On Words and Business

Let your lazy side guide you: Driven to Distraction. I love it. And not just because I’ve been looking for an excuse to indulge my lazy side (or should I say looking for a decent excuse to use for my slacking off?).

As the author states, trying to act bigger than you are is exhausting. Using “we” instead of “I” when talking about your business. I dislike it when I hear freelancers or sole practioners who talk about themselves and their business that way. It’s dishonest and, in my book, it’s also dishonorable. For another thing, sometimes people want to work with a very small company or with a freelancer or sole practitioner.

If someone wants to work with a larger company, then they won’t be happy to discover that you’re a sole practioner or that you’re relying on contractors, not employees, to round out your team. I can imagine how exhausting it would be to keep up that front.

Let’s hear it for laziness!

The small business success index takes on social media:

• 75% have a company page on a social media site like LinkedIn or Facebook.
  I have a company page on LinkedIn and am wishing there was more I could do with it. In my world, Facebook is for personal use and I don’t see that my customers would be looking for me there. Are you?
• 39% have a blog
  Check. This is it.
• 26% tweet
  Nope.
• 61% use social media to identify new customers
  Working on this one.

How are you using social media technologies in your business?

If you haven’t heard about Scott Ginsberg, you should find out about him. He’s the nametag guy (he wears it 24/7), and has great ideas and suggestions for networking and helping people get to know the real you. Plus, he’s interesting.

As an example, here are two blog posts on things you should never apologize for–part 1 (1-37) and part 2 (38-79).

My favorites:

• 5. Never apologize for asking questions.
• 18. Never apologize for disagreeing.
• 23. Never apologize for giving it your best shot.
• 27. Never apologize for lack of information.
• 30. Never apologize for looking out for yourself.
• 54. Never apologize for thinking something was possible.
• 71. Never apologize for your happines.
• 76. Never apologize for your pricing.

1. My clients–who respect me, my time, and my abilities and are all lovely people I enjoy working with
2. My audience–who seem to like reading what I write, which means a lot to me
3. Work I enjoy–each time I take on a new type of project or new subject area, I learn and grow
4. A work life that can’t be beat–working for myself means I have both the best and worst boss ever, but it’s still great
5. Supportive friends and family–who work around the weirdness that working for oneself occasions from time to time

“Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success.”
-Henry Ford

That’s my goal. I haven’t quite figured out how to do it yet, but I have the book: The 4-Hour Workweek. Once I finish reading it…it’s only a matter of time.

Tim Ferris is the author of the book and blog. Good stuff. (Not every blog post is up my alley. We’ve all got different tastes and tolerances and there are a couple of recent posts I’m not fond of. But I still want to read whatever he writes.)

Read the book or the blog. And good luck living more and working less.

Let me know how it goes!