Want To Learn More About Earning Additional Income?Monday, July 31, 2006One of my goals this year was to create an alternate stream of income. This goal has eluded me so far. It is not that I do not have ideas and even a product to sell. I am not focused on this goal and I am not taking incremental steps towards reaching this goal. I told you I would confess? I mean tell you about my progress on my goals. Well, creating an alternate stream of income is one where I need encouragement. My wife hit me hard this weekend as I complained about my lack of focus and even passion for any of the ideas I have cooking. She told me I should concentrate on marketing the product that we already have created. I said that it would be too much of a time commitment for her. I want her to reach a goal of finishing the first draft of her new fantasy novel. She did not let me off the hook and went on to convince me that it was my issue. Ouch! I hate it when it hurts. I also know it is when I am about to change my mindset into one of productivity and ultimately success. Today I need to finish one task, take one step towards marketing and ultimately selling the product we have finished. We are selling the product, but not as much as it could and should be selling. I have often considered spending more time on this site writing about ways to create alternate streams of income, particularly in the blogosphere and the internet as a whole. There are some really great internet marketers out there that have figured out how to get more traffic to your site, how to build websites, how to get your pages indexed in Google, how to sell information products on the web, etc. The list goes on. These are things you can do at your own pace and require as much time as you want to put into it. Obviously the more time, typically the greater reward. If you are interested in making additional income from the internet, let me know. Email me or leave me a comment. I really need your feedback, especially from my regular readers. posted at 7/31/2006 08:00:00 AM | 4 comments links to this post |
Don't Underestimate What You Can DoFriday, July 28, 2006I am not sure if we were taught to live within the box as children or if corporate life helped define the walls that trap us. I am sure some of you had parents that taught you that the sky is the limit. Some of you were taught that the sky is falling. Public school never did much to help me live outside of the box. Then again, neither did my parents. They remained very much in their comfort zone. I often ask my wife where I came from. I have never accepted that there is an imaginary boundary between me and the rest of the world. Deep inside of me lives the desire to reach my full potential. I am not there yet, but I will not rest until I get there. I can't accept the status quo. I see potential wherever I go. Carpe Diem is in my soul. I am not always successful, but my failures have taught me so much. I believe the best thing that happened to my second business venture was that it failed. I truly believed I was propelled to a different level of understanding as a result. Had it not failed, I would not have missed out on some important lessons that I needed to learn. These are lessons that I now carry forward to help me stay out of the box; willing and ready to accept the next challenge. 17 years ago, I was a song writer wannabe. Music was in my soul. I was getting married and the prospects of making a decent living writing music was bleak. I had a degree in Music Education and a resume that included several years of working retail selling appliances and electronics on commission. I did this as I chased my musical dreams. Not an impressive resume. In 1989, I quit my retail job to join a small company that sold home computers. Most people did not own a home computer in 1989, so I felt the opportunity was wide open. My first day I was greeted by the hiring manager and was informed that the two partners had a fight. She told me that she last saw some of the office computers being carried down the elevator by one of the partners. Not a great start I thought. The partner that stayed in the office and I talked several days later. He showed me the software that he was writing for a music booking agency. I was very intrigued. I was also out of a job before it even started. I asked him if I could play around with the program to learn more about programming. About a week later I bought my first PC, a 10mhz machine with 10 MB (not GB) hard drive and a 5 � floppy drive. I paid $1700.00 for it. Ouch! I started to teach myself how to program. I decided not to look for another job and live on fumes as I concentrated 8-10 hours a day on my new craft. I bought books, magazines anything I could get my hands on. After 8 months my wife and I were ready to experience a financial train wreck. We could no longer live on my wife's paycheck and so I got another retail job to pay the bills. This decision was hard for me mentally. I felt like I had taken a huge step backwards. Depression and feelings of inadequacy set in. I whined to my wife ad naseum about how I was going no where. One bleak morning at the furniture store, one of the corporate auditors arrived. After a morning of clicking on his calculator, he and I finally struck up a conversation about programming. I quickly discovered that he had a fair amount of programming experience. Then - the defining moment. He asked me why I was working in a used furniture store and not programming. He seemed incredulous. Why? How could I get a job as a programmer with a resume like mine? I had no experience and the boundary between me and a job in the corporate world was not something I had considered to be imaginary. I was limiting myself and not even aware of it. I told my wife what he said and eventually