Business Tips: Motivation

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Hello everyone!

Did you know that while you were out there, quietly getting on with your life, I had my own business for three years? 

Yes! I am as surprised as you are. My initial goals for the business were “don’t go mad and don’t go bankrupt” and I narrowly successfully avoided doing either of those things. Sunglasses emoji to me.

Don’t worry, I’ve stopped doing that now. It was stressful, and if I’m going to be stressed I want to be stressed and rich, not stressed and writing yet another ‘10 Tips for New Home Builders’ blog that is destined to slip gently beneath the dark waves of the Internet, unnoticed and unread, leaving only a copywriting invoice floating on the waves above. 

 

WHY DID I NEVER SEND MY INVOICES IN THE FORM OF A LITTLE PAPER BOAT? business tip 1: send your invoices in the form of a little paper boat.

 

Also once a client emailed me and said “Wow! This is amazing!” and it wasn’t amazing, it was a spreadsheet, and if that doesn’t make you question your life choices then nothing will.

Turns out this was a great decision because my business was primarily freelance copywriting, and with the rise of AI, now is a great time to be doing absolutely anything else. 

(Now I work at a marketing agency and do marketing things, and that reminds me that I really should put the “if you are a client and you find this blog by accident, it’s better if you pretend you didn’t” warning back on the homepage.)

 

i mean it. out you go.

 

However, having been a Questionably Successful Business Owner, I am now officially qualified to post lengthy LinkedIn missives with titles like:

  • “The Rise of the Corporate Houdini: Free Yourself From The Underwater Manacles of a 40-Hour Work Week” and

  • “Zooming It Old School: What’s Your Microcorporate Growth Hack?” and

  • “Are Online Courses A Scam? Buy My Online Course And Find Out” and

  • “Genuinely Faking Authenticity In A Post-Vulnerability World” and so on.

This newfound Business Knowledge has inspired me to inspire others, with these Business Tips for Business You. Because if I can Business, then you can Business.

Come, let us Business Together.

 

come, LET US FOLLOW THE STAR OF INDUSTRY TO GRAZE AT THe MANGER OF PROFIT. I UPLOADED THIS PICTURE BY ACCIDENT AND NOW I’VE FORGOTTEN WHAT I MEANT TO PUT HERE INSTEAD.

 

Please note, these are not Positive and Empowering Business Tips, because the world is already full of those and I can’t be bothered regurgitating them, like a mother bird, to spew them gently into your waiting business beaks. 

These are the Gritty Business Tips That Nobody Tells You About. 

Open your business beak, here comes the grit!

 

NO! THAT’S NOT YOUR BUSINESS BEAK!

 

1: Sometimes Business Is Boring

Doing a business is fun sometimes, but the amount of admin is completely unhinged. When you aren’t busy driving to important business events in your Maserati you will find yourself putting off exciting tasks like:

  • Posting on the business social media page and/or failing to think of things to post on the business social media page.

  • Signing up for webinars you have no interest in but really should go to.

  • Gazing blankly at financial spreadsheets, occasionally refreshing the tab to trick yourself into thinking you’re doing something useful.

  • Comparing five different softwares that all do the same thing.

Also, if you are like me (bad at things) you will spend YEARS doing your bookkeeping and reconciling* your business purchases. This is when you go through everything you bought and frantically try and remember why you bought it, because taxes.

Mostly when you are reconciling your business purchases you are actually reconciling your conscience with the state of your bookkeeping. 

 

you are bernard.

 

BUSINESS TIP NUMBER ONE:
MOTIVATING YOURSELF TO DO BORING BUSINESS THINGS

It is hard to motivate yourself when the thing you’re meant to do makes you want to go URRRRRRRHHHHH and swing back in your office chair until all the blood rushes to your head and you fall backwards and die, which is actually a great outcome because dead people don’t have to do their invoicing.

BUT IT CAN BE DONE, with the help of these cool business tips.

  1. Find a piece of client work that you are not looking forward to doing, and do your own work instead. What a treat!

  2. Read an article about how most people only really have 2-3 hours of focused time available each day. This will not make you more productive, but it will make you feel better about your lack of productivity.

  3. Create a reward system, not unlike you would for a small child or a salesperson. Once you have finished the boring thing you can have your lunch, or perhaps a trip to the supermarket!

  4. “Hack” yourself to be productive at odd times of the day. Do your invoicing at midnight. Send an email at 3am. Nap in 17-minute bursts throughout the day. Again, this won’t make you more productive but oh boy, the people in your networking group will be impressed.

  5. Tell someone who will not be afraid to judge you, like your business mentor or your mother, that your cashflow spreadsheet will be done by next Thursday and you would very much like to show it to them.

 

the only problem is that you have to know somebody who will pretend to be interested in seeing your cashflow spreadsheet.

 

THAT’S ENOUGH BUSINESS TIPS FOR ONE DAY!

I know it was only one but this post is very long and you probably have to do your invoicing.

—

*Here is my reconciliation process, which invariably starts with resetting the password for my bookkeeping software because I have forgotten it.

  1. I’m in! OK now I can’t remember where the reconciliation bit is.

  2. Here it is! Well done me, off to a good start, this will be a breeze.

  3. Why are there so many things to reconcile? I really should do this more regularly.

  4. OK so I spent $35.70 at New World Woolston, three months ago. What was THAT?

  5. Aha! This one is petrol. I’ll reconcile that.

  6. Actually, I’ll go through and reconcile all the petrol ones. Then the list will look shorter.

  7. When did I even go to New World Woolston?

  8. Man, I really must remember to cancel Dropbox.

  9. Did I have a meeting in Woolston? I’ve never even had a client in Woolston.

  10. What’s this? When did I spend $500- oh wait that’s not an expense, someone paid me.

  11. …why would the meeting have been at the supermarket? 

  12. What’s this?? 

  13. Oh it’s my taxes.

  14. OH!

  15. I used the business card at New World by ACCIDENT!

  16. How do I reconcile an accident?

  17. Fuck it I’ll finish this later.

  18. *my accountant eventually runs out of patience and finishes the reconciliation for me*

 

WHAT WAS IT? WINE? PIES? WINE AND PIES? WINE AND PIES FOR A CLIENT?

ALSO, I CAN’T TELL YOU WHETHER IT WAS WINE AND PIES OR NOT BECAUSE I’VE LOST THE RECEIPT. BOOKKEEPING!