A few months ago I fired my accountant.
I briefly mentioned the incident – I described how we tried to reach him on April 15, Tax Day, to make sure he’d filed an extension.
2 days later, Laura got a message back: “Yes I did file your extension, and of course I went home at 6pm that day which is why I’m only responding now.”
An accountant who goes home at 6pm on April 15? Sounds like some kind of joke. I fired the guy.
I’ve got a serious question for you today.
Are you *making money* (and not merely making Friends / Fans / Followers) Twittering, Facebooking and Bookmarking?
Earlier I told you my story of being on the board of a startup company – how I had to get in everyone’s face at a friendly dinner meeting, so they would do their ‘friggin research.’
I’ve got this friend, Nolan, whose entire life sailed over a cliff in a burning bus one day last February.
He calls me up, he says ‘Perry I’ve gotta come see you right away’ and it’s one of those phone calls where you know, whatever he tells you is not going to be good.
He drops by and tells me about his wife: “Trinity has announced she has a new boyfriend now, she’s been out drinking with him every night until 2:30 am, she wants out of our marriage and she says it’s OVER.”
The Yin: If your entire business is dependent upon one source of traffic, one advertising medium, your business is a train wreck waiting to happen.
The Yang: If you are really, truly proficient at the use of one source of traffic, one form of advertising media, you can always cherry pick lucrative advertising opportunities and make money, regardless of what is going on in the market.
Subscriber Nick Neilson defines the two fundamental approaches to business as:
Arbitrage vs. Alchemy
Arbitrage means:
Had breakfast with a friend this morning, not even one hour ago. We’re chitchatting and I ask, “How’s your parents?”
She rolls her eyes and tells me this story.
“When Michael Jackson died my mom went into mourning. My mom applied for temporary disability at her job so she could mourn Michael Jackson’s death, and has spent the last four weeks laying on the couch under a blanket.
One of my students hit the skids financially, dropped out of Roundtable (my highest level coaching group) and just sort of vanished for almost 2 years. He had come to a 4 Man Intensive, gone through the Bobsled Run and come to one Roundable meeting.
He was mostly working in the real estate business, which as you know started to slide in ’07. He was raking in cash for awhile. But then he started missing payments and then disappeared.
All I knew was he was having money troubles…
I had no idea.
Just got this amazing email from him the other day, wanting to get back in the groove and asking us to work with him on a payment plan.
Richard from Florida. Here’s his amazing story:
Out there in the vast ocean called the Internet is a sea of people you want to become your customers. How will that happen for you?
—> Facets of Customer Development:
I’m writing this from far northern Wisconsin where the summer days are long, the morning air is cool and the nights are so brisk that in the deep woods you hear no insects at night. Only silence, occasionally interrupted by the call of a loon on the lake.
I’m with my 10 year old son Cuyler and we’re doing the father son thing for a couple of days.
We’re sleeping in a tent and let’s just put it this way…. in the wee hours of the morning, if nature calls, a battle ensues.
A battle between the warmth of the sleeping bag and the discomfort of my bladder.
I have resigned myself to the reality that the bladder always wins in the end :^>
