There are few startup owners that I can really speak openly to, about the best way to choose a home business option, because I am not certain of whether they will accept a religious take on it. But this is my first advice, to anyone who is open to receiving it:

Look around you, and find a need for something that you know the Lord will approve of. Ask Him to help you find the need that He wants you to fill. Business is always about meeting needs when it is done right, and when you go about meeting the needs that the Lord desires for you to meet, it takes care of YOU, too. If you ask that, then you don’t need to choose based on feasibility or earnings potential, or skills, or anything else. You choose based on what He inspires you to choose. THEN you go back and ask Him how to make it feasible, how to develop a revenue generation plan that works, how to hone your skills to do it, etc. He can move mountains, He can also help us get the right thing, and then help us work out the necessary practical details to make it work.

I can’t tell you if you should start a business. But I do know that if the Lord desires for you to do something, it is His wisdom that you do it, even if it looks like you don’t need it. I felt inspired to seriously build our business just six months before Kevin (husband) was laid off. Anyone looking at us from the outside would have said that for Kevin to go into this business was absurd, and that it would never work. But I knew it was inspired, so we did it. Only now is the wisdom of that inspiration coming to light – as Kevin is finally able to pull out skills that he did not know he had, and that he has fought for so long.

I chose based on my existing talents, which pointed me in a direction that helps other people. See, it isn’t about marketing a business. I didn’t look around and say, “Oh gee, the world needs another web designer!”.  It is about helping a business owner succeed so they can care for their family. In this day, when it is becoming increasingly difficult to survive, and to afford to care for children, my purpose is to enable families to live. THAT is the purpose of helping businesses. I chose web design because it looked like there was a need for one that specialized in helping people in the low end, by offering more affordable options within a specialization that did not exist until we created it. We help them succeed in their business, but we also help keep them from being cheated, and my business allows me to learn how to teach others to spot scams, and to teach ethics and honesty in my profession. Those are all things the Lord approves of. It isn’t about web design. Web design is a skill, which allows me to help others.

Where is the hole in the lives of people around you, that is not being met by existing businesses?

You may not be able to answer that for some time, you may need some additional business exposure first. But if you are inspired to follow this kind of course, a thought will begin growing, and you’ll put the pieces of reason together into something that fills a great need, and that reaches beyond just a goal of learning and earning.

I know that when you seek not just a business, but a means of serving the Lord IN the business, a miracle happens, and a niche forms, and a wondrous thing comes of it.

Ok, so its Tuesday. Monday is generally a mire of weekend catch up. Most clients discover problems, or think to contact us about the next step, or want the report for the week before, on Monday. And that is when any procrastination from the week before catches up with us too!

I rarely get everything done that I plan on Mondays. Blogging gets shoved aside if I have not blogged ahead. That is why I am writing about the Monday Mire, on Tuesday!

I recently discovered a great task manager, which is perfect for MicroBusinesses, and this Monday was a little better organized due to that task manager. But it was still a bit hectic – I added a lot of new tasks!

I can deal with Mondays being hectic, as long as I have my Sundays. The worst weeks are those in which emergencies occur on Sundays. I then hit Mondays half-charged. No fun! God was pretty smart when He commanded us to take a day of rest – though I find it ironic that He had to COMMAND us to do something so helpful!

Monday is past for this week, and tomorrow, I’m sure, will be Friday, and I’ll wonder where Wednesday and Thursday went!

You can get a great idea for something outside the box, and then find yourself locked inside it because other people simply cannot think outside their own expectations enough to understand that you provide something that is better than what they expect.

We developed a trade association. We wanted to operated it on totally new rules, with offerings in it that are completely unique. We found that as we set out to do that, the biggest obstacle we encountered was the expectation people had. They simply would not operate in a way outside the shabby and substandard way they’d expected such associations to operate online. You could explain, and it was like they did not even hear the words, because they filtered them through the fog of their own familiarity  and watered them so far down that they had no meaning by the time they were done.

