Enchanted Quilll Press LLC

Storms of a Soul by Joseph Delgado is now discounted 30% on the last few first run books.

President's Blog

7/03/10 Got Scared for a Sec.
So far the yardstick for my Company is the amount of money coming in by Quarter. Last Quarter was pretty hectic and managed to pull in over $790. When I tallied up the numbers for the second quarter it fell to about half at $370, so I was instantly depressed until...I compared the YTD to last year we're already ahead of the first three quarters combined! So can surpass last year and hit two thousand if we can stay where we are, but who on Earth wants to do that? (Continued Below Graph)

EQP LLC Gross Receipts by Quarter. 7/3/10.

I know, I know. Two thousand per year is almost nothing. My wife used to point out that she can make in one night what my company pulled in per quarter (2008). Anyway have been blessed by a couple of people who really help my business grow. Now in our third year, we can pull in what took a year inside a Quarter. It's tough with my wife (who works full-time and works two to three nights), two boys under 6, and a full-time job...but I believe in my Company and what I'm trying to do. So yes, I sometimes burn the candle at both ends and sometimes in the middle. I believe this is the only way I can make a difference. It's been a long time, fifteen years, so pursuing this is all I remember and want to do.

6/13/10 I want it! I want it now!! Has to wait.
There's always that urge to believe things are ok. Well numbers don't lie. The biggest obstacle to my business is myself. To think I can be successful under a mountain of debt is crazy. Fortunately there's a plan, but it's going to take time. A couple of years at least. Hopefully before I'm 45. That's about five and a half years from now. A least getting rid of debt is a great plan "A". My company is a good plan "C". Who knows maybe I can swap plans and improve things but carrying debt is very stupid either way. So taking out personal debt is step one.

A long time ago, I was guilty of buying things on credit because I wanted it. A couple of times my Dad has bailed me out. Was a nice thing for him to do, but it didn't teach me anything. The last time he bailed me out was when I was married already and had a newborn. Still didn't learn that lesson and now with a mortgage and other expenses I was going to learn it real soon.

Jump ahead a few years and my family has another son. My wife and I both drive new cars and we have a good size debt on one credit card. I felt really bad about getting two car payments after my Dad wiped the slate clean again. Still didn't learn my lesson. I don't want him to wipe the slate clean this time. About time I take some responsibility for my actions. Anyway we live paycheck to paycheck and there's often too much month at the end of the money. My wife and I have had arguments over money a lot recently and we came to the realization we're working poor. We look pretty good on the outside but looking at our income statement we're being eaten alive by debt. Don't want to stretch things out with a consolidation loan, 2nd mortgage, or whatever just want to attack debt like some hungry beast and make sure it's dead for good!

So need to tighten the belts around here. Focus on one personal debt at a time and stick to a budget without plastic. My business is run pretty much debt free. Think the worst move I can do right now is try to grow too fast by taking on a massive amount of risk and debt. I've seen where that path leads personally and don't want to risk that for my company. My wife also wanted to raid the company for money, but that's not happening on my watch. Worked too hard to push the numbers up week by week, quarter by quarter, to go back to $0 now. Also read in a book, that using company income for current expenses just gets you dependent on that second income. Idea is to have my company as a primary source of income and not a supplement.

Storms of a Soul by Joseph Delgado 05/28/10 Storms of a Soul Now on Kindle!
Last month, I wrote about making an effort for my book on its fifteen year anniversary. Very happy to write that I did that by offering my book on Kindle. For a small publisher it makes perfect sense since a company doesn't have to commit a lot of money to laying out and printing a book. It also doesn't have to distribute the book. The same book can be downloaded from a Kindle or Kindle Reader (Blackberry, iPhone, PC, etc.) It's like something out of Star Trek, so why not go digital?

Publishing was the easy part now comes the hard part and marketing my eBook. There's other books I want to publish and need to start getting some small gears turning. I did one and that was an accomplishment my old self would be happy of, but still there's more ground to cover and a last quarter to beat. So publishing the book is a very small spark. Might take a lot of tries to tend that spark into a fire, but that's the fun part of running a company. More...



5/14/10 "If Things Don't Go Right, Take'em to the Left."
A quote from the late Dr. Paul Pearsall's. I hate giving up, but, there comes a time when continuing down a path will rob you of other opportunities. I've come to finally realize that about my poetry book, Storms of a Soul, is not going to be gobbled up by my friends on Facebook or ordered by people on my site without a lot of effort. Question becomes is it worth that effort?

As President of Enchanted Quill Press LLC, I would say no. If someone came up to me with an idea for a printed poetry book, I would also say no without any hesitation. There are no resources, we're not even a blip on the market, and the risk on return would be too high to calculate, but when it's my book. I see it through rose colored glasses and that's very dangerous.

As I write this, the idea of trying to again sell a few books on consignment to a couple of book stores might be worth an effort. I don't know how the landscape has changed since I first published. There might also be other mediums like an iPhone Application, Kindle, or Nook that can reach a lot more people with very little cost. To continue to peddle printed books especially about poetry seems to be a way of the past. Especially when you need to provide books to stores who are not willing to take more than a few copies at a time.

Bottom line, "Storms of a Soul" is just not going to work printed. Fifteen years ago, it cost me $1.75 per book and I sold it for $5.49. A typical bookstore took a good 40%. Some quick math, I made $1.54 per book. Considering each book has an old address on it, old Books in Print info, and just fifty copies left. Even if I sold all the books my company stands to make $77. Then what happens?

Do I commit more company resources to a second printing? A second printing with a low cost per book will probably be hundreds of more books plus the time typesetting and working with printers, etc. I also remember talking to distributors and needing about two more titles to even be considered. Also my book doesn't have a spine so it becomes lost of a bookshelf. So no, I don't see any positives to continue doing things the old way.

Went right and things didn't go well...let's go left.

Joe Delgado and his book Storms of a Soul.04/26/10 My Poetry Book Turns Fifteen
I wrote another entry about my book, so don't want to repeat what I wrote there. I suppose being part of the President's Blog I should write about fifteen years ago and what possessed me to start a business and to write a poetry book.

