PersonalBusinessesThoughtExperiment
Should Every Man, Woman and Child on the Planet
Have a Personal Business for Life?
Putting Your Stamp on Something
For the last few months, I have become increasingly
certain that people in the 21st Century are going to need what I can
only call a Personal Business. It seems to me that there are so many changes in
the local, national and global economy going on and so many things can and do
go wrong, that it might not be a bad idea after all to have a fallback
position.
You know that I have been stressing to you how
important it is to have a Personal Web Site for life—a place where you can
collect your personal IP over your lifetime and career and one day, maybe, you
can find a way to make money from it too—while you are lying on a beach.
But something else has struck me recently—just how
many people have little sideline hobbies, gadgets, gizmos ... micro businesses
really that make a bit of money. It also struck me that this could be a highly useful thing to have.
Let me give you an example. I recently met with
Richard Rukowski who is a candidate to replace the retiring Alex Munter on
Ottawa City Council. Richard is a former Kanata Councilor who has a good chance
at winning the election this November for
Richard is an intriguing person—he is very sure of
himself, a good marketer, a good promoter and a sure handed politician—prepared
to make the time investment in being a City Councilor (which is like a 24/7
J.O.B.).
I asked Richard what he does between political jobs
and, sure enough, he hauls out this cute little magazine called The Best of Kanata. Now this is really
low tech—businesses advertise in it, so that is one revenue stream for Richard.
It costs about $600 for a half page and there are lots of pages. Then, people buy these things for 20 bucks and in
the back of the magazine, there is a 'member's card' about the size of a credit
card, which entitles them to 10% off at all stores and services featured in the
book.
When I did a Google search, the only mention I got
was: http://www.ncf.ca/gcuc/food.html
So, Richard hasn't even bothered with a web site.
(The Kanata Food Cupboard sells the book for 20 bucks and keeps 15).
Well, this is a pretty simple business and folks
advertise in it like crazy because they like Richard and it works for them and
it is pretty inexpensive.
Richard sells 5,000 copies of the thing, so you can
figure out for yourself the economics pretty easily.
There have got to be a zillion of these kinds of
ideas. Do you know what I told Richard: "NEVER, NEVER sell this thing—it is
like a sinecure, a franchise, a license, a concession ... it is your 'pixie
dust' forever."
It is low tech and low intensity to manage this particular
micro business and it is a kind of concession because it is so local, so
focused and Richard is so well known locally that everyone who is anyone in the
'urban village' that is Kanata is going to be in it.
So while I have told you to
create businesses through entrepreneurship that will provide you with more
value than if you just had a J.O.B., maybe there is a more subtle message here
that I could provide you.
Maybe, we should each have one micro business that we hang onto for life—that never gets shared with
anyone, no partners, never is pledged to a Bank for a loan and, thus, something
that we can fall back on in troubled times.
Maybe StreetPaddleTennis.com will be
that for my 13 year old son, Matthew, who knows?
It would be pretty cool if every
man, woman and child on the planet each had a Personal Business (PB) that
stayed with us throughout our lives and, if things get messed up, well, we have
(as my father would say): “a fallback position” or “an iron reserve”. My father
lived through two World Wars and he really
understood the need for both.
I was thinking that a
number of the students in Entreprenurialist Culture this year already have this
type of thing going on. I mean if those ladies in
Can you bring to class on
Kindest regards and have a
great study week break,
Bruce Firestone,
http://www.dramatispersonae.org/EntrepreneurialistCultureFrontPage.htm