Right it’s that time of week again where I check how I’m doing according to my plan.

Well this week business number two got on a flyer with a really innovative bit of online content and that seems to have given that business a boost and a bit of momentum it needs.

Hypnotherapy however stalled a little, I’ve got more done on it but it’s not moving fast enough, so this week’s big focus is getting that running properly. We’ll see how it goes next week!

Rethinking some strategy around my website, getting other things up and running but totally loving it.

I’ve also had more ideas of ways to earn cash should things get tough so my goal of being independent from 2011 is totally not scary to me.

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OK this has been an amazing week. On the practical side I’ve got my insurance, set up my website and basically started the hypnotherapy business.

In life I’ve just been plain busy with my fulltime job, secondary website and the hypnotherapy. Add to that actually having a social life and it’s been manic. I’ve managed to keep on top of everything though but I’m starting to see the importance of keeping a proper diary.

One more note, having done a bit more research on other hypnotherapists in my area I’ve found them all appear a bit stiff, formal or cheap in their approach. There’s definitely a gap in the market for the type of business I’ve got in mind which stands out with a bit more personality. Good news!

Speak soon.

This book was recommended to me by someone who agreed with my feelings of not wanting anyone to profit from my talents but me.

This man told me that it had inspired him to strive for a business where he did 1% of the work and took home 99% of the money. I wasn’t so sure I’d like it based on that but I gave it a go.

Luckily it’s much better than my friends review! At it’s core it’s got two main points, one is capitalist and the other surprisingly socialist. It reveals how the rich think about money differently from others and how our Western education system prepares kids for one kind of conformed life.

I agree totally with his education points and could write all day about the waste of time subjects our children are forced to learn and the useful subjects that are just ignored.

The money part was equally interesting. The rich buy things that make them more money, the poor buy things that cost more than they’ll ever guess. The rich pay themselves first and worry about bills and taxes later, the poor pay bills and taxes first then worry about the pitance left for themselves.

It really is a book about mindset and action and for that reason it’s a good read. It won’t make you rich just by reading it but adopting a ‘rich’ mindset and acting on some of the learns in this book will make you better off.

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It’s obvious from reading that there’s been two main threads going on, action and learning. I really didn’t see as much learning going on when I set out but I’ve soaked up a load of lessons about setting up and running a business.

The other things I’ve learned about are lessons on life and lessons about myself.

On life I’ve learned that you can make time work for you, I felt pretty busy before all this started, I’ve now added setting up and training for my business, a new website business and writing this blog to that load without losing anything significant from my routine.

I’ve learned attitude is so important, with a positive mindset I’ve found it easy to get what i want, to access information and deal with the disappointments.

And on myself I’ve seen my confidence soar as more and more of my life comes under my own control.

Next time – book review Rich Dad, Poor Dad

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Time for another quick Sunday check up, judging how I’m doing against my Success Story which is HERE.

This week I’ve
- looked into the costs of setting up business, phone lines, insurance, computers etc
- bought and started work on my professional website
- worked on a couple of product innovations, both of which fit with the story
- come up with a name for the company which I’m delighted with
- made contact with someone who potentially could generate loads of great marketing for the business.

It’s felt like a week where I haven’t had time to do much but in looking back I’ve actually done loads to move forward and pounced on opportunities that have come my way.

This blog is supposed to be like my business notebook, available to everyone. It’s for me to use to plan the business and commit to goals and also as a record of the things I’ve learned as discoverd. Over this Easter Weekend I’m going to re-read every post to make sure nothing’s slipped through. It will be interesting to see if it has.

Everything begins with a thought.

That’s it. It caters for good and evil, innovation and procrastination, success and failure. It’s all down to thoughts.

Brilliant saying, inspirational

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And in that start up frame of mind I also saw some small businesses around where I was meeting these entrepreneurs which could benefit from a kick up the ass. Here are some observations.

REGISTER A WEBSITE DOMAIN – hotmail, gmail, AOL all work and do a grand job but when your published email address is petcleaningprods@hotmail.com I think it looks cheap, you look temporary and like a one man band. I’d also worry doing business with a @hotmail person that they’re going to run off with my money with no trace or I get the name wrong and email someone else @hotmail and there are millions of those!

