I went to bed at 12:30 this morning, and I woke up at 3:30 to go Black Friday Shopping. I go for the amusement of seeing all of the crazy ladies, not to shop for myself (it’s hard to believe I know). I purchased a universal remote control (and that’s all I bought) and it wasn’t even on sale! What…we needed one!

It amazes me how people get so insane about “Good Deals”, and how the holidays have become so much more about the ‘things’ we buy and receive than the actual reason for the holiday. It is amazing the type of deals businesses can provide, but where do we draw the line? Do you think if you were in business to ‘sell’ products, you would want to miss out on this oppurtunity? Can businesses still make money when they create these giant discounts? Would it be smarter to do specials and deals not on black friday, but another day or another month? I don’t think black friday is being utilized to its fullest! Every business competes against eachother, is there another way to do it?

I’ll come up with some of these answers (my opinions anyway) later. For now, I’m going to sleep!
For any of you other CRAZY shoppers out there, I hope it went well and enjoy your nap.

~ Chais Meyer

I was talking to my good friend and very successful business woman Dawn Chavanu, and she told me something that until that moment I hadn’t been able to put into words. She said, “Chais, just remember, There is no pride when it comes to Survival”! She is so right.

For a long time my wife and I have told others (friends, family, whoever) that when we were done working at our current jobs, we would never work for someone else again. That is a pretty big blanket statement to make!
We said this because we truly do want to be our own bosses and we don’t enjoy making other people money when we could be doing it for ourselves. Also, I personally hate someone else telling me what to do!

After making a statement like that, I felt like I needed to live up to it no matter what. The “no matter what” part came from my pride. I didn’t want people to say “he said he was never going to work for someone else and now he is working at Walmart “. Thoughts like this are poison for our personal and professional lives. We are telling ourselves that we don’t care how bad things get, we are going to stick to our guns and grunt it out.

The statement that Dawn said hit me so deeply. It made me realize that sometimes we just need to suck it up and bear the shame (as if it would be that bad anyway).

Shawna took a giant step for our marriage and our businesses, by doing something that externally looks like we are digressing rather than improving. She applied at the local hospital for a part time cleaning position. Why is this such a benefit for us? Even though we will be breaking our original promise of never working for someone again, there are tremendous financial advantages for her doing this. As two self employed individuals, insurance is very hard to get and very costly (we are currently paying about $340 a month for basic coverage, no prescription and a $1000 deductible). Through the hospital, Shawna and I will both get full coverage insurance (eye, dental, prescription) for $150 a month. We currently are members of the hospital Gym that we pay $60 a month to work out at. She will now get her membership for free and mine will be $20 a month. All of this for only having to work 20 hours a week, 1 to 5PM 5 days a week!

If we would have stuck to our “no matter what” mindset, we would have completely missed out on this opportunity to better our lives while filling 4 hours a day, 5 days a week with payed work. Which is also relieving extra financial pressures put on our businesses (money we can keep in for growth, rather than take out to ‘survive’). You know what else, She loves cleaning, so it won’t be something she hates doing (when my wife’s happy, I’m happy…most of the time .

Knowing that “there is no pride in survival” and acting on it, has opened us up to hidden opportunities.
Don’t avoid something just because you might have said something different in the past.

Food fills my stomach better than pride!
Thanks for reading and have an awesome day,

~Chais Meyer

I don’t remember the last time that I didn’t know what to talk about. Today is going to be one of those days. I’ve written posts in the pasts about rants, raves, love, hopes, dreams, religion, challenges, struggles, and solutions. I HAVE NOTHING TO TALK ABOUT!

Do I need a muse? What is my problem? I have thousands of new things happening in my life and I can’t put them together into a paragraph. It all comes out like vomit on a page.

Maybe I need to make a list, doesn’t that help people? OK…I’m going to make a list. A list of what?
Oh, screw it.

Goodnight,
~ Chais Meyer

This blast from the past is a post that helped revolutionize my way of thinking…about money and bartering, called-

Money Is Not Real… (August 29th, 2007)

We are chasing an imaginary item…. …losing hours of our lives (never to be found again), missing out on precious moments, choosing “the green bill” over family….
If you are living for money, you will one day wake up and realize your life has passed you by, and all you have to show for it is a huge pile of green fibrous paper, that is supposed to be worth something.

