Entrepreneurship And Business-Owning Isn’t For Everyone

by Charlie Gilkey on February 6, 2012 · 13 comments

Many people are surprised when I talk about the fact that some people can be authentically happy having a job because I’m such an advocate and champion for small business and entrepreneurship. That’s often because they miss the subtle but important point about small business and entrepreneurship being a vehicle for thriving on both a personal and social scale; vehicles, by their nature, are meant to get us somewhere – they’re not the ends in themselves.

So, let me be very clear about this: I’m pro-thriving more than I am pro-entrepreneurship or pro-business. Small business and entrepreneurship give many people the opportunity to build the environmental and personal arrangements that are conducive for their thriving – but, for people who have different values and priorities, having your own business can be misery-making. The vehicles of small business and entrepreneurship also provide us the opportunity to contribute to our society through taxes and employing others, but, again, an “opportunity” for one person is a problem for someone else.

And while “being an entrepreneur” is such an aspirational identity statement at the same time that it’s the socially-approved state in entrepreneurial circles, the truth of the matter is that it’s not for everyone nor should everyone get pressured into being one. I get rather frustrated when non-entrepreneurs are looked down on, as if their lack of entrepreneurial spunk or business-building drive makes them somehow inferior.

People aren’t less-than because they choose a life arrangement that works better for their values, (true) needs, and priorities. They’ve got far more figured out than those who stick to a path that isn’t working for them just because they can’t take the lessons-learned and sunk costs and use them to build a better life for themselves.

I’ve advised clients into putting their business on hold and getting a job, not because their business was failing, but because it seemed that their self-identified conditions for thriving were better met by being employed than by sticking with their business. I’ve advised clients to get better or different jobs for similar reasons. To automatically presume that the entrepreneurial road is right for everyone is a type of lazy thinking that doesn’t serve any of us very well.

Above anything else, I’m pro-thriving. My mission is to help people get to that end goal, regardless of the vehicle they take to get there.

It’s time for a check-in: is your current path either moving you toward thriving or maintaining the life that’s right for you? If so, focus on the things that are working for you, however they work for you. If not, what can you do to course-correct? Small steps can lead to big changes.

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The Free Planners for February 2012 Are Available

by Charlie Gilkey on January 31, 2012 · 1 comment

The free planners for February 2012 are now available! Get ‘em while they’re hot.

February is an interesting month because we reassess the resolutions and goals we set at the beginning of the year. It’s a lovely reality check – and now you get to figure out which projects you want to get done for February.

Imagine it’s March 1st. What key objectives or projects would you like to have done? I hope these planners help you move closer to that vision.

Throw your planning mojo into hyperdrive with the full set of 2012 Premium Planners. Head on over to the Premium Planners page to learn more and pick them up.

[click to continue…]

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Stand Up

by Charlie Gilkey on January 27, 2012 · 1 comment

If you stand up and be counted, from time to time you may get yourself knocked down. But remember this: A man flattened by an opponent can get up again. A man flattened by conformity stays down for good. — Thomas J. Watson, Jr

What initially separates the leaders, changemakers, and heroes from everyone else is that they were presented a challenging situation and they stood up.

When everyone else followed the rules, stayed under cover, or took whatever crap they were dealt, they stood up and opted-out.

When everyone else got scared about how they might get pushed back down, they stood up and looked stagnation, injustice, and the status quo in the eye.

We are challenged day in and day out in ways big and small – when we don’t stand up in the small ways, we can’t stand up in the big ways. We get in the habit of sitting and too much sitting makes for weak cores and backbones.

We’re not made for sitting. We’re made for standing, walking, running, jumping, playing, and moving.

You don’t have to come out the gates with a minifesto, movement, charge against the system, or some epic journey. You don’t have to know everything or where it’s all headed. You don’t have to lie to yourself about the fear, uncertainty, and risk you’re facing.

You just have to stand up when it’s your time. Get up and take care of your people.

p.s. Yes, you. Yes, now. You’ll never be comfortably ready until it’s too late and you find yourself still sitting.

If you’re ready to stand up, join us at Lift-Off to take your business to the next level.

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Are You Ready to Strip Your Business Down to the Essential Numbers?

by Guest Contributor on January 16, 2012 · 11 comments

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Nathalie Lussier.

When you’re a solopreneur, you have unlimited opportunities and unlimited tasks to do. How do you distinguish between potential projects, partnerships, and outreach opportunities? You might try to buckle down and attempt them all, but if you’ve ever tried to chow down on an entire batch of chocolate chip cookies in one sitting you realize quickly that the sugar crash is not worth it. Take it from a recovering cookie-a-holic, I know.

One of the most profound discoveries I made along my journey as an entrepreneur was seeing where my income came from. It’s easy to lump all of your sources of income into a category like “clients” or “products”, but unless you really sit down and look you won’t have a clear idea of what to spend your time on.

Here’s what I suggest you do, and I promise that by taking a look at where the money is coming from you’ll better be able to decide where to focus your time.

  1. Write down by category where all your business income is coming from. That might be products, coaching, services, sponsorships, advertising, affiliate sales, depending on your online business model.
  2. Now find out what percentage each of these categories contributes to your total for the year.
  3. If you have a little more time, write down your expenses for each of these categories too. You might find that you’re hiring more staff to deliver on certain products or services, or that certain offerings aren’t as profitable as they appear.
  4. Now it’s time to look at your average todo list. Do the things you focus on regularly reflect where the money is coming from?

