Welcome to my blog!

I've worn many hats during my entrepreneurial journey, including writing and creating whiteboard videos, marketing, investor relations (Blurbeo), owning and managing my own vapor pen brand (TouchESubject), servicing the real estate market and other clients as the CEO of Puget Sound Field Inspections, founded CLV Investments LLC, and currently holding a position with Byte Me LLC as a Digital Marketing Consultant.

This blog was originally started as a way for me to track my progress in trading stocks, but it's has since morphed into much more. I now use it as a window into what I'm doing to reach my goal of financial freedom. You're going to see what I'm doing to create multiple streams of income, articles and interviews that are business related or featuring other entrepreneurs, and most importantly you're going to get to know me and hopefully I can inspire you to pursue your own dreams

I'm a very driven individual with a passion for customer service and improving our communities.

Please feel free to connect. I'd love to do business with you.


Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Be Prepared or Murphy Will Get You!





No Excuses Just Education!!!


Brain Pennies: Better and Faster





The importance of Follow Through from page 46


“Any entrepreneur needs to hustle to make things happen… many people don’t know how to follow through. While they may feel passionate about their initial idea, the don’t push hard enough.”

I took two things away from this passage. One, it explains why so many businesses fail so early on. The business concept may be great but if the person behind the wheel doesn’t have the drive to push past the hard parts and to think outside the box when needed, the business is domed.


Two, this could be a great source of opportunity. Just because a business is failing doesn’t necessarily mean that the concept is flawed. It may just need to be repackaged and pushed further. The book before this passage talks about Victoria’s Secret and how the owner, Raymond, started the business with $80k barrowed from family and friends and grew it to a household multi-million-dollar brand… only to later face bankruptcy because the times had changed and Raymond wasn’t continuing to follow through. Retailer magnet, Leslie Wexner, saw the business’s value and potential and acquired it. The brand was repackaged and pushed further and is now a multi-billion-dollar brand.




Pg 154.

“…In our new era of change and interconnectedness, you don’t need to find a big idea; you can find a little idea that can be made big.”

This was a great passage and so true. If you look at the market (world of business) you can find an abundance of businesses and products that are niches of larger concepts. Those who find a niche and dominate that niche… make millions.



The Six Patterns of Opportunity


“…there are six major patterns of opportunity that are created by nearly every major breakthrough product. Thus, you can use these patterns to predict or uncover future business opportunities that will be indirectly fueled by a burgeoning megatrend associated with that product.”

If you happen to be the person who invents the wheel… great. But there is no shame in building an empire with the wheel.

1.       Convergence: Creating a winning business or product by combining multiple products, services, or trends. Includes: mixing, product integration, social integration, bringing people together, adding value through layering, drama, multifunctions, and co-branding.

2.       Divergence: Products and services designed to oppose or break free from the mainstream. This opportunity pattern extends beyond rebellion to include personalization, customization, status, and luxury.

3.       Cyclicality: Predictably, recurring, opportunities. Includes: retro, nostalgia, economic cycles, seasonality, generational, patterns, and repetitive cycles.

4.       Redirection: The art of channeling the power of a trend, behavior, or demonstration of need instead of fighting it. Includes: refocusing, reprioritizing, rationalizing, reversing, and gamifying.

5.       Reduction: Simplifying a business concept or focusing it more on a specific idea. Includes: specialization, removing layers and steps, fractioning, crowd-sourcing, subscriptions, localization, and efficiency.

6.       Acceleration: identifying a critical feature of a business or product and dramatically enhancing that element. Includes: perfection, aspirational positioning, exaggerated features, and reimagined solutions.

Late night thoughts... why not share them?

Sunday, July 9, 2017

Businessman vs Entrepreneur


A businessman is good at taking a product and moving into the market at a profit. An entrepreneur is good at taking that same product even if it is already in the market, and finding creative was to capitalize on it and create a fortune!

Saturday, July 8, 2017

That One Time I Missed $80K In Profits



I originally completed this swing trade in October of 2016. I was in $GBSN @ $0.04 and out @ $0.05 for a quick gain of $489.... then I checked $GBSN today and saw that it was sitting at $0.40... My profit would have been like $83k!

