I failed miserably with meeting the goal date of relaunching my first business.  My goal was to re-launch it by the end of 2010.  Missing that goal threw everything off.  I outsourced the creation of approximately 6 presentations – to make them interactive & cool.  I hired someone I really liked on o-Desk and he missed every timeline he committed to.  I can’t really blame him.  I should have fired him when he missed the second timeline.  Instead, I bought into all of his excuses & let my goal completely slide.  I lost all of my momentum & when I finally had 5 of the 6  presentations from him, I reviewed them with my wife.

We both decided the message was off & have put the whole thing on hold. (WRONG MOVE – now I have ZERO momentum on this project.

Fortunately, our other big business launch has moved forward (although much slower than I had hoped).  I’ve managed to keep the development efforts up & have the final deliverable completely done and programmed for automation, but I’m not very far with the marketing – specifically the website.

I fell into the same old trap that all of my clients have fallen into – I can’t seem to define what it is we want in the website.  Even though, conceptually, it should be a VERY easy site to build.  I’m considering just jumping on the Kajabi platform, but I don’t like the costs based on the number of subscribers I’m hoping to bring on board.

Finally, my consulting business continues to pay the bills. I’ve been extended onto a VERY busy project through August – it’ll probably go longer if they don’t completely change the scope (again) and decide that they don’t need me and the whole Siebel team I’m working on.

All of the above has been work related….and none of that has anything to do with what I’ve been through in the last two months.   The day after Easter, my father had a massive heart attack. He was definitely knocking on heaven’s door.

I spent the first two nights in the hospital with him in ICU.  In total, he was sedated for almost a week & remained in the hospital for almost a month.  Since his first release, he’s been in and out the of the hospital two more times dealing with complications from the heart attack.  His recovery is still in progress….to say the least, it’s been a very difficult spring.  We’re all looking forward to him regaining his health and getting back to normal.

The point to all of this is that I really haven’t been focused on getting free for the last couple of months.  I’ve been focused on surviving and keeping my family together.  Trying to be there through my dad’s most difficult days, while feeling guilty about coming home and enjoying precious time with my wife and beautiful children.

There is so much to this big, beautiful experience called life.  Getting free is just one small thing that I want to accomplish so I can enjoy my time with my family, my friends & whomever God so chooses to put me in touch with.  Although I’ve been knocked off my path a couple of times this year, I’m picking up the pieces and continuing on.  I hope you all stay with me and continue your journey as well.

Currently, I am paying 3 people on oDesk to work on one project;  this is what they’re doing: One person is writing code – building the core of my next business.  One person is gathering targeted accounts for the same business (as of today, she’s gathered a list of over 20,000 targeted accounts). The third person is testing the code that the first person is writing.   I also have a fourth oDesk resource working on my second project- he’s doing all of the presentation material for the relaunch of my first business.  Finally, I have a ghost writer working on my book through Guru.com.

For your reference here is what I’m paying each one:

Code writer: $12 / hour

Targeted account list builder: $1.50 / hour

Tester: $2.50 / hour

Presentation developer: $25.00 / hour

Ghost Writer:  Flat rate of $400.00

As of today, I’ve invested approximately $5,000 in 2010 in all of the people above.  I see it as a small investment to build, what could easily be, the core businesses for my financial freedom for the foreseeable future.

On top of the four people whom I’m paying to do work, I have 4 team members for the first business working on building out the business, including marketing material, branding, and DB development and design.

So, what have I been doing?   THE ANSWER: MANAGING, STUDYING & LEARNING and THINKING

I’ve come to appreciate the four activities above….I never used to appreciate these activities and I never gave myself enough credit for these four.  I always thought that if I weren’t creating something tangible myself that I wasn’t doing something valuable.  The reality is the exact opposite.  As an entrepreneur, it’s my responsibility to do these four activities FIRST and before anything else gets done.  And then, I must continue to do these four until I’ve created a successful business.

