• 5 Nerdy Goodies that are Geeky Gifts I’ve Designed on Zazzle
  • About Cricket Diane
  • Archives Cricket House Studios
  • CricketDiane in the Studio Working
  • CricketDiane Surface Design Products
  • Got No Money Guides by Cricketdiane
  • International concerns – Mideast
  • Ocean Paintings
  • Private Equity Purchase of Toys R Us Required Toys R Us to Pay the Full Price of Being Bought – Is that Right?

Cricketdiane's Weblog

~ CricketDiane Blog – Cricket House Studios Blog – Paintings & Writings by Cricket Diane C Phillips

Cricketdiane's Weblog

Tag Archives: entrepreneurs

8 Really Crappy Things To Know About Being An Entrepreneur / Small Business Owner

12 Thursday Jan 2017

Posted by CricketDiane in Business Methods, Cricket Diane C Sparky Phillips, Start a Business - Tech StartUps - Innovation - Entrepreneurship Business Info - Business How To - Business StartUp Financing Capital, Start Your Own Business / Creating Your Own Business

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

being an entrepreneur, Business, business owners, business ownership, Cricket House Studios, cricketdiane, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship, small business, small business startups, small businesses in America, Start Your Own Business, starting your own business, startups, things to know about being an entrepreneur, US business

  1. Being an entrepreneur does not have “regular” hours – unless you count all 24 hours as regular, 7 days a week or as most entrepreneurs would say – 30 hours a day, 8 days a week, which isn’t a joke – but a sad reality about how much there is to do in the time available – ALL the time.
  2. When business books say that most businesses do not “break-even” for the first three years, that means for three years or more, over 80 hours a week, you will not only be working for free, but will probably be taking from your pocket and paying into the bills of the business – for you to keep doing that work.
  3. The vast majority of business ventures fail rather than succeed and that is a lot more than half in this case – go look up the exact numbers, it will astound you. That means, despite having everything going for them, many of those businesses fail anyway. There may be reasons, and none may be valid for why it failed. Sometimes, businesses have everything right – timing, pricing, effort, marketing, product, process, people and sales – but fail anyway.
  4. There is more paperwork being broke and poor than to run a business – but not by much. And, there are deadlines for poor people to put in paperwork, keep up with papers, produce them at a minute’s notice too – with fines and jail if you don’t, just like there are for small businesses and in both cases, there isn’t an army of people on staff to help with it like big corporations have.
  5. There is rarely a faster way to go broke than to be in any business – even a business enterprise that has at some point, done well. When it turns bad, being an entrepreneur offers no skill sets to deal with the speed at which things can go to hell in a short period of time. Only the survival skills can help at that point and unfortunately, they are needed right when the mind is least capable of making any good decisions at all because of extreme stress and inordinate complexity of the information at hand which must be dealt with all at once.
  6. In the US, entrepreneurs were at one time heralded and small businesses supported especially, as the backbone of the economy. That hasn’t been really supported for many years although the words are still used and it is talked about being that way despite the fact that it isn’t. And nobody you know wants to know you when the boat starts sinking, let alone throw you a paddle or a bucket to help you out.
  7. Selfishness, greed and penny pinching are not the character traits that most people would brag about, nor wish to consider as their only real personality, but to be an entrepreneur those are the critical personality traits if it is going to work at all. If you don’t mind being that kind of person, and other people knowing you’re that kind of person – entrepreneurship is for you because 99% of the time, day in and day out – over a period of years, those are the traits you will be using if you want it to succeed. And, it still might not succeed regardless.
  8. Last, but not least – no matter what you think about being an entrepreneur, why you’re doing it, what your product or service is and no matter what you think the experience will be like for you – being an entrepreneur will change you. It will change your relationships that you’ve always held dear and not always in positive ways. It will steal from what you already have and what you could’ve had if you’d done something else. It will take from your family and from their time, goodwill and caring. It just does. Whether you want it to or not – being an entrepreneur does that no matter how you go about it.
  • cricketdiane, 01-11-17

**

Share this:

  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • More
  • Print
  • Reddit

Like this:

Like Loading...

