This is a post from IttyBiz columnist, Johnny B. Truant.

Let’s try a fun little mental experiment.

Think of your favorite people to follow: The big guys and girls, the ones you look to as mentors and the ones who are where you’d like to be. To put a finer point on it, I’m talking about the people who have successful businesses, who are making a lot of money, who are in the public eye (at least as far as your industry is concerned), who have a big fan base, etc.

Know who I’m talking about? Okay good. Now for today’s lesson.

Those people put their pants on one leg at a time.

Thanks for your attention. You can leave your comments below, and I’ll see you in a couple of weeks. Read More

This post was written by IttyBiz columnist Johnny B. Truant.

I was just listening to Chris Garrett talk to Sonia Simone on a seminar about overcoming analysis paralysis, and Chris was talking about the difficulty of eating an entire elephant, and he’s got this Liverpool accent, so it was totally charming and amusing to my American ears, and I was even able to forget that he was talking about butchering elephants. That’s how intriguing it was.

By “trying to eat a whole elephant,” I’m of course talking about “trying to figure out the enormity of the tasks surrounding how the hell I’m going to start or advance my business.” This applies even for non-pachyderm-related lines of work. Read More

I can probably stop with this idea of updating everyone on The Johnny Project at this point, if for no other reason than that a ton of you reading this had to click that link in order to know who I am or why I’m talking about my “project” here, on Naomi’s blog.

So if you weren’t reading IttyBiz a year ago, let me give you the brief version of what happened here circa April 2009: Read More

1. I said, “Hey, Naomi… I’ve never made a cent online, so why don’t I be your guinea pig to prove that it can be done by an average Joe?”
2. Naomi smoked several cigarettes.
3. Over the next few months, Naomi and her now-unavailable Online Business School course coached me through starting my own internet business.

A weird revelation occurred to me in December. Around Christmastime, I realized that by the end of the month, I’d have launched 80 or 90 blogs and would have had my best month ever — and by “ever,” I don’t just mean since I’ve been doing this online thing. I meant that it would literally be my best month ever, and by nearly double my previous best month — all from setting up websites and blogs, and doing business consulting.

And at the same time, the most recent post on my blog was a rerun of last year’s “Christmas is Gay.”

Of course, that just seemed like an anomaly, so I looked back.

The post before that was “Cash is King,” about how I’m not going to use credit anymore and will buy literally everything with cash from here on out. Read More

I’m doing something kind of scary. And for once, “something scary” does not involve putting any part of myself between the jaws of a crocodile.

What I’m doing this time is scary on a mental level. Specifically, I’ve decided to raise my prices. Starting in 2010, this here guy with an apple is going to be more expensive to work with.

Setting prices — and especially upping prices — is an interesting quandary for any fledgling business. When I realized I’d be raising the bar at JBT, Inc., I went through a range of emotions. First I was excited, then nervous, then tired, then giddy, then mentally deficient, then largely reticulated. Then I figured I should write about it for IttyBiz, because IttyBiz readers have faced or will eventually face the same issue. Read More