Dead Poets Society was an awesome movie and it had a great impact on my life since High School. Anyway I feel that needs to be included here. Fast forward a bit, went to Ohio, finished College, and came back to New Jersey. Going from being on my own with my friends in College and learning about myself to coming back to the same BS I had with my parents wasn't. That shy, introverted, self-loathing person didn't exist anymore–or so I thought. I made some good strides in my shy life and to have that threatened was one of the causes of my depression. A depression that scared the crap out of me when for a second I thought about driving my car off the road. Didn't do it, thankfully didn't do it.

So I wrote in my journals about my life and some of it didn't fit just paragraphs, so wrote some poems. I walked around North Bergen and New York City...anything except home. Some poems didn't make the cut into the book, but some I felt told my story. I spent a lot of time at Barnes and Noble in West Patterson NJ and probably bought too many books. One of them was, "The Self-Publishing Manual" by Dan Poytner and I was following that full force! I was like a man possessed about getting the book published, but passion without direction is dangerous. Suddenly I found myself with a bunch of books and no business experience or skills to move'em. Gained a little since then, but still lots to learn.

Anyway in danger of repeating what I wrote in the other entry. Was fun looking back on the fifteen years and there's some parts I wish I was more aggressive on, but being married and having two kids. Perhaps I made the right moves at the right time afterall.

If you'd like to order my poetry book please use the following links for mail order (PDF) or PayPal. Please make a note if you'd like it autographed.

04/13/10 Frustrated. Too Many Projects! Too Little Time!!
Often when I sit down at my computer there's a long list of Projects I want to work on. It's frustrating that I can't work on all of them during the day and it's reduced to a couple of hours a week. The nagging projects are the ones that can move the Company forward, some projects to move my Racquetball League forward, and the other is something to help my son, Jason, identify words. I also keep thinking about my iPhone and developing for that. So there's no focus just expelling energy in random directions.

So the project for my Son wins for now. He's starting Kindergarten in a few months and the time feels like it's flying by. Maybe it can help other kids too, and indirectly my Company. Plus it's small, involves Flash, and might actually be fun to develop. Inbetween I can finish up the bugs in my Personal Finance App which I've been using to manage deposits and pay bills for a little while now.

03/28/10 Things Change.
My wife called me up this afternoon saying that her Dad was a little upset with me about something I wrote here last May (2009). Basically the fact he was supportive of my business when my blog entry suggested he wasn't. She was chastising me about knowing better about posting stuff everyone can read. Can you say "Dog house"? There's plenty of material in my other blogs that hasn't sat well with too many. Probably the worst was when I first published my poetry book, "Storms of a Soul", back in 1995. A couple of poems hit my Father pretty hard since the shoe could have easily fit him. Both my parents weren't too happy.

All I can write is that things change. I have more respect for my Father since having children of my own and my Father has more respect for me being an active and supportive Father. A lot of the poems in my book now belong to another life. Just like that blog entry belonged to a different person almost a year ago.

I'm glad to have my Father-in-Law's support and there was one thing he told me recently that cemented that fact. I was talking to him about my business and that I have put just about every business expense either through a business checking or business credit card. He looked me straight in the eye and said, "Good, you're learning." That made my day. So thanks Dad.

03/23/10 Costs of Goods Sold. The Ultimate Buzzkill.
Running back last year's numbers and basically need to go back and assign a cost of goods sold to each transaction. Nothing kills a good sales number buzz than COGS. Let's say I sell a racquet for $60, but the same racquet costs me $30 to get into the shop. So I made $30. Now factor in the cost of the demo racquet the customer borrowed and my time selling the racquet. Suddenly that $60 doesn't look too pleasing.

It just got reinforced, for the fifith time. that just stringing racquets is not going to get my company where it needs to be. We're having a great first quarter, but need more assets (products) working for my company that require less time. Been gaining ground on my Mac Development and more of Objective C is making sense. Jason, my oldest, found a floppy disk of some old C++ code for a game I was writting back in 1995. My best friend, Otto, just smiled at it. Reminded me of where I came from and unfortunately of where I haven't gone. Now there's momentum and a direction but to be honest I feel like there's more resistance. Like I'm trying to punch through something elastic...I think it's me.

It's a crime to hold someone back based on your limited perception of that person. It is far worse a crime to hold yourself back because of fear. Fear shows up because we haven't planned and prepared. Having a plan and being prepared only requires consistent action. So time to review what worked this quarter and push.

03/13/10 Best Quarter Ever! But now I'm scared.
It's a funny thing. Work to develop a company and start raising the bar and then all of the sudden...I'm afraid of not being able to get there next quarter. I'm grateful to all my customers and supporters out there, you've really made a difference in my company in just a few short months. It's an odd feeling and there's still a lot of work and a couple of zeros to make it successful. The company exceeds $700, we more than doubled last year's first quarter.

So no reason to be afraid if it reaches $70,000 and there's employees and real estate to care for then this fear of failure at $700 would be a walk in the park. Anyway don't want this quarter to be a fluke and want to keep expanding the Company. So running back all the numbers back for tax time and keep the CPA happy.

03/08/10 Visual Basic for Applications to the Rescue!
I've been using VBA for Microsoft Office (Access, Excel, and even Word) since 1998 around when Office 97 came out. What Visual Basic for Applications does for these programs is pretty incredible and my latest project took less than a few hours to code and saved me a lot of time entering data into tables by hand.

The problem. For Racquet Stringing I maintain a database of work performed for my Company's customers. For a while, I entered the data manually but it took a long time and as business picked up the backlog started and just kept getting worse. Even if I created a User Interface for it. I would still be doing data entry.

The Solution. An Access code module that can read my Excel spreadsheets for my stringing business and insert the data directly into the online database I use for my customers. No data entry, no worries about errors, and all I have to do is feed the code an Excel file. Perfect. It even works going forward until my Company's stringing application is ready.

Over the years I have done programs that parse, format, and email Excel spreadsheets. Also done Access databases that create and Save Word Forms. Generate web pages after parsing an Excel Spreadsheet. The work VBA has saved me, co-workers, and other people is off the chart. So I'm very happy to build a solution that solves a major problem for my company.

