12 Days of my Christmas

Last week I was invited to play percussion music for my friend Craig. It was the fbi-Radio Christmas party. One of the many I've attended this year.

Normally my Christmas time is quiet time and I seldom do anything other than get together with the wife's family and celebrate by having a few drinks, sharing presents and enjoying the evening.

This year has been different. I got to do the family thing, but every day before hand was party time with others.

Between gigging, and attending Christmas parties of every nature. I have been busy ramping up business. My wife and I did a small letterbox drop for my guitar school and I have to say that it has been a small success. With only 500 flyers distributed around my neighbourhood, I have had almost 20 email and phone enquiries. Out of them, almost all of them are sales. That doesn't sound like a lot, but the hit rate is impressive for my first attempt.

I'm planning on attending the local Fete soon with a stall. It's $40 for the day and I imagine it will bring in a great deal more business. So, that stuff is going well.

On another note, Christmas last year made me change a little and Christmas this year made me change a little more again. Last year both my wife and myself were completely shocked at the display we witnessed at a Christmas gathering we use to attend every Christmas Eve. It was at my sister-in-laws family (My brother's wife). Last Christmas was pathetically unreal. Why?

Because the tree had that many presents around it, that it circled the tree with a radius of about 3 metres. Traditionally someone dresses as Santa and hands out the presents. The family hasn't grown much since we started going there. Maybe an additional baby or two, with another on the way, but back over ten years ago when we started going there handing out presents took about 10 minutes. Last time took 3 hours.

When people received their gifts, the didn't actually know who it was from. In other words, they didn't read the cards attached to the box, or stuck to the wrapping.

When I was shown some presents people got, ones which I had bought for them, I said "That's a great gift, who got that for you?" They had no idea.

This disgusted both my wife and myself. And the fact that presents took 3 hours to hand out wasn't adding to the special day. In fact, we both felt sick of the gluttony we witnessed. We went home after midnight and both commented on what we saw. We vowed to never go there again because it just got ridiculous. At one stage we recalled seeing one person get multiple presents from one other person. And it wasn't something like socks, or a nice picture frame at best. It was iPod, PSP, Digital Camera, and so on.

It was disgusting.

This year was much more pleasant. Gifts meant giving, not competing over who could buy the most expensive present, and then double it by adding more expensive presents to the list. It was about giving. It was about family. It was about being together and enjoying the day.

It was also nice to see my rather stern brother-in-law (Wife's brother), loosen up and have a few drinks. However, he turned it into a crazy drinking game, and really REALLY loosened up, drank his heart out, competing with us youngins and saying "Old school will win".

30 minutes later, he was asleep in his chair. Us "new schoolers" kept drinking. We dragged him to the couch and placed a bucket near him just in case. It was great to see him relaxing. Last time we saw him like this was for my wedding.

Continuing with Christmas news, I have been very well behaved this year. I haven't over eaten once. Besides Christmas drinking and the prompting from the bro-in-law, I haven't been drunk. I've been careful and enjoyed the food at Christmas instead of the usual over eating and regret afterwards when I can't move.

My 12 days of Christmas consisted of Christmas parties every day. Business associates, friends, family, and all up, a well behaved silly season.

I hope your Christmas has been just as pleasant and here's looking forward to a great New Years Eve. And a brilliant 2011.

Plan B

There was a time when I knew what I wanted to do. There was a time when I had a plan, albeit in my head, but none the less a plan of what I wanted to achieve by the time I was 20 or 25 or 30 years old.

Planning can suck sometimes because shit happens and plans have to change. And I think that success can come from your plans only if you and your plans are flexible.

If you've been reading, you'll notice that I've had a change of heart from my business. As much as I love it, I hate it equally and I'm ready to change. My business was never meant to be permanent, it was a rudimentary option thanks to my accident, my need to make money quick.

Now that I'm ready for a change in the right direction, and educated direction. I've been on the lookout for ideas, concepts that will change the way I work. I've surrounded myself with people like new starters in business, right to entrepreneurs that have been in business for over 20 years.

What have I learnt?

Well, I've learnt to listen to my customers better. I've learnt to dream, and make those dreams a reality. It all sounds silly but in reality something as simple as writing down what you want can be very effective.

I could have read it in a book, however it's much more beneficial to me to experience it rather than read a boring book about making money.

Truth is, money isn't the most important thing. My happiness is. I want to be happy with what I'm doing. And with computers, I am not. So what do I do?

Well, you may have read about the idea of me looking into that music store a while back. That fell through fairly quickly. Reason being that I was basically not comfortable with the idea after a small glimpse into the place. I didn't even bother with the financial information. I just turned my back on it. However, the bank wouldn't lend me the money to do it anyway, they said it was too high a risk.

So, while all this happened, my friend Val who owns the studio mentioned if I see something worth doing at the studio to consider it. 2 weeks later I did, and I approached him to talk about it. Recent discussions have changed from me buying into the studio and working my share of it to something I'm not too sure about. Val needs someone there, that's for certain. However, after a couple of months, there is still no accurate sign of accounts for my accountant to look at, so my accountant is still saying don't do it. Which is fair and I'm taking his advice because he's generally quite good at judging a business on first impressions.

However, before Val went to Melbourne for Christmas, he mentioned another option to get into the studio. It sounded great, however it doesn't really leave me in a good position to start with. Val's idea was that I don't put in any money, however I have to work on the same part of the studio ideas we agreed to work on before. As it generates money, then I get paid. A bit like working on full commission.

Now, I'd love to help Val make a successful business, and I wouldn't mind being a part of it. But to me, in this scenario, I'm not really part of it at all. I thought while the idea was good, the idea of me working without an income in pretty much a no no. Who pays my mortgage? Let alone all my other expenses? Part of my plan with the studio involved a fair amount of travelling to a lot of gigs, basically becoming a sales rep once the track work has been laid. This means while the business costs nothing to go into, I lose money, potentially my house, and my time is invested into something that has high risk, since there is no agreement.

So, I have been dwelling over it for the past fortnight and have come up with an idea.

I love teaching people things. I love playing music. I get great satisfaction out of doing both. So I thought, what if I did take the advice of Adam at GuitarZone and Val himself and rather than buy the music shop franchise, open my own. However, rather than tie all my capitol into stock, just provide music lessons and nothing more.

Then, while thinking about all this over the last two weeks, something happened a guitar tuition place opened up near my house. Two things crossed my mind.

One was, "Bloody hell, that's typical"

The other was "Hmm, I should go take a look and get some ideas for my place"

I've done neither and being the holiday season, I don't think they're even open. So I'll wait till next year and take a good look at what's going on. Maybe even ask for a job there to get into the swing of things. Or perhaps just be up front and say I'm doing the same up the road, maybe we can help each other out rather than be enemies. Then I think, to hell with it, I'll just do it and won't say a word to anyone about it.

Who knows?

I certainly don't. It's both fun and scary riding by the seat of your pants. The ultimate goal is still there, provide enough income so my wife doesn't have to work and I can support the family on my own.

With my calculations, it's all possible. The what is there, the why is there. Now I just need the how and when. I'll report back when I know more.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and I hope your new year is good to you.