After doing this exercise, I was able to see which parts of my business were the most profitable for me. It’s tempting to just focus on the projects that excite you the most, but this sobering exercise can help you see that although it’s good to focus on projects that make you happy, you need to pay attention to the ones that are the most profitable for your business too.

This exercise will also help you see if there are any places that you might be able to delegate some of your work out to others who can do a better job than you can. For instance, you might realize that the product sales part of your business is not bringing in as much revenue as you had hoped, but that you spend most of your time providing customer service for these products.

By hiring someone to manage the customer service end of things, it would free you up to provide more value to your coaching or consulting clients, for example. Or you might be able to spend more focused time creating marketing campaigns for these products, to help improve the number of sales you make (without worrying about how much customer service you’ll need to provide after the slew of sales).

I’m a huge fan of leading by example, and since I want to see you take action and do this exercise, I’m going to share my numbers with you. Every business will have different numbers, and they might fluctuate a lot depending on your business model. Here are mine at the time of this writing:

  • 80% Web site design, and marketing launch consulting packages (I could break this down even further)
  • 11% Affiliate products
  • 9% Information product sales

I’d love to see your numbers in the comments below!

Nathalie Lussier is an online business triple threat who runs a web design and online marketing firm. She loves writing about the advantages of being a woman entrepreneur in today’s world, and she helps people get techy with their businesses every week through fun how-to videos. Follow her @NathLussier.

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How to Deal With Copycats and Idea Thieves

by Charlie Gilkey on January 11, 2012 · 15 comments

One of our Lift Off alums recently asked how to deal with copycats and idea thieves. She’s been rocking it, getting great press, and things are taking off for her – and, as it always happens, copycats and idea thieves have started showing up and taking her work and phrases as their own.

One of the surest signs you’re doing something right is when people start swiping and imitating. A far worse fate is remaining in obscurity or creating ideas that aren’t worth stealing and spreading.

There are a lot of ways to deal with copycats and idea thieves, but there are three main strategies that come to mind:

  1. Mark your territory by protecting your ideas, seeking trademarks, etc.

    2. While it’s smart to develop relationships with trademark specialists and lawyers as your body of work grows, you have to be careful about how much time and resources you spend protecting your ideas. In the end, the copycats and idea thieves win, either because they’re going to dance around your marked territory or because they’ll simply run with the memetic momentum that you started but didn’t seize because you were busy protecting kernels of your idea rather than developing them.

  2. Be more prolific

    3. This second strategy is much better. The memetic momentum stays in your court and on your own terms and eventually you’ll win with a greater, more comprehensive body of work. The more prolific you are, the more them stealing your ideas is actually favoring you.

  3. Go where the air is thinner

    4. This is my favorite of the three. As you advance your body of work into deeper levels of depth and connection, the copycats simply won’t be able to coherently follow you; and, even when they can, they won’t because it’s too hard. Combine depth of work with your own unique voice and it’ll be impossible for people to successfully copy you. Your work will never fit them, any more than Jack Johnson can sound like John Mayer.

    To switch metaphors, you’ll be able to canvass the treasures on the bottom of the sea that the surface divers simply can’t reach because they haven’t developed their lung capacity.

There’s only so much that protecting and withholding your ideas will do for you. The absolute worst thing to do is to keep your great work private once you hit the stage - you’ll only see people publishing ideas that are so close to your own and you’ll have nothing to say but “I shoulda / coulda wrote about that.”

To paraphrase Kevin Kelly’s contribution to End Malaria, you should thank the person that starts sharing and developing an idea as well or better than you, for they’ve just saved you the time of figuring out what you shouldn’t be developing. A significant part of the journey of thought leadership is figuring out which ideas you shouldn’t be developing.

Lastly, instead of pushing people out, make it easier to work with you than to work against you. Encourage collaboration and spreading; if your work is making a difference, get over yourself and get the medicine out there in the world. Copycats and thieves always take the route of least resistance; use that to your advantage.

Be public. Be prolific. Go where the air is thinner. Lead the pack rather than worrying about who’s nipping at your heels.

p.s. Watch how much you unintentionally borrow ideas, too. We consume so much online that it’s hard to tell where ideas are coming from. Model the behavior you want to see.

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From Reset to Reintegration

In the last part of this story, I shared the lead-up to the reset. In case you haven’t been following, the reset occurred because Angela (my wife) developed acute and debilitating anxiety, OCD, and depression as a result of a combination of medication and several years’ worth of unresolved grief and stress. If you have [...]

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The Lead-up to the Reset

Yesterday I shared our experience with having to reset Angela and coming out of a different kind of darkness. This continues that story and shows more clearly how we got there. We tend to have a myopic view of our lives, only focusing on the few months before the present we’re in and a few [...]

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Out of a Different Kind of Darkness

I’m going to share a hard story with you about what’s been going on behind the scenes. It’s a story of struggle, perservance, and slow triumph and it’s still in-progress. I’m breaking it into parts both for readability and so that I’ll start sharing it sooner rather than later. On September 30th, 2011, our world [...]

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A Few Words On No Goals

A few weeks back, I was writing a post in reply to Leo’s discussion of No Goals. I found myself referencing many versions of the Tao Te Ching to show missing pieces that weren’t in his discussion. As I reflected on the essential tenets of the Tao, I saw that what little I had to [...]

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