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:

Google Docs is great if you want to do basic documents, spreadsheets and presentations but sometimes you need to use the old Microsoft Office or Keynote and then you’re typically resigned to emailing items around which makes it tough to keep track of documents.

Enter DropBox. A tool that synchronises data onto the web where and allows you to seamlessly access that data from any computer or share it with specific people for collaboration purposes. I’ve been using it the last couple of weeks and have found it invaluable. With the free account, you get 2 GB of free storage and there are paid accounts above that for more storage.

I’ve updated the resources list with links to Dropbox. I’d recommend it.

Check it out here.

As all of my projects eb and flow there is one thing that keeps recurring throughout the process. I outsource. I get other people with the time, skills and interest in doing the things that I don’t.

An example, an easy one but and example nonetheless, is the development of a website. I know this is a regular suspect and people may be familiar with it but it’s really straightforward to get a website developed by going to a number of online marketplaces for software development. Three big ones that I’m aware of are:

• Elance – I’ve found this to be the best so far. It’s much easier to manage multiple jobs through Elance and the tools supporting submitting a project, evaluating responses and managing the project to delivery are quite strong.
• Guru – I haven’t really used Guru but I plan to in the future to see how easy it is to manage a project.
• Rentacoder – Another big one that I’ve used before. This is probably more focused on software / web / design activities.

These sites have everything you could really imagine in relation to software development, web development, graphic design, desktop publishing etc etc. They even branch into this such as accounting, legal, copywriting, PR, the list goes on and on. To date, I’ve only really used it for graphic design and web development, however as the opportunities arise, I’ll be trying other services as well.

The really great thing about these types of sites though is that they’re usually cheaper than you can buy locally because a) it’s an extremely competitive marketplace, and b) jobs can be delivered from all across the globe, sometimes from locations with cheaper rates than locally.

I’d recommend you try it out and test it by doing something small. Get someone to develop a logo or do some stationary or fix a wordpress theme problem.

There’s a couple of tips that I think are relevant to outsourcing in this method, which probably apply to any contracted services, but here goes:

• Be very clear about what you require – I’d recommend sitting down and writing out what it is you require before submitting a project request. If you don’t know what it is you want, you wont get a successful outcome.
• Pay upon delivery – Depending on the size and duration of your project, make sure you keep your supplier incentivised by withholding a certain amount of the agreed project value. For smaller projects (e.g. less than $200-$500, I would withhold the lot until successful delivery of the project. This makes sure you get what you set out to purchase.
• Use the escrow – Make sure you use the escrow services to protect yourself from losing cash. This essentially allows you to show the supplier that you’re committed however, they don’t get the money until they’ve delivered.
• Track all changes – Make sure you use the site to track all your conversations. If there is a dispute, there will be a clear record of any decisions made and should lead to a quick and easy resolution.
• Don’t be afraid to negotiate – You’d be amazed at what happens if you ask someone if that is there best and final offer as you’re considering other bids. Price reductions, free inclusions, extended warranties all appear from thin air.
• Shop around – This is one of the best things about these tools, you can get a great range of bids and it allows you to shop around to find the one that best suits your requirements.
• Remember Quality / Time / Cost – Just remember that, as with any project, quality, time and cost all balance out. If you’re getting a really cheap price compared to other proposals, there’s probably a reason (i.e. quality will be reduced or they’re not delivering the same amount of work). The old rule “you get what you pay for” still applies here.
• Protect your intellectual property – This is more something to be conscious of. Some of the tools (e.g. Elance) allows you to set up terms including non-disclosure agreements. I don’t really now how you would enforce them so I think it’s smarter to just be aware of the type of information you’ll need to provide to your supplier to get the job done.
• Make sure you support the system – I know this is a small thing but I think it’s important to provide feedback and support the marketplace. Provide constructive feedback so that the suppliers and future purchasers get the best from the system at hand.

Another option for outsourcing more people focused tasks is to use a Virtual Assistant. I haven’t really used one of these yet, however when I do I’ll be sure to post some details.

So, get out there and start leveraging a world of skills so you can make decisions, not do the work.

Now, you may ask what’s in it for them if it’s free? Maybe I should leave spotting the cross selling up to you.

1. Objectives
2. Principles
3. Projects

My three projects in my race to Ditch the Office cover a number of different business approaches and products.  I’ve selected them for various reasons, not least of all that some will be provide me with the ability to get out of the office sooner rather than later.  So brace yourself, here they are:

1. Something small.

I’ve recently been introduced to the fantastic world that is  Internet Marketing.  Internet Marketing is really quite simple, it’s the process of identifying a niche market on the Internet and delivering a product tailored to that market.  This is the world of information products, websites, niches, mailing lists, keywords and, not least of all, Google.  The possibilities here are endless and I’m full steam ahead learning what it’s all about. There are benefits in me learning this anyway as it’s all about hitting the right market with online presence. This is a great possibility as it requires very little money to start and has quicker potential returns that either of my other two projects.  I’m finding it very interesting and I’ll write a post on this shortly with all the resources and my plan on this front.  This is the easy one!

2. Something of interest.

I’m a greeny at heart I would suppose.  I think people should take more responsibility for their consumption, from cars all the way down to plastic bags.  No one can be a saint when it comes to this, particularly as it’s difficult to know what the real impact of each convenience decision actually is.  Saying that, awareness is the first step.  It’s a bit like the current financial crisis.  It’s simply making people think before they spend.  In that way it’s probably helping the environment because if people are thinking twice about buying, there’s.  Anyway, that’s enough of that.

In these times of environmental awareness and, more recently, financial crisis there are opportunities to help people to get second-hand goods rather than buy something new.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s a time and a place for something shiny and new but there’s also a lot of unwanted stuff in homes around the world that could benefit someone else.  “furcle”, which I’ve mentioned before, is a project to try to do this.  This is a fun one!

