut, fireman, or policeman? From as far back as I can remember (at least since I was 12 years old), I wanted to own something, to run the show, to be the one in charge. My first job was shelf stocker in a grocery store on Chicago's 47th Street; CJ (Charles Jones), the guy who owned the store also ran what we called a "bookie joint", a place where people placed bets on the horse races at Sportsman's Park, Arlington Race Track and Hawthorne. CJ was a brown-skinned man who always wore a suit and tie and a snap brim hat. CJ cut an intimidating figure but he always had money and paid me every week. Five of us worked in the store and we got paid every week without fail. But CJ wasn't the first entrepreneur I ever observed up close. My father ran a barber shop from one of the bedrooms of our apartment; it took me years to realize that when I started darkrooms and computer labs in my own bedroom I was essentially copying what my father had done - create a job for himself and start his own business.

Part Two Of This Story Tomorrow.

The Opportunity Challenge - Why I'll Be Offering 10% Of My Million-Dollar Project To Five New Startup Businesses

2006-05-22T10:03:00.000-05:00

At various stages in my life I've been provided with opportunities and resources, and I've generally had some positive experiences with people whom I've met and worked with who offered me those opportunities. I had a good academic record in high school, though I can now admit to Brother Ciepley at St. Ignatius that I probably could have done better. (I hope I spelled your name right, Brother Ciepley). (Short story: After I'd won a rather prestigious scholarship competition in high school, Brother Ciepley criticized me for having never worked up to my full potential in high school. I disagreed at the time but looking back, 35 years later, I'd have to say my college experiences proved that I didn't have the work ethic and study habits in those days. Hopefully, I've improved on those habits a bit in the ensuing years.)

Most people who achieve success in business endeavors, academia, sports, entertainment and other fields benefit, I believe, from an elaborate and powerful support system that forms around them over time. We all have heard about the importance of mentors who share experiences and help you avoid the roadblocks and pitfalls, who introduce you to other resourceful people and open doors for you. I've always had a problem with the mentorship concept because I believe that each person's life journey is unique, and in particular for successful people, influenced by factors they can't easily quantify or explain.

But what I believe is true is that for every successful person, there was a time and a moment when they got a life-changing break, and usually if they are honest, they know when that moment occurred and can tell you when it was. Someone stepped up and offered something - money, advice, access to a resource, an introduction to a powerful or influential person - that changed the game for that person and started them on the pathway to great success and accomplishment.

Many years ago, on a very popular television program, "The Millionaire", a mysterious figure whose never revealed his identity would send his assistant to give randomly chosen people a tax-free cashier's check for $1 million. The recipient of course would struggle with how to deal with such a large and unexpected gift and would learn a moral lesson about money not being everything. The show's premise really, I think, influenced such programs as the MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant awards, Ted Forstmann's philanthrophy with college scholarships for children, and even shows like "American Idol". The point of these shows is that the receipt of a large sum of money or other resources can have life-changing impact on the recipient. Of course, many people who receive such gifts don't use them wisely, as the post-lottery experiences of many million dollar winners demonstrates.

But for the most part I believe that "the big break" is an essential part of every successful person's story. That's why, as part of my million-dollar cash generation project, I intend to invest 10% of whatever sum we generate to five start-up business enterprises. If, as I believe it will be, that sum is $1 million, we'll make five (5) investments of $20,000.00 each.

I haven't worked out the details yet; as I do, I'll post them here.

2006-05-21T16:53:00.000-05:00

Why Was Alex Tew Able To Generate A Million Dollars Cash In Six Months From A Single Homepage? Some Thoughts I Had.

Just a bit more about this guy Alex Tew who generated a million dollars cash in less than six months through his website http://www.millionairehomepage.com. I've been analyzing the factors that, in my opinion, contributed to the tremendous financial success of his endeavor.

I mean, let's face it. Here's a guy who created a website with one specific focus - raising money. No trickery or double-entendres about his intentions.

He says in his blog, "I created this site to generate money to pay for my university education." He didn't hide the motivations behind creating his site, and his selling proposition simply was, "I'm selling pixels to raise money at $1.00 a pixel, $100.00 for a 100-pixel square. Buy my pixels; support my cause if you like it. And in the process, gain some visibility for your own website/business enterprise and become a part of Internet history."

