Money Making Skill #4 - Creativity

Yes, that's right. You're going to have to be a creative person if you want to make tons of money (or at least a decent living working from your home). And yes, even though you think you don't have a creative bone in your body, you're mistaken. How do I know this you ask? Because I used to say the same thing, and now I have more creative business ideas in my folder than I'll ever be able to implement in a lifetime!

We were all creative as kids. Whether we had imaginary friends (which is odd to me since I never had one) or we were building castles out of sand, pies out of mud (let me tell you how many of THOSE I "baked"...and talked a few neighborhood kids into tasting...ok, so I never said I was always a NICE kid!). Kids build entire cities with Legos and Duplos and Lincolnlogs. They conduct entire war battles from start to finish starting with just a few plastic army men. You get the point. As kids, we could imagine whatever we wanted to.

So what happened? As adults, we got to the point where the job world didn't want us to be creative. They just wanted us to follow orders and do what we were told. Most jobs don't ask for our input or ideas. And we get so busy with working and family and day-to-day "have-tos" that we don't take the time to be creative as adults. I'm here to tell you that you can get that back. You CAN reignite that imagination that you suppressed so many years ago. It took me about 4 weekends (and much frustration) to get my creative juices flowing again. And since then, I'm coming up with new ideas daily (even hourly) and I just keep writing them down, adding to them, and implementing them as I go.

We'll discuss more details on how to accomplish this on another day. Until then....

Money Making Skill #3 - Writing

If you're going to go into business for yourself, you'll certainly have to know how to write. Most of us learned to do this at a very young age. The question at this point becomes more about communicating through your writing, rather than just knowing how to print or write your abc's.

You're going to find yourself communicating in writing to many people for many reasons. From writing a business plan so that banks, investors, and other lenders understand what you're looking to accomplish, to writing basic emails letting folks know that you're now in business, to newsletters that keep your customers up-to-date on what you're offering, you will be communicating in writing.

Do people understand what you're saying in emails? Do you double-check what you're sending out or do you just "wing it" and hope it gets the job done. Given the assumption that you're going to start your business with the intent of succeeding and making money, it's time to take a look at what you're writing says about you (because it will say the same about your business and may be the difference between a successful business, and an expensive hobby).

Until next time...