Do you have these challenges running your business?

Challenges:

Building business in a 3^rd World Country!

I just had my work-flow disrupted because I have NO electricity.  I know what you are thinking, but you would be wrong, I did PAY my electricity bill. The issue is when you work your business from a 3^rd world country (what-ever that means- maybe a future blog) you have challenges. Believe me this is not the first time. I am walking out of my house right now and going to sit here and finish this blog. My air-conditioning also is off and according to what I know the temperature is 95 F outside but that is a lot better then inside the house as it might rise to 100 F.  But how do I handle these sometimes daily occurrences is what makes the difference.

A Real Life Example!

I have been in a middle of a video conference with some highly influential individuals and my internet goes down. Since I have digital phone number to the USA, guess what my phone goes down as well. They just saw me “disappear” from my  meeting and I can’t call them from my cell phone because it would be extraordinarily expensive as it is over $2.50 US dollars and some meetings last two hours, sorry but I do have a budget and that is not going to happen, unless under very important circumstances.  Now as a human being my virtual stress meter just shot up to a very high level.  I can just say “ I give up, I can’t do business here” – which by the way I have said a few times already or I can learn from this. How can I learn from this?

Pre-Plan and Stay Calm

I just lost connection with people that I am meeting with, what are they thinking, do they think that I just hung up and left my own meeting.  At first they did think that, but after this happened a few times before I get onto any call using video or phone, I tell them point blank- that I sometimes do have issues with electricity and internet connection, please bear with this situation if this does happen. If this does occur in this call, I have a back-up plan and I will get back to the meeting as quickly as I can. If you don’t see me back in 15 min, please note we might need to reschedule this.

I then will attempt to connect with the portable modem I have, or race to my mother and father in laws house , one mile away and connect there,  go to the church office, and or go to a public place that has wi-fi connection. This can be an extra challenge as if I do go to a public place it can take a good 15 min to get set up again and login to go back to the meeting. Today, I can’t do that as I have a person coming over in a little bit and I can’t leave them here in my house while I go off and find a connection.

Duck Analogy!

One of my good friends, who went into ministry after many successful years as a broker/owner of a large satellite office for a large insurance company told me once.  You have to remain calm, no matter what you are going through at the time. You have to stay professional at any cost. If you do, you will be more successful in the long run. He explained to me and gave me an analogy that I still remember 12 years later.

Be Like a Duck

Be like a duck! A Duck, what does that have to do with business? He told me that on the surface when you look at a duck (being from Minnesota originally, I have seen lots of them) when they are swimming they are very calm, their heads are up, they look like they are just gliding on top of the water effortlessly. However, if you dip your head into the water near their flowing body, you will find that their two little webbed feet are frantically working to create that glide-like motion.

Right now since this just happened, I need to make a decision. I need to make sure that I can work without using the internet, thus this blog post, which was actually going to be worked on later today, I just did it now. I had this on my to-do list, so I knew it had to be done, so I just moved this up to a higher priority. Just re-arrange my schedule plans.

“JUST DO IT”- NIKE

So just like Nike has said for many years – JUST DO IT.  Or as the late Jim Rohn said in a talk he gave that was published on Youtube – Just Do it, and Do it, and Do it. When you get to where you want to be or the goals you have set for yourself or your company you just keep on doing it. Do it till you no longer are alive.  He was talking about even when someone who has achieved a rung in the corporate ladder or just won an award for achievement based on excellence he would congratulate them and say Just Do it.

Plan of Action

What we Do is really up to us, we know what we need to do every day, we know what our unproductive hours are and what are productive hours are, or at least we should. We know that if we don’t do it every day as business owners and professionals we are not going to thrive. Building a business from day one is not easy, sometimes not fun, sometimes very challenging, but we as entrepreneurs know this is the journey we must take; this is the path we must walk.  We need be calm like the duck and show others that we are professionals. I remember what Toyota used as their “tag line” in the Super Bowl commercial a few years back that I really liked “ Keep moving forward “! Or my good friend David Whiteford a Champlain for the Hennepin jail district and former business owner said all the time- “keep on keeping on”-

PS. Want to do more with your time on a daily basis, you might want to take a look at this, for me it was a no-brainer and I use it every day , as long as I have internet connection that is. http://www.globalbusiness101.com – let me know what you think of this or of this blog, comments are very much appreciated.

P.P.S.  Oh by the way , waited for one hour, still no electricity, waited for the person that was going to come over, told her to leave nothing she could do anyways. I went to brother in law to get my older cell phone since the day before I dropped it in the ocean taking cool pictures of my son and does not work. Brother in law gave my old cell to his son which of course he was not there. Went back, locked house, went to Pizza Hut in town to do finish this blog and also have many more email’s to send and calls to make using Google Voice through Wi-Fi, see if that works.  My appointment that I had set up a time to talk to, emailed me and called me, so I have to reschedule our time together, I am sure he will understand.  You guys who live in the USA and other developed countries take so much for granted, I am saying this with tongue in cheek, I also did when I was there.

What a Journey!

The Journey- It is in all of us!

My family took a trip to the beach recently, for relaxation and much needed time to be with each other and have some fun in the process. There is nothing better than a mini vacation. I of course had to the do all the driving. So since we were only going to stay for one night due to other family duties back at the church which is almost like a business with all the to do items that need to be done before the next weekends services, we decided to leave a 5 AM so we could get there before the rooms were ready and spend all day. I have to admit, I also went there so that I could do possible business with this resort, but that might be for my next post.