Think about this:
What would happen if everyone were to trade from business to business in our towns, trade goods, services, labor, etc. We would have much less total income, expenses, and of course taxes; On paper it would look like less coming in, but in reality we would have much more than before, and probably better and closer friends and family relationships.

Hello All,

I was paroosing through an old blog that a buddy of mine and I started a couple of years back. The blog was called iDreamBusiness (i don’t remember if we started it with an “i” like everything else at that time, “iPod”, “itoy”, etc. or if we were talking about our selves… I don’t know). There were so many good posts made (at least I thought they were good) and I would like to bring some of them back.

So as DJ’s say “let’s start things off with an oldie”.
“Giving, Getting, & Selling” August, 2007

I just got back from Texas today after visiting my in-laws. We decided to fly on American Airlines there and back. Along the way we learned a lot about companies, marketing, and employees.

The first flight we took went from Omaha, NE to Dallas Fort Worth, this flight was your standard AA flight with your choice of a complimentary beverage. The second flight from DFW to Odessa, TX was on the American Eagle Airlines (owned by American Airlines). This flight was very interesting to me, it was the first flight that I have been on where instead of offering you a pillow (when your tired), a blanket (when your cold), or a bag of munchies (when your hungry), they would only sell them to you. Now I can understand the munchies, that probably does add up with 80 people on a plane at a time, but the pillows and blankets? If I’m cold and tired however, tough luck. I am not a master at business or marketing, but I know my point of view as a customer. I would rather be offered the pillow and the blanket and spend my money on something else, like a portable DVD system (that you can rent for the flight) with 10-20 DVDs to chose from (limited quantity of each disc, first come first serve). I would spend $5 on the player and $3 on a disc to entertain my self and my wife for 2 hours. I realize that not everyone would utilize this service, but I believe it would be a much better option than a pillow and a blanket that you can “Take with you!” for $5. I also would rather spend an extra $3 on my plane ticket for munchies (and feel like it was complimentary) then have to buy it while on the plane.

Take a look around you, if you see something that looks out of place or doesn’t seem to flow very well with that businesses commitments, think about what they could do to change it or make it better in some way. This will help all of us be more creative and look at any future business from different eyes (the end customer’s eyes).
~Chais

When someone or some business has worked hard to grow a fan base, do they have to work very hard to keep them?

This thought comes to me while watching Nebraska Husker football. Even while the team has sucked it up the last few years the fans remain loyal. They never really blamed the team for being bad, the blamed the people in charge.

Is it the same in business? As long as someone in the upper managment gets the ax or they make a desicion to “improve” the business in some way, will their customers remain loyal?

Does it come down to the perception of making your business or your team better, not really any proof? How long will fans be fans? How long will they hold on for hope for things to change?does it depend on the industry?

Those are a lot of questions…what are the answers?

Food for thought anyway, Have an awesome day!
~Chais Meyer

I Should be working on a website right now…but I got sidetracked! At least I’m doing something productive!

I’ve been looking for a Show/Hide Hidden Files (Unix Files) Shortcut, to be able to edit hidden development files. For Web Development, Apache, MYSQL,  WordPress, etc.

I am tired of opening Terminal and running the basic script. So after researching online for a while I found some information about using automator to run this script (thanks to "mmacho () " @ Mac OS X Hints).

I put this script into an application with it’s own icon (to clean it up a little).  So feel free to use as you will and spread the word about this free little shortcut app!

[Note: This is only designed for Apple Systems that are using Automator, it won't work otherwise.]

To Download this App, Click Here!
Hope you enjoy & Have an Awesome Day!
~Chais Meyer

It is amazing to me the possibility that Twitter provides for an average person (ME). I dig Facebook because of the networking I can do with old friends, or people I’ve just met. Twitter gives me the opportunity to meet people that I would have never been able to hook up with otherwise. I can catch a glimpse of peoples lives and they can get a glimpse of mine.