There’s NO excuse for this, it costs next to nothing and your nearest teenager will set it up for you.

LONG EMAIL ADDRESSES DON’T WORK – I saw a small office supply shop and I can’t even begin to tell you their email address because it was so long. It might have been localareaofficesuppliesenquiries@gmail.com or sales@localareaofficesupplies.com. I’ve no idea. Couldn’t take it in and I was walking past not driving. It looked like a reasonable shop, I might have thought about checking them out but I can’t. We pay lots for memorable phone numbers but email addresses all cost the same so make it memorable. No more than four words with at @ sign in there.

Now some stories about the people I met, all nice people but a real lack of business nous. No wonder so many start-ups fail.

Person one told me he loved business, he loved doing a deal, innovating products and attracting customers. He then told me some ideas, there was no innovating as he was a big NLP fan and had just modelled someone else but, sure, he could do the deals and attract customers. However all he did was have the idea, or have the idea to copy something and do it. Ten out of ten for execution but never once did he talk about revenue models, margins, keeping costs low. Lots of people were hanging on his every business word, I hope to god they weren’t modelling him.

Person two wants to set up a specific business, being of the net-generation he’d already commissioned a web designer for more money than his business had made yet, as it hasn’t started trading. When I told him to save some cash and use some of the free tools around he turned his nose up, not good enough! I even offered to send him a link to some articles, no thanks. Maybe I’m being harsh but if someone offers me free research into how I can save a lot of money, and that person isn’t selling me anything, I’m going to look at it. Keep the costs down at all times.

Finally person three. She announced her goal was to do no work but take all the profits. OK I get that, it’d bore me and I’d worry how my profits were doing for next month (but checking and acting on this worry would be working) but it’s not much of a vision is it?

I predict person one will be a reasonable success, running lots of outfits but making only a little profit on them. Person two’s business will fail due to overspending and person three will work hard all their life too focussed on the end point and not the journey.

Told you I’m an expert now

Posted by Wordmobi

Researched and found hypnotherapy training

Found out the laws of being a hypnotherapist

Set up and published this blog

Set up another website

Set up publicity for that other website

Priced office space

Looked at which funds I might be able to get for new business

Found out where my training was happening

Set up email alerts to find more on competitors, myself and leads.

Learned the skill of blogging and linking blogs to social networks

And much much more. All using one resource

Good old GOOGLE! I’ve yet to find a question it couldn’t answer and as someone with a bit of computing experience I was putting in very basic search terms to limit my results however it works just as well with questions like ‘why doesn’t my WordPress to Twitter feed using bit.ly work’.

Use it for everything. Is there anything on this earth that’s as useful and still free??

OK here goes for my sixth Sunday Check Up where I check my progress against my success story which you can see HERE

This week has been the busiest I’ve ever known in terms of my full-time job, my part-time website and moving on with setting up my hypnotherapy business. However I have achieved a lot.

My website is getting more hits than ever and is on track for success. It’s teaching me loads about self marketing, websites, targeting a market place and dealing with feedback.

I’ve completed more hypnotherapy training and am now in a position to start taking clients, slowly at first but it means I can actually start doing the work now.

I’ve impressed myself with the work and effort I can put into these businesses when I’m passionate about them and enthusiastic about their success.

I’ve just about defined the areas of hypnotherapy I’d like to specialise in and thought of a very innovative area I can move into as well which is part of the story.

I’ve had a genius idea of how to promote the business with a real wow factor, I can’t reveal that here in case someone steals the idea but as this is also my notepad for business I’d better leave a coded mention of BF Toxic Addiction.

In my ‘normal’ line of work I’ve dealt with a lot of publicity (another of my success story goals) as well as enjoying it and the controversy around it, it has prepared me to deal with it better.

And that’s it, and that’s enough. If you’re planning on starting up a business or changing your life in some other way I can’t stress enough the benefit of writing down your goals and checking on them regularly like this. It’s so beneficial as a check and also I feel incredibly positive when I write this.

More to come … !