Here’s some of what I’ve done in each of these areas.  With these examples I hope to convince you that these four activities should be your top priority as well:

MANAGING:  I oversee each person above and make sure I handle what ever escalations they push up to me and make sure they’re working on the most critical stuff.  I define exactly what they should be working on and I find the best, least expensive resources to do the work.   If all goes well, I’ll have a fully functional business all built and tested for less than a $10,000 investment.  This will allow me to go out and raise capital to JUST execute campaigns.  The business is designed to be highly scalable, so ALL investment capital can go directly towards marketing efforts and converting prospects into customers.   The $10,000 investment will include ALL targeted lists for the marketing efforts, so no marketing investment capital will go towards list purchases or rentals.

STUDYING & LEARNING:  Since my last post, my wife and I had our second child (a beautiful baby boy!) and I’ve taken on a new contract at a new client.  Although my wife and I are sleep deprived and my commute is now almost an  hour in both directions, I am getting a lot of time to study and learn.  In the last two months, I’ve gone through 3 books on tape:

• The Four Hour Work Week
• The Magic of Thinking Big
• The E-Myth Revisited

Each of these books has reinforced the lessons I’ve already learned and have given me the tips and tools to make sure I do a better job with my next business launches.  With the sleep deprivation, I’m listening to each of these a few times on my commute….more and more sinks in each time I listen.

THINKING:  Almost daily, I pause one of these books on tape and thought about how it applies to the businesses I’m working on.  I’ve had some really great breakthroughs…..A couple of examples inspired by each book include:

Listening to E-Myth Revisited:

• I’ve expanded our product offering for the first business: my team and I have had differing opinions about what we should offer….in reality, we need to offer EACH item and roll them out as separate products as new competitors come into our market place.  We’re building them all up front and will launch them in anticipation to competition entering the marketplace.
• I’ve devised a vision for how this first business will look when it’s fully mature, created an org structure for all of the roles that will be required to run it.
• I’ve analyzed our go-to-market strategy and determined that we were missing major gaps based on bad assumptions

The Magic of Thinking Big:

• I’ve identified two new assets which I’ll be building small businesses around over the next year.

The Four Hour Work Week:

• I’ve determined how to get the two new assets above built by outsourcing almost 100% of the work.
• Finally, I’ve become almost completely comfortable with outsourcing all of this work and simply managing it to ensure it gets done.  Getting comfortable in the leadership / managing role, I believe, is one of my most fundamental changes over the last year.

Has anything tangible been created with any of these activities? NO

Has a future for my family and my life been better defined?  Absolutely.  And here is the simple truth about this type of work:  if it doesn’t get done…If you don’t think, dream and learn how to get there, if you don’t focus on where you’re going, you’ll NEVER get there.  Will I get EXACTLY where I think I’ll be based on my plans and dreams today?  No.  Will I be a hell of a lot closer than someone who doesn’t do these activities?  Absolutely.

If you don’t take the time to think and plan what direction  you’re heading, you’ll never get anywhere other than where you are today.

This is the case for everyone – whether you’re working on-line and building solutions or if you’re in a traditional business.

The challenge on-line is that there is a plethora of solutions already built and presented as “THE SOLUTION”.

Whats really frustrating is when I just follow a traditional route that I’ve always followed, instead of taking a minute to find a new, less expensive solution.

That’s what happened with this site.  I built it on my mac originally, then I paid a developer on o-desk to redo it in PHP format, then he installed WordPress for the blogging functionality.  In other words, I did the traditional thing – I tried a little bit, got out of my element and hired a developer…spending a lot more money than I needed.  Here’s how I found out…..

For the re-launch of my first business, I’m following the product launch formula stuff from Jeff Walker (but I’m not paying for his program)…I’m just using the free stuff he’s already put out there to capture my attention.  So, I wrote up all of the specifications of what I wanted for my product launch and put it in front of the last developer I used on o-desk for a quote.  He informed me that he wasn’t interested in this type of work, but that it shouldn’t be too hard to build.  That sounded funny to me….why would someone turn down easy, billable work?   So I decided to do some google searches for some of the functionality I’m looking for, like “Squeeze pages”, “name capture”, etc for a site.  After about 10 min of searching and checking the links, I felt really stupid!

It turns out that WORD PRESS is pretty much all I need to build the website I want and there are plenty of plugins to enhance the blog & Site’s functionality.

