Working for Yourself

Some people step on other people’s fingers on the way up.

Some people say “Excuse me” as they climb by.

Some don’t bother to climb at all.

Some kick other folks in the throat and laugh as they fall.

Some help other people climb.

Some climb up so far and are happy.

Some are never happy.

Some find a ladder that isn’t so damn crowded.

What kind of climber are you?

We went to a Valentines Day dance last night. That’s always a bit of a struggle for me – I have no rhythm so I dance terribly. I don’t like loud music so I have to wear earplugs.. but my wife loves to dance, so I want to do what she likes. We go, we dance (she dances – I lurch around) and I love seeing her happy.

At one point the band played and sang Sinatra’s “I did it my way”. I would say almost all the men and quite a few of the women sang along, mumbling most of it but always enthusiastically belting out “I did it my-y-y-y way!”

And yet – most of them surely did not.

Most of them spent their lives doing what someone else told them do to. Not only what, but when and often how. That is the typical definition of an employer/employee relationship, after all:

Direction and control – Under the common-law test, a worker is an employee if the person for whom the work is performed has the right to direct and control the worker in the way the worker works both as to the final results and as to the details of when, where, and how the work is to be done. The employer need not actually exercise control, it is sufficient that the employer has the right to do so.

(From State of Texas Tax Audit Manual)

Unless you work for yourself, you really shouldn’t be singing that song, should you?

It’s funny how the internet has changed things. I was out of office two days this past week and I think of that as unusual – I used to be up and down 128 and 495 all week long, day after day. I almost never worked out of my office; now it’s just the opposite.

You’d think that would cut car expenses and mileage but it hasn’t that much because of my wife’s illness (trips to doctors) and the long trip to see her father at his nursing home each week. Between those things and the outside work that I still do, the yearly mileage is still 24,000 or so.. it was 30-35 in the “old days” (not even ten years ago!) so I suppose that’s something, but it could be better.

The last thing I want is a shot of grumpy with my coffee.

Dunkin Donuts often has grumpy employees. Not always, but often. Honeydew almost always has smiling, friendly people. Not always, but almost always.

I like DD coffee. Honeydew is OK, but I like DD. Still, given a choice, I’ll go to Honeydew before DD.

Don’t be putting a shot of grumpy in whatever you are selling.

My ebook sales are doing well and may be picking up a bit. I’ve passed $500 in sales and while I’d rather that was $5,000.00 I’m not unhappy.

After extensive updating, I decided to raise the price. $9.95 was really too little, so I’ve bumped all of them to $19.95 with discounts for multiple purchases. Considering the length, quantity and quality of information, that price is still low.

I’m experimenting now with different sales pages for the most popular book. I want to see which draws the most sales over a month long period.

Usually the first week of January brings a pile of checks – businesses wanting to pay off things at the end of the year to save on taxes.

That didn’t happen this year. First year ever for me..

It’s the first week of January. In normal years, this is the time when lots of early payments come in – customers paying things at the end of 2008 so that they can take the tax deduction.. and if the envelope sits in the out basket for just a few days..

I wonder if it will be the same this year. Will I get as much paid up as I used to? Will the customers let the checks age a few more days before mailing them?

We’ll see.. I hope it’s not a bust because I paid off some things early too – anticipating that I’d have the cash flow to match. That might not work out..

My E-Books are doing well – running about $200.00 a month in sales.  I expect that to improve of course and one of the things I did to help that process was to hire Men With Pens to design three graphics that I can use as covers and on my website.  Those guys were very easy to work with and the price was very reasonable.  I really like the results and only refused two concepts before getting exactly what I had hoped for.

On the SEO front,  I noticed that these books hit the Google sweet spot for at least some of the phrases I wanted them to rank with, so I’m happy about that.

The graphics definitely improved click-thrus to the sales pages – easily four times more than what I was getting with text links, so I’m very happy about that investment.  Unfortunately, conversions haven’t risen proportionally. It’s only been a few days – could be too early to say, but I probably do need to do a better job on my sales copy..  oh well, there’s always something to work on, right?

By the way,  I just made this “Responsibility and Honesty- watch your back!” post at my APLawrence.com site.  It’s related to Self Employment but I posted it there because I really want some feedback and there are very few readers here so far..

Anyway, on my ride in to the job described there, I was thinking how easy it is to work for yourself today.

Think about reaching customers.  According to Google Analytics, my APLawrence site has seen 2,494,647 Unique Views so far this year.   Imagine what it would have cost to reach that many potential customers before the Internet.  Never mind the cost of producing two and a half million catalogs or letters to mail; just the cost of the postage alone is staggering!

Some years back, I had a national 800 number for the convenience of my customers – phone service has become so cheap today that nobody hesitates to dial any number in the same country – and even International calls aren’t all that expensive now!

Years back, I had to hire an answering service too.   A pager was an absolute necessity. Voice mail and cell phones took care of both those expenses.

This is an incredibly wonderful time to work for yourself!

I’m not sure where he’s going with this, but..

http://mark-hayward.com/the-social-media-sandbox/