Those of you who read my personal blog will now that this year has not been one of my finest, so far.

One of the effects of what has happened is that I have found motivation a problem.  How is it possible to maintain motivation in the face of ongoing adversity?

I knew an insurance salesman once who had a ’sunshine’ tape.  It was a collection of songs that always lifted his spirits.  Make no mistake, Malcolm was very successful.  He was a member of the MDRT (Million Dollar Round Table) and all that.  Also as this was in the 70s that is saying something.

The best tip I had about motivation from Malcolm and one that kept him going was to treat sales and business as a process.

He converted 1 in 4 prospects he had a meeting with.  He needed 5 referrals from existing clients to new prospects to get one interview.  That meant he needed 20 referrals for one sale.  19 rejections.  His take on this was, as his figures were more or less constant each ‘rejection’ was just moving him closer to that sales because it was part of the process, it was natural.  It was as is he had a black box with one knob on it, turn the knob 19 times and on the 20th turn he would get £1,000.

If you had that box how many times would you turn the knob each week?

Make that philosophy work for you.

Spelling Mistakes

There was a time, not so long ago, when I made quite a lot of money selling pottery on eBay.  Not just any pottery but blue and white Jasper ware produced by Wedgwood.  Wedgwood has been making fine china since 1759, (249 years and going strong!) and is still in great demand.  Best known for the blue and white jasper ware which has the iconic pale blue base with white relief figures Wedgwood is a popular subject for auctions on eBay.  However, I was able to buy it on eBay and then resell it on eBay at a profit!  Was I able to to do this because I was an expert?

No.  The reason was that many sellers spelt wedgwood incorrectly.  They spelt it with an extra ‘e’, Wedgewood.

By misspelling in your listing, particularly the key word (often the brand name) you could be missing out on many bidders.  On top of that what impression are you creating?  If you can not spell the brand name do you actually know what you are describing?  Can you be trusted to wrap a piece of pottery properly if you can not be bothered to check your spelling?

For me, of course, I was able to buy inexpensive pieces of Wedgwood by looking for the misspelling and then sell the same piece immediately at higher pieces.

Does this still work?  Yes, but not so well for Wedgwood.  It seems as if more buyers are now aware of the issue and positively look for pieces of ‘wedgewood’.  Looking for spelling errors still works well for other items.  There is a band called The Roling Stones and they brought out an album called ‘Exile on Main Street’.  I was able to buy a mint copy for £2 while the same album listed under The Rolling Stones Sells for about £35.

Steve, who runs the excellent Electro Book Express (a good source of e-books) emailed me the other day to say that he has taken up the challenge to make $1000 in 10 days following the ideas on the page headed ‘Do you want cash fast’.

He is starting from a standing start, not using any of his existing lists, no stockpile of articles, and not in an area he has been involved in before.  His chosen niche for the challenge is the weight loss area.  He will be using a couple of affiliate products, a new site, and article marketing.    He is well aware of the amount of work that this will require but he says that he is up for it.

Further updates as I get them, I am sure we all wish him well – and a good rest when he’s done it!

So much to do so little time……..

This is a common problem.  There is just too much work left at the end of the day.  One way to try to solve this problem is to stay up later, get up earlier, drink lots of coffee. Another is just to give up “working from home is just too hard” and to go back to a life of non-ending 9 – 5 drudgery.

It is important to recognise the enormity of what you (and I) are doing. We have started on the path of leaving a ‘proper’ job in search of something better.  The trouble is that unless you are very lucky and money comes flooding in from day 1 the hardest part of the journey is the start, the transition from being a wage slave to being self employed and doing something you like. There is the stress of working 2 jobs, the job you are employed to do and the job you want to do. Probably, those around you do not quite understand why you are giving up your leisure time to sit in front of a PC rather than spending time with them. Inevitably, the first few months will be hard.

Here is my one top tip to help.

Write a ‘To Do’ list and then work the list. If I have time to do only one thing for my business today then I want that to be the most important thing to push the business forward. With a prioritised to do list I can start at the top and work down, no more scatter gun approach, no more running around like a headless chicken.

Each night I sit in front of the TV and write my list. I sit down with today’s list, review what I have done, what I should have done, what I could have done better. I then write tomorow’s list.

There is one unexpected and great benefit. The first few lists were huge, or would have been if I had written them. I always worried that some of the important things were being missed. I woke during the night thinking about what I would do the next morning. Then there was the ‘I know that there is something else I should be doing’ feeling the next day. That is now gone. If it is not on my list it does not get done, it may be added to tomorow’s list but today’s issue is to complete today’s list.

The list has to be prioritised. There are 4 categories;

1. Important and urgent.
2. Important but not urgent
3. Urgent but not important
4. Not urgent and not important

Having a system like this will make you focus on the important things.  It will save dithering time.  It will help you schedule (when will that important but not urgent item become urgent?  I will do it then).