Behind this seemingly simple proposition, I believe, are key factors which provide lessons we can learn from and use in our own business endeavors. Here they are:

Executed A Singularly Focused Concept

(1) Tew created an idea with a singular purpose and focus. How many of us try to be all things to all people in our businesses? An elegant simplificity defined Tew's website concept; everyone who visited the site understood the purpose of his site and could envision the potential benefits of being a part of it.

Leveraged The Viral Nature Of The Internet

(2) He understood the medium through which he presented and delivered his concept. The Internet's defining characteristics are as an interconnected network through which information and reaction to information and events flow very quickly, much more quickly and powerfully than in normal human interactions. He knew that the site's core descriptive concepts - a web page worth a million dollars, the possibility of aggregating thousands of pixel purchasers into a website as a snapshot of Internet commerce in 2005 - would appeal to the masses of Internet users and adopters and word would spread quickly online, in chat rooms and via e-mail.

Took Advantage Of Human Nature

(3) He implicitly divined, from the perspective of human nature, the reactions he would get to his site. He played up the audacious novelty of declaring his intention to generate a million cash dollars through his site and marketing that idea, while focusing the attention of purchasers on both the attractiveness and benefits of the site (many hundreds of hits for the websites those pixel ads promoted) for those who chose to participate. In short, the site captured the imagination of its both ad purchasers and curious visitors.

Aggregated A Mass Action Play

(4) He anticipated the beneficial power of aggregating thousands of purchasers (10000 to be exact at $100.00 per purchaser) into viewing a site that he knew would attract through its audacious novelty millions of viewers.

Established His Own Value Proposition

(5) Tew established the value of his site's pixels through four tactics - (a) setting a minimum value on each pixel; (b) emphasizing the scarcity of the available pixels - only 1 million pixels on THIS homepage under THIS domain name - which once purchased, would remain as sold and assembled for five (5) years; (c) set a floor for their value in the minds of ad purchasers who would (d) validate that value through their decision to buy.

Generated Maximum Visibility

(6) And finally, he helped his own cause by promoting his site everywhere he could, making himself available for interviews in America and Europe, which created a cascading torrent of interest that brought even more purchasers and visitors to see what everyone was talking about.

Now what are the lessons I've learned and that I think are valuable for all of us as business people. Simply these:

(1) The product or service you offer must immediately be seen any potential purchaser as different from others offering similar products or services. Tew wasn't offering "a website"; he was offering "pixels for sale."

(2) You must establish the value of your product or service in the client's mind; contrary to what many businesspeople believe, the marketplace doesn't set the prices we charge, we do, through how we establish value and benefits in the minds of our potential clients. You've heard this concept variously called "branding" or the "unique selling proposition". It's why we value Mercedes Benz cars more than Chevys.

(3) You must demonstrate an integrity about the product or service you offer in that you deliver or perform exactly as you say you will when you say you will. Tew stated flatly what he would sell (pixels), what they cost ($1 each), how long the promotion would last (5 years) and exactly what result or response the purchasers could expect from their ad buys. His website contains a whole page of testimonials raving about how the ads they purchased generated much more traffic and clients to their sites than they ever expected.

We're prepping for the launch of our million dollar project; believe me, the example set by Alex Tew is one I plan to follow in our project's implementation.

2006-05-20T09:30:00.000-05:00

TRANSFORMING YOUR LIFE - EARNING $1 MILLION CASH IN 184 DAYS

One Million Dollars Cash In 184 Days - Project Start: July 1 through December 31, 2006

Nearly five years ago when I started this journal, the goal I had was to revisit and provide some new insights into the subject of business startups - techniques, marketing and promotion strategies, etc. Between 1993 and 1999, I'd written columns on self-employment and small business entrepreneurship for three different newspapers - Chicago's Afrique Newsmagazine, Chicago's Streetwise Newspaper sold by the homeless, and the member publications of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, an association of community newspapers. For me, the columns allowed me to promote the idea of self-employment and a non-profit organization, Self-Employment Enterprises Leadership Forum, Inc. through which I offered workshops and training classes for low-income residents.

I was, to my knowledge, the only person in the country writing columns on entrepreneurship and business development targeting low-income residents and encouraging them to create their own jobs and businesses as an alternative to welfare or criminal activity. I stopped writing the columns in 1999 - to this day seven years later I'm not sure exactly why. The columns connected with thousands of people and I have the letters to prove it. But I think one reason I stopped writing the columns was my perception that I needed to focus on taking and implementing the very advice I offered to my readers. And at that time I think I really questioned whether I had achieved enough financial goals in my own life to justify continuing to offer this feel-good rah-rah advice.

