Cool, Noreen!

Man, getting any big project off the ground is a huge deal!

I just had a successful first run of my Business Startup Toolkit workshop two weekends ago. It was an awesome fulfillment of eight months worth of work. I'm still recouping, honestly. And trying to get ready to face the idea of organizing more. Until that idea stops making me want to fall down, I think I'm coasting.

Research, research, research...I think I covered every possible base and researched virtual assistance for many months before I launched. I also took advice from sba.gov and other sites and made sure that I had 6 months worth of expenses saved. If not for that, I wouldn't have made it! It took me 6 months to get my first client, probably because I had a baby in the middle of all of it...

But like I said in a previous posting, it isn't money that makes me successful (at least not in my eyes). I measure success by my happiness - being with my little girl, doing something I love, working with clients I love and to which I am dedicated. It's the things I can't touch that make me a success.

I actually told a colleague that the other day and she said, "Only people who aren't making any money say that." I almost bitch slapped her.

Wow, what a snotty thing to say! I would've been pissed, too!

She seems to have a very screwed up idea of what matters in life. What a shame, to be trapped in such a facile mainstream analysis.

She didn't choose the red pill.

I think sharing successes is positive and I don't think we do it enough. My success was that so many people singed up for my Home Buying Class. I was unsure about the response but Bizniks filled the event! I tried to tie it directly to the needs of Indie business owners.I love helping people plan to buy and I hope that everyone enjoys themselves. Nay sayers are always lurking around but living her life focused on scarcity rathan than abundance will be her downfall.

How much do I adore Brianna for using the term "bitch slap"? SO MUCH.

also, having this on the front page of the only business network worth visiting is priceless.

Thanks, Shae! Isn't that a great expression? I picked it up from my awesome husband.

By the way...thanks, Noreen, for this thread. It feels good to talk about the good things I've done, and read about others' success.

Congrats on your event, Fiona! My husband and I probably could have really used that event before we bought our house!

What a great idea, Noreen!

I have two successes I would like to brag about:

(1) I recently completed my first year as a full-time independent business professional, and so far I haven't completely lost my mind.

(2) I counted it up the other day, and I discovered that last year I produced 22 magazines from my humble little office, in addition to a variety of other projects. In addition to being quite exhausted, I'm awestruck that I was able to produce so much and not bitch slap anyone in the process.

My biggest accomplishment this fall has been completing the process of publishing my novel, Chasing Tales. Running La Familia takes up most of my time, but every once in a while I get to launch my own project and that is what makes it all worth it. If anyone wants to come to the big celebration party it is August 18th @ La Familia. I will be having a good old time.

And for the record, I've worked in jobs for the money and I've worked in jobs for the fun... fun was always worth more then money.

Lanae,

That last thing you said is so great! Sorry that I wont be in town to attend your celebration party.

I just posted about our successful contact with the Wounded Warrior Project, but to get there we had to patiently wait until we had tried every other avenue. Call to the group we worked with. Calls to the national headquarters in Jacksonville, FL, send out a DVD to our contact, then going back to the web site and sending another e-mail to the director of the Soldiers Ride and this morning he calls with all the answers we have been looking for and notice of at least another potential sale to an injured Marine.

So I say gentle and persistent contact will lead either to the right person and/or the right answer or in this case both.

So just recently I was considering posting a topic that was related to this.

What works, what doesn't work, with promoting yourself or your business? What is considered Shameless Self-Promotion?

I have been an indie biz owner for....oh about.....10 minutes!!! LOL Really I have carried the idea for many years. And after a long bout of unemployment while I settled up some education, I am now officially a biz owner with actual licenses.....hehehehe

Aside from watching and listening to others like you guys I really have NO clue what I am doing, mostly. I mean it took me several attempts with several ideas around an event to just get an event properly posted here on Biznik....but with some patience and very well guidance I have succeeded. Yay.

Just random postings on what you do and services, promotions, special/free offers, to me does not work.

The theory that I keep coming across about self-promotion to me makes sense, however I haven't quite got my brain programmed with the idea.

