Entrepreneur

In The Box Podcast

Episode 24: Serial Project Creator, Getting A Read Of Someone, One Word To Grow By And More – Podcast

Garth Beyer

On this episode of In The Box Podcast, we talked about creating multiple projects versus one solid quality project every now and then. We also dove into what it means to turn from a freelancer to an entrepreneur, the mindset to have when loaning money, what to do when you simply can’t get a read on someone, and Michael shared one word to grow by (and why) Enjoy.

Episode 24: Serial Project Creator, Getting A Read Of Someone, One Word To Grow By And More

To be successful – Generally speaking, to be successful do you always need to be serially creating projects?

Freelancer to entrepreneur – What’s one way you can go from a freelancer to an entrepreneur?

Pay back – At what point (how much money) do you ask someone to pay you back?

Get a read – What’s the first thing you do when you can’t get a read on someone?

Grow – What is one word to grow by?

 

Stay Positive & What’s Your One Word To Grow By?

Take The Stage: 15 Pieces Of Advice For 2015 Success

Take The Stage: 15 Pieces Of Advice For 2015 Success

Garth Beyer

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These are all tried and true practices, insights and advice of the most successful entrepreneurs, designers, brewers, writers, and artists that I’ve spoken to, listened to or seen in 2014.

Absolutely invaluable wisdom.

1) Show the world you’re not afraid.

2) Follow your gut. If it speaks to you, you don’t need confirmation from anyone else.

3) If you can’t find a job, create one. If you can’t find a way, make one.

4) Not everything you do will be a success, there will be things you do that are a flop. That’s okay as long as you push through.

5) Be completely indifferent to what people say about you.

6) Connect things that haven’t been connected; it’s how you make breakthroughs.

7) Wake up early and on your own time.

8) Mornings are the only time that a routine should take place.

9) An overwhelming number of entrepreneurs go through divorces because of their focus on business instead of relationships. Just be aware.

10) Connect with two people a day. Lunch date. Twitter chat. FB message. Good morning email.

11) Go where you’re treated best.

12) Find patterns. It’s the best way to guarantee an idea will work. (You may not understand the benefit of this advice until you start noticing patterns and asking why they are there.)

13) Keep going after something and you’ll get it. Stop and you’ll never.

14) If you make one decision over another because “it doesn’t really matter,” then you’re making the wrong decision because everything matters.

15) Hustle has to be in your legs, not your hands. Don’t get stuck in busy work, do work that matters, that moves you forward.

 

I don’t take these numbered posts lightly. I put a lot of thought and heart into what advice matters and can best serve you. I can chat for 10 minutes on any one of these, so feel free to reach out and make a friend this new year.

 

Stay Positive & Take The Stage This 2015

Protip: you can start right now.

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Where To Find Your Muse

Where To Find Your Muse

Garth Beyer

Find Your Muse, Stay In Your Flow

The feeling of boredom comes to every linchpin, artist, and entrepreneur from time to time. The reason is quite clear: actions have become easy, challenges are few and far between, and there is less need of a growing skill.

As a result, the impresario seeks out larger challenges that require focus, additional connections, and an incessant need to learn new skills to accomplish the goal.

But once the artist sets down that path, she realizes she has set too lofty of a goal, too large of an expectation of herself, too tough of a challenge, so she returns to the start of this post, desiring a calmer path, a quieter challenge, an easier goal.

As Peter Turchi writes, it’s a cycle of satisfaction and frustration. To find our muse we must find the flow between the anxiety of a difficult practice and the boredom of an easy task.

The real problem isn’t doing what it takes to stay within your flow, your muse; it’s noticing when you’re outside of it, when a task is too easy or a challenge too large. Both of which are slippery slopes that lead to failure and resentment.

 

Stay Positive & Be Aware Of Your Flow

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Two Ways To Succeed

Two Ways To Succeed

Garth Beyer

Hustle & Endurance

Some successful entrepreneurs, writers, artists are hustlers. They beat the competition because they work harder, faster, smarter. They give themselves short deadlines they never miss. They run laps around their competitors.

The other successful method is endurance. If you can just outlast your competitors, you will succeed. People who blog every day for four years, manage to host a podcast seven days a week, write a book each year, they succeed because they have built themselves to survive.

Both methods have their tribulations. The challenge is choosing which is true to you, your energy, your passion.

 

Stay Positive & Choose, Then Run With It

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After Years Of Arguing It

After Years Of Arguing It

Garth Beyer

Writer Garth Beyer

I’ll finally admit it… Identifying your passion, discovering what it is you really love to do, finding your purpose is a damn difficult thing to do.

For some it seems to come so natural. That, too, I once believed. I don’t anymore. Being more forward with you, I thought I knew I always wanted to be a writer, an entrepreneur and a PR guy (even though I didn’t know the term PR at the time). “It’s  just who I am!” I would tell people.

Investigating my past, though, I can’t recall the moment when I knew. There was no epiphany, no wide-realization, no godly pronouncement of my passion.

After scrutinizing my past, I realized that it was through a series of forcing, tricking, and driving myself to love the things I did that lead me to declare I was a writer, I was an entrepreneur, I was what I now know is called a public relations strategist.

