Foolish Adventure

Hey guys,

I thought this was a very good episode. It’s something I’m looking at doing myself. Cutting TV is an excellent choice. For example I was working on a project last night, came out of the office and got sucked into watching America’s Got Talent. Then another show came on, then the news, then it was time to hit the hay. So several hours that could have been productive were lost. Did my soon to be a reality business profit from those hours lost? No.
I’ve already cancelled my newspaper subscription and will be allowing my magazine subscriptions expire unless they are directly related to what my online business will be about.

Besides not only cutting expenses it also means more quality family time for the times when I do what to take a break.

Keep the episodes coming! I’m looking to launching my online business very soon. My goal is to retire next year. I know that my business may or may not take off and that it may takes several years to really replace my current income if it ever does at all. But by bootstrapping I will certainly be able to work with less income than I am now.

I also have started to kill TV. In fact I don’t turn it on at all if I’m on my own. My wife watches a lot of ‘junk’, which is distracting. That said, a lot of my time is ‘goofing off on the internet’ as Tim put it That’s a harder habit to give up. Especially if you’re business is in ‘click and mortar’

Great show guys. You’re giving me so many ideas and the courage to go ahead. I’m already downsizing my life for various reasons. But it will free up cash for my FA.

Keep the good stuff coming. In fact can you do three shows a week before you start charging? Kidding guys, great show.

I would like to add a photo to my blog of you and Tim. Is there one that you will allow for my site? I’ve put a link to your podcast but I’d like to add your photo(s )to spruce it up a bit. I could just right click on something on your site but I wanted to get permission first if a photo wasn’t available.

Thanks
Frank

Good points, Jeff!

I think video has its own unique challenge because it’s a gear-heavy thing
by nature. Cameras, monitors, tripods, lights, microphones…the list goes
on and on. It’s a challenge to be a video minimalist, for sure.

I can attest that the bootstrapping method really works. I started my current on-line business 7 years ago with virtually nothing more than a desktop computer, Internet connection and $500. I literally worked out of my bedroom for the first 6 months, foregoing setting up an office somewhere. No fancy logo, no business cards, no pre-printed letterhead paper, no brochures, etc. Today I have 5 full time employees and am doing over 7 figures in sales per year.

Starting this way has had the added benefit of establishing a culture of always minimizing business overhead and spending the dividends on my employees and myself.

All your episodes are incredibly rich and helpful . Izzy and Tim thanks so muchfor inventing this. You have become my virtual mentors. Everything you say sounds so right. Every time I finish listening to the audios my spirits are high. If you need somebody to work for you for free, keep me in mind (though I am here in Houston). I could virtually do a lot of things for you. And I would not feel it is work but education.

Tim by the way, I love lazy! I have been wanting to work smarter and not harder.

Thanks again for airing these wonderful episodes. I am always looking forward to the next one.

Ignorance is bliss. – George Orwell

Otherwise, great stuph.

Bravo! I applaud you for your brave foray into talking about topics many believe off-limits, and more importantly, for taking a stand. Oh how I wish more would do so. Sheep are boring!

I have a few thoughts on the business stuff before I address the topics of TV, the news consumerism in the US, etc.

1. Spending/Expenses: Tim made a comment about spending and how it should be done only when it costs you money to not do so. I would add that spending money makes sense when it can lead to new opportunities and when it puts you into a position of competitive advantage. Spending makes sense when it MAKES you money rather than just COSTS you money.

2. Logos: You discussed logos and whether or not they were a necessity. I certainly believe in a logo and its importance to an overall brand. I also agree that one can get started without one. There might even be times when it’s preferable to do so. Once a brand is established it’s much more difficult to rebrand and often creates confusion in the mind of customers and prospects. At the same time, first impressions count. What is most important is the type(s) of customer I am targeting. If I am going after large companies who do business with other companies who have invested heavily in a brand, then it is unlikely I will be able to compete if I am nothing more than a name without a brand that conveys my specialty. Even a small business/entrepreneur is making a value judgment about what you bring to the table. I’ll tie this into your business card discussion. If I am looking to hire a graphic designer and they don’t have a website and/or business cards and/or any marketing materials, much less a logo, how do I judge their capabilities? What’s my first impression of them? How can I trust them to create my brand identity, or even just a logo, if they are not able to do so for themselves?

3. Business Cards: On the topic of business cards, yes Tim, they are somewhat old-school. But, based on my experience, they are still expected and desired in most situations. I would not go after business or attend any event (be it networking, a conference, a meeting, etc.) without a business card in hand. It is part of my brand, it gives the recipient a very quick look at my professionalism and it says I am interested in further contact. Most importantly, a business card can be a call-to-action and/or motivator. How? Well, think about something of value that you offer, that your potential customer wants or needs, and that you point the recipient to through your business card. Or, add immediate value by offering your “Top Five List” of tips right on your card. The back of a card is a wonderful place to add value and to demonstrate what you know about a subject area. Use it!