02/28/10 Stopping the Bleeding
I dropped a couple of balance forward deposits and entered a few payments into my company's budget/banking/expense tracking app this afternoon. It didn't really blow up just a couple of bugs to tweak out. Already the gears are moving on other stuff I can add to the application, but I just need something to stop the bleeding right now. There's plenty of other cuts and gashes to triage next.

One of them is stringing. I announced that we were working on a stringing application on Meet and Play a while back and haven't delivered yet on any platform be it Access, iPhone, or Web. I also have a lot of Service Tags to enter into my Web App, but refuse to do another entry until I get a user interface going. It's just too painful to enter the information manually into a couple of tables each time.

I also need to follow-up with a lot of customers and want to have their respective service tag in the system. Not to mention the usual company, family, and work stuff. Lastly need a web app to work with my company's Merchant Services provider so more customers can pay by credit card and not involve other people asking for money from customers.

So definitely feel the pressure of too many things cooking at once and if I want to this to continue to work and grow then the Company's and my personal time need to be as crisp and as productive as possible. The Web Interface for my Stringing Service Tags is next. Getting that under control will help follow-up with my customers, get them some valuable info, and give me an online resource that I can access anywhere.

02/14/10 Lots of App Ideas, but a Personal App is First in Line
Plenty of things going on between iPhone and Mac Development, to working on our Access Database for Racquetball, Stringing and Stringing Software, to a pending web site deal for a Physical Therapy practice. Not to mention family and work. But following Steve Jobs quote about focus. There's only one project I'm devoting my coding time to.

It's a pretty small database to handle my personal banking and expenses. Things are pretty strained and mostly because my family income is not being coordinated correctly. I could say managed but that's not the right word. Money has a very specific purpose and it needs to be ready at the right time. Too much doing nothing (wish I had that problem) and chances are wasted. Too little and it becomes like a tear in a pool liner...it just rushes out as additional expenses.

So I'm keeping it very simple track my deposits, track my payments, and help coordinate the cashflow so things move smoothly. There's always that lure to add more features and make it bigger than it needs to be, but need something soon and need it solid.

I know, why not use something off the shelf? I've tried other accounting and personal finance products but it's just extra work. I've managed my money a certain way since I was teenager. This program is being written to satisfy my needs. It would be great if it can be a product for my company. I believe it's a great way to manage money and I expect it to be a great system.

Business is doing real well compared to last year. We're already double the amount of income. The goal is to exceed $500 this quarter, so we can hope to exceed last year. We've partnered with Gearbox Racquetball to sell racquetball racquets and equipment through Joe's Racquet Stringing which is our currently our main source of income. Which leads to a new problem...moving the merchanise and keeping the cashflow gears turning in the right direction.

iPhone App01/28/10 iPhone Development Good to Go!
I no longer second guess my decision to get my company a Mac Book. My company can develop iPhone applications and I went through the process with a sample application. To see it run on my iPhone means that the path we need to follow is right at my feet. Just need to decide where the company is going and start walking.

It's not going to be an overnight thing, there's still plenty of other projects to work on and I'm going to need some warm-up time with both Mac and iPhone Development but the pieces of the puzzle are out of the box and counted. So just need to work on finding the corners first. It's pretty exciting and all we need is some good momentum. At left, is my first form design and sample application. All it does is run and that's good for right now.

01/12/10 Way Off Focus!
Might be too late to write "Happy New Year" but I need to write it. 2009 ended with a lot of challenges to my property, my family, and even myself. Our youngest, Matt, was in the Hospital for four days. A tree fell on our house doing damage to the roof and costing a good amount of money to clean up. Then I was in the Hospital for something that started about four weeks ago. I'm happy to report we are all doing better and looking forward to a better year.

It's hard to maintain focus with all these things going on...Well let me say it was impossible to keep focus and a lot of time I set aside for projects just evaporated. Overall, my company was a bit over extended buying a Mac Book. It was a fairly reckless decision but wanted to expand. Problem is can't complete the things I'm ready to do and don't have time to learn something new. So it was probably a bad decision considering how hard the company worked for that money and there's more expenses coming.

Really need to develop shareware and other services that turn the expenses for SSL and Code Signing Certificates into assets. Guess I'm guilty of building the company into something it's not ready for too quickly. Reminds me of my experiences back in 1995 when it was role-playing more than anything else. It's disappointing to have to relearn that lesson.

12/08/09 Racquet Stringing Application Up Next.
Actually have customers waiting for this one, so I'm very excited to get started on application design for my company. I've been developing applications since my Commodore Vic-20 days in 1985/6, so I really love how things all inter-connect and come together to form something with a purpose. It's also very self-serving since I need an application to track the racquets done by Joe's Racquet Stringing it's hard to consisently follow-up and run the numbers using a bunch of Excel spreadsheets, Access, and a simple web application. I believe having one place that's streamlined and easy to use will be big for my business and others.

I did a Mind Manager map about what I want included and it quickly spidered out into a large app with all the bells and whistles I wanted. The creative gears slowed until I'll followed some advice I received from a strange place, work, about five years ago when one of the higher-ups (Dr. Mike Breton) told me just duplicate the functionality of our existing system for now. I was in charge of setting up a new database system (COEUS) and make it fit into our existing business practices.

Anyway, very simple and strong advice for a couple of reasons:

  1. We know the entire process from start to finish.
  2. Already have a strong idea of what data we need to capture and report on.

We plan on releasing Microsoft Access 2003/2007 and web versions of the product.

11/19/09 Ambition
Was something that Chris Knight started on Facebook about skill and ambition. It cooked for a while and then I thought about this.

"Ambition without Passion is greed.
Ambition without Focus is a dream.
Ambition without Responsibility is evil." --Joe Delgado.

Lord knows I've had my share of ambitions, but it wasn't until recently that I started thinking about my passions, my focus, and my responsibility. And how those three merge in my Company. Year end is quickly approaching and I've been pushing pretty hard to get the numbers up and work on projects that are most important right now. It's tough to work, come home have some time with the family, and then sacrfice recreation time and sleep to move something forward. Passion, Focus, and Responsibility are my new mantras. Oh and let's not forget Ambition.

11/12/09 User Administration Tool
Strictly going to be a tool for the management of user accounts on my site. Basically it will work with all the other PHP Classes I've developed and bring them together to make my job easier to create and maintain accounts. It's a pretty big piece and I believe has a big pay-off for my Racquetball site. So the focus laser is locked on that target until it's done.

