What the heck is Newology, I hear you ask.  Or maybe it’s just the voices again…

Well, Newology, since you or my inner voiced asked, is the science of the new.  More to the point, it’s the name of my brand new website, launched this very day, 1 August 2010!  Hip-hip horror! I have collected the services that I offer to industry under the umbrella of the new Newology brand.

The overall aim of the brand is to resolve a range of business problems, either in-house or by building a team of experts, project-managing the process so that it’s as easy and painless as possible for the customer.  I also intend to focus very sharply on making sure that there is a solid return on investment and that this can be illustrated easily to potential customers.

You can take a look at the first version of the site by clicking this link: Newology

Oh, and please leave comments and suggestions below because I am not too proud to learn from you!

Yesterday I had a major “wobble”.

I’m really moving out of my “comfort zone” and I can see that this is absolutely necessary so I can get nearer to the place I want to be in life.  The problem for us all, of course, is that moving out of our comfort zones is, well, uncomfortable!  Personally, I realised yesterday just how far out of my comfort zone I have to go when it comes to actually generating business out in the real world.

I have, during my entire life, never really faced these fears before even though I identified them many years ago – they have remained unresolved as I managed to “get by” and make a comfortable living as an employee in a field so narrow that I could avoid confronting these problem areas.  Being self-employed means we really do have to face a whole range of fears head-on – there is no “corporate shield” to hide behind now!  I know that only by practising those things I am afraid of will I lose the fear and “expand my comfort zone” – this much is accepted wisdom, but of course just knowing this does not make the process any less uncomfortable!

The thing is, when I face what I’m up against, it’s REALLY daunting – it seems that what I have to do to succeed in my new self-employed life is a bit like climbing a towering, vertical cliff without a rope!  Yesterday it was as if I approached that cliff, looked up at it and wondered how on earth I was ever going to climb it.  I made the mistake of looking at the whole daunting task instead of just working out where my next foothold is.

I think that’s something I need to remember.  Looking at the whole task – like looking up at that massive cliff – just caused me to freeze and think I would never be able to do it.  Finding the next foothold and planting my foot in it – almost a piece of cake!  So what I did yesterday was to really break down the big actions on my list into “footholds” – baby steps that will take me a little bit outside my comfort zone – things that I can JUST DO without thinking about the whole daunting task of “generating business”.  The key to these little steps, for me, is to define them clearly and in such as way that they are small enough for “doing” without any deep strategic thinking.

When I’ve taken one of these baby steps, I’m no longer stuck – I just made a little bit of PROGRESS and it feels nice.  I may have only done a little thing, but at least I did it, and it’s another little step up that cliff!

If you have your own tips that you found useful when “facing the fear” in self-employment, please leave a comment!

I’m writing this pretty much off the top of my head.  I’ve literally just got out of bed and switched on the laptop.

I awoke this morning having had a bad dream.  In it I dreamt that I was being bullied and ridiculed by a man who had hired me into a full-time sales job with slick words and promises of how great it would be to work for him, only to find myself on day two of my job in an office meeting, surrounded by about 30 men, many of them decades younger than I, jeering as my boss humiliated me in front of them all, saying that he always suspected I would never make the grade and my first day had proved him right.  He then suddenly grabbed me and said he would show me what he did to people like me, at which point he gave me a “dead leg” and caused me to fall to the ground as everyone laughed.

The reason for me writing this is firstly to break the dream and stop it clouding my day, but also to acknowledge that really this is an embodiment of one of my irrational fears, a fear that I need to overcome.  Since I did a telesales job about 20 years ago, I have a real “thing” about what I think of as “selling”.  Unconsciously I think of selling in terms of cold calling against a daily regime of targets and a threat of job loss if I fail – this describes that job from 20 years ago.  Really, I KNOW that sales need not be like that.  I know that every businessman has to sell to succeed, but my unconscious, narrow view of selling is preventing me from getting into the process and engaging with prospects on MY terms, in MY own inimitable way.

Recognising this problem is a great help, and my dream last night was another prod that reminds me I really need to get some positive sales experience and overcome this problem that really is hindering my business.  Sales for me is really about setting out my wares, showing people how they can benefit from them and bringing about a successful trade in an almost natural way, a win-win way in which both parties walk away happy.  This, I have absolutely no problem with and I know I would actually come to like it, because I genuinely love “trading”.  The pressured sell, when you make enough cold calls to get some of them to stick with some unfortunates whom you happen to catch at a weak moment, that completely turns me off.