Anyone who’s been in the blogging world maybe thinking…”yes you’re an idiot Dave”, but please be kind.  . Yes, I’ll have do to some HTML basics, but I found a $47 plugin to build a squeeze page and sales page.  I found several other free video tutorials on how to get the most out of wordpress and how to build an entire site using it’s functionality.

Funny because I can see that Jeff Walker is going to be pitching the launch of a complete solution for a completely packaged solution to do just this.  I can’t find the name of this product right now, but I’m sure it’s going to cost a lot more than the $47 plugin combined with my $5.00 / month godaddy hosting where I’ve installed WordPress for free. Yes, I’m going to have to mess around with this plugin, learn the tool & do the whole set up myself, but that’s ok with me.  It’s going to let me get my hands dirty and learn some new stuff. Besides, I’m probably going to be doing this for SEVERAL more websites, not just a one time product launch, so for me, it’s worth investing the time and effort to learn this stuff inside and out.

I’ll be sure to put my learnings on my future blogs.

BTW…the plug in I bought is called WPSQUEEZEPAGE.  You can get to it directly from this link: http://djhafer1.pteam.hop.clickbank.net

I had a couple of great meetings with my teams this week on two of the different projects I’m working on.

My wife and I met on Saturday night to discuss re-launching the first business….and now there is SOO much to do on those presentations that I almost feel lost.

Then we had dinner with our technical architect and his family on Monday ….after a short discussion about our project, he went home and did everything I needed in about an hour….now I have a boat load of work do on that project.

Finally, my client has progressed to creating a next phase for one of the three projects I’m working on and we’re ready to really get some work accomplished for one of the other two projects.

Frankly, I’m a little bit confused how WAVES of work can ebb and flow like they do around me.  There are days when I have barely anything on my plate and then there are weeks when I have so much to do that I have a hard time thinking about what to do first!  I shouldn’t even be taking the time to write this blurb, but because of some poor planning, I’m off line and isolated, so I can’t accomplish much more than getting some thoughts typed up.

I’m just curious if this is how it is for everyone?   This variability of being too busy and too bored is stressful.  It leads me to rush through work when I’m swamped and then take on additional little projects when I have down time.

Can anyone who is going through the same thing provide some suggestions in the comments section as to how they handle these types of challenges?

I have been reciting my new affirmation many times a day since I finally got it right a few months ago.  The affirmation is:

“Thank you for the abundance of POSITIVE cash flowing assets

which make me financially free and wealthy beyond my wildest imagination!”

It had become my new mantra….I love this affirmation for MANY reasons:

1) it really means something to me – I really want positive cash flow in my life and I have truly internalized the definition of an ASSET.

2) it fundamentally implies that I have responsibility for my actions because, as I stated in the other post, all affirmations about ‘thanking yourself’.  So, I have to be the one to create / find / build these assets – someone isn’t going to give them to me and put them in my hands

3) it implies that something magical WILL happen in my life – wealth and freedom beyond my wildest imagination – I know I have a big imagination, so to go beyond that really intrigues me and keeps me interested in what is about to come.

4) It took me YEARS to come up with this & (back to #1 above) it has significance and meaning to me.  I think there is some truth to some things taking time to develop.  A complex belief like this affirmation could have been handed to me years ago, but it wouldn’t have meant anything to me then.  It has taken me years to really understand and develop this affirmation for myself.

Feel free to use it for yourself.  I hope it works for you.  If it does, great.  Otherwise, go out and get started writing your own.  Apply what you write to your journey and see if it sticks or if it REALLY means something to you. Re-write & edit it until it strikes up an orchestra of harmony within your soul!   You’ll know when you get it right…you’ll feel inspired, fulfilled and excited all at the same time.  Then, one day, maybe even months or years after repeating your affirmation to yourself a hundred times a day, something will happen and you’ll just be amazed at the irony.

This is what happened to me yesterday.  I now, literally, have so many projects that I’m booked up and I can get to all of them.  And yesterday, I was speaking with my brother-in-law while hanging out in the pool.  We were discussing how to apply some of what I’ve learned over the last year to his business.  We must have talked for 2 hours straight….the ideas were just flowing effortlessly, applying his expertise to an information marketing business model.  We finally realized a solution to scaling his business and knowledge without all of the capital investment of expansion & franchising.