I’m stating the obvious if you’re already familiar with Twitter, but for those who aren’t, it’s really worth the time you can dedicate if you want to broaden your horizons personally or professionally. It is crazy how much it is like true friendships…it requires time invested, good dialogue between your twitter followers and you, and the really good people to follow are the people that are real.

For me it is hard not to put on the salesman face and say, "Check out my new product and my new website where you can click on my ads" (not that I have ads on my blog anyway, but…). It shows how the success of real friendships can be duplicated in the online world. Be genuine, kind, and offer advise and constructive criticism (when asked) at no extra cost (stay away from the ‘LOOK AT ME FIRST’…Approach). A couple of people that I am interested in & following might be using Twitter for business and/or personal, but I don’t care either way because of the solid content (and hilarious stuff) the say and provide.

Here are a 4 people that I recommend you follow (if you want to invest the time), they grabbed my attention :

1. Craig Teich
2. Elizabeth McGann
3. Brian Wong
4. Julie Perry

Have a good time messing around on Twitter if you want one more thing to do online!

Have an Amazing Day!
~Chais Meyer

Multi-Level Marketing, Pyramid Structures, or Pyramid Schemes have a very interesting business dynamic.  Looking at this system of business as a business structure, I believe it is one of the best structures around. If we can apply the MLM principals in our daily lives, we can grow to be extremely successful (personally and professionally).  If you don’t know what this type of business structure is click here to find out.

Why do I believe that MLM is such a great system?

1. If you truly care about providing someone with a worthwhile product or service and helping them (the people that you helped get into your organization) do a better than yourself, you will be rewarded from their successes.
2. You can have an organization / business that doesn’t need to do external advertising to make sales. Is there a better type of marketing in the world than getting a single, excitable, sneezing person pumped up about your product or services? My answer, NO!
3. On the same advertising note, your product or service can reach the unreachable customer. Why? Because they are getting told about your product by their friends, not by your thousands of ad dollars that get sent to the advertising gods, hoping that someone will see your ads and act. [Unreachable Customers: listen to iPods instead of the radio, surf the web for news instead of reading a newspaper, DVR their TV shows and skip the commercials rather than sitting through 5 minutes of ads for their show to get back on]
4. This business system doesn’t require any extra hours on your part, it actually requires less. If I can get 5 people ready to sell my product or service in one month and they can get 5 more people each in another month, we now have 31 people (including myself) in two months that are ready to sell my product or service. Did I have to train all 30 new people? No, I trained 5 people, made sure they knew their stuff and they did the rest of the work. Why did they care about telling more people about this product or service? The answer to that question can be summed up with #1.
5. Anyone can get involved! You don’t need a college education (I hate college! That’s a different story) to get trained on a specific product or service. You don’t need a college education to get others excited about what you are selling or providing for them.
6. People are only as successful as they choose to be. They put in the work and they get rewarded for it (and so do the people that trained them)! This beats paying someone as an hourly employee for them to sit on their butt and do nothing all day.

After hearing the reasons why I like MLM, can you think of the ways we can apply it to our personal and professional lives? Think about it…if we can use this same structure to work for us in our daily lives, we might be able to get a lot more accomplished.

Have an Awesome Day!

~Chais Meyer

I have been so busy with all of the businesses in my life. Lately I have been really focusing on the business ‘Teach Me Apple’.  Why focus on this one instead of the others? Because I can make $35 – $59 an hour on the training I provide.

What have I been doing to focus on it?

1. Giving the website a face lift , making it easier to follow and cleaner really helps out with business growth.
2. Setting up a referral reward program with local computer businesses that don’t do Apple computer training already. Every time they refer someone to my site and that person signs up for a training session, the business that referred me gets $15 (per session).
3. Creating a Teach Me Apple PDF for businesses to hand out or hang up in their shops.
4. Creating and modifying new sign up forms where I accept a minimum of one hour payment for the customer to reserve a training time.

I hope to update you all soon with more of what’s going on in our lives. Make sure to check out our Calendar page if you want to see exactly what were up to. As soon as we make a change you see it.

Have a great day!

~Chais Meyer