LB's Business Lesson

What I learned while changing professions

[pixelartpeach]

[pixelartpeach]

[ryukiki]

[phantomrose96]

File your taxes for free | Internal Revenue Service (irs.gov)

Prepare and file your federal income tax return online for free. File at an IRS partner site with the IRS Free File Program or use Free File

[businessleaf]

Small Money Tip

I am not a financial advisor. Right now I work in filing taxes and helping seniors with their budgets. So I am sharing some common issues/topics I see. Please investigate any financial choices yourself.

Ok!

A while back there was the phrase about cutting out a fancy coffee to save money. But cleaning up your subscriptions & services can do a great deal more. And while yes knowing what subscriptions you have and canceling the ones you don't use is great! What I am talking about today are things like banks, credit cards, insurances, and phone.

*Auto-Renewal: If you can keep track of your money enough to realize when the price on your auto-renewals change then please investigate auto-renewal policies and wait for the specials. If you can not remember the price point then don't. Your sanity is more important.

The math: Auto-renewal will save you two dollars a month promo. 2x12= $24 a year.

*Insurances: Check the policies. If your situation changed; marriage, relocation, disaster, unemployment, or going to school. The policy and price point probably changed. Also check for things that give you discounts. Such as how far you drive to work each day, grades in school, or driving history.

*Paperless or Reduced Paper: Some insurances offer discounts for changing from a monthly bill to a paperless option or yearly bill. (Again if you can budget for the change to yearly.)

The Math on Yearly option: $4 billed per month per bill printing. From 12 months to once 4x12= $48

Banks/Credit Card/Saving accounts: If your situation has changed please make sure these are still beneficial to you. State or local restrictions can change. Fees and policies do change. As an example mine lowered the rates they are giving members so several members are moving to another company. I went from making $10 on my savings to $1.50 with the same amount they were doing the numbers from.

But these examples alone the math is +$24+$48-8.50= $63.50 from just reading my mail and making choices that were listed in the information.

Please check your finances.

[businessleaf]

Evaluating if YOU can do it

Well.. 

Honestly we have had some time now with different lockdowns and life restrictions to know if the answer to the question- If I had the time could I do blank?  The answer I found for myself is mostly nope. 

I did not promote myself, make an action plan for content, or successfully make change overs with a month notification. 

What I did do was shut down and loss focus. I could have learned a lot of things or helped people I care about. For different reasons I did not and lost a lot focus. 

This past week I have been re-evaluating myself and the past two months of lockdown worth of work. While I did learn to use a couple programs, made a new social platform, and continued to make content. I failed to balance myself. I have lost drive to make the content I enjoyed and that no one demanded of me (literally I think 3 people check it). 

So I have to make a choice if this way will work for me. To do that I asked myself if I died tomorrow what will I regret not doing. After thinking on that I have to get to work doing the things I don’t want to do to do the things I do want. 

I like learning and like I creating. Making videos once a week that takes me about 10 hours right now is not the most productive use to get to being able to financially support myself. Luckily I do have a boss that is working with me part time during this pandemic on my hours. So I will have time to readjust my schedule and figure out the best way to learn online small business now. 

I still want to create content but marketing and selling myself has never been my strong suit. I can’t be the wallflower anymore if this life I truly want. 

Know yourself before you dedicate part of life to this. 

[businessleaf]

Changes and Sales?

I apologize for not doing this update at the end of the first quarter but something interesting did happen that I thought would be worth sharing. 

I did get furloughed, like many others, so income was bad recently. But with the spare time I did begin a few things: getting a website and starting a YouTube channel.  Now only being a month into both of them I did not expect anything to happen. After all I am just learning how to use both platforms and market myself. Now the interesting thing I mentioned earlier; one of my previous sites that I linked in both the YouTube and website began seeing more traffic. This is my RedBubble site. I worked on updating RedBubble before the lockdown but still saw no sales. But in the last few weeks I have gotten my first two sales. (Not enough to met the requirement for first payment but all favorite and sales have increased.)