The theory is psychologically, most people don't care and really don't wanna hear about you and what you do. I feel they wanna be included in an invitation that will connect them to something bigger... And as long as they understand what they are connecting to and that they or their business will benefit from it, then they just might be interested in you and what you do. Which in turn is good for you and your business.

Anyway I personally don't have much proof with this. However maybe someone else out there does?

~~Spinin' the Orb~~

Ok, I'm jumping on the shameless self promotion bandwagon. :0)
My first two self-created retail items for my Hop to Signaroo business were released about two weeks ago and are selling well in my classes and presentations. (And I can finally get the word out about them thanks to help from Sterling who helped me get my website on a new server and cleaned up some glitches on my shopping page....thank you Superhero Sterling!!)

Please check our my "Roo-minder Rings" ASL Reminder Cards at (http://hoptosignaroo.com/products.htm)

Hey everybody! Congratulations to all your successes. I have a couple to bring to your attention. I don't like to brag, but I am excited about many things in my world right now. So rather than brag, I "happily announce" the last three successes, in chronological order from most recent:

1) I shamelessly promoted Biznik.com to my organization this morning in 2 towns, because I had met with the highly professional and brother-in-arms, Dan McComb, yesterday and discovered that philosophically, in relation to business and to our prospective memberships, we are almost identical, yet we express our need to build The Great Human Organism in similar but different ways. This makes for a powerful force when efforts are combined and augmented by one another. SO watch for new Biznik members with a yellow background or holding the yellow brochure, or neat little yellow corners on their photos.

2) I am having very successful negotiations with the potential authors in the soon-to-be best selling book "Your Sales Force" that I am producing.

3) The system is working for organizing, promoting, and running the MasterMind Series ActionStorm regional events.

The HOW: #1) I "train my brain" and built a huge belief in my project that forces, compels, me to borrow from the beauty of tomorrow to enroll myself in the activities of today, including reaching out to ANYONE that has the potential to help attain the vision.

2) Practice and determine casting the vision so clearly that others can see it clearly, and

3) Persist and never desist. The other 95/5 rule, 5% inspiration, 95% Perspiration.

Thanks for reading this. I'm fired up more now than ever!

Go B'nikers! I love this thread cuz we get to see what we are all up to!

We are wrapping up fellow Bizniker Jefe Birkner's Full Experience branding for his restaurant, Austin Cantina.

The restaurant is in a great location, the food is great and the branding has turned out lovely! We started with an embellishment on a pre-existing logo, ran with the color theme for his graphics and wrapped it all into the theme for his interiors. Website to launch very soon!

We pulled this project off in just about one month, which is a very short time frame for such a large endeavor when it's not your only project! Long hours, bit o sweat on the brow, and a few hair pulling moments later...VIOLA! Determination, communication, persistence, coffee (LOL!), patience and dedication.

Jefe is humble enough to post his experiences with the project, learning curves and opening on his blog. It's always an interesting read and you can view some images of the interiors that he has taken at http://www.austincantina.org. Portfolio coverage on the project to follow soon in the EcoKind blog at http://www.ecokindesign.com.

Go check it out if you haven't yet. The Cantina is located in Ballard, on 24th NW, just 3 blks north of Market. It's the full TexMex experience!

Thanks for all your support!

Okay, I have a couple of recent successes. The first one was from finally getting off my arse, the second was from another in a series of blinding flashes of dumb-ass good luck.

#1 - I finally listened to my wife, and wrote the test and became a certified FileMaker developer. I've been going to do this for years, but been putting it off due to a long history of choking on tests that I totally knew the material for. Lesson Learned: She knows everything, and I should just admit it once in a while.

#2 - The big FileMaker guru in town (Ottawa, Ontario) just got offered a dream job out of the country, so he handed a large portion of his clientele to me. I've been doing subcontract work for him for a few years, and had finally started to cut back on my subcontract work to try to build my own client list, when this happened. My client list has just tripled in size, and there are some very swanky clients in the mix now.

