This week’s top stories include small business advice covering the following four topics:
I Spent $2,000 at the Apple Store and Got an Invaluable Lesson in Consumer Psychology
How to Decide if You Should Quit Your Job for the Entrepreneur Lifestyle
How This Entrepreneur Finally Stopped the Cycle of Self-Sabotage
Why small businesses should stop selling through Amazon and other online platforms
Each week we scour all the top business-related magazines and newspapers for articles with the best advice for the small business owner, so you do not have to.
I Spent $2,000 at the Apple Store and Got an Invaluable Lesson in Consumer Psychology
I’ve always been a Windows guy. Which means, naturally, that I’ve also always been a non-Apple guy. Tribal psychology at its finest.
“Get a MacBook!? No way. I hate Apple!”
That was my common refrain anytime one of my more tech-savvy friends or colleagues challenged me on my supposed loyalty to all things PC and Android and my stubborn disdain for Apple.
Then a few weeks ago, I found myself in the market for a new laptop. Thankfully, my commitment to reason and science pushed me to at least consider going with a Mac. As any good scientist does, I weighed the evidence. I read product reviews. I watched videos. I researched all the pros and cons of all the similar products out there. I even went into different physical retail locations to talk to sales reps.
Then it was time for my last stop: the Apple store.
Could you really have more fun, satisfaction, and control of your life as an entrepreneur?
In my role as a mentor to business professionals, I often get the question about the potential of going out on one’s own as an entrepreneur versus sticking to a current role of working for a boss at an established company.
Of course, that’s a personal decision, with many considerations and risks, but in my experience, the answer depends on some key mindset elements about yourself that you can best assess.
Most people think success depends on first having that innovative and unique idea, but I beg to differ. As an angel investor, I have found that good ideas are a dime a dozen, but the ability to turn them into a successful business is a rare skill.
Thus, I recommend that you look hard inside your own head for the mindset and ability to adopt these strategies.
There’s nothing more frustrating than having the desire to be somewhere in life, watching others posting about their successes, but personally going in circles, frustrated and unable to break free. Self-sabotage was something that I embodied like a pro for many years, and while I still experience it to a certain level, these days it doesn’t stay around for long.
As entrepreneurs, we all make big-leap decisions, and this happened to me back in 2013 when I decided that I no longer wanted to be a personal trainer. I was tapped out working with clients and knew that I had an ability far beyond what I was doing every day.
I was in a business with someone that I no longer wanted to be involved with; I was ready for change. But at the time, I had a lot of personal challenges. I wanted to live in the United States, but in order to do that, I would have to make some massive strides in my finances. At the time, I was making a few thousand a month, and there was no way that I would be able to make my dreams come true and move across the pond. Something needed to change.
One of the great promises of the internet for small businesses was that it was going to eliminate the “middle man” – intermediaries between sellers and customers. Manufacturers could sell directly to end users instead of stores; retailers could stay in touch with customers frequently.
All that is true – but what is also true is that the internet created a new kind of intermediary: platforms.