10/29/09 Steve Jobs on Focus
On CnnMoney.com they have an article on Steve Jobs from Apple on focus. Anyway here's the quote the floored me:

"People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are." -- Steve Jobs.

I only get a few minutes in the morning on the computer before heading off to that other place. I can tell this morning that I went on Facebook and Twitter and checked my email. What a waste compared to moving one project forward. Need to say no to a lot of distractions and no to a lot of other projects. Just makes sense and falls in line with Chris Gardner's advice to hit the anvil.

Seems to be my fatal flaw here. Lots of ideas and only a little progress on each one. Better to save all the ideas and complete on that can move the company forward.

10/15/09 Any which Way but Loose
Been pretty busy especially with Racquet Stringing I'm going to need a User Interface to my database system pretty soon. Manually adding data to tables is a waste of time, but necessary to a degree. I would hate to start coding only to realize I was missing something really important and need to tear down what I already did. So hopefully on Saturday I can walk around all the parts and start putting something together.

Fourth Quarter is really starting out strong and would love to break into another shareware or web application before the end of the year. Still climbing that learning curve. I recently bought an iPhone and I'm pretty much in love. It does everything I need on the go and has me thinking in new directions about my business. Only problem is setting up the targets and knocking them down. Big problem serving two masters, but still need the master that helps pay the bills...Still part of me thinks I can make it happen full-time and that's a good feeling.

09/30/09 Racquet Stringing Application Development
Been a while since I blogged. Been more stuff to do lately and gearing up for some more application work. One of the side projects here is to get Racquet Stringing more organized and under control with an application. Already have Service Tags in place and I believe that is helpful for customers, but updating tables by hand is a chor. So will focus on that for a while.

There's a lot of features I would like to include that as a stringer I would find helpful. It'll be great to get a bigger release out there. I've bounced back and forth with it being web based or in Microsoft Access. Web based would take a lot longer to develop. It is also more difficult to double back and add new features, tables, etc. when compared to Access.

9/30/09 Phyiscal Therapy Application Development
My wife, Karen, is a Doctor of Physical Therapy for about six to seven years already. I believe she needs to have her own practice and so does she. We got on the subject of software (if any) she has used in her past jobs. So we ran through a quick brainstorm at the 1,000 foot view. Came back with a pretty long list of objects and features.

Thinking it will need to be a much smaller scale as with other projects. Companies that have not used a software package in this day and age are going to hard to convert. Better to look at the most complicated areas of the business and make it easier for them.

09/10/09 Our First Web Project Review: Big Problem with an Easy Solution
Over the long weekend, I completed my company's first web services project at http://blog.littlunsblog.com/. I've done similar web work before but this is the first time under my company. One of the things I immediately noticed with the site was the long load time even with a great computer and network connection. I ran it through a speed test and it exceeded the maximum size. I downloaded a copy and it weighed in at 25 MB. Well that's an insane amount for people to put up with and a waste of bandwidth.

So I spoke with the clients and explained the problem and they were eager to have it resolved, which my company did in about an hour's worth of time. Resized the images and converted them to JPEG format. My clients were very happy and cut a check for the work. I learned a lot about selling and making a win/win outcome from those two sales calls. I admit, I was pretty nervous during the first one. Looking forward to hosting a couple sites for them and continuing to build a good business relationship.

08/25/09 Expanding Reality.
One of my biggest pitfalls when I first started Enchanted Quill Press as a DBA in 1995 was getting lulled into a fantasy world where I thought I was being successful or more importantly not working on goals that push the business to the next level. I had no idea what the next level was and in some ways I still don't. The difference now? I know there's a dark place that needs a lot of mapping.

At the top of the list is if my full time job dried up tomorrow what would I do? What would this company do? But that's kind of a negative perspective that implies that I need my job in order to keep things working both personally and at the company. Very true at this moment, but not where I want to be ten years from now.

So next quarter is going to involve a lot of goal setting and commitment to a couple of projects for early 2010. Also a good chance to finish up any loose ends from this year. I almost forgot...it's also a time to celebrate the accomplishments of this year. Enchanted Quill Press LLC turns one on 8/28/09!

08/12/09 A Step Closer to a Better Site.
Finally incorporated the new logo into a new web design. First and foremost, I wanted to consolidate a lot of wasted space. Between the old logo, the image map, the site updates, and our contact information about half or more of the page was wasted on 1024x768. So I'm glad the new design saves space, accomplishes the same thing, and allows the space for site updates to be used for graphics, Flash, and other text in the future.

It was a pretty quick redesign. I just wanted to think things through and incorporate a lot of the previous versions ideas in a better way. As some of you know, I had foot surgery last week so between bed rest and slowly moving around I haven't had much productive time. Actually had to turn away a new stringing customer, I should have just propped myself on a stool and did the racquet. Serves to show how my company's income is directly tied to my hours...not a good idea.

08/07/09 So what do you do? I'm...
I was asked that a couple of days ago during Jason's field trip. I didn't give an answer I was particully proud of. I basically answered with the details of my job. I should have said, I'm the President of a small company that specializes in printed, software, and web publications. Oh well, I guess I measured where most of my income is coming from instead of where my dreams are.

I'd better get real comfortable being President of my company if I have any hopes of making it great.

Enchanted Quill Press LLC Logo08/03/09 New Company Logo
WhatShakin did a great job on my company logo. Now comes the job of making the site match the cailbur of the logo. There's so much wasted space with the old logo, the image map, and the site updates that on 10248x768 all you see is logo. So goal #1 is to get all the content under control and a lot more compact. So people can see more content and a lot less logo.

Will probably keep the color scheme simple off-white and blue from the logo works. I might also add a menu bar to keep expanding content and make navigation easier. Really want to set apart the logo and have room to showcase some products or services without reworking the entire page.


Jason on the Sea Gypsy07/14/09 Poor and Great Customer Service at the Cape
Took a long weekend with the family at Cape Cod this past weekend. Anything is hard with two kids, but there were times when Jason was acting like a complete brat yelling in restaurants and stuff and other times were special like sailing on the Sea Gypsy while Jason pretended to be Pirate. Then it got soured a bit at the bowling alley near our motel.