Jon and I have kicked around going into business together for years….we’ve mulled over idea after idea but we just couldn’t find something that ‘fit’ for either one of us.  Yesterday was different.

We’ve fundamentally agreed on a 50/50 venture where he supplies the content, I package it up and market it.  After 2 hours of conversation, we have 2 offerings to put together – one for the general consumer market and one for business to business.

The B2C offering will be built and left on-line indefinitely.  The B2B offering will be a coaching / training solution targeted to specific markets once or twice a year.  Once we knew what we were going to do, the ideas just started to flow.  We have MULTIPLE other offerings and ideas from each of these initial products…almost too many.

I officially have an ‘abundance of positive cash flowing assets’ to work on.  All I have to do is get to work on packaging them up and marketing them!

Fortunately, Jon and I will be doing these two offerings later on…probably not even this year.  But he knows what he has to do to get me the content.  And since he’s already using the iPhone, I told him how to use the voice recorder to just dictate the content over the next several months. (Being on the same tools & showing others how to use them effectively is so cool – I love it when execution and training is simple).   I’ll get his dictation translated overseas for less that $2.00 / hour and start to package it up as a product.  Then we’ll move on to the B2B offering.

I can honestly say that THIS is what I want to be doing….creating and building businesses & solutions that add value based on deep expertise from people I know.  I have finally found the path that excites me again and provides me the freedom to grow, learn and become financially free.

“Thank you for the abundance of POSITIVE cash flowing assets

which make me financially free and wealthy beyond my wildest imagination!”

The irony is that something magical has happened….I now have ideas and opportunities being handed to me.  I still have work to do with those opportunities, but the magic is starting to happen.  I just find it ironic that my affirmation is coming to fruition so quickly.

Get to work on your affirmation & your life story.  Write it, re-write it, edit it…see if it sticks and strikes a chord within you.  When that chord is struck…just keep repeating it and you’ll see the magic happen for you to!

I’ve had this solution in my back pocket since we closed The Food Experience when our daughter was born.  It’s only been the last 6 months that I’ve started to focus on how to market this to personal chefs as a solution.

Now that I’m digging into it, I’ve been watching some great free videos from Jeff Walker (self proclaimed product launch guru) and Brendan Burchard (Experts academy).  I haven’t subscribed to either service and I’m not affiliated with either of these guys….I’m just calling them out because they’ve both provided a lot of value to me & I’ve been able to get a lot of ideas which I’m going to put into practice with this first launch.

I have to give props to my wife here as well.  As I started to pull together the presentations for launching this business to personal chefs, she was reviewing it and pushed me to get it organized.  I took the time to follow the product launch activities from Jeff where he suggests having multiple events over a set time period before the launch, this can be over a week or more.

With that in mind, I put together a 2 page powerpoint presentation explaining each pre-launch event – mostly to help my wife understand what I was trying to accomplish, but it really helped me get organized.  For this launch, each event will be a video / presentation.  In the overview planning document I put together, I laid out the basic facts about the content for each video; including description / purpose / goal, etc.  This planning document was critical in helping me layout all of the content I want to provide to my targets, get it organized & put into a sequential, logical order.

So, now that I’m organized, I have a focus on  creating the content for the release presentations.  I’ve also done some trials of video taping myself to see how I sound & look on video.  Those trials led me to investing in some soft lights and a backdrop for making parts of the video.   After all of this, one big thing was really nagging at me.  HOW WAS I GOING TO GET A LIST COMPILED TO SEND THIS PRODUCT LAUNCH TO?

Yesterday, again, I was watching another of Jeff’s videos, and he doesn’t really say HOW to build a list, he just says that the size of the list doesn’t matter.  Just get started.  That’s bullshit, I thought.  I mean, I have ZERO targets for this list and I’m not about to spend thousands of dollars for Jeff to tell me how to build a list.

That’s when I hit the net….I started doing searches for “Personal Chef Lists” and there it was…listings of lists.  I mean, it wasn’t that obvious, but the lists were there.  I found one that had about 100 personal chefs on it.  Drilling into each listing, I found an image of their mailing address on the site, so couldn’t just cut and paste it because it was an image or a picture, not text.  BUT, I could re-type it into excel, so I started typing.  Before long, I had the beginnings of a list of 60 targets.

