Everybody Optimize!

Today I gave myself a crash course on optimizing a google adwords campaign. I did a bit of research, and figured out how to use more specific key words to gain targeted traffic, and how to use bidding to make sure that my ads always land on the first search page when someone searches with the keywords I've selected. All day today, before I tweaked my adwords campaign for better performance, I hadn't had a single hit on my website. Tonight, I figured out some adjustments to get the traffic that I wanted, and I got 48 hits on my website in under 2 hours, all with specific search terms so that I would attract the type of people that could potentially turn into real customers. I'm going to let my test ad campaign run until the end of the weekend, and that should give me a bit of an idea of what potential traffic I could expect to my site. If I can generate some good traffic numbers, I will look at having a professional design the home landing page for the website.

In other news, I would like one of these... This is my "budget" supercar.. The Aston Martin V8 Vantage

Testing out Google Adwords

So, I have had an idea for an online business. I've looked at the model that Abe Books uses, which is acting as a hub for sellers of books to connect with buyers. I have a passion for design, and I love good designer jeans, a denimphile if you will. So, my plan is to build a site where denim retailers can list their products, a variety of new, used, rare and vintage jeans. I know there are thousands of people out there like me that search for good premium denim jeans, so I am running a test version of the website right now.
I built a three page placeholder website with Weebly.com and started a Google Adwords campaign that will run for a week to see what kind of click through rate I get to the website. If the numbers look good, then this idea might be worth pursuing further. My test site can be seen here. If I don't get any click through from this adwords campaign, I am going to see if I can refine my keyword terms, and try to get a better response. I'll let you all know how this goes at the end of the week.

I think this online business could be successful for a number of reasons. First, I've focused on an area I have knowledge of and a passion for, fashion design and denim. Also, I'm basing my business model on one I've seen succeed before, and with proper testing and marketing, could work again. Finally, there is only the original start up costs to deal with, as I won't be carrying any inventory.

We'll see how this all goes.

-Will

Twitter, Facebook and being social

Just a short note. I'm going to try and expand my business network with Twitter, and possibly use it for marketing my online business when it goes live. Facebook has been useful so far, but I really don't think I've exploited its potential nearly enough. I have a plan to utilize facebook in a creative way to connect with thousands of people in an extremely short time. I will explain this more later.

Anyways, I've had too much beer and cheesecake to really write about anything interesting or thoughtful, so I will post some new content tomorrow.

-Will

Interview with Keith Waters of Abe Books

This week I had the pleasure to have lunch with Keith Waters, founder and creator of the massive online used bookstore, Abe Books. (www.abebooks.com). I was extremely interested to hear his story, and find out how he took an online business from zero to a million.

First off, a bit of history about Abe Books. Originally, Keith and his wife Cathy had a used bookstore in Victoria BC that they owned and operated. Cathy used a monthly magazine called "AB Bookman's Weekly" where she would post wanted ads for her bookshop customers to find rare/out of print books. Whenever she posted a want ad, they would get tonnes of mail from other booksellers letting them know they had the book. She would then send a cheque, they would send the book. Everything was done by mail. They had such an overwhelming response to the listings in the magazine that it gave Keith the idea to build an online version of it, and make it infinitely easier for sellers and buyers to communicate.

Keith had a background in IT and database development and a degree in computer science, so he was able to create the original platform that the website would run off. What Keith had suspected when he first had the idea for the online database was coming to fruition. Once the barriers of traditional mail were removed, the number of booksellers and buyers exploded.

From Wikipedia, a detailed timeline:

AbeBooks was founded in 1995 by Rick and Vivian Pura, and Keith and Cathy Waters. The site was launched in 1996, initially including listings for only four bookstores. AbeBooks acquired Germany's JustBooks GmbH online book marketplace in 2001, which helped the company expand into the German, French and British online bookselling markets. In 2004, AbeBooks expanded its model to include new books, and acquired the Spanish company IberLibro, to better serve Spanish language markets.
In 2002, the founding partners were bought out by German media company Hubert Burda Media.
From the late 1990s through 2005, AbeBooks had reseller agreements with eBay, Half.com, Barnes & Noble.com, BibliOZ.com and Amazon.com, allowing AbeBooks to market and sell booksellers' books through those channels; these agreements were dissolved in 2005. AbeBooks purchased IberLibro.com in October 2004 and its inventory was integrated into the AbeBooks' database in December 2006. In November 2005, AbeBooks acquired BookFinder.com, an American book price comparison "metasearch" shopping service site.[2] In February 2006, AbeBooks acquired book-inventory and order-management company FillZ.[3] In May 2006, AbeBooks purchased a 40 per cent stake in LibraryThing, a social networking and book cataloging website for bibliophiles.
Sellers pay a monthly subscription to list their books on the site, ranging from $25 to $300, depending on how many books they list. In addition, sellers pay a percentage fee for each book sold via the websites.
AbeBooks initially offered its services for a flat listings fee, based on the number of titles listed for sale. The model was changed in the early 2000 to include a commission on sales. In April 2006, AbeBooks started mandatory processing of Mastercard and Visa credit card transactions on behalf of its sellers and added a charge of between 3.5% and 5% for the provision of this service: previously this service had been optional. In 2008, AbeBooks started charging a commission of 8% on the cost of postage as well as the book price.

