As Small Business owners, we’re always hustling and sleep can often be a casualty of the “up late, up early” workflow. What do you do when your brain just won’t shut down long enough to get some much needed sleep? Listener Elias asks Dave and Shannon for advice about disconnecting enough to fall asleep. Their suggestion might surprise you!

You’re an expert in some things and probably need help in other areas. We spend some time discussing why you should create an Expertise List to identify what you do really well and what areas you need to find some tools or people to prop you up a bit. Similar to our Success List exercise, the simple act of writing down what you are good at can help you tremendously to identify areas to get help with.

What areas of your business are changing? Yes, we know, all of them. But, if you had to pick revenue streams that you think will be decreasing in the next 12-24 months, could you? And once you identify those revenue streams that are drying up, what are you working on to replace them? We discuss Planned Obsolescence for areas of your business that are headed downward – the art of finding new streams of revenue for your business, before those older streams dry up.

We wrap up the Small Business Show this week with a quick mention of our interview with Paul Downs that is scheduled for next week. Paul was the Small Business blogger for the New York Times and is the author of Boss Life, a book you need to get your hands on.

Listen in and send us your comments or questions via text at 401-472-4249 or visit our Facebook page. We hope you enjoy the show!

Chapters and Timestamps:

• 00:00:00 Small Business Show #82 August 31st, 2016
• 00:01:50 Elias – Waking Up in the middle of the night?
• 00:07:05 The Obstacle Is the Way
• 00:08:23 Reminders app
• 00:09:10 Notes app
• 00:13:42 Make Your Own Expertise List
• 00:17:35 And One for Your Employees?
• 00:20:54 Planned Obsolescence – It happens to YOU
• 00:26:00 Shannon Says “Verticals”
• 00:28:44 Perseverance – Next week with Paul Downs

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How to you stay healthy and keep your energy level up while you are hustling to make your Small Business a success? Join Dave and Shannon for episode 81 of the Small Business Show to hear about how these two have managed while starting and growing multiple small businesses.

Before we jump into health and energy, we start the show with a quick discussion of encryption and why it’s so important for your Small Business website. Dave discusses a new free option, Let’s Encrypt, that allows you to setup free security certificates for your website.

After the exciting topic of encryption (Dave the nerd loves talking tech!), we jump right into bed. To discuss sleep, of course, and why it’s important to set a sleep schedule based on your energy levels, rather than traditional hours – if you have the flexibility to do so.

Food then takes center stage as the benefits of grazing vs. big meals is discussed, followed by another favorite: Caffeine! Red Bull or Coffee? You make the call! We then jump into (no pun intended) exercise, the benefits of walks and again, coming up with an exercise plan that works for you.

Finally, we point out that your business is not your life and that to keep healthy, you need to often step away and work ON your business, not in it. We recommend the awesome book, Rework from the folks at 37 Signals. Check it out and listen in to hear more!

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Join us today for episode 80 of the Small Business Show where we spend some time discussing our recent interview with Greg Mercer of JungleScout! Dave and Shannon both agree that Greg is a “career escape artist” and has created a unique business to take advantage of missing data and support in the Amazon FBA marketplace.

We also talk about the difference between failing often as a Small Business Owner (which we encourage) vs. being flakey (which we don’t). One way to insure your failures are learning lessons that help you to success is to hold yourself accountable, more accountable than anyone else will.

Our Success List idea comes up again during the show and we encourage every Small Business owner to start building their list to refer back to when you need to pull yourself up, to recognize that you are making strides and moving in the right direction.

Since it’s a mix of topics today, we also get an update on Shannon’s “Can I create a social media business that runs solely on my iPhone” experiment. You’ll hear some revenue and profit numbers and more tips on managing time demands when your business is always in your pocket.

Finally, we discuss our favorite new Small Business book, Boss Life by Paul Downs, 2nd only to the E-Myth in our opinion. Which book should you read first and why? Listen in to find out!

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Today on the Small Business show we are joined by Greg Mercer of JungleScout! Greg shares his story of “escaping employment” to become a small business owner, first by selling wholesale products on Amazon, then developing private labeled goods to distinguish his company with quality products and customer service.

Along the way, Greg realized that he could really use some software that would help him figure out what products to sell on Amazon by tracking demand, sell-through and other data. Since no such software existed, Greg decided to create it and JungleScout was born! The company now provides a number of different analytic tools for Amazon sellers along with other products like ReviewKick, Splitly and Fetcher.

Listen in and we guarantee you’ll learn as much as Dave and Shannon did during their chat with Greg!

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Join us for this week’s edition of the Small Business Show! Dave and Shannon spend some time going over their interview with Tim Cote of Commonwealth Foreign Exchange from the last episode and then quickly jump into some of their core beliefs about how to succeed with your Small Business:

Convince yourself (lie if you have to!) that you are a rock star, that every small success you have will build a foundation for larger successes down the road
Make your own movie: So what if reality tells you otherwise!? You’re in charge of how your life goes, keep a smile on your face, tell yourself all the great stuff your learning, (even if you are failing a lot) and keep moving forward.
Keep your Success List up to date: Be sure to recognize those small successes you have every-single-day
Like Scott Adams, we’re bigger fans of Systems than Goals

Listen in and then let us know what you think! What works for you to keep you headed in the right direction with your Small Business? Stop by our new Facebook Small Business Support Group and share your thoughts.

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