5 Tips to Budget as a Startup

Today’s guest blog post was provided by Paisley Hansen, a freelance writer.


Over 90% of startups fail and there are about 627k new business started every year. This is not meant to be an in-depth business overview but merely some tips to keep in mind to assist a start-up in not contributing to that 90% statistic

Keep track of ALL your expenses

This may seem obvious, but you may be surprised how much is being spent on non-essential items and services. Make a record of everything purchased and organize them by what is essential and what is discretionary. Many startups when securing the first round of funding, or turning the first profit, splurge on office spaces. It’s hard not to “show” your success. You don’t need to go all out, just snag some cheap office furniture and make do.

5 Ways to Improve Customer Retention as a Freelancer

As a freelancer your mind is always focused on finding work. No work means no money being made, which means you do not eat. Not eating is something that no freelancer likes to experience. Therefore, freelancers are always hustling so that they never have to endure a period of famine.

One thing that seems to be the constant problem with most freelancers is that they always have to hustle for work. Once they are done with a present client’s work, they move on to trying to develop a new job, which will only be a temporary client as usual.

This sort of behavior is exactly why most freelancers never turn their freelancing skills into an actual business that has recurring customers. Instead most freelancers deal with constant anxiety about finding another paying gig so that they can make enough money to merely survive.
If you are a freelancer who has to constantly hunt for clients, you are not operating with the mindset or actions that will help you prosper and grow.

Your lack of business understanding keeps you in a perpetual state of struggle. There is no reason for you to continue to struggle as a freelancer. Here are 5 actions that will help you produce a thriving freelancing business.

How Entrepreneurs Position Themselves to Succeed During the Holidays

We are in the mist of holiday season. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years all happen back to back which means this is the time of year when many people mentally checkout. The mindset is to enjoy the holidays for an entire month and then go into the new year focused, ready to achieve big things.

But this wishful thinking never goes as planned. If you are already an average person who operates at an average level like the majority of people, completely shutting down for an entire month only keeps your life in the company of the average.

What is the average person doing during the holidays? They are usually spending money that they don’t have so that they can “enjoy” the holidays.

What is the difference between a successful entrepreneur and the average person? How do entrepreneurs get ahead during the holiday season?

Entrepreneurs have systems to make money while the average person trades their time for money. The average persons time away from their job means that they are not generating any money.

A successful entrepreneur is making money and working even while they are enjoying the holidays. The reason this is able to occur is because the entrepreneur has put systems in place that allow for them to stay in contact with their customers so that interaction and sells can continue to happen.

What 8 Years of “Entrepreneurship” Taught Me

When people ask me how long have I been an entrepreneur, I tell them I have been an “entrepreneur” for the last 8 years. Notice I put quotation marks around entrepreneur. I will explain the reason for this later in the post.

I graduated from high school in 2007. I had been working at Wendy’s since 2005 and left there after I graduated to go work at UPS. UPS only lasted a couple of months. I just couldn’t see myself continuing down the path of being a highly praised but underpaid worker.

While at UPS I created my entertainment company. Man was that an eye-opening experience. The creation of this entertainment company was my main reason for leaving UPS. I was going to take the entertainment industry by storm. So I thought.

When I left UPS I needed another job asap. My plan was to go apply at Family Dollar. Instead my mom asked me to come work with her since she was opening a new office in downtown Atlanta.

So I was going into 2008 set and ready to make things happen, so I thought again. I had my new entertainment company and I was the “COO” of my mom’s tax business.

To cut a long story short, things started off “great” and ended terribly. My attempt at creating a studio for my entertainment company drained my pockets and my role as COO did not go as I envisioned.

The reason this occurred is because I didn’t truly understand entrepreneurship nor business ownership. Entrepreneurship is turning an idea into a product/service that has demand in the marketplace. Business ownership is taking that product/service, scaling it for growth and employing others to manage your business operations.

Waiting for the Response….

What is one of the most heart pounding, anxious moments that you face as an entrepreneur? Waiting for the response.

Waiting for a potential customer’s response to your proposal can be a difficult time for many entrepreneurs because you are hoping for a yes and dreading a no. During this period of time, you think of all the reasons for why they could say no, while thinking of how great it would be for your business if they said yes.

I understand the situation you are in. You are a small business and you are eager to gain customers so that you can actually feel like you are running a business. You are chasing customers, while trying to stay enthusiastic about your business, even when things seem like they are leading to nowhere.

Gaining this customer who you are waiting on a response from, will not only be a source of revenue but it will also give you some much-needed confidence to continue as an entrepreneur.

How to 10X Your Entrepreneurial Endeavors!

I am all about constant improvement, both personally and business wise. On this quest for constant improvement, I am always looking for new sources of information that will help me enhance my mindset, in order to produce better actions that lead to successful results. One of the mindsets I have been following and implementing into my own life is the 10X mindset created by Grant Cardone.

The 10X mindset basically states that you need to apply massive actions in order to produce massive results. Many people hold an average mindset, which influences average actions and produces average results. What is hypocritical of such people, is them expecting 10X success while operating within an average existence.

How to Turn Your Failing Business Around

They say embrace it but many of us hate it… FAILURE. Failure is viewed as a lesson(s) to learn from but who really likes to fail with a business idea that they worked so hard to establish?

No one! And I don’t care how you try to spin it as something to be proud of because you tried and learned in the process. Failure just doesn’t feel good, especially if there are financial consequences for your failure, which can be painful.

The failure rate for small businesses is 80% within the first 18 months. That is an insane percentage of businesses, and far too large when a healthy economy is dependent on successful small businesses.

Don’t Pay More than You Have to In Taxes

Today’s blog post is a guest post provided by Maple C of http://inspirationspark.us/

Tax season is a time when, like it or not, we reflect upon our financial decisions over the past year. Some of our choices will result in extra funds we’ll have to send to Uncle Sam, and thankfully, others will help keep money in our pockets.
While most of us don’t necessarily look forward to tax time, those who do usually feel a sense of victory in receiving a sizeable refund after taking advantage of as many tax deductions as possible. And there are many things that you, too, can do to help ensure that you aren’t paying a dime more than you have to this tax season. Here are a few suggestions to help make that happen:

Gaining Perspective on Entrepreneur Success

If there is one thing that entrepreneurship can promise; it is that you will constantly learn as you progress forward. And this learning process is what separates successful entrepreneurs from average entrepreneurs.

I say this because successful entrepreneurs learn from both success and failures. Average entrepreneurs seem to never really learn from either. And therefore, they remain in the same average position their entire entrepreneur career.

I make this observation due to the fact that I have been around a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners over the years. The successful ones are always challenging themselves to accomplish more and backing their talk up with complementary actions. The average ones talk loudly proclaiming this and that, but never put forth the effective actions which will move them beyond their average position.

F.O.C.U.S. and Its Importance for Entrepreneurs

I was going through my Google Alerts for Entrepreneur and Entrepreneurship the other day and came across an interesting article on Entrepreneur. It was an article that talked about the 4 Strategies John Lee Dumas used to build a $250k a month podcast. If you are not familiar with John Lee Dumas, he is the founder of Entrepreneur On Fire, which is a great podcast for entrepreneurs to have on their list of podcast.