My experience so far

My business experience so far consists mainly of my acute observations on the workings of other people's business. I have learned a lot just by seeing what other people are doing. I also started an e-commerce site about a year ago mainly to test the waters and to be doing something. I shut the site down a few months ago after deciding I'd learned what I could from running it, mainly that I hadn't learned enough yet.

A few weeks later I decided that what I really wanted was to start my own electrical contracting company. Being only a 3rd year apprentice makes it difficult to do, so meanwhile I figured I should start reading some books and maybe take some courses.

I started out with a book called "The Successful Business Plan Secrets & Strategies" by Rhonda Abrams. This book has changed my entire outlook on business. What I expected was simply a book that told me how to write a business plan. What I got was a book that showed me how to research, plan, find investors, define your business, run your business, do financials, etc, etc, etc. This book really is very exhaustive, yet easy to follow. It is peppered throughout with quotes from various successful business personalities (among them are the likes of Eugene Kleiner, considered to be one of the "fathers" of Silicon Valley, Charles Huggins, President of See's Candies, Bill Walsh, former Coach and President of the San Francisco 49ers, and many others). I highly recommend this book if you haven't read it already. Even if you are an experienced entrepreneur, I believe you will learn something critically important from this book. In fact, since I believe in it so much and I am a big fan of giveaways, as soon as I figure out how to do it I'll put up a contest to give away a copy of this fantastic book.

After reading this book, with my head full of ideas, I ended up going into a good old handshake partnership with a friend of mine who also has wanted to start his own business. He has a similar background to me and so we decided to start something just to start it. I believe one of the major issues holding most people back is not that they are incapable of success, but that they simply do not take action. We decided our first joint business venture would be to purchase a condo or small house and rent it out and started planning how we would go about it.

Meanwhile, the next major step in my business education came along in the form a seminar put on by "Canadian Rich Dad" Darren Weeks. We got a doorknob ad which somewhat piqued my interest, but being generally skeptical of such things I dismissed it until my wife convinced me to go. It was free and one of the major topics to be covered was buying real estate with "no down payment". My business partner and I went and found it was actually quite valuable and most importantly, we learned that we were on the right track in what we were doing. The seminar was very informative and free of any high pressure sales tactics which to me gave it a lot more credibility. I ended up signing up for Darren's "Fast Track Inner Circle" and from there have been learning at an exponential rate.

I won't go into all the details in this post as it's already getting a little long, but the main things I have come out with so far involve marketing and the beginnings of the "Rich Dad" mindset. I have purchased Robert Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad Poor Dad" (haven't finished it yet) and am seeing the wisdom in what he has to say. Whether by accident or by design, I truly believe the vast majority of North Americans (including myself) are on the wrong track financially and this needs to change.

Eager to test all of this knowledge, my partner and I have started a second business venture together that can put the principles we have learned to the test a lot quicker with a lot less risk involved. That is the snow removal and lawn care business I mentioned in my last post. My goal is to be able to start from scratch and create a company that can either be sold or be self-running within 3-5 years.

That should just about bring you up to speed on where I am at right now. I think the main point I want to get across right now is to take action. Do something, anything. Start some sort of business. They say the average successful business owner has started something like 7 or 8 failed businesses. Might as well get some of those out of the way, right? If you can't think of an idea, feel free to email me and I can help you find something you're interested in. Stay tuned for some more details on some of the really good stuff I've learned.

Dad