after another round of whining, she asked me when I was going to stop complaining go get a job as a programmer. I was afraid of being rejected. My wife's tough love helped me to search the paper for entry level jobs. After several months, I was hired as a programmer for a small company and offered less than I was making selling furniture. I didn't care about the salary. I saw the opportunity to get in the door that I thought was locked. I was excited. A year later I was asked to create a software development group and manage them. That was 16 years ago. The rest is history. Even though I lived outside of the box 16 years ago, it was easy to let disappointment and frustration stymie me. Never underestimate what you can do. I could never have imagined being where I am today, 16 years ago. I know I can't picture where I will be 16 years from today. As long as I refuse to live in my comfort zone, I will continue to grow. I will enjoy the benefits associated with thinking beyond what I can see. posted at 7/28/2006 08:00:00 AM | 2 comments links to this post |
Carve Your NicheThursday, July 27, 2006Do you feel like your career is not progressing as quickly as you would like it to? You are not alone. Many talented people hit a bottleneck and become frustrated. They know that they have much more to offer, but somehow they think they do not have the opportunity that others seem to have. When someone has the talent to significantly impact an organization and stays in the same stale position for years, it is often not a management failure. The key to career growth is somehow eluding them. If this situation applies to your situation or someone you know, I have some good news. Marketers solved this problem years ago. They discovered that there are niche markets out there that remain relatively untapped by the big guys. These niche markets have huge potential for someone who wants to build a business. Corey Rudl, an internet marketer whose success caught my eye several years ago, described a $100,000 business he had created. It was an internet site that sold Porsche insignias. It might have been a similar car, I don't remember. People that own expensive cars often need to replace the insignias because they are stolen or get damaged. Corey worked hard to get a good price on these things. The dealers charged a fortune for them. He created a niche market that turned out to be quite lucrative. That was the start of his 40 million dollar empire. Unfortunately Corey tragically died in a car crash last June. He was racing the car he loved, a Porsche, when the driver lost control. He was only 34, but his accomplishments were incredible. Do you feel like you have something equivalent to a 40 million dollar empire trapped inside of you, but you are not able to give birth to it? Take a look at your career. Have you carved your niche? If you know your strengths and find a niche in your company you can have a huge impact. Look for something that has been overlooked. There are hundreds if not thousands of problems that do not get solved everyday. Look for a problem that no one else is trying to solve and go after it! Success is waiting for you. posted at 7/27/2006 08:00:00 AM | 0 comments links to this post |
Weekends Are For RelaxingSaturday, July 22, 2006How much work do you do over the weekends? Are you working all weekend? If so, how much extra are you getting paid to sacrifice your personal time? Are you being compensated to give up time for relaxation? I wonder how many professionals even consider if there is a return on investment for giving up their weekend. If you work for a well run company, you can trust that the executives are constantly calculating return on investment. So why are you not doing it as well? Let's say that you are working the weekend to help reach a goal for an annual bonus of $5000. While it is always great to get paid more, it is not always worth it. How many weekends have you worked during the year to reach that goal? How many evenings? How many hours a day do you work? Do the math. Figure out what you are worth on an hourly basis. For example if you are getting paid $50 an hour, how many extra hours does it take until you have worked for the bonus? Only 100 hours. Do you work 50 hours a week? It only took you 10 weeks to earn your bonus. But how more weeks, days and weekends did you actually put in? If you worked an additional 200 hours (not hard to do), that is $15,000. The $5000 bonus doesn't seem worth it now does it? Your actual loss does not stop at hours worked. You need to calculate your lost opportunity. You can bet your company does this.Why don't you? What could you have done with 300 extra hours in your life? Makes you think, doesn't it? posted at 7/22/2006 12:57:00 PM | 0 comments links to this post |
Fixing My AttitudeThursday, July 20, 2006Lately I have been struggling with my attitude. We all wrestle with our negative emotions. Here are a few quotes that I found that immediately resonated with me. Hope they help you today. "A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort." - Herm Albright "I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances." - Martha Washington "The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes of mind." - William James posted at 7/20/2006 08:00:00 AM | 2 comments links to this post |
