Have you put your personal photo on your website or on any networking site lately? How about your business street address or contact information? You may have contributed to the latest online tactic that is proving to be a bit dangerous - complete strangers tracking down where you really live and wanting to get personal with you.
Identity theft is the least of it, especially for bloggers. In attempting to be more real to their readers, 2 well known bloggers have become targets of Up close & personal where you live cyber-stalkers. Both have shut down their sites and one has decided the openness of the Wild-Wild-Web isn't worth the danger his family has been put through since posting his real name and photo on his blog.
This is just a caution people. Your family and friends may think you're the best thing since indoor plumbing, but when it comes to being online - you don't know anyone from Adam Housecat, not even me. Be safe, use common sense on social bookmarking sites and remember that whatever you put online - stays online for a very, very long time.
Let's get to an article I found from Michael Masterson from Early to Rise. When it comes to our businesses, solo entrepreneurs are prone to operating blind in some cases - it's our baby we're talking about and our baby is perfect, right?! Well, sometimes it's best to remember some babies are born ugly too. Enjoy the article.
Love Is Blind - but Don't Turn a Blind Eye to Your Business
By Michael Masterson
Your business is growing at a good rate. Every year, you boost it forward by creating one or several new product lines or divisions. One of these becomes a favorite of yours. You like it so much, you want it to be massively successful.
There are little bits of evidence that your pet project is not as good as you want to believe, but you ignore them. When someone criticizes it, you feel defensive. If you get marketing or financial reports that look bad, you insist that they are flawed and ask to have them re-figured. If the reports come back looking good, you are happy.
In HL's case, there were warning signs that his new division wasn't working...
* There wasn't a clearly established market for its products.
* The small market that existed didn't seem to be growing.
* There wasn't a single strong frontrunner doing what he wanted to do.
Any one of these conditions should have called for a serious look at the numbers. But HL didn't want to look. He wanted to believe. For four years running, he accepted the superficial and seriously flawed reports of the division's manager - a guy whose vested interest was in making these reports look as good as possible.
The reports looked good, but there was no money in the bank. And every year, the new venture needed to borrow money. "How could I have been so foolish?" HL eventually had to ask himself.
There is only one way to make sure something like this never happens to you:
Devote some time each month (or year) to critically investigating the numbers. Don't accept glib answers or superficial explanations. If something doesn't make perfect sense to you, keep asking questions till you get a satisfactory answer.
A second thing you can do: Keep tabs on the cash. Know how much cash you have on a daily basis - and this applies even if your business is a large one.
Third, make sure you have an accurate idea of accounts payable and other balance-sheet items that might not appear on your profit statements.
And finally, keep plugged into the sales and marketing activity of the business. When this is profitable, everything else can be fixed. But when it starts to fall apart, your business is in danger - no matter what the reports say.
Short and sweet today, so I leave you with this:
If you're going to make a living putting odds in your favor, you damn well better know how to calculate them. - Amarillo Slim