Here’s Why Your Startup Business Won’t Sell Anything to Anybody Starting Out

06 Friday May 2016

Posted by CricketDiane in Cricket Diane C Sparky Phillips, Start a Business - Tech StartUps - Innovation - Entrepreneurship Business Info - Business How To - Business StartUp Financing Capital, Start Your Own Business / Creating Your Own Business

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Business, cricketdiane, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship, Marketing, Profitability, sales, selling, small business, starting a business, starting your own business, startups

I’ll save you the bother. I don’t want to particularly, but I will. We could wait to have this discussion until you’ve experienced it too and then have a good laugh about it when it’s all over and we’ve gotten past it. But why not tell you now so you can develop ways to deal with it. So, I will.

When you start a business, believe this – it is harder to get sales than you would begin to guess. And there are some significant reasons for this.

First, your family isn’t going to buy whatever it is because, well, they’re your family. They should get whatever you may be offering at the cut rate family discount of nothing because well – yeah, they’re family. So they aren’t going to buy from you. You can choose not to give it to them for free and they’ll simply resent it and you and your stupid business that is taking up all your time and still won’t buy from you or your business.

Second, your friends are nearly the same category as your family and for about the same reasons, they won’t buy from you either. You damn sure aren’t going to sell anything to them and if they like or need what you are selling, they still aren’t going to buy from you because, well, they’re your friends. And, they want the same deal your family thinks they should get – free services or products that your business is providing to everyone else for some price.

Third, your neighbors aren’t going to buy from you because they have better things to do than to be bothered with whatever it is you are selling and really don’t want to know about it either. They could not possibly care less and besides, they are getting whatever they need from retailers that they know or the online stores for those retailers – whom they don’t know and have never met, but trust more than they ever will trust you.

Fourth, don’t think that it stops there, because the people from your church, school and if you have one, workplace don’t want to be bothered with whatever you are selling either. They don’t even want to know about it because that takes up their time and they don’t want to be share with, told about, know about, see any of it, learn anything about it or basically, have anything to do with any of it. You’re only friends by virtue of going to the same place some of the time and otherwise, have no real relationship of any measure with you. And, in a way – you’d think that would favor selling something to them because at the very least, maybe they wouldn’t want it for free since they aren’t really your friends. But, no.

Fifth, that leaves everybody else – and those people don’t know you, don’t know about you, don’t want to know about you and essentially are already buying from somebody somewhere offering something that works good enough, thank you very much. And, they are too busy and don’t want to bothered finding about any of what you are about, what your business is about or what you are offering either – no matter how damn good it might be. And that is a fact.

Sixth, among the rest of the world who may have some individuals who either need or want what you are offering and my really like to have it and be willing to spend money to get it, there is absolutely little if no access to them or for them to find you and what your business offers. These include people on twitter and pinterest and other social media which I’ll tell you about next.

Seventh, the people on twitter, pinterest and other social media sights are there, for the most part, because they want to sell you something. They are not there to retweet your marvels because they believe in them or like them, nor to repin your wonders because they think that is the best thing they’ve ever seen. They are there because your business might be a candidate for buying their marketing services, SEO services, online marketing services, and other business skills services like training you in how to be in business. All these are great and much needed but you are likely to need them when you don’t have any money from your business and by the time you do have business sales with the money to get their services, you probably have passed the point of giving a damn about whether you are getting that part right or not. And, likely don’t need them, either.