3. Something I know.

By night, I’m a budding entrepreneur.  By day I work in Information Technology.  Unfortunately, technology is quite often not only complicated, it also complicates things.  Particularly for big business.

One of those complicated and complicating things is processing credit card information.  More specifically, having to do all the things that the credit card companies say you need to do to be able to process credit cards.  Not that long ago, the credit card companies joined forces (in a manner) to try to reduce the amount credit card fraud as a result of misappropriated credit card numbers.  Enter the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).  The PCI DSS is complicated and complicates doing business.  In fact it costs a considerable amount of money to meet the requirements set out in the standard and maintain compliance (dirty word) over time.  We’ll I’ve got another project here with some partners to try to solve that complicated and costly problem for companies.  This is the big one!

So that’s the end of this series.  I hope it was useful to you.  It was definitely beneficial to me because, to be honest, I’ve had this stuff in my head for some time but haven’t written it down. Writing it down has helped to crystallise and reinforce it and in that light, I’d recommend you do it for yourself!  I’ll give a progress report on these projects from here on in.

Make sure you check out part 1 and part 2.

1. Objectives
2. Principles
3. Projects

In the first post, I walked through my immediate objectives.  For this post, I wanted to run through my three principles in my race to Ditch the Office.  I have to keep reinforcing these to myself every day:

1. Just do it!

Or just f-ing do it for those with a language a little more colourful.  There are plenty of ideas out there.  Get moving on something.  Take the leap.  Take action.  Be prepared to learn.  Be prepared to make errors.  Be prepared to have a win.  Be humble.  Be this.  Be that.  Be proactive!  There’s no way I’ll find out if I don’t try.  And in this case I’m prepared to keep trying.

2. Commit.

I know the “C” word is hard for some.  In my case this is a commitment of time, sometimes money (as little as possible up front – this comes into the strategy), definitely in discipline.  The biggest commitment I currently have is my time.  I commit time after the day job to getting something started. At this point in time that is totally at odds with the longer term goals.  I don’t currently see any other way than to spend time at this point.  If you’ve got any good tips (no, Lotto is not an option) then let me hear them.

3. Remember the goal.

My goal is to have a flexible life where I can commit my time where I choose – family, friends, society pursuits.  I can’t do this by having to go to the office every day.  I can’t do it by having to work for someone else for most of my waking life. Focus, focus, focus.

And that’s it for part two in the “Ditch the Office” freedom strategy series.  There’s one left to come which I’ll post next week.  You should also check out part 1.

• Skype.  This may be a little obvious, but I love skype.  The ease, the flexibility, the price!  There are other tools out there as well that all let you conduct voice or video calls like Google talk and Microsoft’s live messenger.  They’re all great.  For some reason I use Skype.  You can pick your own.
• Google docs is amazing.  You can write, store, share and collaborate on documents, spreadsheets, presentations and pdfs.  You should definitely check this out as it’s great to be able to be simulataneously editing a document while chatting with someone across the globe on Skype.  It’s also great because Google are continuously improving it and it’s getting better every day.
• Acrobat.com is also great.  They’re building a suite of web base document tools that you can use for collaboration.  I must admit that I don’t really use these but they do look a lot nicer than Google docs.  What I do use though is the screen sharing tool.  This thing is great and it’s free!  It allows you to share your screen with anyone who has an internet connection and a web browser.  Again there are a number of other options available but I don’t know that I’ve found any that are free.  One that comes to mind is GoToMeeting, however I don’t think this one is free.

Just a quick post.  Hope these tools are useful.  If you’ve got any others that you think are great then please feel free to post a comment.

**Update**

Just thinking after this post that you should make sure that you’re comfortable with the terms of service for any of these services.  Sometimes the owner of the service may be taking ownership of your content if you use the service.  An example of the different approaches are the google docs and google docs for google apps terms of service.  Make sure you read and understand if you’re using these tools for business (and even personal) use.

1. Objectives
2. Principles
3. Projects

So for this post, I’ll run through my immediate three objectives in my race to Ditch the Office:

1. Learn.

This is the biggest investment up front. I need time to learn. Marketing, outsourcing, negotiations, pricing, advertising, public relations, people management, discipline. I need to experiment, fail, succeed, confuse, improve. I tried doing an MBA in the not to distant past and, to be blunt, I really really disliked (hated) it.  Now doing an MBA or something similar is not for everyone and I should have known before I started it.  Since then I’ve really come to the realisation that there is plenty of opportunity to try this stuff (i.e. business ventures) for yourself. I thinks it’s much more fun out in the field learning from experience.  I’m enjoying experimenting much more than traditional study.

2. Multiple ideas.

I’m pursuing multiple ideas at one time. This is challenging, mostly from a time perspective but it’s necessary as not every idea is going to be successful. Not every idea maintains momentum either so it’s good to have multiple things on the go so that one can slot in if another is a little slow.  I did find that once I started looking for ideas and speaking to various people about them, more ideas flow so now I’ve got a list of ideas that I can experiment with in the future if one falls by the wayside.

3. Replace the salary.

This is where the rubber really hits the road. I need to apply the previous two “folds” to replace my salary as a starting point. Find something that takes off enough that I don’t have to go to the office every day. Once this has happened, it will be a case of trying out further ideas that I’m gathering on the way to see if they are more effective in allowing me to Ditch the Office.

As with all good strategies I’ll be continually re-evaluating it so that I can make sure I stay on target. It’s serving me well so far but I’m still sitting in my office chair five days a week aren’t I?  Time will truly tell if this approach is going to work.

So that’s it for part one of the series.  Here’s part 2.  Part 3 is to follow shortly.