Getting ripped off sucks

Megafeatures has come across it's first con artist, I spose i should be thankful i finally got paid some of the money i was owed, but it pains me to think i worked my ass off to be screwed over $175. Thankfully it was only $175, but for a small buisness like mine it is around 25% of earnings lost for that week. When i look back at procedings, i spose i did make an error by not making it 100% clear what my terms where, i only made it 99.9% clear, giving this person .1% leway to try it on. Now if it was the first time this person ripped someone off, i might understand i was at fault in someway, but word on the street, from reliable sources, says that there has been numerous occasions money has not been paid. So basicly it seems this person goes through life employing people to do a job, looks for a reason to disagree with the amount owed, winges and disputes the amount until the tradesperson just wants to cut his losses and get paid "something", and ends up settling with an amount far less then they are owed. I am sure this person would be the first to winge to their own employer if they were short changed in their own pay packet.

I like to think that not having me as her gardener is punishment for her. but of course , she wouldn't give a crap, cause she will move on to her next tradesman to take for a ride, i would love to publish her name, but of course i would be sued for defamation, but karma will catch up with her one day, and i'm sure there will be a few gardeners out there waiting for the day she gets screwded over, so she can get a taste of her own medicine.

Rules of buisness

Starting a new buisness brings great excitement, but also can bring frustration. Personally i think any new buisness which can break even or run at a small loss for the first six months is doing ok. Basicly you have no repeat buisness to start off with, and word of mouth advertising is limited to your first successes, both of which are vital in turning over a prophit. In my opinion the groundwork you are building, ie happy clients , is worth it's weight in gold.

You can spend lots of money advertising, but advertising has it's limitations, it's when mr blog recommends his friends about you, thats where money is to be made.

Take for instance the printed yellow pages, it has cost me $1100 for a year, and i have yet to receive a paying job from it. The yellow pages representitive went through the speil that it was vital to any buisness to advertise in it, that you will be missing out on huge amounts of work without it. And yet 2 months after hitting the streets it has failed me. The funny thing is that i am not alone in my critisism. Recently a landscaper called me { ironiclly he found my number in the yellow pages} when i got to the job site, he too said that yellow pages doesn't attract much work at all. in fact he gets maybe five or six calls a year, from a similar investment, a couple of which may turn out to be a paying job. His main income is found by letterbox drops.

Which asks me this question, if he knows yellow pages is not worth the $1100, why doesn't he invest that $1100 in more letterbox drops each year?

In hindsite, i would not have advertised in yellow pages. My main source of income is the internet, followed by letterbox drops.then word of mouth, followed by yellow pages. And yet yellow pages has cost me the most amount of dinero. I spose it's in people physci {sighkee} that yellow pages is a must have for every buisness. I think most people who use yellow pages are looking for a Branded buisness or retail outlet. To me, i dont see a lot of people would pick up the yellow pages and say, " um, which one should i choose?" Their are just looking for the number of a buisness they already know of, or a buisness someone has mentioned to them.

Recently the same yellow pages rep contacted me regarding yellow pages online. He knows i have an ad in the yellow pages book, he knows i am a sole trader, and he also knows i have didley squat from the yellow pages book, so now he thinks i should invest another $1000 in the internet side of things.

I know understand the tactics used by yellow pages, and although not illegal, i think it is morraly corrupt. They know more people use the internet these days then flicking through a book. So their first concern { especially to someone new to buisness} is to sign you up for the printed version of yellow pages, so once you pay your money it takes you a few months to realise it's not a great source of income, then when you tell them that they say " Well you should try internet advertising aswell " and hound you to sign up. At that stage most buisnesses would say to themselves " well shit, i need jobs somehow, heres another $1000 for yellow pages online.

I beleive the online version is the only one that should be regarded as logical and beneficial, but the tactic to sign you up for the useless printed version is unfair to small buisnesses like myself.

But hey, they are cashing in on it, making lots of money, employing a lot of people, so if i owned yellow pages i guess i would employ similar tactics.

My old boss had a great saying, whenever a costomer would compliment him or the buisness, he would say to them "please tell a friend" and the amount of people that would actually do it was amazing. I remember hundreds of costomer over the seven odd years i worked there saying

" My friend said to come here" and all it cost him was a mothful of oxygen and a smile. And then they too would become a regular costomer. So although i havent made a million dollars as yet, i have made some friends, who i know would not hesitate to recomend me to their friends.

