This is a guest post by the charming and handsome Nick Cernis. He forms the lesser-hinged half of Goburo. He writes at Put Things Off, the laid-back productivity blog.

“You’re fucking mental.”

I’ve just told my best friend that I’m quitting my cushy day job to start a home business, pimping me and my partner out as a graphic design and web development duo. My partner’s ditching her job too.

“You’re both fucking mental.”

I inhale the vapour from my bittersweet hot chocolate and seek solace in the silky oblivion where full-fat cream and rich, Venezuelan Cacao become one with the crushed chilli I’ve laced into the devilish mixture.

Two thoughts slap me harder than a fat balding man with a cold wet fish:

1) I dearly love my friend
2) She’s absolutely right

So I’m crazy. I couldn’t wish for a more wonderful compliment. You see, when your loved ones tell you that you’re madder than a sack full of badgers for going it alone, what they never follow up with is this:

In home business, insanity is your biggest asset.

From this day forth, let your craziness be your secret weapon. Not only does it give you the impetus to take that swan dive into the unknown, but it insulates you from criticism, allows you to see problems differently, and helps you to gain insight into people and markets that others lack.

If you’re not convinced, don’t panic. Perhaps you’re still wondering if your friends are right to mentally bind you in a straight jacket, cast worrying glances, and tootle their horns of concern (“so, how’s business?”). Relax. You’ll be fine. Insanity always trumps normality in the end. It’s why the brilliant people in life float to the top.

One day your home business will make you rich. Or incarcerated.

Let’s not get too silly here. We’re not playing games with our mental welfare. There’s a fine line between courting entrepreneurial brilliance and finding yourself on a date with Billy Bonkers in his tree-top crazy house.

The difference is this: if you know you’re insane, chances are high that you’re not. You’re probably a WOMBLE instead:

1) Wonderfully brave

2) Outrageously smart

3) Marvelously inventive

4) Brilliantly ambitious

5) Lucky as hell

6) Egotistical (Sometimes it’s just best to be honest.)

A nutter’s guide to silencing the voices

So why do your friends call you crazy instead of one of the more ego-stroking adjectives? Naomi has a list of good reasons your loved ones want your home business to fail. Another one is this: your mates probably wish they were as brave, smart, inventive, ambitious or lucky as you are. Secretly, they want to be Wombles too.

So what do you do? How do you crush those negative vibes? When struggling to convince friends and family about your new raison d’être, consider these tips:

1) Shut up about it.

I’m an ideas person. For almost five years I waffled on about my many schemes. The problem wasn’t that I had lots of them. It was that I never committed to one. My reward? A reputation for being a dreamer and not a doer. My business practically was the beer mat.

It took me five years. Don’t make the same mistake. These days, we never commit to a new business idea if it can’t be launched in one month. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it has to be out there, testing the market and ringing the till.

Your goal should be the same: shut up about it and just launch something one month from now. (Editor’s Note: Very Exciting And Top Secret Stuff from IttyBiz to help, coming soon.) Then you’ll have a live project to talk about, results you can demonstrate and, if you’re lucky, some cash in the bank to silence the naysayers. It also makes it easier to leave your current job faster, if that’s something that appeals.

2) Have an answer for everything.

Your goal should be to launch soon, but you need a skeleton plan. It’s not rocket surgery. (Rocket science? Brain surgery?) You can write one in 10 minutes. It won’t win you venture capital funding, but that’s not your goal — the goal is to answer all the hard questions your mates ask like “How will you get the word out?” and “Who the hell’s going to buy that?”

If you’ve already launched your business without a 10 minute plan and you’re still meeting with resistance from friends or family (and even if you’re not), just sit down and draft one today. It’s no fun flying blind, and you’ll start winning those arguments.

3) Use the Puppy Dog Close.

My favorite sales technique, the Puppy Dog Close offers a way to reverse a decision that few will ultimately take: “Why not take the puppy home? You can always bring him back if you change your mind.“

Of course, few are cruel enough to return the puppy, regardless of how often it craps on their new carpets. This works with any argument. In your situation you might say “Why don’t we just go for it? If we’re struggling with the bills in 12 months we can always get jobs again.” That’s what I did. Two years later, we’ve still got the puppy.

What to take away from this madness

When someone you love and respect tells you you’re bonkers, for goodness sake, smile and thank them for the compliment. Unless, of course, you’ve just announced your plan for a solo transatlantic water crossing in a cuckoo clock made of cheese.

Like I said, it’s a fine line.

Photo credit: I’m Your Pusher

By Naomi Dunford - May 27, 2008 in Guest Post - 38 Comments
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(This is a guest post from the lovely David and of Postcard Perfect. One of his taglines is “Because frankly, ecards are kind of lame.” You can see why he fits in well with IttyBiz.)

Want me to swear under my breath? Ask me the following question:

“How’s PostcardPerfect coming along?”

