CentEx Cargo

This is definitely a new area for me. When it comes to entrepreneurship, I have been using one consistent analogy for a very long time, ‘when you get on the high diving board of a swimming pool, there is only one option: Jumping in both feet. Lately, however, I’ve been asked by a number of readers of the CentEx Cargo Blog to write about ‘how to have a side hustle without quitting your day job.’ Apparently, there are a lot of people that are interested in starting a small busines capable of generating a new stream of revenue as supplemental income to their paychecks. I am a firm believer that as a part-time entrepreneur/full-time employee, you should stick to what you do best. Your job is your working capital for this new venture and pays the bills. Therefore, whatever you do, don’t bring the distractions of searching for a side hustle to your job. You should stay the course of giving 100% to the responsibilities and duties of your job description and to being productive.

How do you find the business that is right for you? First, you need to pick a day of the week when you are not overconsumed by the responsibilities of your full time job and family obligations. The core activities of that day should be about creating boundaries and the testing of ideas for your side hustle. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most part-time entrepreneurs choose an industry that’s close to their employment experience and expertise. I also recommend choosing a field that you are passionate about. Another deciding factor can be finding an industry that aligns with your values and skill set. Some of you may have several good ideas for a side business. You can narrow down those choices by moving to the next phase of the decision process. That phase consists of finding ‘beta testers’ from your network, assuming it is large enough. Whatever you, don’t badger your close friends about buying some of your products and/or services. The purpose of finding ‘beta testers’ is to quickly assess if there is a demand for the products you want to sell or the services you plan to offer. Your network may not offer an accurate cross-section of the market for your goods and services. Your next option is to devote enough time to tap into the free resources that can help you get started. For example, SCORE, the Special Corps of Retired Executives (http://www.score.org) can assist you with finding ‘beta testers’ in the larger community. Morever, you can get a mentor from this non-profit organization. He/she has extensive experience in assisting people like you start a small business on their own. Some of the free business mentoring services from SCORE would include showing you how to find potential customers and identify your target market(s).

The Small Business Administration (SBA) is also a great place to get started. During your ‘set-aside day with boundaries,’ I recommend you spend a few hours browsing the SBA’s website at http://www.sba.gov. You will find information about building content for your small business and how to come up with the right structure. You are now in the critical phase – i.e., the one in which you make a decision and pick the field. You don’t need a ‘business plan’ and a fancy website right off the bat for your side hustle. But having the right structure from the onset will determine whether you stay in business and make extra money. The right structure for your side hustle also implies keeping everything legal. As a consultant, I make it a point to warn any full-time employees about the pitfalls of choosing any labor intensive fields or a service business. The business world is competitive enough; just imagine how well your business would do, if you were to wait until you get off work before you could start returning the phone calls of prospects and potential customers. That approach would not work in your favor even with an Automated Voicemail System. Because ‘the average caller to any service business, expects a call back in half hour.’ If that average prospect doesn’t get the information he/she is looking for, within the hour, the name of your business is immediatly crossed out from his list of possible business providers. Your skill set and passion may compel you to go into ‘labor extensive technology’ or a service business in spite of my caveat. No worries, I have some well tested suggestions that can surely help you with implementing the right structure from home. Visit my Facebook business page at http://www.facebook.com/centexcargo and inbox me some of your structural concerns and the specific industry you are passionate about.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in 2017 that there were 38 million home-based businesses in the U.S. And 20 percent of those home-based businesses make $100K – $500K per year. You can sell goods online with Shopify, eBay, Amazon, and even CentExOnlineStore. This is something you can do after ‘working hours,’ in your free time as long as you give your paying customers realistic ETA’s – i.e., Estimated Time of Arrival and/or delivery date of a product ordered by a customer. Perhaps, ‘Direct Selling’ or network marketing is your niche. You may be familiar with it from the likes of the local Avon Lady or Mary Kay Specialist who rung your doorbell one weekend or from the neighborhood Tupperware party. And lastly, from your BFF’s fashion show you attended last year. In case you didn’t know, that fashion show was an opportunity for your girlfriend to showcase her new line of clothing (or clothes received on consignment) to a handful of potential buyers. I would not be surprised if a couple of Clothing Retail Store Managers were in attendance.