The point that is interesting to me is this: my traffic has dropped but my sales have increased. You might also notice that the red traffic source (on the bottom) has dropped dramatically, the light purple (one above the red) increased, and so have the top two metrics. To me this means my traffic in general is indeed dropping but I am starting to finally sniff out something people might like in my work. 

Also I got a rare sale on my Society6 page before a little activity there. It is interesting to see how the traffic is changing and what is actually being liked. 

[businessleaf]

Scams are high

With a dramatic raise in unemployment scammer are getting more active. 

The artist I am working with is having to report and deal with a scammer that began on Fiverr. After announcements were made on different websites, including highlighted/pinned posts, the scam is still being used almost two weeks later and has grown to multiple social platforms. 

It is a good time to review common terms used in scams; brush up on how your government (or business you currently use like electric company) actual contacts you and the terms they use.   

[businessleaf]

Currency Changes

I am not an economist by training- I’m account trained. But during this time I have taken to learning and watching economic developments. After seeing a lot of things come up I thought it was a good time to post some lessons/reminders about looking after your own money.

-People naturally look after their own money. The change is that companies have to decide how things are being received by people about how the personal is being treated. 

-Government still likes its money.  Reminder: Read the fine print of things. Stimulus items are coming up as loans against the next year’s tax (which would lower your tax return or nullify it). Deferment means putting it off. The small business aid functions as a deferment- meaning the write off will have to be paid in full at the end of the term.  Tip: The best way to watch yourself is to read the print, find a trained person to go over it with, and make a plan for your situation.

-You are your best advocate. The laws and situations are changing constantly. How it funnels down through employers is different than how you learn things. Taking copies of your information, record everyone you talk to, and have the information you want to reference. 

-Inflation happens and devalues money. The value of a currency is based on the reputation of the issuer and the amount of currency in existence. So people think less of a country and that country prints a bunch of money the vale of that currency goes down. But Inflation, deflation, and stagflation are all possible right now. The history of monetary value takes a lot of sharp turns in times like these but once again seem to favor the long plans. 

The issues that have come up because of the current situation have already shown signs of short term issues for the next few months and long term issues for at least till next tax season.  

[businessleaf]

Building Streams

Several lessons came very quickly at the start of these journey a couple months but I’m just starting to understand the importance of them. One thing people always loved saying around me was diversify; now it has adjusted to the phrase of 7 forms of income.

Most people when they try to build streams of income they think: investment, standard paycheck, rental income, royalities, or reselling something. Obviousily not 7 but some of the things people think of. The reason why people like the idea of having multiple income sources (or streams) is because if goes down, permanetly or temporarily, the others should still be there.  

The problem right now in the economy is the big, usually stable money makers are taking a hit. People are not getting their usual paychecks, which makes them late on rent (if at all), and they aren’t buying. This means the usual investments, reselling, and royalities are all going to take a hit till the market recovers. 

A lesson I suspected even before I began investigating entrepenuership is the concept of having diverse products. But that subject changed slightly in the digital age. What I mean is this- I like teaching/learning but I’m not great at reading. When I was young that meant I had to find a tutor or teacher to show me how. Now I go to YouTube or a specialized website; even colleges mostly have things online. 

So how do you diversify now? The answer I have found so far is take your content onto multiple forms. Ie: YouTube, Amazon (pyshical and downloadable)  , a teaching site, podcast and a download able site. If you can make content that is resellable in the same form on different sites then it should reach different audiences. 

I am going to start with 3 to manage the sites effectively while I am building. My goal is to have an audience building site (2 social medias sites for now), 1 content building site (that can earn money on its own in the future) and select the best download content site for what I plan to offer. 

While I try to build some content for these sites I am going to investigate the finance predications for what is happening currently.  