For nearly three decades - since I'd started my first self-employment venture, free-lance photography, at 17 years old - I'd gotten involved in nearly every kind of creative enterprise and information/consulting business. In 2001, just a few months before those planes hit the World Trade Center, I was looking back at my life and saw a lot of work and great ideas but not a great deal of permanent income or assets to show for those three decades.

So in 2001, I found this site Blogger and decided to create one about entrepreneurship and new-biz insights. And I had every intention of adding regular posts to this blog. But like for most of us, life intervened, and pushed the intentions I had to the back burner.

Stuff just comes up, people, and it happens to all of us so don't let it bother you when it happens. In my own case, within the past five years I've acquired a family (wife, three children and one on the way). If you're a family person, you know and are experiencing the reality that other family members always offer distractions that can take you off your path, because they are who they are to you and they want what they want from you and as a family member you feel obligated to pay attention (which is not a big problem but takes getting used to. You learn to deal with these human dynamics and manage yourself and them and believe me it takes time to get used to all these people in your life tugging at your pantslegs and demanding your time - because, as my 33-month-old son likes to say, " I love you, daddy", right before he begs for the candy or juice. Cute, huh?

But here I am back at this blog thing again and I'm still taking about building this multi-million-dollar business enterprise.

One Million Dollars Cash In 184 Days

But this time I've got a plan and this time I'm putting a time limit and parameters on it. 6 months, starting July 1, 2006, and by December 31, 2oo6, 184 days later, my goal is to earn and have in the bank or somewhere else $1 million in cash. THAT'S RIGHT, ONE MILLION IN CASH! Originally I created a 30-day plan to complete this task and then I thought to myself, hey, limiting myself to 30 days would put undue pressure on me and besides, since the median income in America is about $50,000 and the most I've ever earned (gross income, that is) in any one year in my life officially is about $40,000.00, I'm talking about generating 25 TIMES THAT AMOUNT for myself within the next 184 days.

So to accomplish that goal would be a feat for me as well as for nearly anyone in this country. So I said to myself, let's increase the time frame to six months which would give me more time to make it work and if I accomplish the goal in a shorter time frame than six months, great!

We'll start with $100.00 cash and the tools we have on hand: the Internet, three working computers, many parts of older computers, three leased copiers, fax machines and laser printers, my own brainpower and 35 years of entrepreneurial/self-employment experiences and knowledge about technology, writing, photography, videography, business development, publicity, planning and organizing. I'm also partnering with a number of other people in various business endeavors with profit potential but whatever funds we receive through them won't count for this project. And we do have a couple of consulting contracts that may provide additional funding but we haven't collected those funds yet and in this endeavor we agree to only count the cash we have in hand.

I'm not exactly starting from scratch but my position of cash and asset ownership is similar I think to many people in America. I wasn't born into wealth and most of my family members are working class people. So if I can do it - generate $1 million cash in my bank account in six months, using totally legitimate methods available to anyone - then I think it demonstrates the ability of anyone in America - or elsewhere in the world for that matter - to accomplish the same goal.

I'm inspired to finally launch this endeavor by the informative articles I found in a new magazine, http://www.millionaireblueprints.com. If you haven't seen it, check out the link here. You can download copies from their website for $4.95 (a great idea but you can buy it on the newsstands for $3.95; I like the magazine but they may have to rethink their use of the Internet on that one - they would sell a great many more subscriptions at full price through a FREE distri bution of the *.pdf files - just my opinion).

The magazine's stated goal is to deliver "detailed examples, step-by-step instructions and specific blueprints from self-made millionaires". After reading the latest issue cover to cover I can honestly say this book lives up to its goal - as a business writer, it's the kind of magazine I wish I'd published when I was writing my column (I might yet do it someday!)

Two other inspirational sites for me:

(1) this guy Kyle MacDonald who conceived the idea of trading a red paperclip for a house - he's at http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com, and this is an awesome idea and it's awesome to me how far this guy's idea and original goal have carried him - national and international publicity, travel and many great resources. I do believe he will make it and get his house!

(2) Alex Tew, a 22-year old (wow!) British guy who launched an idea to sell a million pixels to pay for his college education and ended up generating $1, 037,100.00 from his site, http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com. Check out his blog at http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/blog.php - fascinating reading! And proof enough for me (although I didn't really need it) that anyone can come up with an idea and make it work if they allow themselves to think outside the box and believe enough in an idea to pursue it and see it through.

