Make Money

It's easy enough to start a business, but making it successful is a whole different board game.

One of the fastest ways of becoming successful is to earn money.

This means that you have to follow leads, any lead. If it's going to cost you a bit more money than you would like to actually complete that job, well the profit you'll get from it will be better than nothing.

If you find that you're getting a lot of work from a market you had not, at first, believed you'd be getting work from, maybe it's time to adjust your marketing strategy and start advertising in those areas.

In some cases, you don't realise that a great opportunity has landed in your lap. So listen to people, if they're telling you 'holy crap you could earn loads of money from this', then maybe it's time to really start listening to what they're saying. I find talking and listening to people is great for much more than following leads, it's just great to bounce ideas off someone else.

So, remember to follow up on every lead that comes your way - even if you have doubts about it, perhaps that person just needs some persuasion to become a very happy customer.

Getting Real

A book that I would highly recommend for anyone starting up in business, or who is programming web applications, is Getting Real.

I have found it highly inspiring and it has made me extremely motivated towards my end goal. It can also be used within a small department, or company where you would have the ability to change the way an organisation or group views working together.

I recently emailed the company behind the book, 37 Signals, and they decided to add my comments to their Product Blog.

Get Things Done

If you see that something needs fixing, or is going to lead to more heart ache in the end, sort it.

In the end, you're going to save yourself valuable time and energy on something that should have been done correctly in the first place, or at least fixed quickly.

Two weeks ago, I had to rewrite my invoices and rework my billing system. It was longwinded, complicated and never filled in correctly. I knew that this was going to cause problems in the end, but I lived with it.

Eventually, I just thought: what the hell am I doing? This is never going to work.

I sat down and spent about 30-40 minutes remaking it. Originally, my order forms were three pages, and about two letters had to be swapped. Now I have no order forms, merely a price list and a sample thumbnail page. You ring the picture you want, write the size and quantity underneath. Easy!

Why do you need to write reference codes in a table, flick through several sheets of paper, and scratch your head, when you can mark the images you want with a pen. Send that and some money to me, job done.

How long does it really take to fix that dripping tap, file that stack of paper or replace that broken bulb.

The tap probably needs a new washer (2 minutes), most of that paper can probably go in the bin (5 minutes), and you've probably walked passed new bulbs every week at the supermarket (1 minute to grab off the shelf, 30 seconds to change).

Spam

If you have received any suspicious emails from an obscure @luximaging.co.uk address please do not click on the link.

This is spam and should be deleted.

I have just sat through about 700 emails telling me that many emails could not be delivered, and I have no idea how many were delivered.

If this continues, I shall be contacting my host and dealing with the problem.

I do apologies that you have had to receive these emails, and I understand how annoying they are. I am, however, as much a victim as you are.