I used to be a junky (well, still am) for logics, figures, and statistics. I was damn talented at those things too (I scored the 78th highest score in all of Canada once for one of those really advanced math competitions), and I still like researching them. I strongly believe that a good understanding of statistics can help you with your business a lot - in both businesses online and offline.

Now, I must admit I’m still better at the offline stuff than online stuff. I know you’re going “What??? You’re a web developer!” Truth be told, I’ve never had a successful online-based business, but my offline based business is where I’m really growing. Although I do build some nice websites and some complicated coding projects, that really is not considered online business, but rather, a business that involves doing stuff online.

Recently I’ve been getting into a lot of marketing, demographic research, figure research, etc., and I’ve found that keeping a good tab of  the market trends, stats, etc., is a very good way to power your business. It may sound obvious, but I’ll come up with some examples.

• One of my big clients and I were devising methods to sell Costa Rican real estate in Canada. To set the feasible price range, quality of the homes to be built, we used a lot of details on the average wealth of the Canadian Baby Boomers, as well as the 25-year projected Canadian population pyramid, along with the average cost of labour in Costa Rica. These figures gave us a very good idea of the optimal price range to maximize profits and make the process quicker, not to mention it gave us an idea of how feasible the whole idea is. I’m not disclosing detailed figures, obviously
• On another occasion, we used details of the unemployment rate and education rate of a specific foreign country (not Costa Rica this time) to determine how feasible it is to get quality workers in from that country to Canada.
• I look at my Google Analytics, and I look at how the traffic fluctuates depending on the type of posts I’m writing, as well as how many links I’m generating, and also on how many comments I get. There’s always connections, and learning them is the key to understanding it.
• I always read up on financial news, and it’s always fun to keep a track of the currency exchange rate, TSX, etc. It’s all an experience to read up on these things. It’s not only for your personal Mutual Funds/Stocks, but also for a better understanding of things. This also gives you a good idea of what mutual funds to invest in. I switched over a lot of my funds from equity funds to precious metals funds and I’ve seen some successes with it. Not that I have much in investment, hence it doesn’t make much of a difference, but it’s still fun to know I made a few more percentage in gain by reading up!

I’m not undermining the strength of your gut and your instincts - I often trust them as well. But well-informed decisions based on solid statistics and facts cannot go wrong either, and if you use both of them well, you’ll gain a lot more!

As I am growing busier and busier with more work and more contracts on my hand, time management has become a critical thing for me in order to get things done. After my trip to Costa Rica, it was a bit hard to adjust back to the Vancouver rhythm of things, but I think I’m getting back at it. Here are some things I do to make the most of my time so that I get all my work done, and still have time for myself.

I won’t pepper you with the typical time management stories that you’ve heard over and over again - make a list, use organizers, plan the day and allocate x amount of hours to each task to get it done, etc. I will talk about time management from a much broader angle.

1. There are certain tasks that need to be done during the day, and certain that can be done at night. I can either drive through daytime traffic to deposit my cheque (and hopefully I’ll find parking within a block), or I can wait until late at night and do it in a leisurely fashion - perhaps even park illegally right in front of the bank, as at 12:00 AM it doesn’t really matter. Prioritize tasks.

   My method of prioritizing, as you can see, largely splits things into “business hours” and “after hours”. This should be a good place to start prioritizing what needs to be done when.

2. If time management is important for you, chances are you work from home. And chances are, sometimes you feel distracted at home - with the lure of TV, stuff in the fridge, your bed/couch for a nap, etc. When this happens I pack my briefcase with my laptop and head out to Blenz Coffee, where I can work with relatively less distractions. And since there are other people around me, I feel more pressured to actually do some stuff so I don’t look like an idiot.

   Change of location and setting can often give you a fresh boost. Feel free to use it to your advantage. I definitely do!

3. Delegate things that you can hand out. For example, I never ever cook for myself. Why? The time/effort put into grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning is not worth it. I’d rather fork out the cash to eat out every single meal (with the exception of breakfast - I’ve come to terms with putting milk and cereal into a bowl and chowing it). And I’ve given my roommate a break on the rent in exchange for being exempt from bathroom cleaning duties - no, I didn’t force her, I only offered.

   The richer you get, the more of this you should do in order to increase your efficiency - hire a maid/cleaner, nanny, etc. BUT do not EVER do this out of vanity. Your ROI by investing the money instead of your own time for these tedious tasks MUST be good enough. I only occasionally hire a cleaner these days. And I still drive myself.

4. Look for multi-tasking chances. For example, my Blackberry is a great tool for sending out emails to clients to communicate little stuff - deadlines, when to meet, etc. A lot of things can be done through a handheld machine without having to be at your computer all the time. I can send emails while I’m eating at my restaurants, walking in the park, or when I’m stopped at a red light (do NOT send emails while driving!!!).

