Who cares? Instead of reacting to the current environment, I believe in proactively creating my own reality.

“Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.” — Michel de Montaigne

In Business

Building a business in a sluggish economy will only prepare me for greater success when it’s over. It forces me to improve my selling ability. It requires me to cut costs and watch cashflow. If I can learn to succeed now, I’ll be the better for it later.

For the past year, my profits have nearly doubled by focusing on a few high-value clients and building systems to handle the extra work. I’m confident this trend will continue in the future.

In Investing

I’m not a stock market genius, but using basic financial analysis I’ve built a portfolio of undervalued companies that has beat the market by 3-8% over the past 6 months. A market downturn means stocks are on sale - so now is a time to snap up companies at bargain prices.

For more on value investing, read Value Investing 101 by Motley Fool.
In Personal Finance

As an entrepreneur, my income and job security is not tied to the economy. By making some changes to my sales strategy, my income has more than doubled from last year. I’ve taken the advice of David Bach in The Automatic Millionaire and automated my savings and investments. Also, I’ve made some major lifestyle changes and am aggressively paying off debt. By boosting my job and investments income while living frugally, I’m applying the fundamental law of wealth building:

Live on less than you make, and invest the difference

The “don’t have it, don’t spend it” philosophy is unpopular with many young entrepreneurs, including myself in the past. It’s easy to overspend now, hoping you’ll make it big . While your business may become very profitable in several years, it’s the habits you form now that will impact you in the future. In my view, it’s better to develop a financial position now that doesn’t require a future windfall. That way, you can do what you love and not be tied to making decisions for the money.

As JD from Get Rich Slowly advises, it’s best to return to the basics if the going gets tough. After all, the #1 impact on your investments is you.

So please, stop complaining and take more responsibility for your life!

Last week, I learned something that will dramatically change the plans I had for the next few years. For the past 6 months, I’ve been preparing mentally, educationally, and financially for a new endeavor I planned to take. All my dreams would come true once this happened.

Everything was ready, or so I thought, with only one small aspect outside my control. As fate would have it, that one aspect ended up preventing all chances of my plan taking place.

So what do I do now?

1. I tried to put it into perspective. I’m young, I’m healthy, and have unlimited opportunities ahead. To every one of you reading this: we’re the luckiest people on the planet.

2. I learned some lessons. These included:

• I don’t have total control over my life. Taking responsibility for one’s life is a hallmark of high achievers, but the reality is we cannot control every possible outcome.
• Invest in skills with many applications. Thankfully, I did this. However, in hindsight I could see how it could have turned out even worse if I did not.
• Enjoy the process. There is a scene in The Way of the Peaceful Warrior where Dan, the gymnast, is telling Socrates how all his problems will be solved once he wins the gold medal. Socrates has him consider the possibility of not achieving that - which makes Dan angry. Later, Dan gets into an accident that dashes his dreams, but launches him on a path to discovering what provides true meaning. There is so much I can relate to in that movie; it seems every time I’ve accomplished something big, I wish I had enjoyed the process more. I need to stop the “once X happens, then I’ll be happy” mentality. There is so much I can be thankful for right now.

3. I’m looking into other options. I refuse to give up. If my first plan failed, I’ll come up with two more. If those don’t work out, I’ll come up with more. With each failure, I’m closer than every to accomplishing what I want.

I’ll never give up on my dreams, but I’ll also remember to enjoy the process.

Too many corporate types that I’ve met are exchanging their whole personality, life, and relationships to be “professional” and advance their careers. I do, however, love meeting people who turned their hobby into a business and love their “job.”

I call these people accidental entrepreneurs: people who view business simply as a way to fully live out their passion.

This past week I had the opportunity to meet and talk with two people that vividly reinforced this concept for me.

