I've pretty much finished up all the things that needed to be done following my mother's death, so I'm ready to return to work full-time (except for my daily visits to the swimming pool -- it has been hot, hot, hot! here in Maryland).
Clients are beginning to call again. I have a meeting today with a client that I haven't seen for about a year and a half (wondering what they've been doing all that time and why they haven't called). They have a proposal that is due on June 20. I'm going to read the RFP this morning, but from what I can tell, it looks like a major one. I can only hope they have started work on it.
Another regular client contacted me yesterday. They are going to be rebidding a project that they have been performing for the past several years. The RFP is not out yet, but they want to start preparing for it. So I'll be meeting with them in the next week or two to discuss what can be done before the solitiation hits the street.
The start of summer seems to also be a time when people get to thinking about starting their own businesses and figure they can get some kind of grant to do this. I suppose they are thinking if they start a business now, they'll be able to go to the beach whenever they please. If only. If only there was a way to get people to understand that no one is going to give them free money to start a business. If only we could all go to the beach every day. Aaaargh, dream on...
Back to work!
Hi again Deborah!
I think its very interesting what you said about people who think that they can start a business and then go to the beach everyday. Even some of the people that do live at the beach don't go to the beach everyday. I like the beach just as much as anybody but not EVERY day. But you know there are exceptions to this and one of the best examples that I can think of is someone who writes about the beach - like someone writing articles or reviews or something that's related. I also remember reading about two guys who used to mooch off of other people. When they ran out of people to mooch off of they wrote a book on how to mooch off of other people - now they have their own beach house!
Anybody who has started their own business knows that it will involve a lot of work - especially if you are doing a lot of the work yourself. And the people that want to start their own business just because they think that it will be easy really don't have a good idea of what having a business is all about. A lot of people have started their own business(es) because they hated their jobs, hated working for someone else, wanted to be able to stay home for their kids or they just had the desire or wanted to do something specific in mind.
Unfortunately I can't agree with you 100% as far as being able to get a grant to start a business. I really believe it depends on the specifics of the kind of business that someone is trying to start. There are some grants that have an entrepreneurial aspect to them as well as some grant programs that award grants for the most promising business plan(s). So I really think that it depends on the kind of business that a person wants to start.