Eighth, you’d think that stores, manufacturers and other commercial businesses could use whatever your business is offering and it is probably true. They could fall into the category with family for the extent to which they act like whatever you are offering is useless or of a value that you should give it to them for free and be grateful they were willing to take it from you at all. But, they are in a category by themselves because all these businesses are overwhelmed with their own competitive streak in the marketplace and to them, no matter what you are offering – you are a competitor or worse, trying to waste their time selling them something. They are more likely to steal it when you’ve walked out the door after saying they aren’t interested and that is true regardless of how you approach them, unless you bring an army of agents and attorneys with you that you can’t afford.

Ninth, not to be outdone, local businesses want to believe their time is even more valuable than big companies and since each owner has 100,000 times more things to do in any given moment than anyone working in a large corporation, they may be accurate in believing that. They nearly all share the idea that whatever you offer, it has to be overpriced, untrustworthy, untried, unreliable, unbelievable, unlikely and unsatisfactory or you wouldn’t be coming to them to try and sell it. That is especially true if you aren’t already the place they are used to buying from – no matter what it is or how much they need it. And, obviously if you are starting your business, they couldn’t be buying anything from you yet, so there you go.

Tenth, just in case you thought that actually leaves anybody that you could sell your products or services to, you would be right. There are three people in the world besides you that would love your product or service, would believe it is wonderful and be willing to spend their money to get it and be grateful to have it. Those three people do not include you and I’m not being a smartass about it. This is simple statistics – out of 7 billion people more or less, there must be three that would like it and want to buy it and be willing to pay for it. That is good to know, but you can’t build a business or profits from three people, let alone find them among that many people. Even narrowing it down by country, market, strata of buyers for certain things, season or proximity, is still beyond daunting and you would need to get your products and services in front of them at the point when they want to buy for it to matter.

Now, I know that whether it is home parties that sell certain products, or life insurance and car sales people, or any other type of business, the first thing they want to do is list all the people they know or that the person they are selling to also knows to use as referrals. And, if you make that list and have someone else approach those people you know or that are your family members – AND – if they didn’t know it was actually your company, they would probably buy some of the products or services your business is offering. Possible.

Getting written up in a nice newspaper or magazine article might help get your products, services and business in front of the three people in the world that are sure to want and need what you are offering and let them know it is available to them. It could. And a few other people might see the article and accidentally tell somebody about what they read, who will possibly buy from your business – eventually. Don’t hold your breath.

And, not to be despondent about it nor malevolent either, none of the facts above mean anything about the value of your business or you or your product or your service or your credibility or your value or your business’ value or your products’ value or damn well anything. But it is really hard not to take it that way. The fact is, all of those truths above say more about the people and groups of people doing things that way than it does about you or your business or anything your business is offering. There is a reason that advertising costs so much – it not only provides access to a certain demographic and number of audience members but it also provides the opportunity to get in front of them in a way for you to choose what to say, how to show your product fitting into their lifestyle and identity, how to provide your products’ benefits and solutions to their problems.

Unless you have taken out a business loan or taken on investors where some real advertising budget is available, that option is probably not accessible for your startup. Some startups use a guerrilla marketing style plan with enough ingenuity to get their products in front of people who want to buy it, but their plans fail with as much regularity as they succeed – so keep that in mind. And, with enough efforts being made to run around doing guerrilla marketing as time consuming as that and social media are, you won’t have to worry about doing your primary business or providing your product or service to the public because you won’t have the time or energy to do so.

Lastly, no matter where you put your product, your service, your business, your story about it in front of people online or in the real world, it won’t be what they are looking for when they find it which amounts to no more than a bother as far as they are concerned. By the time they decide that they want or need it or both and want to buy it, they won’t even remember where to find it, what your name is, what your business is called, where they saw it or where they might find it now that they want to buy from you. And, every time you hear that a small business or a startup can take anywhere from three to seven years to break even and be in the black, remember – that really means you taking money from your own pocket or from potential future sales by taking out loans to pay for working overtime every day of the week to have a business that isn’t earning any money until it does. And since nearly every business relies on sales to earn money and make a profit, refer back to the list above.