So, I had a number of questions that I wanted to ask Keith, as it is not very often that I get the chance to pick the brain of someone who has had huge success with an online business.
First off, I wanted to know who Keith pulled around him to get this all going. In the beginning, it was just himself, and his wife Cathy, and then he approached his friend Rick and his wife Vivian Pura, Rick also being an IT consultant, to join him in his business venture.

I was curious to know if the business was planned from the beginning, or if it just evolved over time. I was happy to hear that once the decision to create Abe Books had been made, there was a plan put in place to build a successful business.

A key point I was interested in exploring, was just how exactly did Keith get the booksellers on board to sell on his website. He explained that they approached the booksellers with the business proposal that showed them how they could make money on his site, with very little overhead or monthly investment. For the booksellers, it was a no-brainer to work with him, as it would greatly expand their customer reach by having the exposure of being on the internet. At his last count, they had some 13,000 booksellers on the site.

I had a number of other questions that we covered during our luch, but here are some of the bits that I found most incitefull.

· What was the hardest part of starting an online business?

Having an idea, and then actually taking that first step forward. Hundreds or thousands of people can have the same idea, but it is the ones who have the emotional and mental strength to take that first step forward that have the best chance of succeeding.

· If you were starting again today, what would you do, and where would you start from?

Have a bulletproof business plan, with extensive cost/profit charting, with as many x-factors eliminated as possible. The area Keith said he would start a business in, I think we’ll let him keep that to himself.

· Finally, my last few notes from our meeting:

- Test the market as much as possible first.
- Have a team of 3 or 5 people, never 2 or 4
- Follow your plan from beginning to end!
- Agree on the steps, from beginning to end, at the beginning!
- Fill a need, or make a problem/task infinitely easier to do
- The best business plan is the SIMPLEST business plan.

I had a great time getting the chance to interview Keith Waters, and hope that some day I can have the same level of success that he’s had.
Later this week, I will be writing about the last two books of the week, “The Four Hour Work Week”, and “Get Smarter”.

Thanks for reading,

Will

First post on the new/old blog

Hello again world.

I have taken down my .com blog, and moved everything over to this blogspot blog. Unfortunately, most (all?) of the photos in my previous posts did not transfer over, and I am too lazy to go and re-publish each picture to the old posts. I'm over them, anyway.

So, everything dated older than this post is from the old blog, and, obviously, everything after is fresh and new.

I gave up my old blog because I am too cheap to pay for the domain for another year, and I figure if the Sartorialist can run off of blogger, so can I. I have lots of plans for the coming year, and plan to share all of those things with you, here.

Things I plan to do in the next year, or at least write about, procrastinate about, work on, and then make some progress on include:

-Start an automated online business a la The Four Hour Work Week.

-Write a blog people actually care to read.

-Find 2 or 4 partners to start the business of my life, something that will make me extremely happy/comfortable, and help the world.

-Do some test marketing to see if my real-estate-related business idea (vague, eh?) will be feasible

-Get married (this one is guaranteed)

-and I'm sure many ideas will pop us as we go....that's how I work...lots of ideas, and if one excites me enough, it might stick.

If any of this sounds remotely interesting, do come back.

Cheers,

Will

Back In The Clothing Business

One of the projects that I am working on is a graphic clothing company called Hold Fast Army with my two partners Cam Kallos and Cory Monteith. We started designing t-shirts, hooded sweatshirts and womens underwear about two years ago, and have had some success, but with little structure to the business. We took a break from it for the last six months or so, but have gotten back to business recently.

Last week I arranged a meeting to show some clothing samples to the manger and buyer for a store called Freedom in Victoria BC. The meeting went well, and the store picked up five of our designs. For this run of shirts we pulled from our own pockets to pay for the stock, but in the future, once we've show some profitability, we will approach investors to cover our costs.

This brings me to my next point. Back when I had first started exploring the world of clothing design and manufacturing I had started writing a business plan to help give our business some direction. The plan creations got set aside when we took time away from the business, but now that we are rolling again getting a solid plan on paper seems even more essential.

I read an article today in Entrepreneur magazine about whether business plans are still needed or valid. The author argued that in a study of 800 business start-ups, just as many failed with a business plan, than without. I think the real focus should be on following through with plans and objectives, whether written down or not. For us and our business, I am going to take my chances on a written business plan, but one based more on tangible plans and goals, rather than just financial projections that are often nothing more than educated guesses and estimations. I will hopefully be done the plan in the next few weeks, and may post parts of it on here.

That's all for today.

So Much More, with So Much Less

I read an interesting article about the founder of the dating website PlentyOfFish.com, Markus Frind. His Website gets about 1.6 Billion pages views per month, and has a yearly revenue of around $10,000,000 dollars. He has two employees. He works about an hour a day. Sometimes less.