I've used two sayings since 1991 that incorporate my beliefs about success possibilities:

A dream without a plan is just a fantasy(tm)!

To be it, you've got to believe it(tm)!

So here it is: my plan is to earn and deposit a million dollars cash for myself by December 31, 2006. What am I selling? Here are the products and services I am selling:

My 35 years experience as an entrepreneur (mostly struggles to make ends meet)
My ability to help myself and others start businesses that make money immediately (from $10,000 to $200,000 within the first 120 days of startup - up to now I hadn't been able to sustain those successes but I believe I've learned how to start a company and keep it going)
My ability to advise other people on how to start business enterprises and make money at them (there are many people who will testify to the results they generated putting my advice into action)
My ability and success in writing grant applications and business plans that generate money (over $500,000.00 so far in seven years for two dozen non-profits).
My knowledge of technology tools (e-mail, websites, blogs, forums, and the technology behind them), videography, photography, marketing, promotion, graphic design, writing, publishing and consulting in these areas; and
My ability to recognize the profit potential in quirky, off-beat, out-of-the-box ideas and help others make those ideas work!

Many people out there have skills and are considered educated, intellingent, and smart, yet they don't make enough money or build enough wealth to sustain themselves and their families. The question I asked about myself and all these people is why? The answers I come up with involve thinking outside the box (that is, not thinking like the majority is programmed to think) and being a curious and keen observer of human nature.

I believe there are three kinds of people in the world:

the educated - those who've read and studied and received degress and other certificates of educational accomplishment

the smart - those who have a natural capacity for acquiring and using knowledge, whether educated (as in formally educated) or not;

the clever - those who may or may not be formally educated but who are smart and have the added capability of seeing beyond what they learn and what's obvious to do what we classically call "think outside the box" and synthesize many disparate ideas into new and unique ones. These rare people include the small percentage who "change the game" with their ideas and innovations. I include among their number Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Sam Walton, Oprah Winfrey and most other "outrageously successful" people.

For most of my life, people categorized me as being "educated" and "smart". Some even called me "a genius" (although I never understood exactly what they meant in calling me a "genius" - and I later learned that my IQ and test scores place me on the borderline of what's considered "genius" level, according to Mensa).

35 years slogging through the entrepreneurial trenches, however, have convinced me that only "clever" people are really successful in this world. Kyle MacDonald and Alex Tew are clever people. BET's Robert Johnson is a clever man (that is I believe why he was able to start a company with $15,000 and sell it for $3 BILLION). Do I think cleverness can be learned? Well, I think we can think outside the box. I think we can synthesize apparently unrelated concepts and ideas into new innovations.

But I think that all of us suffer from three issues that will always challenge our ability to conceive and implement successful concepts:

The opinions and ideas of others about things we say and do

The internal self-talks scripts that play over and over in our subconscious minds, subliminal programming created by decades of the accumulated statements of family, friends and so-called teachers, mentors, and advisors;

Both the above challenges fuel the third challenge:

Our own internal fears.

We'll talk a great deal more about these challenges in the next seven months. They affect you, me and everyone. But you can't let them stop you. And we won't.

JULY 1, 2006 KICKOFF - THE MILLION-DOLLAR-NET-CASH PROJECT(TM)

So for now, here are the bare details of our project and how we will proceed:

Start Date: July 1, 2006

Amount We Start With: $100.00

HOW WE WILL SPEND OUR INITIAL $100.00 IN STARTUP CAPITAL

What We Will Spend $100.00 On:

100 U.S. Stamps - $39.00

100 White Envelopes - $5.00

1000 Printed Sheets - Flyer And Application - $50.00

Total Left From $100.00 = $6.00

Each new post of my blog will detail:

Our day to day investment/earnings totals
An explanation of our spending/investment strategies
How we are building our income-revenue momentum
As well as my opinions and comments along the way

I'm excited about the journey and to see if we can make this plan work. So keep reading. I'm happy you're along for the ride.

2006-05-03T15:26:00.000-05:00

New Biz Insights - Technology Finally Makes It Work

We last wrote our columns "Employ Yourself", "HomeFree" and "Entrepreneur's Corner" in the 20th century when the Internet was just a promise and no one knew where it would lead us.

