One of the problems preventing many would-be Thought Leaders from starting to podcast is unfamiliarity with the technology required. I’m a pretty smart guy, and I get hung up on technology. One of the biggest problems with sorting it all out, is that there are so many different choices. What microphone should I use? What software should I use? How do I syndicate my content? What podcasting platform should I use?

Trying to figure all this out is complicated even more than it should be, because the people who really know what they are doing, from whom you should learn to everything you need to know, are sometimes a few levels too advanced for us mere mortals. I, for one, don’t need to be told about a dozen different options. I don’t need 15 different software package reviews. I need one good solution that works, preferably one that is free or cheap.

Which brings me to Mitch Joel at Twist Image.

Mitch is not a techie. But, he does podcast. And he writes well. And he is good at explaining things.

You should check out his (well-designed) blog post about podcasting. It will be obvious that he does not really know that much about technology. That should be encouraging: you don’t have to know very much about technology either.

The Lowdown On Audio Podcasting | Six Pixels of Separation – Marketing and Communications Blog – By Mitch Joel at Twist Image.

Luckily, for those of us in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, the DFW Word press meet up group recently hosted a workshop on the Pods CMS plug-in. With this plug-in WordPress goes beyond its blog functionality and becomes a full-fledged content management system.

DFWWP Meetup 2009 10 24 Pt1 « CMS Web Developers.

Viable.

If you have kids:
Stop all TV watching.
Stop all time wasting.
Stop all email checking except twice a day.
Stop all pointless Social Media interaction.
Stop drinking Starbucks.
Stop other pointless spending.

Use extra money and time to grow business without quitting your day job.

Quit your day job when your independent income is equal to your (lowered) living expenses.

Oh- BTW- That’s good advice if you have kids, too.

If you can’t figure out what “viable” means.
If you can’t give up TV watching or Starbucks.
Then…
You have neither the intelligence nor the discipline to be an entrepreneur.

Don’t quit your day job.

This post is part of the Brogan 100.
Learn more here and here.

Risk Reward Graph from Seth's Blog

Minor quibble- Traditionally, Risk is charted on the x-axis, reward (return) on the y-axis.

Risk reward graphs were developed originally for Financial Analysis. Of course, lots of armchair economists have lighted on the idea of applying the graph to other things, especially business endeavors. That’s fine, except people usually think of it the wrong way:

Most people think that the line on the graph represents progress made through time, and that their risk/reward timeline goes like this (as viewed entirely from someone at point A):
A – “This is where I am. Everything is more or less safe.”
B – “If I started this crazy idea, there would be a lot of risk up front, and not much return for a long time. That scares me. I’ll do nothing.”
C – “Off in the distance, if I survive all that risk, the rewards will be phenomenal! I’ll be a millionaire.
D – “People who are successful continue to get a lot of reward, and they risk less and less.”
The problem with that is… well, it isn’t true. And it isn’t what risk/reward graphs were intended to show.
First of all, there is no time axis on a risk/reward graph. The graph isn’t showing a progression, but rather the risk-reward relationships of a number of discreet courses of action. The line, called the “Efficient Horizon” is the leading of edge of “highest possible amount of reward for any particular amount of risk.” What it shows is, basically, that if you are only willing to take on a certain amount of risk, you are limiting your potential for return. That graph looks something like this:

All possible courses of action are on or under the line on the graph. People who are under the line are not getting the maximum amount of return for the level of risk they are taking on. People who are on the line have optimized their risk/reward profile. When we look at where certain types of income-generation/entrepreneurship fall on the graph, there are four areas on the horizon.

A – Safe. Dependent. Traditional employment. Comfortable.
B – Independent. Entrepreneurs, sales people, small business owners.
C – Maverick. Deal makers, big business builders, venture capitalists.
D – Crazy. Gamblers, get-rich-quick, schemers, criminals.

The people at D are taking on way more risk than the people at C or B, but they’re potential of reward is not much higher (assuming they even get any reward- remember, risk means “It might not happen for you”).

