Have you ever been frustrated, because business is not moving forward? You are giving it all, but success seems to be far away. Many business people know this kind of situation. Whether as part of a big team that they are managing or as solo entrepreneurs, who run on their own.

In my experience it is even harder for the lonely rider to cope with “lack of success”, because there is no social support by colleagues, no other department, nor the “stupid boss” that you could blame for lack of results. (There’s no big budget to cover up inefficiencies as easily as well.)

From the many different types of businesses an Information Product Business seems to provide many benefits, like

• low startup cost,
• high margins,
• and you don’t really need an office

You and me know that thousands of people try to get their Internet based business off the ground, but most of them give up too early.

Why is that?

They are overwhelmed by the amount of information and advice that’s available (either for free or for sale), they get it all, but what’s missing is the big plan that ties it all together.

A friend told me about an online mind mapping tool that helped him to organize the 1,000 ideas in his head. So let me pass on this little productivity tip to you.

Without further ado, here is the tool he recommended to me.

MindMeister.com (↑)

Mind mapping allows you to lay out your ideas and thoughts kind of visually. Related items are close together. Therefore, you don't need much space and keep the overview easily. I am not going into the details of mind mapping (sorry), but some advantages of using an online tool like the one my friend recommends.

Advantages

• It's easy to rearrange items. You don't run out of space, like you would probably on a sheet of paper.
  
  
• Major advantage: You can share your maps with a team easily.
  
  
  
• Your data is accessible from anywhere.
  (Check terms of service, etc. and make your own decision about the risks of outsourcing your sensitive data that way.)
  
  
• MindMeister.com (↑) offers a free basic version, besides that the rates are very reasonable.

I have signed up for a free account today. I just started to check it out myself. I am not affiliated with MindMeister.

Have a nice weekend.

Yours
John W. Furst

Update: Vic Gee left a comment pointing to his extensive, great resource about various mind mapping tools. You definitely should check it out.

• Web Based Mind Mappers (↑)
  
  
• The master list of mind mapping & information management software (↑)

Thanks Vic

As usual I want to say, “Thank You”, to the folks, who featured my posts in their Blog Carnivals. Check out those carnival editions, there are really some valuable posts collected in each of them.

Some of you have already noticed that I am blogging very little those days. Well, something bigger is in the works that requires all my attention.

• Time Management & Goal Setting - Mar 5, 2008 Edition (↑)
  
  
• A Make Money Blogging Carnival - Mar 7, 2008 Edition (↑)
  
  
• Working At Home Blog Carnival - Mar 7, 2008 Edition (↑)
  
  
• Carnival Of Sales & Management Success - Mar 8, 2008 Edition (↑)
  
  
• Carnival Of Business & Entrepreneurship - Mar 9, 2008 Edition (↑)
  
  
• Carnival Of Making Real Money - Mar 9, 2008 Edition (↑)
  
  
• Internet Business Blog Carnival - Mar 9, 2008 Edition (↑)
  
  
• Freelance Income Blog Carnival: March 10, 2008 Edition (↑)
  
  
• Carnival Of Network Marketing - Mar 11, 2008 Edition (↑)
  
  
• A Beginner Success Workshop Carnival - Mar 12, 2008 Edition (↑)
  
  
• Electronic Commerce - Mar 18, 2008 Edition (↑)
  
  
• A Make Money Blogging Carnival - Mar 14, 2008 Edition (↑)
  
  
• Working At Home Blog Carnival - Mar 14, 2008 Edition (↑)

Yours
John W. Furst

Nobody can win all the time, every time! Facing obstacles is the norm when walking down the road of life

I just discovered this motivational, timeless video with Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple and Pixar Animation) telling 3 stories of his life.

Take the 15 minutes that it takes to watch this video, sit back, relax, and enjoy.

“Don't live other people's life…
Have the courage to follow your heart ...
Stay hungry, stay foolish!”

Yours
John W. Furst

A couple of days ago I have written, “Your Business Needs To Grow Continuously”. Today I want to combine that important fact with a very easy to do management or personal development practice, that helps you to achieve your goal, tune out distraction as you learn to focus on what's really important.

You will see it's not about time management or life management as some call it. You still have to come up with a way to use your time efficiently. Of course you can refer back to my original series of articles about Productivity and Time Management, “Touch It - Do It - Get More Done”. I wrote a total of 4 articles on that subject and they are available combined into a single PDF report in the download area for my newsletter subscribers. Actually the PDF contains some extra content that is not released on my Blog.

Might be the right time to sign up to my newsletter, right now. (To my existing subscribers: I'll send you the download info as soon as I have finished this post.) Sorry for the little detour.


Let's get back to productivity issues. The little, but nonetheless important advice I'll give you fits almost everybody.

While waking up this morning I suddenly found myself having a pen in my hand and scribbling 2 ideas for a new blog post on a piece of paper. Here is the first one.

Probably you can help me out and post as a comment, who had said the following originally.

“If your business doesn't grow it dies.”,

It is certainly true.

As the population grows, as markets grow, someone else will takeover your niche soon. If not, you are in the wrong market and hopefully close to retirement with enough retirement funds saved.

What are the drivers:

• Number of sales
• Average sales price

So why would you like the product of those variables to grow continuously, strictly monotonically?

This is not supposed to be a scientific article. No. I only want to get you engaged thinking about those issues in your own business. So I really only give you a short list and not much more.

Let's start out with a solo entrepreneur, because it's real easy to start thinking from this point on and the rest applies for big corporations as well.

Here is my Top-10 list, why your business needs to grow:

It is the norm to think a virus or an infection is something very bad. This is true for most cases, but my ‘blogger-friend’ Aaron Potts writes on his Blog today, that you actually should seek to get infected by a very special kind of virus.

I was drawn into his article right away and thought that you could benefit from that great post, too.

Here it is.
In case you get an “500 Internal Server Error”, just hit the reload/refresh button. It's a kinky technical issue that should not stop you from accessing Aaron's valuable content.

Enjoy reading.

Yours
John W. Furst