by Joseph Graves | Jan 23, 2014 | 30 Day Blog Challenge, Articles
A Little History
For those of you unfamiliar with my (Joe’s) other life, I’ve spent the last 12 years (until Tuesday that is) as an investment adviser helping clients prepare for and maintain their retirement. While researching investments, I had the opportunity to acquire knowledge about a wide range of topics from a diverse mix of sources. Initially the focus was specific companies, then it expanded and I began to look at entire industries, and ultimately the economy as a whole. Along the way, I started sense that something was missing; an important piece to the puzzle that was being ignored.
That missing piece was and is local investing.
The Key
Most of the reasons for local investing are beyond the scope of this post, but one important factor is the re-circulation (or local multiplier) rate. The re-circulation rate is one measurement used to determine how long money stays in a community (and gets reused over and over); since the turn of the century it’s fallen from 25-30, to less than 10. A declining rate is like ajr slowly leaking from a tire, if not fixed it goes flat. With a city or town, it’s how they lose their vibrancy. Reversing that trend is why I decided to leave my primary profession and why I bought Workshed with Brian.
How Will That Help?
You might be wondering how a website/ marketing company can help fix the economy. By working with local businesses and entrepreneurs directly (at Workshed) we are able to see first hand what is working, what is missing, and what’s needed to operate a sustainable (as in earning enough money to stay in business) business. Access to capital is part of that equation, but so is access to the knowledge, wisdom, and experience of others. With every project, we learn a little more about how to make that happen and can share it with past and future clients. So far, we’ve achieved modest success with the client’s we’ve worked with, and our work is positively contributing to their sales!
If you need help with something business related give us a call, we don’t have all the answers, but so far we haven’t been stumped.
But Wait There is More!
And another thing, don’t let cost be an issue. We won’t do a project if we don’t think it will generate a positive return for our clients and we are willing to offer payment arrangement to accommodate most budgets.
GIVE US A CALL
by Joseph Graves | Jan 22, 2014 | 30 Day Blog Challenge, Articles
Computer code touches nearly every aspect of our modern lives. Even if you don’t plan on making a living by writing it, it’s probably a good idea to at least have a basic understanding of what’s going on. Heck, you might even enjoy it.
One [free] resource I’ve used is Code Academy. They do a great job of breaking the lessons down into easily digestible chunks with exercises to help you understand what’s going on.
Give it a try and let us know what you think. You never know, maybe you have a talent for the binary?
by Joseph Graves | Jan 21, 2014 | 30 Day Blog Challenge, Articles
A Small Investment in Time
There are many ways to improve how you operate a business. One of the easiest ways is to learn from others, it’s also the cheapest…especially if you use the library. Fortunately, most great business books don’t come from Harvard and many of them could be read in a weekend.
Obviously this list is only a start, but if you read just these three and applied just some of what they say, your business would be better for it. Heck, I’d even have your employees read them…but maybe that’s another post?
What books have changed the way you work?
by Joseph Graves | Jan 19, 2014 | 30 Day Blog Challenge, Articles
Get out of your own way
Sometimes we get in our own way and limit what we are capable of doing to what our perception is of what we should be doing. Often this is defined as being realistic or reasonable. But ask yourself, when has greatness ever been achieved through being realistic? Was it realistic for Edison to fail 10,000 times before finding a filament that would work in the light bulb? Is it reasonable to invest your entire (considerable) fortune to sell shoes online as Tony Hsieh did with Zappos? How reasonable was it for anyone that’s done anything of significance, to do so before they were successful?
Sometimes you just have to be unrealistic. Sure, failure is always a possibility and so is success, but only if you are willing to be a bit unreasonable once in a while.
Being realistic is the most common path to mediocrity.
-Will Smith
Always go with your passions. Never ask yourself if it’s realistic or not.
-Deepak Chopra
Today, let’s take a step away from rational thought and dare to be bold. What’s one thing you’ve always wanted to accomplish but have been afraid to pursue?
Write it down. Also write down the obstacles in your way of reaching your goal. Finally, write down a tangible plan to overcome each obstacle.
The only thing left is to, you know, actually go make it happen. What are you waiting for?
-Matt Cheuvront
I don’t think anything is unrealistic if you believe you can do it.
-Richard L Evans
You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
-Eleanor Roosevelt
What would you do differently if being realistic wasn’t holding you back?
Reply in the comments below or send me an email, I’d love to hear from you.
by Joseph Graves | Jan 17, 2014 | 30 Day Blog Challenge, Articles
Letting Go
You may think of “letting go” as something that applies to you emotionally rather than in business, but that’s really not the case. Many people who have been dedicated industry professionals for years have a hard time letting go. They get comfortable in the way they do things and that can really hurt a business or at the very least, stunt it’s growth.
The fact of the matter is, in order to move forward in business – just as in any part of our lives – we have to be willing to let go of the things that don’t serve us anymore.
This applies to more than just policy and procedure…it applies to the way you position yourself in your industry as well. Forward thinking and innovation have cornered the market and if you can’t keep up you will be left behind.
It’s not always easy implementing new procedures, and learning to use new tools can be frustrating at first, but the reward is worth it. Streamlining your business will never be something that you regret and being open to new ideas, well…as Albert Einstein so eloquently put it:
The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.
by Joseph Graves | Jan 13, 2014 | 30 Day Blog Challenge, Articles, Marketing, Technology, Tools, Uncategorized
A website can truly be an interactive portal into your business. However, there are millions of websites out there, so how do people find yours?
The answer is, they may not need to. One way to put a face to a name is by using facebook. Facebook is the modern day version of “Word of Mouth”. By engaging in social media, businesses suddenly become more trustworthy, approachable and friendly. This personal interaction enables you to provide information that is both relevant and up to date to an audience that has already asked for it!
If people have liked your page, it is a place to present your goods and services to an audience who already trusts you and it’s free. Also, with more and more analytics available to businesses, it’s a user friendly and almost immediate source to see what is working with the public and what isn’t.
When you are using facebook effectively, you may be able to eliminate the need to drive traffic to your website and maybe even tap into a market that you may not have been able to crack before. All this without them having to move a virtual muscle!
While there is no one tool that works for every business, facebook is a way for people you know and who know you (or know someone who knows you) to find your needle in the proverbial haystack.