I suppose I should explain. PostcardPerfect, my one year old home business start-up (unofficial slogan: “bringing sexy back, one postcard at a time”), went from an exciting initial launch to a flat-line of progress. Frankly, it’s embarrassing. For the last six months I’ve been answering said question with some variation of: “Umm..you know….it’s coming,” which, of course, is just code for: “Nothing’s changed, get off my back.”

The animosity, however, is not because the business is doomed. It’s not because people aren’t interested in the product. At the end of the day, it’s because I have done very little recently to move things forward.

Why? It’s not because I’m “just lazy” (I made it this far, right?), and it’s not because I don’t know how to proceed. No, I think it’s something else entirely.

I think it all boils down to a lack of urgency.

The problem is that I’m surviving. Every day I go to work (day job in the corporate world), and every month I pay my mortgage. There’s no urgency. You could work for yourself and be in the same boat.

If your basic needs aren’t being threatened, you probably lack urgency.

Contrast that with home business owners that have to fight to keep food on the table. There’s no contest. Things I casually avoid (cold calls, for example), they make themselves do. What I perpetually push off to “next week”, they accomplish today. While I rationalize time spent reading blogs as “working” (professional development?), they are getting results. Know why?

Cause they have no choice.

They’re in a position that requires going full steam just to survive. They have urgency. So, how do I get back on track?

The catch is that you can’t really fake urgency. Either you’re down to the last package of ramen, or you’re not. So, short of putting yourself in a overly risky position (for me it’d be quitting my day job), the only way around it is to play mind games with yourself. Here are some tactics that I’ve used in the past:

1) Create external deadlines

The trick is to set events in motion that will create consequences if you fail to to do something by a set date. For example, when trying to secure retail space in San Francisco, I needed to talk store managers. Cold calling gift shops and trying to pitch a brand new concept wasn’t exactly something I looked forward to. Consequently, I kept avoiding it. Finally, I just booked a flight (I’m in Chicago) a couple weeks out. For fear of having nothing to do when my plane landed, I had no choice but to pick up the phone and start setting up appointments.

2) Put things you’re avoiding on your calender

As we learned in tactic one, I’m not big on cold calls. Unfortunately, at this stage in the game, they’re required. Another way I’ve forced progress is by booking a conference room at work for 30 minutes mid-day (I’m salary…believe me, I make it up). When the time comes it’s just me, a phone, and my list. No distractions. No excuses. The calls get made. This has proved much more effective then hoping I get the urge on my lunch break.

3) Set short-term resolutions

I started using new month resolutions a few months ago and have found them to work fairly well. Essentially, they are new years’ resolutions with a light at the end of the tunnel. Telling yourself that you’re 26 days from reaching your goal is much more encouraging than 11 months and 26 days.

Another thing I’ve found is that they work better as action, rather than outcome, goals. Meaning, I’m better off committing to 30 minutes of cold calls per day than I am to closing five deals in a month. Essentially, it removes excuses in advance. I can control the time I spend. I can’t as well control the end result.

So that’s it — three simple tactics I plan to use to motivate myself to near-urgency levels. I’ve seen them work before, and I’m pretty sure that if I make an effort they’ll work again. So give me a couple weeks, and then feel free to ask me “How’s PostardPerfect coming along?” With any luck, I’ll be glad to tell you.

PS. What did I miss? What methods have worked for you?

[Editor's Note: It would be really cool if you could stumble this post and give David some love.]

By Naomi Dunford - May 21, 2008 in Guest Post - 26 Comments
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Today’s post is a guest post from Erin Atherton of DurtBagz. (You know it’s a guest post because she uses semicolons and we all know how I feel about semicolons.) Go check out her site. As you’re about to find out, it won’t be around for long.

***

Five months ago, I launched my first home business; an online bag company called Durtbagz.com. Today, I’ve hardly sold 30 bagz, my web traffic is atrocious, and my website is about to be shut down due to breach of contract by the web designer.

Want to know how you can avoid this situation?

Yeah, I thought so.

On paper, I should never have been put in this position. I’m smart, I have experience locking down vendors, I have a mentor who was in business for himself for 25 years, and I have more financial backing than the typical first-time entrepreneur. So, with all this going for me, how can I be struggling like this?

Bad decision making. The end.

The biggest reason I’m in this situation is the fact that I chose poorly when it came to picking a web design firm. And this has impacted everything.

Could I have known things were going to go this bad with this firm? Hell no. But, where there a few warning signs that I now realize I looked past? Yep.

1. I never really liked these people. You may think this a no-brainer, but keep in mind, this is my first business. It didn’t bother me that much that I didn’t like them; they came across as very capable of getting the job done and that is what I was wanted. I wasn’t looking for new friends.

2. The communication among them was obviously terrible from the get-go. I thought this was due to some turnover that was going on (legit turnover; my project manager left due to a family illness in another state, not because she was unhappy at this firm).

3. Here’s the biggest one: there were no corrections suggested to me during the entire process of designing my site. This is my first site, let alone my first e-commerce site, do you really think I nailed it on the first try? No. Was it their job to edit the content/design to improve the SEO and functionality of the site? Yes, these are actually listed in the contract.