[businessleaf]

Confidence Sells

Sometimes I think there is a reason Con artist have the most confidence. I watched a video today that reminded me intelligence isn’t the biggest selling factor of anything in the world. It is how much the salesman makes you believe in them and what they are selling because they want that confidence on some level. That is especially important with how much is online today. 

Every word, image and video is measured. I have seen comments on YouTubers that they hesitated on something or took too deep a breathe so their audience new something was wrong. Image over a hundred comments because you didn’t pick up a soda as quickly as you did four videos ago. My own words have shown the depression I’ve been slipping in, out and down over the last year and half. (Thank my followers who notice.) 

But one thing I have always had trouble doing is selling something I do not believe in. It gets me into trouble at so many jobs because I will not force customers to continual listen to rehearsed speeches but about credit cards or store credit; especially when I know it will only hurt their credit ratings. The problem now is that I don’t believe in myself. I don’t believe my time is worth something. I don’t believe my knowledge or my skill is worth anything. So it makes it ok to accept really bad paying jobs or things with no pay at all. It is time to change that! I need to become my own salesman and best advocate! 

Here is a few articles about building your own confidence-

Entrepreneur Article

Harvard Business Review

Forbes

[businessleaf]

Investments: Long vs Short

Ok. This is as close as I’m going to get to talking about the current pandemic. The only reason I bring it up is because I’m made I didn’t start investing a couple days ago and thought it would be good to share. 

If you watch the news you might catch the part where it says the market is going up and down after different announcements. The biggest lesson I ever learned with stocks is to not over react and stick to a plan. I wanted to jump in when the market was low and I did not stick to the plan. The market jumped massively making me miss an easy increase in value. 

But the basic thing I wanted to cover is that most people deal with stocks for a long term plan. Long term in market/accounting means it passes a year. Under a year is short term. So if you had a long term plan already in place before the big drop and stuck with it your would loss less than trying to cancel your long term plan for a short term reaction. (I’m saying less because we don’t know how much or when the market will climb again.) I support making a plan (with regular review points) and sticking with it. The math example follows:

Scenario:  You had $100 in when it drop and the new value is $30 during but it goes back to $80 afterward.

Long Term Plan: You stayed in the entire time. Now $80 value, $20 loss, no fees for any services. Possible increase or decrease because it is still stock.

Canceled the plan: You jumped ship part. Maybe around $75 but your broker charges you for changing your plan and taking your money out early. Maybe 20% of your initial investment= $20 Totals: Cash in hand $55 (75-20), $45 loss due to loss cash value and fees charged. You also have lost chance of it increasing in value because it is now cash in hand. 

[businessleaf]

Go Jack to Master

I have spent years learning different things but it was only recently that I realized the bitterness of the phrase- Jack of All Trades, Master of None. 

It is better because people want to hire the Master. Jacks will spend their days working or training to be the master. How does this relate to entrepreneurship? When you decide to be an entrepreneur you need to cover and know the general of a lot of things but you have one thing you started all this for, that is your master skill. As you do the other things do not forget to keep refining your core skill because after you start working on your business the goal is to make enough profit to hire people to handle those other things. If you hire them later and find you can’t do your core master skill it will be bad signs for your business. 

There are websites like Fiverr and a few other that are a collection of freelancers ready to be hired. People from graphic designs to bookkeepers and accountants. 

Business goal: Make enough money to hire an experienced freelancer for an hour so you can spend the 2-5 hours it would have taken to work on your craft. 

[businessleaf]

Research can be worth it

Three mini-stories why I suggest research. All of these have happened in the last month to me:

With Friend A: this is the friend that one day does the famous phrase- ‘I want to start a business’ and starts designing their brick and mortor store in their head. After about two weeks they felt almost ready to quit and start their business; with me as an employee. I did about three hours of research, made an initial plan for starting a business, and gave it to them. When they saw the price tag could be into hundreds of thousands dollars, they stopped for a while and talked things over.  About 3 hours of research gave their family a realistic view of what was to come.

