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Archive for September, 2011

Thoughts on Other Bloggers and Blogging

September 25th, 2011

My Initial Belief:

Where I started blogging, I wasn’t entirely sure in what company I was going to mingle with. After all, we see a lot of phishing and identity theft running ramped on the internet. I assumed that the blogging community might be composed of charlatans and con artists too. So I approached blogging with an extreme air of caution. I didn’t socialize, and I didn’t even setup my site for RSS initially. To me, I felt like I was a sole beacon of light alone in the dark! I was wrong…

Reality Of Blogging:

In the past I read blogs like “Frugal Dad” and “The Simple Dollar” and they seemed great, but I thought they were the exceptions to the rules. I limited my exposure to those two blogs (and occasionally “Growing Rich Slowly”) and went through the blogging world with tunnel vision. But then I started noticing the comments from the “Financial Samurai”, and I started reading his blog too. Shortly thereafter, the “Financial Samurai” become the first blog that I read everyday. Now I read many other blogs, because I’ve discovered that each are unique in their own way.

I see other bloggers as just people like me trying to get their story out to benefit society and you, the reader. We come from difference backgrounds, but we have made many similar and different discoveries through our life that we want to share.

Blogging as been a big positive in my life and I’m proud to call myself a blogger…

Normally, I would have a list of links this week, but I’m already late for a Dad and Daughter Day, that should have begun 30 minutes ago.

Hope you had a great week,

MR

My daughter want this put up too:

Daughter's Halloween Painting

19 comments »

Posted in Blogging

5 Financial Tips For Start-Up Entrepreneurs

September 23rd, 2011

5 Financial Tips For Start-Up Entrepreneurs

Free enterprise is amazing. The ability to formulate a business idea, create a business model, develop a product/service, market the product/service, close deals, and make money—that is the entrepreneur’s dream! The current economic climate in the United States is poor, but this type of environment can often be the best for launching a new company. The reason is simple. Recessions force established companies to cut back on expenses and reign in company spending. This decreased spending makes it very hard for established companies to adapt and change during a recession, and oftentimes severe recessions force companies to change everything from products to marketing to sales. This makes it much easier for a new company to enter the market. A common metaphor is comparing a new company to a fast, agile ship on a wide open sea. Large ships have a hard time changing course and maneuvering.

Money, Money, Money

The most common cause of business failure is a lack of capital. If you are just starting out your entrepreneurial venture, take this truth to heart. If you build your business plan around this concept, your chances of success will increase significantly. If you have bad credit, you can apply for a business loans for bad credit. Here are a few tips to consider when making financial decisions in the ramp-up phase of your operation.

The Foundation

First, you must understand that if you have a vision for a product/service, there is real power in that vision. And that power can tempt you into thinking that you are going to make tons of cash right out the gate. I like to call this the throes of entrepreneurial passion. If you are not careful, you can easily conceive an illegitimate child in the throes of this passion!! Therefore, be conscious of this. Let the energy and power of your idea invigorate you and drive you every day, but don’t let it cause you to make unwise financial decisions.

Forgo Office Space

Now, this will depend entirely on your type of business, but if it is possible, do not sign a lease or secure office space until you have launched the new company and are making money. One of the quickest killers of momentum in the early stages of a company is a lack of cash, and office space is generally one of the largest overhead expenses each month. If possible, delay it.

Office Furnishings

If you do acquire a space, or even if you operate out of your home, do not spend money on lavish furnishings. You may think you need to in order to create a certain type of “feel,” but the truth is that you do not. Remember, Microsoft and Apple were both started in a garage. Don’t use business loans for bad credit to buy things you do not absolutely need.

Employees

You will need help, but try to hold off taking on employees until huge sales requires more administrative help. Sure, it may be nice to have a secretary that gets your coffee and newspaper every morning, but it’s not worth killing your cash flow to make it happen.

Pre-Sales

Do not bury yourself in a hole by building up inventory before you make any sales. If at all possible, do the opposite. Try to secure as many pre-sales as possible. This will not only help you gain essential momentum in the early stages of ramp-up, but it will significantly reduce the cost of inventory.

