I actually ended up getting a year subscription the other day through a surprising source.  There is a new site called App Sumo which is offering bundles of productively software.  The combined bundle of 6 packages was actually less than Mind Meister itself so I couldn’t resist.  Much to my surprise the app that I am using religiously out of the bundle is “Remember the Milk”  This todo list software does everything but hunt you down and stuff your todo list in your face.  It emails me reminders, it syncs between my computer and my Iphone.    As someone who is used to a myriad of paper scraps all over my desk, this is a much better approach.   I don’t know that I need all the apps in the bundle, but that’s sort of the purpose.  Find the ones that work for you, and hopefully you will renew at the end of the trial period.

If I do nothing else than use the two apps I like I’ve gotten my money’s worth.  Take a look at the bundle and see if these will help your business.   I’m pretty sure I get credit towards something (not sure what)  if you click the following link (in case you were curious and to make the FTC happy).    If you have thought of buying any of these applications, I think you will see that this bundle is a good deal.  Check it out - http://appsumo.com/?r=830

Tim and I don’t talk as much as I would like, but that’s ok.   He passes on his research in the form of blog  and twitter posts and I utilize it as I am able.  Some of us still have to work for a living.   I have to say I get more value Tim’s tweets than most of the rest of the people I follow combined.  His approach to providing information makes him the ideal personal researcher.  And what a bargain.  My total investment to date is three different versions of the 4 hour Work Week.  Yes – I have the original, the audio version, and the updated version.  I recommend all three.

There are lots of people out there who can be part of your personal research team.  Search them out.  I recommend checking out the Stanford Entrepreneurial series and TED Talks on iTunes.  This is likely to point you in some interesting directions.  Or start with Tim – I don’t mind sharing him.

One of these days I need to sit down with Tim and have a nice relaxing chat.  But for now, I’ll take what he has to offer, and leverage it the best I can.  It’s also nice to participate in some of his various experiments.  His first version of 4 hour work week spawned an idea which has further expanded into a movement, of which I am pleased to be a part.  If you happen to have the second edition, go the page 173 and look for the heading Lifestyle Design In Action . That’s my small contribution to help Tim keep doing what he does.

If you are like me, you have looked at a variety of VA options and concluded that you weren’t ready for a full time person.  Ok – plan B.  Let’s look at a block of time – say 40 hours. It’s a lower barrier to entry but it costs a little more per hour.  You are still back to the basic problem of what is this person going to do.  Even if you know the answer to that question, there is the issue of instructions.  Outline every process, assemble all usernames and passwords, and make sure that someone other than you can follow it.  If you have a well orchestrated business with consistent processes you are probably in good shape.  This is where I got stuck.

My business processes were aperiodic and writing up documentation for the occasional times that tasks needed to be done was infinitely more than doing it myself.  So I began trying to break up the tasks into chunks thinking I could outsource specific activities. Now are you into a different set of temporary worker options.  Welcome to the bid on a project market.  I’ve tried this with mixed results.  The first time I wanted a custom piece of software developed.  The prototype showed great promise, and then something happened.  The developer got stuck on a problem and then promptly disappeared.  Thankfully the service I used had an arbitration area for disputes.  It was then that I learned since I hadn’t paid for any work to date, that in order to get the rights to the work completed, I had to make full payment.  The developer got paid but kicked off the service, and I got half a software package.  Not exactly the option I was hoping for.  A lot of people find this option works for them, but alas I don’t have a success story there yet.

The option that I have found works the best for me is micro-tasking.   I’m currently using 2 services.  One requires a longer discussion because of how I am using it, but the one I am using most is Fancy Hands (http://www.fancyhands.com) .  This is a subscription based services – small monthly fee equals x tasks.  The thing I like about it is it works well for the way I think/work.  The things that I needed to outsource were all of the ideas that might have otherwise gathered dust, or become distractions for more important things.  If I hear something on a podcast or have an idea about something, rather than add it to my to-do list, I just send Fancy Hands an email.   With 15 tasks per month it’s enough to address most of what is going on in my brain.  One problem I have had with other services is that most are order takers.  You ask for X you get X, even if you asked for the wrong X.  The staff at Fancy Hands clearly think about their tasks.  I’ve had several “did you mean” emails back where I wasn’t clear.  I actually want them to think because I’m curious where they will go with the task.  Usually it’s what I would have found if I’d taken the time.  Several have been things I never would have come up with.  It’s this level of intelligence that really adds value to what I am doing.  If you have looked at other VA options and haven’t’ found an option that works for you, give Fancy hands a try.  Feel free to use my affiliate link -http://bit.ly/cmcWlU it means more ways that I can find to use their great service.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the concept of continuity, it is simply about keeping regularly paying customers and making them happy for as long as humanly possible.   Continuity programs can include memberships, subscriptions, clubs, etc.  in a variety of combinations.  Internet marketing is a common implementation because of the profit margins, and the ability to create and deliver digital products.  Almost anyone can have a continuity program for their business. 

This was my second year and I would recommend you all check back regularly to find out when it is happening in 2011.  Http://www.continuitysummit.com

I have the distinction of being in the middle of just about every major market job market layoff of the last 20 years.  Most people don’t realize that the military did annual reductions in force for the three years following the Gulf War.  We called the first announcement black thursday.  I was in Korea at the time and 7 of 11 of us that were eligible were told that their military career was over.  I actually survived until year three when they started offering bonuses to get out.  It got to the point that there weren’t enough people in my unit to do the job.  On the day I left, 32 walked out the doors with their boxes of stuff.  A lot of expertise walked out the door in one day.  So the second time we went back into Iraq, they had to learn everything all over again.  But that’s another topic.