Boss C: Keeps talking about wanting to do 2 other things than our jobs. Boss keeps saying they’ll do it in their next life. I took half an hour and reasearched their second career choice (I knew the first one would take years). The second career option would take less than a year and could earn 10-20k as a part time job. 

Me: I was looking at becoming an English teacher overseas. It would mean a commitment to finishing a Bachelor’s degree before I could even apply. I looked at the country I would want to apply to. I gave it over a week of research because it is something I would be donating the next 3-4 years of my life to. I factored in the odds of getting the job afterward with the stress of completeing a degree (weighing my personnal stress issues and health vs real expectation). Doing this gave an answer I am very happy with and allows me to focus my work better. 

Short answer- 1/2 hour - a couple weeks research let 3 people make plans for the next 4 years of their lives. 

[businessleaf]

Activity and Conversion

This is a picture of the activity of my Redbubble store. Redbubble is one of the things I signed up for years ago but did not really try. It was a mix of tech issues and life issues. But now I am trying to use the things I have already signed up for to see what actual works and what doesn’t. I did think this was a good time for a lesson though. 

Redbubble has a feature that allows you to see your audience traffic is about 48 hours of happening. For posting sake this makes it interesting to see which posts drives traffic and which does not. The biggest lesson though from this is as follows: my traffic has increased greatly! From 2 to about 14. That is something like a 700% increase! BUT I have made no sales. My traffic has increased but my conversion sucks. This means I am getting people to look at my site but I am not making something the people who come are willing to buy for the price points offered. 

Whenever you have a site there is a percentage of people who come and out of that percentage are your shoppers. From what I have seen online it takes a good deal of work to increase your conversion rate. Increasing your foot traffic is the first step but getting something in there that people will buy is always the final goal. That is why people are after a high conversion rate. They are trying to get people to go from window shopping to actual buyers. 

[businessleaf]

Understanding Delayed Gratification relating to Viewers

Most of us have dealt with delayed gratification. You have to wait to get the thing you want. You have to wait to get your paycheck. You have to wait for the item in the mail. You have to save up to order something or even be able to go shopping for said item. Those hearts never appear as fast as you want them too.

But have you ever thought of delayed gratification as the designer? 

Yep. The person who made said product has to wait for viewer/shopper feedback to know if they are on the right path. But instead of those little hearts on the bottom of a post now you are waiting for someone to click buy. I will use Society6 since I have an account there for the rest of this example. 

Society6 has a policy that states it will wait 30 days after the sales to process payment to an artist in case of returns. This means you have wait at least 30 days to find out if a design sold. Yes they do have a little heart system that lets other like a post but that does not mean it has sold. They just like the image. Here is how the time table actually works out.

The artist makes an image for POD (print on demand) in January. We’ll say about the 14th. The artist advertises it immediately. It still takes about a week for someone to find it and decide to order. That makes it Jan. 21st before it is even ordered. Than Society6 waits the 30 days per policy making it February 21st before they get ready to pay the artist. All payments are processed in the first week of the following month. So in the first week of March the artist will get paid for the design they did on January 14th. 

It took almost two months to find out if a design sells or not. All feedback was delayed. 

Be careful in acting too quickly and try to understand how feedback actually works on the websites you are selling with. 

[businessleaf]

Business not friendship

I am going to start with saying people in business can be friendly, casual, or healthy parts of each other’s lives. But remember there is a line. It is when that line starts blurring that issues come up.  I’ve had two reminders of this recently:

1. Person A I have worked with an none for almost two years. We had gotten friendly to the point of giving birthday gifts and talking about family. We started together because of business. But when I approached person A about a buying option it was rejected. That was not initially a problem. The problem came up when I found Person A had gone to another person afterwards for the same thing. That sense of betrayal felt more like friendship than business for both us and all contact was lost. 