Review and Analyze

Look at your financials on a consistent basis. Take a seriously look and conduct in-depth analysis in order to determine where you can cut back. If you commit to rigorously keeping costs down, then you will be positioning yourself to not only survive the inevitable challenges of the ramp-up and launch phase, but you will also be instituting good habits and principles that will help guide your decisions when cash does begin to flow strongly.

This was a guest post by Michael T.

Thanks,

MR

14 comments »

Posted in Entrepreneurship

Tags: entrepreneurial tips financial tips to start a business

Shaping The Behavior Of Your Kids By Being An Example

September 23rd, 2011

I’ve learned a lot of things through parenting.

One of the things I recently discovered is that my son (and to a lesser extent my daughter), learn by watching and emulating what I do and the way I speak to them.

Discovering My Weaknesses

My son is the oldest so he has had the most exposure to both my wife and I. A few years ago, I noticed that he would talk to his younger sister in a voice that I use to talk to him as a small child. I thought this was cute and probably patted myself on the back for having such a caring and helpful son. However as cute as this was, I think subconsciously I noted that his behavior should be watched, and so I set up some mental red flags. I realized that he may be emulating all of my behavior, and I’m not entirely satisfied with all of the ways that I handle things.

It was the beginning of the realization that my actions had more of an impact than just what I was saying to him. Later, I noticed that some of my faults were popping up in his behavior. Some of the ways that I handle things are different from the majority of people, so to see him do likewise, I knew that he was directly learning this from me.

Changing My Behavior

So after this discovery, I realized that I had to change (or grow if you want to be poetic). So these past few years, I’ve been working on controlling my weaknesses around my kids and actually all the time. I’ve been open with my son about my many of my faults and the ways that I’m wrong with how I handle things and that I would try to change.

My son has taken my information and has tried to modify his own behavior, and somewhat successfully too, I might add. That said a side effect was that I anything that I said or tried to teach was discredited instantly. Now I had a new hurdle to jump over (Auggh).

Current Reading

After having a little authority battle with my son a few weeks ago, we’ve adjusted and now we are doing well again. I’ve been working on my weaknesses all the time, because just hiding them from my son didn’t work.

To really get rid of my faults, I had to do that following:

Realize what your faults are
Change the permanently, hiding them doesn’t work
Take periodic readings and watch your kids to see if they change. This is called a feedback loop.
Do your best, but don’t beat yourself up when little mishaps happen. It take a while to change! Changing yourself is hard.
Use tools or tricks to change. Such tools could be journal, developing new behaviors, reading, asking for help from family or friends.

Conclusion

At least until your kids are teenagers, you are the teacher for your kids. I’m not necessarily school materials, instead I’m talking about the internal way that they respond to things. They learn the non-measurable behaviors from you. Their confidence, and how they handle their emotions. After all, you are the only teacher that they have until they get older, so it’s natural that they pick up and learn your behavior and mannerisms.

Love your kids,

MR

19 comments »

Posted in Kids

Tags: correcting your weaknesses in your kids Eliminating your kids weaknesses helping your kids parenting teaching your kids teaching your kids your faults

Will “The American Jobs Act” Send The Best Of Jobs Overseas?

September 22nd, 2011

I admit, I was not up on all the aspects of “The American Jobs Act” and what I did know, I heard it on TV.

But then I went over to Thousandaire’s blog and read this article: I’m A Criminal (well, I might be soon). Very quickly, I found myself nodding with agreement with what Kevin said!

In the article Kevin states that one of the elements in the American Jobs Act is that it will become illegal for a company to refuse to hire someone because a person is currently unemployed. Kevin then goes on to state that this would bring hiring to a halt! It may be one of the dumbest laws that I’ve heard yet! There are way to many bogus lawsuits in America already and this new proposal would greatly add to that number.

The average American labor pool (me and you) are expensive enough compared to the Asian labor pool, and now the government is going to threaten lawsuits on the hiring process in the United States??? Kevin is right, if I were an employer, you wouldn’t see a sign in my window stating that I was accepting job applications! Instead I would contract everything out or hire temps from a temp agency, including higher end jobs in engineering and other similar traditionally good paying jobs.

Honestly, if I owned a company and realize that I had to hire someone and that I might have to deal with such potential lawsuit crap, I would be tempted to say screw it and start hiring overseas. Not only that, I would also be tempted to open plants and offices overseas too!

