Small Business Therapy #2 – I Don’t Want to Blog!

This is the second article in our small business therapy series. Today’s session is about blogging.

Happy Fourth of July!

I had planned to write this post last weekend.

I had also planned to send out my awesome and much-hyped (by me) Jalopy Gang Newsletter to my beloved V.I.P. list.

Instead I sat on a beach in the South of France for about 12 hours in the blistering heat and drank enough premium French Lager to kill a horse. (And a burly, hard-drinking one at that.)

Predictable results ensued.

I am never going on another bachelor weekend again.

So… I’ve been away for a while. This post almost didn’t happen. Newsletter awesomeness didn’t manifest. And God wept.

But NOW I’m back….

And it’s time to talk about our issues. You and me. In a non-creepy, constructive way with no seedy old therapist bores in sight.

The introductory story about the man with no name.

An unnamed client recently came to me to ask for help in promoting his business on the internet.

(He’s doesn’t actually have no name. He has a very lovely name, in fact. It’s just that I’m not telling you what it is.)

He has a small but successful offline business, and he’s looking to expand his marketing efforts online. Good for him. This idea gets the Jalopy Seal of Approval. (You can have one too for a small donation into my Paypal account.)

He’s getting a website designed. It looks pretty flash. It’s even made of Flash.

That’s a cool looking website, I said. Do you have a blog?

No. I don’t want a blog, he replied.

We’ve spoken about blogs before, me and he. He knows that I believe that the blog is the pinnacle of awesomeness when it comes to non-pushy, value- and relationship-focused internet marketing. This is true for a million reasons I have bored him with previously, and a million reasons that I’ll explain to you in my forthcoming product How to Use the Internet as your Faithful Marketing Love Slave.

So I stared at him blankly until he elaborated.

I don’t have time to maintain a blog, he replied.

The reason you don’t do something is rarely because you don’t have enough time. If something is important enough to you, you’ll make time for it.

<<Blank stare>>

<<Silence>>

I don’t have anything original to say.

What I have to say is boring. People won’t be interested in that.

And I don’t write very well.

And I’d run out of things to talk about.

And I don’t like putting myself “out-there” so personally. What if everyone realizes I’m not as much of an expert as I’d like to pretend? What if everyone realizes I’m weird or thinks I’m a screw-up?

Great. Now we were actually getting somewhere

So let’s talk these through together, one by one…

Objection 1 – I don’t have anything original to say.

We started to address this in our first small business therapy session.

It’s not true that everything worth writing about has already been written about by someone.

But it nearly is.

So does that mean you can’t write about it too?

Must every point you make be completely and totally original? A unique and perfectly-formed gem of knowledge spawned from your mind only?

Of course not!

What’s important is that you say what you have to say, in your own voice, at the right time.

In doing that, you’ll change lives.

Don’t believe me?

Okay. Have you ever heard something that you’ve heard a hundred times before, but for some reason, this time you hear it, something really clicks?

Why is it that the same information, presented slightly differently, only sunk in when you heard it described in a certain way, by a certain person?

It’s because that person was able to describe it to you in a way that you could uniquely relate to.

There are people that need to hear what you have to say. From you.

And you owe it to them to be yourself, to tell your story, to spread your knowledge.

Next…

Objection 2 – What I have to say is boring. People won’t be interested in it.

There are many massively popular blogs that I find mind-numblingly tedious.

What does this tell us?

Well… it either means that I’m a poor judge of blog quality…

…or it tells us that different people like different stuff.

Have you ever done any random, un-targeted web browsing? (You should. It’s an excellent procrastination aid, if nothing else!)

If you have, then you’ll know that there’s a huge amount of unoriginal, pointless, yawn-inducing stuff out there. And it’s very very popular.

Which means that there must be a whole ton of people who like unoriginal, pointless, yawn-inducing stuff.

Or rather, a whole load of people who like the stuff that I think is unoriginal, pointless and yawn-inducing.

Someone will like your boring stuff. I promise!

Now, maybe you’re worried that no-one will show up to read your blog?

That’s a different issue. And a largely practical one.

Getting people to read your stuff is largely a function of how well you promote it. If you promote it well, people will come. And even if I might think it’s tedious, irrelevant and unoriginal, other people will not. They’ll visit and they will return.

There are more than enough weirdos on the internet for your weird blog to have a weird audience of its own.

There. Doesn’t that make you feel better?!

Next…

Objection 3 – I don’t write very well

I know how this can feel.

I love good writing. I’m attracted to some of my favorite blogs predominantly because of their unique and creative writing style.

Sometimes, when I’m reading a beautifully written blog such as www.copyblogger.com, a little voice appears in my head – the one that says:

JJ – you’ll never be this good. Why don’t you just give it up?

And part of that voice is correct. I probably will never be that good. I probably could be, were I to really work at it, but that’s not my focus.

Sometimes my ego and my desire to be the best at everything stops me from remembering why I am blogging in the first place.

I’m not blogging to become a great blogger. Or even a great writer.

I’m blogging to help people to succeed with their small home businesses. I’m blogging to help people leave their day jobs and do something that inspires and excites them. I’m blogging to promote my services and forthcoming awesome products.

The best writing style for a blog is a conversational tone. Imagine your average reader is in front of you and talk to them as a friend.

If you can write the way you talk when you’re having a coffee or a beer with a friend then you’ll be a great blogger.

Next…

Objection 4 – I’d run out of things to talk about

I strange and wonderful thing starts happening when you start writing.

Ideas seem to be born out of nowhere.

You’ll be writing a post and you’ll get ideas for five more. If you make it your intention to come up with ideas for blog posts and then go about your day, you’ll be surprised at how many great ideas pop into your head.

Give it a try.

Next…

Objection 5 – I don’t like putting myself “out there”. What if everyone realizes I’m not as much of an expert as I’d like to pretend? What if everyone realizes I’m weird or thinks I’m a screw-up?

Ah yes.

You’re going to be writing about yourself and you’re scared that people might find out that you’re not perfect.

Yeah. Makes sense. Because we love people who claim to be perfect, don’t we?

We really connect with them, don’t we?

We feel so appreciated and understood when we’re around someone who says they’ve never made any mistakes in their lives, don’t we?

You see where I’m going with this…

Good.

Your story will give someone hope. Your story is the reason people will finally understand what they haven’t been able to understand so far from anyone else.

Your story is the reason people are there, reading a blog and not an encyclopedia.

Be honest. Be yourself. Rock the world.

<<Deep breath>>

That was good. I enjoyed that.

It’s been lovely. See you tomorrow!

JJ Jalopy.

P.S. If you enjoyed that then you might want to sign-up to my V.I.P. list. You’ll get an email newsletter every week (except when I have heatstroke.) Sign-up now and get it tomorrow!

Life Coaching Math. Or an introduction to income planning for the rest of us.

Pocket protector at the ready?!

Today we’re going to do some coaching math. (Put an S on the end of that if you feel like being British for the day.)

Don’t worry. It’ll be nice and easy. And I’m going to hold your hand every step of the way and tell you that you’re doing great.

So… let’s pretend my star mentoring client and imaginary blog sycophant Life Coach Marjorie comes to me with the goal of making $100,000 a year from coaching next year.

That’s a good goal.

Marjorie’s a great coach. She’s the best, in fact.

But without a concrete plan showing how she’s going to make that money, it’s unlikely that Marjorie is going to wind up achieving her income goal simply by being brilliant.

Thankfully, Marjorie and I are a great team. She’s a life coaching superstar, and I’m an annoying guy who makes her write dates and numbers on piece of paper until it looks like some kind of plan.

And this is a good thing. Because the plan is going to show Marjorie how she can go from zero to $100,000 a year.

So we write $100,000 at the top of our piece of paper. This is our target. We brainstorm how we’re going to get there…

My regular coaching rates are $200 a month, explains Life Coach Marjorie.

Great.

I think I can probably maintain 10 clients a month on average over the year, she goes on to say,

So let’s write that down (pretending that taxes, expenses and other undesirables don’t exist…)

10 Coaching Clients per month @ $200 = $2000 per month = $24,000 per year.

Cool.

But it’s not quite $100,000 yet.

Marjorie could try to reach her goal, by doing on of the following:

• coaching 50 people a month
• increasing her rates to $1000 a month

Fortunately, Marjorie is smarter than that.

And she has been listening to me when I harp on about the value of producing information products to support her coaching service. She thinks it would be a good idea to write a small downloadable eBook on goal setting.

I do too.

This downloadable book will:

• provide a nice customer entry point for people who aren’t yet ready to stump up the $200 for Marjorie’s coaching
• increase her credibility and establish her as an authority in the personal development / coaching field
• make her money

Marjorie thinks she can write the 20 page book and get the design and distribution sorted out in a month.

She’ll sell it as a $19 download. She estimates that 40 people will buy it every month.

40 eBooks per month @ $19  profit = $760 per month = $9120 per year

That’s pretty good going for a month’s work.

Marjorie thinks she has another book in her. This one is going to be a larger, more comprehensive affair. It’s a manual for housewives who want to get back into work.

She thinks she’ll be able to write it and get it on the market in 3 months. She’ll sell it as a $69 download, with an option to pay extra postage for a printed version. She thinks she’ll sell 20 copies a month.

20 Printed Books per month @ $69 profit  = $1380 per month = $16,560 per year

As Marjorie is the greatest coach in the world, she thinks it’s only fair to impart some of this magic on other coaches. She decides to record a CD program with recordings of real coaching sessions. She takes on a few new coaching clients at reduced rates on the agreement that she may record the sessions. She asks her friend’s son to edit the sessions on his computer. She arranges for a fulfillment house to manufacture and distribute the CDs on her behalf.

This takes 2 months.

She sells the CD program for $150. Due to the small expected volumes it costs $15 to manufacture and ship the CD sets. She expects to sell 10 CD sets a month.

10 CD Programs per month @ 135 profit = $1350 per month = $16,200 per year

And if we add this up we come to:

Total projected, 6 months into plan:  $65,880 per year.

So far in our plan we’ve covered 6 months. Marjorie is well on her way to reaching her target next year.

We’ll stop here, but Marjorie might want to go on to write some new eBooks, start a subscription service, run tele-classes or produce another high-end physical product (or two.)

All of these will provide extra income. The introduction of new customers via an increased channels will result in more repeat business, and many of the numbers above can be expected to grow.

This is an interesting model to play with and think about and it’s a good basis upon which to build a plan…

…but don’t believe the numbers in this example. We’ve made some pretty huge assumptions here. All products have a limited shelf life and there are many other costs which have not been considered in the model.

I think the most interesting thing that comes out of this is the realization that the one-one-one coaching model is not very scalable. I’d advise everyone, coaches or otherwise to be on the lookout for ways to supplement their income. This is where the money lies…

Be creative. You rock!

JJ Jalopy.

P.S. If you’re interested in more thinking along these lines, you should check out Andrea J Lee’s awesome book Multiple Streams of Coaching Income.

If you get it using this link here, I’ll receive enough money to buy myself a lovely cold beer. And that would be nice, wouldn’t it? Especially on a summer day like this. Go on… I’m a happy drunk, I promise…

The most condescending business advice you’ve ever heard.

Hi there!

How are you? It’s so good to see you again – it’s been a while.

I had a fantastic time in Monaco, thank you very much.

But I’ve been in bed for the last two days. The combination of too-much-sun and not-enough-water will do that to you, it seems.

So, as I was hallucinating in bed last night, trying to shiver my way to sleep, I got to thinking about why most people’s mini-businesses don’t succeed.

What is the difference that makes the difference? I thought to myself, because I liked the way it sounded.

The difference that makes the difference is indifference, I replied, because I was high on sunstroke and I liked the way that sounded even more.

But I knew it didn’t make sense. Certainly not in this context anyway.

So I pulled myself together and searched my brain for a more helpful question. If I wasn’t going to sleep, I might as well do some productive thinking.

What do people most need to help their businesses thrive?

That’s better.

I don’t think it’s more information, I replied. Most people know a few things they could be doing right now to move their business forward, get more clients and stuff.

(And if they don’t, they should click on that link for a few very simple suggestions.)

The problem is that they’re not doing them.

Bingo.

What people most need is to actually do the stuff they already know they should be doing.

Brilliant! A stroke of genius.

If there’s a Nobel Prize for the most obvious and naive piece of business advice then I’m first on the shortlist.

I went to sleep.

So, why aren’t they doing these things?

Well…

Because some of the things on that list are rather unsexy.

Because some of the things on that list are a bit scary.

And, quite frankly, they’d rather be drinking margaritas, eating biscuits in bed, or flirting with the hot teenage gardener.

Not that those aren’t useful and enjoyable activities. I’m sure they are. It’s just that they aren’t going to help your business grow. And then you’re not going to be able to afford those margaritas.

I want you to have all the margaritas / pool boys / hot nannies / ice-cream (delete as appropriate) that you desire.

But first… I want you do some of those things on your list.

