What businesses have you tried and what have you learned from them?

[Boreas]

What businesses have you tried and what have you learned from them?

[Dwane J.]

Handyman business - Learned how important the concept of scalability is to a business

Internet Marketing - What seems easy is very difficult and it takes money to make money.

[Lauxa]

Video editing and other freelance work - start with small to medium jobs until you are confident of how much time jobs will actually take so you can set your estimates correctly, especially when the work is time-critical or you are being paid by the job instead of by the hour.

[bmhansen]

I have had a jobs/businesses (mostly in sales), but what seems to be the common thread in all is consistency.
If you are in sales, marketing, or whatever you have to have a consistent process to:
1. Generate new prospects
2. From the prospects, get leads/meetings
3. Sale as many as you can

Life is good, but difficult at times and what I have learned is to find out what you want and put together a plan to acheive it and be consistent at follow through.

[C0282736]

Record label- A business model that relies on an artist is extremely risky. The balance between helping them grow into the artist they want to be and keeping the company profitable is tricky

Lawn and garden maintenance- getting into a market that is experiencing huge growth is a fantastic opporunity for someone who is able to set themselves apart from their competitors. Especially when their competitors don't appear to have long term sustainability in mind.

[jenno]

Originally Posted by bmhansen

I have had a jobs/businesses (mostly in sales), but what seems to be the common thread in all is consistency.
If you are in sales, marketing, or whatever you have to have a consistent process to:
1. Generate new prospects
2. From the prospects, get leads/meetings
3. Sale as many as you can

Well said. I opened my first money-making websites back in February of 2005 and it's really a never-ending process. This year was my best year yet but it's tapered off because I got too comfortable and did little work, but it's a lesson well learned.

People seem to think that if you have an online business or job, that it's all just roses and working 5 hours a week. It's not! It's still hard work -- a lot of research, testing, sales, on top of trying to keep your customers happy while reaching new ones.

Steve's post on why hard work pays off really opened my eyes. I'm now determined to push through any and all obstacles and get my site to the next level.