I've always considered myself quite socially stunted, but am getting out there spreading my word to these new clients, and quite enjoying it.

When I made a remark to the guy who gave me all these clients about my good luck that he was doing this, he responded with something like, "You've made your own luck by doing quality work for years". So I guess the luckiest part of all of this was finding such a warm, generous person to work with.

Congratulations to all of you on your successes!

This was more of a personal success, and a small one at that, but I was pretty happy in the moment.

Today I discovered that the family of an elderly client is unknowingly violating a contract signed between me and their mom. This severly affects the amount of money that my company will make on this job. Rather than get all New Jersey about it (you know what I mean!!!) I clearly explained to the daughter that the family was doing the wrong thing and while the contract specifically expressed that I could "pull my tools" I would stay and do the right thing and complete the job. She was very greatful and thankful that we would continue to help her mom out.

Building the reputation of a small business can be very challenging when all you want to do is GO JERSEY!!!!!!

Elizabeth,

What does "GO JERSEY" mean? I'm not familiar with the phrase.

Hi Frank: Some people that know me love to suggest that my east coast New Jersey edge has stuck with me even after 16 years in Seattle. I like to get to the heart of the matter and "GO JERSEY". There is certainly a difference in how folks from different parts of the country do business and while I have certainly adapted to the more laid back pace of Seattle, I do miss the Manhattan pace quite a bit.

Hope that helps explain it.

Liz

A good friend of mine once suggested that especially when taking on a big project, or a life change for that matter, that you should keep track of your small successes. Milestones, is what she called them.

They are small moments of triumph. Pivotable moments when the world changes in a small, but significant way. Those moments when you recognize progress. She suggested that those moments get written down, recognized, and celebrated. It is sage advice. In the press and flux of everyday life, we tend to look at what is not done, the waiting list, the "I gonna, but don't wanna, or don't know how to."

Recognizing the milestones, is like receiving a blessing and confirmation. Most importantly, in those moments of despair, or don't know what to do, They can be reviewed for both inspiration and direction!

Seven years ago I set off for Asia with the desire and dream of mastering enough Chinese to get below the surface of the medicine that I practice. On October 1, I return to China, for a month, with 10 other practitioners in tow to study with a doctor of unusual skill and knowledge, that I know there.

The milestones of this journey are scattered through both years and continents. It may seem extraordinary to say "I'm taking acupuncturists to China and translating for them", but a look at the journey, told through the story of milestones reveals that it is a journey like any other.

One foot firmly place in front of the other!

Let's keep this thread toward the top. Let's put our successes up each week as we make progress and celebrate together.

This week's success, for me, is in the form of me being able to contract 8 authors for the collaborative book, Your New Sales Force, due out Spring of '08. I have to contract 4 more to make the set complete at a dozen, so keep rooting for me.

The book is subtitled

"A collaborative effort of writing that addresses the issue of being worthy of referrals and the mechanics of generating referrals from other humans."

I hope to have the other 4 authors committed by the end of the month. Pass the word that I am looking for someone to jump on the team that can produce 2 chapters, 12 inserts, and 2 chapter reviews by Nov 30, 07. There is substantial profit to be made, but primarily this is a great way to get some publishing experience and credibility in the market place.

Keep your successes posted, let's inspire one another.

My recent success:

I'm not sure what happened or where they came from, but I got four new clients in just this past week alone!! All this networking is paying off. It came at just the right time, too!

Bri

LOVE this thread. It's what I encourage my clients to do. Stand up and NOTICE your sucesses. We're so quick to recognize the one thing we failed to do. This is way better.

I've been working the last few months on bringing a dream of my daughter's to fruition and we're now up and running. It's a non profit venture with a lot of potential for making money down the line, but the purpose is altruistic, to create child and earth friendly holiday traditions. We're starting with Halloween and our website, www.GreenHalloween.org has already brought tremendous reaponse. Plus, we've got amazing sponsorship. We're starting in the Seattle area this Halloween and will be going nationwide next year with Halloween and other holidays to follow. I love my work, but this has been such a fun and exciting project.

More to come!

Lynn