So I need to work towards looking at the sales process as the thing I think of as “trading” and not the thing I think of as “selling”, because one conjures up horrors for me and the other I genuinely love.

I know I am not alone in having some sort of block about “selling”.  I would be interested to hear your comments – go on – write one below while you’re here..

I was reflecting on my self employment and how it compares with having a “job” in the “real world”.

I came to the conclusion that when I had a full-time job, it was as if every day was a grey-sky day, when that uniform blanket of dark grey cloud keeps the sun out, forever.  There is a dull normality about it all.  There may not be any thunder-claps or heavy downpours, but there is never any bright sunshine to warm the soul either.

By contrast, for me self-employment has been like an extended period of unpredictable, unseasonal and very unsettled weather.  When I look at my affiliate marketing website stats and see that my latest precious new website has captured no more than 10 visitors in a month; when I write a carefully considered comment on someone’s blog only to press submit and get the magic word “discarded” in big black letters; when I carefully apply to an affiliate scheme only to log into my Commission Junction account  and see my application in the “rejected” list – these things are like bad-weather days, cold, rainy, windy, stormy days.

Conversely, when I make a big sale (as I just did today), it’s as if the sun of affiliate marketing has suddenly come out from behind those black SEO clouds  and all is well in my little self-employed world for a few moments as I bask in the warmth of my little successes.

So which do I prefer?  Oh come on, you know me by now.  I would HATE to go back to the grey life; a life of endless sun-less days with no hope of a sunny spell.  Give me the turbulent, changeable climate of self-employment any day.

The last few days it seems that am reaching new depths of despair in my efforts.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean I am about to throw in the towel or do something stupid.  I think it’s just that sometimes a combination of factors seems to conspire against me, undermining my best attempts at remaining cheerful and positive.  One of the hardest things is that, with this Internet Marketing, I just don’t know for sure that it will work.  After, what, four months of doing it in earnest, my income from it is absolutely nowhere near where I need to be and the daily unique website visitors I am getting remains subbornly around 150 to all sites.  OK, you will probably think that from a standing start four months ago, that’s not bad – but it’s not good enough for me, that’s the problem.  It’s 5% of what I estimate I need in order to pay the bills from this.

But I don’t want to get distracted into talking about Internet Marketing, because a specific business activity is not what this post is about.  This post is about how it feels to be me, here, right now, struggling to get going as a self-employed businessman, hitting wave after wave of despair, like a series of roadblocks.  I cannot be the only small businessman facing this kind of despair – it must surely be a common occurrence, only maybe some of them don’t call it despair, maybe for some it’s just a few down days, a few failures, a series of blips that just have to be endured, got over, got through.  But for me, this is a new feeling, and yet something else I have hit that makes me think, even aged 46 that, “I really don’t know life at all”, to quote the beautiful Joni Mitchell song.  Now, this to me is not a bad thing.  My whole adult life has been filled with learning.  It’s just that, well – I never thought that starting out in business would test me so much psychologically.  I thought I was more “ready” for it than I am.  So, now that I find myself facing these setbacks, what can I do?

I think that the difference between those who succeed and those that fail when it comes to hitting these roadblocks is not that the successful don’t hit them, but that they have a successful strategy for dealing with them when they come along.  Almost week by week, as I seem to hit one bad day after another, I’m starting to think that this is just a series of ever-bigger tests that I must pass if I am ever to succeed in self employment.  I need a strategy for dealing with these down days, with a smile on my face even if there’s not exactly a song in my heart.  I need to accept these days, get through them without damaging myself; my business; and most importantly without lashing out at the ones I love.

It is without doubt one of the biggest psychological tests I have ever faced.  I have no support network apart from my partner who, yes, is very supportive, but sometimes I think I would be prepared to go all out and take more risks if I were alone – but that’s for another day.  So, yes, I am very fortunate to have a great partner who is indeed supportive, but during the day I am really alone, and boy do I feel that.

So, I was thinking that maybe for me, one of the ways of coping with the roadblocks of business is to get away from the computer for a while and into the real world of people – a suggestion that I have often read.   The problem I have with this strategy is that the roadblock will still be there when I get back.  It’s as if I can’t rest until I have got over it or round it, and just having a cup of coffee and a piece of cake while the dam of black water is towering above me will not make me feel much better – a bit like fiddling while Rome burns, or playing in the orchestra on the Titanic.  I need a better way, and I haven’t got one yet.

