self.employed.life

Retiring outdated business wisdom

Peri — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 06:15:10 +0000

I’m working on a questionnaire for a local business publication, and one of the questions is what “commonly accepted business wisdom” do I think it’s time to retire. Here’s a draft of my response, which I’m still tinkering with: Contrary to common opinion, starting a business does not have to be risky, it does not [...]

10 years of working for…ME!

Peri — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 17:31:05 +0000

Ten years ago today I parted ways with the last job I’ve ever held as an employee. Since then I’ve juggled a crazy mix of clients and projects (a mix that happily has grown much more focused over the years); written three books; got married to my best friend; had two insanely awesome kids; escaped [...]

Part 2 of video chat on bookkeeping, biz systems and technology — it’s up!

Peri — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 20:10:46 +0000

Here’s Part 2 of my interview with Leila Johnson, co-owner of DataScribe, about the challenges of integrating and using technology within a small business. Please enjoy.

Video chat: Bookkeeping, business systems and technology

Peri — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 15:49:19 +0000

My mind has been working overtime lately on the difficulties many entrepreneurs have with using various types of technology in their businesses, from implementing (and using) bookkeeping software to figuring out what types of databases or other applications to use such as project management software, customer relationship management (CRM) software, or point of sale (POS) [...]

My snap strategy for the dying USPS: Price paper mail way high

Peri — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 04:07:46 +0000

OK, I haven't actually run any actual numbers on this. But in reading (again) about the imminent demise of the US Postal Service, I had some thoughts on how this quasi-public business maybe could work: First and foremost, totally jack up the price for sending paper mail — to, say, $1.25 per standard item and up. Hell, why not $2?

New Huff Po piece: Systematize one process at a time

Peri — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 18:17:17 +0000

Work and family have eclipsed blogging (again). But I do have a new piece up on the Huffington Post about getting over your fear and loathing of building simple business systems. Here’s an excerpt: It can seem like such an insurmountable burden to develop business systems, operational policies and procedures — including finalizing them in [...]

The quest for technology that works (for me)

Peri — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 19:29:32 +0000

As of late I’ve been pretty deep in a geekified wormhole evaluating various solutions and applications for streamlining my life and business organization. In a nutshell, I’m outgrowing my fairly basic systems of to-do lists, calendars, etc. which are spread across various Excel sheets, spiral-bound notebooks and emails to myself. It’s worked for me for [...]

Fun with visualizations

Peri — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 19:48:22 +0000

There are so many of these visualization apps these days I can’t really keep up. But I stumbled across Wordle today and came up with the following visual for the words used at this very blog: Cool!

An elephant of a viral PR problem for GoDaddy

Peri — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 18:15:32 +0000

Late last week I saw a post on Facebook about a video circulating online of GoDaddy’s CEO Bob Parsons shooting and killing an elephant in Africa. I didn’t want to watch the video which was described as graphic and disturbing, so I did a quick Google search and found enough articles about it to know [...]

How has small business changed in 40 years?

Peri — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 06:16:21 +0000

In honor of its 40th anniversary (“Demystifying the law since 1971″), Nolo is featuring a series of blog posts on how various areas of the law and business have changed in 40 years. My post went up last week; an excerpt and link to the full post is below. Note: If you’re thinking about becoming [...]