I didn’t always love writing, but I was always finding ways to love it. (Still am.) It started with poetry because I knew I couldn’t fail. It moved on to bullshitting school papers because I could mock the system when I received the same grade as someone who spent weeks on the same paper, and I, only hours. Writing became more fun when I could write love letters and make women blush. And starting this blog? Best decision of my life for reasons it would take a book to detail.

I didn’t always want to be an entrepreneur either, but I always found ways to love it. (Still do.) I started my own vending machine business with my dad because I loved eating the leftover candy. I helped run a card shop because I loved collecting pokemon cards at the time and got to watch old batman movies when no one was in the shop. Instead of a lemonade stand, I had a beanie babies stand because it connected me with more kids my age.

I didn’t always want to go into Public Relations, but it was a knack of mine finding ways to love it. (Still is.) Meeting new people and going to events alone was rough, but I made business cards for myself. They made me feel I deserved to be there even though I didn’t have an established PR business. I went to dozens of Toastmaster (public speaking org) meetings, not because I was fearless, but because I could learn from others’ failures so I didn’t make the same when I finally forced myself to the podium.

Passion isn’t really something you seek out on purpose, it’s more of something you come across. You don’t need an “aha” moment to realize what it is you’ve been put on this world to do. You get there by finding reasons to love what you’re already doing.

 

Stay Positive & You’ll Do What You Love, When You Love What You Do

Get Your Entrepreneurons Buzzing With These Marketing Playbook Strategies

Garth Beyer

The following are tips from a new WARF series focused on bringing the fundamentals of getting a new venture started.

The following entrepreneurs marketing playbook strategies are courtesy of

  • Marsha Lindsay of Lindsay, Stone & Briggs
  • Todd LaBeau, vice president, director of digital marketing, Lindsay, Stone & Briggs
  • Mike Judge, director, Center for Brand and Product Management, Wisconsin School of Business
  • Tim Gill, search manager, Shopbop.com/Amazon.com
  • Chris Parker, vice president and chief commercial officer, Cellular Dynamics Internationale

1. You have to be willing to bet the farm on an idea. And if you don’t have a farm, bet the house and the car on the idea.

2. When you start something, it’s incumbent upon you to continue.

3. 512,000 new businesses launched in 2012, 250,000 new products are launched every year, 75% of VC backed firms don’t return investors capital, 95% of start-ups fail.

4. Face reality: what will it take to dramatically increase your odds? Face what you know and don’t know about marketing and then devote as much to learning and mastering marketing as you do your innovation. Be prepared to invest in what it takes to build awareness, engagement, adoption.

5. Before you set expectations or make promises you can’t meet, do marketing math and avoid seeing what doesn’t exist. “You will see in the data what you want to see even if it’s not there,” confirmation bias.

6. Number one reason innovations fail: product doesn’t have meaningful role in people’s lives. Realize you’re launching not an innovation, but a meaningful role to play in people’s lives. It is what drives sales and revenue and line extension. Know what is compelling not in your eyes, but in eyes of the user.

7. Building marketing strategy in from start. Today marketing is synonymous with innovation and business strategy.

8. Your why should help people be more of who they are or aspire to be.

9. To survive your startup, you need as many paying customers of all kinds as quickly as possible. To last, you need your target audience to be your partner.

10. Know where you’ll get your volume, know your competitors and what their product is.

11. As much as you invest in something, make sure you expect that something will not happen the way you want it. Allow for a contingency plan.

12. Not what everyone wants is a product they can touch hold and play with. Some people want a product that makes them feel a certain way. How is it you figure out the feeling people want?

The best way to figure them out is through qualitative research. Sit down with people and watch them use the product, ask them about the product and how it makes them feel. Learn to ask better questions to get someone to say “I loved how this happened, or I love how it’s like X.” Figure out how it makes them feel without asking them how it makes them feel.

 

Stay Positive & Take These Lessons Then Run With Them

Freelance Vs. Entrepreneur

Garth Beyer

I just left a freelancing job after six months (technically a  year, I’ll get to that in a moment). It was an exceptional experience, I wrote almost 100 articles on any string of the money management spider web you can imagine.

I got to write and was paid when I delivered. Freelancing at its finest.

After six months, I reached my learning capacity , enjoyment, and acceptably high skill level toward writing to this specific audience. [By “learning capacity,” I mean I got out 90% of what I believed I could from the position] Instead of quitting, I decided to become an entrepreneur.

I remembered the saying that freelancers get paid when they ship, and entrepreneurs get paid when they sleep. (HT Seth Godin)

So I hired some writers to do the work that I once was. I positioned myself as the boss and editor. I made the hiring process as legitimate as possible. Candidates emailed resumes, we met for an interview, I gave them test articles. I pushed them to do their best, get creative, and take the reigns. Being boss – to put a less professional tone to it – was awesome.

I didn’t make much money from being an entrepreneur for six months, but it’s not often I’ve gotten so much experience from something so temporary.

To think, I could have just left my freelancing position and moved on. It’s a decision that many freelancers forget they have.

 

Stay Positive & Maybe It’s Not “Vs.”, It’s An Optional Transition

Garth E. Beyer