Usually when a web company is turning this kind of profit, they have an entire fleet of staff to keep the ship afloat. Markus has taken a less customary, but kind of genius approach: keep it as stupidly simple as possible, rarely change anything, and make it all free to use. He wrote the code for the site himself, does any site maintenance himself, if it's needed at all, and has two employees who remove spam from the site, and any profile pictures with nudity.

Markus Frind of Vancouver, BC

Markus Frind's business plan goes like this: pick a market in which the competition charges money for their services, build a dead simple free website, and pay for it using Google Adsense.

I have always had a lot of interest in building an internet based business, whether it be for selling a product or providing a service, and I always had the mindset that the marker of success was when you had a multitude of employees working with you and the matching payroll to boot. Now I am questioning that whole logic, and think that the more that I can do myself, the simpler I can keep the whole process, and the more profitable the business could be in the long run.

Now, the way the Frind has managed to run his business may be a one in a million spot of luck, or he may be on to something. Either way it at least gives me some inspiration that when it comes down to it, if I really wanted to, there isn't much that I couldn't do on my own. And hey, maybe being a team player isn't all it's cut out to be.

Link to the article at INC Magazine Here

A Place to Hang My Coat

Today I sat down with my girlfriend Jill and a mortgage broker to start the process of spending the largest amount of money I ever have in my entire life. We are now in the market to buy a condo in our home town of Victoria BC, and even though the economy is in the tank, conversely this is the most ideal time to buy a home. Interest rates have bottomed out, and we are watching prices fall farther and farther every week.

Now, this might not look like a business venture on the surface, but for me, all this researching and house hunting is just practice for the big game. I've written about my passion for design before, but the other half of my entrepreneurial dreams lay in the world of real estate. In the near future I would like to purchase real estate rental property and possibly even start a property management company. I have a lot more to say on that subject, but today I'd like to talk about a great book. I have spent much of my time reading up on investing, and am currently reading a book by Don R. Campbell called Real Estate Investing In Canada - Creating wealth with the ACRE system.

ACRE (Authentic Canadian Real Estate system) is a means of determining a properties' investment potential by analyzing all of the factors that make a property a profitable investment such as location, the state of the local economy, the condition of the property etc. Don focuses on taking the emotion out of investing, and basing all decisions on following a structured plan of property analysis. With over 20 years in real estate investing, and more than 200 properties under his belt Don Campbell's experience is extensive. His belief is that if you understand that real estate investing is not a get-rich-quick scheme, you can take the appropriate steps to reducing nearly all of the risk usually associated with this type of investing.

Now, I am not quite ready to start making offers on investment properties, as I am still working on raising capitol for a down payment, but, I am in a position to start looking for a property to buy and live in myself. So, while Jill and I are searching for our first home, I am using this as an opportunity to practice my property investment analysis skills, find us a home that we could live in, and then a few years down the road, sell for a profit.

I am still working my way through Don Campbell's book, but the farther I get into it the more his system makes sense to me, and I would recommend giving it a read.

Here's the link to it on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Real-Estate-Investing-Canada-Creating/dp/0470835885/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233225946&sr=8-1

Team Building

Today I made the first of many moves to come in starting my real estate company. I called up a friend of mine to give him a rundown of my ideas for starting a real estate business, and see if he was interested in becoming a partner in the business with me. We set up a meeting for next week to go over the details. I think my friend, Brent, will make a good business partner as he's one of the most dedicated and hard-working guys I know, and I think he could be a real asset to my team. I am working on compiling a team of two to four other people to be my partners in starting this company.

The plan is to work as a team to acquire rental property, do any cosmetic work needed, and then rent the properties out until it is a good enough time in the market to sell. Brent has a background in construction, and so do I, so I think that while we are still a young business, it would be wise to keep costs down and do any of the improvements needed on the properties ourselves. On Monday I am going over all of my plans for the next few years with Brent, and hopefully he will have as much enthusiasm for all this as I do.

If Brent signs on as partner, then well will go ahead with finding one to three more people to join us in this venture. I think this could be the start to the kind of business I have dreamed of running.

It's quarter to four in the morning, so that's all for tonight.

Freedom

Today was a good day for our clothing business. The print shop finished producing our stock yesterday, and I dropped off the shirts at Freedom in Victoria today. By Monday they should be on the floor, ready for sale, and I can get on with promoting the store, and working on some marketing plans. Next week I should have some photos of the store and some product shots of the new shirts.

The store we are selling our clothes at can be seen here: http://www.freedomvictoria.com

Here are a few photos of some of our shirts from the Fashion show I put on earlier this year at Lucky Bar in Victoria.

A note about the real estate company I am working on, I have decided to partner with my girlfriend Jill, and my friend Brent who I was looking to bring on as a partner, may also have his girlfriend Sarah join us , as she has just finished her real estate license and has some interest in real estate investing. We are all meeting on Monday to start going over some plans and share some ideas.