The first was an elderly barber. Last Tuesday I was looking for a new hair stylist, unhappy with my current one’s service. Several sources pointed me to one man as “the best” in my town. When I called to make an appointment, he said he couldn’t make one now because he was attending a customer’s funeral. Okay. When I first arrived at his shop, I was somewhat taken aback by its humble appearance and his quiet manner. But as soon as he began cutting my hair, I knew I had hit gold. After some prodding, I learned he founded two beauty colleges and owned hair salons throughout California. He went on to share his success secret: build a small, extremely loyal customer base and provide unbelievable service. The kind of service that earns a spontaneous big tip, instant customer loyalty, and future referrals.

The second was a well-known travel personality whose multi-million dollar empire began out his love for European travel as a college student. While I’ve been a fan of his practical budget travel advice for a long time, I’ve only recently begun to appreciate his work as an entrepreneur. Watching him on TV, you may not realize the amount of work he puts in to be the best. But talking to his staff reveals his passion for team building and obsession with excellence. Though he puts in an extraordinary amount of work, hearing him talk makes it obvious he loves every minute of it.

These two examples only reinforced my belief that success comes to people who love their work. Starting a business only for the money or to enter a hot industry puts you at a disadvantage.

That’s why my business nirvana is not a 4 hour work week or passive internet income. Instead, my dream is to turn my passions into a business that I would gladly work in 15 hours a day, 7 days a week — and love every minute of it.

• Make a statement by your work
• The “Power of Negative Thinking” - plan for the worst case scenario
• Protect yourself with options and flexibility
• Have what the other guy wants
• Location can be enhanced through promotion
• Deliver the goods - your dreams are only good if you can back them up with results
• Control your costs carefully - failing to do so often results in failure
• Going big isn’t that much harder - it takes nearly the same amount of energy to manage 50 units as 1,500
• Project confidence and others will believe you
• Listen to your customers for business direction - not consultants or “experts”
• Never be in too much of a hurry
• Live in the area you work
• Develop lifetime friendships with key suppliers and business partners
• If you’re young, hire an industry veteran to lend credibility and pitch your ideas
• Aim for the top of the market

The Art of the Deal is a book I would recommend to anyone interested in improving their negotiating skills. I believe it’s far better to read books like this from a person who has reached the top of their field than to read conceptual ideas from a business theorist.

Profile
The websites section of your contact information is an obvious place to list your business websites, but the Facebook profile provides more opportunities than that. Write about your business in your activities, about me, interests, and work sections. Allow clients to get to know you personally.

Status Line
This feature allows Facebook users to show their friends what they are doing. Examples include “Nick is studying hard” (ahem) “Katie is getting ready for a roadtrip”, and so on. Not only do these updates appear on your profile, but also in your mini-feed and the newsfeed for all of your friends. You can use this space to share what you’re doing and your website URL. It’s a non-obtrusive way to get the word out.

Photos
Take pictures of you with clients, at company events, and receiving media coverage - then post them to a photo album. People love to see photos of what you’ve been doing, and this can be a great way to keep in touch with prospects.

The Marketplace
Several of my colleagues and I have successfully used Facebook’s regional marketplaces as a way to draw attention to our companies. You can post as many free ads as you like promoting your services. These ads are generally more effective than other free classified ad sites on the web.

Posted Items
This is where you can you can add value and build relationships with potential clients. Post links to educational content you find. Post videos and media describing your company’s services. You can even configure Facebook to automatically import entries from your blog.

Flyers
Facebook flyers offer the enterprising college entrepreneur a low-cost method of reaching a school’s population. They often cost between $5-$20 per day, a worthwhile investment and time saver (no flyers to print and post throughout campus). The limitation is that you can only post flyers to your school’s network.

Groups
Groups are a great way to meet people with similar interests. You can create a group for freelance professionals, for example, and meet people in the industry. You can also use the discussion forums in groups to share your services with those that need them. Don’t spam, though!