For now, I just have to keep going in the face of these continual and ever-growing tests of my character and of the strength of my resolve to make it in business one way or another.  Each one seems like a life-level test for me, because I can’t help feeling that if, one day, one of them causes me to turn around, I will be turning around and facing the world of employment; the world of careers and appraisals; as a broken man, never again to be self employed, never to succeed in business.

Given that all my self-analysis, all my getting to know myself over the last decade or two has pointed to “being my own boss” as being the obvious choice for me, the stakes are high.  If I fail this test, if I find that I cannot do self-employment after all, what then?  There is no plan B.

I had a tough week last week.

I was facing a dire lack of progress on my internet marketing efforts, with my older sites sinking down the rankings and getting less traffic, despite having more and more links, and my newer site not breaking through.

I was once again questioning the whole thing – should I be doing this internet marketing at all or should I do what my Dad would have advised and get a “proper job”?  Things were really getting on top of me.  I think that, working alone at home, this period of utter slog, when there is no little to show in return, and yet of course the bills have to be paid etc – this drudgery got me down.  I over-reacted, I started once more to think about bottling out, quitting.  I started worrying away about money and getting old and having achieved so little by age 46 (which is BO***CKS by the way) went into a proper black mood.

Towards the end of last week, once I reached the depths of despair, something strange happened.  I found something within me, a reserve of will-power, a hidden fountain of strength. I started to pull myself together.  I realised that actually a lot of what I am going through is one of the biggest tests of character I have ever faced.  I realised that, now, aged 46, I’m breaking down barriers, smashing through ingrained behaviour patterns that have been there probably since I was a toddler.  I can feel myself changing.  I can feel myself taking control of my life – REALLY taking control of my destiny in a way that I have never actually done before – even though previously I THOUGHT I had.  It really is a great dawning of a new era for me, and it’s going to stand me in good stead in my self-employment, whether that be in affiliate marketing, online, offline, whatever.  Wow, I just thought to myself – people pay for weeks of THERAPY to get here!

This realisation that I was breaking through some of my life’s oldest psychological barriers, changing myself, helped me to understand why it’s such hard going.  Some of those barriers have been resolutely in place since the 1960s, after all.  It gave me a new impetus, this realisation, and then a dose of serious admonishment – I started to beat myself up big-time.  I started to give myself a few home truths.  I reminded myself once more that getting started in internet marketing or whatever flavour of online business I end up with, well, it’s not so different from starting a business in the offline world, and not so different from starting any new enterprise even away from the world of business, for example deciding that you want to, I don’t know, get in training and run the marathon or swim the channel.

It takes work, of course – but more than that – as the late Roy Castle used to sing at the start of Record Breakers on the BBC, “If you want to be the best… you gotta have dedication”.  And lasting, undying dedication at that.  Setting up a business online or offline often requires a period when you will see NOTHING in return – no money, no satisfaction, no sense of achievement, no recognition, NOTHING.  There is nobody to ask for advice, nobody to cross-check decisions with, nobody to go for a coffee with, no financial return let alone financial independence, and constant hard graft.  And if it’s a business that’s new to you, you will be blundering about making a right mess of it all and wasting a load of time, money and energy aswell.

Having reacquainted myself with these home-truths, I very soon had reaffirmed by wholehearted commitment to self employment.  I mean, if I don’t use all my skill and experience and intelligence to make this work, what else am I going to do?  I already know, from detailed self-analysis, repeated several times over a period of many years, that I am in no way whatsoever suited to a career, dedicated to someone else’s business.  I have forced myself into this role time and time again and my heart has NEVER been in it and I have wasted over TWENTY YEARS of my life on this.  So, if I cannot work for someone else, at least not for a full-time career anyway, what alternative is there but to build my own business, to work on my own account?

There really isn’t any viable alternative for me – I have wasted enough time as it is, and now, aged 46, I just HAVE to make a go of working for myself, in whatever business, in whatever field, in whatever niche or niches that I decide or to some extent that the market dictates.  There is no choice if I want a fulfilled working life, and I need to work and act from now, from this minute, as if there are NEVER going be to ANY career openings for me ANYWHERE.  I need to forget about “job hunting”.  I need to pretend that there are no vacancies for me.  Ever.

I need to do this because in the past the biggest distraction for me has been the lure of money, easy money, to be gained by taking a salaried career-style job, or more lately by taking contract work that, in reality, looks and quacks like the dead duck of a pseudo-job that in day-to-day reality it actually is.