Unfortunately, I am restricted by the limitations of a blogger. So, thank you for taking the time to read this blog post. Feel free to post a comment in the appropriate section. I look forward to receiving your feedback about ideas, specifics, and the types of business you would choose as a side hustle.

Nobody wants to be around a chronic complainer or a negative person. ‘Don’t complain because nobody is listening.’ If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. If you don’t like the way you’re being treated. Demand to be treated differently. If that approach doesn’t yield the desired outcome, then it’s time to cut your losses and move on. 

Common sense tells us that destructive criticism has never helped anyone. First and foremeost, what kind of criticism is destructive and why many people do it? Destructive criticism points out faults and directly attacks the other person or people with no consideration for their feelings. It aims to show that the other person has no worth or his/her position on a particular issue has no validity. To make matters worse, the perpetrator offers no plausible solutions, no practical advice, and no considerstion is given. Most people who dispense their opinions even when not asked in the form of destructive criticism are just simply insecure about their own thing and/or desperately trying to boost their egos. Therefore, take heed of my instructions and follow these 2 recommemdations religiously: 1st) Don’t criticize, condemn or complain and 2nd) Give honest and sincere appreciation.

The 3rd) fundamental technique to winning people over requires that you arouse in the other person, according to renowned author Dale Carnegie, ‘an eager want.’ Dale Carnegie understood as far back as in the 1930’s, it’s usually fun and enjoyable for people to do things when they want to do them. Moreover, for the most part, people don’t want to do what is asked of them. For the purpose of this exercise or for this blog entry, why not start with a thorough understanding of the other person’s hope, desire, and what motivates him or her. Acquiring that critical piece of information about another human being is paramount to influencing that person. And lastly, it has been proven, the only way to win over your employees, customers, and a peer is to talk about what they really want and show them how to get that ‘eager want.’ 

Like anything else in life, the decision making process can be straightforward and simple or it can involve lots of factors to the point of being complicated and eventually stressing you out. Whenever, you make a big decision, especially one that involves a large investment of resources and effort, you want to feel like you’ve made the right decision. To ward off regret or avoid acknowledging that you may have made the wrong decision, you may begin to idealize the option you chose and devalue the one you rejected. This case scenario can be seen in people who express wanting change or reform for example but when all they do is ‘pay lip service’ to the subject matter. One place where this tendency can go awry is within our current political landscape. It creates rifts between people that are in the trenches ‘day in and day out,’ making a difference and those that just sit around and talk about it but take no action. Well, cognitive dissonance provides one possible explanation. In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the psychological stress or mental discomfort experienced by a person who simultaneously holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values. Even if you don’t share this belief or openly express these thoughts as I just described, but the fact that you devalue a given decision or entirely reject it, will impact your feelings toward others. With some degree of certainty, it will control how you react to somebody else’s decision that differs from yours. Subsequently, you will express those sentiments in subtle ways. This wedge between people as a result of different choices can also be compounded by ignorance and inertia. One way or the other, as key players in this journey, we have to take a stance and decide in order to safeguard our views and protect our interests. Which can also lead to a thorough understanding of the decision making process. How else would we identify the bottlenecks in this process? A handful of people take great pride in being neutral. Are they really neutral or just indecisive? How would you explain the many kinks in the line of communication? And way too often, there is no room for a win-win compromise.

On the one hand, it’s useful to remember that most decisions have pros and cons, just because a choice has some downsides doesn’t mean it was wrong or it needs to be justified against other alternatives. Ignorance and inertia, on the other hand, are dangerous. Far too many people will go along with a wrong decision because they idealize the option chosen for them. Besides, it is very mentally stressful, draining, and it takes way too much work for some people to process new information and keep looking at new data.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post. I look forward to receiving your input and reading them – Kind Regards, Carl Charles