Did you know that reading, planning and wasting money are three things that you may not have thought of when trying to grow your small business? When is the last time you picked up a book on business or even a biography of a successful business person? I am not talking about sitting down and reading a book cover-to-cover, but reading key chapters that could influence you on ways to improve your business. This could be a book that is new to you, or one that you want to re-visit and learn more from, or simply to get another perspective that you did not get the first time you read it. While my preference is reading a printed book over reading an e-book, the options of available online e-books can sometimes be more convenient.
Purchasing a physical book or an e-book can be great, but also consider visiting a public library for books that you need to read before considering purchasing a copy. You can borrow a copy of the book you are interested, but you might find other titles at the library that you didn’t know existed. Another bonus of visiting the library is that you do not need to borrow a book. You can sit down at the library and read sections of various books in one place. Reading at the library also gets you away from your office space and into a space where you are void of distractions, and can take in what the message of the book is. Don’t just do this once; plan to do it weekly or monthly.
Don’t over plan, but do some regular planning
Sometimes you find yourself thinking about a new strategy for weeks or months, but never get around to implementing it. That is called over planning – but you still need to plan. When you come up with that winning idea or strategy, try to follow through with your plan – and if it is not doable, walk away from it and formulate a new plan.
An example of over planning is the guy who now rents training/seminar rooms from Telsec. He spent 3 years planning his training program, only to abandon that idea. He then came up with a new plan, and within weeks he developed a new seminar strategy that was completely different. What changed? Well, he did not try to overthink or over plan the new concept.
When was the last time you wasted some money?
Wasting money is not always losing money. It could lead to a new idea or solution that you previous had not thought of. Call it your “fun fund” or you “experimental expense.” This fund could be used to try new marketing or advertising tools that may or may not work for your business model. Or it could be spent on new technology that could bring in a new revenue stream.
As the author of this blog, I have to confess to my most recent “fun fund” spend that I made. I made a purchase online for a drone quad-helicopter that will allow me to do aerial photography and videos (indoors and out). I purchased this particular drone for under $100 
so that I could learn how to fly one – and to experiment with the ability to make money from it before buying a $1,500 drone. So you might say that it is actually a training and market research purchase.