Open for business… I love what she’s selling. I wonder if she is as tired of the word entrepreneur as I am? I was holding a check, held it for more than a week and finally decided to deposit. I think my reluctance to part with the promissory was based on the cruel fact that it represents the last payment on my recent contract and god knows where the next contract (and indeed the next payment) will be coming from. Perhaps Helga can offer a franchise.
The deposit was a face-to-face transaction and the teller was informed with what might almost be described as missionary zeal. The whole time I was with her she was talking, talking about ways I might make my money better work for me, asking what kind of a business it was, this Sandhill Technologies, praising the entrepreneurial spirit, stretching the transaction time and thus enhancing the pleasure for both of us I’m sure. But ultimately the check had passed from my side of the counter to hers and I was left with a moist towelette and a handful of receipts and the certainty that now, lying at the bottom of the ladder and with a long climb before me, I really must get down to business.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Jon Husband 10.02.07 at 9:23
Me too … and it blows my minds ometimes.
I’m pretty sure that I am smarter today than I was ten or 15 years ago, and at least as conscientious … but I make about one-tenth of what I used to make, and that with much less regular frequency. I just pulled money out of ‘retirement’ savings to pay for the last 6 months of hard work
However, at least I am no longer participating in a useless racket purchased by other usually useless rackets.
Frank Paynter 10.03.07 at 8:01
Jon, I recently went low-tech and purchased a small card file and filled it with 3×5 index cards and a handful of dividers. That box already has so many good ideas in it (at various stages of actualization) that I can’t help but feel optimistic.
I’m surprised that you, the original “wirearchy” guy, would be feeling the pinch in the age of social networks. I think you should borrow some money, hire some staff, and continue to change the world.
Jon Husband 10.03.07 at 8:36
I suck at marketing myself, maybe one too many vaguely anti-corpoprate blog posts, and I often suspect that the term frightens or confuses potential clients.
Plus, despite all the froo- fra about Vancouver being such a great place to live, it’s actually a pretty provincial small-townish place, and a tiny market for consulting, especially as related to the Web. The big industries are mining, cutting down trees, tourism, cannabis and real estate, all of which already have different kinds of social networks.
But I am starting (just) to get more work than in the past three or four years.