We’ve found that with several businesses. If you are innovative, it doesn’t necessarily help, if other people are not. Sometimes the world may not be ready for your great idea, and you’ll have to conform to what they are ready for.

It can be very discouraging, because it limits progress for everybody when they require you to become like the others before they’ll accept what you offer, even when what you offer is markedly superior.

Sometimes you have to implement great ideas in stages instead of all at once. People cannot accept things that are too far from their realm of familiarity, and sometimes their expectations get in the way of your ability to exceed them.

If my kid works for you, I hope you won’t be too easy on them. Not because I am a cruel mom, to the contrary. I am a mom that wants her kids to know how to work well enough to be WORTH hiring.

When you are hiring my kid to work for you, you are not just being nice to a kid and paying them so they’ll have some money. You are training a worker. If you do not expect them to get the job right, then they won’t learn to get it right. I’d like you to be firm with them, and expect high, but reasonable performance from them.

I do not appreciate people who take advantage of my kids, like the woman who had them shovel the snow off a very large deck and driveway, and paid them $2. But I don’t want you to pay them when they didn’t do the job correctly either. I want them to understand that I am not the only person who expects them to do their best.

I want you to help me teach them the concept of value given for value received. I want you to help me encourage them to feel good about hard work done well. I want them to understand that an employer expects certain things of them, and that the employer has every right to expect it!

If you are too easy on them, you won’t want to have them come back and work again. So letting them go, and paying them, when the job isn’t done, is not kind to them at all. Instead, it guarantees that you won’t want to hire them again, and that they won’t have the chance to earn from you again.

If you teach them what you expect, and encourage them to get it right, and pay them fairly when it is done, then you’ll want to invite them back again. And they’ll want to come. It will help you both.

I teach them as well as I can. But unless other people reinforce what I am teaching them, they won’t listen to me for very long! If my kid works for you, I hope you’ll help me teach them to work well, and to be a good employee.

When our apple trees burst into bloom this year, the sight was so lovely I begged Kevin to go get pictures. He obliged, and I made them into greeting cards.

A blossom is a promise of fruit. But it takes a lot of work to get a blossom, and then more work to get fruit. And a lot of time and unexpected happenings can occur in between.

When you plant a tree, you expect to have to nourish it and protect it and care for it for a couple of years, just to get it to show blossoms. And then they are few. Often the first ones do not result in fruit. Maybe the next ones do though.

The blossoms appear, and they look lovely. We always get exited when we see them, because they mean spring is here, and summer is on its way. Summer always seems easier to handle than winter!

But then the blossoms wither, fall off, and sit there looking ugly for weeks, until you can finally see that fruit IS going to develop.

The first sign of fruit is small, green, unappetizing things, unfit for consumption. They take more care to get them to the point where they are even edible, and even more to get to the point where you’d want to share them, or enjoy them!

How like that our business is. So much work just to see an indication that it will work, and more work while things look ugly and we forget the promise of the blossom.

Even after a harvest, we may have times when the business dies back – and we wonder if we’ll see blossoms again next season. The same sense of excitement comes when the blossoms finally do appear.

Biblically, the Lord uses the alegories of planting, tending, and harvesting to teach. They still apply.

Someone asked recently whether companies had a responsibility to set ethics for their employees. I have to say, resoundingly, YES! But you have to do more than just SAY it.

As a business owner, you are responsible to lead, and that happens largely by example, but also happens when you choose to respond, or not respond, to employee issues.

One of our friends owns a business and is constantly having employee problems. He does set a good example, but he does not enforce his standards, or require the employees to abide by good work and behavior standards on the job. He does not want to have to reprimand, or to even say that he will. I learned a lot from him about how to run a business. But unhappily, I also learned a lot from him about how NOT to run one.

It has to be more than, “I do this because of who I am.” It also has to include, “You must do this as my employee, because of who WE, as a COMPANY are.” If you fail in that second part, nobody will bother to follow your example – there is no compelling reason for them to do so. They’ll walk all over you and abuse your good nature if you do not require ethical behavior from your employees.