Take Control of Your CareerWednesday, July 19, 2006It is 101 degrees outside with high humidity. There is nothing you can do but crank the air conditioner and watch movies or play games. It has been this way for several days and no relief tomorrow. Maybe some rain on Friday. Ever feel this way about your career? Have you ever gotten to a place where your environment just seems to hold you back? If not, you are lucky or young. No matter how much you love what you do, love the company you work for or love the business you own, things are stagnant. When you get in this place you need to ask yourself two questions. 1) Is this a sign that you are burning out? 2) Are you not being challenged enough? The latter is easier to deal with than the former. Burnout is rarely recoverable if you stay at the same company. I am not saying it is impossible, but not probable. Burnout is caused by reaching an apathetic state. You just do not care anymore. It is typically caused by poor management. I often tell people who feel like they are burned out that they need to move on to another role in the company or move on. If you are not feeling challenged, it is typically your problem. If your company is doing well, there should be plenty of opportunities. You need to find them. Don't let your boss get in the way. If he is holding you back, deal with it. You need to be aggressive and on the offensive. After repeated attempts to get your boss to support your goals and he is still unwilling to work with you, fire him. Don't stay with a boss that is not your champion. I hear so much whining about how bad bosses treat people and wreck careers, etc. Take control of your own career. There are some good books out there about how to fire your boss. I'll dig them up and mention them in my next post. You need to love what you do and be the best. Those are achievable goals if you have the desire to reach them. Think I might head to the pool this evening! posted at 7/19/2006 08:00:00 AM | 0 comments links to this post |
My Experience with VonageThursday, July 13, 2006Well, after several months after converting my household to Vonage as our phone company, I am pleased to report that the major telephone companies have something to be concerned about. Vonage reliability has been excellent. Of course this is a reflection on my cable company, Comcast. Comcast keeps our internet connection up around 99% of the time the best I can calculate. For home use, that is completely acceptable. We have three cell phones, so there are other ways we can work an outage. However, we have not had an outage that has kept us from making a call. The cost is exceptional. Since I cancelled service with my major phone company, they have sent me biweekly offers trying to suck me back into paying more for fewer services. Every time I read one of their offers, I chuckle and toss it in the garbage. For those of you who are looking for an internet phone company, Vonage has surpassed my expectations. My wife loves getting voicemail in her inbox and I can see how we are doing with our total minutes with several clicks. If you do not want to manage your minutes, then the unlimited plan will more than pay for itself. We have a combination of long distance and local free minutes between our cell phones and our Vonage line that currently exceeds what we could use. Here is the breakdown: 800 anytime minutes with cell service (Sprint). This includes long distance, local, roaming, and unlimited internet on my Treo. I get email on my phone. This also includes free Sprint cell phone to Sprint cell phone calls and nights starting at 7:00 p.m. and all day Saturday and Sunday. That is a lot of free calling. 500 anytime minutes with Vonage. This includes all of the features you pay extra for with the big guys such as call waiting, caller-id, three-way calling and some other features that traditional phone companies simply cannot offer. These are basic plans and low cost. The alternatives to traditional phone monopolies, sorry, companies are only getting better. Check out Sun Rocket as well as Vonage. I hear it is a great service as well. Vonage gets an "A-" overall. It would earn a solid "A" if the customer support was not in India. My name is not Mr. Eric. It is Mr. Boehme or just Eric. A bit of a cultural chasm. posted at 7/13/2006 08:00:00 AM | 3 comments links to this post |
Still Too Many MeetingsWednesday, July 12, 2006Despite all that has been written and proselytized about how to have productive meetings, my experience in the conference rooms has changed little over the years. It doesn?t seem to matter the size of the organization or the efforts put forth educating the work force. There are still too many meetings and most of them are not as productive as they need to be. Can you relate? If not, please leave a comment and share your experiences with functional, productive meetings. Why can?t we conquer this issue in the corporate world? People have become experts in teaching companies how to transform an hour meeting into day?s worth of productivity. They come and they leave. The responsibility to run consistently excellent meetings falls on management. As managers, we struggle with this. We often fail those whom we serve. Most meetings are scheduled to run one hour. I am not sure if Outlook has driven us to change what could be a 20 minute meeting into an hour, or we just feel like we cannot accomplish anything in less than an hour. Much of it is a result of our corporate culture. Rarely do I feel that my hour long meetings actually needed to last that long. If we followed the rules to run an effective meeting that are posted in the conference room, we might be more successful. So why do we succumb to our old habits and why do all stand around the water cooler griping about how many meetings we have to attend? I think as managers we have learned to thrive on it. Here is a confession as a manager. One of my employees once told me that the way managers justified their roles in the company was to make sure that their calendar was completely full of meetings. This employee clarified this claim by saying that if managers did not have all of the meetings to attend, what would they really do? Hmm. Perception is reality. What could I say other than, ?Yeah seems that way, doesn?t it.? posted at 7/12/2006 11:23:00 PM | 1 comments links to this post |