So, with a new resolve I started work yesterday, Monday, morning – determined that I would do ANYTHING to make this work, anything in line with my ethics that is.  And I kicked myself into action and told myself off for doubting myself, and gave myself a good talking to as my mother might, saying things along the lines of, well – you just have to do the work, you just have to do it, there is NO choice.  Wasting time on doubts is pointless.  Just get on with it, mechanically; forget about strategy for a while; just to the work, and eventually, maybe when you least expect it, and maybe in some way you never thought of, things will start to pay off.

I have learned something else from this episode.  I need to have a survival strategy for when I hit a black-spot.  Maybe I need to have a big red psychological “emergency stop” button, and when I “hit” it, maybe I need to break away from the desk and the laptop for a while, go for a walk, do something voluntary with kids, go out there and then for the rest of the day.  This “emergency stop button” would require me to sacrifice a few hours or even a whole day, but that sacrifice of a day could save a life doing my own thing, instead losing that life to some mindless employer.

Sometimes, when I think about what I am doing on the internet at the moment, i.e. getting going in internet marketing, I think that somehow I am not adding anything; just grabbing  business off other affiliates – or trying to.  I was starting to think how I was not adding anything to the world, just diverting business from other people to me.

I was making the mistake of thinking that the online world is different to entering self employment in the offline world in this respect.  But, let’s face it, there are 12 estate agents down the road from me, and two of them are new.  Well, these new ones – are they not the equivalent of my online scenario?  I mean, they too are not bringing a new product or service to the market, and they too are diverting sales from the existing estate agents rather than creating “new” sales out of nowehere.

After all, for the small businessman starting out, it’s surely a lower risk to enter an existing market with a twist on an existing service or product than to try to convince people to buy something totally new that they don’t understand, unless you have really deep pockets.  I mean, look at Edison’s light bulb – how long did he take to get that right and earn some cash?  And what about Dyson and his plethora of prototypes before he got that vortex vacuum cleaner working right.

No, I can see this now – for those with little capital, the initial route to self employment on- or off-line is like diverting a stream so you get a little of the water.  A stream of business.  One that’s flowing already.  Diverting some of what’s there to you, not finding a way to make a new kind of water, and not mining for a new spring in the desert.  I’m convinced that for most people who go it alone, in the early days it’s just about going where the business is and diverting a little of it to your enterprise – where of course, you will try to add a little USP, a little something that makes you something more than just another estate agent, internet marketer or whatever.

For me, this realisation helped me to stop devaluing what I am doing online.  I am fighting for business just as valiantly and just as respectably as any estate agent, solicitor or baker in the high street.

I am, to be honest, a bit ashamed of having to admit to this, but early this morning, I was struck by a sudden bout of self-pity, wondering how I can ever make this self employment work.  The Internet Marketing, granted, has had some early successes, but they are of course small, and I think it was this that started me off was thinking, as I lay in bed in the early hours, just how far I have to get to reach the stage when I am able to pay the bills from the business income.  Basically, my income for September was just under 1% of what I need to live.

I say I am ashamed because, well, I have come a long way since the beginning of August and I always knew it was going to take a lot longer than a couple of months.  My partner is supportive, and thanks to the income from that quarter, we are almost, but not quite, paying our way.  So the shame I feel at my self-pity this morning was really because I know that I am in a better position than many.  I have a chance to do something about my lot, to make a success of things in a way that I decide, unlike many people in the world who, for one reason or another, can do nothing but grin and bear their situation.

I am redoubling my efforts now, and calling upon deep reserves of drive and positivity to get me through this, because I know that most beginners in business, especially Internet Marketing, wake up one day and find themselves at the end of the honeymoon period and facing many months of slog to get to their goals.  This is the point, I suspect, that tips most would-be Internet Marketers over the edge and causes them to give up.  Not me.

It’s 8:45am as I write this.

Already today I have been working since 5.15am at the computer, writing articles for my latest Internet Marketing web sites.  I have written two articles totalling some 1500 words, and published them as Squidoo lenses.  I have also added them to a tool called Traffic Bug (which I was introduced to by the Thirty Day Challenge) to promote these articles.

http://ijumped.net poppy

All of this; about two-and-a-half hours’ work if I allow for the time out that I took for breakfast and a shower – all of this productivity – real productive work – has been completed before your average employed office worker even gets through the door and finds the way to the kettle to make that first cup of coffee in preparation for a gentle warm-up gossip and a leisurely scan through the morning’s emails.

But would I swap what I am doing to go back to office life?  Well, I might – but only under one of the following two circumstances:

1. It is my office and my own company

2. I am so broke that I am in danger of having nowhere to live and not enough to eat.

Onwards and upwards!