A team of 4, Clothing, Facebook & a Lambo

Today I met with Brent and Saira to discuss our plans for starting a real estate company and our ideas for investing. As of today, Brent and Saira have decide to join Jill and I in the business venture. Now as a team of four we have exponentially more resources to draw from than I would have on my own, and hopefully through this group effort we will be able reach much greater successes in even less time.

Our next goal is to start developing a business plan, and and figure out how we will target investors. Also, I am going to start interviewing a few different bankers and mortgage brokers to see who would be the best fit to work with in real estate investing, and who best understands the needs and goals of our company. Later this week I will try and get in to see a lawyer to help us determine what kind of business entity would best suit us (LLC, proprietorship, C corporation etc).

On another note, I went into FREEDOM today to drop off the inventory spread sheet for the stock we supplied them, and was happy to see that they have given us more than sufficient shelf space, and our product looks great in the store! We have also update our company group on Facebook, and had another 42 people join the group today, which is great.

Link to Facebook Group Here

Once I make my first million, I'm going to buy This

(no point in making millions if you don't have anything to spend it on :P)

A Bit Neglectful

I have been neglecting my blog for the last few weeks. For this, I apologize. I have just gotten engaged, and bought a new house on the same day. I've been a little busy. Anyways, I thought I would put up a short update as to where things are in my endeavours.

My clothing company Hold Fast Army is selling shirts at Freedom in Victoria, though I'm not sure if we have moved any product yet. Buy, the store manager assures me that business is picking up, and we will see a jump in sales soon. I will be sitting down with Tori Hilier in the next week or so to see what new designs she has come up with for our womens line. Also, I have decided that we need to take the company in a new direction, so I am starting a new line with one of my design partners called Cam Kallos for Hold Fast Army. It will be as far from conservative as possible, and will hopefully actually get people talking about our clothes. We are now trying to build a Purple Cow.

My other partner, Cory Monteith, is busy in the states right now, as his new TV show on Fox called Glee, is premiering in a week, so he will be busy with that for a while. I think the new direction (bold, obscene, controversial) that the Cam Kallos line will be going is more towards what Cam and Cory wanted for Hold Fast Army in the first place.

My new fiance and I have purchased a two bedroom condo on Bear Mountain outside Victoria for an exceptional deal, and we hope that in the future we will either keep it as a revenue property, or sell it for a significant profit and move up to a house.

I had a great idea for a website this week (well, actually it was Jill's, but I was going to run with it), but, it appears that someone has beaten me to the punch and launched a similar site this week already. I am going to see what they are doing, and see if my idea could still fly, if it is different enough.

That's all for now.

Who Wants to be a Millionaire

I have lofty goals, as I'm sure some of you do as well. I know that there are certain paths in life that have a much higher likelihood of creating wealth and success than others, and I am trying to focus more of my time on finding those paths. I believe that unless you are a seven figure CEO of some financial organisation (AIG perhaps?) or you have the luck and talent to become an actor or celebrity, then the only real means of attaining great wealth is to go into business for yourself.

I have my plans to become a real estate agent in the next five years, but as I am making my way down that path, I am working on a number of other business ideas as I go along. I have my t-shirt company that is doing alright, but may take a number of years before it really catches on and starts turning a real profit, and I have my real estate investment company which the groundwork is being laid for, but will take some time to put into action as my team is still working on finding a means of raising start up capital.

My next plan is start working on developing websites that will have very small startup costs, little to no overhead, and will eventually generate a profit from advertising revenue. I have a few ideas floating around for a new site, and I am going to start the designing process immediately, and then talk to some web developers to find out what it would take to get them created.

So, back to my original point. Who wants to be a millionaire? Well, I do, and I don't want to have to wait until I am fifty to get there. I think that with a lot of effort, and a lot of determination, I can get there, and I can live my life the way I want to. I think that too often people settle for mediocrity, and that's just not good enough for me. We only have one life to live, and it really not a long one, so best make the most of it while we can.

I will be posting updates on the progress that I make on the development of my new site(s), and hopefully make some progress that I can share with you all in the near future.

I know this post tonight was more of a journal entry than an information resource, but, it's my blog, so too bad. Also, I didn't have a related picture to put in the post, so I just inserted a picture of my dog looking kind of crazy. Enjoy!

My New Project, and another Fashion Show

I have decided to finally start pursuing an educational goal of mine that I have had for a while. I have always wanted to learn how to design and build web sites. I have so many small business ideas that I would love to test out on the web, and I feel it is about time that I learn how to create a site on my own. I figured the simplest way to begin would be to start where I normally do, with a "For Dummies" book. Laugh if you will, but in my experience, I have found good reason for these books popularity. I purchased a copy of "Web Design For Dummies" and am working my way through the book. After that I will look for some online tutorials for Photoshop and HTML coding, and go from there. I know there is an HTML for Dummies book out there, so I'll probably read that too. I would like to be able to take a night class in web design, but right now I just don't have the time for it, so the self teaching method will have to do. I'll update soon with my progress.

