September 3 CotC: “Under Construction” is no Barrier to Self-Promotion

September 4, 2007 on 1:47 pm | In Uncategorized |

Welcome to the September 3, 2007 edition of Carnival of the Capitalists, being published on September 4 in accordance with Monday holiday policy and my having been occupied by other things enough to enforce such a delay. Originally I signed up to host at my much neglected tech blog, Geek Practitioners, which was going to share a name with the new business. I did so in part due to a since abated shortage of hosts, and in part on the idea I could promote the new business.

Since then, I decided it would make sense to use the blog page of the new business site to host. It would introduce the business, even though a lot of the focus will be local, get a lot of links and mention, and highlight the fact that the business sponsors the CotC site hosting. Which isn’t as big a deal as it can be made to sound, but hey; cross-promotion and all that.

That gave me a list of things I’d ideally do beforehand. Change the template and spruce up the CotC site? Check! Er… not. Add mention of the sponsorship to the CotC site? Che- er, not. Complete the business site? Um… er… not. Oh well; that will give you reason to come back and visit again, right?

Then there’s the fatalistic-sounding fact that I am unlikely to generate enough new business revenue quickly enough to stay out of trouble, making this an opportunity to maximize the number of people who are aware that I’m interested in side or temporary work - or reason to render the business strictly a side venture - in a way that I never have since I started blogging in 2003. I’ve become a believer in multiple income streams. The original concept that led to Welcome to Help was for something to supplement the other business and its dependence on one oversized client. Heck, one might think running Carnival of the Capitalists for almost four years could have resulted in an extra income stream, however modest, but it remains voluntary. Thus the attempt to derive whatever benefit I can from self-sponsorship.

The entries included below are in the order received, except that the first one is a post of my own that I am pointing out, and the last three are posts I took the liberty of including unasked by the authors.

Pricing is the bane of my business existence, in part because I haven’t sufficiently internalized taking things “businessally” rather than personally, so I react too strongly to negative price perceptions on the part of those I shouldn’t want as customers anyway. A while back I wrote On Pricing at this very blog. You might find it interesting. Now on to the other entries…

Edith Yeung is promoting the idea that what you say becomes your attitude and impacts your success. It’s interesting advice for the entrepreneurial among us, and reminds me of my human resource management professor’s bizarre yet thought provoking rant against the word “just” as dangerously self-limiting or belittling. Disempowering Phrases Successful People Never Say is actually a followup, and in my opinion superior to, her earlier post 7 Phrases Successful People Would Never Say. Some of them are Yoda-like “do or do not; there is no try” in nature. Or, put another way, A is A. We’ve all been guilty of some of them, and I am not convinced they are all that bad, but item 5 on the second list, the one actually submitted to this CotC, hits especially close to home. Especially if you extend it to cover that more often I did think of that, but either you do something about it, or not.

Trade Show Display Exhibits has a rather niche post, on Establishing a Budget for Trade Shows, yet when you get down to it, there’s a deeper, more broadly applicable message about marketing focus.

Instigator Blog points out and elaborates on a useful list of 10 Questions Venture Capitalists and Angel Investors Are Going To Ask. Again, this is thought provoking beyond the obvious target audience for the post.

InsureBlog has a cautionary tale of how not to behave for any business, really, in Insurers Behaving (Very) Badly.

Reflections of a BizDrivenLife has a cute entrepreneur-oriented story, about the frustration of being self-motivated among those who are not, in Moving without Pushing.

Med Journal Watch is almost completely off-topic for this carnival, but gets honorable mention for having a classic look at correlation not automatically implying causation in But he has nothing on!

Trust Matters points out the classic scenario of alternate, informal leaders within an organization, the ones who make things happen or influence others all out of proportion to their official roles (been there, done that; I tend to fall into it without trying) in Social Network Mapping and Trust.

Sox First brings us Three rules to successful negotiation, which sound useful, logical, yet easy to forget in the heat of the moment. I find the first the hardest to internalize. The second and third tend to pair, because if you have the empathy for the third, the second is easy to employ.

My Wealth Builder examines the problems facing Countrywide and suggests a PR Opportunity For Countrywide’s CEO.

Real Estate Investment Blog takes a more positive look than some at real estate investors overall in Forclosure Fiasco :: who’s to blame.

Write To Right Your Business Opportunity lists a basic Ten Ways To Get Rid Of Debt And Cost In Business.

Marketing Deviant suggests that creating radio ads can be useful, if you have the right target audience, and provides the basics of How to Create a Radio Ad. I’ve dealt enough with speech and recording on computers that I’d further suggest that quality of hardware, especially microphone, may matter more than you would expect. The same is true if you get into, say, guerilla marketing with video, hosting services for videos, and associated viral marketing to maximize views. That aside, I wonder how often radio is an overlooked option.

SavingAdvice.com slips in what could be considered more of personal advice than business post, yet Dress For Success is an interesting post with ramifications in the business world. Way back in the day, I read the original book of the same name, which overlapped significantly with how I actually tended to dress, at least in things like colors. There was a time I wouldn’t be caught dead in a T-shirt, even for casual, around the house and yard wear. Now I seldom wear anything else, yet I still appreciate the perpetual findings that presentation of yourself can matter, depending on environment. It will be interesting if I have to go on any interviews, be it for side or temporary work, or for something that renders the business side or interim in nature, as I am lacking in the right attire. Thus the subject has been on my mind.

How I Will Be Rich goes back to the basics of business advice, thinking about business structure in How to start a Business in California (Pt. 1), which is applicable outside California, in this case.

Wally Bock remembers his experiences with the US Marines in one of the best pieces of advice on good business leadership that I have ever seen: Leadership Lessons from the US Marines.

Queercents gets into the ever popular topic of pricing in Why Theater Tickets Are Expensive. One or two points might surprise you, but there are also more general truths about perception and the pricing of products and services.

Lip-Sticking has the vocabulary building question of the week: Are you a bricoleur? I read it initially as “bricolor,” rhyming with tricolor (rather than sounding French as it appears it must) but making less sense as a word. Find out what it means. I definitely tend to be one, even if I may wish otherwise.

Lee Thayer opines that The Tongue always Outpaces the Understanding, especially when it comes to a term like “leadership,” cheapened by its use as a buzzword.

Blog Business World discusses the joys and challenges of increasingly common virtual companies in Virtual Companies :: Long distance employees. A friend and former business partner of mine works for just such an organization, programming. Part of the set of ideas that led to my new business involved doing business nowhere and everywhere. To the extent I will need to supplement the business with other work, the virtual company concept would fit my lifestyle perfectly. It would seem to take the challenges of telecommuting and step them up a notch, while giving them a more welcoming environment.

Sam Dinkin at Transterrestrial Musings hit close to home with Fighting the Last Credit Card War, in which he takes to task the business tactics of card issuers, who by intentionally discrediting cardholders have discredited themselves.

Weekend Pundit takes on Minimum Wage Bunkum, an erroneous assumption we see time and again about the who and when of minimum wage employment. I found it intriguing that the inflation calculator (a fun toy) says my only stint at minimum wage, $3.10 an hour in 1979, would be worth $9.26 now (as of 2006; close enough).

In keeping with the topic of transient passage through minimum wage, Coyote Blog notices that Poverty Ain’t What it Used to Be.

I also meant to point out Rob’s (off-topic, but hey) computer post for its entertainment value, since he didn’t enter CotC this week. Just keep telling yourself that Switching To Mac is Great as you read the post and comments it attracted.

That’s it for this week’s Carnival of the Capitalists. Next week’s edition is scheduled for About.com Entrepreneurs, and subsequent slots are filled through October.