(NOTE: I’m well aware that I’m the only one who uses under-the-covers margarita and biscuit binges as an excuse not to follow through on tedious marketing tasks. I’m sure your excuses are much more socially acceptable and involve kids, chores and family responsibilities. Unfortunately, these things are not as funny to me so they don’t get much of a mention today. Thanks.)

So here’s what we’re going to do…

(It’s pretty cutting edge.)

What I want you to do, is to pick a few items you know you should be doing (borrow some of these, if you need.)

Then write each of these on a single day on your calendar.

And then do them on that day.

Let your calendar be your coach. It’ll tell you what to do and it tell you when to do it. You won’t even have to think about it. Just do it.

If you think this is the most obvious and condescending piece of advice you’ve ever heard, then you’re probably right.

But I can’t overemphasize the importance of getting the basics right. Most mini-businesses fail because they never really get going. The key is to start moving, and keep going.

Thanks for putting up with my nonsense today. I’ll see you tomorrow!

JJ Jalopy.

Be my filter, baby!

One thing we are not short of these days is information.

People are rarely looking for more information. In fact, often they feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information at their fingertips.

They are looking for exactly the right information at the right time. And they are looking to have it pre-approved by someone they trust.

Do you satisfy this need for your customers?

Have you established trust with your customers?

Do you keep your customers’ problems in mind at all times?

Do you filter relevant and helpful information, share it with your customers in a consistent way, and let your customer know you’re helping them out?

Good! Well done you.

See you in Monte Carlo, you lovely information filter, You.

JJ Jalopy.

10 Things You Can Do Right Now To Get More Leads!

Hey there!

It’s great to see you again.

This is going to be a quick one today, because I have to go and pack my suitcase.

Tomorrow I’m flying to Monaco for a long weekend. It’s (yet) another bachelor party….

I’ll be sure to bring a massive Toblerone back for Mrs. Jalopy!

Now… I’ve talked before about the power of making constant small incremental improvements in your business. (Kaizen, baby!)

The big consulting houses have made a living out of this for years.

If you can make 10 processes 10% more efficient then you’ll make 10 gazillion times more money.

Or something.

Now it’s rare that I set myself up as a positive role model on this blog… but today I took a small step towards increasing the number of people that turn up at my (virtual) door, and I’d like to encourage you to do the same.

So what did I do?

Simply, I introduced a new channel by which people can find me. I took out an advert.

So what could you do? How you could you increase your leads?

Why not pick one of the following:

• Put an advert on Craigslist
• Hand deliver sales letters in your local area, or mail them to a list relevant to your business.
• Start a blog!
• Write a new blog post. (It has been a while, hasn’t it?!)
• Start Pay Per Click Advertising on Google
• Make Google love you a little more (SEO) by:
  • creating a Squidoo lens or Hubpages space, linking to your website
  • highlighting some of your keyword phrases in your web pages or posts.
  • adding some internal links within your website to the pages you want people to visit the most.
• Buy a banner advert on a relevant website.
• Comment on relevant industry blogs. Or join the discussion on a relevant internet forum. Be unique and add value.
• Record a video and post it to YouTube.
• Go Viral! Create an awesome thing linking to your website. Give it away for free. Encourage others to do the same.

Go on. Pick one and do it today. Google will tell you how, if you’re not sure!

Or ask here. I love questions.

See you soon. Take care!

JJ Jalopy.

Small Business Therapy #1 – People are already doing it better than me!

It can be easy to think that you’re the only small business owner who freaks out.

That you’re the only one struck by huge crises of confidence.

That you’re the only one too scared to pick up the phone, go to that event, make that decision.

You might look at successful people and say to yourself:

What’s the matter with me? These people never worry that they’re not good enough. They never wake up at 2:00 AM in a cold sweat wondering where the money is going to come from and whether they’ll be eating their left arm for dinner next week.

And this makes you feel alone.

You are not alone.

You see, most people who are in the business of dispensing business advice have a vested interest in you thinking that they have their stuff together. In adopting a position of authority, they depend upon social proof and the illusion of expertise, credibility and success to maintain their personal brand.

The result? They are unlikely to share their worries with you. They are unlikely to reveal that they, too, still suffer from crises of confidence now and then.

You might come to the conclusion that successful people just don’t freak out.

There is also much emphasis placed upon positive thinking and positive communication these days. If you go on Twitter, you’ll be inundated with messages of positivity, inspirational quotes and reminders to live every day like it’s your last!

It’s nice, and can be just what you need at times…

…but when you’re freaking out, thinking that you’re a total failure and wishing you could give it all up right now, then these people’s well-intentioned messages of inspiration feel like needles poking into your brain.

To paraphrase Russell Brand, it’s like being beaten over the head with a freaking rainbow.

Seize the day, they say!

Grab that sword, confront your fears, and slay that dragon of fear like the fear slaying dragon killer you were born to be, they say.

And you feel like you’re the only one (understandably) too busy throwing your own pity party to go anywhere near that bloody sword.

I can’t, you say. I’m throwing myself a big pity party. I feel hopeless. I want empathy, not vague “motivational” platitudes.

Feeling sorry for yourself is a waste of your energy, they say.

So you pick up that sword and shove it right into their gullet.

This makes you feel better.

But we don’t need to go maiming people with imaginary swords to feel better about all this. The fact is that, all of us feel unconfident sometimes and all of us freak out sometimes.

So, every weekend for the next few weeks, we’re going to have a little small business owner therapy session, here within the safe walls of our our home here in Jalopyland. We’re going to try to meet these issues with understanding and talk them through together.

Hopefully it will be helpful to you. Even if it just makes you feel grateful that you’re not as screwed up as me!

People are already doing it better than me!

You might have done all the market research in the world. You think you know what you’re doing.

Then… BOOM!

Here comes the crisis of confidence.

You’re worried that you’re not good enough.

Or rather, you wonder why you should carry on when other people are already doing That Thing You Do better.

There are many life coaches who are so much better than me, you say. Why would someone go to me when they could hire Mr. SuperCoach down the road?

There are many people who are much better writers than me, you say.

There are many people who are more confident or charismatic than me, you say,

There are many people who are more knowledgeable, or have more experience than me, you say.

Here’s what I say….

It doesn’t matter.

People don’t come to you for your expertise, success, experience or knowledge.  They don’t come to you because you’re the shiniest, greatest, or the most successful.

They come to you because of the way you make them feel.

Don’t believe me? Let me give you some case studies…

Where I go for lunch.

I spend a lot of time in a town called Watford, just North of London, UK, doing business consultancy work.

I like to get away from the office at lunchtime and go and sit down to eat. There are many places I could go for lunch. Many of them part of a big successful chain of restaurants, some of them small independent places.

My very favorite lunchtime venue is a small Lebanese restaurant called Nana’s Bakery.

I don’t go there because it’s the most convenient for me. (I have to walk down a busy, unfashionable main road to get there.)

I don’t go there because it’s the cheapest.

I don’t go there because they have the best food in the world (although it is pretty good!)

I don’t go there because they are well-known or because I’ve heard about them on TV.

I go there because they make me feel welcome. I go there because I get a big friendly welcome every time I walk in the door. I go there because they know my name, they give me free tasters of dishes they’re trying out, they invite me into the kitchen to show me how they make their flatbreads.

I go there because they are my kind of people.

And they’re always very busy because many other people feel the same way.

Now, if they had given up simply because there were already successful restaurants in the area, or similar small ethnic restaurants in the area, then my lunchtime would be a sadder affair.

Where I go for my blogtime.

If I want to read about health and meditation I go to www.anthonylemme.com

In fact, I go there even when I don’t want to read about health or meditation because I like hanging out there.

I could learn from Deepak Chopra, or some other heavily made-up guy who sits on Oprah’s coach.

But I read Anthony.

Even though his website looks like crap.

Even though he’s not yet as well known as many of the other people I could learn from.

Why?

Because I like the laid back vibe.

Because I like that reading Anthony’s stuff feels like talking to a friend.

Because I like that he talks about rock and roll, sex and meditation all in the same sentence.

Because I like the emotional experience I get there.

So what can we learn from these examples?

We learn that there is absolutely room for you, because you are You.

So, other people are already doing That Thing You Do?

That’s great! Because it tells you there is a demand for that thing. And there’s always a room for another voice, another point of view, a slightly different experience.

What people want most of all is to feel understood, to feel connected, to feel part of something.

To be successful you need to provide a consistent emotional experience that will be appealing to a certain group of people

As a small business, you are in a unique position to connect with people by being authentically you.

And you’re #1 in the world at that!

Okay, but are people really going to pay me for my services just because they like me, when they could go hire someone better?

Um, yeah. Kinda.

Not everyone wants the best in the world, and not anyone can afford the best in the world,

There is a place for you. I promise.

Some silly questions to finish

What would have happened…

… if The Beatles had given up because they thought they could never be as good as Elvis?

… if Beethoven thought he could never be Mozart, so didn’t even bother?

… if Rihanna thought she could never be Britney?

(Okay, maybe scrap the last one…)

See you soon!

JJ Jalopy.

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Things that make you look like an idiot!

I’m the kind of egomaniac who reads over his post archive to laugh at his own jokes.

In fact, it was this very act that prompted me to come and talk to you.

I’d been reading a fantastic article I’d written earlier in the week about the limiting beliefs we have about marketing.

Gosh, I thought to myself. Isn’t this a wonderfully informative, enjoyable and light-hearted read? This guy is just like me. It’s great to feel so understood.

And then I read this: (emphasis added for the benefit of our little conversation here)

You know that the thing that your selling rocks. So go tell people about it. Spread the love. Spread the happy. Change lives. Change the bloody world!

This guy’s an idiot, I thought.

Now I despise grammatical elitism as much as the next person with something more important to worry about.  But some things just make you look dumb.

So yes, I am fickle. Yes, I am judgmental.

And this would be fine if I were the only judgmental asshole in the world.

Unfortunately, I’m not.

Most people who understand that your and you’re mean two different things will think less of you if it appears that you don’t. Not in a moral kind of way, of course, but certainly in an is-this-person-clever-enough-to-teach-me-stuff kind of way…

And that’s not ideal when you’re in the business of dispensing wisdom.

Have you heard of the term hygiene factor? It was coined by a dude named Frederick Herzberg, a psychologist who made his name in business management. He was interested in what motivates an employee.

He came up with the idea of a hygiene factor – something that causes dissatisfaction when missing, but does not increase satisfaction when present. Just as washing your hands stops you from getting horribly ill, but does not necessarily fill you with youthful vitality and joy!

In your company communication, the quality of your spelling and grammar is a hygiene factor.

You’re not going to win anyone over with your perfectly concise sentence construction.

No-one is going to fall in love with you because you use big fancy words or know where to put a semicolon.

But they might think you’re a bit dumb if you get its and it’s all muddled up.

We all make mistakes. I generally write late at night and I write very quickly. I don’t rework much of my writing and I don’t proofread as thoroughly as I might. The seductive call of my bed is generally more attractive to me than the idea of reading through something I’ve already read, however fantastic and hilarious it might be.

But I will be proofreading more carefully in future.

Whether you like it not, people will judge. So have a little think your business. What things are damaging your customers’ perception of you or your brand?

Do you, for example, have a blank About Me page?

Why?!

Why, oh why?

Do you realize how bad that looks?

Clean it up! Sort it out!

See you tomorrow.

JJ Jalopy.

P.S. Please kick my butt if I haven’t sorted that About Me page out soon!

Procrastination, Twitter and my Cartoon Nose Job

Hey there!

I hope you had a wonderful weekend.

Relax, put your feet up and pour yourself your favorite drink as I tell you a story.

 

It was Wednesday evening this week. I sat down at the lovely big glass desk in my man cave and turned on the computer.

I feel great about today, I said to myself as my mac sprung into action. I’m going to get loads of productive work done.

I fired up my web browser and logged onto Twitter.

 

A lengthy aside about Twitter

For the uninitiated, Twitter is a bit like an online bar (except that you have to bring your own alcohol and you don’t need to wear pants.) There’s a load of people, a load of noise, some cool fun interesting people to meet, and some terrible dullards.

There are people who want to convince you that hawking overpriced vitamins on your friends and family is a good idea, as well as people who just want to hang out, get to know some people and have some fun.

The key to using Twitter in a way that doesn’t suck, is to ignore the first lot and befriend and engage with the second lot. Just as you’d walk away from the drunk guy in the corner dribbling on his sweater, and go talk to fun looking lady on the unicycle making balloon animals.

For the small home business owner, Twitter is an excellent networking and marketing tool. Especially if you’re prepared to take the time to do your marketing in a personable, non-creepy way.

It can also be an excellent procrastination aid.

It really shouldn’t be. 

It takes a few seconds to say something funny that’s on your mind, check out what other people are up to, and then get back to work.

It should be a perfect-sized refreshing break…

…if you have well-defined work to be getting back to.

 

So, back to my story… What happened with me?

Well, I noticed a comment from an internet friend. (That’s a friend I know through the internet, not a friend who is an internet. There’s only one of those.)