I continued down the GOOGLE listing when it hit me……check the personal chef associations & look up people there.  Again, another jackpot!

The problem with this approach is it’s very time consuming.  The good news is, however, I KNOW the results are also extremely targeted.

I’ll be honest, I don’t have the time to navigate through all of those pages and get the email addresses off of their individual sites, but someone on ODESK.COM does….I posted a job on odesk.com at 1:00 am Sunday morning asking for people to bid on the task of gathering emails by surfing the web. After I posted the job, I took 30 minutes to write up the instructions on where to go and what data to pull.  I included screen shots and some ‘if / then’ scenarios and got ready to hire someone from odesk.

Now, in my job posting, I said I’d entertain bids between $1.00 and $3.00 per hour.  YES, you read that correctly.  I had 22 bids ranging from $1.00 to $3.00 within 30 minutes of the job being posted.  I evaluated the people based on prior billings & buyer feedback & the basic cover letter they sent with the bid.  I selected someone in the Philippines who bid $1.50 / hour plus odesk markup, I’m paying $1.67 per hour.  I hired her immediately without an interview.  I figured at  that price, I could hire her without an interview and fire her with a click if she didn’t work out.

After a few quick emails back and forth, I sent her the instructions and she was off!  Within two days and under 7 hours of tracked work, she got through the assignment and I now have a list of  802 targets.  All for the total price of $11.41.

This worked so well, that I gave her another assignment today.  I’m not anticipating that the second assignment will have as many good results, but I’m hoping to get my list to over 1000 targets.

Target list started!

What have I learned?

1) think differently and ask questions on search engines – you’d be surprised at what comes back if you ask the right question

2) apply low cost resources to repeatable, instruct-able tasks

Now, I’m free to focus on building out the content for this launch!  I’ll let you know how it goes!

DO NOT have the company that HOSTS your website be the same company that builds your website!

About 6 years ago, we were stuck….working hard at launching our food service business, we needed a very robust website built.  The guy we contracted with eventually said “I can’t do it…it’s too big a project”….this was just a couple of months before our opening.  We rushed to find a web company that was somewhat local so we could work closely with them for all the functionality we needed.

We got the site up with all the functionality we needed, but it cost us….not only did it cost us the $20K to build it, but they’re also hosting it, at a ridiculous price every month (Over $100 / month).   They won’t reduce the price because they say I’m using too much disk space (even though I know it’s on a shared SQL db and isn’t taking up that much space).   I really can’t move it because they know all off the stored procedures, which I’m not privy to, that make the site work and they won’t give me a reasonable price to migrate it off their hosting service to a cheaper option.

What I really need to do is hire another company, have the site rebuilt on a much cheaper host (like GoDaddy), and just move the domain name when it’s all ready.  This won’t be anywhere near as much as I spent on the first site, but it is cash I didn’t want to spend because I already sunk $20K into the original build.

PLEASE LEARN FROM MY MISTAKE….keep your web site building team SEPARATE from your web site hosting company.  You’ll be glad you did.

I’ve been self-employed as an independent consultant!  I’m not anyone’s employee!!

(Yes, I do ok for myself…I’m a good communicator and I can lead my clients & facilitate through their problems.  But, with my industry, I’ve peaked at my billing rate…..I really need to expand my business and get my experience to more clients!)…….All of this shot through my mind in about a minute after I corrected Jon.

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks….I’ve really been self employed for 7 years!  I’ve been an ‘S’ on the cashflow quadrant for 7 years and I have NOT made the migration to being a business owner .  I’m trying to do it with my other projects, but not with my consulting business!  I’ve had to be that business.  Writing this, it sounds strange as it’s so obvious now, but up until then, I was just thinking of it as a job and a means to get by.  I had some plans to write a book about my experiences and hopefully expand that business, but I haven’t made much headway.