On another note, I was in Freedom today, and they were interested in when I was going to organise another fashion show, so that they could get the store some exposure. Now, the first time I put on a fashion show, it took over my life, and became a beast of a job, so putting on another show was not really in the game plan right now. Fortunately, a friend of mine is currently organizing her own show benefiting the BC Cancer Agency, so I got in contact with her, and was able to get Freedom into her show. This worked out great because I don't have to put on a fashion show again, and since my clothes are being sold at Freedom, they will be included in their set in the show, which is some great free promotion for my clothing line, and is some good exposure for the store.

Finally, I wanted to plug another great blog that's just started up, Reinvention301 which covers anything and everything to do with human resources. Look for interviewing tips, hiring info, and anything else you can think of to do with the human side of business. It's written by Bill Fosdick, who has over 25 years experience in his field, and is a wealth of ideas, insights and business wisdom.

That's all for tonight, I'll will have some updates soon with my web design self-teaching and a couple of new business projects that will be starting soon.

Franchises, Networking and yelling at Visio

I have three things I want to talk about tonight, and they are numbered accordingly :)

1. I received an interesting invitation this week. A former boss of mine at a computer company I worked at happened to read my blog. He has sent me an invite to join him at an entrepreneurs group that he attends regularly. Now, finding like minded people in this quite un-industrious city of mine is easier said than done, so an opportunity to do a meet and greet and exchange some ideas with some people like myself is wonderful. As I am told, this group is comprised of other local business people and entrepreneurs of a wide range of ages and origins, and I am interested to see what kind of contacts I can make, and possibly mentors I can find. Hopefully I will get a chance to meet with this group soon, and have some interesting stuff to report back here.

2. In my previous post, I spoke about my quest to learn how to build web sites. So far, I am at the stage of constructing wire frames and have started to try my hand at production in Microsoft Visio. With the web tutorials I've found, the learning curve seems to be quite reasonable (even though I have had a few moments of wanting to throw my laptop at a wall) and I should have some structural plans for my real estate website completed soon. If I hadn't mentioned it before, the whole reason for learning web design is so that I can build a web site that centers around real estate. I don't plan on building the final site, but I would like to do all of the preparatory work leading up to the final coding and construction of the site.

3. Finally, I would like to talk about a whole new direction I might be going in soon, or at least investigating. I've been having conversations with a friend of mine who has built and sold two businesses. She has built, ran and sold one restaurant, and most recently, created a restaurant on paper, and sold it through a franchising company for a hefty sum. Now, I know I have a number of business aspirations, but it has always been one of my dreams to build and run a restaurant or lounge. Building a restaurant is a fairly serious undertaking, which is why the idea of creating one on paper is quite appealing. My thought is that I will create the business in it's entirety (menus, logos, website, business plan) on paper, and then do one of two things: see if it could potentially be sold by a franchising company, or, if the timing is right, possibly open it for real myself. Either way, it will be a good exercise in asset creation, so we'll see how it goes.

That's all for tonight.

Big Day, Short Post

Last night, I thought I'd try a bit of an experiment. I put up a post on Craigslist.org looking for anyone that wanted to join me as a partner in my real estate website start up. If no one replied, well, nothing lost, nothing gain, and if people did contact me, I might find some great people to work with. Well, lets just say the response has been greater than even my wildest expectations. I guess there is just a pool of people out there hungry for something new to bite into, and I now have a pile of people to meet, interview and possibly start a business with. I received responses from web designers, graphic designers, marketing professionals, business analysts, copywriters, and pretty much every other type of skilled professional that I could need to start an online business. Next week I am meeting with a web marketing pro who has already started and run a number of online businesses and even one that grew to have an IPO. If he think my project could fly, I may have found one of my first partners. I will update soon as I meet more of these people interested in joining me on this project.

Also today, I met with my new designer for Hold Fast Army, Tori Hillier, who has spent the last month coming up with some designs to pitch me, and I was not left disappointed. Her work was fantastic, and exactly what I was looking for, so we will hopefully put two or three of her designs into print within the next two months. I also spoke with the folks at Freedom today, where we are selling our clothes, and they let me know that we have sold enough shirts to cover my costs of having new stock produced to refill their store, which is awesome. Our clothes were also included in a photo shoot they did at the store yesterday, so we will have some product shots on their website. As soon as they are up, I will put a link on here.

Another big day tomorrow.

~Will

Pink Shirts For Sale

This week I made contact with about 2/3 of the people that emailed me about starting an online business. From that group, I will meet with as many of them as I can, and then go on to chose those people that will become my final team. The building blocks of my internet business are slowly coming together.

I got the most recent batch of t-shirt stock back from the printer, and they look great. My plan to bring my per-shirt cost down by eliminating the fees associated with formatting the artwork for printing was successful. I have now brought my per-shirt cost down by about 20%. Strangely enough, the most popular t-shirt design we've sold, and which we've just produced more stock of, is a pink shirt with a white graphic...for men.