Now here we are half-past the first decade of Century 21 and the big companies are quaking in their boots as the inmates - Youtube, Ourmedia, MySpace, Podomatic, Paltalk, Skype, Gizmoproject, the revised Napster, and hundreds of others - take over the asylum and rip the keys out of the hands of the content and media gatekeepers.

For a while on the Net it looked like the big branded companies - the guys who came late to the Internet revolution - had beaten the first dot-com wave. Then along came Google - a company less than a decade old - that flipped the script on targeted advertising and revolutionized something called Web 2.0 - services on the web. Now it's all up for grabs - Windows, packaged software, the telephone companies, movie companies, record companies and traditional software companies might all be disrupted out of business.

I'm a small guy. When I first started writing the columns in 1993, my main weapon was a 16Mhz PC with 32 mb of RAM and 100Mb of drive space. Cell phones were unaffordable, notebook PCs disconnected from anything but themselves, e-mail just a dream. Back in 1994, I had two or three PCs on my desk, two notebook computers that cost me $2,000.00 (and I thought that was a deal at the time) which together had less drive space and power than a keychain drive and $100 PDA has today, and a cell phone that felt more like a small radio than a voice transceiver. I wanted to be totally mobile but to get to that mobility then I had to settle for a large black bag to carry the notebook PC, HP DJ 310 printer, and Ameritech cell phone. The rig's bulk and inconvenience (the batteries didn't last and everything had an attached brick battery-AC cord that was useless unless you were sitting down near an electric jack) made its utility hard to realize.

Now you can hold the phone, fax, e-mail, software, and TV in the Palm (or HP or Compaq or Nextel). A Blackberry 8700 can be an office link for everything you do at your desk. And if you are a small guy today, you can compete with the big guys without it costing you an arm and leg if you have:

A bluetooth enabled, wi-fi connected notebook computer
A bluetooth-enabled cell phone with videocam
A universal battery charger and AC connector
Subscriptions to Skype, Vonage, GizmoProject, Paltalk, MyFax, Podomatic, YouTube, Paypal, ccbill and ibill

You can:
create and send any kind of digital media
write, host and broadcast your own portable radio and TV shows
develop and promote your own websites
accept payments instantly via credit card or debit card from anywhere in the world

It's on and the bandwagon already left; if you ain't on already you better run and catch up!

Back On The Blog - Picking It Up Again!

2006-03-18T22:37:00.000-06:00

It's a shame that I haven't kept this blog up even though I've had it on Blogger for over five years. Well, I'm updating my focus and revamping the blog with tips, ideas, strategies and personal thoughts.

I'm glad that we have many ways to upload posts now including from a mobile phone, because like many 21st century entrepreneurs my cellphone is my lifeline.

There's a lot of great information out there and many ideas and strategies that we can all use to build and expand our entrepreneurial activities.

My plan is to post at least one daily tip, idea, strategy, concept or observation, or as many as I can come up with when I'm sitting at the keyboard.

As well, I'm establishing contact numbers on Skype and Gizmo that anyone reading the blog or checking out my current website: http://pierre_clark.tripod.com or my new upcoming entrepreneur-development websites can call to speak with me directly. I'll post those numbers next week.

As some of you know for seven years between 1993 and 1998 I wrote columns on self-employment and entrepreneurship for three local Chicago-based newspapers; the column eventually appeared in more than 200 community newspapers under the title "The Entrepreneur's Corner". It's been more than 7 years since I wrote the columns and I've learned a lot, including how to start and build that million-dollar business I spoke of earlier. Stay tuned 'cause somewhere in here that cat will jump out of the bag!

Update: $1 million cash generated in 30 days from $100.00. That's the new business strategy I've developed and along the way I'll be sharing the insights and tips and strategies that helped me make it happen! The countdown begins May 1, 2006 and continues for 31 days and we will document our progress (or lack of it) every day.

2004-12-29T01:17:00.000-06:00

Something else has changed since I first discussed starting the million dollar a year business three years ago - my circle of friends and contacts has widened considerably. I've joined several associations through which I am meeting hundreds of new people. I believe your chances of building a multi-million dollar business enterprise are strengthened or decreased in direct proportion to your success or failure at networking and building personal relationships.