   Another thing I also do is to bring my newspaper to restaurants. I make it mandatory for myself to read the newspaper every day so I keep in sync and keep smart. Best time, I found, to get this over with is as I’m in the restaurant, waiting for, and enjoying, my food. Talk about 2-for-1 deals, eh? It’s not only the tacos.

5. Plan your trips carefully, and always think. If you need to go to a certain destination, think of other things you can do. “Well, I have to hit Broadway and Cambie to go to the city hall. May as well pop by at Canadian tire to grab household stuff.” is how I think. I just saved myself an extra half an hour to make a separate trip. This might seem easy, but if you’re not CONSTANTLY thinking of what stuff you need to do, you will forget to do this and waste more time for tedious trips repeated.
6. Health should be a priority. You’re going “what does health have to do with time?” I hit the gym 2~3 times a week and play lots of soccer outside. It’s mandatory for my lifestyle. I like being fit and I like feeling happy. Being physically healthy will bring you more mental clarity with work at all times, and increase your efficiency overall. Also I spend much less days/hours sick with the flu etc. compared to a lot of my friends my age. Those days on antibiotics and Buckley’s are tonnes of work hours wasted.
   For those reasons, I keep physically active as much as I can, and I also rarely eat fast food. When I eat out, it’s either Subway, or a real restaurant that serves proper food. I know it sounds expensive (and it bloody well is) but it’s worth every single penny. And same could be said about my gym membership.

There you go. Some tips on better time management from a slightly different angle than the traditional stuff.

Many of you have been asking what the hell I am doing in Costa Rica on this business trip of mine, and I’ve held off explaining it for a while. But as the trip is winding down to an end (I fly out of Costa Rica tomorrow, Tuesday), I would like to disclose a little bit of it.

I am working with some people who have the right connections to provide marketing, design as well as other operational assistance to recruit skilled tradespeople from Costa Rica (and in the future, other countries) to work in Canada. The agencies set up in both countries provide the training, integration services and what not. As some of you may be aware, Canada is going into a labour shortage (or already is in one), especially in the skilled trade and construction industry, as well as the hospitality industry.

This is not my own venture, but rather one I am involved in, with an undisclosed amount of renumeration in some other undisclosed methods of payment (don’t get me wrong - I’m not rich yet, if you are able to read between the lines). I obviously do not have the kind of funds or the credit to arrange trips, invest in marketing, organize events and gatherings of government officials and other important figures in the industries, but I am involved as the right-hand man to my client. In the future we plan to venture into other countries (mainly Korea, as I already have connections, not to mention I already speak perfect Korean) to supplement the demand for foreign workers.

This has been a challenging venture for many businesspeople and they have failed due to any combination of barriers poised by bureaucracies, inefficiencies in the government systems, funding, getting the right support from the destination countries etc., and we feel that we have found some good ways to get around those things, and we have made a lot of the right connections so far in both Canada, Costa Rica, and Korea, spanning across the public and private sectors. After all, business at this level involves who you know and who likes you and how influential you are, as well as the guts to spend some of your own money before any funding is given or revenue is made.

I can’t divulge any more details in terms of names and what not until a few months later but it should be a very interesting project to keep a tab on. All I can say at this point is that we have a great team of energetic and ambitious people together to get things done.

On the side while my client and myself were staying in Costa Rica, we got deeply involved with a large real estate development company here, and I will be involved in the marketing of such things through North American channels as well. You may be asking how I can venture into so many different branches of businesses - I won’t be doing it all obviously. I have a talented and reliable network of designers, developers, marketeers, printers, and other human resources to assemble and outsource to at the snap of a finger (or more literally, a phonecall or two), and I have strong confidence that it is one of the most highly qualified team of marketing engineers (it’s a term I just coined) you can find.

I am still closely involved with my existing clients in Vancouver who rely heavily on me for my marketing and design services, and that won’t stop either. But any new clients will be accepted in a very selective manner, and I am already sending out many projects to my associates. So I’ve got a busy few years ahead of me as everything is taking a more clear form.

This blog won’t be another one of those “How to blog to make money” or “How to do affiliate marketing” or any of that sort - that’s over saturated. Blogs existing for the sake of figuring out how to make money from itself is another fad that is all over the place, just like how the .COM companies spread up like bean sprouts and then got weeded out. Instead I will be talking more about my businesses and my strategies, as well as the challenges I face in these businesses, and quite frankly I don’t care how much money I make off Google adsense - I just love writing and sharing.

If you’re wondering how a 21 year old, who grew up through his family finances going into demise, who only graduated highschool (partly because he couldn’t afford university) can land such offers and become successful, and venture into foreign countries to do business, read on.

If you would like to see some past photos and stories from Costa Rica over the last month from my stay, these are the posts.

Jeff In Costa Rica - June 26~June 28

Jeff In Costa Rica - June 29

Jeff In Costa Rica - July 1st

Jeff In Costa Rica - July 2nd & July 3rd

Jeff In Costa Rica - July 4th ~ July 6th

Jeff In Costa Rica - July 4th

Jeff In Costa Rica - July 17th~20th