This Blog is Interrupted Due to Flu

If you came over here and saw all the tissue and popsicle sticks I've been diligently piling up in my bedside trash can, you'd think someone offered me a job paying fairly decent money~

This is day number five.

As Henry David Thoreau said, "Tis healthy to be sick sometimes."

And he even said this with no advantage of Nyquil whatsoever.

"What Would Entrepreneur Chick Do?"

"It is better to be boldly decisive and risk being wrong then to agonize at length and be right too late."  Marilyn Moats Kennedy

 

In a Jam? One Secret Sentence to Tell Yourself

 

Entrepreneur Chick is reading a very famous businessman's book over again.

As I read last night, this man was talking about how most people are not really cut out for success in that they can not handle pressure.

If you want to own a business, or you do own a business, one thing that you can count on more than anything else: is pressure.

I'm in a jam right now. That creates pressure.

 I'm going to be very candid with you.

I'd love to tell you that when I'm under pressure, why, I just rise to the occasion, never get upset, never get my thong in a wad, never raise my voice, never cuss and say a bunch of things I don't mean-

When I write as Entrepreneur Chick, I ask myself: is that true?

If it is, I write it- if it's not, I don't.

When my jam happened yesterday, my very first reaction was to get angry.

After I got angry, I decided to feel sorry for myself.

"Oh, this sucks. This isn't fair. Why is this happening?"

Anger is a valuable emotion in that it causes me to take action.

Pity is a useless emotion because it causes me to not take action.

I have to literally will myself out of feeling sorry, back to acknowledging my anger, and finally, take some sort of action in order to resolve the situation.

I'm getting much better not ruminating as to why something happened, but rather, what I going to do to solve it.

It's at this juncture I remember something very powerful.

Here's the one secret sentence, I say:

"I am a very creative person, and there are many solutions to a problem!"

I find this sentence gives me the power I feel I've lost, wonderfully back!

I return to the situation with a new attitude, as I am confident a resolve is just around the corner.

Why is a resolve just around the corner?

Because I am a very creative person, and there are many solutions to a problem!

This sentence has never failed me.

Try it and see if it doesn't work for you too.

Doing Business With Giants- Og, the King of Bashan

Have you heard of Og?

I know, right.

What was his mother thinking when she named him that?

However, Og didn't take guff on the playground because, you see, Og was a giant. A real, live, true giant.

You might be surprised to learn this about Entrepreneur Chick- but I read the Old Testament almost every day.

I'll give you the loosely translated, Readers Digest version of the Hebrew's dilemma.

(Though I only read The King James Version, which is classically beautiful and conveys a thought with fewer words; therefore making it easier to both understand and remember.)

God: Look guys. I'm giving you this land so-

Hebrews: Great! Well, you know, we'll send some spies over first and check out the place.

God: Um...

Later that day-

Hebrews: Gosh, God. It doesn't look so good. Did you KNOW that there's giants over there? Seriously. Giants. We're not so sure that we can beat them.

God: So, you're not sure I can help you out, huh? Does, oh, I don't know- the whole bringing you up out of Egypt with all those nasty plagues visited on Pharaoh and his peeps, and not on you, mean anything?

Parting of The Red Sea ring a bell?

Hebrews: But we like camping! And the manna thing- it's not so bad once you get used to it. We don't want to repeat the whole eat a pheasant and the earth swallows you up, drama.

God: No, see. That's not the deal. Don't think I can't hear you running your pie holes in your tents- you say, "HE brought us out here in the desert so he can kill us and give our children to our enemies for a prey." You're half right! You are going to die out here, those of you who don't believe me. Yep, you're gonners. However, TWO of you will not die, TWO of you will go into the land, and that's... (drum roll please- wait- I'll use thunder) Joshua and Caleb.

Two men out of literally millions went into the land because they had:

FAITH

They had this faith- not blind, stupid faith- but faith based upon historical evidence which denoted that God had been faithful in the past, therefore, HE could most assuredly be counted on to be faithful in the future.

What does this mean to the entrepreneur- if anything?

A Giant's Definition:

Giant: A multimillion dollar company that employs over 3,000- give or take.

You: A small business.

Should you, as a small business, dare to get involved and do business for, a giant?

Yes! If you are:

Aware, But Not Afraid: Be aware of, but not afaird of- how a giant pays.

Do you know how big corporations pay?

They pay on a net thirty, to net fourty five.

It will take you thirty to fourty five days to see your money. Uh oh. Now what? That's going to leave you scrambling to come up with enough cash flow to pay your labor and your materials. What do you do?

Do The Three B's, Babies!

Budget: This is how I manage to beat a whole bunch of odds. I told someone last night, "You won't believe how much money I won't spend!"

I carefully make sure that expenses are kept low and my employees are paid. By doing this, I am buying myself time until the gaint's cash starts rollling in.

Barrow: against accounts receivable. You don't have to- but it's an option.

This is called, "factoring".

Factoring is "a financial transaction whereby a business sells its accounts receivable (i.e., invoices) to a third party (called a factor) at a discount in exchange for immediate money with which to finance continued business. Factoring differs from a bank loan in three main ways. First, the emphasis is on the value of the receivables (essentially a financial asset)[1], not the firm’s credit worthiness. Secondly, factoring is not a loan – it is the purchase of a financial asset (the receivable). Finally, a bank loan involves two parties whereas factoring involves three."

Build: Get your sales staff out there, or you get out there, and build up smaller accounts.

You'll want to do that because they pay quicky, therefore, giving you the necessary cash to keep funding your business and make a profit, rendering the giant a whole lot more pleasant to do business with.

I share this with you today because one of my clients is, in fact, a giant-  a national name you'd all be familiar, if I were to share it with you.

Though I am happy as Charlie Sheen at Betty Ford to have acquired this giant, I now have a much better understanding of how one operates- and should you run across of few giants of your own- so will you!

HO, HO, HO~

(I'm quoting the Green Giant now, not Snoop Dogg.)

"For only Og, the king of Basham remained as remnant of giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron: is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man."

                                                             Deuteronomy 3:11