  • cricketdiane, 05-06-2016

**

Share this:

  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • More
  • Print
  • Reddit

Like this:

Like Loading...

Leadership and Deceitfulness is not the same – Leadership and Dictatorship is not the same – and America isn’t yours to run – its ours (which simply includes you in that, too.)

29 Monday Sep 2008

Posted by CricketDiane in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

American citizenship, American Revolutionary War, ancient sea, bailouts, banking, bonds, Capitalism, commercial paper, commodities, conflicts of interest in US Congress, corruption and abuse of authority, counterfeit securities, credit default swaps, Cricket Diane C Sparky Phillips, cricketdiane, currency, Economics, Economy, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship, financial derivative instruments, financial derivatives, free market economy, Freedom, Freedom of Thought, global economic crisis, Global Economy, Illuminati of One, International Concerns, investment banking, Leadership, life in America, living in USA, Macro-economics future forecasting, Money, mortgage backed securities, Principles of Economics, Reality-based Analysis, socialism, Statistical Analysis, stock market, United States of America, US bailout plan, US Congress, US Constitution, US economic crisis, US Government, US government bailout, US government policy, Wall Street, We Come Bearing Gifts

This is why we don’t study this economics stuff in classrooms. We study it in the real world and teach it in classrooms.

It is not whether anyone has worked in the public sector before or has that experience from which to draw. It is in whether anyone has ever experienced being homeless and out of work, without opportunities and enslaved by poverty and despotism. That is the experience it takes to know why it is so very critical to have done the right things in the right ways before this and certainly, now that we are here.

The practices of our “financial class,” bankers, investment houses, Wall Street, speculators and their friendly Congressional legislators have burned down the framework of freedom and prosperity in America long before today. It is why today, we have their results and the crises it has caused that is before us to solve. We have America’s economy to rebuild and opportunity to be restored.

I know why it was critical and important to work on getting changes made to this many months and years before today ever came because of two things, 1.) It didn’t have to be this way and, 2.) I personally know the damage their way of doing things has caused. Now, they’ve spread those results out to a greater population, who is already experiencing it this very minute. I know what that is and what could’ve been done to avert it, while you and your colleagues along with every trader, banker and politician were saying, “it is all fine, everything is just fine.”

So, from the real world I learned the tangible costs of Wall Street having the run of our government and their demand that leadership equals dictatorship. I know what leadership is in a nation of freedoms, rights and opportunities to prosper equally guaranteed to all under a government of representation serving her people. I’ve seen what can happen with that and what has happened without it. The difference lends to us the results from histories of oppression and economic insolvency throughout time and around the world that we now have unfolding here.

Genuine leadership in America has integrity, not pretense, because it answers to the people of America that it serves. Regardless of one’s background, status, nationality, religion, race, gender, age or “wholeness” by some prescribed measure, each and every American individually and as a nation, serves America.

Everyone, whether citizen by birth or oath, or simply physically standing in our nation, is governed by consent of the governed, and nothing else. Not by law, nor decree, nor by money, nor status, nor even by principle are we governed – only, and always only, by our consent. That was the decree of freedom that made this country and it is the truth even today.

There is nothing else that makes it work and nothing else that will work for very long because we have tasted freedom, died for it, lived for it, endured for it and will always fight for it. To not have freedom, rights, opportunities, equality and the possibility of prosperity makes living and enduring any difficulty immeasurable and filled with sorrows.

I know. I have lived in an America without freedom – have you?

Written by Cricket Diane C “Sparky” Phillips, 09-29-08, USA

Share this:

  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • More
  • Print
  • Reddit

Like this:

Like Loading...