And I replied to said comment with a hilarious comment about rolling a watermelon down a hill, turning a house upside down with a big stick and a rock as a lever, or some other such nonsense. I don’t remember what it was right now, but it was surely absolutely hilariously irreverent.

Gosh, I am terribly amusing sometimes, I thought to myself.

And then I checked my email.

I had a message from the illustrator I’ve been working with. (I found him using elance. You can find out how to do this effectively in this article here.)

He’s making a cartoon logo of me, for reasons that are much more to do with satisfying my own ego than any serious branding considerations.

He had sent me some sketches. It’s really cool to see a cartoon version of you. I sent it to Mrs. Jalopy and a few friends. I debated whether my nose looked too big and whether my hair was curly enough.

I shot an email back to my illustrator dude. If I’m going to be a cartoon, I’m going to be a bloody good looking one, that’s for sure.

I requested a cartoon nose job.

An hour had now passed since I first sat down to work.

I should finish that article on confidence that I’ve been writing on and off for the last week. Or I should finish the About Me page on my website, or that Squidoo lens, or those sketches I’ve been promising the web designer…

Yeah, but first… I bet someone has replied to that hilarious comment I made on Twitter. 

They hadn’t. Perhaps no-one had read it yet. Or maybe they thought it was so hilarious that they couldn’t think of a worthy reply. Yeah, that was probably it.

So I logged onto Facebook, made a few comments on some people’s photos, watched some videos of monkeys playing with firearms. Soon got tired of that.

 

The bit where I hurry the story a little because you’ve got the idea by now…

Looked at my cartoon again.

Thought about finishing that article.

Or the one for April which has now been festering even longer. (Sorry April, if you’re listening. It is like totally brilliant though.)

Thought about making that squidoo thingywotsit.

Emailed the web-designer dude with a link to a website that I think is prettier than the one we’re making…

Finally I sat down to finish the article.

But by now I was feeling really tired and Mrs. Jalopy has already gone to bed. I don’t like it when we go to bed separately. I miss my snuggletime.

So I turned off the computer and go to bed, feeling a little guilty about how long I had just spent doing pretty much nothing.

 

So what went wrong?

Gosh. Lots of things. Where do we start?

I had no goal.

To be successful at doing stuff you first have to know what it is that you want to do.

“I’m going to do some networking and hopefully finish that article, talk to the web-designer and illustrator” is not a goal.

So what would have looked better? How about this?

I’m going to finish my article on confidence and reply to any urgent emails. I’ll give myself a couple of breaks to make tea and to briefly connect with people on Twitter.

I had no deadlines or defined timescales.

I had blocked off a period of time in which I was going to “do work”. I had allowed myself to be okay with not finishing anything. I was happy simply to be doing work stuff.

So I flitted around, satisfying my little ego with cartoon nose jobs and flirting with imaginary friends on Twitter.

What would have looked better?

I’m going finish my article on confidence tonight, before I go to bed. 

I had no accountability.

I sometimes talk about making non-negotiable agreements with yourself. 

This is when you say, I’m going to finish this article before I go to bed because I’ve decided that I will. There is no other way. 

You’re being accountable to yourself. You’re coaching yourself.

You may also get a lot of value being accountable to a coach, or a mastermind group trying to achieve similar things together.

Either way, accountability is a big piece of the puzzle. 

 

The bit at the end where we wrap things up.

I’m sure the story I just confessed is totally unfamiliar to a productive and efficient business person like you!

Or maybe it’s not so much…

I find it interesting that the basics to working productively are so simple, straightforward and easily understood – but also difficult to act upon consistently.

There is a huge payoff in getting the basics right. Having a plan, putting timescales and deadlines against all your tasks and being accountable to yourself and others… these are the basics.

And we’d do well to set up a habit to remind ourselves of this every single day as we sit down to work. And make a non-negotiable agreement with ourselves to do these things – even if we don’t feel like it.

How do you manage this? What systems do you have in place to remind yourself of the basics to working effectively? What strategies to you have when procrastination rears its ugly head?

Let me know! You know you can talk to me below. And you know I love it when you do!

See you soon.

JJ Jalopy.

P.S. I believe that procrastination is actually a very complex issue. It is my belief that no-one self-sabotages. All of our decisions are, I believe, made with our best interests in mind, but with limited or “flawed” information. In this post, I don’t mean to make light of the issue of procrastination, simply to highlight the importance of getting the basics right.

Using Elance – How to hire outsourcers who kick ass rather than sucking it.

High Five!

Recently I have been evangelizing about the benefits of outsourcing tasks in your home business.

I know it can be hard to relinquish responsibility to other people, especially if you’re a control freak like me. And I understand that it can be especially difficult when you have to pay for the privilege…

But outsourcing tasks will free up time for you to work on the things that really make the difference.

It will pay off in spades.

So, having convinced you in three lazily-constructed half-sentences that outsourcing is A Really Good Thing, I’m now going to introduce you to a great resource called Elance. 

Elance is essentially a big market place that allows people who want stuff done to get together with people who want to get paid to do stuff.

Which is great. Because we’ve all got a lot of stuff.

So how does this work, Mr. JJ man?

Well, imaginary blog reader sycophant, the way I like to use Elance is to post details of my project or task and then watch as the people who want to get paid to do stuff flood me with bids for the work I’m offering.

This is nice and easy and simple and inflates my sense of self-importance.

I like that.

So, are you going to give us some awesome tips, as per usual Mr. Jalopy?

Sure thing m’lady…

 

How to post an awesome job description

Make your project description clear and specific. Say exactly what you want and when you want it. Have other people read it and then explain back to you what they have understood.

If there is any possible way that something can be misinterpreted, it probably will be. <<Insert your own amusing illustrative story here, if you like. Go wild>>

So yeah. Basically you want to remove any possibility of misinterpretation.

And add attachments or links to your website, if relevant, to illustrate what you want done. If you have sketches, brainstorms or notes then scan them and upload them. A picture is worth a thousand words and all that.

 

How to pick a bidder that kicks ass rather than sucking it

After a few hours, hungry providers will start to submit bids.

It can be pretty overwhelming sometimes. It might make you feel a little slutty the first time.

Some of these will be better than others.

This is me being polite. Most of the responses you get are going to suck ass. You don’t want an ass-sucking outsourcer. So, to sort the wheat from the chaff, ask yourself the following questions:

 

Have they actually, you know, read your job description?

Many bidders will bid on anything without really looking at the description. People that do this are usually doing this because they have to. They’re playing a nasty spammy, slutty numbers game. Because they suck.

 

How long have they been on Elance?

Ideally you want someone with some experience. Obviously.

 

What is their feedback like?

People who’ve had stuff done  can leave feedback on people who did stuff. Look through the bidder’s previous feedback and comments to figure out if they did a good job and if people were generally happy with them.

People are usually pretty honest and you can get some good insight here.

 

Do they address any of the specific issues you highlighted in your job description?

Do they give some indication of how exactly how they can help you?  

Have they looked at your website and the documentation you sent them? Have they taken the time to spell out the specific benefits that hiring them will give you?

Or are they sending you the same generic responses that they send out to everyone?

 

How to make sure the person you’ve chosen does what you want them to do?

Sometimes people misunderstand each other.

Most of the time people misunderstand each other. 

So don’t assume that your lovely new outsourcing chap actually understands what you want him to do. 

Before you let him get to work ask him to explain back to you exactly what he thinks are your requirements. Correct and clarify as necessary. Rinse and repeat. 

Now, once your outsourcer can explain to you what you need him to do, identify relevant milestones and set up a system by which he can provide regular updates so you can ensure everything stays on track, or you can identify problems early on.

I like to receive daily short email updates, in which my provider will list what they’ve achieved and any questions they might have.

Be specific with your feedback requirements. If you want him to spend no more than 5 minutes on a daily email update, then tell him that. Otherwise he’ll probably write an essay. Again, assume nothing. 

 

What do you do once it’s all done?

Give honest feedback and testimonials. 

Make sure you keep in touch with them if they did a great job, and refer them to your friends and colleagues. They’ll both love you for it.

 

Cool, eh?

Do you have any tips you’d like to add? Talk to me in the comments. I love comments – especially yours.

See you later dude(tte)!

JJ Jalopy.

SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION EXTREME!

Hey there!

I’m back!!

I’ve missed you. It seems like such a long time since we last spoke.

I have a vague recollection of talking to you yesterday, but I’m pretty sure my heart and mind were tucked up in bed at the time.

I’m pretty psyched because I’ve just finished off a brilliant article about delegation and outsourcing for my Jalopy Gang V.I.P.s.

I know it sounds incredibly unsexy, but it really is rather wonderful.

I give you instantly applicable strategies that you can use to master that big long list of things that you have to do, by borrowing other people’s time. And, if like me, you’re a massive prima-donna control freak who can’t stand the idea of relinquishing control of your baby business to someone else, let alone paying them for the privilege, then we’ll tackle that too.

Yep, it’s bloody brilliant. And it’ll be hitting your email box shortly.

 

 

You have about four hours to sign-up below if you don’t want to miss out on this, and other valuable greatness. Do it. I love your email box. It’s my favorite. And I’d love to hang out there more.

Right.

See you in a bit!

Okay, okay. You want a teaser. I thought you might.

Here you go…

 

So you have a to-do list as long as your arm…

…and you only have so much time in the day.

We all do.

No-one has a monopoly on time. It’s the one thing that we all have the same amount of, every single day.

So if we all have the same amount of time available to us, then how is it that some of us manage to invent bagless hoovers, wind-up radios and biros that work on the moon, whilst simultaneously releasing six prog rock concept albums about cyborg goats that live on Mars…

…whilst others barely manage to get up, go to work, and get the kids fed before it’s time for bed?

Well I’ll tell you for why…

The robot goat fetishists have become expert at the following strategies:

 

Oh yeah. I’m such a tease. Sign-up. Become a V.I.P.

See you later!

JJ Jalopy.

Branding. Create a coherent and predictable emotional experience for your customer.

Hey there!

I’m on my way back from a gloriously sunny weekend by the seaside. We lay on the beach, we played Frisbee, we paddled in the sea, we surfed.

Everything I own is now full of sand. Including this laptop, which I haven’t touched all weekend.

Now… I’m sure you’ve been sat by your email box all day, eagerly awaiting the delivery of your weekly Jalopy Gang V.I.P. newsletter. Well… I’m afraid you’ll have to wait one more day to receive it this week, because I’ve been extremely busy all weekend doing nothing. And now I’m worn out!

It’ll be totally brilliant. Sign-up below to be sure not to miss out.

 
There’s some really great free stuff coming soon…

Earlier today, as the sun beamed down on my face and the cool sand squeezed between my toes, I got thinking about branding.

I’ve spoken before about the benefits of communicating a single, coherent message to your customers through your branding.

Equally important, I think, is to deliver a coherent and predictable emotional experience, and to anchor this to your brand.

What am I talking about?

Well…Why do you watch 24?

You watch 24 because you want excitement. You want 600 plot twists in 6 minutes. You want close-ups and explosions and stuff. You have an expectation that it will get your blood pumping. 

Why do you watch Oprah?

You watch Oprah because you want to connect. You want to hear people’s stories and relate to them. You want to feel understood. You want to feel inspired. You have an expectation that you will feel this way, and it is familiar and comforting.

Why do you watch films you’ve already seen before?

Because you know how they’re going to make you feel. You know what you’re going to get.

Whenever we enter into an interaction we have a certain expectation of what the emotional experience is going to be.

What is the emotional experience that your service / product / website / brand provides?

Is it predictable and consistent? 

If you switch on Oprah, hoping for some inspiration, then you’re going to be disappointed if you end up with a sweaty Rush Limbaugh blaming all his personal problems on anyone else who isn’t just like him.

If you switch on 24, hoping for some action packed excitement, then you’re going to be disappointed if you end up with a slow, tender love story.

So, be consistent. Make the emotional experience part of your brand, and keep it mind in all your communication.

See you tomorrow!
JJ Jalopy.

How to identify with your prospective customer.

Hi there,

How are you today? 

Hi again. This is JJ interrupting himself. He’s going to drone on for a couple of paragraphs about some of the mildly unfortunate things that happened to him today, using naively constructed metaphors involving the wet bits of fish. Skip to the bit marked AIMLESS SELF-INDULGENT RAMBLING STOPS HERE if you could care less. Thanks.

I woke up in a foul mood today. 

I think it might have been the rain that did it. 

It had been such a sunny weekend, and I woke up early this morning to rain.

Then… when I left the house I discovered I had a hole in my shoe.

Then… as I squelched my way up the escalator and out of the tube station, I realized I had left my umbrella on the seat.

By the time I arrived at my destination I was as wet as the very wettest bits of a wet fish.

Under other circumstances I may have found this funny. I may even have done a little dance in the rain – Dick Van Dyke style.

But not today… Today I was a big grumpy grumpyhead.

Why am I telling you all this?