The manger of the bowling alley was nice to offer us a $19 package until noon, so we can play a few games for a lower price. Jason enjoyed candlestick bowling and we had a pretty good time. Then Jason wanted to play some of the video games and get some tickets. He got about 14. We went to the counter to redeem them and the person there was so disinterested, aloof, and just barely helpful that it soured bowling and most of the trip...I needed to force myself to remember the good parts of the trip just to get over it.

All she needed to do was put on a smile and say "Wow that's a lot of tickets. Let's count them. Do you want some candy?" Just something for my son to be proud of. Obviously it affected me enough to blog about it, but that's just it. One misstep with a customer and boom it has a far reaching ripple effect. We go to the Cape almost every year and my wife has been to that bowling alley since she was a kid.

I don't blame the employee on this one. I think it's a management and training issue. It's also sad to see more and more corporations taking over the Cape. The small businesses up there really need to focus on customer service to survive. Anyway needed to get that off my chest.

I highly recommend taking your kids on the Sea Gypsy you get to see most of the Cape Cod Harbor. Jason had a great time (second from the right) interacting with the crew, the ship, and shooting the evil Pirate with water cannons...and the customer service was great!

06/25/09 Am I Kidding Myself?
Guess I've gotten used to the Axe hanging over my head at work, but when it finally falls what would I do? That's the question I asked myself last night during a moment of weakness. Sleep hasn't been plentiful, the hours have been long, and between kids, work, and trying to move forward on a site without a firm plan. It was real easy to let my guard down and let that self-defeating thought through.

It's been another great quarter even without billing two racquets to myself. A new customer has been great drumming up more business for my company and it's great to have that kind of help. My focus is always on doing a good job and following up with people. Now if only I can add something related to computers...the company will move on.

I watched Dinner Impossible with my wife last night and the Chef's mission was to plan a dinner for Yahoo. It was funny to hear they started a company with next to nothing and had to buy some cheap purple paint for the walls. Well my company doesn't even have walls to paint and another thought that sneaked in was they started in 1994. I started on the Internet around that time. I obviously didn't make the same moves.

Hate to end this entry on a somber note, so this quarter should close over $400! So I'm raising the bar to $400 per quarter now. Maybe even more ambitious $500! Work is in the way I think, it's too easy to fall back on a paycheck than learn how to hit the street and make a company work. Pretty sure a lot of my friends and family find my company as a hobby, that I'm not cut out to be President of a Successful Company, or the Company just wouldn't work and would turn into broken records of "Think of your family, find another job!" Well can honestly say, I don't want a job. I want this Company! I also want the Company for my family.

So going to working on another site and my first commercial application and have them both ready by the end of September. Time to prove some people dead wrong!

06/16/09 Critical Need for Networking!
I was pretty sick last week and when I felt better I worked on my racquetball site. I purchased a code signing certificate and Visual Studio for my company and haven't used it yet. That part is starting to irk me a bit, but I also have an SSL certificate for my web sites, so a lot of directions and just need to focus on one mark.

Almost done with the Second Quarter and I exceeded the goal of another $300. I was hoping for $400 and I've just been too comfortable letting business come to me. So just need to get into the habit of developing and releasing applications, so I can make use of my Company's assets. Also need to develop a networking group to help small businesses (including EQP) exchange referrals. As I wrote, waiting for business is a very bad idea. Chasing down anything that moves is also a bad idea. Asking for business and networking are the best ideas. It's a simple thing, just need to make the best use of time to go after the most profitable and qualified contacts.

05/19/09 Nay-Sayers
Starting to realize that working a job and trying to run a Company are very incompatiable. Most people are very quick to point out all the negatives. A co-worker said I'm at my job for my kids. My Father-in-Law said a similar thing, albeit more indirectly. He said he pulls out a newspaper article with a picture of his grandchildren and says this is why I put up with all the politics. My parents have kind of stopped...I can be a little more abrupt. Anyway I'm pretty sure none of this would happen if I were running a successful company full time.

Well we all speak from our point of view and I can't find fault with what they believe. Problem is they appear more set in their perspective than I am in mine. I know there's a lot of challenges waiting for me and time is not on my side. I also look at my children but instead of just enduring for a bleak future I work for opportunity to spend more time with them, to provide them with wealth, and to have a good life.

So while my co-worker and my Father-in-Law maybe right in some respects their own fear limits their own future. It's hard not to get insulted when they try to impose limits on my own. So not saying another word about it to them.

05/12/09 Second Quarter Goal Review
May has been a pretty tough month my youngest was Baptized, my oldest had his fourth birthday party, and just preparations for each. Also had a pretty slow month in April, but I did two racquets for myself using some high quality string and my company is only about forty dollars away from matching my goal of another $300.00. I setup some goals at the end of last quarter and just wanted to review them. Hopefully I can extract them from the text.

Fifteen Racquets per Quarter
Did one last month and five so far this month, so playing catch up. I kind of had an Ace in the hole here and used my own racquets to make up the difference this quarter, which is kind of cheating...robbing Peter to pay Paul. Including business cards with the racquets has brought some new prospects, but might branch into Tennis racquet service. I just got a chill.

R.R. Bowker
Need to get my Books in Print Annotation straightened out so Google Books doesn't show my company's old address. There was no reason to quit, I could have done better with this, instead I let almost a decade pass.

Straighten things up with Amazon
I think I can just take care of the basics here so Amazon doesn't think my book is "Out of Print." There's only a few more copies left of the first edition, not that I'm expecting a mad rush or anything, but I just want to get things back in shape for the future.

05/05/09 If a Tree falls in the forest does it make a sound...
There's a really long answer in Wiki Answers about it, but from a business perspective. If no one hears about your product, service, or site then it (your tree) really did not make a sound. People need to see the tree and be drawn into the story of the tree possibly falling. They need to go home and tell their friends and family. "Honey, you're not going to believe this tree I saw. I bet if it fell it would make a real big sound!"

I've had some very small trees in the past and chopped them down when no one was looking, which was a real waste of a tree. Problem is I'm either building the tree, chopping it down, or trying to get a couple of passers by to look at it. The sheer scale of most products and services big companies can offer really makes it hard to grow a tree in the shadows, but I still believe with the right strategy I can do something good for my company.