Personally, I make immediate judgments about a person’s professionalism when I meet them (and I believe that behavior is reciprocal). I believe that someone who comes to an event to meet others without a calling card in hand (and it can be anything, as long as it tells me something about them and why I should care) is unprepared or unsure of themselves and what they are offering. The same goes for someone with three or four different cards, all with different businesses and offerings (believe it or not, this is very common these days). If you want to do business, business cards require such a small investment and they can do so much for one’s perception in the minds of their customers and or prospective customers (not to mention the press). Perhaps they are old-school, but it’s a school I and many others attended.

Along these same lines, Tim mentioned that he would rather people “meet him at Twitter,” where he prefers to interact. Cool. But, maybe I am not well-versed on Twitter. Now what? You have just shown me that your needs are more important than mine. My number-one mantra to any company looking to get my dollars: make it easy to do business with you!!! If you make me jump through hoops, you’re not likely to get my business. Tough love, baby!

4. Staffing: I agree with most of what you said. My business mentor taught me a very valuable lesson when I started my first business:
“Do what you are good at and pay people to do what you are not good at. Focus your energy where you provide the most value to the business.”

That lesson has served me well for a lot of years.

Yes, it takes a bit of time to teach others to do things, but if they are things that will need to be done more than once, and they are not a good use of your time (meaning if you invest that time in something else of more value you stand to make more money that day/week/month/quarter/year), then the time invested in training is worth it.

Documenting the process is key. Why? It enables the process to be duplicated again and again by others, even B or C players, without your intervention or supervision. If it doesn’t, then you either haven’t documented it in an easy-to-follow format or your hire was not a good fit for your needs.

5. Freedom: The first fallacy of owning one’s own business!

Yes, you have the freedom to spend your time how you like and to do what you want when you want to. Until…

At some point, the business, if it’s a serious business, will start to dictate what needs to happen, and when.

When I talk with people who are excited about owning their business and I ask them why they want to be in business, and freedom is one of the first three reasons they offer (usually preceded by it will be fun and I will make tons of money), I immediately stop them and ask them to explain what freedom means to them. If they can’t articulate what it is, or their definition involves “lots of free time and freedom to do what I want,” I do my best to bring them into the wonderful world of reality!

OK, enough about this thing called business, let’s get on to the fun stuff, the raise people’s eyebrows and blood pressure kinds of stuff!

Izzy, I am in 100% agreement with you on TV and what it does to us. Having spent most of the last seven years with little to no TV (ok, I do watch cooking shoes), I have such a different perspective on what it does to us. I never noticed it when I was watching on a regular basis. Now that I have not watched, I am amazed at the effect it has on me, my ability to remain positive and my ability to sleep well. Even watching movies has this affect. I believe we become desensitized to the messaging and the violence. It creeps in like the frog in the boiling water who boils before jumping out because the water gets hot slowly and over time. Now that I’m “outside the pot,” I immediately realize how hot the water is getting! The average American watches 4-6 hours of TV a day. Most of that time is watching mindless entertainment, shows that are filled with horrid behavior (think reality TV), violence, stories about the extremes of human behavior, etc. Very little of it enforces all that’s good in the world or assists us in having a better understanding of our world or how we can make a difference. What a shame.

We (my husband and I) have also had many conversations about how people fit so much activity into a day. What we have noticed is that those who are doing, by and large, and not watching TV. When someone tells us they want to do something, followed by all the reasons (time being a leading contender) it won’t/can’t happen, we share the story of my brother in law. He was working a 50-60 hour a week job, traveling a lot for business, leading a Boy Scout troop, coaching his son’s sports team, spending time with his wife and child, attending church and weekly bible study meetings, AND getting a degree online. When my husband asked him how he was doing it all, he said, rather simply, “I stopped watching TV.”

We all have the same 24 hours in a day. What we do and how we spend our time is totally of our own making. There will always be time for what we consider truly important. And Tim is spot on – being busy does not necessarily equate to accomplishing things of value.

Tim, you talked about not watching the news. Yeah! We have done the same and have never regretted it. Do we know what’s going on in the world? Yes. But, we don’t know about every horrible thing the media is shouting about. We don’t hear all the negativity on a daily basis.

