One Particular Harbour
Thoughts about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness from Dave Darby.
All posts in Business Coaching
-
Tree Swing Problem
Jun 3, 2008Posted by Dave Darby
Read more »Here’s my take on the cartoon showing the typical product life cycle in the form of a tree swing.
This cartoon illustrates how most businesses operate – including yours! If you want to be better than your competition and grow your business, simply make a process better than this and you will. Think you can?
-
Talent is Never Enough: Marié Digby
May 23, 2008Posted by Dave Darby
Read more »I introduce to you Marié Digby. A YouTube entrepreneur. Here’s a gal who has obvious talent and may or may not have lacked traditional location or industry connections. Her (maybe her recording label’s) secret?
Welcome to the 21st century of social networking. With the advent of YouTube, you can now be alone in your bedroom belting out your favorite tunes – all over the world. And all it takes is a few million video views to launch your talent right into a recording contract on – BAM! – on tour.
Move over American Idol – here comes YouTube garage bands. Check out Maries progress – these videos are of her own writing. The first video is her ‘home’ movie version. The second video is what Hollywood Records did with her song and great voice.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR8EyPH4cP0
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F9q_k5TWqo
So this grabs my attention for several reasons.
First, when I lived in Los Angeles and in Nashville, I met a lot of great actors and musicians as I honed my acting/singing skills. Very talented. Some uber talented. But they never ‘made’ it big.
Why? No network and no audience/fan base. But, bring in a couple hundred thousands built-in fans? Sold. You see, the biggest expense in launching a new recording artist is not the production – it’s the marketing/branding. Enter YouTube – skip past Go, collect $200,000 and get on the I’m an Internet Sensation Railroad.
Second, I have assembled a team to build 3 social networks that I am passionate about - one for my Life Coaching, one for pet lovers and another still for connecting families. How great is it that the internet has progressed to connecting people and discovering new talent in this way?
And third, I have 5 kids. As they come upon their teenage years, it’s kind of cool to think that they can explore their talents, musical included, and connect with like-minded people globally. Globally. They won’t wander the back woods or the train tracks like I did wondering if there’s anybody out there who shares their outside of the box passions. They will have two of the greatest freedoms that comes with living in a free, democratic world – the freedom to explore and the freedom to discover.
So sing on Marié and best wishes on your journey. The world is watching You(Tube).
-
Get Your House in Order
Nov 8, 2007Posted by Dave Darby
Read more »A couple of years ago, Julie and I went out to dinner with some friends and discussed the housing market and general economy. I assured my friend that the housing market would in fact bust as it was not sustainable.
Why? Because growth on the back of debt is not sustainable – it’s a fundamental sociological and economic principle. If you own your own business then you know that debt is almost unavoidable to initiate growth but it cannot sustain growth. Debt is just really a primer. It will help to ignite a spark and turn the engine over, but if the gas tank is empty the efforts are fruitless.
So who was right in our friendly dinner discussion? Both it appears. Everything I stated was in fact true and his arguments held little water – just faith. But what I failed to recognize was the governments determination to keep a recession at bay. American debt is at record highs – even adjusted for inflation – both on the personal and federal level. We cannot sustain this and the bubble will burst.
We are involved in many trade deficits – this means we are spending more money in foreign markets than they spend here. Think of it like this, you own an auto repair shop and your friend owns a grocery store in town. You buy the majority of your groceries from your friend, but he splits his auto repair money between you and somebody across town. At some point, you are not making enough money and must cut back your grocery spending or you borrow against creditors to buy groceries. At some point again, the credit load is full and you are now in trouble. Your friend selling groceries however doesn’t take the fall because everybody is still buying groceries.
This is the state of our union right now. The US dollar is trading at an all-time low. Gasoline prices are at an all-time high. The government has propped up our economy with roller coaster interest rates and – well, war. War is always a good economic remedy – short-term. And this war is no longer short-term at 5+ years – so the war too will begin to drag down the economy – look back to Vietnam. Vietnam was a recession-avoiding war, but it went too long, then came the gas/oil crisis and economic turmoil. I don’t envy the next President who will inherit this mess that is being propped up to implode on January 21st, 2009 so the George W. Bush can proclaim “It didn’t happen on my watch! Leave it to the Democrats to do something wrong and screw up everything in just 1 days that it took me 8 years to build.”
So right now our economy is propped up by war and foreign investors. So, I say to you, get your house in order. Buy back your debt. (Pay it down.) Stop using debt for consumption – food, gas, leisure/comfort, improvements. Use E-Bay to get rid of those closet, attic and garage stuffers that you hardly ever use, but they still have value. If whatever you have is in really good, working order/shape, then you can expect to get 40-60% of retail value. Do repairs around the house yourself if you can and avoid any repairs/expansions that are not vital to survival. If you think any expansion is going to add value to your resale, think again and check out how many homes are sitting on the market for 6-9 months and going through price-drop after price-drop.
If you have a recession-proof business, then debt is not a bad idea to initiate growth while you can. Remember the Great Depression? Of course you don’t. But you should study it and learn from it. You probably picture soup lines and starving families in tent cities. What you probably don’t picture and won’t read too much about was how many, many, many people actually grew rich or richer during the depression. Why? Because they had their houses in order and were indebted to no one.
Now, I’m not an end of the world kind of guy so don’t get me wrong or panic that the sky is falling. This is just a friendly reminder that ‘those ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it’ – meaning, sociological/economic cycles are predictable. We have conservation which leads to greed which leads to arrogance which leads to bust which leads to poverty which leads back to conservation and the whole thing is a ‘little history repeating.’ Right now we have arrogance in America – our debt levels indicate that we think we can just keep on spending and somehow, it will all work it’s way out. It will my friend, it will. The question is though – are you riding the wave which will crash or are you jumping the curve to conservation which means you will be among the first to enjoy the spoils and endure the struggles?
But don’t take my word for it. Look around you and review your history.
