My business | Semantically driven

New journey – a bump in the road

February 13, 2009 by Jen

About a week ago I wrote about having my own business. I haven’t written anything since because there’s not been much to write about.

I downloaded and read the Teaching Sells report and decided it wasn’t for me. It involves deciding on a niche and setting up a website and forum etc to sell something that you can teach people and make them pay for. I’ve never wanted to be a teacher in a really explicit way like that so while it was interesting reading, it’s not for me. Plus it was going to cost nearly $1000 which for something I’m not sure about made it definitely not for me.

Other research has hit a stumbling block too. I tried to get the book I mentioned in my earlier post called ‘What’s next’ but none of my libraries (yes I have more than one) had it. I have to go to the library this weekend to return some books so I’ll look in the career/small business section.

As for websites that talk about starting up your own business I haven’t really found any, nor really been looking that hard to be honest.

So it’s going really well isn’t it?

However, I did meet with my friend to talk about creating her website and she left with a list of tasks, ie getting content to me. So that’s on hold until she writes the content.

I’ve also been busy reviewing a fantastic product, the first post I’ll add over the weekend. It’s been loads of fun to do, and has involved some great quality time with my son which for me comes first anyway.

But I continue to write about this hypothetical business of mine in the hope that something might come of it.

Action

February 6, 2009 by Jen

The other morning when I took the photo of the morning sun reflected off the gum tree I also took some other photos to try and capture a word – Action. This is for my go at the Shutter Sisters One Word Project.

The subject of this photo – my son – is nearly always active. Even if he stands still his mouth is still very active. I’ve learned to switch off sometimes otherwise my head will explode.

I drag him out on my morning walks and he starts off with great reluctance but it’s the only time that I can walk my dog, or that I will walk my dog. And in this hot weather it’s the best time of day to do so.

I chose the word action, not to take photos of my son in action, but to remind myself that I need to take action with my life too.

I did this in part today when a friend came over to discuss me doing her website. She left with a list of tasks and now the ball’s really in her court. The action I’ll have to take will happen once she gets her content together but we gave her a deadline. We looked at similar websites (where we could find them) of her field and they were mostly shite and/or had hardly any information on them. She’s a health practitioner and obviously these people rely more heavily on other forms of advertising themself. So it will be interesting once her site is up and running to make sure her search engine optimisation is up to scratch and to see how many new clients she gets from her website. That will be a good tick for me anyway.

I know when I’m looking for a service, the first place I go to is the web. What about you?

A new journey

February 1, 2009 by Jen

Have you noticed that when you want to find some information about a particular thing, that you start noticing that thing all the time and you hadn’t noticed it previously?

For instance, you want to buy a car, you start researching and you narrow it down to a particular model. You’d never really noticed this type of car before but now you see it everywhere. You’d never realised there were so many of these cars around.

For me at the moment it’s not cars. Mine is ten years old this year but doing perfectly fine at the moment (hope I’m not jinxing things by saying that). For me at the moment it’s having my own business. I mentioned this a while ago on this blog and it was really only a thought then. It’s still pretty much a thought but if I don’t start doing something about it, all I’ll ever do is sit here and think about it and not much else.

So with this hypothetical (at the moment) business of mine I’ve kind of got an idea that that’s what I want to do. The thought of going to work at the same office every day for the next 20 years or so frightens me silly. Having said that I’ve been at my current workplace for 15 years and I’ve accrued a great amount of long service leave. As a friend in a similar position has said to me she doesn’t know whether it’s a blessing or a ball and chain. The ball and chain being the safety net of having this leave and not wanting to give it up. This is part of what’s been holding me back.

But, I figure, I work four days a week and I theoretically have one more business day each week to concentrate on something else. I also have other time I’m sure I could make if I put my mind to it.

So, back to this business idea. I haven’t got an exact plan so I thought I’d start researching things on the internet and I’ve found all sorts of things to read. Of course, I haven’t read them all yet. This heatwave is taking it’s toll – see – already I’ve got excuses.

This hypothetical (at the moment) business idea is of course internet/web based and that’s as far as I’ve got. My initial thought was that I could build websites for people but that’s not really want I want to do. My experience with people wanting websites thus far is that they usually want it for practically nothing and the value of building a good website is really undervalued, especially when it comes to the content.

So I’m conducting my research to see if I can come up with any other bright ideas. I’ve already got my business name decided and while I won’t say it yet because I haven’t registered it, it was so obvious in the end that I wonder why I didn’t think of it before.

There is a wealth of information freely available out there that I’m starting to delve into. Yaro Stark’s blog – Entrepeneur’s Journey is a good starting place. As he writes, being an entrepeneur is hard work but it’s doable if you really want to. Am I an entrepeneur? Don’t know really but I’d like to try.

Via Problogger, I’ve also downloaded the Teaching Sells report on how to grow your online business. I realise I haven’t even started an online business yet, but thought it might have something useful for me.

Last, but not least, I read a book review by Shai Coggins about a book called What Next – The Complete Guide to Taking Control of your Working Life.

My task for this week – because as I told someone recently, I work better with deadlines – is to read more of Yaro Stark’s website, read the Teaching Sells report and see if I can get hold of ‘What Next’. I’ll report back next week.

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