Aviation of Business

posted by Andrew Hartley - Business Consultant & Entrepreneur on Oct 19

Everyone has heard the importance of business planning. Creating a business plan before you start your business is very nearly a universal starting point for all successful businesses. In fact, Chris Corrigan, an Australian businessman who grew logistics company Patrick Corporation into one of Australia’s most successful companies and owns part of Richard Branson’s Virgin Blue airline, said, “You can’t overestimate the need to plan and prepare. In most of the mistakes I’ve made, there has been this common theme of inadequate planning beforehand. You really can’t over-prepare in business!”

Once again, we find that business and aviation are quite similar! Let’s walk through the business planning process and take a look at the similarities:

The first step in any plan is to know where you are… determine where you stand in your business knowledge and preparation. Are you ready to start a business? Do you really want to? This is analagous to a pilot’s home airport and “I’M SAFE” checklist:

• I: Illness - It is best not to fly while suffering from any illness.
• M: Medication - Pilot performance may be adversely affected by the taking of certain medications.
• S: Stress - Stress from work or from home may distract pilots during important segments of a flight.
• A: Alcohol - As little as one ounce of liquor, one bottle of beer or four ounces of wine can affect a pilot’s skills negatively.
• F: Fatigue - Fatigue affects a pilot’s coordination and alertness.
• E: Emotion - Emotions of anger & depression decrease alertness & may lead to taking higher risks than necessary

If any one of these things is affecting you as a pilot, it’s best to postpone your flight for another time. In business, a lack of knowledge of the industry, a poor work ethic, a bad reason for starting a business, other important obligations, etc. are all good reasons to delay the start of the business until your situation changes. I have come up with the following acronym, similar to the “I’M SAFE” checklist to help you determine if you are ready to start a business (NEW BIZ):

• N - Network: Do you have both a business network and a personal network of people who will support you?
• E - Emotion: Is your desire to start a busines free from emotion (e.g. anger or frustration at your current job)?
• W - Work Ethic: are you willing & able to work the hours necessary to start a new business?
• B - Business Acumen: Do you have experience in the industry you would like to enter?
• I - Investment: Do you have the capital (or can you get the capital) necessary to launch & sustain the business until it is profitable?
• Z - Zealous: Are you passionate about this business idea and industry?

If you cannot answer yes to all of the above questions in the “NEW BIZ” checklist, it might be better to wait to start your business until you can. Answering “no” to any one of them will only cause you frustration and pain in the long run of starting and running your own business.

Can you answer the “NEW BIZ” checklist questions in the affirmative? What other considerations might you want to consider before jumping into the entrepreneurship world? Tell us by leaving a comment!

Fair Winds,
Andrew

P.S. Stay tuned for part two of this six-part series: Where do you want to go?

posted by Andrew Hartley - Business Consultant & Entrepreneur on Sep 17

The following is a paid review, but is completely my own opinion and is not at all influenced by being paid.

I recently signed up for Pay Per Post, a blog marketing site which has been gaining and gaining in popularity with bloggers as a way to use a blog to make a little (or a lot) of money. It’s also very popular with internet marketers as a way to drive traffic to their sites! If you’re already writing, and you already use products and surf the web, why not make a little money while doing so, right? I’ve been experimenting and learning about online business for a little while now, and have not had much success. To be fair, I’ve also had a lack of focus and not spent my time where it might make the most impact. I’m trying to change that, because - as you see from my last post - I am edging my way back to my original career goal (since high school or college) of becoming a professional pilot.

Since flying isn’t cheap (my first flight in nearly four years lasted nine-tenths of an hour - that’s .9 hours or 54 minutes - and cost $115.64!), I’ve newly refocused my online ambitions to help me pay for the cost of flight training. I figure that if I can make $30 per day, every day, from my online businesses, my flight training will be nearly paid for! With that in mind, I am refreshing my interest in Pay Per Post, starting with this post. I hope to be able to use it to get a good start on my goal of $30 per day. If I am able to make more than that through Pay Per Post (and/or other advertising, donations, etc.), I will increase my flight time commensurately.

Up to now, I have found Pay Per Post to be pretty easy to use. It was very easy to add this blog to my account and get started. I actually got an offer for $30 to review a site - which I was pretty excited about, but then I got distracted and forgot to actually post about the site. The offer was susequently rescinded - unfortunately it happened on the day I remembered and was going to post about it! I ultimately would like to add some of my other blogs to my account at Pay Per Post (blogs like environmentastic! and Teacher’s Forum, but Pay Per Post requires that you have 10 approved posts before you can add any more blogs to your account. I wasn’t aware of this (or I had forgotten), and I was a little frustrated trying to find out how to add another blog to my account… you actually have to do that under the “my posts” tab. That was a little confusing to me, and then frustrating that once I found out where and how to add another blog, I wasn’t able to until I did more posts.

Other than that I think Pay Per Post is a really nice site to work with. It’s easy to learn, use, and navigate, and it has already given lots of people another stream of income! I know Tyler Cruz (visit his blog) has had some success with it… I hope I can make enough to start subsidizing my flight training soon! If you’re interested in making some money with your blog (even if only a little), check out Pay Per Post.

Have you used Pay Per Post? What did you think about it? Let us know - leave a comment!

Fair Winds,
Andrew