2. Person B a different person I work with. We had known each other for almost a year and they were with me during a small health scare. We became friends before any talk of business came up. Person B came to me with a concept they wanted to know if I wanted to join. We have discussed the business option 3 times since then. In one meeting we decided on our roles in the business and discussed money quickly with a more realistic timeline. Person B is now evaluating the options with other brokers they would need to make a fully informed decision about going through with the business option or not. Plus we are still talking and good friends.

Those encounters reminded me of difference between being a friendly business person, a friend with business knowledge, and a friend. 

[businessleaf]

Regret or Hindsight?

I was reviewing some options and wanted to share this lesson I learned. 

I heard somewhere you always go to school and improve yourself. Well I have an associate and 2 technical degrees (I know how to apply for financial aids in the areas I lived). But I can’t hold down a job that pays more than 20k a year. Most times I am lucky to a get a 10k. My employers love me and my work ethics but the higher paying jobs always have higher education requirements. If I had waited and focused my education would it have been better? Don’t know.

The answer I do know now is that the talents I hated having back then are what are in demand now and I have naturally gotten better at them. I didn’t train for most of the skills; they are the paperwork skills that go with doing things. But because I have worked with people in different fields I can relate it to their field and they are happy. 

My health has also changed and is now a big factor in things. Those earlier jobs I had would be much more difficult to do and I wouldn’t be able to do them for long. So now I do not mind changing between them part time and the job I used to hate part time. 

I do regret that I feel like I never built a career or a sustainable for myself till almost 40. BUT I do not regret knowing and meeting all the different people I have till now. I do not regret trying so many things. I have found multiple things I am good at. Now I want to use those to build something I can boost about in 40 years.

It is true that you need to improve yourself to move ahead in the world. The world has just changed the best way to do that. 

[businessleaf]

Touching on Taxes

Ok there are a couple things to look with this one. *ouch*

Professional if you are a at home or freelance business you should file quarterly with your estimates (state and fed) and do your yearly. I like having a tax pro for the yearly because well a bunch of things have changed for taxes. Estimates are a little easier and more reasonable to me. You make X amount pay X percentage. End of year make adjustments. 

The nice thing about having a regular salary job is that people do the taxes for you year round except for the once a year filing. If you pay attention to your numbers they should be consistent. I recommend keeping an eye because when one of the tax changes happened people didn’t notice and just saw their paychecks change. Without questioning it they got bite at the yearly filing. 

AFTER FILING:

I, being my crazy self, love filing as soon as possible. Tax people aren’t as busy. Agencies have a lot more time to tell me if I did something wrong to allow me to refile. I don’t have to stress about it longer. So forth and so forth. 

This time I got a refund and began wondering what I should do about it. Normally I don’t plan on a refund and always worry about paying. But since I never work into my budget getting a refund that means it is extra money I could put somewhere beside the normal budget restrictions. This year I have it down to two things: Going back to school to get a Bachelor’s or updating some of my tech. (All of my tech is either over 4 years old or hand-me-downs/referbs.)

I am evoluating my goals for myself; this year’s goal and working on developing a 3 & 5 year plans. I want to change and this year I am getting serious about getting it done.    

[businessleaf]

Absolute Basics

No matter what you are selling this is what I’ve found out you need so far:

A Website: No, socials don’t count! Insta, Tumblr, and Twitter don’t count! But~ you should have them all linked back and forth to the website. The website itself is important because that is what Google (and other search engines) will find first. And it is better to have your name instead of a providers name. IE: yourname.com instead of yourname.hostingengine.com  This makes it easy to remember for people, looks more professional, and you won’t need to transition later on. 

A website asks as the awesome little hub and information desk for all your stuff. People don’t know where to find you so they ask the first person they can find. Make sure that is your website. 

A Newsletter: People want to keep up on something but don’t remember/want to check with a site everyday. A newsletter (aka email list) they can sign up for letters them know what is coming and keeps you in mind.