The Twitter announcement yesterday generated no results. Well didn't make good use of my 140 characters. I'll need to rethink that before trying again. I'll add it here to avoid something similar for next time:

Poetry helped guide from self-hatred to a better life. Selling the last 50 1st ed. 1st run @30% off http://eqp.com/books/storms...

05/03/09 Marketing or Shameless Self-Promotion?
Been using twitter.com as another blog. Just what I need another blog to maintain. Tonight I might have crossed the line a bit and used it to announce my poetry book, Storms of a Soul, it's more of a curiosity than anything else. I want to see how many more clicks on that page I can get through a simple announcement on the site. Also want to write Press Releases and other stuff that go through the media. Also want to see print advertising, etc. Stats have been kind of flat lately, so just want to add some stuff to the soup and see if it tastes any better.

My son, Matt, just turned five months and was baptized today. My oldest, Jason, turns four in ten days. So been feeling like I'm standing still here. Need to get the word out about what I'm trying to do without turning a lot of people off. That's a pretty tough trick since we all know what the end result is. Getting customers to spend, but I think even harder than that is building a relationship. Harder still is getting through all the noise and competition. There's still one thing more difficult than all of those put together and that's my own expectations and self-doubt.

I have everything ready for my company...well except a End User License Agreement, but that's the finishing touch. Everything is in place and still haven't stepped in that direction. That's Fear and Self-Doubt holding me back, doesn't matter what I can do. If I can't do it. Then I'm going no where. I've been keeping it small and doing it chunks as to not overload my system, but I need to step it up.

04/22/09 Shift in Writing Style
A fundamental shift has to occur on this site. It needs to cease being just another blog and focus on what my products and services can do for customers. Problem is what products and what services? It feels like I'm going no where fast and every day the value of my code-signing and SSL certificates tick away. It was great to get them, but now is the time to put them to work! Of course, that leads right into my first problem...Time. There's just not enough time to hammer out all of my ideas and it's pretty frustrating. Having a plan and a map of what to do with the time I have is essential.

I started a member area for my Racquetball site a couple of years ago. I've made some recent improvements, but don't have the pieces together to really get it moving. Members need things to do, things that add value. I created a flow chart and mapped out my plan to get some of the old accounts active again. Saturday I hope to cross that off.

04/15/09 Regrets and Failures
Getting my Storms of a Soul book updated with Bowker and it's pretty easy to think I wasted almost a decade and a half on my business. I definitely quit and I definitely failed when it would have taken not much effort to keep things floating along. Now I feel like I'm starting from less than zero and have a lot of ground to make up. It's times like these that make it real easy to hang it all up and quit, but I've made some promises to myself and my family. I don't want another fourteen years to go by with the same score. It's hard to find time to give it half a fighting chance, but God I've seen the alternative and I don't want it.

04/08/09 Where's the Reward?
So I finished a comments project for my Racquetball Web site with all the planning and chipping away at it took about four months. Now I'm left thinking what can I do next? There's plenty, but I'm forgetting one very important thing about finishing a project. The Reward. The tendency is to jump right into the next project and keep going, but think that's the road to ruin. Fatigue and frustration quickly set in and there goes the creativity, focus, and most importantly progress. It's great to take advantage of opportunities, but need to ramp some projects up before making another move. What's the reward? Play some games, read/program/write for fun, and just let things recharge for a day.

04/08/09 First Commercial Application Started.
I started mapping out EQP's first commercial application. Well it's more for my stringing business than anything else, but the ultimate goal is to make something I can use for my business and license it to others. I have all the tools ready. So just need the plan and the time. I want to have a strong idea of where I want the project to go before I even do one line of code. So it'll need some patience.

EQP Code Sign Installer3/25/09 A Thing of Beauty! Code Signing Cert' Installed!
Yes! More like YAWP! Truly the little things that make me happy with regards to my Company. Glad this is setup and ready to go with Visual Studio 2008 and eventually Office 2007. Yes, I could have released code without any code signing...but I want people to trust my company and my company's products. It's pretty impressive to see my company's name when someone double clicks on setup.exe.

I'm scrambling around to start coding something to get out there. Phew I can't wait and almost at 11:25 PM, I doubt I'll be able to sleep tonight just thinking about it. Let's make a dent!

We'll need to start out small with some free versions of bigger products. Just to get a feel for what works and what I need to learn. Also need to start looking a related products from my competition (if any <jk>) and write up sales materials, press releases, web pages, etc.

03/??/09 Second Quarter Plans
Should be over the $300.00 mark in a couple of more days, but with the first quarter almost in the books it's time to think about the next quarter and setup some goals. Just by the numbers, I need about five racquets per month to match my first quarter sales. I did five this month, but think there's more I can do to attract business. Word of Mouth has been great for stringing and I hope my customers keep promoting my stringing business. Thanks for the help guys!

The company I bought my code signing certificate is validating my documentation and I should have that soon. I don't expect to create something and instantly have sales--it would be nice, but a little unrealistic. Need to develop software in the same genre people come to my site for and that's racquetball!

Will also look into why I haven't sold a single Storms of a Soul poetry book. I suspect a couple of things: the price is too high, not everyone is going to use PayPal, and most importantly I'm not promoting the book. So another goal is to get my company and book reinstated on R&R Bowker. Straighten things up with Amazon, get a P.O. Box for mail orders, and create an order form with a 30% discount. A couple of years ago, I had a flood and lost a couple of hundred books. So there's only about fifty first edition, first run copies left. It would need a major overhaul for another printing and some soul searching for more poetry.

03/17/09 Can Double Last Quarter Sales!
Well last quarter there was a lot going on, I was working with an attorney to form my LLC. Getting ready to have my second baby, Matthew and dealing with all the other craziness that involves. So if I can work and collect what's on my company's plate right now. it can easily double its income from last quarter from $142.56 to over $300. Yes, I know big bucks.