So, this week, I decided to start acting like a business owner for EVERYTHING I’m doing, including my consulting business.  I looked at what needed to get done on expanding my consultancy and the book hit me square in the face.  Immediately I thought about how I needed to edit the book, revise it, review it, etc…..then I thought SCREW THAT!!  What would a business owner do?  Fortunately, I was listing to the MoneyMasters Elite conversation with Russell Brunson…he was talking about how he had hired some writers to write books and other content for him.  I had looked into this on O-Desk a while back, but I was looking for more of an editor than a writer and I didn’t like what I was seeing.  Russell had mention Guru.com in his interview.  I was on that site years ago, but hadn’t been back in a while.  Fortunately, I went back and checked it out…..right there was what I was looking for:  WRITERS!

I’ll be honest, Guru has a better selection of writers & marketers than oDesk does.  At least as of today.

I posted a job yesterday and interviewed and hired a writer today.  For about $450 I’ll have my book written and ready to distribute.  Yes, $450 is a little high, but the notes I’ve provided really need some work, and I’m comfortable with that price.  Plus, it will give me a FINAL piece of content, ready to be marketed and distributed to my target customers.  I plan on selling the book at a higher price point, so the ROI should be good.

So, why is this important to you?  Well, if you’re on the same journey I am, learn from my mistake.  Think like a business owner ALL of the time on EVERYTHING you’re working on.  What is the opportunity cost of you having to do something yourself vs having someone else do it for you?

Take a good hard look around and practice outsourcing what you can, you’ll be happy with the free time and the weight it takes off of your back with feeling like you have to do everything!

I am subscribed to Tony Robbins New Money Masters….I signed up for the Elite package…for $106 / month, I get a video and DVD and website access with exclusive invites to webinars where we can interact with those people Tony has interviewed that month.  There are also candid interviews with Tony in the elite members website.  I finally got around to listening to Tony being interviewed by Mike Koenigs.   This has lead to me thinking about my ‘internal game’….and frankly I’m pissed off at myself.

I’ve really put the breaks on in my life.  I’ve done what ever is easiest to get by since we closed our first business and lost a lot of money.  I’ve let the damn IRS get me down with their notifications about how much I owe them in back taxes.  Last year, I lost 15 lbs, only to put it all back on and then some.  (fortunately, I’m on a serious diet prescribed by the Dr and I’ve lost 7 lbs in the last week).  BUT DAMN IT THAT IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH!

I’m billing a nice rate at a VERY easy client….easy steady money and I’m not working hard.  But the people I have to deal with are all of the EMPLOYEE mindset and it drives me nuts…..but not enough to leave the client.  That’s horrible!  I’m not giving them my all only because I need to pay off the rest of the damn back taxes!

Additionally, I’m always looking for entertainment….break.com, liveleak.com, facebook.com, i-am-bored.com, failjunkies.com……how many freakin websites do I visit a day / week / month….. what a waste of my time!  Even now that I’m back on my journey to financial freedom, I’m still wasting time.  I regret it terribly already….I’m morbidly upset with myself as I think about it.

I know why…..I’ve been a good consultant for many years and I’ve only been billing by the hour.  So, the better I get at consulting, the quicker I can solve a problem and the more time I have on my hands while I’m only able to bill by the hour.  So, I fill those hours with HORRIBLE habits instead of constantly looking for quality thoughts to nourish me.  How stupid!

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.  Damn it, I’m sick of where I live, how I live and the standard of living I’ve achieved.  More importantly, I’m sick of not growing & learning and I’m disgusted that I’m not contributing more to the world!  I’m pissed off that I’m not on top of my game even more.

I WANT A BETTER LIFE!  I don’t care what others think of me for wanting more.  As far as I know, I’m only going to visit this planet once, so I want to get everything I can out of this life!  The worst part about this…I’ve let me and my emotions drive me to where I am….complacency.  It’s just pathetic!

You may have seen the goals I posted on the other page at this site.  They’re there, but I don’t visit them every day and I certainly didn’t have a HUNGER in me when I wrote them.  I’m hungry again for life and DAMMIT I’m going make some changes!

I want to get financially free!

I want to encourage others to find their passions!

I want to have an impact on this world.

It’s time to stop the bad habits:

1) wasting time watching non-sense & feeding my brain with crap

2) letting myself feel sorry for losing so much $$ on the first business

3) being emotionally weak by letting myself be complacent with my productivity, my health and my relationships!