Can't live in the land of "what if" tho... Just need to accept it, reverse engineer the charts, and see it for what it is. POTENTIAL.

Follow me on Instagram @thepennyfarmer


Business Insider Article: How two 17-year-olds helped the fidget spinner go viral — and made $350,000 in six months


Article Link
http://www.businessinsider.com/17-year-olds-made-3d-printed-fidget-spinners-2017-6

"Instead of waiting for an opportunity or idea to come to you, "you have to put in the work and just do something," Weiss said. "A lot of people think about ideas or talk about ideas, but you actually have to go out and take action." 

Thursday, July 6, 2017

Scalp Micropigmentation - Bryce Cleveland, Founder of Scalp Aesthetics-m...





I'm interviewing Bryce in about an hour. I look forward to picking his brain on entrepreneurship.

What I Learned Hosting Fight Parties in my Apartment To Making $45,000 I...





Great lesson. Make your mistakes while you are small and continue to grow one step at a time. That way when you are huge, you mistakes aren't huge.

Brain Pennies: Scrappy



Just finished reading Scrappy by Terri L Sjodin.

The term "Scrappy" in the book refers to an attitude or mindset. An approach to business when you are small to think outside the box and to embrace the gorilla warfare styled strategy to accomplish your goals.

There are many golden nuggets in this book but the one tool I'm adding to my tool box of entrepreneurship is this... the "3x5 Rule"

Pg. 99

"...Never, ever, ever, ever meet with somebody without spending three minutes trying to find five pieces of information, or five minutes trying to find three pieces of information... The goal, he says, is to locate a piece of information that will give you permission to ask a great question."

This practice will be epic in building business relationships and finding a common ground that will lead to more networks and sales.



Monday, July 3, 2017

Brain Pennies: Money Wise


Pg. 211

"The only thing I know with certainty about the future is that it is coming and begins right now and goes on forever..."

What I took from this passage was that it is imperative that you take action NOW. Those who choose to only dream will never succeed. Dr. Martin Luther King had a dream but he also had action, massive action and he changed the world.


A - L + I - S = EA
EA = MF

Simply put... Assets - Liabilities + Income - Spending = Excess Assets

Excess Assets = More Freedom!


The Uncertain Investor... Understands that there are known unknowns and unknown unknowns and yet still invests because he must. He understands that "to not invest is to make an investment decision"

Having been attracted to day trading and the stock market in general I completely agree with the concept that sometimes the best trade is no trade at all. This same concept should be applied with investing in general because our time on this planet is depreciating the second we are conceived...  and that doesn't include the unforeseen early deaths that we may be subject to.

We are all come to this life a born investor. Some people invest wisely and find financial freedom and others invest in poverty. 







Be the White Flower



When marketing your business and you're in a sea of green, be the white flower. Be bold. Be unique. Be what your competitors wish they were.

Contact me to learn how Byte Me LLC can help make your business the white flower of the web.


Saturday, July 1, 2017

Word of mouth but NO Social Media??? Seriously???



FYI, not a rant on being frustrated with sales... it's a rant on entrepreneurs not getting it...

So I know cold calls and cold emails etc. are an art. It isn't easy to breakdown walls and get potential clients to listen. But there is one excuse I've seen a few times that drives me nuts. It usually comes from small businesses that are just barely scraping by. They've gotten past that 5 to 10 year mark where most businesses fail... but they never grow.

The excuse?

"We don't do social media because we get our customers by word-of-mouth."

... What the fuck do you think social media is??? It's word-of-mouth 10X'd

Rant over. Have a great weekend.


And if you get your customers by word-of-mouth and want to actually grow your business and take your entrepreneurship to the next level...

Byte Me LLC is currently running a special on our Digital Marketing package. If you sign up before July 12th we will add an additional month for free.

Digital Marketing for Small Businesses
$350 Per Month
Search Engine Optimization
Social Media Marketing
Reputation Boost (Ex: Yelp)
Write and Post Articles Weekly
Back Links - Citation - Indexing

No lengthy contracts, non-compete policy (we won't offer the same service to you competitor in the same city)

Chris

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