Instead, we choose to read different news sources (both inside and outside the US) and to hear different opinions. This is something most Americans don’t do. Most simply find a news source that is espousing what they already believe and they simply listen for confirmation of what they already “know.” One does not see that happening in other parts of the world except in places where the media and news are heavily regulated (and even then many people make a concerted effort to find other sources of information). Why is that when we have so much information available to us, we often choose to gather it from so few sources? A topic for another day…

We just returned from many years of overseas travel and were amazed by how much people in other countries knew about our country, about our government, about our policies and leaders. And, this does not apply to only the wealthy or middle class populations. Even people, children in very poor and remote areas knew who are presidents were (it was Bush for much of the time we were traveling) and could talk about what was going on here. I don’t think we could say that about the majority of our own population. Perhaps it’s a result of the glut of information here. I don’t know, but it seems that people with the least access to information try the hardest to learn (this applies to education too).

One last comment and then I’ll jump down off the soapbox. My husband has a theory: as humans we are hard-wired for survival. Now that our survival is relatively easy, we seek drama in other ways. Reality TV is a great example of this. In other countries where daily survival is a real issue, the topics of conversation and activities reflect it. Here? We watch Desperate Housewives. (Sorry DH fans.) I tend to agree with him (and that does not always happen! ).

Consumerism is another whole topic and one that’s probably better left out of today’s conversation. Tim, I’m ready to have a good conversation whenever you’re game!

Thanks again to both of you for sharing your knowledge (and questions) with everyone. The topics being covered are of great value to those thinking about starting their own business and I am enjoying being part of the conversation (and even learning a thing or two along the way). Keep it up!

Just sold my old iPod and made enough to pay for an entire year’s hosting for my site. Good stuff guys.

No doubt that I’m sometimes guilty on the consumerism front. But there’s a
lot of things I don’t buy that many people do. For example, we have a small
house. We have one car. We don’t have an HD TV. We purchase limited clothes,
rarely go to the movies, and so on…

The iPad is a luxury for sure, but the iPhone is an important tool for my
business. Email, video, photos. That’s what I do for a living.

I think your idea about choosing a domain name is excellent. I think we
could definitely do some great content around that. Don’t be scared to
register a domain. It’s $10. If you have a great idea, start with the one
you have, and you can always register another one later if you need to…

All the best,

Izzy

Great info guys. What I have found is that many people do not see bootstraping as an option because they do not realize that all companies are not huge. They think it will take them forever to reach a point they can compete. What I usually tell them is to define what their product is and go find people that would want it. If there is a market out there for what they are selling go and start selling. Do not spend too much time trying to grow big in the background and do a giant launch later. They need to have money to reinvest in the business to bootstrap.

Josh Bulloc
Kansas City, MO
How can I help?

Tim, thanks for your response. I don’t think we are really that far off in terms of what we believe, but we express it quite differently. Based on your comments, perhaps I did not do a good job of expressing my thoughts.

A few quick responses:
1. I am with you on costs.
2. I agree on positioning and agree that logos or image branding, ALONE, can not build recognition in the mind of the customer or prospect. However, many people are visual and a logo can be a cue/reminder about a company. A logo does not negate the need for building a brand, which I see more as positioning, as you do. I believe a brand is every touchpoint the company has with a customer or prospect, and by touch I don’t mean a physical touch, but every point where there is or could be some interaction. There are some companies that do this very well and others who simply suck at it. Whether or not they have a logo is irrelavent. As you stated, what counts is what the customer or prospect thinks of when they think of your company – a logo is only one small portion of that and certainly doesn’t negate the need for everything else that goes into positioning.
3. I don’t go to events to find work, but I do attend events for a variety of other reasons (speaking, meeting interesting people, seeing other ways of doing things, participating in discussions, asking questions of attendees to learn more, etc.). I am energized by attending events and always bring back a few things that more than make the time investment worthwhile.

I don’t agree that business cards are junk, but maybe that’s because I actually use them. We’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one. I’ll be the unfoolish one with a business card in hand.

As for picking customers, this is something I also believe in. There is good business and there is bad business – I prefer the former. There are good customers, people you enjoy working with – those are the people I work with. But, I believe that by making it tough for people to reach you, you could be eliminating some of those same exact customers. I am a very loyal customer when I find a company whose products and services I need and/or like. But, I will not jump through hoops to do business with them. Make it easy to do business with you and I will be a wonderful customer who shares my adoration of you and your offering with everyone I know.
4.I agree with you on most accounts. But, having owned two businesses, I know that there will come a time in most businesses, even foolish businesses, when there will be things you simply don’t want to do, but that must be done. I hire those tasks out as you suggested. And, I prefer to only work with A players and have them representing me. But, I have had to use B players from time to time and it was a great experience because I had a process for them to follow. There are some tasks that are monotonous and boring – if they can be eliminated, great. If they can’t, then someone needs to do them. Why waste the talents of an A player on such tasks?
5. I believe in having a business that serves my needs as well as those of my clients, prospects, my industry and the community. I am selective about what clients I take on, and what kind of work I do, and when. I work to live, not the other way around. In these things I think we are in agreement, no?