To be honest, I’m not sure. You are not my therapist and I’m rapidly talking my way into a blogging black hole.

HOWEVER…

Do not be too quick to write off this post just yet, because I’m putting aside my petty grudges against the unfortunate practicalities of the day and pulling something TOTALLY AWESOME out of my box of tricks.

Sometimes I like to mention how brilliant my Jalopy Gang newsletter is. 

(Totally, is the answer, by the way. It’s totally brilliant.)

Well… I’m getting lots of few new subscribers these days. (Hi new subscribers! I love you!) And one of the things that makes me a little sad, is think that these awesome new folk have missed out on some of the really cool stuff I’ve downloaded into your head in my previous newsletter.

So today I’m going to share this with you. It’s an answer to a lovely reader’s question about how she can identify with her prospective customer. It’s not the best-written thing I’ve ever produced, but it’s jam-packed with useful information. Awesome.

Let’s go…

 

 

 

==> AIMLESS SELF-INDULGENT RAMBLING STOPS HERE

A question from a reader:

JJ. I’ve picked a niche market to target, and I’ve created a simple representation of my average customer as you suggested, but I’m having trouble identifying with my customer. Do you have any tips on how I can get inside my prospective customer’s head?

This is a great question!

I realise now that it’s something I glossed over somewhat when we discussed this in the context of my business.

It is relatively easy to identify with your niche if you are already involved in that niche. It is even easier if your prospective customer is essentially a past version of you, before you solved some of your own problems.

But what if you are new to the niche? How can you identify with something you have never experienced yourself?

Well, thankfully, there are some great tools you can use to help you understand your prospective customer, before you immerse yourself in that niche.

What are people searching for?

When someone has a problem, or they want information on a subject, they go to Google (or a similar search engine) and they search for information, advice, or people with similar stories or experiences.

And they don’t censor what they type in. It might be embarrassing to ask your Mom, but it’s not so embarrassing to ask Google!

Google knows everything.

And Google will happily tell you what people in your niche are searching for! You can find out what they’re worried about, what they’re looking for, what is on their mind.

This is amazing.

Go to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and type in a search term describing your niche.

If your niche is women trying to come to terms with their husband’s infidelity  then type “cheating husband” into the keyword tool and see what comes up.

Google will tell you exactly what they’re looking for!

Spend some real quality time with this tool. All the information you need to use it effectively can be found on the Google website.

Do it. I can’t overemphasize how important this is!

What are people talking about on Internet groups?

One of the great things about the internet is that there is a community for everything. No matter how bizarre your area of interest, there will be an online community for it.

Lizard racing?

Underwater scrabble? 

Whatever your area of interest you will be able to find someone else who is also interested in that thing, and you will be able to chat to them online.

Your mission is to find the online communities related to your niche market and find out what people are talking about and the questions they are asking.

So where can you find these:

Popular group sites:

http://groups.google.com/

http://groups.yahoo.com/

http://groups.live.com/

Social Networking Sites:

http://www.facebook.com/

http://www.myspace.com/

http://www.linkedin.com/

Use directory sites (dmoz.org, yahoo directory etc) to find the most popular forums in your niche:

http://www.dmoz.org/

http://dir.yahoo.com/

http://specials.msn.com/

What questions are people asking on the Internet?

Question and Answer websites are an absolute goldmine for niche research.

Sites like Yahoo Answers, WikiAnswers etc. allow people to post questions, which are then answered by experts and Internet busybodies alike.

http://answers.yahoo.com/

http://wiki.answers.com/

Search these sites for questions relevant to your niche. It’ll tell you exactly the questions people are asking, and what they’re having trouble finding out by other means.

Find a popular question people are struggling to get answered anywhere else on the Internet, and you have just discovered yourself a potential goldmine!

NOTE: This is a massively awesome tip. You should do this. And then you can thank me by telling all your friends how brilliant I am. And why not suggest that they too subscribe to my newsletter so we can all play together in a giant bubble of love, and take over the world.

Ask people yourself!

My final suggestion is to do some good, old-fashioned market research. Find people who represent your niche and ask them what they’re worried about, elicit their values, find out what makes them feel good and what their dreams are.

You can create a survey online at www.surveymonkey.com.

If you’re a respected member of a popular forum then you could make a post on the forum, linking to your survey. This will be especially effective if you offer a small incentive for filling in the survey. A small downloadable report might be good.

If you’re not an already respected forum member then this will probably be regarded as spam. It is best to build up a reputation as a value-giver before you ask for anything in return.

Please let me know how you get on with your research. And please share any magic bullets of your own!

See? That rocked in the end, didn’t it? 

Well done me.

See you tomorrow for more fun and games!

JJ Jalopy.

P.S. I’m thinking about simplifying the look of the website. It’s a bit busy, I think. I want it to look cleaner and more fun. And I want bigger text, so it’s easier for you to read. Let me know if you think it’s a good idea. 

Which reminds me… I should really update my contacts page…

You can contact me on:

Twitter: www.twitter.com/jjjalopy 

Facebook: Just search for me. Not many people have my name. Except one guy who’s into cuckoldry. Mrs. Jalopy would probably appreciate me pointing out that this is not me.

Email… jj at jjjalopy dot com

Other stuff, but I can’t be bothered to type any more right now. G’night!

Operation CommentBomb and the CommentLuv plug-in.

Hey there!

Come on in. I’ve just made a pot of tea.

How are you?

Mrs. Jalopy was up early this morning to go off to a big coaching training and networking event. 

I stayed in and laid in bed ’till the early afternoon…

It was great!

(Yeah, that’s right. There are no kids in Family Jalopy just yet.)

Then this afternoon, before I got dressed, I did some networking of my own from the comfort of my man cave.

Earlier this week, inspired by an awesome book I’d been reading, I revealed the intimate details of an evil plan to get more readers to my website prior to my book launch.

One of the integral parts of the plan involved finding people with blogs that are relevant or semi-relevant  to what I do and are awesome enough to have a gang of enthusiastic followers interested in the kind of stuff I write about.

I’d then comment on their blog in a value-adding, amusing,controversial or plain obsequious manner to attract the attention of blogger and blogger cheerleaders alike.

Then, both blogger and blogger cheerleaders fall in love with the JJ style, come and hang out here in Jalopyland and tell all their friends. Global domination soon ensues.

Cool.

So today I did a few useful things as I sat at my computer, sans pants.

I found the very best writing on the internet in the coaching / consulting / personal development and internet marketing fields, and I commenced Operation CommentBomb.

This intimidated me a little. There’s a lot of fantastically awesome stuff out there. 

But my stuff is awesome too. I hope.

Another cool thing I did was install a thing called CommentLuv on my blog.

This is a really cool plug-in (the technical term is thing) which allows me to reward my JalopyGang cheerleaders by automatically leaving a headline link to their last blog post in their comment.

If you have a blog then add a comment below and see how it works. Be sure to put the URL of your website in the relevant box on the comment form. If you can’t think of anything to say, then feel free to tell me you think I’m brilliant. I won’t mind.

The plan is to get more people active on my blog by making the comments more useful to readers and commentees alike.

Why? Well…

• Post titles are more fun and eye-catching than your name or the name of your website. My awesome readers are more likely click on a link if it’s an intriguing sounding post title.
• I can keep up with my readers more easily.
• Commenters get an extra link to their website in their comments!
• Readers see a selection of posts from people who enjoy the same kind of thing as them.

So, yeah. This rocks, essentially.

And part of my networking operation will involve commenting on a number of blogs with CommentLuv installed. 

For an example, check out the embarrassingly sycophantic comment I left on the blog of Life Coach and supremely talented writer Tim Brownson. 

Why not suck up to me too?!

Get involved!

Speaking of which… thanks for all the praise and feedback about my awesome Jalopy Gang Newsletter. The next issue hits your emailbox tomorrow so sign up below if you don’t want to miss out!

One of my favorite comments came from my friend Jon, who claimed that my latest newsletter (which I thought was a bit rubbish) read the way I sound when I’ve had a few beers.

Probably won’t be including that testimonial anywhere other than this post here! Thanks mate.

Anyway… it’s been a hard day of lie-ins and playing on the internet – so I’m going to head to the sofa now with Mrs. Jalopy, watch TV and eat some Chinese takeout.

Mmmmm…

Have a wonderful weekend folks!

JJ Jalopy.

Two inconvenient truths about marketing

Hey there!

I’m going to be short and sweet today. I’ve been writing way too much recently and I feel like joining Mrs. Jalopy on the sofa and watching 90210.

Yep. That’s the kind of mood I’m in today!

I’m going to share with you two inconvenient truths about marketing and human nature which, if you’re smart, (and I know you are) you can use to your advantage in your own marketing…

1. Everyone THINKS they are too smart to respond to advertising or marketing messages. 

2. Everyone loves to feel superior.

Okay. Okay. They’re not truths. They’re generalizations. But I couldn’t say that. It would make for a shit title, wouldn’t it?

Have a think about this.

How are these two related? 

How might you take advantage of this in your marketing efforts?

How might you best assess the effectiveness of a marketing campaign?

Right… It’s time for Beverly Hills 90210. Oh, how I love great art!

See ya tomorrow!

JJ Jalopy.

Coaching Business Startup 206 – Find the solution to your customers’ problems

How to Become a Coach. With Coaching Marketing Rockstar JJ Jalopy.

Hey there….

2003 Contino Rioja?

Yeah. It’s been a busy week. I’ll pour you a glass – you deserve it.

I have some cool news!

After submitting my coaching marketing podcast to iTunes a couple of days ago I am now available in the iTunes store!  Subscribe here!

If you think I’m totally brilliant then feel free to rate me five stars and tell iTunes I rock. I won’t mind. Really.

Recently, we’ve been talking a lot about marketing coaching. I’ve outlined a marketing blueprint for you to follow. It’s superhighway to coaching domination.

So you found your niche market.

You created a representation of your customer and you got inside their head. You got to know their worries, their concerns, their hopes, their dreams. 

You began to see a process that could lead them to find you, if you could be the solution to their problems.

And if you did the first two stages really well then the next stage should be easy.

Let’s go…

Put yourself in the shoes of your customer. Look through their eyes. Feel what they’re feeling. Feel their pain and their frustration.

Now ask yourself the following question:

What kind of person would your customer like to talk to right now?

Don’t think about what kind of business they might like to deal with.

Don’t think about what products they would like to buy.

Don’t think about what marketing messages would work well.

Not yet, anyway…

Picture in your mind a single person talking to your customer, making them feel better about themselves and making their pain go away.

How does this person talk to your customer? What experiences do they have? What knowledge do they have? How do they make your customer feel?

Have a really good think about what the relationship between these two people would be like. What would they talk about? What tone would they use with one another? 

I urge you to really think about this. Take your time. 

The next step will be to translate this insight into a full branding and communication plan. We’ll use my business communication plan as a case study. This is where it gets really exciting!

Mrs. Jalopy and I are hitting the road early tomorrow to go to a wedding in the countryside – so I’d better hit the hay!

See you tomorrow for more fun and games.

Love you!

JJ Jalopy.

Reboot.

Sometimes things are annoying.

Oh, sorry. That was rude of me. How are you?

Yeah, I’m a bit peeved.

I’ve been writing a super nerdtastic article on how to turbocharge your RSS feed and submit podcasts to iTunes! 

I’ve created beautiful screenshots with annotations, clear instructions and bullet points.

It really is a work of art. 

But I can’t share it with you yet…

…because I’ve been unable to turbocharge my own feed today. And my podcast remains unsubmitted.

I’m laying the blame for this entirely on feedburner.com because it’s the only part of the process that isn’t me. I know it’s probably my fault, but feedburner.com doesn’t have feelings and I think it’ll be okay shouldering the blame for a while.

Technical problems can be irritating because they are rarely the most profitable or effective thing you could be working on. 

And you never quite know how close you are to solving the problem.

It’s a shame to have spent four hours sorting out an RSS feed. But what if the solution is only a few minutes away? The payoff in those few minutes would be large. When do you give up?

Having gone through every troubleshooting attempt I can think of I have one last option to try… 

If there’s anything I learned from my time as an I.T. consultant, it’s that the first thing to try in the event of technical failure is to reboot the system.

That’s going to be my approach today. Except that the system is me.

Tomorrow I might have another go. Or I might decide to create an RSS feed for my podcasts manually. No turbocharging in sight. 

Either way I’ll show you how I did it, and that’ll make us both happy.

I’m off to bed for a reboot!

See you tomorrow. I’ll be cheerier then, no doubt…

Good night.

JJ Jalopy.

P.S. Two of my other websites are down today too. Sometimes it happens. Tomorrow will be better.

Readers’ Niche Questions – Niches for Affiliate Websites

Hi there!

How nice of you to come visit me in the countryside.

It’s a beautiful spring day here. Let’s sit on the porch and have a cup of tea.

 

Hey JJ. I’ve set up a website selling affiliate products that I like, but I’m not really sure what my niche is. Can you help?

