Why my early business ventures failed

When I was in my 20's I had a buddy who was a budding entrepreneur, and he had such an infectious enthusiasm for starting his own business that I'd often be persuaded to join him in his entrepreneurial exploits. For some reason we didn't know at the time we nevar actually became the millionaires we believed we could be, and looking back now I can see why.

All of our business ideas centred around dealing in used cars, as we both worked in the automotive repair industry and knew the market, so that wasn't why we failed. But when I look back at what we didn't do I now know why we did. So here I'll retell the story of our failed business, and maybe you will see where we went wrong.

It would always start with a phone call from my friend to tell me of a car the chief buyer at the used car lot he worked in had found at a bargain price that we could buy. We'd pool our resources, and buy said car, and spend the next week cleaning, fixing up and making good our business investment. We knew the resale value of every vehicle we bought and always had the opportunity to turn at least 50% profit, and we'd rub our hands together with visions of our profits. We would advertise the car in the top used car ads paper in the area and even pay the extra for the papers professional photographer to take some pictures. When the paper was published on a Thursday we'd sit by the telephone and wait for it to ring.

Usually by Saturday we'd had few calls and decided our price was too high, and lower it for the next weeks listing. Looking back this was our second business mistake, the first was our ad copy in the paper, it sucked and that's why we didn't get any calls, not because the price was too high. So once we had lowered the price we did get calls, and viewers for our now bargain priced car. Almost without fail these potential buyers would come and offer us a much lower price than we'd advertised, because they were mainly small traders who knew the business better than we did, and had spotted the same car listed two weeks, and the price drop, and knew desperation when they saw it.

Invariably by the third week of poor ad copy, price drops and failed haggling we would drop the price to the point where we would only just break even. Someone would get a bargain, which usually would turn up on a sales forecourt for even more than our first price, or worse for our battered egos back in the same paper we'd used for a higher price than we'd even dared to hope for, but would not be for more than 2 weeks.

And this was repeated many times over several years, with the same results for our grand auto business ideas, no sales, no millions and still repairing vehicles for someone elses gain.

Here's where hindsight shows up our business mistakes.

1. Poor ad copy, we had no hope of getting any calls on our great cars with our very basic and uninspiring ads, even with a picture. The words just didn't sell.

2. Price dropping, when you start dropping your price, your potential customers will see you don't believe in your businesses products or services enough, and if you don't believe why should they?

3. No business plan, although we had tons of enthusiasm we had no solid plans, even if our first car had sold we would have bombed because we had nowhere planned to go forward to.

4. Lack of professionalism, as well as poor ads in the paper our business suffered from the fact we were two enthusiastic amateurs, with no telephone manner, and poor salesmanship, we also lacked in confidence to hold up our prices and stick till it was sold.

5. Impatience, I firmly believe this is our biggest business mistake, and one I see all too often in online entrepreneurs. Impatience will stifle your business. The budding entrepreneurs that were my buddy and me didn't want to wait for our profits, we wanted instant results, and that just doesn't happen. Ask any "overnight success" and they will tell you they only acheived overnight success after years of trying.

6. Doing the same thing, and getting the same bad results. We never changed our routine, it didn't work, but we kept following the same steps, and failing in the same ways. We should have been testing, and tweaking our sales techniques, instead we used the same ad format, in the same paper, and dropped the price in the same way every time.

So take a step back, and look at your business practices, can you see yourself making any of these mistakes?
Are you expecting instant riches from your business? Do you believe that dropping the price will get you more sales? Do you need to improve your ad copy? Does your business portray a professional image? Are you doing the same thing every time but expecting different results?

Be honest with yourself, look for the mistakes you might be making and don't keep making the same mistakes every time. Hopefully you can learn a little from my business mistakes and turn your own business around to be what you want it to be this year.

Douglas Titchmarsh writes a weekly blog and newsletter full of sound business advice and online tips which you can read by going to www.thediscountebookstore.com/blog as well as running an online business at www.cashinonline.info

Related Information of Interest:

Making Your Own Bird Feeder
There is estimated to be over 100 billion individual wild birds on earth, and each one needs to eat certain amounts of food on a daily basis in order to survive. That’s where we come in! Birdfeeders are fun to make and are essential in order for birds to live. Bird houses can be made out of practically anything and are usually hung in different locations around your yard for birds to enjoy. Purchasing a bird feeder is another option, however this can be expensive and both methods serve practically the same purpose.

The following is a fun and easy way for children (or adults) to make a bird feeder:

What You Will Need:

•An empty milk or juice carton (any size will do)
•String (must be strong)
•Scissors
•Stapler
•Hole punch
•2 small sticks or wooden rods
•Bird seed
•Markers, paint or anything which can be used to decorate the carton. Ensure the paint is water based not to hurt your feathered friends and try not to use anything that can be potentially dangerous to swallow.

Directions:

1.Wash and dry the carton thoroughly.

2.Decorate your carton however you would like.

3.Using your scissors cut a square in each side of the carton (a square big enough to fit at least the head of a bird).

4.Using your hole punch (or your scissors) make a small hole below each square.

5.Push your sticks or rods through the holes from one side of the carton to the other (the sticks will form a “t”).

6.Fill the bottom of your carton with bird seed.

7.Punch a hole (or two if you like) in the top of your carton.

8.Hang your finished feeder to a tree branch with string.