Next came the Internet bubble bursting.  I was working on prototypes for new internet startups.  Then more recently everyone’s favorite of late – sub prime mortgages.   I was a project manager implementing IT solutions and building out new offices.  It was a great group of people to work with.  Then one day someone mispriced a loan offering and within a month the whole thing fell apart. 

Fast forward to the present.  I’m back in financial services and I’m looking at roughly 25% turnover on my projects because of the monthly layoffs.  Then I get the “important matter” email and it’s my turn.  To apply logic to it is somewhat futile.  And getting mad doesn’t help.  And to be quite honest I was more disappointed because I did have things I wanted to do where I was, and I like the people I worked with.  I actually felt bad for the department head who had to make the decision and give me the bad news.  I think she was more upset than I was.   I think in part because she knows she will have to do it again, and at a point it becomes an exercise in weight loss through amputation.  Someone higher in the foodchain tells you that you need to hit a number and you make some tough decisions.  Unfortunately, the less people you have, the les you can do, the less revenue you can generate, and the less people you need.   Rinse and repeat!

So if your job no longer exists, and you haven’t done this in a while, here are a few starting points.

http://www.indeed.com – the nice thing about this site is that it pulls jobs from lots of other site

http://www.linkedin.com – if you don’t have a profile yet, set one up and start linking.  Networking is ultimately your best resource for finding a new job.   I think Linkedin is definitely the place to be for professional networking.  It’s also important to get recommendations.  There are priority job listings that you have to have recommendations for in order to respond to.

http://www.craigslist.com – There are jobs listed here you won’t find other places.  There is a fair amount of “”business opportunity” things, but still some good listings to check out.

http://www.4jobs.com – this is part of a network of sites.  I actually ended up creating my own site through them, but it is just for people in Connecticut.  http://www.connecticutemployment.com

http://www.dice.com – This is primarily for IT jobs, but there is one feature of Dice that I want to point out and that is the telecommuting jobs search function.  You can just search for jobs where you might be able to work at home in some capacity.  For those of you who might feel tied to a regional market, you might want to think again.  I’m sure other specialty job boards also have telecommuting search options so give that a thought.

As for me, I checked out the local market and found it flooded with people looking for similar jobs to what Icame from.  I try to take losing a job as a sign from the universe that it’s time to do something different.  So I did.   Thanks to my diverse background and networking, my search for what’s next lasted less than a month.  It’s definitely not a 9 to 5 job, and I’m looking forward to the change.

I know my experience is probably not a realistic benchmark for a lot of people, but if you have been out of work for a while and are still wondering “where did my job go?” , the answer is that it went away to make room for something else.  Sorry if that sounds too much like a cliche, but many people find that it is true. 

If for some reason you can’t picture what that next thing might be for you, I would be happy to give you some ideas.  Feel free to email me at rob@escapee925.com and I’ll see what I can do.

Build it and they might not come

If you have ever wondered why your local McDonalds or Burger King is where it is, it is because someone did a fair amount of research based on an approved formula.  If an area doesn’t have the right demographics and traffic pattern, you aren’t going to see your favorite fast food restaurant.  People often make the mistake on the internet of simply building a web site with the hope that visitors will simply show up and throw you money.  While there are a few examples of this strategy working, they tend to date from the early days of the WWW.  I actually did this in the early 90s with http://www.1cruise.com .  We had our first customer within 12 hours of going online and it grew steadily for the next several years.  Then the market changed and we changed our model.  We grew to be one of the top sellers of one particular product.  Unfortunately, thanks to the current economy, the main product we were selling completely disappeared at the end of 2008.  For now we are diversifying and keeping the customer list handy in case the economy allows our former specialty to resurface.

Most successful sites involve targeting a specific need.  If you are looking for ideas try sites like http://www.43things.com .  Once you have found a niche you can use tools like Google’s Keyword Tool – https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal .  This is similar to the traffic research that you might do in the real world if you were trying to find a place for a franchise restaurant.

What are you passionate about?

While finding a niche that people are interested in is clearly a priority, a more important question is are you interested in it?  Just because a million other people find it interesting doesn’t mean you will.  So is your niche something you could work on 10 hours a day, 6 days a week?  A web-based business does not necessarily imply an automatic money producer.  Any business you start is going to take a significant amount of time so make sure it is something you like to do.  If you can match your passion with something people are looking for, and you can make money, you have a winner.

It’s always interesting to see what things people are passionate about.  One unique business idea is  http://www.missedConnections.com .  This is the brainchild of Eliot Sykes and his wife.  Actually, someone else originally had an idea for the domain, so for 8 years it sat in under construction land.  It’s sort of ironic that a website about second chances, is itself the result of a second chance.  According to Eliot “it gives love at first sight a second chance”.  The idea is actually pretty simple.  How many times have you wished you talked to someone, or got a phone number and it didn’t happen?  This site gives people the chance to post those missed connections online and hope that the other person sees the post.  The site is still in the early stages, but with the growth of social networking I think it is well timed.  I think there is also a lot of potential for expansion with I-phone apps and integration with other social networking tools.

For now Eliot is still working his day job as a web developer and continuing to grow the site.  Like many of us, he hopes to some day be able to escape his 9 to 5 job and “be in full control of his day and get to work on projects he believes in!”

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