11-28-2012
You don't need to use spread sheet, pens and paper are just as good. What is fixed in your head is even better.
I think alot of what I do every day was engrained from working for Boeing Aerospace for 8 years and a couple stupid things they had us do. Every day there is a report of what you did today, a log if you will even if no one reads it, this wil be how you know how much to bill for work completed or estimate any future work. You can do silly organizational things like draw out a flow chart of what has to be done and the steps that need to be completed, then go several steps further and see what can be done in parallel task wise. This is where you kind of overlap what people will be doing and making sure the resources aren't being waited on.
Eventually you can do the flow chart thing in your head and this becomes "thinking on your feet". YOu might not have to go back and check what you wrote into your logs but can in a sticky situation but the act of doing things made you realize inefficiencies, how many times someone didn't do what they were asked to do or pretty much might not be capable or otherwise don't care.
My present day logs are something I whip out every day and even write down every expense, that becomes the accounting. Still no spread sheets or computer data entry. No reliance on something that is going to crash and be a loss. On the other side of the scale, having what happened down, you always have a list going of what can happen of about 50 places to finish some task or provide some service that brings in money. Some percentage of those will never happen but you follow up on those lists of making money constantly until they do bring in money or fade away.
Even though you decide you are some kind of independent entity, you aren't. The real network you have to create are not people hanging out in a bar sharing what ifs, you need to build a network of people who routinely call you and want to give you money. Preferably thousands of dollars instead of $5 hustles.
Then it is a constant knowledge of what it costs you per day to have an organization and then matching whether the conversations you are having are going to pay for that or are coming from some other perspective. You can only afford to spend a small amount of time on things that are maybe a hobby or do not lead to a relationship that is going to earn you and your staff an income. You end up with matching who needs something and who can do something. This doesn't mean you should aspire to become a fat guy with an automatic dialer either. Many business people seem to think the "dispatcher" is who makes the money and it may take years but they always crash big time for that thinking. The gys who survive long term actually do things and can surround themselves with a crew on short notice or full time or actually make that amount of money by themselves.
The opportunities of the world usually involve enjoying and being willing to regularly do things that other people think they should just have to call someone or don't want to actually do this thing that is work. The mechanics look more over time like you have taught yourself to actually do everything you are expecting others to do.
And there is no routine. How it was done in the past and who you worked with constantly changes. So old school, institutional training and little lists of routines generally are something that hinders over all progress. The entire suposed failing of the present day economy is the falling apart of the last 50 years of everything should be the same, this is the way you do this, just because that is the way we have always done this. Of course it was inefficient and you also have to pay for some asshole with a clip board or a white board or a spread sheet and the modern world doesn't want to pay for crap like that. They only want to pay the guy who is going to get results without excuses. The market seeks this out.
The advantage of being self employed is that at no time is there really going to be some one else has decided it is over. No one is cutting back, going to do things differently or decide it was a short term deal. The common person gets on a salary or paycheck and has no idea what it takes proportionally to get that check every Friday and lots of time they don't care. If that pay check goes away despite they did all the inefficient things they were told to do, they wander around looking for the next comforable situation where so much is provided for them. That system doesn't seem to work anymore or maybe it never worked and massive amounts of money are required to start things and eventually finding new funding isn't happening at the levels they need and they die. You actually have to be able to do something or provide some service or product. Never adopting any of these efficiencies means where you get the money from is an every changing landscape and how you do things is a constant self learning process.
Instead of relying on people that can tell you how things were done 10 years ago, you learn first hand what you can do and how things work in the present and how they might work in the future. Sometimes the future takes decades to get here. Everyone wants a paycheck and everyone wants a service. So you become the bank. The cashflow instrument. As well as the person that can actually do this or that. Everyone think you get a bank involved when hell no that is who you are! You are the bank. You may have those places cash your checks for you but, you are the one matching where money comes from with how things are being completed. The bank isn't going to do that for you.
You no longer hang out some place for 8 hours and then try to forget about your day when you can totally accomplish some paying task in 3 hours. Or if the market demands you spend 12 hour days accomplishing 4 times what people normally put out sticking to their routine that gets them a paycheck or keeps them in their comfort zone a little longer.
There has to be something to make people call and want to give you money. You have the skills, the tools, the moves that accomplish things no one else has developed, are willing to do the work when others want to call someone or think about how to do something. The knowledge you develop, the insight you have internalized actually shapes markets and pretty much over time, the market is doing things your way and you just happen to have what they need to do the job. It is never this is what everyone else is doing. It is more like here is what everyone else is lacks about or improperly motivated to do. Or while everyone was filling out their daily planner and stamping forms, putting what they had for lunch on facebook, we completed this thing that costs X amount of dollars. Where is my money. Or rather "our" money.
Generally all the things I bitch about, lets put together some kind of study or form a board of directors or get a clip board are little tell tale signs you are dealing with people aren't in efficient mode, don't care if anyone is making money or not or doing things that are at the expense of others. That is subtle but who is supporting this crap, who told them to do this crap and it would all work out for them, how long do they keep repeating stupid crap before they find themselves at a different place doing the same crap. Just rise above the crap.
If there is something you lack in skill set, do it for a while. Do it different ways so you have something to compare different ways of doing things. Build other people to stretch their skill sets instead of just being some lug sitting around waiting for something. As others learn how to play the game eventually people are working FOR you as opposed to being someone you have to come up with a paycheck for. On the other side of the scale, marketing is nothing more than educating people what they should consider or could do. How to do it and why maybe it should be something they pay you and your organization for. You might talk to the same people for 5 years before they go ahead with something. It is generally never something that is magical and just because you did this someone bought it.
Eventually no matter where people turn, your name comes up as the guy they should really be talking to. Because you demonstrated to so many that you can do something. It isn't because you put out coupons or drive around with a sign on your vehicle. People with real money and real issues find services that really match their needs eventually. Then they veer off and try to find the next best thing, then they come back again. Or you posture yourself in the position to serve all the people that have already been screwed over and have loyalty to some degree to begin with.
And this concludes my time alotment for daily stupidity.
Last edited by Greg Chrise; 11-28-2012 at 09:08 AM.
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