I am now considering looking for some funds to expand the clothing line, as we now have the designs from our new artist that I would like to put into print. I would also like to add men's and women's hooded sweatshirts to our lineup for spring/summer.

Also, I have decided that one of my life goals is to one day be interviewed by INC or Entrepreneur Magazine. Or at least quoted.

Getting Real

This week we hit a milestone with our clothing company. We have now transitioned from selling our clothing through consignment, to selling our clothes wholesale to the retailers. The store that we have been selling our clothing through, Freedom, has now started purchasing stock from us at wholesale. This is now going to be the approach we will take with all future retailers. We will create a look-book (catalog) for retailers to chose from, and try to secure contracts for wholesale purchases from them. This is generally how business is done in the fashion industry, and this is a significant step for our business. Since Freedom has just made a wholesale purchase from us, we now have the funds to go ahead with producing our women's line of t-shirts for the summer.

As for my online business project, I need to free up some time so that I can meet with some of the people that are interested in joining me on it. These last few weeks have been extra busy, and I need to start prioritizing to get things done.

Finally, I came across a great link from Seth Godin to Chris Guillebeau's blog and his manifesto about becoming a pro blogger. This is a fantastic resource for anyone that is interested in professional Internet writing and online art. You can check it out here.

Getting Smarter

It's been a week of transition for me. I have resigned from my current two jobs, and will be starting work doing sales for Three Point Motors in Victoria. I will be primarily selling Smart Cars, and occasionally selling Mercedes-Benz. This is a big step in my career for me, and I feel that it will greatly benefit the development of my business and sales skills. This job is also an opportunity for me to greatly increase my income, and potentially generate more money to invest in real-estate projects, and future business ideas. Three Point Motors is a world class dealership, and I'm definitly excited to start work with them.

A week from now, my fiancè Jill and I will be moving into our new condo on Bear Mountain, and settling into life there. Our plan is to live there for at least the next five years while we work on our careers and business ventures, and then evaluate where we are at, and decide where we want to go from there.

Cam's art is cool and wierd.

I had a great meeting this week with one of my business partners, Cam Kallos, and went over our next plans of action for our clothing company. We are now taking a bit of a different approach to how we sell shirts. Originally, we would produce a large amount of product, and then try and sell it to stores, and hope that we could either arrange a consignment deal, or sell the shirts one at a time ourselves directly to our customers. After our success of selling a quantity of shirts to Freedom at wholesale, this is now how we are going to approach all of our sales. We are going to create a look-book (catalog) with all of our designs to distribute to retailers, and hopefully generate more wholesale purchases. I have a friend in Vancouver, Garret Egles, who is a fantastic graphic artist, who is able to take our designs and create mock-ups in Photoshop to make them look like real shirts, which we will then use in our look-book. Finally, I made a great contact this week through my photographer friend Toni LaFauci. He introduced me to Blair (last name?) a fashion designer who has worked for companies such as West Beach, and has extensice experience creating look-books. He has agreed to consult with us and help us create a professional catalog.

Thats all for tonight.

New Website

My clothing company, Hold Fast Army, will be getting a proper website soon. My partner Cam Kallos has contacted a web designer and begun to sort out the plans to start the production of the site. Currently we only have a Facebook group and a Myspace page, so having a dedicated website that people can order clothing from will be a great benefit to the company. As soon as the website is launched, I'll post a link on here.

Here is a bird Cam drew. Maybe it will end up on a t-shirt

Big Money, Small Cars and Glee

I haven't written in a few weeks as I have been quite consumed by my new job selling cars for Smart/Mercedes-Benz, and getting settled in to my new condo with my fiance, Jill. But, a lot has happened in the last few weeks, so lets get on with it.

So, obviously, I'm working on my professional selling skills, because in three months, I will be off of my introductory salary at Three Point Motors (the Smart/Mercedes dealership I work at) and working completely on commission. So it's make or break for me in the next couple of months. I generally want to be as good as I can be at anything I try, so I am spending most of my free time reading books on professional car sales techniques, and watching DVD sales training seminars (wildly exciting, I know). Though the training material may be a bit dry, I do find closing sales exciting, and knowing that I am the direct determiner of my success.

As for Hold Fast Army, my clothing company, one of my partners has started working with a web designer to develop our web site. That should be up and going soon.

So, on to the topic I wanted to talk about today. I am fortunate to have a friend that is becoming a professional actor. I met him about 2 years into his quest to become a success, and that was almost three years ago. I have watched him go through the motions of developing his craft, finding mentors, auditioning, doing some less than glamourous roles, auditioning some more, and now, in his fifth year, landing the leading role on a mainstream sit-com, Glee, which airs on FOX. He's made it. I think we always knew he would, and watching him on TV tonight gives me a lot of hope that huge success can really truly happen to anyone, because it happened to someone I know, and I'm not that different from.

What I'm talking about has two points. One - doing something you love, and two - finding a way to do what you love, and get paid really, really (really) well for it. I know that there are a lot of authors and bloggers out there that preach methods for attaining success in business and life, and I think there are a lot of good ideas out there, like determination, focus, and never giving up. What I really want to figure out at this point in my life, is what do I really, really want to do? And how can I get paid a sweet-mother-load to do it?