Although these bird feeders will not last forever (or even close), they are a fun, inexpensive way for children to learn about birds and the importance of caring for our wildlife.

About the Author

Greg Pilson is an avid bird watcher who also dabbles in freelance photography of his favorite subjects. When he’s not working full time in the engineering industry, he writes as a freelance writer for www.birdfeedersdirect.com – a site that offers information about bird houses and more.

Conversation In An Age Of Confusion
What do people talk about when they all believe different things and nobody is sure what the other person believes?

Then you add to that the usual courtesy that most people don’t want to offend other people, especially when it comes to the topics people disagree about with the most intensity, such as politics and religion, which all but the most foolhardy consider way off limits, at least, in what is referred to as polite conversation.

Actually, the silence of the times is far wider. In fact, the silken muffler of a feared indiscretion is wrapped around virtually every significant area of human thought, from philosophy to economics.

So what are we left with? Certain relatively safe topics, like poetry, unless you’re among poets whose egos are hair-trigger ready to fire back their own preferences vehemently. History might also be a good bet, since the overall tale has been pretty well agreed on, unless, once again, you’re with historians who may be simmering with their own disagreements.

The result? Conversation generally defaults to entrancing topics like the weather. Many spend entire evenings discussing such substitute content as one trifling entertainment or inconsequential entertainer after another. Things get really exciting when someone happens to mention how someone else may look tonight. Then there’s always the daring raconteur who’s arrayed with an evenings worth of sexual allusions.

Listening to such excited vapidity, one’s mind wanders to the legendary salons of France, at their epiphany, home, we read, to forthright conversation about the headiest topics of the time, generally centered around the new insights and old illusions of The Age of Reason.

At vagrant moments, you cannot help but ask yourself if the human race ever get to another time when it has enough beliefs in common to enliven its social occasions with conversations that really are interesting.

Tom Attea, creator of Newslaugh.com, has had six shows produced Off-Broadway and has written comedy for TV. Critics have called his writing ""delightfully funny" and "witty" with "good, genuine laughs."

U.S. Ends Oil Dependency; Turns B.S. Into Fuel
While America is experiencing a gasoline shortage, the nation’s dependence on foreign oil is about to end.

A researcher at The Department of Energy, from which breakthrough ideas emanate on a regular basis, noticed that Americans, along with most people who ever lived, have a virtually unlimited and renewable supply of B. S. He wondered if it might be turned into fuel.

The hypothesis proved so promising that his work produced a marvelous result in as short a time as it took to record some B. S. from a wonderfully fertile colleague and wire it to a refinery. He calls the new potion Bio-Super.

“It’s the most concentrated fuel in history,” he tells us, “with an octane rating of 99.9. I figure we’ve got enough of a supply to meet our total energy needs for the foreseeable future. All we have to do is keep B. S.-ing the way we do, and we’ll have all the Bio-Super we and our children need.”

The product is ready for mass production. The technique calls for the collection of B. S. from all over the country by having the most irrepressible exponents of it talk into microphones. The B. S. is then broadcast to the closest refinery.

Bio-Super also has an advantage over other fuels in terms of pollution, because the process actually takes a lot of it out of the air.

Since the B. S. is so highly concentrated to begin with, the production of Bio-Super is quite a lot more efficient than the manufacture of biofuel from corn or woodchips. Just a hundred words of good old American B. S., particularly from people who like to hang out at bars after work and talk their heads off, can produce enough to fill up the gasoline tank on a Hummer.

The only negative aspect is the product’s exceptional volatility. Once you pump it into your tank, you have to slam the gas cap shut instantly or it will all evaporate. Motorists are also advised only to remove the cap when the gauge is nearly on empty and to stand aside; otherwise, there is the risk of being knocked out with a force that scientists have calculated is equivalent to six airbags.

Tom Attea, creator of Newslaugh.com, has had six shows produced Off-Broadway and has written comedy for TV. Critics have called his writing ""delightfully funny" and "witty" with "good, genuine laughs."

Landscape Photography: Tips To Enhance The Experience
One of the great things about landscape photography is that the possibility is endless on where you can go, what to take a picture of and it all starts with a few steps from your own back door. The horizon is your limit.

Lighting speaks volumes in landscape photography. Getting up with the sun at dawn, watching the animals hurry around as they gather their food for the day, and while the sun is just peaking its face over the background would make for great photo with perfect light. When the sun is on its way down, this is great for a landscape picture of peace and serenity. This time of day is when animals and people are heading home for the night where the land is clear of “clutter” and the trees, skies and land are open. Shadows will add depth to any photo of the landscape and give it more of a three-dimensional feel to it.

Landscape photography should be relaxing and fun to do. It also requires some time to get the precise composition. When a camera is slightly shifted one way or another, you can see how it will dramatically improve the picture you are looking to take. When it comes to taking a picture of the landscape, taking one photo is just as good as taking ten. You do not have to waste film on something that can be done right the first time, this can be achieved with a bit of patience, and some practice.

When photographing landscapes, give your photo a feeling of depth by including close objects in the frame as well as the distant objects.

A fine lens for landscape photography is the 50 mm lens that comes as standard equipment on many SLR cameras. But if you are seriously interested in photographing landscapes, a good lens to have would be a wide-angle lens.

Losing detail due to camera shake is the biggest problem in landscape photography. So, a tripod and a shutter release cable are very helpful tools to have.

Albreht Moy offers photographs for sale at his website.