Okay. So you’ve found a product that you like and you want to sell it. 

Cool. That’s the other way round to the approach we’ve been discussing recently. And that’s fine. Variety is good. Sometimes it is good to do things upside down. Especially if you are a bat.

The first thing to say is that if you don’t know what your niche is you probably aren’t concentrating your efforts as effectively as possible. That’s okay. We can remedy that by deciding on a niche.

So how should we start?

Well, let’s have a think about the actions that might lead a person to purchase the product you’ve chosen.

Building on our conversation yesterday, let’s assume that our prospective customer is either:

• ready to buy from a preselected manufacturer, retailer or authority figure
• looking for more information on a product or service
• looking for information to help them solve a problem.

Let’s think about your prospective customer, as he sits in front of his computer, ready to search.

 

Scenario 1 – Dave has already decided on the product he’s going to buy.

Dave has heard great things about Kevin Hogan and his Secrets of Reading Body Language Home Study Course. He’s a subscriber to Kevin’s newsletter Coffee with Kevin Hogan, and he digs Kevin’s no-nonsense approach to life and work. He learns a ton from Kevin’s newsletter and he trusts and appreciates the Kevin Hogan brand.

Dave is likely to go directly to Kevin’s website, or take a link from Kevin’s newsletters, maybe with a discount coupon code. He’ll buy the Course directly from the source that he trusts.

Is there any way that you could persuade Dave to buy the course through your website, rather than directly from Kevin?

Well it’s not likely, because Dave isn’t looking for anyone else.

Your best chance in this scenario would be to buy prominent advertising on keywords similar to the one’s Kevin uses to promote the product, or to offer compelling extra bonuses or rebates to tempt Dave to buy through you – effectively reducing your margin on sale.

Neither of these options are likely to do very well because you are competing directly with Kevin, who is an established and trusted authority figure. And Dave isn’t looking for you anyway.

Oh well.

 

Scenario 2 – Marie is looking to buy a certain type of product, but doesn’t know which one.

Marie had a great conversation with her friends last night about body language. She becomes fascinated by the subject. Her friend John tells her that he took a great weekend course on body language and it helped him to improve his personal and business relationships enormously.

Marie goes online to search for body language courses in her local area of Wichita, Kansas.

Is there a possibility that Marie could buy the Kevin Hogan home study course through your website?

Well, yes. But you will need to be the answer to the question that she was searching for.

Marie was looking for body language courses in Wichita. If you know something about that subject then maybe you can create a website that Marie will visit?

Maybe you’ll have a website with reviews and listings of different courses around the U.S. or within Kansas. On that website you’ll could also have a review of Kevin’s Home Study course, or a relevant sales letter. Marie might decide that, although she was looking for local weekend courses, she quite likes the idea of being able to study at home. And if she buys the course you make a share of the profit.

In this scenario you have created a niche market – people looking for local weekend courses. 

If you concentrate your efforts in building a resource rich website in this area, or buy advertising in this niche area then we can attract visitors and sell some copies of the course.

It’s not a great niche, because there is little emotion associated with the common problems and passions of the group. But it’s a step forward from Scenario 2.

 

Scenario 3 – Susan is pissed that her husband cheated on her.

Susan’s husband cheated on her last year.

She’s hurt and she wants to be sure this doesn’t happen again.

She goes online and searches for information on how to be sure she is never lied to again. 

In this scenario, is there a possibility that Marie could wind up buying the Kevin Hogan home study course through your website?

Of course. But, just like before, you need to be the answer to the question that Susan is asking.

Maybe you have a website with articles and advice targeted at married women trying to deal with their husband’s infidelity. Maybe you have a specific page dedicated to reading body language to ensure that you are never lied to again. Maybe this page will contain a summary of your experiences with the Home Study Course and a link to purchase it.

It doesn’t really matter. What matters is that we have defined a niche. And in concentrating on that niche, you have been able to provide the answer to the question Susan is looking for. Once you have her attention you can then offer her the chance to buy the course from you.

This niche is probably going to be more profitable to you than the previous one because there is a large amount of emotion associated with the common problem the group experiences.

 

Do you see how this works?

Good. So, assuming you have already chosen an affiliate product to promote, how are you going to decide what niche to target?

I would start with thinking about your own personal experience. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Why did you buy the product?
• What in particular benefits did you get from the product?
• What kind of people do you most identify with?
• How could the product benefit your friends?

In many ways this approach is slightly more difficult than tailoring the product to the niche.

It can be a great approach if you have personally received a lot of value from the product and have a clear idea of an accessible group who could obtain similar value from it.

Good luck! And let me know how you get on.

See you tomorrow.

JJ Jalopy.

Reader’s Niche Question: Why do I need to pick a niche?

Hey there!

How on earth did you find me here on the train?!

How very resourceful of you. I’m impressed!

Mrs. Jalopy and I are leaving the city to spend the weekend in the countryside. It’s my Dad’s birthday and we’re going to see my parents.

Happy Birthday Jalopy Senior!

Recently we’ve spent a bit of time talking about niche markets.

I’ve received a few great questions via email. So over the next couple of days I’m going to take some time to address these and clarify a few things.

I’m going to talk generally today. What we discuss will be directly applicable to anyone who wants to sell something.

So, why do I need to pick a niche?

Okay. Let’s think about what a person thinks and does before they buy something.

Jane wants an iPod. She’s seen lots of adverts on TV and she thinks they look pretty cool. Lots of her friends have one too. She knows they’re made by Apple and she’s heard that the Apple Store is a fun place to hang out. 

She goes to the Apple Store and buys herself an iPod.

Duane also wants an MP3 player, but he’s not sure which one is best. He canvasses the opinion of his friends, reads some reviews in a Hi-Fi magazine and, based on his research, opts to buy an AussiePod. It’s slightly more expensive than the iPod but real flames come out of the top of it whenever Duane listens to AC/DC.

Unfortunately, three moths later, after rocking Highway to Hell on heavy rotation, Duane’s AussiePod case is burned to a cinder.

Duane goes online to look advice about burnt AussiePods.

He types “flame resistant AussiePod” into Google and he finds a website called Percy’s Pods.

Percy knows everything there is to know about fictitious iPod variants and he shares his incredible wealth of  knowledge on the internet. The same technology anecdotes which prompt rolled eyes from his wife at the dinner party go down a storm with the enthusiasts who visit his website!

Duane finds a great article on the site which helps him to construct a flame guard for his AussiePod using everyday household materials. Now he’s free to rock out in total confidence and safety!

Over the coming months Duane returns to Percy’s Pods because he loves the site so much.

He discovers that a new iPod variant has just been conceived in the fertile imagination of a man on a train.

It’s the ConservaPod. It’s been specifically designed to filter rock stars’ political ramblings out of their live performances.

That would make a perfect gift for my friend Rob, says Duane. Now he can listen to The Boss without cringing!

Everyone loves Bruce.

 

Duane takes a link from Percy’s Pods to the ConservaPod website, where he buys one for Rob. The ConservaPod vendors give Percy a percentage of the proceeds for referring Duane to their website. Duane doesn’t mind about this one bit, because he gets the same price regardless, and he enjoys Percy’s website.

Now, was there any point to that little story or was I simply amusing myself?

Well the first and most obvious point to make is that nobody buys anything by accident.

In these stories (and most other stories we could come up with) the customer is either:

• ready to buy from a preselected manufacturer, retailer or authority figure
• looking for more information on a product or service
• looking for information to help them solve a problem.

Let’s think about this from the point of view of your business. Are you or your business:

• an established brand or authority?
• providing specific information, advice or product or service reviews?
• providing solutions to common problems?

And if you’re not….

…then how do you think people are going to find you?!

In order to become an expert, authority or a solution in either of the ways outlined above, you will need to concentrate your efforts.

This is why it is important to clearly define your niche market.

If Percy hadn’t concentrated his efforts in one particular area, Duane would never have bought that ConservaPod through him.

Make sense?

Shout if not. And maybe I’ll tell you another story!

Tune in for another great question tomorrow. See you then.

JJ Jalopy.

KAIZEN! The KEY to personal and business mastery!

How to become a coach. With Coaching Mentoring Expert JJ Jalopy.

Konnichiwa! 

How has your day been?

I’ve had a busy and productive day today. 

So I’m treating myself to a glass or four of 2004 Domaine Bunan. French. Very nice. Help yourself.

If you pay attention you might notice its effect on my speech as we progress…

Wow… after writing yesterday about how to write an awesome blog post, I’m feeling the pressure to make this one good! Let’s see how it goes…

A couple of days ago I promised that we’d travel to Japan together to learn about a business development system that we can all use to improve our personal and business lives.

Excited?

You should be!

Now, I make no guarantees of the historical accuracy of what I am about to tell you. I hope you’ll agree that it’s the message and the concepts that are important, not the details. Please let me know if I tell any outrageous lies and I’ll do my best to correct them! 

Allow me to take you back in time to Japan following the end of World War II.

It’s a bleak, war-torn country and the economic situation doesn’t look good.

Meet W. Edwards Deming. 

 

He looks quite serious doesn’t he?

That’s because he’s a statistician. You would look like that if you had his job.

Deming was primarily interested in quality control. The U.S. Government sent him over to Japan because they thought he was just the man to help them revive their economic base.

And by all accounts, he developed quite a reputation over there…

Japan’s business leaders and engineers loved him. He trained many of them in the statistical process control techniques that he enjoyed so much. He developed a quality control philosophy and fourteen key principles. He talked about quality a lot. 

They loved it.

It was the right message at the right time. Many of the large manufacturers started applying his techniques and experienced massive leaps in efficiency, productivity and quality of output.

The prime minister of Japan, acting on behalf of the emperor, was so impressed that he awarded Deming a dragon! Or something.

 

Back in the U.S. in the 1980s, Deming would later be responsible for reviving the Ford Motor Company using the very same techniques.

That’s great, JJ. But was his philosophy? What were those techniques?

I’m glad you asked.

Deming summarized his philosophy as follows:

The key is to practice continual improvement and think of manufacturing as a system, not as bits and pieces.

The concept of constant, never-ending improvement is embodied in the Japanese word Kaizen. You’ll find this word in the obnoxious title of this post. It’s what we’re going to talk about today.

The Kaizen philosophy is all-pervasive. Deming was not simply concerned with the quality and efficiency of the end product. He was concerned with the quality of every single decision and every single process within the organization. And he wanted small improvements in every area every single day.

Nowadays his philosophy and techniques are employed by nearly every Japanese manufacturing firm, and many of the most successful businesses around the world.

I think of Kaizen as a commitment to constant and never-ending improvement in all areas of a business and life.

In the weeks to come, we’re going to apply this concept to your business. I’m going to urge you to regularly review the processes in your business and make small, consistent improvements. We’ll also look at a thing called the Shewhart wheel, which is a great tool to apply to the processes in your small business.

But first, let’s see if we can apply this concept immediately to your life.

Now, using Kaizen in the context of personal development is not a new idea. Tony Robbins writes about it in his book Awaken the Giant Within, and Mark Joyner employs Kaizen as one of the key concepts in his excellent productivity system, Simpleology.

My contribution is that I explain it better!

The first thing to realize is that massive, instantaneous change is possible. But, it’s also quite unlikely.

A better approach is to commit to making small, but continuous improvements in defined areas of your life every single day…

…and then back that up with regular, scheduled action.

Think about how you could apply this to: 

• your relationships
• your health
• your finances
• your wealth.

Remember that Kaizen is a true commitment, not something you do when you feel like it. Be sure to schedule your actions to be sure to follow through.

And know that the goal of Kaizen is not perfection, but never-ending improvement.

Let me know how you get on!

Wow… this wine is really starting to go to my head! I think it’s time for a little nap.

I’ve had a great time talking to you today.

Drop by tomorrow. I’ve got a little treat for you!

JJ Jalopy.

Become a Life Coach

An Introduction to Systems Thinking and Process Optimization

How to become a business coach. With Coaching Marketing Expert JJ Jalopy.

Mmm…. It smells good in here, doesn’t it?!

I’ve been cooking.

Mrs. Jalopy has left me to fend for myself for a couple of days whilst she spends some quality post-Easter time with her Mom.

Now, a year ago this seemingly innocuous event would have had a catastrophic impact on my nutritional well-being. After four days time I’d have been unable to move for takeout boxes.

I’ve since been led to believe that this isn’t particularly attractive behavior.

And nowadays I’m ahead of the game!

I put on the silly white puffy hat and Chef Extraordinaire JJ Jalopé is born!

(Read it again in a comedy French accent, now you know it’s coming! Yann – you can do whatever you like! )

JJ Jalopé is an absolute genius in the kitchen. As long as there’s a detailed set of step-by-step instructions nothing is beyond his grasp!

This afternoon I created a shepherd’s pie and a meatloaf. I divided them up into meal-sized portions and put some of them in the fridge and some of them in the freezer.

Not only that, but the kitchen is spotlessly clean and everything is put away in its place, leaving me the whole evening to shoot the breeze with you lovely people.

