Grocery stores conspire to keep you in the store as long as they can.

 

Eyeglass prescriptions expire.

 

Dentists suggest replacing fillings put in less than 6 months ago. Crowns make them salivate as they see a double whammy: replacement cost and the ability to melt down any gold from the crown pried out.

 

I hate being viewed as a cash cow.

 

-David

 

Sales been down lately? Mine have.

 

August 2008 was down 25% compared to August 2007. September 2008 was down 21% compared to September 2007 (and just barely managed to not be the worst month in the last 2 years). And October 2008 isn’t exactly off to an auspicious start (though it has had some good days).

 

Do I think the current economic troubles are affecting my sales? Yes I do. No doubt about it.

 

But that doesn’t mean I’m powerless. I can’t control the economy, but there are still things I can do.

 

Over the summer, as the news started looking bleaker, I worked to reduce my business expenses. As a part of that, I cut back on my advertising. It’s probable that reduction in advertising helped push my sales down. I’m pretty sure, though, while I might have limited growth for the past few months, my trimming of Google’s profit margin benefited me more than it cost me. And I’ve used the opportunity to make my Google and other search engine ads work better for me. When I’m satisfied that my ads are performing well again, I’ll be happy to push more money into them.

 

I’ve also continued to work on improving the product and the supporting Web pages. I’ve implemented a bit more automation, as I’ve mentioned, and just generally worked to improve my sales copy. I continue to offer the same level of customer support I’ve always prided myself on. And I continue to work on product updates like Project Vee (and only minorly fret that they aren’t getting done as soon as I had hoped).

 

I chose the title of this post as a play on the book title Fooled by Randomness (which I still need to read; and just requested from my library).

 

My point was that even though there is an obvious economic downturn, and it will almost certainly cause a reduction in sales of such non-edible, non-shelter-providing products as my own, I shouldn’t just accept what happens. Instead, I should continue to do everything I can to improve my products, my marketing, and my business practices. Because it’s not just the economy holding me back.

 

I’m not going to let some global recession give me an excuse to be lazy.

 

-David

 

Everything seems so damn gradual this year.

 

Not only is Project Vee moving forward at a snail’s pace–and not for lack of time spent working on it–but odds are, even if you were related to me and/or saw me several times a month, you wouldn’t know I’ve been working out 5 days a week since January unless I told you.

 

I’ve actually achieved significant progress in both software and fitness. But I can’t produce a lot of evidence thereof, except strike-throughs in the long list of Project Vee’s implementation phases and page after page of hand-written logs of weights and reps. And receipts for investment for both.

 

To demonstrate progress in Project Vee, I would have to show you source code and database schemas from before and after. I’d have to use a lot of handwaving and anecdotes to explain why I’ve made some of the design changes I have, and what I foresee using those changes to accomplish in the (hopefully near) future. Because if I run the software for you…it looks a lot like it did before I started working. I only recently launched into significant UI changes. And those are going as slowly as you might expect if you’ve ever tried to re-tool a 12-year-old UI (I never had; now I know: it goes damn slow).

 

To demonstrate progress in weight training–let’s just stop that right there. I (very) intentionally took no “before” photos of my white, pudgy body with the skinny arms and lack of chest definition. Consider the universe spared. I didn’t measure my biceps or quads and chest or anything. I didn’t even weigh myself regularly for the first 2-3 months of the year.

 

The important point is: I can’t usefully show off what I’ve been doing this year. Because I seem to have launched projects with no real appreciation for how long they would take. I might be forgiven for underestimating how long it would take to build up some real shoulders, being a newb to weight training. But I launched Project Vee after nearly 20 years of professional development experience. Just another project manager blithely believing the estimates he gets from his engineer. Silly me (the project manager) believing me (the engineer).

 

I only recently learned that to move out of “novice” category in weight training, you need to have been training regularly for 2 years or more. And even then, you just get to wear the “intermediate” label for another year or so. In fact, I only just moved into the “novice” category. (My wife likes to point out that it took me a couple decades to get the body I had at the beginning of the year, and I shouldn’t expect rapid changes; she is liking the slowly improving me, though.)

 

Once again, I’ve learned that significant progress requires significant work.

 

Just once, though, I’d like something to be easy.

 

-David