What would you do if you had all the freedom in the world?
Would you spend the time all on yourself, invest in others or something else?
Would you be happy or miserable because you have no identity outside of work?

Paint your future picture of freedom. What can you do to experience a small slice of freedom? Do those small slices to motivate yourself to get the rest of the pie.

Next… What are you doing to get to get to that freedom? How’s it working for you? Here is a picture of the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge (the big one, the other one has been torn down) going over the Cooper River in Charleston, SC.

I was involved with supplying some of the steel (rebar) for this project about five years ago. It paid the bills then, but has no impact now. You need two forms of income:

• Money to pay the bills now- job, one time product sales or other fee for service
• Money that keeps coming in- Membership sites, ongoing product sales, mentorship…

Grab your slice or look to visit Charleston: http://www.charlestoncvb.com/visitors/

Small Slices,
Sam Carrara

SC Marketing Education

Discover The Amazing Formula That Sells Products Like Crazy
Triple-Your-Money-Back Guarantee at: Amazing Marketing

Copyright by Sam Carrara’s Marketing Education

Recently I went to a Quiznos Sandwich shop near me for a quick lunch. Interestingly the owner was operating the cash register while he had four other employees putting the sandwiches together. Whose business was he building? I’ve seen him do this for the last two years, he probably started this way and will continue to work his Job. (He’s building Quiznos’ business.) Simple facts from Quiznos:

What is the initial investment?
On average our stores range between $190,000 and $250,000 nationally.

And other sources report that first year income is around $30,000 – $40,000. How long would it take to just break even??

Was that the best use of his money? Did he own his business or did he own his job? Interesting! So how do build a business instead of creating a job? You need to put processes in place in order to allow others to do that job for you.

Let’s assume you make $100 per hour as a business owner. You can hire someone for $10-15 an hour to do tasks to keep the business running like operating the cash register, cleaning tables, food prep, etc. This will allow you to focus on the higher paying thought processes of your business. OR if you have enough people running your business- relax, vacation, spend the time with your kids.

So what are business processes? As an example, you want to get an article written to promote your product, service or business. Let’s break the tasks up into simple steps.

1. Come up with a topic
2. Find the top keywords to include in the article
3. Make an outline of the article
4. Write the article
5. Create a resource box (who you are and how to get more information)
6. Submit the article to article directories
7. And more steps if wanted…

You would want to make the process a little more detailed than that, but this is a good starting point. When finished you can give the procedure to your employees, interns or outsourced help. Then all they need is the general topic or direction to make articles about. A great idea would be to create a list of 20-50 article ideas. This would allow them to remain productive, even while you are on vacation or otherwise unavailable.

What else can you set business processes up for besides article writing? Getting friends for your MySpace account, social bookmark linking, commenting on other blogs and other tasks that will allow you to focus on the big picture.

Using the 80/20 rule, you should focus on the tasks that will bring you the highest return for your efforts. Then you can re-invest a portion of your income to continue to grow your business, including more outsourced tasks. This compounding of success and efficiency continues to build your business just like compound interest of money. Further growth could allow for a manager to take your place by having them looking over the day to day tasks and it would free up more of your time.

How else could this be used? If you have a website that has loads of traffic and profits, but you see that about to change. You could sell the website off and include the business processes along with the sale. These business processes will increase the value of the sale and show that there is real value in the transaction.

Do you want to create a job or build a business? I choose to build a business.

Build a Business,
Sam Carrara

SC Marketing Education

Discover The Amazing Formula That Sells Products Like Crazy
Triple-Your-Money-Back Guarantee at: Amazing Marketing

Copyright by Sam Carrara’s Marketing Education

Let me paint a picture of how this all happened. Both Melissa (my wife) and I graduated college and become officers in the U.S. Army. Starting out as Second Lieutenants wasn’t alot of money (it is now), but we had little bills and a steady income. About 18 to 24 months later we both became First Lieutenants with some nice pay jumps. Sounds good so far right?

Well we loved going out to eat, didn’t save a penny and then decided to buy a house. Not too bad, I’ll give you more details:

1. Going Out To Eat
We love food and going out to eat was easier than making it at home. No cleanup, no cooking and then enjoy the rest of the evening. We spent so much on our credit cards just for this it was amazing. If your credit card does the end of the year rollup by category on what you spent, get it. I don’t remember the dollar figure, but it was large. BUT, we could afford it. Yet it affected #2 below…

I’m not saying going out to eat is bad, we still do it, just not as much. (Sometimes I need to remember this lesson myself.) We just have to remember moderation. Sometimes the spaghetti at home is just as good or better than having it out and less expensive. One thing my mother has taught me is to make more than you need for the meal. You can use the leftovers as lunch for the next day instead of going out to eat.

2. Saving Money
At the time the military didn’t have 401k type accounts that encouraged savings. It is not the military’s fault, we were adults (by age, not by maturity). So we maybe had a few dollars in a plain jane savings account for emergencies, but little else. If you think about the compound interest on just a few dollars for later home purchases or retirement. But you say to yourself those are so far away, they come before you know it.

Start now with 1-2% savings per month into your companies 401k type account. Many companies have a matching policy that contributes more money to encourage savings. Other good accounts to contribute to are ROTH IRAs and educational savings accounts for your present or future kids. Don’t go overboard and save all your paycheck to leave nothing for today. Also don’t forget to save. Again the word is moderation. The savings could be used for a house like #3 below…

3. Buy a House
Most duty assignments we expected to stay at from three to five years. Our first year we rented an apartment (this was after four months of career specific training). So we are about one and a half to two years into our first assignment and we decided to buy a house. We had no money to buy a house… But we could do that by getting a VA backed loan (no down payment and no private mortgage insurance-PMI). Good and bad! Higher monthly payment because of no down payment and less invested.

Well we stayed in the house for about two years, probably overpaid a little bit when we bought it. When we sold the house we had to contribute about $3,000 – $5,000 just to close the deal. (Some of my figures and months are a little fuzzy.) It was just the two of us and two cats. We didn’t need the house, we wanted the house! We could have easier stayed in the apartment and saved or more wisely used that money. If you only plan to stay in the house less than three years (maybe even five years), don’t buy. Also be smart about your needs, don’t feel you have to have the appearance of success. What’s the word… Moderation!

I plan on passing on more financial tips, drop a comment if there is a specific area you would like covered.

Was I Dumb, I Hope I Learned,
Sam Carrara

SC Marketing Education

Discover The Amazing Formula That Sells Products Like Crazy
Triple-Your-Money-Back Guarantee at: Amazing Marketing

Copyright by Sam Carrara’s Marketing Education