As long as I maintain low expectations of variety in my diet, I’m all set for a few days!

Now, why am I telling you all this?

Well, let’s go back in time and think about what would have happened in Jalopyland a year ago…

Imagine a slightly more youthful JJ…

Mrs. Jalopy left a couple of days ago, leaving slightly-more-youthful-JJ alone with the Papa John’s takeout menu.

He’s just finished watching his 50th episode of Friends that day and he’s hungry. He can’t stomach the idea of more pizza, so he heads into the kitchen to find the silly white puffy hat.

Now the silly white puffy hat is on, JJ transmogrifies into Chef Extraordinaire JJ Jalopé!

 

As we know, JJ Jalopé is an absolute genius in the kitchen. He has his set of step-by-step instructions, so nothing is beyond his grasp!

In no time, he’s rustled up a shepherd’s pie and a meatloaf. He cuts off a slice of the meatloaf, puts it on a plate with some salad and takes it into the living room to eat in front of America’s Top Model.

So far so good, right?

Well now JJ is tired. He leapfrogs the pizza boxes and makes his way to the kitchen to tidy up before he gets ready for bed.

Imagine the horror in his eyes when he returns to that culinary laboratory. Every pot, pan and cooking implement in the house is either on the hob, in the sink or resting on the side!

And every one of them is filthy!

The prospect of tidying this mess is too much. JJ shuts the kitchen door and goes to bed.

Oh dear.

Now JJ discovers important things to do, and the kitchen door stays closed for a few more days.

When he finally braves the kitchen to get a piece of shepherd’s pie, he sees that he forgot to put the food in the fridge.

Whoops.

Food goes in trash. JJ phones for pizza.

Now Mrs. Jalopy is coming home tomorrow! It’s officially PANIC TIME!

JJ drafts in a crack team of (un)willing friends to clean the house from top to toe. It’s a monstrous and unpleasant job but it’s just gotta get done…

Phew. It’s done. It’s okay. There’s some residual mess that Mrs. Jalopy will probably notice, but we did it. She’ll appreciate the effort, even if she disapproves of the process!

Now when Mrs. Jalopy returns and life returns to normal, JJ reflects on his time alone…

The result of this reflection is the difference between today’s cooking and cleaning efforts and the horrid fictitious scenario of yesteryear.

Pour yourself a drink as I explain…

As a business consultant I think in terms of systems and processes.

At the most macroscopic level, the business can be thought of as one big machine. Money, time and effort go in one end; some processing happens in the middle; and (hopefully) more money comes out the other end.

Sure, that’s a massive simplification, but it’s also a very helpful one.

Each task that happens within that machine can be thought of as belonging to a process with well-defined inputs and outputs. There are many of these processes within the business machine. Some are connected, others are not. There is no real objectivity to these processes. They are defined by you, the business owner, in the way that best suits your needs.

Identifying, describing and optimizing the processes in the middle of the business machine is the key to maximizing the amount of money that comes out the other end.

Yeah fine, JJ, but give me something I can work with here.

Okay.

Let’s look at the process of making shepherd’s pie.

The inputs are:

• ingredients (the output of the shopping process)
• JJ’s time and effort

The output is:

• Umm… Pie.

In slightly-more-youthful-JJ’s case the pie-making process is far from optimal.

It created a lot of mess, which had to be tidied up later in a time-consuming clean-a-thon. Also, most of the output was lost because it went off. So in our little efficiency equation…

Efficiency = Output (stuff, money) – Input (money, time, effort, stuff etc.)

…I wasn’t doing very well. The output was minimal because I had spoiled the pie. The input was massive because I had to get a load of friends to help me tidy up!

So, in my time of reflection, I looked at the pie-making process and split it into 3 different sub-processes.

1. The food-making process (turning ingredients into pie)
2. The tidying process
3. Storing the food

The actual food-making process went pretty well. I successfully turned ingredients into pie. And it should have gone well because I had a recipe – step-by-step instructions.

I had already identified and described the process. (Or at least someone else had!)  So it’s no surprise that this bit worked out okay.

The tidying process, on the other hand, didn’t go quite so well. Up to this point, I hadn’t actually identified this as a process at all. Now, just because I hadn’t identified the need for a tidying process, it doesn’t mean that I didn’t have one. I did. It was just a bad one.

My process was to leave all the kitchen implements, pots and pans wherever I was last using them. And then tidy them all up in one massive cleaning session when I’m done cooking.

Every boy scout knows that this isn’t the best way to do things.

And in analyzing my cooking processes in this nerdy way that I enjoy so much, I too was able to figure out a better way!

The monumental realization I came to was to was this:

When I’ve finished using a pan, I’m going to have to put it somewhere… so I may as well put it straight in the dishwasher!

(You truly are getting cutting edge knowledge in this blog! )

So, after I’d identified the process, described it and realized how silly it was, I consciously crafted a new, optimized process.

Now, when I’m about to put down a pan or a wooden spoon I will ask myself if it’s the last time I’m going to use it. If it is, it goes straight in the dishwasher. If not then it stays on the side ready for the next time I need it.

Now I realize that most rational people do not need to map out their cooking processes to figure out that they’d save time by putting the spatula straight in the dishwasher! I’m sure, for example, that my Mom is shaking her head in bewilderment if she’s reading this right now!

What can I say? I’m strange. But this really has revolutionized my cooking!

Similarly, slightly-more-youthful-JJ had not recognized the need for a storing food process. Now I do.

I have meal-sized pieces of pie and meatloaf stored away in my fridge and freezer to prove it!

And I’m happily chatting to you in the knowledge that everything is working out well at Casa Jalopy!

In telling you that story I wanted to introduce you to the powerful world of systems- and process-based thinking.

It is key to a lot of what I do and much of what we’re going to discuss here as we work together.

I’d encourage you to have a think about the processes that run in your business and personal life. As you’ve seen, the mere act of identifying some of these processes can be very beneficial to you.

Tomorrow we’ll be visiting Japan to talk about the KEY to all personal and business development: Kaizen!

Stick around a while if you like. I’m going to take a nap!

Goodnight!

JJ Jalopy.

Become a Life Coach

The JJ Identity

How to Become a Coach. Coaching Business Advice with JJ Jalopy.

Welcome, welcome.

It’s always a pleasure. Come on in.

It’s been a lovely sunny day here in London.

Now the day is drawing to a close and it’s time to kick back, put your feet up and relax as I entertain and educate you. Pour yourself a whiskey. Light a cigar if you like. I won’t mind.

Over the last couple of days we’ve been talking about the details of building a life or business coaching practice.

It’s been a lot of fun, but today I’d like to take a bit of a time out to talk about something that is applicable to everyone.

I want to talk a while on the power of IDENTITY.

And I’d like to start it off with a story…

I was tired last night.

And when I sat down in front of my shiny silver iMac to talk to you, I was feeling uninspired.

It’s nothing personal. I just wasn’t really feeling it.

I had a clear idea of what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it, but my creative juices just weren’t flowing. My fingers rattled on the keyboard, but the words that appeared fell flat.

I had temporarily misplaced my mojo!

I made some tea.

I drank my tea.

I typed some more.

I deleted it.

I typed. I sighed. I knew I had the words, the stories and the creativity to make the message work but I just couldn’t find them.

I thought about giving up and going to bed but I wouldn’t let myself. Even when feeling tired, frustrated and uninspired I will l respect the non-negotiable agreements I make with myself. If I say I’m going to post every day, I’m going to post every day. That’s just the way it works.

Mrs. Jalopy walked into my cave. (That’s what I call my study.)

I’m not really feeling it today, I told her.

She gave me a hug.

It’s always nice to have a cuddle with Mrs. Jalopy.

I felt better but I still didn’t feel inspired.

I sat staring at the monitor for a while. Inspirational words were not manifest before my eyes.

I felt stuck.

Now what does master of motivation, powerhouse of productivity, creativity coach extraordinaire JJ Jalopy do when he finds himself in such a situation?

That’s right – I took off my pants, put my headband on, turned the stereo up to eleven and rocked out to Bonnie Tyler’s Holding out for a Hero.

I didn’t really.

I left the computer and went to see Mrs. Jalopy. She’s a supercoach and she rarely fails to get the best out of me.

I feel stuck, I told her.

Really? she replied. But you’re JJ Jalopy!

“Yes I am,” I said.

And it was back!

I sat down and knocked out a thousand words of creatively honest, educational awesomeness in the next hour.

But I don’t get it, JJ. That doesn’t make sense. And I much preferred the story about Bonnie Tyler.

Well, Mrs. Jalopy doesn’t call me JJ very often. She calls me James, because that’s my name.

WARNING: SPEAKING IN THIRD PERSON ALERT!

James feels stuck sometimes.

James fees insecure sometimes.

James gets grumpy when he’s hungry.

James sometimes wants to hit the snooze button first thing in the morning…

 

…because he’s only human.

JJ is really an IDENTITY I’ve created (unconsciously) to represent all that I want to be when I’m teaching, coaching, writing or public speaking.

JJ is a creative dynamo. He’s full of energy and positivity. He’s entertaining and a little provocative. He’s ruthlessly productive. He’s loving and encouraging.

Having the identity of JJ makes it really easy for me to tap into these resources. That’s what happened yesterday.

In NLP terms, the identity of JJ is a massive anchor to all of the resources I want when I’m rocking the business consultancy world!

My buddy, Australian persuasion master Duane Cunningham, has made a similar commitment to blogging every day.

If you were to ask him whether he’ll succeed he’d say:

Of course. There’s no way The Thunder from Down Under could fail!

And he’d be right.

Because The Thunder from Down Under rocks as hard as anyone I’ve met.

Duane has done something similar here. He’s created the identity of The Thunder from Down Under to represent the fearless warrior part of him that is that is going to take the blogging world by STORM.

(See what I did there?! )

When we spoke earlier we said that you’ll want to start seeing yourself in a different way as you move from employee to home business owner. You’ll want to make your new business part of your identity. Wonderful things will happen if you can make this identity something that really motivates you.

Now it’s likely what excites and motivates you is very different from what motivates Duane or what motivates me.

You may have noticed that I enjoy exaggeration, hyperbole and novelty.

Earlier in the post I described myself as:

Master of motivation, powerhouse of productivity, creativity coach extraordinaire!

This kind of language and the images and associations it creates in my mind really do inspire me to action.

Your motivating factors will be very different.

Maybe what really motivates you is the idea of being successful so you can look after and provide for your family?

In that case, your new business identity should include an aspect of this.

If you’re having an off moment you can simply remind yourself of the image you hold of yourself as a succesful home business owner, working hard for her family. And let me know how you get on!

Wow.

That was fun!

I enjoyed that. Can you tell?

Please let me know what you think of this. I’d be really interested to know.

Now I’m off to dream world for a while. Maybe I’ll see you there.

Goodnight.

JJ Jalopy.

Become a Life Coach

Modeling Successful Coaches or Consultants

How to Become a Coach. Coaching Business Advice with JJ Jalopy.

Hello again! It’s great to see you again at Casa Jalopy.

You caught me with a nice steaming hot cup of green tea with mango, and a big beaming smile on my face.

Why the smile, JJ, you ask?

(Yes, I really am talking to myself now.)

Well I don’t think you ever need a reason to smile. Do it now just to prove it to yourself.

Feels great, doesn’t it?

But as you asked so nicely, the Cheshire Cat grin on my face is there because your life coaching business raconteur friend JJ was today namechecked in a blog post by none other than internet marketing and asset protection megastar, Rob Northrup. Click on his name for proof. And check out his fabulous website whilst you’re at it.

This makes JJ happy.

(And makes him want to talk in the third person. Strangely enough.)

Although I’ve been active in the consulting, coaching and business world for close to ten years, the internet marketing world is still pretty new to me. So far Jalopyland has been around for less than a week and I already feel like we’re building massive momentum here. I’m excited and I hope you are too!

Now what did I want to talk to you about today?

Oh that’s right. Modeling.

Not like that. I’m pretty but I’m not that pretty!

For the last few days, we’ve concentrated on creating a productive mindset and a we created a commitment plan to allow you to commit your time to your new business.

Then we had a think about what would happen when you sat down to start work on your new venture.

We realized that there are a lot of things you could potentially be working on and that, being human, you can only concentrate on one of those things at any one time.

We agreed that two things would need to be true in order that you could feel confident and productive and free from overwhelm. They were:

• you’re working on the single most important thing in terms of the profitability or growth of your business, and…
• you feel okay about not doing the other 10,000 things on your to-do list.

So we realized that we need a plan.

Now what’s the best way to get from Place A to Place B?

(It’s not a trick question!)

You walk in a straight line away from A and towards B. You keep walking along that line until you get to B.

Awesome.

But what if you don’t know how to get to B? Or you don’t even know where it is?

I think it’s story time again!

Let’s pretend that three of our friends are scattered across Paris. They’ve been having a lovely time on their respective errands, but they want to meet up now. They agree to meet at Le Louvre in an hour.

