Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I`ve been part of the SuN community now, for a couple of months. I`m an avid reader, I like to analyze stuff, I`m into the practical side of what things do and how they work. I`m not an engineer, but I look at language, logic, actions, and processes from an engineering perspective.

Reading all these topics and threads, I`ve learned a couple of things I think are really important.

• If you don`t have an excellent shopping cart right from the git-go, you`re probably going to have major headaches not too far down the road of an e-commerce site.
• A microbusiness can easily compete with the largest global enterprise on customer service. Communication with the customer is key. Good delivery, nice clean packaging, and a good product are important, but that personal communication is what a microbusiness can do that large companies struggle with.
• Do-it-yourself is great if you can do it yourself! That means BEFORE you go running off to learn how to do something you`ve never in your life attempted before, delegate! Your business is based on what you should already know how to make or the service you already know how to provide. You can either waste a lot of time learning an entirely new set of skills having little to do with your core business, or you can farm it out.

Take a moment...think about your experience here on this unusual board. What have you learned so far? :-)

Many (if not most) retailers/manufacturers make the mistake of assuming that the net can be used to sell everything to everybody.

However, net is a world of niches, it makes it possible to sell (profitably) niche products that would fail in brick and mortar stores because we can sell to somebody in LA or Chicago just the same. If one correctly identifies a niche business that is improperly addressed/served, he/she can make a fairly large business by targeting his/her products to these people. In the process creating a market that has the potential to later expand into the mainstream economy. 

My post asking the question "Could I create my own website" really brought that home Craig.

I spent a wonderful afternoon on the phone with Pat from Toner-Designs.com  The universe has provided my web designer (with a little help from one of your posts)

• I have learned that you have to stay open to all possible possibilities before turning away and discarding them.
• I have learned that my intuition is stronger than I remembered, just a little out of shape from lack of exercise--also my age has made it a little harder to hear quiet whisperings( has made it easier to do many other things-lol). I am finding solutions, opportunities, and assistance in the strangest places these days.

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"If you`ve got a frog to swallow, don`t look at it too long. And if you`ve got more than one to swallow, swallow the biggest one first"--Danny Cox

Sidebar:
What`s the difference between intuition and clairvoyance? Is intuition some sort of "psychic gobblety-gook," like reading tea leaves? No.

Surprisingly, many people don`t believe in a subconscious aspect to the mind, much like they don`t believe in the tooth fairy or Easter bunny. So if you`re one of those, words like intuition have no meaning.

However, if you accept that people have a subconscious mind, the difference between intuition and clairvoyance is based on having access to a set of data.

Clairvoyance is a supposed ability to gain information and knowledge without any physical interaction or observation. It often involves information either remotely distant from the person, or in the future (not having taken place yet).

Intuition is the subconscious running an almost entirely separate processing task, working and reworking information the person has actually experienced. It`s a true multi-tasking event, in that while our conscious mind is processing life one way, the subconscious is processing the same events entirely differently.

An intuition is the subconscious mind sending a message to the conscious mind indicating that some thinking is "done." It`s ready to act upon.

Intuition has nothing to do with psychic events, feelings, gender (as in "woman`s intuition"), or the supernatural. It`s sublevel processing outside the normal conscious awareness. To improve one`s intuition requires acknowledging having a subconscious, then opening a communication channel to that area of the mind.

I would add to what you`ve said that intuition is personal, no two people have the same intuition about the same thing because their points of reference have different perspectives (their own). Your intuition by it`s very nature is prejudiced (a predisposition to take an intellectual position relative to a given phenomenon irrespective of the nature or amount of relevant objective information) based on your past experiences, and the same is true for everybody else`s.

Also it is strongly based on signals that are not readily discernible for most i/e body language, tone of voice or other such things. Women have a natural tendency to be more adept at discerning these signals than men due to evolutionary pressures and their natural role in the ancestral tribes, because of that their `intuition` is more refined than that of their male counterparts.

Yes, intuition is a form of thinking. Clairvoyance is "knowledge by osmosis." Because it`s thinking, intuition will be biased on a personal level. And because our sensory apparatus differs, the "observed" events used in that subconscious thinking will be uniquely configured to each individual.

The main point is that to "trust one`s intuition" almost doesn`t make any sense. However, to "act upon one`s intuition" is a sensible statement. More often than not, people "ignore" their intuition, meaning that the "done" signal is so weak, it almost flashes across the conscious mind too quickly to be noticed. That`s where training can help.