It’s been a long road since * stopped having anything to do with the business and in that time, I have lost over $40,000 – which is HARD!!!!!

The lessons I have learnt have been not to go into business with friends, don’t sign long leases and FOCUS.

By FOCUS, I mean Follow One Course Until Successful.  I haven’t done that.

I get too easily distracted by the next bright shiny light.

So in the time since we started the 500k goal, we opened the shop (which I now run alone), we started some blogs (which have been divided), we opened the online shopping side of the Some Kind Of Bliss (which I continue to run and it’s improving which is great), I’ve done a speaking course (which I loved), I’ve done some hampers (which I will do more of this year), and I’ve expanded my accounts work (which I don’t love but it pays bills).

The crazy thing is I just want all of this to lead me to one destination.  My Goal Friend being my prime business.  Do I need to reach all my goals to do that – no.  I think people might like to be part of the journey….however…I DO need to rid myself of the parts of the business that are hurting me, both financially and emotionally.

So what am I doing to help with this? Well, the shop is up for lease – it will cost me money to get out, but with online improving and street sales decreasing it is the only sensible thing to do.

I’ll keep you updated.

They say ‘fake it till you make it’ – well I’ve got enough fake handbags to make that statement very real.

Do you know what I don’t do enough of? I don’t talk up my business.  Why not???? I am proud of what I have achieved, but I am not proud – I guess probably a little ashamed of not having achieved other goals along the way.  The stupid thing is, nobody but me knows about those goals really, or even cares about them.

It’s taken years for me to do a Facebook promo for my online shop www.somekindofbliss.com – how insane is that?  So, I did a promo for Mother’s Day and guess what? Yes, you guessed in – I got orders!!!!

I never want to seem pushy, but the truth is, people will only buy if they actually want to.  It’s not like I’m standing over their computer with them, typing in their credit card details.

Anyway – this is the new Sam.  I have added an extra 65 weeks to getting the $500k and that’s ok.  We started as $500k in 91 weeks with 2 people in the business, so going to 156 weeks should not be shameful when there is only me, myself and I.

I won’t make promises about how many posts etc I will do, but I will promise to be honest about all the trials and tribulations of getting to this goal.

Anyway – I’m straying from the topic.   The point is, time management at this point of the journey is critical.  Sometimes I’m great at it and at other times I’m totally crap at it.

One of the many newsletters, blogs etc that I read is The Productivity Queen.

Lorraine Pirihi is a very clever lady and I find most of her info really worth a read. Recently there was something I read about even in this hi tech world that we live in it’s sometimes great to go back to basics. So I have done just that. Welcome back to my dear old Leather Debden Dayplanner!!!!

Rather then have to hand write my daily To Do List on each page, I’ve done a little sticker – nothing fancy, just using an Avery template which lists the things I have to do everyday. I’ve stuck this on every page, and I simply cross out as done.

Even this small step has made a difference over the last few days. I hand write all the major to do’s, appointments, phone calls etc evfery afternoon – but it means I am now more aware of getting behind on the day to day.

There’s even a spot there for updating my Twitter account – how very 2009.

Anyway – I did find this site, which I am loving for reading up on this all of the above.

http://mashable.com/

Give it a looksee.

By the way – we will now be blogging lots, as it seems we have finally caught up on all the day to day and can now concentrate more on growing our businesses and reaching our $500k.  Yeah!!!