Part of the challenge now is to meet and exceed that for next Quarter and keep raising the bar. Knowing exactly where my Company is at any moment is awesome. Just need to keep pushing myself. Also need stronger sales writing and making it easier for people to reach my company and services. I hate most sales writing and I definitely don't want to sound like a jerk using hard sell tactics. I want my company's products and services to be valuable to our customers and develop long term business relationships with them.

03/11/09 Two More Pieces Coming Together.
Alright I ordered my company's code signing certificate and Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition this morning. I know, I'd better started developing software to get a return on my investment here. There's still some self-esteem issues swimming around in my head, but I'm still moving forward with this company. I can feel the momentum and my desire building. I physically ache when I'm not working on it.

One of my favorite poems forms the core of one of my favorite movies, Dead Poets Society, Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson. When I self-published Storms of a Soul one of my poems was about sailing with Ulysses--a weak tribute to the poem. You can read it as a sample poem on the Storms page. Anyway even I think I'm crazy sometimes pursuing this company, but I think about the alternative. Rusting away at a dead-end job and leaving my dreams to die with my children watching me live a life unfulfilled. What example will I be to them? What would that teach them? I want them to live their dreams to think anything worthwhile is worth going after. It starts by example and by living mine. Now!

Here's the end of Tennyson's Poem. I suggest you read the whole thing. It's weird at first, but it builds and becomes very powerful.

...Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

I know the road isn't going to be easy, but that's kind of the fun of it. Nothing worthwhile comes without effort.

02/23/09 Pretty sure...I botched my First Software License Sale!
It doesn't take much to drop a sale and I think I lost one because I was too eager to make a buck and to make my first sale. Before people hang me out to dry saying that I was greedy or something...let me explain with a bit of history.

When I self-published Storms of a Soul (1995) I set the price a little too low or more importantly didn't run off enough copies to lower my per book cost. Once a bookstore took it's share (40%) and I subtracted the cost to print the book. I was left with 28% or less of the cashflow. Subtract the time it took me to get the books in the stores, to track the inventory on consignment, host events related to poetry, etc. It was doomed to fail. Moreover a book about poetry lost amongst other poetry books in the back of the store on an end cap.

As if that wasn't bad enough, I remember having to keep facing my book so people can see the cover, since other authors would put their books in the best locations while hiding others. The world of self-published poetry is a dark and nasty one. Lastly people don't buy poetry books too often especially from an unknown author and those that do would probably be reluctant to buy a poetry book of forty something poems when they can get five hundred or so from various authors for a few bucks more.

I also low-balled myself on the newsletter that eventually became Intervue Digest. I didn't seek out any advertisers or have enough reserves to really blanket New Jersey with copies every month from my over worked desktop printer. I had about seven subscribers and published a few months worth of issues before refunding my customers and going online. There is one smart move in all of this. For Racquet stringing...I think I did a good job with the services I offer. A lot of my customers come back and tell their friends about my racquet stringing.

It's pretty easy to pull out a spreadsheet and break down each component of a physical product, assign a dollar value to it, and price it accordingly. Software...is another story. There's the time it took to develop and the value the customer places on it. I percived the value of bringing a ranking system to three hundred players far differently than my customer. So when it came time to license my ELO Calculator I went too high (around $60 with support options) and I believe scared my prospect off. I learned a lesson and hope to do a better job next time.

02/12/09 On Second Thought, that Idea will Need to Wait
Time is the major problem with the service I thought about yesterday and I just don't have it. It's almost like a part-time/part-time basis and there's other Company work I need to do during the week. So to slice off another time slot for my idea just isn't happening now. Not even sure I want to do it for clients, it's ultimately not where my strengths lie. I will get my company a code-signing certificate and develop applications. That part I completely agree pursuing since:

So while the idea would have been nice, success would have been tied too closely to my limited schedule. I need assets that help put money into my company and eventually into my pocket. It might sound corny, but I wanted to thank Robert Kiyosaki for his Rich Dad/Poor Dad series of books and games. I probably would not have come to this conclusion or gained some Financial Inteligence without him.

02/11/09 Idea for my First Information Technology Service
I dropped "Copywriting" from my Services page--for now--because I'm probably too inexperienced to get paid. Don't get me wrong, I love writing. There's just a different level needed for writing to sell. I'm reading another old book about it and hope to practice it with my company's first service. I also have a couple of more planned that require Microsoft Office and my company bought a licence for Office 2007 Ultimate. Next month, I plan on getting a code signing certificate and that phase can begin.

Been thinking about the next stage for my company and I thought back to when I started my stringing business. I might as well start this chapter with the same idea in mind. Get some customers by offering excellent service for an afforable price. My company needs a collection of products and services that work hard generating income...not me. My job is to grow the company.

So what's the idea? Not spilling it yet. Just like in Racquetball, I want everything lined up, so I can take the shot and make sure it's a kill. The last thing I want is my competition to get in front of me and re-kill it. I want the point this time around.

02/04/09 First Quarter Financial Statements
Enchanted Quill Press LLC made about $142 dollars in sales the fourth quarter of last year. Yes, I know time to quit the day job. It's all about drawing a line in the sand and trying to beat it next quarter. I now believe success is a process and it'll be pretty hard to measure my company's progress without accurate information and double checking systems.

02/04/09 Interesting Book about WordPerfect Corporation
I enjoyed "Almost Perfect How a Bunch of Regular Guys Built WordPerfect Corporation" by W.E. Pete Peterson. I finished it on Monday after it sat for over a decade. Just never had the desire to read it until I formed my LLC. I found Mr. Peterson's first person account of WordPerfect Corporation a glimpse into a world I would love for Enchanted Quill Press LLC to aspire to. At the end of the book he wrote ten questions he would ask a company if given the chance to analyze it.

The first question, Do all employees know who is running the Company? Under this question he writes about the qualities and skills such a person should possess. One that stands out the most is knowing where the company is headed. Still coming back to that Mission Statement, but through a process of what I don't want it to be. I'm getting closer. Anyway can read the full book for free on his site.

01/02/09 Business Plan: Mission Statement.
The Business Plan Template I downloaded from SCORE has a lot of detailed and tough questions. Of course, I'm stuck on the first three which define my Company's Mission. Basically what the Company does. There's a lot of different paths and one of the consistent sources of income has been something that never really fit "Enchanted Quill Press, LLC" and that's racquet stringing.