I select clients with good ethics. I won’t work with one that is dishonest or pushes the boundaries of good integrity. I select subcontractors with the same standards. I require that kind of behavior from every person within our business. Good ethics are not just a matter of choice in our business, they are a requirement, and must stay so, or it will cease to have meaning.

I have found that when I do this, many problems fail to develop. I still have to enforce now and again. But I rarely have to do it often, or more than once with any individual. I operate several forums, and I have found that by stating an ethics and integrity policy up front, we weed out all but the most aggressive abusers – and those are detected on their first post, and removed from the group. Others respond to the invitation, respect the requirement, and we have little problem with attracting people with high ethics.

As a leader, it is your responsibility.

Life seems to get busier every month. Discouraging, because I’m not even hanging on sometimes when something new comes along and demands another segment of my time.

It is often GOOD stuff. But what I struggle with most is balancing the need for now against the need for the future. I have a class coming up, and I have client contracts due. I have to prepare curriculum, and I have to work for my clients. Then I have requests from clients that come in sporadically (usually 5-6 per day), that I have to prioritize and work in around the other stuff.

Sometimes it is a delegation issue – I sometimes forget to delegate some of those niddly little things that I could just forward to Kevin. I’m getting better about that though, as he would assure you!

Sometimes it is just knowing which of the ten top priority items is the MOST important item. Do I do something that will earn us in the future, or do I speed up what will earn now? It isn’t as simple as it seems, because if I focus too much on now, I’ll be left with nothing then. So I have to keep up with now, but I also have to get some things done that will ensure that I still have work and income when the immediate work is done.

Somehow I have to balance family needs here too, and some of them affect income and sustainability. I have to take time from work to plant the garden. I have to take time from work to cut up the half of a beef that we bought so we could have the higher quality meat that I require, at a more affordable price. It affects our income now, but we have to do it to have what we need. A different way of supplying some of the needs more affordably.

So all of this has got me swamped until I get over the hump. I’m working on strategies to do that, and some are having an effect which is good. My blogs have suffered though – the few hours a week I need for them have been swallowed up in class prep, garden prep, and meat processing.

Meanwhile, I have clients contacting me saying, “I have to put this on hold, my life just exploded on me.” And I can only say, “I understand!” After telling one client that, and adding, “If I cloned myself, I’d just be twice as far behind.”, she responded, “You really DO understand!”.

I’ve come to understand that busy is good. It helps us figure out what is really important. But it is also an opportunity for growth that we should learn from. And I am making the attempt to do that!

She had a problem. Her site wasn’t working. She called her hosting company, and after long discussions, they concluded that the problem was with the domain registrar. She called the domain registrar. They talked with her and said the problem must lie with the hosting company. She asked the tech to hold for a moment, and put in a three way call to include the hosting company rep. Then she said, “There… you two work it out.”

What I love about this is that you do sometimes get caught in the middle of things, and sometimes we either lack the skill, or the ingenuity to devise a solution. This solution solved it – directly.

Being caught in the middle, when you are the one with the problem, is very frustrating. Sometimes you feel like nobody really cares whether your problem is solved or not, that they just want to get you to go away so they can mark it done.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve explained a problem to tech support, just to have them send back a pat solution which I already tried (and SAID I tried in the initial email), only to have to turn around and tell them again that this was not what I needed. That is such a regular occurrence that I think tech support people fail to read anything if they can help it.

But getting caught in one of those situations where it isn’t working, and they deny that there is any problem is the worst. Especially when you aren’t sure which company the problem is originating with.

Sometimes, you just have to get tough with them.

If you happen to hire someone to read your ad for you, you’ll find that the copy will change with the actor. The meaning can even change.

A local Mexican restaurant hires a man to do their ad. He has a rather broad speech pattern, and consistently mispronounces the name of the restaurant – in such a way that it sounds pretty stupid. Another local ad is read by a woman with a rather breathy, affected speech mannerism, and is so annoying that people turn off the radio when it comes on.