2004-12-27T03:34:00.000-06:00

Three years later and did I create the million-dollar a year business? Not quite, but I am on my way. I took a detour to have a son and become part of a family of five including myself. I developed some new skills (more than $200,000 generated for not-for-profits through grantwriting for example). I've done newsletters, public speaking, seminar presentations, PR, started two not-for-profits and published a newspaper. Three years out since 9/11, and the world is surely a different place. It's a lot more difficult to do some things, easier to do others via the Internet, and I've learned a lot. I'm back to writing all the time (I'm restarting my community columns on entrepreneurship and self-employment again). I'll be back at ya in a minute with a lot more stuff. Perhaps we'll do that million-dollar-a-year business together after all.

2001-10-26T02:26:00.000-05:00

A Quick Note On The Million-Dollar Business

The harder the problem is to solve, the more lucrative the solution is for the business.

Successful companies, the companies that are sustainable enterprises that build wealth for their owners, are those that engage and solve difficult issues - like how a company can cost-effectively respond to each of its clients in a uniquely personalized way.

2001-10-26T01:56:00.000-05:00

What We Know How To Do

Successful companies are built on unique know-how: the ability to provide services or solve problems in a non-duplicatable, innovative way.

New technologies allow the leveraging of know-how in ways that were unimaginable a decade ago. They also allow the building of collaborative communications teams whose combined know-how can be applied to problems. A company is not limited to relying on local talent but can seek out and connect with talent individuals wherever they are.

So we're going to use new technologies to create a corporation with the breath of a national enterprise and the connectedness and immediate response of a local firm.

2001-10-26T01:40:00.000-05:00

Building The Company Around Know-How, Not Knowledge

As I work on building this company, I think one of the problems I discovered that I needed to solve to establish that this company has a chance to succeed is the difference between knowledge and Know-how.

It seems to me that many companies in the 20th century were built on the limited availability of knowledge. Large companies compiled vast amounts of tangible knowledge in paper files and intangible knowledge in personal and corporate relationships, and few companies could compete with these collective knowledge bases. Good examples were the catalogue retailers (Sears) and car companies (General Motors) which had databases of tens of millions of clients, tens of thousands of dealerships, and long-standing relationships that could be leveraged whenever a company wanted to introduce new products.

The widespread proliferation of info databases and the development of technology to create, manage and interpret the info in those databases destroyed the competitive advantage of large companies. Now anyone with a computer, a database software program like Microsoft Access, and some knowledge of writing business rules could create an application that captured, analyzed and reproduced information in any number of forms: analytical reports, mailing lists, form letters, and more. And knowledge - for example, the number of used cars in the marketplace - could be aggregated and presented in an easy-to-use format.

The Internet obliterated the final barriers to obtaining and analyzing competitive info. Knowledge was now publishable at any time and everywhere at once to anyone and by anyone who had a computer and a website and a backend database; search engine technology allows us to type in a few keywords and bring to our desktop vast amounts of knowledge on any subject of our choosing. Knowledge has now become essentially free, and so the differentiating factors in business success are not the knowledge your company creates and aggregates, but what you can do with it.

Unfortunately, it seems to me that the dot-com technocrats didn't see that the rapid proliferation of knowledge and its availability to everyone would eliminate knowledge as a competitive advantage. Many of them concentrated on the creation of tools and the aggregation of knowledge instead of the application of knowledge in solving problems for clients and providing value added services.

I don't want to make that mistake. There are more than enough tools and a core knowledge supply that is almost limitless. The question now: how to leverage the tools and apply the knowledge in unique and profitable ways. That's what I'm working on. That's the only competitive advantage I see that can ensure the success and survival of this enterprise.

2001-10-23T04:35:00.000-05:00

Life Creates Unfortunate Tragedies And Inevitable Opportunities

Right now, if you own a construction company in New York or even a dump truck, you are making more money than you've ever made in your life...because your skills and resources are more needed now than ever before. If your expertise is disaster cleanup, you are making a fortune. There was a report on the news of one company that was given a $10 million contract just to clean up all the apartments in buildings surrounding the World Trade Center that had been filled with the ash cascading from the collapsed buildings.

The cost of this terrible tragedy in terms of human life has been incalculable, after all, what price can you put on a life? But in purely economic terms, the cost of rebuilding the World Trade Center towers has been estimated at $100 billion dollars. Here's something I realized: as much money as has been donated and will be spent to help the innocent victims of this tragedy (an estimated $ 1 billion), there will be hundreds of times that much money spent to rebuild the city and re-establish the more than 14,000 businesses in the WTC that were totally and partially destroyed.