I think my next posts over the next couple of weeks will focus on trying to answer that question, and maybe it will get you thinking about it too.

If you knew, that beyond the shadow of a doubt, with enough hard work and persistence, you could achieve anything (which I really think you can)... what would you do?

I turn 26 at the end of this week.

And I really want to answer that question.

The Problem with Lamborghinis

The problem with Lamborghini's..... is that once you've been in one, everything else just seems a little....lacking.

I've found myself in a couple of situations lately that have made me question everything I've been doing for the last few months. I am settling in quite nicely with my new job in sales for Smart/Mercedes-Benz, and starting to get the hang of car sales. I know I am gaining a plethora of useful skills from this current profession, but there's one thing that is fairly clear, even if I am extremely successful at selling cars, it is a fairly small likelihood that I will ever attain great wealth from it.

I attended a friends chairity fashion show a few nights back, and it brought back some fond memories of when I put on my fashion show last year. I rememberd that the accomplishment of putting on that successful fashion show was one of the best feelings I've ever had. I need to get a creative outlet back in my life again. Maybe start designing clothes again/more, maybe even start the ground work on organizing another major fashion event.

So, while at work today an extremely high-rolling customer of the dealership arrived with his new Lamborghini Gallardo. The customer was an acquaintance of one of our salesmen, so he left his Lamborghini at the dealership for the afternoon while he attended to other business (buying a small island perhaps?). The coast was clear. Salesmen gathered around the car. I'm not going to lie, when I get within spitting distance of a super-car, I turn into a giddy 9 year old boy. So, as the other guys were poking around the engine and swapping statistics, I asked the salesmen that new the owner of the car "so......do you think I could sit in it?". He agreed that would be fine, so I proceeded to immerse myself in Lambo heaven. As soon as I climbed in, everything I had ever believe about super-cars was confirmed....I have to have one. Now, you may say to yourself, "But you didn't even drive it!". Doesn't matter. Sitting behind that steering wheel was all it took for me to picture myself living the life that included that kind of luxury and thrill.

Anywho....between being around the fashion scene again, and plopping down in a Lambo, I've started (again) to think about what I really want to be doing with my life.

Selling cars is fine for now, and I couldn't ask to work for a better dealership, but I need a new project. I need a little meaning to my life.

In other news, the Hold Fast Army website is actually being built, and will be a reality in a short while, so I will post a link to that as soon as it's up. I am going to go back to my real estate investing project as well, because that whole thing needs some serious attention.

For those of you that have been keeping up with my little saga, thanks for reading. That's all for now.

My Y Combinator

Recently, two people I knew have died on their motorcycles. I hope to buy a new motorcycle next year. You really start to question your own mortality when nearing 200km/h, or when a rogue raccoon decides to cross your path. Don't worry, I think he got away with nothing more than a sore tail and a bruised ego, if raccoons had egos. That was last week.

This week I am trying to sell more cars than any other salesman at the Mercedes dealership. If I do there is a very nice set of golf clubs that I will win. I'm told golf clubs are an important part of the life of a car salesman. I understand why, just not yet how.

I have had many ideas for new businesses since I started writing this blog. So far, the only one that has persisted is the one that I had before I ever started writing about it; my clothing company.

I know that if I am going to fulfill my wildest dreams of success, I need to start a new business, one with unlimited potential for growth, and profit. I read an article about Y Combinator, a company that funds small tech startups, and I am inspired by the accomplishments that the young entrepreneurs supported by this VC fund have already achieved. These are the guys that came up with things like Reddit.com (bought by Amazon for somewhere in the range of 8 to 10 million dollars). Now, I am no tech genius, so I don't think I'll be knocking on Y Combinators' door any time soon, but I do have some good ideas, and some that might actually be worth exploring, and maybe even investing in.

I will be going down the list off all the ideas that I've had in the last year, and see if I can either further pursue any of them, or maybe use them as a starting point to lead me to something new, something with even greater potential.

Either way, I can't stop now, I'm not there yet.

Vancouver Island Investment Group

My real estate investment company is becoming a reality. I am currently constructing a business plan for a company that is essentially a REIT (real estate investment trust) fund that will be owned and operated by me. I will be selling shares in the company, which will then be used to purchase revenue real estate property. The company is called the Vancouver Island Investment Group. I have just registered the domain, and will be starting the paperwork on the getting the business license set up, and then having the company officially incorporated. I will be looking for people that want to invest in real estate, but do not have enough capitol to purchase entire properties on their own. I have constructed what is essentially a mutual fund that purchases and manages real estate.

That's all for now.

Also, I sold ten cars last month. yay me!