But, I also know the reality of making a personal dream come true, one that involved building a “serious” business in order to reach a personal dream – reaching a high dollar figure in order to check out and travel the world for many years. Does that sound unfoolish? Most people we told about this thought we were very foolish! It was true freedom for us to achieve this dream. See, we are not so different.

Now we are back from this amazing experience and looking for what’s next. My “version of reality” is to work smart, not hard; to enjoy what I do every moment; to bring value to those with whom I work; to give back; to have a life, not just work; to make a difference in the world; to think and act creatively. If that is not wonderful, if that is broken, I am most definitely missing something.

You said: A business should be built to provide a fulfilling life for everyone involved with that business. It should improve the lives of the owner, employees, customers and community.

That’s the kind of business I am building and coach others to build. I’m not sure where you got the idea that I did not think or behave in this manner.

Lastly, you commented: You must find something about the type of business that Izzy and I tell people to do interesting, but your responses are solidly outside of what we teach.

I do find what you are doing very interesting and applaud you for making your lives (rather than work) your number-one priority. I am doing the same. I believe we are all on the same page in most respects. I do, however, have some differing opinions about some aspects of business and these are based on past experience, experiences that enabled a very nice life. I am choosing to do things a little differently now and as a result will not be privy to some of the same life opportunities I had in the past. And, that’s ok by me. I think it all comes down to choice – we all make choices and not everyone (perhaps even no one) will agree with what we choose for ourselves. In the end, we make ourselves happy and that’s what matters. You two are heading down a path that makes you happy…and that’s not foolish, but wise.

Thanks for taking the time to respond and to listen to what I had to say. I very much enjoyed reading your perspective as well. There is very little that we, as adults, change our minds about. Being open to others’ opinions is the first step and you’ll be happy to know your comments made me think about some things differently. Bravo!

I look forward to your next episode and to having my mind changed, or at least influenced!

I wasn’t sure if I was going to respond to this or not because I think I made my view on the news clear in the show. But there is something in what Kathy has written in her comment that I think I should highlight so everyone can see this when it happens in their lives.

Also, this isn’t a personal attack on Kathy. It doesn’t have anything to do with her other than she triggered my thoughts on this topic. I may also turn this into a full-fledged Foolish Philosophies post.

Kathy wrote, “I have to say I disagree with your opinions about not watching the news. It’s a bit naive, don’t you think?” Since in the show, I and to some degree, Izzy, don’t recommend the news, we obviously don’t think it to be naive.

This kind of statement is used to shame people into keeping quiet or changing their minds back to whatever is the culturally-enforced norm. It happens everywhere, not just with the news. Cultures are made up of norms whether those norms are right, wrong, valid or invalid. Most of the people in that culture will behave certain ways and believe certain things without ever finding out for themselves whether or not these norms make their life better or worse than some alternative.

I’m a big proponent for international travel (not packaged tours, but the off-the-beaten-path variety) because you get to see others’ cultural norms from an outsider’s perspective. You’ll often find yourself thinking that these people are doing and believing things wrongly because it is different from your ingrained cultural belief.

If you take the time to be objective, you’ll almost always find that neither you nor they are right or wrong.

When I say people should give up the news because it will improve their mental health, it counters the idea that to be an “informed, responsible citizen” one must daily partake in the news. Some people agree to test the idea, some agree with the idea, but don’t stop their ingrained behavior and others treat it as blasphemy.

By testing cultural assumptions, you can find a life that best suits you, but you have to be aware that others may feel offended by you exerting your individuality. Some will just roll their eyes, others may use phrases meant to shame you into conformity and some will have an angry reaction from name calling to physical violence.

One of the reasons I’m good at consulting for business owners is that I am willing to test assumptions and kill sacred cows if it means it will lead to a better alternative. I intend to bring that same skill and courage to Foolish Adventures. Whether you choose to believe me or not is up to you, but you’ll at least have an alternative to the norm that you can test and maybe break you out of your box and into the fulfilling life you desire.

Little behind on my episodes, but love the podcast discussions. I dream of opening my own creative business, just need to narrow down what it is and go for it. I’m a CPA and a business person, so I’m probably with Izzy on the conservative side of things
I wanted to comment on this episode to say thank you for talking about not watching the news. I stopped watching it several years ago because it was too depressing. I’m a pretty happy person in general, but I found myself getting upset every time I watched something horrible (which was pretty much every day). I am generally embarrassed to tell people because of the looks I get about “not being informed”. Those looks are well worth my improved mood. I found I don’t need to waste time being upset over something I have no control over. Thank you for bringing it up !

Excellent book and a great recommendation. Thanks.

Welcome to the show!

——
izzy@izzyvideo.com
twitter.com/izzyvideo
facebook.com/israelhyman
skype: israelhyman