Dyniss

Although I believe I’ve properly scripted my cold calls to the folks I want to survey, they usually aren’t in and they aren’t returning my messages. This must be what salespeople are used to. I shall try a wee strategy — up the ante by giving my prospects something for free that they likely desire. It’s also important to play the numbers game — making a few phone calls and waiting for responses won’t cut it — need VOLUME.

Today I cancelled a few things that weren’t “musts” to pay for monthly: A monthly charge for a Reverbnation EPK (an Electronic Press Kit for artists), a monthly charge for Skype that allowed me to have multiple video feeds at the same time, and finally 4 different charities that I have been contributing to monthly.

That last group — the charities — hurts by far the most to stop contributing to. I worked so hard to get myself into a place where I could contribute back to the world with raw cash. But I mean to re-launch the charity contributions when I am generating revenue. Part of me believes these tiny savings are irrelevant in the big picture, but I want to be prudent. C’mon universe — I’m working on you!

Today I did just a handful of administrative schtuff. Truly I should have been working on interviewing other folks but that’s not where my head was at. One of my goals was to put calendar pages on the wall to give me a sense of urgency about my business (i.e. how much time and savings remain) and Getting Things Done (cool book, by the way).

I was blown away today re-calculating all of my savings — they might last longer than I originally calculated. Without ANY surprises or special expenditures or investments, I can last until August 2014. Hence the final calendar page indicated on my wall. I have a sneaking suspicion however that I will require some of that cash for equipment and/or software and/or travel and/or hiring other folks. Note wee tick today Jan 16 as I “begin” again in a way.

I am working on my Customer Development Model. I don’t want to waste time executing something that customers don’t actually want. Today I was lucky enough to have a young fellow answer my questions via email. I was afraid that he wouldn’t answer well or with enough detail, but he blew me away with his responses.

2 things were in my favor that got the great response:

1. He was young, therefore likely eager. Note to self: Do not dismiss the potential contribution level of young folks.

2. He was recommended to me by one of his family members, therefore likely comfortable and again eager to indirectly assist a family member.

“Thank you for today, universe.”

Post title indirectly thanks to Dr. Wayne Dyer‘s Wishes Fulfilled, which I’m currently listening to in audiobook format.

I was triggered to re-launch my blog today (and re-title it — it was called “Anticonformist Everything — Dyniss the musician who complains a lot”) as per an automated email from Success.com, where it showed Darren Hardy’s own blog entry about some other successful blogs. What the heck. My story will be interesting to me at least.

I could re-cap the last few months where I focused on my Christmas website, but now I need to kick my entrepreneurship into high gear. Today, as part of The Lean Startup method, I hosted my first interview as part of doing some qualitative research to identify my customer and my customer’s problems. The interviews will be a challenging process without obvious short-term rewards, but it should have medium- and long-term benefits by not wasting time creating something nobody wants. The rest of the day was spent trying to find contact info and reaching out to a few other professionals to ask for interviews. No luck yet. Tomorrow: Ambush one manager at his work.