Because I ignored these warning signs, as I’d like to think most newbies would, my site took 7 months to launch, was built about as good as a soapbox derby car, and is now about to be shut down. Why? Because I’m suing my web firm for breach of contract on about 25 different issues. If I get my money back, they get their piece of crap website back.

Other than the threat of shutting down my site, how has this affected me? Pathetic traffic due to pathetic keywords and terrible code. I’ll explain.

1. Turns out, my “blog” on Durtbagz.com isn’t really a blog; there is no code on that page that says “Hey Google, here’s a blog, check it out!” It’s actually just another webpage that they modified for me to write on.

2. The keywords on each page are not the same. A couple of pages have the keywords I gave them, a couple have the craptastic ones they came up with. Oh, and the contract called for 50-70 keywords per page; they gave me 5.

3. The page titles don’t contain the correct keywords.

4. The meta tags don’t contain the correct keywords.

5. The images have no alt-tags. I have MANY images on my site and this could really help with search. Instead, it’s a gaping hole.

What would I do differently if I were starting over, which as it happens, I am?

1. Like the people you decide to work with. Make sure they have a vested interest in your business being successful.

2. Ensure open lines of communication. Put it in the contract that you have the right to physically visit their offices to see progress at any time, during business hours. Also, ask for the links to watch the progress online. Any decent firm will want to show you what your money is going towards.

3. Agree on a reasonable deadline to launch. My deadline was blown without a word from these people. Everyone knows that web design takes time and that deadlines tend to get pushed back. Three months is reasonable; much longer and things aren’t going right.

4. They should be guiding/helping you throughout the process. If they simply do everything you say, with no feedback, bad sign. If they are aware that this is your first rodeo, they should be actively trying to help you design it in the best possible way for traffic, sales, and function.

At this point, things suck. And when our site gets shut down, things will suck even more. HOWEVER, things will be amazing after that. We’ll set up a temporary shopping site and we’ll re-design the site, with new features, better, bigger photos, videos, the works.

I’ve found a couple of firms that are run by people that I have become friends with in the last year. The money that I get back from the botched site will go towards the new-improved Durtbagz.com. And hopefully, this new found education I have on dealing with this will prevent some other first time entrepreneurs out there from going through the same ordeal.

***

Want to guest post on IttyBiz? Click here to contact me or send me an email at naomi@ittybiz.com

Image credit: Word Freak

***

Think you need a micro-business marketing consultant? Click here to get started.

By Naomi Dunford - Apr 14, 2008 in Guest Post - 29 Comments
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[This is a guest post by James Chartrand of JCME. You too can tramp yourself out on my site by contacting me. Send the whole post -- if you're the next Dan Brown, I want to know immediately without having to mess around with email for weeks.]

Would you love to never worry about losing your job?

I thought of that freedom last night while standing on my porch, taking a break to freeze my ass off and look up at the stars. (Actually, I was racking my brains for a topic for a blog post, but hey. I like the stars concept better.)

Where I live, the economy is poor. Jobs are rare, and they don’t pay well. The area depends on the tourist industry. Winters can be cold, long, hard, and cold… and they feel even harder when a summer job gets cut short by frigid snow.

Employment security is, at best, tentative. There are a few large, industrial companies that churn out tons of goods, but job stability is shaky. Layoff is a common household word. A job that pays $10 an hour, barely more than minimum wage, is considered a good one.

Mention a layoff, and people turn a little pale. They mentally tightening their own belt, grateful that layoff isn’t affecting them. They fear losing their job – and that fear and insecurity is part of their daily life.

Where else would they work?

Lesson 1: If you work for someone else, you never have absolute job security.

I thought about how lucky I am and how much I love doing what I do. I thought about how great it is to call my own shots and not have to answer to anyone.

I will never lose my job.

In my home business, I cannot be fired. I cannot be laid off. I am the deciding factor of my own workload. I am my own employer. No one can swoop down and sweep away my livelihood because of corporate games. No one will ever walk over to my desk and say, “James. Pack your stuff. You don’t have a job here anymore.”

I will always have a job, and no one can ever decide that I don’t.

Projects come and go. So do clients. My current line of work might dry up. Demands might change. I may need to adapt to continue earning money.

Lesson Two: You will always have a job. You just may not have income.

While I stood there on the porch philosophizing, I couldn’t help but think of a friend of mine. Years ago, he earned thousands of dollars a day doing photo shoots. He hasn’t worked professionally or for that kind of money in over two decades. In fact, he hasn’t done any photography work to speak of for years.

But he never lost his job. When asked what he does for a living, my neighbor always answers, “I’m a professional photographer.” No one took his job away. He consciously chose to stop pursuing work. He may not have income – but by god, he has a job.

[Hi. It's Naomi again. James seems to believe he is The Comment King Of The World. Govern yourselves accordingly.]

***

Overwhelmed? Freaking out? Borderline hysterical? Click here to get your own small business marketing plan. It’s not scary, I promise.

By Naomi Dunford - Jan 21, 2008 in Guest Post - 33 Comments
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