The journey started off with good intentions.. However, the 5:00 wake up time, turned more like 5:30 Am- our family was going to meet us at the church as a central place and then we were going to drive up to the resort, following each other so that if something happened, we could help each other.

We got everything packed and then had to wait for someone, not from my family but my extended family. They were ready, but not ready to leave just yet. We finally got on the road about 45 min after we planned. We took it in stride, it was just part of the journey and we knew it.

Right away, when we stopped to fill up gas, I had to put in a little oil and some brake fluid, then I remembered something as my wife asked me, if I put the spare tire back underneath the vehicle, I had to admit that was one thing that I didn’t do. I had asked my brother in law for the tools earlier in the week which I did and he forgot to give them to me. So we had to make this trip without a spare tire, which is not necessarily a good plan.

After the long 4 hour drive, we finally arrived. However on the journey, we could have went a bit faster but would have missed some really beautiful scenery as we driving and avoiding the potholes and other crazy drivers that would pass on a no passing zone.  It was fun to actually talk about personal stuff , instead of business stuff, even though there was a mixture of both. % fell more on the personal then the business so that was refreshing.

I also noticed something that I have observed a few times before. When you set out on your journey, you plan what you are going to do, when you are going to get some place, where you are going to go, what you are going to do, but sometimes that will change. I also noticed that the journey to an unknown destination seems to take longer, you are always looking for what is around the next corner, and you are always wondering when you are getting closer to your destination. However when you return from your trip and go back to your home, the trip seems to go faster, the trip that took hours doesn’t seem like it was the same amount of time that it was getting to the destination. It seems like everything goes faster when you get back to something familiar.

What does this have to do with Business? Well everything. When you start out in your business you have grand plans, you know what you are going to do, whom you are going to do this with (your perfect client- target) and how you will get to that final destination, usually it is a financial figure. However, as you start rolling out your business and doing what is necessary to spread the word about you and what you do, it becomes more of a journey. You over that course of time- could be 6 months, 2 years, 5 years or more that you meet people that you have never met before that can and will help you grow your business. You might have had a few bumps in this journey but that is okay, some misdirection and potholes are expected when you go on this journey. But if you continually go forward and learn from this journey you will become a better person in the long run. 

We want everything to happen instantly, that is the culture of us growing up in a society that teaches us through media, internet, tv, radio, even schools. But we know as well as anyone that journeys  will take some time, it will take some effort. However, when you journey is completed you will know it and you will be happier because of it. 

Don’t think of a journey as a bad thing, it is not. All successful men and women I know went on their own personal journeys and now they are happy they did go through it all, because it matters to them and people that know them, how awesome a trip it really was as they recall their journey to others that want to learn from their experiences.

Team Work and a great Feature with G+ and Blogger

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New Years with your family and friends. My motto for 2013 is going to be "Be free in '13".

I was very busy in December and I did not have a chance to even do a post for this blog. What can I say, I was traveling a lot and the internet was a bit slow to be able to do this, I was with family most of the time and that was worth it. I know being in business- balance is key- but that is for another blog down the road.

However, with that said my goal is to do one of these blogs a week. I will talk about more tools that you can use using our new system from my team that is going to be released soon, I am creating new videos right now that I will share with you here on the blog.

Back to team work. I wanted to let you know my brother in law a few weeks back did a very fun exercise. He told all of us to go back to the room and each person stand on a tile. Note the tile is a regular size tile and each person would stand on it. He then said , everyone that is on a square, invite another person to your square and make sure you feet are within the square no part of people can touch or be outside of that square.

With 2 people in a square it is very tough, but then he went one step further. Everyone that is in a square with  2 invite another person in to your square. We now have 3 people in this square. Then he did this until we had 5 people in the little square. What does this have to do with team work? Well, try it, you have to rely on everyone in that square, you need to be close to each other, you need to hold each other accountable to make you don't fall off that square. You need to be creative in understanding how each of you works to hold everything together. You have to keep holding each other physically in order for all of you not to topple over.

Many people have asked me, how did some people get 5 people in the square, well what I didn't tell you is that some people had kids and guess where the kids went? The men put them on top of their shoulders, thus gaining more space in the square. So even the little ones can help your team more then you think. Don't ever eliminate people from your team because you don't think they will ever do anything, those are the ones that more then likely will help you in the future.

If you enjoyed this, please pass on to your colleagues, they will be very happy that you thought of them, especially if they want the perfect team in their business or organization.

PS. Bonus info:

+Preston Odenbrett or @ and your profile name also works.

Yes you can now add this to a blog. Meaning that instead of creating a bunch of your graphics from your website and add it to the blog, you can now add your profile from G+. Meaning that you can create postings without trying to get all the pictures in here.

If you have not filled out your profile on G+ you might want to consider to do this.


Go ahead click on my profile to learn more- I hope I can help you now or into the very near future. God Bless and have a great day. Remember " If you don't learn every day, you die'! -unknown

Check out our free, no cost tools that are going to be launched very soon from a team I have been working with for quite some time - please review- If you pre-register please let me know what you would like to do. Level 1- just want to use these tools, Level 2- help me make money by helping other business owners. Please include your name and email address you registered so I can give you my "personal attention" - I already have over 100 people that have registered and I can only work with a % of them, but will help anyone that has a will and drive to succeed in '13.

Be Free in Be Free in 2013

Note: I am an independent assoicate for both Iwowwe and smashsolutions