Applications
Facebook applications are a newer feature that allow developers to create extensions for Facebook. Innovative companies have introduced thousands of people to their offerings by creating an app that people want. These apps often don’t sell directly, but are related in some way to what the company offers. For example, one of my favorite apps, a ‘Where I’ve Been’ map, feeds into people’s desire to brag while advertising a travel agency.

The nice thing about Facebook is that it monitors your profile for changes and automatically announces them to all of your friends. Whether you update your status or add a website URL, you can be sure it will appear in your friends’ personalized newsfeed. While some have protested this intrusion of privacy, I suggest you take advantage of it to remain visible to your contacts.

While Facebook provides many promotional opportunities, don’t use it to send unsolicited marketing messages. Spamming gives your business a tarnished image, and you risk being banned from the site. Facebook provides enough ethical ways to promote your business, there is no need to resort to underhanded tactics.

Don’t have time to do all this yourself? Profit Factory can help:
http://www.theprofitfactory.com/internet-marketing

Don’t develop a tunnel vision about “what I want to be when I grow up.” People change careers all the time. Some of the most fascinating and successful people you’ll meet are doing something completely unrelated to their college majors. Keep an open mind. Audit a bunch of classes. Extend yourself. Learn things that are of interest to you instead of focusing purely on what you think will become useful to your career later.

My own experience fully confirms this concept. Pursue anything you find interesting. Get to know people from all walks of life — not just ones you think will help your career. You never know how these experiences and people will help you later in life, but they probably will.

By developing an interest in everything, and you’ll find life a much richer experience.

Take a moment to vote for Benjamin by following these steps:

1) Go to https://secure.therecord.com/kwr/rec_readers_select_vote.html

2) Fill out the first section which just asks for your contact information

3) Scroll down to Favourite People > Real Estate Agent and select …
Benjamin Bach

4) Scroll down to bottom of page and click Submit Vote!

…

After you’ve done that, be sure to read some of the excellent articles on his blog.

This individual will be responsible for managing Profit Factory’s high-level, exclusive affiliate program. Unlike many affiliate programs, our stringent acceptance criteria ensures we work with only the best. The Strategic Partnerships Manager will be responsible for cultivating relationships with and providing support to our affiliates.

Typical tasks will include:

* Developing lists of people and companies that meet our criteria
* Contacting these people by phone and email
* Developing relationships with them through mailings, phone calls, and email
* Assisting them in promoting our company

The ideal candidate will exhibit the following characteristics:

* Advanced communication skills, both written and oral
* Strong relationship-building skills
* Skilled in persuasion, with the ability to negotiate and make deals
* Knowledge of marketing methods, online and off
* Self-motivated and results-driven

If you are interested and/or would like more information, please send resume with cover letter to jobs@theprofitfactory.com.

Over the next year, I’m going to try to barter my way to things I want. Most of these will be acquisitions or adventures — I don’t like spending alot on these since they don’t earn money back in the future.

Here’s my starter list…

* Tandem skydive
* Glider flight
* Whitewater rafting
* Biplane flight
* Canon or Nikon DSLR camera and goodies
For starters, I’ll seek to trade my internet marketing services through Profit Factory and Over the Edge Marketing. Any leads would be appreciated!

I’ll keep you updated with my successes.

Profit Factory - packaged internet marketing solutions for small to medium size “brick and mortar” companies
Over the Edge Marketing - a division of Profit Factory catering to adventure sports companies

Profit Factory presents a new approach to marketing support services. In the past, companies and entrepreneurs would outsource marketing tasks to hourly-paid freelance professionals. While some provide a decent value for your money, it is difficult for the client to determine from the beginning what they are receiving for their investment. Additionally, it is hard to ensure your freelancer is working their hardest or billing you fairly when they are telecommuting from a remote location.

Buying marketing services by the “package” changes all that. From the beginning, you know exactly what you’ll receive for your investment. Since you’re paying for measurable deliverables, not by the hour, there is no risk of loss on your part.

Learn more about the internet marketing services we provide at theProfitFactory.com.