Henceforth known as "the Company"

Just a short update today, as I am exhausted. My new investment company's name has been registered. I am now the owner of the Logicita Investment Group LTD. Over the next few weeks, I will be continuing developing my business plan, and then applying for funding from the Canadian Youth Business Foundation. If they approve my plan, they will grant me up to $15,000 towards the start up costs of my business. I am meeting with my new accountants next week to find out how I should structure the financial aspects of the company, and then starting to put together the articles and applications to have the company officially incorporated. There will most likely be some significant costs associated with incorporating the company, so I am going to do everything I can to secure the funding from the CYBF.

On another note, I am doing well with sales at the Mercedes-Benz dealership, but I have realised that there are only so many cars you can sell in a month, and if I want to get Lamborghini-rich, I have got to push as hard as I can to start my own company.

That's all for tonight.

Go Where the Money Is

So, I've been spending the last two weeks working on my business and marketing plan for my real estate investing company. It's coming along fine, and I should have a fully laid out plan in a few weeks. Now, I had put my clothing company on the back burner for the last couple of months, as I have been focusing on my new job and the investment project. Today though, I went into Freedom where we sell our shirts, and the have almost sold out of our stuff! Freedom is now asking us for more clothes, and I can't ignore that! So, this week I will be getting together with Cam to figure out what we want to do next, and then also trying to get the new women's designs from our contributing artist Tori Hillier. Now that I am seeing some commercial success with our clothes, I'm thinking I should build and submit a business plan to the Canadian Youth Business Foundation to see if I can get $15,000 in grant money from them to put into Hold Fast Army, and maybe get ready to put out a Fall/Winter line of clothes. On another note, my silent partner in the clothing company, Cory Monteith, is up for a Teen Choice Award for his role in the new Fox TV show "Glee". That should be huge for him, as he is up for the "Breakout Male Star of the Year" award.

So, lots going on right now. Car sales, Investment Company, Clothing Design.

Get Lamborghini rich!

Will....out.

The Paper Chase

I haven't updated in a few weeks, it's been a bit of an upheaval. I was working on my investment company idea when I realised that wasn't at all what I wanted to do with my life and my time. I've neglected my creative self. PS... car sales isn't what I want to do either. Doing a high paying job that I don't love was just a wake up call - made me re-focus on what I should really be doing. I've had myself convinced that the money was the goal. I was going about it all the wrong way. I'm back to designing. Creating original clothing. Of course I still want to be Lamborghini rich...I just want to get there doing something I love. So, I've started working on my creative self again. Eventually, I will take what I've earned and invest it in real estate, because that's the best long term vehicle. This month we are finishing our fall catalogue of designs for Hold Fast Army, and I am designing my line of men's and women's jeans. I am still working on getting funding for my ventures, and working on my business plans, but I am focusing less on car sales, and more on designing. Jill and I are working on paying off our debts, so we can spend a few years in Europe; finally get to live in France, Italy and London. Anyways, look out for A'sym Jeans Co. soon. It'll be sexy as hell.

Also, here are some of the new HFA designs we're trying out...

....and...if you read this blog, you should also be reading The Artist's Way. You can find it here.

Also, I will now be trying to update daily...

Doing It for Real

So, I've started to focus my direction in life these last few weeks. I know it seems like I have a serious case of Adult Onset ADD, but I think there are just so many potential options in life that it's extremely easy to get distracted and pulled in a hundred different directions

Or maybe I do just have ADD. (ADHD?)

Either way, I think I've come to some pretty solid conclusions about my life, my goals, and my aspirations. It took getting into a profession that paid well to realise that it wasn't what I wanted to do at all. Selling cars is all well and good, and I couldn't ask to work for a better company than Mercedes-Benz, but after five months of selling cars, and being paid pretty well for it, I can say with all honesty and certainty that it is definitely not what I want to do for the rest of my life.

I want to design, I want to lead, and I want to create something I'm proud of. I think I'm more certain now than ever before that the most fulfilling life I could lead is one of creative expression. All I want to do now is continue designing and creating clothes, putting on fashion events, and building businesses. That's not to say that once I've made my money that I'm not going to invest in real estate. I still have extensive plans to purchase and invest in real estate. I just know now that the means that I am going to earn my money is going to be through a creative outlet.

That being said, my graphic clothing company, Hold Fast Army, has a new fall lineup. I've been working with three designers now, and we have some great new stuff. Also, I am working on my biggest dream, to own a designer jeans/fashion house. I have designed a line of mens and womens jeans, and I am working on the first prototype womens jean as we speak. Once the prototypes are done, I will be sourcing out the best Italian Selvage Denim that I can, and then finalizing a Canadian manufacturer to produce them for me.

Finally, a friend of mine will be putting on a fashion show in the spring for the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation, and will have about a dozen designers creating a "little red dress" to display in the show, one of those designers being me.

Anyways, here are all of the 2010 Hold Fast Army Designs.

Also, I love that people read this blog, and that some people even take the time to leave a comment of support. But, unfortunately, for now I am going to have to disable all comments, as the levels of spam have gotten out of control, and I am going to have to add a serious filter to the blog. Once I get that sorted out, I will re-enable comments.

And now for the new designs!