Blogroll

  • CricketD's Got No Money Guide Series by CricketDiane
  • Got No Money Guides by Cricket Diane C Phillips on wordpress
  • New Visual and Adaptive Living Tools Blog
  • WordPress.org
  • www.patents.com

Cricketdiane Stuff Found Here

  • A Adaptive Living Tools Store
  • A CricketDiane Cricket House Studios Store
  • A CricketDiane's Men's Ugly Ties
  • A Custom Design Palette Store
  • A Extreme Designs
  • AA – New CricketDiane Website
  • Cricket Diane C Phillips Creating Art – CricketHouseStudios
  • Cricket Diane’s Ocean Paintings and Art Cards 2007
  • CricketD's Got No Money Guide Series by CricketDiane
  • CricketDiane at Twitter
  • CricketDiane Got No Money Guide Series
  • CricketDiane New York City Walkabout Nifty Stuff
  • CricketDiane on Facebook
  • CricketDiane on Pinterest
  • Cricketdianes deviantart gallery
  • New Visual and Adaptive Living Tools Blog
  • New York City Cricket Guide
  • New York City Outsiders Guide by CricketDiane
  • New York Walkabout
  • The America the Beautiful Show blog by CricketDiane
  • The America the Beautiful Show Channel at YouTube
  • YouTube CricketDiane, Cricket House Studios – Videos

Top Posts

  • What would we do without gasoline?
  • Ocean Waves Painting Titled - Gentle Waves On The Sand - Cricket Diane C Phillips - Cricket House Studios - 2008
  • What are they doing? - this is a national emergency with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico - not a Sunday outing
  • Solutions - Ways to remove heavy metals / pollutants from water and soil, a new light bulb, materials science conferences - First International Conference on Materials for Energy July 4 - 8 , 2010 looking for participants, places to find science and chemistry - aeronautics jobs / employment opportunities and other great nifty science stuff and places to find things / information / resources / opportunities -
  • Strange Conspiracy in a Land of Freedom, Honor and Integrity 4 - Washington and what human rights and civil rights are? Have our leaders ever had integrity, decency and honor?
  • Space Programs - NASA - China's Moon Exploration - Russian satellite launch system - space elevator - new NASA focus - President Oama speaking at NASA tomorrow
  • Raw Data - nuclear terrorism and stuff - unseparated
  • Nuclear weapons proliferation -
  • The Racism and Classism of Color in Design

New Cricket House Studios – cricketdiane stuff

  • Corruption of President’s Actions Affects US and the International Community -Ukraine Transcript IS Proof
  • DNI Maguire Broke The Law For His Own Fealty To The President – Arrest Him Like Any Of The Rest Of Us Would Be
  • “Moscow Mitch” Soybeans and Aluminum
  • US Congress Party Control 1965 – 2019
  • Nifty New Products and an Amazing Rainbow Tie I Forgot That I Created – Cool
  • And another thing
  • Hurricane Florence in Real Time Live Streaming Cams Plus Helpful Info
  • Hurricane Update Sites – Hurricane Florence
  • Customizing Rainbow Pop Art Wall Decal Design Makes Amazing New Choices
  • Interesting Independent Designer Products You Can Buy Online
  • Elsewhere
  • Ocean Beach Posters for Beach Decor by CricketDiane and Cricket House Studios
  • Little Donnie Dare Trump limericks for the Resistance – SecondCivilWarLetters 4th of July 2018
  • Why the rights of citizens are in jeopardy in the United States right now
  • Introducing the Little Shop Out Back Preview for Studios of CricketDiane Art and New Ocean Paintings

Cricket Diane

  • 5 Nerdy Goodies that are Geeky Gifts I’ve Designed on Zazzle
  • About Cricket Diane
  • Archives Cricket House Studios
  • CricketDiane in the Studio Working
  • CricketDiane Surface Design Products
  • Got No Money Guides by Cricketdiane
  • International concerns – Mideast
  • Ocean Paintings
  • Private Equity Purchase of Toys R Us Required Toys R Us to Pay the Full Price of Being Bought – Is that Right?

Archives

  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • June 2019
  • December 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • September 2007
  • June 2007
  • April 2006

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
%d bloggers like this: