So, here’s update Numri Tre! Last week was a good week. It was a little different in the fact that I did a lot of thinking as result of meeting a few people.

It was great to meet some people for a couple of reasons. First, I was able to get real world feedback on the ideas that I’m working on, in particular the training business. It was also great to get out into the world and breathe fresh air, both in a real and a metaphorical sense. Deep huh?

Anyway, meeting these people was great to keep the motivation up as they were pretty positive about the ideas I was discussing with them. It got me to the point that I’m confident that people will buy the training offering and I now need to develop it.

So, as this update is a little late the motivation was and is still powerful and my measure of progress was Not too bad. I need to get some wins on the board this week I think. It’s time to get into the dirty details of product development!

Can you guess what language the update is in this week?

As you may recall, I moved cities recently and now I’m trying to start something from scratch. What do you think would be the first thing you would do? I know what I’d do (what I am doing). I’m meeting people!

One thing that I have learned (note that this does not by any means mean that I’m an expert) over the years is that people, not money, make the world go round, money comes later

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I think that personal relationships are what greases life’s cogs. Whether is personal or business relationships, it’s all the same.

Where am I going with this? Well, when you’re trying to start a business, you can’t do it in isolation. You need to meet people. You need to get the word out. Meet people in real life, meet people online, build friendships!

In traditional thought, this is where the term networking usually enters the conversation. For some reason though, I hate the term “Networking”. It’s so clinical. It also conjures up long and uncomfortable silences, bad finger food, too many trips to the bar and forgetting the names of people you didn’t want to meet in the first place. I guess this is really semantics though as it’s all about your attitude. If you treat it as networking, then it’s going to be painful for those that don’t like “networking”.

The best way I’ve found is that you simply need to make friends. I think this is a much better way (and term) for building your personal networks. Just make friends. Be open to meeting new people at all times. Simply be friendly. Don’t be afraid to ask about them and don’t be afraid to talk about yourself (or your ideas), just make sure it’s a two way street. It’s amazing what may come of it. You can’t also expect something to come of your conversation immediately. Just having met someone means that you may be front of mind as soon as an opportunity arises.

Now, I’m not the best conversationalist but you know what they say, Practice makes Progress!

A case in point. When I arrived, I found someone through my friend network would was willing to talk to me about my idea. They provided me with two contacts who I’ve met and they provided me with more contacts. And so on and so forth. Before long through the power of expotential growth, I’ll have plenty of people that I’ve met and some new friends to boot.

So, what would my tips be:

1. Meet people. Avoid the vacuum. Have fun!
2. Meet people through the attitude of making friends. Not “Networking”. This can sometimes seem false if you’re heart isn’t in it.
3. Make sure you always ask if there’s someone else the person you’re meeting thinks you should talk to. Preferably through an introduction.

Image attribution:

Welcome to the second of the regular Ditch the Office updates.  Sorry that this post is a little later than my promised Friday arfternoon update but I’ve been flat out this week! And it is still friday (just) so it’s all good.

So, what’s been happening?  I’ve been busy beavering away at getting a basic website developed for one of my projects.  It did involve a necessary step in what I consider was ultimately the wrong direction.  I did technical work myself!  I know, I know.  Not the ideal situation but I couldn’t find someone to do it for the price of a case of beer so I resigned and did it myself.  I learnt more about web design and implementation than I care to share here or even really use in the future but it had to be done.  All I lost was a week of effort that I could be spending on other things…  I did get to listen to lots of podcasts and radio though and some goals were kicked so not all was lost.

Through my ditching and office activities I also heard/read a few good quotes this week:

1. Try hard, fail fast, learn and move on (or something like that) – Jason Calicanis, This Week in Startups podcast
2. Don’t mistake activity with progress (or something like that) – From the book Who Moved My Cheese (I think) by Dr Spencer Johnson

Heard any good quotes lately that have inspired, invigorated or enraged you?

So, in summary this week was very busy and at times frustrating.  More importantly, rather than just being active, I was making progress and this did wonders for the motivation.  This weeks Motivation = Powerful! and the Progress = Better than pitiful.

What does next week hold?  Well, I’ve got some introductions that I’ll need to prepare for.  I need to get 2-3 more people from each one to continue the networking and build those contacts.

I’ll let you know how it goes next Friday.  Au revoir!

ps.  Through the power of google translate I’ll be seeing how many numbers I can get up to in different languages.  Fun huh?