{"id":2649,"date":"2009-04-18T05:13:56","date_gmt":"2009-04-18T10:13:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/?p=2649"},"modified":"2009-04-18T05:13:56","modified_gmt":"2009-04-18T10:13:56","slug":"changing-with-the-times-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/changing-with-the-times-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Changing with the times, contracts, extending credit"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve spent the past week doing final layout for the May 2009 Horizons Magazine<\/a>.\u00a0 Although most of the articles and ads are placed months in advance, final layout week is not just a heavy 10 days of design tweaking, it is a constant flurry of mail and email revisions and phone calls for payment.\u00a0 I’ve got a simple policy: an ad goes in when it is paid for.\u00a0 Period, end of story.\u00a0 The result of that is that no one ever owes me money.\u00a0 It keeps everyone honest and out of debt.\u00a0 I’ve got several friends and clients and advertisers who all extend credit to each other, and they are always in an uproar because of who owes what.\u00a0 It’s been going on for years.\u00a0 There’s always an underlying tension and judgment (why is she here at this dinner with a new $80 handbag when she owes me $100?<\/em>)\u00a0 It just causes more problems than it solves, so I just don’t do it.<\/p>\n

I’m not a savvy business woman by any means.\u00a0 I always worked for someone else, in my former career as a criminal defense paralegal.\u00a0 I didn’t know about things like being eligible for a small business loan when we first began the magazine 17 years ago.\u00a0 If advertisers didn’t pay before we went to press, we couldn’t pay the printer, period<\/em>.\u00a0 So either they paid or we just made the magazine smaller and only included who did pay.\u00a0 I didn’t know there was any other way to do it.\u00a0 I wasn’t someone who saved up money and had it waiting in the bank for me to invest in a business.\u00a0 I didn’t read books or articles about how to begin and manage a business.\u00a0 For that matter, I didn’t know anything about publishing or design and layout either, and never got a chance to get any formal training, to this day.\u00a0 I could use a Photoshop class for sure.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I would get a notice in the mail about an upcoming conference for publishers and I’d think, “I should attend one of these<\/em>“.\u00a0 Yet I’d be too busy publishing to get to a conference.\u00a0 This was way before you could research everything on the internet.\u00a0 We’re talking back in the dinosaur days when only computer geeks knew about email and the world wide web.\u00a0 I’m sure I could have learned many good things by attending the conferences but, well, the truth is that things were working well enough and I saw no reason to do anything differently.<\/p>\n

Plus this was when the “business” of putting on conferences as a business was newly emerging, so there was one a month for everything you could imagine.\u00a0 I’m sure one thing they would have suggested is having a business plan and using contracts.\u00a0 I never even thought about a business plan, and I decided early on that to get the discounted contract price, advertisers would simply pay in advance.<\/p>\n

With me coming from a legal background, I knew all too well that contracts are broken all the time.\u00a0 So I just decided I don’t do contracts and it’s a choice I stand by.\u00a0 Most of the business owners I do readings for are owed so much money on their contracts, that is their biggest source of worry.\u00a0 And it is their feelings of resistance relative to that issue that hinders other good things from coming into their lives, and from seeing their way out of it.<\/p>\n

Yet, even knowing this, they continue to enter into contracts and extend credit.\u00a0 Because that is how they were told it must be done.\u00a0 That is how they believe it works.\u00a0 They can’t imagine it working any other way.\u00a0 “I will lose my customers if I make them pay as they go<\/em>.”\u00a0 Well, no, you will just find another set of customers that pay as they go – from the gitgo.\u00a0 Yes, you will lose the people who aren’t paying you anyway.\u00a0 But that frees up time and space for new people who have different financial habits and beliefs.<\/p>\n

Yes, your business may even have to change and morph with the times to keep a steady flow of the kind of clientele you want.\u00a0 This will not be a problem because, as you go along, you will get guidance as to what direction to explore next, and which way to go.\u00a0 I never planned on being a publisher or psychic reader as a profession.\u00a0 Heck, I wanted to be Della Street.\u00a0 It was only when I tired of being Della Street that I began listening more closely to inner guidance, and began following it to a new career.<\/p>\n

Had someone asked, “Do you want to publish a monthly magazine for a living?\u00a0 Do you want to be a professional psychic and do readings all day?”\u00a0 I would have said no.\u00a0 Those ideas just didn’t ring my bell as far as future careers.\u00a0 I fell in to the magazine by helping out a couple of friends with some computer work, and quickly discovered how fun it was.\u00a0 I fell into the readings when my mom suggested I work for Psychic Friends Network<\/em>, which I did for 4+ years.\u00a0 It was easy money, earned from home.\u00a0 Both careers I just fell into, with no planning and no forethought.<\/p>\n

So in business I’ve learned to keep it easy and the right clientele will flow to me.\u00a0 If I lose some customers along the way as I make administrative decisions about policy changes, well, those aren’t my customers anymore.\u00a0 They left to make way for new ones who are more in harmony with what I offer now.\u00a0 Having said that, our polices haven’t changed from the beginning, and I firmly believe my success is due to me just not doing the contract\/credit dance.\u00a0 Period.<\/p>\n

I’m not surprised that I’ve seen no decline in ad sales, and my readings are booked through August.\u00a0 It’s amazing what freedom one simple decision can make.\u00a0 And freedom is the word for it.\u00a0 Freedom to work my own schedule at a job I love.\u00a0 Freedom to spend time in my own gardens and watch the wildlife at play as I work.\u00a0 Freedom to play in the yard during the day and study the\u00a0 cardinals’ nesting habits.<\/p>\n

Which reminds me, today should be the day.\u00a0 Today is 13 days since I saw the first egg, and I believe it is hatched under the mama cardinal right now.\u00a0 She was on the nest yesterday without a break.\u00a0 I’ve upped the outlay of black oil sunflower seeds, and started overfeeding the cats and squirting them with the garden hose when I see them in the backyard, to keep them in the front yard or the woods.\u00a0 I can hardly wait until daylight so I can watch her a bit more.\u00a0 They’ll be flying by the end of the month.<\/p>\n

Have a good Saturday.\u00a0 I’m back to work!<\/p>\n

,\u00b8\u00b8,\u00f8\u00a4\u00ba\u00b0`\u00b0\u00ba\u00a4 :\u00a6:-<\/span>OOBE – Out of Body Experience $10 mp3<\/a>
\n\u00f8\u00a4\u00ba\u00b0`\u00b0\u00ba\u00a4 :\u00a6:- <\/span>Free mp3 file<\/em><\/span> Universal Manager<\/a> with $10 purchase<\/em><\/span>
\n<\/em><\/span>\u00f8\u00a4\u00ba\u00b0`\u00b0\u00ba\u00a4 :\u00a6:- <\/span>New – Stop Smoking \u00a0 $10 mp3<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>
<\/a><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t