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!  It’s time to turn in on full speed!!!

There is more out there in life and I WILL NOT SETTLE!!!!

• 1 business I’m trying to relaunch
• 1 consulting business where I’m working on & managing 3 different projects
• 1 book I’m writing on application release management
• 1 NEW business concept where I’m leading a team of 5 plus outsourcing work to others
• This web site, where I’m expanding the functionality and documenting my journey

I also have a few other irons in the fire and I’m always reading and studying about other successful people.

I’ll be honest, I really have no idea how i’m keeping everything moving because I’m HORRIBLE at multi tasking.  At least that is what my inner voice has always told me.

And that’s exactly WHY I’m doing all of these things at once.  No, I can’t say I’m doing any one of these efforts extremely well.  In fact, if I were to grade myself, I’d be at about a C average.  BUT, I’m following the recommendation of Tony Robbins….get uncomfortable and TAKE MASSIVE ACTION!

I’ve never been really comfortable with juggling many things at once, so, I decided I need to do all of this for the sole purpose of getting uncomfortable in hopes that I could break some old patterns and learn something new.   Yes, I’m learning to be comfortable with many balls in the air at once.  The side benefits are: I’m learning about business and communication and, there is a chance that ONE of these things will hit it big.  Each of them are different….very different and I’m learning a lot from each thing.  I’m applying these learnings across each of the things I’m working on.

For example, I’m studying the importance of  using video when marketing your products / services and how critical video is for people to easily and quickly learn something.  I’m taking that learning and applying it to my consulting client where I’m now creating a video on how to use one of the applications which will be deployed to over 10,000 end users in the US.  I’m using a 30 day free trial of Camtasia to create the video, edit it and publish it.

WHY?  Well, it may seem obvious to use video, but not to my client and not to everyone on my new business project.  Here’s the real life story, which I experienced first hand at my client, on the importance of using video for communication.

My client specifically hired me because of ‘my communication skills’.  However, after only 2 months on their project, I was frustrated……we went ROUND AND ROUND on versions of a tip sheet for how to use an application…..an incredibly simple application.  After two pilots to almost 100 different users,  the feedback showed that only about 25% of the audience actually opened and read the instruction sheets.  And these pilots went out to mostly information technology people who KNOW the importance of reading instructions!  The rest of the users all sell or service highly technical pieces of equipment.  They might not be in IT, but they certainly do know the importance of reading instructions for the equipment they sell.

This was beyond annoying.  I know my client spent literally tens of thousands of dollars in man hours doing the instruction sheets….and MOST of the intended audience didn’t read it.

I sat back and thought about what I was learning from my experience at this client.  If that targeted audience couldn’t take the time to open up a 2 page instruction sheet, read it and apply it, to run an application that would significantly enhance their pc performance, how could I expect ANYONE to read any marketing material for any of my businesses?

I quickly realized that one of my delivery methods for the key marketing strategy for the new business concept was flawed.

My team has approximately 7 critical tips which we’re going to give away to prospects for free!  I was going to just write them up and send them out in a email.  But now I know I need to do an entertaining simple video for each one.  Fortunately, I have 2 incredibly creative guys on the team.  I’m giving them the concepts and letting them express the tips in a presentation or video format to make it simple for people to follow.  Then, we’ll just post the videos and send the links out.  We’ll post them on YouTube and all over the net….as much as we can to get some marketing buzz.

How does all of this tie back to the title of this blog?  In the past, I’ve stayed focused, working on one task at a time and completing it with expertise & efficiency.  I’m proud of what I accomplished with that methodology, however, I have to say that the MASSIVE ACTION methodology has to be the way of an entrepreneur.  I’m learning much faster and applying my learnings across all of my projects and in different arenas.   In his Rich Dad series, Robert Kiyosaki emphasizes that the only way we learn is through making mistakes.  That is what the Massive Action methodology does…it allows me to make mistakes on different projects and apply what I learn across all of the other projects.

If you’re not working on multiple, diverse projects at one time, get involved and give it a try.  You’ll learn that you can fit a lot more into your day than you think you can.   You’ll learn much faster than you ever thought possible.  Finally, you’ll be surprised at how you can apply what you learn to all of the different projects you’re working on.