Getting Through a Large Project

Lately I might find myself with several large proofreading and writing jobs on my to do spreadsheet. The deadlines are looming, and I dont know how Im going to get them all done, but I know I will. Here are some tips for you who might have a large project youre working on from home.

1. Take frequent breaks. Instead of looking a 100-page project like I have to do it all RIGHT NOW just because my kids are sleeping or are watching a movie or are out of the house, I take it in bite-size chunks. I might stop after every 10 pages and go to the bathroom, refill my water, make some coffee, check in with my Facebook peeps, send a few tweets to promote some Bubblews posts, do 10 sit-ups, return a phone call or ...
2. Reward myself with a piece of chocolate! Rewards are important! Im not talking about a Prada bag here ... something small to give yourself a pat on the back for working from home, which is something many people want to do, but which few possess the discipline to do.
3. Consider breaking up the job into chunks on your task sheet or Excel spreadsheet or whatever you use to stay organized and keep track of your deadlines. Instead of writing "8 BlogHer Tweets for SlimFast" with a deadline of June 30, I might assign 8 separate tasks, breaking out the income each task will bring, the time each task will take, etc. That way I can cross of each item as I do it and ensure I stay on task and on time. On that 100-page project for proofreading, I might assign 10 different tasks to it to make it seem manageable.
4. Try to break up and schedule the project so you can still have a life! This is super important to me since I homeschool lightly year-round and want to make sure we hit the pool or do something fun outside of the house almost daily.

What are your work-from-home tips?

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3 Getting Started – Financing and Credit for the Owner Operator

 


2001 K Whopper (Kenworth)

 Becoming An Owner Operator

3) Getting Started - Financing and Credit

See my other posts:

A Holiday Wish

The Way it Was - A Short History of Trucking

Pro and Cons of Being an Owner Operator

FAQ for the Owner Operator
Pictures
Anti-Idling Regulations
Definitions and Industry Terms
Blackrock Auxiliary Power Unit (APU)
Interactive Cost per Mile (CPM) Calculator Spreadsheet
Privacy Policy
1) Owner Operator 411 – Welcome
2) Income and Expenses
4) Operating Authority or Leasing?
5) Equipment
6) How To Do Bookkeeping and Other Necessary Paperwork
7) What You Need to Know About Loadboards
8) Companies That Lease Beginning Owner Operators
9) What You Actually Need to Get Started - Licenses, Permits, Insurance, and Taxes
10) Truck Driving Schools

Now that you know how much money you can really earn, your next step, if you still think you want to be an owner operator, is to decide if you can afford it.

Do you want to be a truck driver, or a businessman? Most people think they can just buy a truck and roll, but there is a lot more to it than that. In the first place, a truck can cost anywhere from $30,000.00 for a used one to $150,000.00 for a new one.

You have to look a your complete financial picture and figure out if you can even afford to purchase a truck, much less all the expenses that go along with it.

First, you want your new business to be a money making enterprise, so you dont want to start out too much in debt. Your truck payments will run from $1,000.00 to $2,500.00 a month. As you can see, you will have to have a good credit history before you can even buy a truck.

Many banks and credit unions will want a written business plan when you try to get a loan. This will tell them how you think you will be able to pay back the money you borrow from them.

The first thing you need to do is check your credit report and Fico score before even applying for a loan. Everyone is entitled to an annual free credit report from each of the three credit bureaus: Equifax, TransUnion and Experian. Check with all three, as they do not provide the same information. If you find any mistakes, have them taken care of before you try to get a loan. Banks will look at your Fico score. The credit bureaus will let you buy your credit score. These are not the same thing, but a credit score should give you an indication of your FICO score (if one is high the other should be high, and vice versa.

Before you try to get a loan, you need to get your business license, so that you can get a business loan. I will write about setting up your business structure (sole proprietor, partnership, LLC, S corporation, or corporation) in a later post. I was going to do that in this post, but decided to wait because if you cant buy a truck, there isnt any reason to start a business, so we need to concentrate on financing before we start talking about ways to make money. In a way, it is just like the old saying, “You have to have money to make money.”

See: Types of Entities in Section 6) How to Do Bookkeeping and Other Necessary Paperwork for the Owner Operator - Permits and Taxes

When we bought our first truck, we paid $3,000.00 for it and the person we bought it from financed it for us. Boy! Are those days ever gone. Diesel was 34 cents a gallon, milk was 50 cents a gallon, and I walked 5 miles to work, uphill, both ways, in the snow, winter and summer.

Seriously, though, we went into debt to get our first truck, and so will you. In planning how much you need, dont forget all the other expenses. If you dont buy a brand new truck, you will probably have to put some maintenance into it before you can put it to work. If you are lucky enough to find a truck that really is ready to go on the road, you still arent out of the woods. On your very first trip, all kinds of bad things can happen, and you need to be prepared. You may blow a tire and have to replace it (cost about $250.00), or you may blow an engine (cost $10,000.00 and UP)

Not only do you have to have the money to pay for these things, you will have to have the money to live on while you are getting the repairs done. If you blew an engine, it can take a week or more to have it repaired or replaced. Dont forget that $1,000.00 to $2,500.00 truck payment. If you are down for a week, you still have that payment coming due (and other fixed expenses like owner operator insurance, taxes, and licenses) – and you are not only spending money for repairs, you are not making any money. The moral is, you need to have some extra money in the bank to fall back on.

Anyone can have breakdowns, anytime, for any reason. I knew a guy once who bought a brand new truck and he had to have the engine replaced 3 times in a year. Yes, it was under warranty, but as I said above, he still had payments coming due, and no income each time it was in the shop having the engine replaced.