Where Do I Go From Here?Monday, July 10, 2006I have been in Information Technology (IT) management since 1990. In the IT world, most careers are born in the trenches, wiring network cable, configuring PCs, learning to write good software. Whether you end up a programmer or a network guru, eventually you reach a point in your career where you ask yourself what is next. Where do you go? Do you move into management? Do you become a hot-shot architect? My experience has been that many software developers remain developers. They become experts in certain technologies. Often they will become consultants or start their own business. They know that anything short of working with the technology is not going to keep the passion alive. Some leave the profession and sell real estate or move into business roles. Some get their MBAs and become CIOs (Chief Information Officer) or CTOs (Chief Technology Officer). Business is what keeps them fired up. Then there are developers or network engineers that do not want to program or tweak networks for the rest of their career. They naturally look towards becoming a manager. The management track has more opportunities for advancemnt. You can become a Director, Vice President, Senior Vice President, etc. When someone asks me to give them advice about their careers beyond the hands-on development world, I often ask how far they are willing to go. In management, the higher up the corporate ladder you climb, the greater the responsibility. With more corporate responsibility comes greater personal sacrifice. If you have a family, you have to consider your options very carefully. A VP title could cost you baseball games and evenings at the pool with your family. Are you ready to sacrifice personal for professional? After someone talks to me about their future, I can't help but wonder if I have just muddied the water even more for them. I dump on their lap a set of new things to consider. I speak from experience. I wish someone would have told me what the cost might be as I assumed more and more responsibility. No matter what field, if you are looking for the next opportunity for advancement, consider the cost versus benefit. You might find that the promotion you are about to take is not such a good return on investment. posted at 7/10/2006 08:00:00 PM | 1 comments links to this post |
Plan Your Work, Work Your PlanSaturday, July 08, 2006Several days ago, I drove by a bank that had a large sign in the front that read "Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan." I have often considered starting a blog about all of the ridiculous things people put on signs. You see them in front of restaurants, churches, and businesses. One of my favorite is "We have the coldest beer in town." It must be frozen. I read this quote before; however, there was something about seeing it plastered on a large sign that started me thinking. As I thought about it, I realized that many of us do a great job creating the perfect plan. We have everything planned to the minute. Our organizational skills are exceptional. Yet we never get accomplished what we planned. We don't work our plans. It is hard for us. Planning was great and rewarding. Executing to the plan is difficult. We can't get started or experience false starts. The frustration builds until we throw the plan away. We don't get the work done. We didn't reach our goal. Many of us can't plan what we are going to do during the next 3 hours. Looking a day in advance is tedious and makes our brains hurt. We force ourselves to plan less than 50% of our work and so we are already behind in reaching our goals. We execute well, though. We can nail that planned 50% and usually push out an extra 10%. We can deliver. To be successful we must master both the plan and the execution. Take a few minutes to figure out whether you are stronger at planning or working the plan. Perhaps you are like me and need to improve both planning and executing. I am going to go revisit my plan today and then see what I need to do! Join me? posted at 7/08/2006 09:04:00 AM | 1 comments links to this post |
Yes, You Need a MentorWednesday, July 05, 2006This is a short post for a short week. Have you had a mentor? Do you have one now? Getting the right mentor will propel your career forward by light years. Do not underestimate the power of being mentored by someone who has not only mastered your profession, but who can impart his knowledge. In the 90s, I was mentored by a businessman who would eventually become a business partner. I learned more from Jay in seven years than I could have learned from 20 years experience. By the time Jay was in his 30s he was responsible for quality for a well known American tool company. He was one of three candidates to become the new CEO of the company. He moved on and helped turn around a failing pen and eraser company. When he left that company, he was part of a dynamic executive management team that had turned this dying pen into a company they could no longer afford to buy. I spent many hours camping out in his office. He loved to talk about his success and all that he had accomplished. Even if it stroked his ego, I was there to capture every bit of it. He had an MBA and a minor in psychology. Those of you who know me understand the value I assign to understanding psychology as a manager. Do you have a mentor? If not, you are in the majority. Corporate America no longer places value in this invaluable relationship. David Maister has a phenomenal post that digs deeper into the end of apprenticeship (mentoring). I recommend reading his post "The End of Apprenticeship." posted at 7/05/2006 11:34:00 PM | 2 comments links to this post |
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