Societies change over the years, but some things will always remain the same. When the US was founded, most people lived in small towns and in the country and their livelihood was farming. During the industrial revolution there was a migration from farming to urban living to work in the mills or work for someone else. Then the economy changed to a service economy or people worked for someone else but in an office setting. Now we have an economy that people do a wide range of activities, although they all depend on one thing – cash flow.

In a book called Business for Bohemians – Live Well, Make Money by Tom Hodgkinson, published by Portfolio Penguin, London, UK, 2016. Mr. Hodgkinson is publisher of a magazine called The Idler.

Bohemians want to enjoy our work and enjoy our everyday life and make a living from it, all at once. We want to be creative. We value freedom over money. We are those naive souls who want to turn our passion project into a business.

However, there are always questions with what is the intention of the business or the point of it all? Do you crave wealth? freedom? communicate a message? fun? help people? satisfaction of your job? do your want to own a small business? if it is successful how big?

Bohemians affect disdain for Mammon. They live for art and life, however if you do not pay attention to cash flow and paying bills, you will be bankrupt. The idea of business is to make profits, what you do with the profits is the rest of the story.

If you decide to go into business and the idea of the business is to be sustainable or make money for you to do the thing you love doing, it is very good idea to start with a business plan. This will focus you on your revenues and equally important the expenses – both fixed and ongoing. With a business plan you can communicate the ideas to others who could or might support you – friends, family and funders including banks.

Part of the business plan asks who are your customers? who will buy from you and how will you reach out to them?

Who is going to be on your team. Yes, you will do most of the work, but you cannot do everything. One of the most important jobs will be the bookkeeping and maintaining your eye on the profit and loss (P&L) numbers. Spreadsheets can track the numbers in real time. You need to keep what comes in and what goes out tightly controlled. In the old days, people wrote cheques, now there are many instant transfers that can happen. Understanding your revenues versus expenses is how fast you pay bills. Note every year, all the forms to run a business are a little easier to access, a little easier to do.

Get the Price Right and Get Paid. Pricing in every industry is very tricky, most new businesses undervalue their prices which means they barely breakeven. You have to understand what price for your product or service, because anyone can give stuff away. It is better to be higher, than low. If you are higher, you can always have a sale or change pricing to move product along. Margins are important, do you know what yours are?

It terms of selling, you must genuinely like what you are selling. You must have a website – companies such as Shopify and Amazon have templates. You will learn what one works best for you, allow time to learn. Often people sign up for social media, do not spend money chasing likes and retweets, use your time to create an engaging piece of creative content.

Keep track of your customers, they bought from you once, they likely will buy from you again. There are relatively easy programs to maintain mailing lists.

As a business owner, you will negotiate. Learn and follow some rules – do not negotiate with yourself; do not get too attached to a particular outcome – if you are not prepared to walk away, you are powerless; take your time; put the relationship first; seek first to understand; if the other party is still talking, they are still negotiating; give options and signal the negotiations are finished, fail sometimes.

How to Choose who you work with – of all the means to ensure happiness throughout the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friends Epicurus.

In your business, you will hire and fire people, the hiring is the most pleasurable. The firing will be needed and is the toughest decision you will do. You have a desire to do good, but the person you hired is not working out, they are costing your business money, sometimes it is your fault, You hired them for a reason, but perhaps you assume the staff would do exactly what we wanted them to do without us having been clear what that was. Unless it is theft of money which is a crime, there will be a combination of reasons to let a person go. How to avoid firing is part of KPI or Key Performance Indicators. Most staff will not care as much about the business as you do. You will learn, but expect mistakes by a process of checking references and teaching your employees.

At some point in your business, someone will not be happy with your product or service and will say so on social media. Be prepared. After you feel righteous and defensive, try to learn or listen to what the complaints are and find solutions. Do not take the complaints personally.

Many communications seem to have a desire to be instant, do not go into that trap. Take time with your correspondence. Wait a few hours before answering, find a space where you will not be distracted and do them there.

Try to work smart and find time to idle or enjoy yourself or have fun.

In your business, you will and want to do additional things, some of them will fail so the key is to simplify and stick with the things you have done or enjoy or are comfortable with. Do them.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, one of the ideas of dividend paying stocks is when you receive the income you have options what to do with it. You can enhance your lifestyle, you can buy more stock, you can do a variety of things which allows you to idle more or do the things you want to do because of the cash flow. Sometimes it takes a few years before you have the options, but having the options is what life is about. Even for the bohemians, cash flow is very important.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.