Of course, he had a lemon, and it is unusual for something like that to happen, but it does go to show, you just never know. I would like to say the best way to not have a breakdown is preventive maintenance. I cant stress that enough. If you hear a whistle in the turbo, dont just sing along with it until it becomes a scream. Have it fixed at the very first chance you get. Believe me, it will pay off in the long run.

If you can get the financing, in a way now is a good time to buy a truck. Many truck drivers are selling their trucks because of the bad economy, and you may be able to find one cheaper than you could have a year or two ago. For some reason, though, truck prices havent dropped very much – but the freight has. 

As more and more companies are laying off workers and cutting back on production, they arent making as many goods, so they dont have as much to ship. You may be able to buy a truck, but you may not have anything to haul. Like almost everything else today, truck driving jobs (even owner operator trucking jobs) are hard to get.

Resources:

SCORE: www.score.org This is an excellent resource, and best of all, it is entirely free! They have mentors, online or in person to answer your questions and help you make business decisions. They have online workshops, including one titled, “Can you afford to start?” which will help you answer a lot of the questions raised in this post. If you are serious about starting your own business, dont skip this website.

SBA (Small Business Administration): www.SBA.gov/ They have information about all kinds of things to do with small businesses, as well as online training about how to start a business and how to write a business plan. They even give loans.

OOIDA (Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association): www.ooida.com They give out tons of advice, publish a magazine, make equipment loans, and sell owner operator insurance and truck insurance.

An accountant: They can do tax consultation as well as bookkeeping.

Your local bank or credit union: In addition to making loans, some have legal departments which can help you set up a LLC or corporation.

If you have a favorite resource, let us know and share it with others.

Next post: Operating Authority or Leasing?

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I am sorry I have to do this, but due to spam "comments"  I feel I need to moderate comments from now on.

I am sorry for any inconvenience this may cause to my legitimate commenters.

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Will 2014 Be the Year You Get Published ! Join the Cult of Getting Published!

Back when I only had three kids and was still hanging on to that dream of being a writer like a dog with a pork chop, I felt lost. But ...

What was I going to write about? How to pick between all the ideas swirling around in my head? Once written, where in the world would I send my stuff?

Well, I finally did get something written and I sent it off to my local regional parenting magazine, Kansas City Parent. The logical thing to do, right? Lots of writers do it (and then get stuck only writing for their local magazine and dont realize there are dozens and dozens more who also want their piece). Once I got my act together I got to see it in the May/June issue of Calgarys child here. After that, it evolved into this and sold more often. And thats just one article. I have about 100 in circulation these days.

But Im getting ahead of myself. Back to WHERE will I send my stuff besides my local place?

Well, I found this outdated, nowhere-near-complete list called Parenting Publications of America online. I used that as a starting point to find more magazines all over the country (and Canada and England and Australia) and started collecting editor email addresses any way I could. It took a lot of hours of research, and all without an Internet connection at home.

After I entered all the email addresses and information into my email account, I went to town writing and submitting. And I had success!

Thats when I decided to write/compile this back in 2009 to help others do the same, and its now in the 5th edition (dont be fooled by more expensive and 1/4 of the size knock-offs that dont include the markets and want you to spend money on the information THEN spend hours of your time hunting down email addresses like tiny little email deer).

So I wanna know: how many ideas do you have? How many excuses do you make for not having time to write and make money getting published because I will shoot them down one by one like little tiny excuse deer, leaving you with no option but to be successful. With this ebook, you have no more excuses. I help you:

1. come up with ideas
2. get your piece written
3. submit to over 200 regional parenting magazines
4. get to the next level by providing NATIONAL and online parenting magazine information (FamilyFun, Working Mother, Parents, BabyTalk and more)

The only thing you have to lose is your financial worry ... and that ridiculous fear of success.

Join me in the Cult of Getting Published!

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Giving and Getting Feedback on Fiverr

Let me tell you something: You definitely want good feedback on Fiverr. You don’t want negative ratings. I had a buyer turn on me once early on in my Fiverr career back in 2013 when I was overloaded and had made a couple of mistakes; they had two proofing orders in the queue and they gave me bad feedback on both, totally blowing my 100% rating. To be honest, I didnt handle the situation well. I was exhausted and overwhelmed and was overworking myself and I "defended" myself instead of just apologizing and making it right. I learned my lesson for sure.

Then I had a third negative feedback when my husband was ripping up our carpet and doing our hardwood floors and my grandpa was dying and our internet was out for a day. The buyer said I made some mistakes but would not tell me what. I made the other mistake of getting personal about my life instead of being professional. I told him about my husband and kids and internet being out. DONT DO THAT!

So basically just treat the customer well and over-deliver if you can. For example, when I do my social media gigs, I like to deliver an extra post or tweet or pin just because. When I deliver my order I also say something like, “Please let me know if you have any questions on this at all.” It makes a big difference when you treat someone well. Of course you will have those customers who are never going to be happy but 99% of them are totally reasonable.

And when they have rated you positively, make sure you leave a note back for them thanking them, telling them it was great to work with them, etc. The higher the number of your good ratings, the more sought-out you will be by future potential customers.

Its also important to work with people in a professional way because now Fiverr has an option for a buyer to give you a tip, which rocks! Ive been tipped many times and sometimes on orders that had me banging my head against a wall trying to please the buyer.

Be professional. Dont get personal. Dont make excuses for mistakes if you make them. Just fix them.

Here are some more Fiverr tutorials.

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