Even when you get a good voice actor, you must expect the ad to change a little. The actor will generally change a few words, to make them more comfortable to articulate, and simpler to speak. As long as the message stays intact, this is normal.

The best ad actors will not sound like they are reading. They’ll practice quite a bit before attempting a recording also, and even when they get to the point of recording, it may take several tries.

Sometimes the voice or mannerisms of the actor simply will not suit the message – like the Mexican restaurant, where they needed someone who could at least pronounce their own name in a way that sounded intelligent. A wise choice to start can avoid embarrassment later.

Whatever you do, don’t put it to music and have someone sing it unless the jingle is really good. A local bank has an ad that is an embarrassment because the words were put to a melody and rhythm that makes it nearly impossible to tell what they are saying. It does get stuck in your head, but not at all for good reasons!

Ok, I have a rant… (gets out soapbox and climbs on). Anymore, people ASSUME that if you are giving a presentation or teaching anything, that you HAVE to use PowerPoint. This assumption is responsible in large degree for a huge number of BAD presentations.

It used to be that you had to learn to present well, based on your speaking style, posture, and actions. Now, people just throw the lights, put some cheesy frames up, and talk in the background and expect that they’ve done a good presentation because they had their PowerPoint display. When I see someone who created a handout with bullet points, and then a PowerPoint display that was nothing more than text on the screen that repeated those points, I wonder why they went to the effort to produce the PP. It is redundant, and does not enhance the message at all.

I’ve seen a LOT of those lame PP presentations. PP has become a crutch for a lack of preparedness and practice – people use it to cover the fact that they are reading their stuff instead of delivering it in a more natural and spontaneous way.

I have never used one. I frequently use the projector for my classes, but not for PowerPoint – to demonstrate image techniques, show website examples, show code samples, etc. I alternate that with verbal instruction and hands-on experience for the students. I think teaching has given me the best possible experience for presentations, because it has helped me to understand how to engage the students, and to understand which things they have the hardest time grasping. I’m not the best teacher, but I am not about to create a PP presentation just so I can pretend that I am!

I think that we REALLY need to think OUTSIDE the PowerPoint box. PowerPoint is NOT a requirement to deliver a memorable presentation, it is often not even an enhancement. In fact, I’ve had someone insult me over not using PowerPoint, and they thought I was a wacko for using the Projector to demonstrate techniques! (Of course, this is the same person who thought that if I did not teach my students how to hand-code a website, that I could not possibly teach them to build a website at all!)

It is far more important that you plan for interest, comprehension, the “ah-ha” factor, and a competent delivery than that you have a PP ready! A professional presentation has less to do with PP and a LOT more to do with delivering an enjoyable and understandable message.

That means, in practical terms:

1. Plan it well so that it has a logical progression. A good presenter can present from a few notes – they don’t have to write everything down, they just need reminders, and can deliver a good deal of it spontaneously.
2. Practice for natural delivery (no one wants you to sound like you are reading).
3. Time it, and edit for time constraints.
4. Practice some more.

Usually, I practice a few times as I am creating it, again when I am timing it, and then I practice a few more times in the car on the way there (Kevin usually goes with me – and we have a LONG time in the car almost anywhere we present).

Last night we attended a presentation called “Starting a Business with Nothing”, that was supposed to be about Bootstrapping. The guy spend the first half of his presentation talking about his dream and vision for his current project. Halfway through, he finally hit the topic he came to discuss. Consequently, half of the audience sat there with a bemused look on their faces for the first half of the presentation, wondering when he would get to the point. He didn’t even tie them up into something comprehensible, when he could have – there was a great opportunity to lead from one right into the other, but he didn’t. He just quit one, picked up on the other, and didn’t relate them with one another. But he did have his PowerPoint…

This is one area where we really NEED to think for ourselves. If speaking is not a strength, then practice until it is. Because trying to prop up incompetence with bad slides just makes it worse.