Lately, I’ve come to the conclusion that our government doesn’t really think things through very far. I think they make shallow decisions and blame the consequence of those decisions on business or other factors. For instance, I haven’t heard any politician fess up that sub-prime loans were partially their fault too. Instead they paint a picture that it’s all those nasty evil banks! Like Lehman, I’m sure all the employees and the executives at Lehman’s are all enjoying their life now that they have gone out of business. I’m sure the destruction of the bank was all planned and they fully knew that their sub-prime lending activities would destroy the firm. And I’m sure Moody’s and S&P were in cahoots with them too (those evil risk rating agencies). Obviously, the government was in the right all along… (lol)

Yes folks, we need new smarter politicians! Ones that will create intelligent laws and focus on the real problems instead of just the symptoms of the problems.

Okay, now it’s time for me to get real. This initial form of the Jobs Act will not pass, and I’m sure even the White House knows this! Some of the proposal in this bill are so far out to the left that even the old regime communist are blushing. So while I had fun writing this article, it’s almost guaranteed that it won’t pass, at least without some major modifications.

Special thanks out the Kevin at thousandaire.com for doing such a great writeup! His article was both funny and informative!

Bests,

MR

18 comments »

Posted in Problems

Tags: American Jobs Act American Jobs Act sending jobs overseas bad government job loss Jobs going overseas

Finding Opportunities in Unusual Places

September 21st, 2011

Earlier this summer, I was fortunate enough to be a part of a “proof of concept” demonstration/lab for a future product that my employer is planning on using.

While at software company providing the facilities, lab and staff, we noticed that the software company had a special store for employees. The rest of my team was pretty excited about that store so we all went down there during lunch, just to check it out. We discovered that the employees only play a fifth of the price for their software as the normal public. It makes total sense for a company to do this since they want their employees to be versed on and using company products!

That’s when I cooked up my evil plan (mau ha ha).

You see, as a courtesy, the hosting company gave us a temporary pass into the store that allowed us to purchase up to $200 worth of software or hardware. So I jumped on the opportunity and bought 6 software package. The rest of my folks in my group purchased things too, but nobody took full advantage of the total $200 other than me.

Teaching Financial Lessons to My Kids

You might be wondering why a frugal guy like we would spend money foolishly on software? Well, it’s because I saw 2 opportunities in their generous offer!

Opportunities

I can get at least a 200% return on my investment, and anything I can get such an opportunity, I try to take advantage of it!
I can teach my kids about business by selling the purchases on eBay.

While I would expect to net over $600 for selling the software packages, I decided to keep two of the packages I bought for my family and then split the money on the other four packages that my son and I are going to sell on eBay. Such changes dramatically reduces my profits, changing my goal from banking $400 to instead just break even.

You might be wondering why I’m splitting the money with my son?

The answer is because it’s a great opportunity to teach him about business.

I’m going to sit down with him and explain the cost involved in our eBay auctions. Next, I’m going to have him do at least half of the work involved in the sale. I also want him to see all the pieces involved in the business, especially the advertising, posting of the auction, the sale, the closing, the packaging and the shipping. I also want to lightly discuss taxes with him on the matter too.

I hope to teach my son four things with this eBay experiment!

I want my son to learn that very often, after the first time selling something, the second time selling something similar is much quicker, (on ebay) taking just a fourth of the time that it takes putting the original auction together. This is also introduces the idea that at first it’s not worth the time put in, but as the selling process gets streamlined, it does become worth it. This is true in business and life overall.
I want him to learn the excitement of using entrepreneurial skills to make money. Hopefully this will help him look outside of the box in making money.
I want him to learn all of the pieces involved in calculating profits from selling a product. This is one thing that I love about ebay! It’s a real business with real business processes!!!
Sometimes you do have to spend some money to make more money!

This is one of those rare great opportunities about selling and working with a complete business system. Plus it will be educational, profitable and fun, all at the same time.

Indirectly, I also hope to teach him that seeing opportunities that other might not see can be profitable and exciting. Any of the folks in my group could have done the save as I did, but they chose not too.

Expect follow up post on this experiment in October (this is a better month for sellling since Christmas is near).

Bests,

MR

16 comments »

Posted in Kids

Tags: creating opportunities finding opportunities making money selling on ebay opportunities to make money taking advantage of opportunities teaching my son using ebay