While this tragedy has destroyed many businesses (14,000 at last count), whether we want to acknowledge it or not, it will also be the foundation upon which many new businesses and fortunes are built over the next decade. It's a fact of human existence that tragedies - as hard to deal with and as sad as they are - catalyze opportunities as well. Earthquakes and fires caused the rebuilding of cities like San Francisco, Chicago and even New York into the great metropolises they are.

So in my planning to establish this million dollar business, I have learned that if the products and services that I offer satisfy or service or fulfill a basic human need or want for the moment or long term, whether out of the normal circumstances of living or because of a short-term or long term situation, my business will have a better chance for long-term survival. I can't plan for those special circumstances, but I can be ready and in position to respond to them when they happen.

2001-10-23T04:34:00.000-05:00

Daily Posts: Planning The Million Dollar Business

I've always contended that a dream without a plan is just a fantasy. For me, as I suspect for many other people, the problem has always been that we think we are planning something when we are actually just winging it.

How success is achieved seems to me to be a mystery to most of us, even those who have achieved great success. We attribute our success to luck, being in the right place at the right time, or other factors that are seemingly random, serendipitous and out of our control. And even though we go through a process of developing and implementing a plan, no less a prestigious magazine than Forbes Magazine says that in the end, it's really just all about dumb luck.

I don't believe that. I believe you can analyze situations and circumstances in your life as well as your own skills and talents and devise a strategy to profit from them. I believe that while you can't control the events in the world surrounding your life, you can control your reactions and responses to those events. In fact, I believe that controlling responses to life's events is a critical skill that every successful person possesses, whether they admit it or not.

2001-10-23T04:33:00.000-05:00

Daily Posts: Starting The Million Dollar Business

Wow! If you were actually checking out this page and looking for my daily posts on starting a million dollar business you wouldn't have found them, since it has turned out to be harder to post something daily than I would have imagined.

Since the last post on 9/14, I have actually been so busy establishing the business I haven't had time to write about the process. I've also learned a great deal more about the detailed steps one must take to legitimately pursue the establishment of a million dollar business - insights that will add meaning and flavor to these posts.

Making Up For The Ones I've Missed

By my count, since September 17, I've missed 34 daily posts. To catch up, I'm going to shorten the posts I would have made and add some other entrepreneurial insights I hope you will find helpful. I'll be making a few posts a day as I think of ideas and insights I want to share.

2001-09-14T02:19:00.000-05:00

Tragic Events And A Challenge To Live Life Without Fear

As they have everyone else, this week's tragic events - terrorists hitting and destroying the World Trade Center and inflicting collateral damage on several surrounding structures - impacted me profoundly. Life's uncertainty has always been a reality to me; I've always considered each day as a present, for, as the saying goes, it's a gift. The truth of that philosophy has never been more evident for me than this week, as I contemplate the meaning of as many 20,000 people reporting to work Tuesday morning for a day they didn't realize would be their last.

So on Monday, September 17, 2001, I start my diary on the creation and operation of a million-dollar business. Some people are saying that we need to prove to these terrorists that we aren't going to be afraid and that life goes on. I say that if you weren't living that way already - without fear and with an appreciation for the continuity of life, whether you are here or not - then you probably need to examine how you are conducting your life. Life is short, and as my favorite football player Walter Payton once said, " Tomorrow is promised to no one."

I've decided on the kind of business I'm starting - advice and services - and am now working out how to organize my particular gifts and skills into the business enterprise I am establishing. My goal: create a business that generates $1 million in gross sales by the end of 2002 (15 months from now). Follow along, if you like. I'm going to set up a way for you to post your comments as well. See you Monday, September 17, 2001.

2001-09-08T01:18:00.000-05:00

Creating A Million Dollar Business

I'm creating a million-dollar business. I'll share in this space information and insights on the products and services I'm offering, my organizational design, client solicitation, marketing, PR and promotional strategies, and what I'm learning about attracting and building sales for my business.

Despite the pundits' gloom and doom economic projections and the herd mentality of stock market investors believing those doom and gloom scenarios, the reality is that there has never been a better time to start and operate a business enterprise.

We've just come off the greatest economic boom in the history of the world; if you check out Census statistics, you'll find that despite the fact that credit totals are at record levels, people have more cash on hand (stocks, CDs, T-bills, mutual and money market funds) and leverageable assets (real estate, gold, art) than at any other time in history. A recent ABC Nightline report demonstrated that people are still spending money, but they are much more disciminating about what they buy. And if they don't see a compelling reason to spend money, they will hold onto it. What' s happening to major U.S. companies now is that purchasers are voting with their dollars and saying that the vast majority of products and services being offered right now are not offering people a compelling reason to buy.