David decides to set off in a random direction. He figures he’ll see something he recognizes soon.

He doesn’t.

But he does see an arty-looking lady in high-heels and stockings. He supposes she might be going to the Louvre too so he walks with her for a while. He discovers she’s an American student. And whilst they don’t end up any closer to Le Louvre, they both have a very nice time.

Jane is a little smarter. She goes to the Tabac to buy one of those little fold-out maps. She carefully finds her location on the map, finds the location of Le Louvre and heads off in that direction.

Unfortunately, she had the map upside down. Twenty minutes later she’s further away than she started. She gets a taxi.

Katie is smarter still. She decides she’ll ask someone. Someone local, in fact. She’s sure to find someone who has walked to Le Louvre from here and can tell her how to do it. She talks to a guy in a beret and stripy jumper with onions round his neck.

 

He shrugs and grunts. It happens sometimes.

Then she asks a lovely man called Jean-Paul who lives just round the corner. He works at the museum and he walks there every morning. He tells her the route that he takes. She listens to his instructions, follows them and gets to the palace with the minimum of fuss.

You want to be like Katie.

In the next few days we’ll be looking at the steps that the most successful coaches and consultants have taken in starting their new businesses. These are the very same steps that I use within my consulting practice and on my coach mentoring scheme.

I’ll talk you through it, step by step.

We’re going to break it all down into simple steps that just work.

We’ll talk about the actions you can take which will skyrocket your success and attract more clients than you can handle.

We’ll talk about some of the common pitfalls and how you can avoid them.

We’ll learn from the very best. We’ll learn from their successes and their mistakes.

So stay tuned!

In the meantime, why not take a look at the link below? It’ll take you to a site owned by my buddy David Wood. He’s a Australian life coach with crazy hair and a big smile! He’s a coaching superstar and the founder of the International Coach Academy.

He interviewed ten coaches who built their coaching practices from nothing to the million dollar enterprises they are today. And he found out exactly how they did it.

It’s absolutely jam packed with value and I think you’re going to love it.

10 Super Coaches Reveal Their Secrets How are these life coaches earning $30,000 to $1.4 million per year? The   world’s top coaches finally tell how they made business boom –and how you can do it too.     Click Here

Well once again, it’s been an absolute pleasure having you over.

I can’t wait to see you tomorrow to really get into the nitty-gritty of starting your business.

Have a wonderful Sunday evening!

Come back tomorrow.

JJ Jalopy.

Become a Life Coach

Get everyone on-side and rock your new schedule!

How to become a coach. Coaching Business Advice with JJ Jalopy

It’s a wonderful sunny day here in Jalopyland!

How nice you are to come and find me here at the park. I’m so pleased to see you that my ice-cream is melting into my laptop keyboard!

 

HUGE day today!

Yesterday you produced a working schedule and I promised that we’d talk some more about how to make the time you spend working on your new business as productive as possible.

So let’s make pretend again!

Let’s imagine you took the plunge and you decided to leave your job. This is great, you think, now I can devote all of my time that I would have spent at work to my new business.

You sort out some other details and you make a commitment plan which looks like this:

I’m going to work from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. every week day, and 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Sunday.

I’ll arrange for Dad to pick the kids up from school every day so my work is uninterrupted in the afternoon.

Perfect!

Now it’s your first day of your new life.

You wake up in the morning, brimming with enthusiasm for your new venture.

You leap out of bed, make breakfast, get the kids off to school and you’re ready.

You feel great. You’re excited. You’re energized.

You’re REALLY GOING DO DO THIS!

Then the doorbell rings.

It’s Marjorie.

Marjorie has heard that you don’t have to go to work anymore. She figured you’d enjoy the company.

And you don’t want to be rude. So you let her in. You figure you’ll make her a coffee, you’ll shoot the breeze for half an hour, and then she’ll leave you to get on with your work.

But you know Marjorie.

Marjorie likes to talk.

Boy, does Marjorie like to talk!

And in other circumstances, you might enjoy hearing all the gory details of your neighbors infidelity with the handyman.

But today it makes you mad!

You feel mad at yourself for letting her in when you had work to do.

You feel mad at yourself for not explaining how important your new work is to you.

You feel mad at Marjorie because she WON’T STOP TALKING!!

And meanwhile, nothing is getting done…

Oh dear.

It wasn’t a great start.

But don’t worry. It’s okay. Don’t beat yourself up about it. You had the best intentions and Marjorie didn’t know better because you hadn’t made it clear to her.

We can easily make this better with clear communication and a small shift in attitude.

Allow me to explain…

One of the reasons that you decided to create your own home business was likely some sense of dissatisfaction with your employment. So naturally, you may want to set totally different rules in your own home business.

And that is generally a good thing. There are many accepted aspects of large business that you will not want to copy in your small home business…

You won’t need an office building. You won’t need staff (in the commonly accepted sense.) You won’t need an organization chart. You won’t need a formal business plan (at least at the start.)

All that stuff might make you feel like you’re running a big serious business venture and it might impress your Mum and her friends. But it’s going to cost you a lot of money and will inevitably hurt your business in the long term.

There is one particular aspect of your job, however, that you would do well to model in your coaching or consulting business. (Or indeed any home business.)

And that’s time management.

You don’t have a boss anymore.

That isn’t an opportunity to turn up late, take enormous lunch breaks and get drunk in the afternoon! It means that you have to play boss.

It means that you are responsible for ensuring that you put enough time into your new business.

And it makes a lot of sense for you to be as strict with yourself, if not more so, than your boss would be.

The time you spend on your new business is as important…no it’s MORE important…than the time time you spend at your “job”.

Be sure to treat it as such.

And make sure everyone else in your life understands that.

Take time to sit down with your friends and family and explain how much this means to you. Explain that, even though you might be working at home and not in a big fancy office, you are at work.

Ask them to be respectful of this and respectful of your time.

If you have to, explain to your family that you are doing this for them as well as for you. Do what you need to do to make them understand.

If you have children, maybe consider giving them small tasks to complete for you to get them involved.

Now we can see how easy it would have been to avoid getting mad at Motormouth Marjorie!

You’d treat her in the same manner that you would deal with a personal phone call in the workplace. You’d explain that you were busy with work and schedule a time to catch up when you are less busy.

Super easy!

Let’s pretend now that you’ve had the conversation with your friends and family already, all distractions are cleared away, you’re feeling good and you are ready to devote your undivided attention to your day’s work on your new business…

So what are you going to do?

Well I guess I’d better figure out a name for my business. And I suppose I’ll need a business plan. And I’ll need to sort out my branding. And I’ll need a website. And a business card. Oh, and some clients too, that’s important. But I have no marketing material, and…. Oh my God. I’m never going to get this done!!

Right.

This is where we need a simple, practical plan. This is the fun bit!

At any one time:

• You can only concentrate on one task
• There are an enormous number of tasks that you could be doing.

To be at your most productive you need to:

• be working on the single most important thing in terms of the profitability or growth of your business, and…
• feel okay about not doing the other 10,000 things on your to-do list.

That’s lovely JJ, you may say, but how do I know what is the single most important thing I could be working on?

Well luckily many people have done this before – some more successfully than others.

We’re going to copy the successful ones!

This approach might be frowned upon when doing your homework but in the business world it’s simply good sense.

And we’ll talk about that tomorrow.

The sun is going down and it’s getting a bit chilly now. I’m going to head inside for popcorn and a movie.

See you tomorrow. Take care!

JJ Jalopy.

Become a Life Coach

A commitment plan for your home business dream.

Life Coaching Business Advice with JJ Jalopy

I love Fridays!

A lady stopped me in the street this morning and gave me chocolate. That’s when you know it’s going to be a good day!

A glass of red? It is Friday after all.

It’s nothing special but I like it. It’s South African.

Let’s recap a little…

The day before yesterday you made a decision that you’ll really commit to making your home business dream a reality.

Now the business idea you had is no longer a whim. It’s no longer an excuse for underperformance at your job. It’s a big bright shiny part of who you are and what your future will be.

You’re not John Smith – accountant who might be a life coach one day when he has enough money and the kids have grown up and he’s read a hundred books on the subject and the end of year accounts are finalised.

No. That sounds rubbish, doesn’t it? Don’t be that guy. He’s the one with halitosis who talks about his car and his 401K at the dinner party.

But that’s okay.

And it’s not you.

You’re John Smith – Life Coach Extraordinaire!

Or maybe John Smith – Super Fly Consultant Guy!

Whatever gets you excited. Whatever floats your boat.

And you might happen to work at an accountancy firm during the day. For now. And that’s okay. But your new business and identity will now be your focus.

So that was Step 1. You decided to go for it and then you owned the decision by making it part of your identity.

Next you took small but immediate action towards that goal. It didn’t really matter what you did. The fact that you did it and it took you closer to your dream was the important bit. You were simply gaining momentum and adding certainty to your decision.

That was Step 2.

Then yesterday we said that you’ll want to create new habits which support your new identity as Life Coach, or Consultant, or Home Business Owner.

And to build these habits we’re going to make a commitment plan so we can take regular, scheduled, consistent action in the direction of our dream.

This is Step 3 and is our focus for today.

In summary, our steps to Commitment look like this:

1. Decide to commit to your new business identity
2. Take immediate action
3. Make a commitment plan
4. Take regular committed action until you build a habit.

Easy right?

Of course it’s easy! Everything is easy when you break it down into small enough chunks.

Now about that plan…

I could tell you that creating your new business is going to be easy.

I could tell you to sit on your butt and pretend you’re already a successful life coach. I could tell you to feel really positive and really grateful that you’re a successful life coach. I could tell you that if you visualize and visualize and affirm and affirm then the clients and the money will soon fall at your feet.

But I like you too much for that.

The truth is that setting up a new business takes a lot of work.

I’m not saying that the other stuff won’t be helpful. Much of it will. But you are not going to get away from the fact that building your coaching or consultancy practice is going to be a lot of work.

And it’s also going to be a truck load of fun!

Your trusty Mentor JJ will be by your side the whole way.

Now to accomplish any task you need two or more of the following resources:

• time
• energy (or effort)
• money

We’re going to create a plan to allow you to bring as much of the first two, and as little of the last one to your new business as you can.

So I’m sure you did you homework from yesterday. You have an idea of the amount of time you could bring to your business venture. That’s great.

Now it’s time to get a little more specific and make a real schedule. Something like:

I’m going to work on my new business for at least two hours every weekday evening, and four hours on Sunday starting after lunch.

Or

I’m going to work from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on my new business every weekday.

You know what’s coming next, don’t you?!

(You’re far too smart for me.)

I’m going to challenge you to see if you could dedicate more time to your business.

I know. I know. You have other obligations all competing for your time and energy. You may have kids to feed, school runs, sports events, a job –  the stuff you were spending your time on before you decided to start this new business!

I’m going to suggest that you try to simplify your life as much as possible to give your business the high priority in your life that it deserves.

Maybe you could:

• delegate household chores or hire a cleaner or a nanny?
• reduce your hours at your job?
• leave your job? (so long as it’s financially viable)
• get up earlier in the morning?
• let go of any other commitments that you don’t really enjoy.

There are many things you might try. See if any feel right for you.

Now, supposing you’ve managed to do that, your plan may start to look a little like this:

I’m going to work from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on my new business every weekday, except on Wednesday when I must pick the kids up from school at 4 p.m.

I’ll arrange for Jane to take the kids to and from school every day except Wednesday. I’ll ask George to pick the kids up from soccer practice on Thursday.

Super easy!

That’s a plan that you can succeed with!

Compare yourself now with the person that says…

I’m going to work hard on my business this week.

…and tell me which one is mostly likely to succeed.

Don’t you feel good now?!

We’ve achieved a lot today and it’s getting late, but I’d like to ask you to do one more thing… if you don’t mind.

I’m going to ask you to make a non-negotiable agreement with yourself to stick to that plan. You might change the timings if you really have to, or you might switch days one week, but you will work at least the number of hours in the plan because you’ve decided to. Be a little bit unreasonable with yourself!

Now you’re not going to have a boss anymore, you’re going to learn to be your own boss. Be strict with yourself, but also be nice. Give yourself lots of credit for the effort you put in.

Adhering to the plan you’ve just made will build constructive habits which will form the launch pad for your assured future success.

I think it’s really important that we build these foundations together. Soon we’ll get into the really juicy specifics of building your business. It’s going to be wild and it’ll blow you away! But before we jump into the detail we need to plan to win, right from the start.

So tomorrow I’m going to talk a little about energy. We’ll discuss how you can be as productive as possible in the time you devote to your business. We’ll also anticipate any problems or conflicts you might encounter in working your schedule and we’ll do our best to ensure your plan runs smoothly.

It’s been great chatting to you again.

It was a bit heavy today, I know, but I think this will have been valuable to you.

I’m off to bed with a nice hot mug of cocoa.

I’ll see you same time, same place tomorrow!

Goodnight!

