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In my recent pursuit of new opportunities, I’ve had some casual conversations with several people regarding web development:

• A local mobile car detailing service owner asked me how he could optimize his website for Google, and what new technologies are available to increase his site’s exposure.
• A home inspector asked me how to make his site rank higher in various search engines.
• A local entrepreneur asked me how much I knew about SEO and how to use blogging to increase traffic to his website.

Initially I was asking myself “Why are these people all asking me the same questions?” Eventually I began asking myself, “What are these people asking me about?” Answering this reveals what people are thinking about, what they are worried about, what they want to know more about, and most importantly, what they want. People ask questions because they want answers. They want someone who they perceive to be an expert to take their hand and guide them through the learning curve. To these people, I am knowledgable on the topics of SEO, blogging, RSS and other trends and technologies.

When people ask questions about certain topics, they are doing so because they truely believe you can answer those questions. They see you as someone knowledgable in that field. Someone who can point them in the right direction. And this creates opportunities for you. I have identified demand for a service by listening to what people are asking me, and I plan on meeting that demand.

My question to you is this: What are people asking you? Perhaps you should be listening a little harder.

Goals are a topic that has been beaten up pretty thoroughly. Every one has their opinion on how to approach goals and how to achieve what you set out to accomplish. Knowing that having goals is an important step in becoming a successful entrepreneur, I have decided to write down all of my goals in a manner that is conducive to me actually adhering to them. Below are a few of my thoughts on goals:

• Read Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Although the misleading title makes this book sound like a “get rich quick” scheme, this is actually an amazing book that has some great advice regarding goals.
• I have decided to follow a “plan” for successful living devised by Benjamin Franklin. The plan lays out thirteen rules to follow each day. I have purchased a Moleskine notebook to use as my tracking mechanism.
• In the same Moleskine notebook that I am using for the Franklin Plan, I also created my own personal role-based goals. I wrote down goals specific to each of my roles in life: Christian, Husband, Son, Brother, Friend, Student, and Personal. I will track my adherence to each of these goals much in the same way I do for the Franklin Plan.
• This is covered in the Napoleon Hill book, but I think it is important enough to restate: It is important to read over your goals at least once a day. This programs your subconcious to your goals – sounds fluffy, but it is important.

I will keep everyone updated with the progress I make regarding my goal tracking.

I recently took over as the organizer of the Cincinnati Entrepreneur Meetup Group. I can tell you that this has been one of the best things I have done. Not only have I met new people and learned a lot about entrepreneurship, but I have had a flood of opportunities come my way simply because people found me and my skill set through the group.

It is relatively cheap and easy to get your own Meetup group going. It costs organizers about $19/month, and getting a group together is as easy as picking a date, picking a venue, and then telling people about it. Starting a Meetup group focused on a topic your are interested in (especially business related) really lets people know that you are serious about the topic and would make a great contact in that particular field. The key opportunity in starting a group is getting your name out there and in front of the people you would like to be involved with. Not only do you expose yourself to like-minded people, but business/career opportunities will start to present themselves more than ever.

Highly recommended if you are looking to expand your contact network and your opportunity landscape. Start your own.

From a post at AutoBlog.com:

In what can only be described as a piercing glimpse into the obvious, a national survey by Response Insurance reveals that a remarkable 57-percent of U.S. drivers don’t use their turn signals when changing lanes. Even more amazing (frightening?) is that 7-percent of those drivers confess that they don’t signal because it “adds excitement to driving”!

Wow, here I was thinking that my life was dull.

Learn to tie the fastest shoelace knot, of course!

I posted this because 1) it is a damn fast way to tie your shoes, and 2) Ian’s Shoelace Site intrigues me because of its amazing level of focus. It is becoming increasingly harder to stand out in a crowd because of the amount of information that is floating around. To combat this, many businesses and people are becoming more and more focused on a single topic or theme. Ian has managed to stand out in a sea of websites by narrowing in on a single, defined topic of interest. He doesn’t talk about shoes or clothing – there is just too much to discuss about those topics. He instead cuts all of the clutter and focuses entirely on shoelaces and how to tie them in various ways.

Another example: Wal-mart has made it extremely hard for any large discount stores to enter the market. They carry everything under the sun, and they carry it cheaply. So how do you stand out? You focus, you trim, you cut out everything else and get really good at one thing. I drove past a store called “World of Dinettes” the other day. You can’t buy couches or recliners there, only dinette sets. This may sound limiting, but it is probably fair to say that they are autorities on dinette sets. Wal-mart can’t compete with such expertise.

Ladies and Gents – today I bowled my first 200 game. No, please, hold your applause, you’re all so kind. Thank you, thank you. Now that I am a professional bowler it is only appropriate that I call the PBA and ask for my spot on the tour
I even documented it: http://www.pin300.com

It never ceases to amaze me how big, life-altering decisions can pile up on top of each other. Today I decided to buy a house and to possibly quit my job to start up my own company. In the same ten minutes I decided to lower my income to nil, and increase my expenses by well over $1,000 per month.

My family, friends, and definitely wife will be asking, “Why?”. My answer: why not. From what I can gather from my quarter-century experience at life, nothing changes unless you conciously decide to make it change. I once was graced with a fortune cookie who’s fortune read, “If you keep doing the same thing you’ve always done, you will keep getting the same thing you’ve always gotten.” Cheesy, but right on target at the same time.

Let me give you an example. About three weeks ago a couple of people decided to kick in an entry door in my kitchen, rifle through my wife’s wallet, take a digital camcorder off of my desk, and drive off in our car. The entire time this was happening, my wife was upstairs asleep. Now I can fret all day by playing the “What if?” game, but I chose not to. It turns out that we got the car back, and everything was back to normal – I didn’t do anything to change the situation, and I ended up getting nothing new. Until I decided to move.

Now I am changing things up. I am jumping into a financial situation that is probably outside of my current means. What will I do!? I will find way to make more money; plain and simple. Assuming I didn’t change my current situation, I would have stayed at my current job and made the same amount of money as I always have made. By pushing myself into a situation where I HAVE to make more money, I will force myself to do just that. This is how I came about making two big decisions at the same time. By buying a new house, I now have increased financial commitments. To meet these commitments, I will need to make more money. I am smart enough to make more money on my own, so I am going to do just that. Start-up world, say hello to me.

All through school we were taught that humans have five built-in senses: Seeing, Hearing, Feeling, Tasting and Smelling. As I thought about this today, it occured to me that all of these sense essentially arise from the sense of feeling. Any inputs that our bodies detect are as a result of some sort of contact with a foreign object. For example, seeing is a result of light particles coming into contact with our eyes; hearing is a result of sound waves coming into contact with our ears; taste – material with our tongue, etc. It is all about feeling and how our different body parts interpret contact with things.

Random and, to some extent, pointless – perfect for a blog post!

Yesterday Nikki and I spent the day looking at houses with our real estate agent. House after house, neighborhood after neighborhood. This process becomes very tedious to me after about three houses. On a positive note, Zillow.com makes my life a little bit easier by showing me the approximate value of houses in the neighborhoods we look in. Another tip when looking for houses: always make extensive use of the county auditor’s website. Most auditor websites will show you historical information regarding a property, such as how much the current owner paid for the property – good to know.

• Recently via Twitter

  • Come work with me at iNET Interactive! http://bit.ly/9HKwz7 2010/07/27
  • @joshkaufman Sure, treat Kelsey like a queen ;-) 2010/07/16
  • @joshkaufman Doing great. Elise turned 2 this past weekend. Fatherhood is a blast! 2010/07/16

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