The D people are nuts, so forget about them for a minute. The people that really concern me are the people at A. They (mostly) aren’t there because they love traditional employment and are happy with the level of reward they are getting. A lot of these people want to be at B or C, but are so risk adverse that they won’t ever take the big jump and quit their job or start a business or whatever.

Unfortunately for all those people, that graph isn’t quite accurate. A better way to look at it is:

This way of thinking about it points out that once you get below a certain level of reward in your activity, your risk actually begins to increase. Think about it. How many small business owners have been laid off in the last year? How many employees have been laid off? While the B and C people may look like they are taking on risk, it’s the A people who are really in a risky situation. Partly because of that perception problem- they can’t see their risks, and have no way of managing them.

Also notice that the B and C people have approximately the same amount of risk. I believe that’s about right. They are both risking bankruptcy, failure, loss of confidence, embarrassment… but neither one of them will starve. Neither one of them is going to die if they don’t “make it.” But a lot of Bs (and all the As) think that it is so much more risky and difficult to be a deal-maker.

What should make the difference between the Bs and the Cs isn’t risk tolerance but vocation. I, for example, want to live about a third of the way between B and C. It’s where I’m happiest (which I could show you on another chart).

What I’m getting at is this- A is nuts. D is nuts. Everything from low-level B (sales people) to high level C (Donald Trump) is fine, but what’s important is that you do what you love, as opposed to avoiding what you’re scared of.

1. People have always bought newspapers, we should keep selling them the same way we always have.
2. People love music… what if we made a little device that played music, but we make it look really cool… cooler than anybody else’s little music playing device.
3. Let’s give away for free the thing we are most known for, and then- as a sort-of side thought- make billions of dollars by reinventing the way people advertise.
4. Let’s give away for free the thing we are most known for… and then… you know… we’ll get rich. Somehow…

I don’t have the time to think about that more- so maybe someone else could cogently build their own post about it.
OR
If anybody has thoughts about it that I could steal for a future post, I’d love to hear them.

Another friend of mine has been itching to start a restaurant for as long as I’ve known him. He says that when he was a kid, they played make-believe businesses- his was always a pancake store.

My wife was laid off of work back in January and is slowly, but surely, moving toward becoming a freelance graphic designer. She just can’t figure out a way to do the kind of work she wants to do under the employ of someone else.

I was at a networking event about two weeks ago and I met another dozen people who are in various stages of starting up a company.

At the bookstore I find that the motivation/management/business/investing section is overflowing with books about starting businesses. Meanwhile, meetup.com is flooded with groups devoted to startups, entrepreneurs, and business opportunities.

So… what’s going on? There seems to be a “perfect storm” (ugh, buzzword) of factors that all add up to this phenomenon. From what I can see, all of the following are contributors, and you can’t blame it on one in particular:

It is a crazy exciting time to be alive, to start a business, to dream big (or small) dreams about life and possibilities. But it’s also a time frought with dangers. This brave new world of ultra-light startups and independent consultants is a magnet for con-artists, pyramid schemers, fools, and plain old bad luck.

This week in the blog, I’m going to highlight some of the inherent dangers, and how to avoid them.
First up tomorrow: Is it really a business?

When I was learning sales, we were taught, “Own what you sell.” It makes your more credible and authentic. And anyway, why would you sell something unless you believed in it enough to buy it yourself? Unfortunately, the obviousness of the “own what you sell” rule don’t dawn on nearly enough people, and so we continue to live in a world populated by poorly-postured chiropractors, doctors who smoke, and remarkably unhappy personal coaches.

Nowhere is the problem more ridiculous, obvious, and bad for business as with marketing people. If you are going to provide marketing services, website design, social media expertise, or sales training, there better be a complete 100% alignment between what you are telling people to do, and what you are doing yourself. If you are trying to convince people that your business building approach is the best, and worth paying for, why would you ever do something different yourself? That doesn’t make ANY SENSE AT ALL!

And yet, I see it all the time.

Do you think that a potential web development customer isn’t going to look at your website? Do you think someone interested in buying your social media training isn’t going to notice that you don’t use twitter? Or that you don’t have any videos on your website devoted to selling online video production?

They do notice.

Don’t go barefoot.