Let's talk about money!

Do you make money or are you hunting coins?

Running a business without or with only tiny conversions is like standing on the BIG money and trying to catch with a magnet some coins. This statement might be provoking, and it is just the mirror of what I see with many websites online.

I agree with the argument that it takes its time to build a brand and to have an audience. This argument is simply a truth! What makes me suspicious is to see that there are websites without generating money at all. Then I see websites that are online since more than a year generating about 50.-- to 100.-- Dollars a month.

As an entrepreneur, I must say that isn't a business that is an extremely time-consuming hobby.

For a hobby, it doesn't matter if there comes money in or if there is going more money out than coming in because it is a hobby.
My concern is that almost all are dreaming about the business to make a living and instead of they are fishing some coins if ever.

And now it's getting interesting. There are people perfectly educated, they have a lot of techniques and have access to exquisite training how to start an online business.

They learn a lot about all technical things what is needed to succeed. And although they have all this knowledge they don't earn money and are hunting coins.

What is wrong?

The good news are, there is absolutely nothing wrong but there is something missing. To give you a picture I tell you the story about one of my clients.

(For reasons of data safety name and profession are changed)

John made an appointment in my practice because he was dangerously struggling with his business. He was running a disco in the city, and he could not understand that it was impossible for him to earn enough money with this Disco. He even had to take during the day a part time work as a painter to survive financially.

He assured me that he knew everything about building a disco and about what is important to know to do a good marketing, to have a perfect decoration in the Disco and what kind of music the DJ has to play.

I was talking one hour about all this, and he convinced me with a lot of knowledge and I asked myself why he can not succeed. I decided to visit him in his Disco club and asked him to prepare the financial records to get an impression of his figures.

I never forget the evening I went there. I was not even inside I had already an idea what is going wrong there. And inside I got the final confirmation that my idea was right.

John had a clear understanding of the music that fits in HIS Disco (but not into the disco of his customers). John knew how to decorate HIS Disco entirely (but neither the Disco that fits his actual customers nor to the customers of the music). John loved to have a Disco, but he did also not understand to apply social engagement. This place was the opposite. It was disengaging.

John had a beautiful dream and in each area he had good skills, but he could not bring them together to one picture. Looking for his financial records, I immediately saw enough mistakes he urgently had to correct.

Summary

John's skills to run a business were technically profound, but he had not learned the entrepreneurial skills to run it successfully. Skills like engagement, finances, corporate identity, authority and so on.

To support people making their business idea come true and if you have dreams to make your dreams come true is one of my reasons why I decided to build, together with Stefan Logar and Stephen Dean, the online certification platform "The Abundance Project" (TAP).

Love, Martin