Start & Run a Real Home-Based Business. Dan Furman

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      To me, being an entrepreneur and owning a home-based business are more about mindset than anything else. In our “go to school then get a good job” culture, it takes a very special person to even think about going it alone. So you are to be commended for even reading this book. You are way ahead of most people in terms of motivation and ambition.

      However, motivation and ambition are not enough. Not by a long shot.

      In fact, in many ways, motivation and ambition can hurt a home-based business owner. This is because of a phenomenon I like to call the New Business Blinders. I want to discuss this right here in the beginning, because you’ll see the term crop up again in the pages that follow.

      The New Business Blinders are usually donned within a few weeks after making the decision to start a business. Once you reach the point of no return — the point where you decide that yes, you are going to start a home-based business — an order is put in for your blinders. You don’t need to do anything — the thoroughly evil Department of Business Failures handles this for you (how nice of them!). All you have to do is wait for your pair of blinders to show up, which is usually a short time after you have the initial details of your home-based business worked out.

      And trust me, they’ll be a perfect fit — unlike airline seats, one size truly does fit all.

      And they are so comfortable, you won’t want to remove them. They start working right away, but the minute you envision yourself and your home-based business succeeding is when the blinders really kick in.

      So, what do these blinders do (besides giving me a clever metaphor to write about)? Well, they do exactly what you think they do — they blind you to the obvious. Fueled by your motivation, hopes, dreams, and ambitions, your shiny New Business Blinders completely shut you off from logic and reason. And they do it without you noticing.

      You may not be old enough to remember I Love Lucy — well, neither am I really, but during the ’70s, it was on every weekday afternoon, which meant a child staying home from school could catch an episode. Since missing school was a popular pastime of mine, I am fairly familiar with the adventures of Lucy and Ethel. In one episode, Lucy and Ethel make and sell salad dressing. Hilarity ensues until Ricky does some basic math and finds out the girls are actually losing money on each jar. This is funny not only because of Lucy and Ethel’s solution (pretend the dressing is poison so people cancel their orders), but because their experience is so common. Not the poison part (even pretending to poison your customers is really bad for public relations, and not recommended), but the losing money part.

      It happens all the time — people start home-based businesses that actually lose money. They do this because they fail to take into account many of the expenses involved. The New Business Blinders are responsible for this.

      For example, in my first business, I sold a direct-mail coupon package. My “blinder moment” was when I failed to get an exact price for postage based on a prototype. My printer used a fairly heavy paper stock for the coupons (I didn’t even think of paper stock and weight, which was a huge error on my part). This doubled my postage cost over what I had anticipated. On 10,000 pieces, this cost turned out to be very, very high.

      My New Business Blinders were working quite well.

      I thought I was doing everything right — I was concerned about printing costs, first-class versus third-class postage, envelope stuffing costs, getting a shiny new computer (which was a big deal in 1992), making the coupons, selling them, etc. I even thought about the future, how my partner Jim and I would franchise our business model to other entrepreneurs and rule over a vast empire of direct-mail coupon businesses, which, now that I think about it, is almost absurd. Essentially, my goal was to be “King of the Free Pizza Coupons,” which sounds like something you’d dream about after eating too much candy.

      But in my zeal to storm the gates and crush the direct-mail competition, I neglected to make a real prototype out of actual materials and see what the costs would be. I just didn’t see the point in doing so. Dumb. And all too common.

      And, unlike Lucy, this wasn’t a hijinks jam that could be worked out in a half an hour. This was real, and I was in trouble. I essentially had to raise my price substantially in midcampaign. This meant that some people got my product at one price; others paid more. This angered some people when they found out. Oops.

      New Business Blinders do this. They cause you to ignore the obvious and see past the unpleasant.

      The blinders are not just cost related, either. Suppose you want to build a product and sell it. It’s not fun to think about “where will I get my materials, and what happens if that source dries up?” It’s much more fun to fantasize about shaking hands on a million dollar deal and getting fitted for a beach chair in Aruba.

      Or if you want to have a pet-sitting service, it’s no fun to think about what you will do if you show up and the dog is ill (or is menacing toward you). Or if the puppy bursts out and runs away when you first open the door. These are things that could drastically affect your business, and you have to think about (and prepare for) them.

      Sometimes, our overwhelming desire to succeed makes us ignore the pitfalls that could occur.

      New Business Blinders come standard with every single business; however, their power fades over time. They are easily the strongest with your first business. In subsequent businesses (or with time spent in your first business), they are less and less powerful, eventually reaching the level of effectiveness of Dollar Store sunglasses. But you always have to be aware of them. They feed on your ambition and your desire to succeed, and they will always be present.

      Parts of this book (especially the “Mind” section) are spent pointing out the things that your New Business Blinders will prevent you from seeing. So if something seems obvious to you, I mention it because of my experience with the New Business Blinders.

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      Starting And Naming Your Business