I was reading a Forbes Magazine article which criticized the U.S. automobile companies for not coming out with 2002 models that offer compelling new styling and features. The time to come out with new and innovative product, the article concluded, is when there is an economic downturn because it is during the periods when people are not motivated to buy that companies must create and market new and different products to get people excited about buying them. The article stated that Japanese and German car makers are offering new and improved cars for 2002, and that the U.S. carmakers are virtually conceding 2002 new car sales to them by not following suit.

The Internet has placed a vast amount of product and service info at everyone's fingertips, and the result has been a much more educated and discriminating customer. Businesses and individuals are going online finding and compiling information on the big ticket purchases that drive the economy, like homes and cars. They come in with comparison pricing information and are able to haggle more effectively than ever. As a result, companies have to be more aware of their pricing, delivery, and customer services practices than ever before. Even multi-billion dollar companies like HP and Compaq are finding that unless they offer new compelling products and services that provide for people a real reason to buy, they won't.

People are still spending trillions of dollars every year. But yes, it will be a much more difficult task to predict where and how they will spend those dollars. Those companies that can deliver the highest quality products and deliver the support and services people want are going to grow tremendously over the next few years. That's what I believe at least and I'm building a company with those philosophies in mind. See you next time.

2001-05-07T04:21:00.000-05:00

Building A Client Base

One of the best ways to build a client base when you don't have any clients? Hold a free meeting at a local school or library offering a one-hour presentation on your product or service. If you are a computer specialist, for example, you might offer a free seminar at your local library on computer basics, word processing, using a computer to handle business accounting tasks, or any of a number of other related topics. Most libraries would welcome an opportunity to host your workshop, provide the meeting room free of charge and even promote your seminar in their promotional literature (1) as a draw to attract patrons and (2) because it provides information for patrons that would be expensive to provide otherwise. Of course, your goal is to showcase your knowledge and expertise and build a list of potential clients. You can design a descriptive flyer about your seminar and submit it to the library; they will be glad to post your flyer and in many cases mail it out to their patrons list at their expense. In big cities like Chicago, the libraries will print up announcement brochures listing all the scheduled events at library branches throughout the city; you could potentially offer your seminar at multiple branches (there are 77 branch locations in Chicago.) Be sure to prepare handouts and notes of your presentation to distribute, as well as business cards. Organize your presentation into four or five ten-minute segments and allow at least a half an hour for questions and answers. Don't try to be funny, strive to make your presentation concise and informative. And be sure to distribute a sign-up sheet on which you capture the names and addresses of all your attendees (preferably at the beginning of your presentation as many people may not be able to stay for the full hour). The best time to give a workshop presentation? Saturday mornings. One or two presentations a week should generate dozens of potential clients. As a follow-up, mail them a simple two page newsletter offering tips and information based on your service or product. The idea? Identify people who are interested in what you have to offer and with whom you can develop a relationshop through your seminar presentation and follow-up mailing. Try it. It works.

2001-04-28T01:53:00.000-05:00

Raising $10,000.00 In 30 Days

How can you raise $10,000 in 30 days? (1) Open up the Yellow Pages, (2) pick 50 businesses to offer your product or services, (3) write up a one page proposal, (4) find one business among the 50 on your list with which you can draw up a contract that offers 30 days of your services at a 20% discount; and (5) take the completed contract to your bank and ask for a 50% loan for 30 days against the contract. Use the 50% loan to complete the job and collect your $10,000, with which you then pay back the loan and ask the bank for a line of credit (after depositing the proceeds from your contract in your bank account). Then repeat the process. Try it. It works.

2001-04-28T01:24:00.000-05:00

Remember: the most valuable asset you have in business is creativity, and the most powerful asset is persistence.

2001-04-28T01:23:00.000-05:00

Here's how you do it: come up with an idea and get started today.

2001-04-28T01:09:00.000-05:00

Dreaming about starting your own business? It's important to stop dreaming and start doing. There's never been a better time to start your own business than right now. I'll be posting insights on how to do just that right here! Look here for informative posts and you can also log onto http://pierre_clark.tripod.com and join our network at http://entrepreneurnet.intranets.com. You can also pick up our newsletter at http://EAdvisortips.listbot.com.