JJ Jalopy.

Become a Life Coach

Get committed to making your dream business reality!

Life Coaching Business Advice with JJ Jalopy

How lovely it is to see you again. I’ve been expecting you.

It’s beautiful sunny day here in England. Let’s sit out on the balcony. I’ve made Pimms and Lemonade. Yum.

Today is a big day. I’d love to joke around with you for a little while, but we otter get started straight away!

(Today is always a big day.)

Yesterday we spoke about decisions.

I urged you to make the decision to either:

• truly commit to your home business dream, or…
• let it go for now and bring yourself fully to the other things in your life.

And you did.

So… Congratulations on making your decision!

You didn’t know it, but that was Step 1 in the JJ Jalopy Guide to Total World Domination™.

Wasn’t it easy?! You’re taking control and consciously crafting your future. Awesome.

And we’re only getting started!

Now given that you’ve come back to see me, I presume that you decided to take the first option.

Remember we talked yesterday about the importance of taking actions which are consistent with your decision? In coming back here you’ve shown you understand this. Props to you!

Before I rush into Step 2, I’d like to take some time to thank you for your overwhelmingly wonderful and positive comments yesterday. You make this fun. I can tell this blogging lark is going to be an absolute scream!

Pour yourself a drink as I read from the mailbag:

Philip commented yesterday:

I’d love to hear you expand on the advice to “never leave the scene of a decision without taking some action that backs it up.” It sounds like good advice, but I don’t totally get it yet.

Thanks Philip. I love receiving questions. It’s great that you’ve asked this because it provides us with the perfect introduction to the next step I invite you to take towards pursuing your dream.

Let me use an analogy…

Let’s say you’ve decided to get fit and healthy. (No I know this doesn’t apply to you, Adonis – you can pretend.) Let’s say you’re fed up with being unhealthy and overweight. You’re fed up with vainly hoping things might change one day. You’ve decided that enough is enough and it really is time to change now.

“From now on I am committed to being healthy,” you say.

And in that moment you have total power.

You have the power to change the course of your entire life in that one moment…

… and you have the power to forget all about it and be eating chips in front of the TV by the evening.

The fact is that for the decision to have power, your future actions must be compatible with the decision you made. I call that commitment.

When you said “From now on I am committed to being healthy,” the following kind of thoughts may have tumbled from your brain:
-    but I love pizza
-    but I’ve failed so many times before
-    but it sounds like a lot of effort
-    but I don’t know how
-    but I don’t belong to a gym.
-    but salad is for rabbits, not people.

Making a decision does not make the “buts” go away.

Daring to make a decision is simply step 1. To follow through you need commitment.

When you commit to a decision you act in line with that choice regardless of those “buts”. You get off your butt and get those jogging shoes on even though you’re tired and you had a hard day at work and Scrubs is on TV. You just do it regardless – because you decided you would.

Easy, right?

Well, there’s more.

It is difficult to stay committed without good habits.

Did you pay attention in Physics class?

Well don’t worry. I did. (I was and still am a total nerd for learning!)

In Physics class we learned about Newton’s Laws of Motion. It is our knowledge of these laws that allows us to send a spaceship to Saturn. It was our knowledge of these laws that allowed Louie Armstrong to sing on the moon! Isaac Newton was a super brainy guy and the most influential Physicist ever. (Whatever Einstein tries to tell you.) He was about more than just apples, you know.

According to Newton’s First Law of Motion it requires effort to get a stationary thing moving and it requires effort to get a moving thing to stop. (If you’re wondering what that noise is, it’s probably Sir Isaac, turning in his grave.)

You need to give the ball a push to start it moving. You need to put something in its way to get it to stop.

You get the picture, right?

Well your actions and behaviours and habits work in a similar way. If you start taking consistent action in one direction it’ll become easier and easier until it sticks and becomes a habit. When it’s a habit it’s going to take a lot of effort in a different direction to change that habit.

So what we’re really looking to do is build habits which support the decision you’ve just made.

If a habit is a continually rolling ball then to build a habit we first need to push the ball to get it moving, and then we need to clear out all the obstacles in its path, keeping it on the straight and narrow with routine, consistent, easy action.

You push the ball by taking rapid action straight after the decision.

You might go immediately to the store to stock up on healthy food. You might call the gym to enquire about gym membership or a Yoga class. You might look up new recipes on the internet. It doesn’t have to be anything grand. Success is built on a series of small steps.

So that’s what you did yesterday. You got the ball moving. You decided to go for it and you took action.

With one small task you decided to start turning your dream business into reality.

You generated momentum.

Phew… Does that answer your question Philip?

There’s more, of course….

Next you’ll want to actively ensure that nothing else stops that ball. You need a plan.

What I’m talking about here is not a blow by blow account of the steps you’re going to take to achieve your desired goal. You might make a plan like that later but, for now, you’re really just looking to make a plan to get committed. That comes first.

It is from the fertile soil of commitment that your beautiful body (or your beautiful business) will grow.

And we’ll discuss how you go about creating a commitment plan tomorrow.  For now, just have a think about how much time you might be able to devote to your business venture over the next few months. Be easy with it – just have a think.

And now the Pimms has gone to my head a little and I feel like a cuddle with Kalpna Jalopy.

You can let yourself out.

Tally-ho!

JJ Jalopy.

Become a Life Coach

An important decision to be made

Life Coaching Business Advice with JJ Jalopy

You’re back! How lovely it is to see you again.

I was hoping you’d come by. Sit anywhere you like. Don’t worry about your shoes.

Today I’ve been thinking about decisions.

And really one decision in particular.

Allow me to elaborate by means of an example.

Now I’m sure you’re nothing like the person I’m about to describe. What I’m about to say might not apply to you so you may need to play along a little…

Imagine that you have a job. Or imagine that you don’t.

(…and given that we’re pretending, why not make yourself incredibly attractive and charismatic, just like me!)

 

Maybe you really enjoy your job. Or maybe you hate your job. Maybe you would enjoy your job if it weren’t for that idiot boss or the guy next to you who’s told the same photocopier anecdote to the last ten people who were unfortunate enough to walk past his desk.

Either way you get up in the morning to go to work, you do your eight hours a day, and you come home.

But you also have a dream.

Maybe it’s the kind of dream that slaps you in the face every time you walk into the office building. An “I’m going to run this place” dream; an “I’m going to be a Broadway star” dream.

 

Or maybe it’s not so clear just yet. Maybe it’s just a sense that you’d like to be working for yourself.

You carry the dream around with you. You daydream about it during the day. You tell yourself you’re going to make it happen just as soon as you have more money, more time, more knowledge, more training, more confidence…

You carry your dream around with you as a little ray of light in your working day. A happy little distraction from Boring Bob and his stories about his combination boiler. A convenient excuse for not really going for that promotion- because what does it matter, right? You’ll be leaving soon to make a million on the internet.

Except that you won’t.

Because there is always an excuse. You can always be better prepared.

<< Sip of tea >>

 

Can I tell you a secret?

Can you guess who the person in the story is?

It’s me. The inimitable JJ Jalopy.

Before I decided to really go for my dream I could list a million excuses for not really committing myself:

• I don’t have the time
• I don’t have enough money
• I’m not good enough
• Other people are so much better than me
• I don’t have the confidence
• I’m scared I’ll screw up
• I’m scared I’ll look silly.

Can you imagine it? The magnificent JJ Jalopy thinking these things?!

Of course you can! Fear and indecision live within all of us. It’ll always be there. But we get to choose how we respond to that fear.

An awesome book that I’ve never read is Feel the Fear and Do It anyway by Susan Jeffers. I picked up the book, glanced at the cover, put it back on the shelf and headed straight to the in-store Starbucks for chai latte and brainstorming. The title told me everything I needed to know. It was time to commit.

(I call that speed of implementation, by the way. It’s a super important concept that I’ll be sure to hammer into your consciousness in the coming weeks and months of our relationship.)

What I’d like to challenge you to do today is to make a decision. Either you commit to going for that dream right now, or you commit yourself fully to the other areas of your life, putting that dream away for now, happy that you’re concentrating on the right thing.

Those are the only choices. I urge you to make the decision now.

Whichever way you decide it’s okay. You made a decision and it’s the right one because you made it. You’re black or white, no longer grey. Grey is for dirty computer peripherals. You deserve better.

A wonderful thing happens when you bring yourself fully to a task. Just you wait and see!

Now before I go, I have one last thing to ask of you.

A wise man once advised me to never leave the scene of a decision without taking some action that backs it up. (I’d tell you who it was, but I mentioned him yesterday and I don’t want to reveal my self-help man crush just yet. We’ve only known each other a day or two…)

So I want you to think of one little action that you can take right now that supports the decision you’ve just made.

Perhaps you could think of someone you could call to offer your coaching or consulting services? Perhaps you could write down an action to perform tomorrow morning at work to affirm your commitment to achieving that promotion?

Now go do it. Go go go!

Don’t worry, I’ll shut the door. Come back again.

Run run run!

JJ Jalopy.

Become a Life Coach

Come on in. Make yourself at home.

Welcome fellow internet adventurer!

This is my new home on the internet. Come on in and make yourself at home.

I know it’s not much to look at just yet – I’ll be giving it a lick of paint soon – but for now now it’ll be plenty fine enough for a pot of tea and a chin wag.

Teacake? (My favorite!)

I’m JJ Jalopy: raconteur, entrepreneur, Louis Pasteur.

Okay. You caught me in a fib. I’m no microbiologist and I wouldn’t know where to start when it comes to creating a vaccine.

What I do know about, however, is your business.

That’s right. Your business.

Not your J.O.B.

Your business.

The one you started a few years ago that’s starting to really blossom?

I can help you to oil the gears of that beloved machine to free up more of your time for the creative stuff that’s really going to make the difference.

How about the home business that’s struggling? It was so exciting to take the plunge and work from your own home, wasn’t it?! You’d have no boss, more freedom, more time with your family, more fun, more money. You’d be sexier, funnier, bigger, stronger, faster, more productive!

Right?!

Well maybe it hasn’t worked out just yet. Just maybe you have a list of outstanding jobs as long as the Champs-Élysées, you’ve barely spoken to friends and family in months and the crashing tidal wave of income that was sure to come your way has turned out to be more of a trickle?

That’s okay. Don’t worry. Stay with me. In the weeks and months and years to come I’ll help you to gain clarity.

Maybe we can turn it around. Maybe we’ll have to let it go and try again. It’ll be okay either way. You will succeed in the end if you want to. This much I know.

How about the home business you’re just starting? The life coaching practice that lives inside your head as a dream? The one that’s going to bring you so much wealth and fulfillment just as soon as you get the time? The consulting practice which will skyrocket your income just as soon as you get enough money to quit your job?

Well I love those businesses. I love a blank slate as much as I love to help turn around an existing business. If you stick around here you’ll learn tried and tested approaches to starting and marketing your business which just work. This stuff has been done before many times. I’ll show you how to get from A to B, with time to spare for a cup of tea and  a hob nob.

I started my career in business in 2001. I was a Management Consultant for a big, important-sounding consultancy in London. I wore a suit to work. I had business cards. I gave most of them to my Mum. She was so proud!

I worked for many of the major players in the UK investment and retail banking market. I saw a lot. I learned a lot. I talked a lot. Most of the time I even knew what I was talking about. I drank a lot of tea.

I enjoyed my job but I didn’t love it.

And if you’re like me, you’ll find it difficult to do something that you don’t love. My bed is the comfiest bed in the world. It takes something spectacular to get me out of that thing in the morning.

So I found something that I do love.

(And thankfully it’s relevant to our little story.)

Mrs. Jalopy (Kalpna) is a super-successful life coach. She’s probably the best in the world and would kick Tony Robbins’s giant white ass in a coach-off any day. No question.

And what she wants to do is coach.

That’s what all good coaches want to do. That’s what she’s awesome at.

Good business people want to doing the creative work that is their speciality. That’s where they contribute the most.

Kalpna didn’t want to be writing business plans or setting up marketing campaigns. She didn’t want to be documenting business processes, working out supply chains, or setting up email auto-responders. In fact, she didn’t know what half of that stuff was, or whether or not it was important. (Most of it isn’t really.) So she worried about not doing it.

What I love doing is helping people to set up and design their home businesses in such a way that they can stop worrying and concentrate on the good creative work they love doing.

Whatever your situation – if you have or are interested in setting up a home business, coaching or consultancy practice – please stick around and talk to me. I think you’ll find a lot of value here. And I hope to have a lot of fun with you.

This is going to be pretty informal. I like it that way. One day I might write a detailed step-by-step guide. The next day I might post a bad joke about a drunk otter. We’ll see how it goes. What I ask is that you contribute to this blog if you are getting value from it. Like all good attention-seekers I feed off the energy of those around me and I’d love to hear your encouragement and suggestions.

Now if you don’t mind, I’m exhausted and it’s past my bedtime. You can let yourself out if you don’t mind.

Until next time.

JJ Jalopy.