Also published a poetry book back in 1995 and still have first edition copies available. Lastly there's my publications for Intervue Digest and Racquetball but the only direct and almost insignificant income is from those Google Ads. My company made about $140.00 this past quarter which means it's currently running at a slight loss. I plan on generating financial statements just to get in the habit of doing them and raising the bar for next quarter.

The time is coming when I need to let go of certain aspects of my business and focus on things that have the highest return. I originally thought that Computer Service can be one of those avenues, but between Geek Squad, Staples, and even Verizon offering PC Support think that market is filled with some heavy duty players and my company's $140 is not going to make much of a dent in getting a cool little gimmick car or much marketing. Also don't want to be going door to door fixing computers. I'm not quitting my day job anytime soon, so my company's focus is going to be developing one asset.

I'm a pretty big fan of Rich Dad/Poor Dad Series of Books and Games. So in his terms, an asset is something that puts money into my pocket. He also talks about leverage and ratios. For example, one job equals one paycheck. Another way is one client equals one invoice. Meanwhile developing assets can be 1:2, 1:4, etc. So the plan is to develop one asset and keep building more and more of them like that Billy Mays guy.

12/10/08 From What Side of the Table?
There's a couple of services I omitted from my company's services page. For about ten years, I've done a lot of server and workstation administration and support. It wasn't the most glorious aspect of my position, but I did help people rather quickly. At first, I wanted to strike it all that from my company and focus on things I personally love to do: Program, Design Websites, Write, etc., but I see it differently now. I can help people as an employee and keep earning a paycheck or I can help people as a business owner and transition to my dream. Suddenly, I can deal with more of those computer problems. Now the question is how?

12/07/08 Gutted Web Services and Dropped the Pages
I started an entire sub site for my company's web services and after I updated the main pages of the site, the sub site kind of dropped off. I had an empty and redundant services under our main page which was ranked higher in Google searches. So I took everything that I wanted from services page and dropped all the remaining content.

Here's why:

  1. If our main services page doesn't have content then people are probably not clicking any further.
  2. A lot of the services under web content are not just related to web design.
  3. We would be duplicating content and related to No. 1. not grabbing a user's attention or making a good first impression.
  4. It would be more pages to maintain and those pages would be of lesser value in searches.

No. 1 is the primary reason for rearranging the content. Our domain name has been around for a long time which naturally raises our ranking on most pages. We need to capitalize on those search results and provide content to establish business relationships and repeat visitors from the first click.

12/02/08 Raising Children and Raising a Company.
My second son was born yesterday, Matthew Joseph Delgado. His brother, Jason Joseph, is about three and a half. Today at the Hospital, I got a taste of how handling both of them is going to feel like and let's say it's going to take some getting used to. Anyway things got a lot easier with Jason and going back to zero with Matt is tough. I should of taken better notes when Jason was growing up.

Anyway I took a good step this evening when I came home tired and put Jason to bed. Instead of firing up the Playstation 2, going on Facebook, or other time waster. I started to break down the sections of my Business Plan for Enchanted Quill Press, LLC. I read that the end product is not the Business Plan but the process. There's a lot of things I have no clue about but need to address in the plan. It might take a few months to get it all down, but if I want to move my company from an expense to an asset. I need to dedicate a lot of time here.

This whole process feels like raising a child. It's extremely difficult at first and then it starts to become easier. My son, Jason, has learned a great deal and so have I. So, I hope to raise good children and a good company.

11/25/08 One Goal Left...But First a Business Plan.
Some of my goals don't have a specific end-date. Being self-sufficent and legal are pretty much continuous. My company has a credit card for expenses and my CPA told me that will help at Tax time. We also have an SSL Certificate for added protection around here and a Business Pay Pal Account for transactions. There's only one tiny thing missing...Products and Services. Think to get there, I need to have a working Business Plan. The The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has lots of great resources. So that's my next target, draft a business plan and honestly think what services I can develop for my company to get some fuel ($) in the tank.

I'm a little scared to show an old friend I used to work with, Randy Harmon, my business plan. Since he deals with them all the time and has been working with Start-ups for a long time. Think I need to offer it to him and be willing to take a lot of criticism and direction. I don't expect to the hit the nail right on the head. I might need to hit a lot of nails before I get one in.

I also need to be patient, but I also can't just waste time either. Need to constantly stretch myself and my business a little more each time.

11/12/08 Still Working the Plan
Waiting for my company credit card to come in and then I can transfer the rest of my companies business expenses and document the current financial picture of the company. It's real easy to get caught up in intoxication of owning a business and thinking your successful. Think the last time that happened I was in my twenties, living at home, unemployed, making very little business income, and charging up credit card debt. Looking back I squandered a lot of golden opportunities. Now a decade or more later, I'm not going to waste it again.

10/26/08 One Month.
I still get a kick out of being the President of Enchanted Quill Press LLC., but all kidding aside I have a couple of immediate goals for my company:

Goal #1. Company will be self-sufficent.
Naturally I want Enchanted Quill Press LLC. to manage all of its assets, liabilities, and expenses for all of it's products and services. I want the capital I invest in the company to be for an expansion or other project and not to cover day to day expenses. As President, I am forgoing any sort of salary or compensation until the company can support it. I want the company to exist on it's own and capture everything on financial reports. So I can plan responsibility.

Goal #2. Company will learn to satisfy all legal and tax obligations
Along the same lines of #1, Enchanted Quill Press LLC. will be legal and operate within the tax laws of New Jersey and the United States. We collect and pay New Jersey Sales Tax and will document and pay any income tax obligations. We have paid an Attorney and have a CPA to help satisfy this goal.

Goal #3. Company will develop Products and Services
In order to grow the company, naturally we need products and services. We have one consistent service (Racquet Stringing) which is outside of our "normal" scope, but has been a consistent income stream with a good base of repeat customers. We're looking to expand that area and develop new products and services that can help strengthen those relationships.

I believe with these three goals, we can develop a good company that can grow while developing products and services our customers can trust to meet and exceed their needs.

Thanks for reading,
Joseph Delgado, President
Enchanted Quill Press, LLC.

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Copyright 2009 by Enchanted Quill Press, LLC. Last Updated: 07/3/10.