For example, the following are a few emails i have received recently from costomers, i didn't ask for these comments, but they made them because they are happy with my services

costomer 1

"pls ring Di about an ongoing maintenance program for our home
Di has been very happy with your work"

costomer 2

"Again Thank you for your time – the house would look rubbish without your work."

Both these costomers have employed me for a job, then called me back to complete another one, and have suggested my services will be used next time. So the 40 cents it cost me for them to look at my website has paid me well,

so when you look a the big picture, advertising for small buisness isn't about forking out thousand of dollars to big companys to "not" promote you, promote yourself, look after every single costomer, because they may earn you hundreds of dollars by passing on your number to a few friends.

How to win { or how not to lose }

Well , another loss by the mighty engadine crusaders, and although it's early in the season things don't look too good. I spose theres only to alternatives, we lose more games, or we dont lose games. Like any team sport, individuals can't be blamed, the team as a whole must look at itself and work at fixing the basic principles.

After a devasting loss to a team who also hasn't won a game, i try and look for reasons as to why we lost.{and to why we lost so convincingly} I try and put myself in the shoes of chelsea manager, jose mourinho, he is in charge of one of the worlds best soccer teams, and although lots of money has been spent bringing together players of a high calibre, they dont win games because of individuals but because of the team work. If i was to be manager of chelsea, would they still be so lethal?, of course not, because he brings out the best in each player.

So what makes an average team successful?

Firstly i would look at the formation of the team on the feild. Proffesional teams go into games with a set formation, and maintain that formation during the whole game {unless a manager sees the need for change} Which means at all times you know who ,when and where your team mates

will be during the game, and the more games spent learning these mentalitys the more you can profit in the way of goals or good defence. Our lack of formation provided our opposition with at least three of the five goals they scored. Now, going back to jose mournho, what does he do to maintain the formation of chelsea.? Basicly, he as manager sets the team, asigns the positions and each player remains in that position, something our team MUST do if we want to win games.

Unlimited substitution is great, you have a chance to come from the feild, and return into the game at will. But used incorrectly can demolition a sides formation. My suggestion as a coach would be to maintain positions as much as possible. Which goes back to set positions for players.

IE our team has 16 player, and we use a 4-4-2 formation, one is goalie giving us 15 players on the feild if all are fit. As a coach i would asign a 6-6-3 rotation program, which means there are 4 defenders on feild with 2 substitute defenders, 4 mid feilders on the feild with 2 mid feild substitutes and 2 attackers on feild with 1 attacking substitute. As changes are made, people can instantly know where they are to play, and can be aware of team mates roles and responsibiltys. I think it also would allow to make changers quicker because your not looking onto the feild thinking"who should i swap with". and as a group you can make changes on a more regular basis.

The other reason for set positions is so as individuals at training, you can focus on what your role on the feild is, so defenders could work closely at training and "bond" with fellow defenders, we arent blessed with a lot of time to train, so what we do must be quality.

I do beleive defence is the most important aspect of a good team, but i guess as a defender you aren't rewarded with the prospect of scoring a goal, hence the reluctance of people wanting to play as a defender, but as a team you must play your strenghths, and if our team was to focus on set positions i know we can win, and even make the semi finals.

Another part of our game needing tweeking is our inability to pass amongst ourselves to gain majority of the posetion, it seems when we have the ball we instantly need to score a goal. If we take time to set positions and pass the ball around, gaps will open up, we dont have to force the issue, whatching a premier league game the other night i noticed the midfeilders bringing the ball forward from half way toward goal, and they stalled time while the defenders set themselves on the halfway line and attackers found their way to the goal box. Then they attacked, scoring a goal, it seemed all to easy, but players were set in formation, giving them the chance to play set plays. They werent in a hurry to score, because if they had lost the ball, all players were out of formation to defend, and at least 2 of our goals on the weekend were goals against the run of play, our team had no time to defend because our formation had been in tatters.

We defanately have a worthy team, and if we can play smart we will win some games, but if our formation woes continue it will be be more of the same score lines.