February 28, 2023

Blogging Hiatus

Did you know that building up your business (actually working on it instead of only serving clients) will take a lot of time from you? So much time that I have not posted since December! I think it’s important to catch you up on what I’ve learned in January and February that may help you in your business endeavors.


Build Out Your Business Dashboard


The month of January and February has consisted of numerous amounts of business development efforts, ranging from data collection, writing such data into excel sheets, then using a business analyst platform to create dashboards and charts that inform you on how your business is doing.


For this endeavor, I knew I wanted to use something open-source (free) as we are still a young, budding company that is focused on being as lean as possible. Upon various Google Searches (and some ChatGPT questions — thank you AI), I settled on using Metabase.


Now we have been working alongside Org Dev Group, and they have been tremendous in assisting us with developing our business. Our goal is to become a Small Business operating at $1,000,000 yearly revenue within 5 years, and they have assisted companies to do far more than that. With their help, I have been learning the importance of having a central database with all of our data points: from customers and invoices to the various services that a specific customer has purchased.


This data has been instrumental in focusing on what we do best in our business (websites) so that we may accelerate that and then apply what has been learned to our two other departments (marketing and branding).


For example, the below image is a dashboard I created that helps rank the businesses we’re serving or have served according to the maximum revenue received from them, along with a different chart highlighting what services we have served each company. With this chart, we can rate the businesses we have served according to the department that they have not been served with yet. If a company has only done websites with us but has not done marketing, then we have a duty of reaching out to them with our marketing services that can bolster what they do (should they have the budget for it).



This was a labor of love (and boy was it time-consuming), but now I can incrementally add to the database by weekly (or monthly) adding new data to an excel sheet, saving it as a csv, and uploading it to my database for Metabase to present me with new information based on the data.


Developing Invoice Web App


Our business has some awesome business partners that we serve websites with. Our time with Org Dev Group has led to the development of a system that any businesses we partner with can use to whip up an invoice for a website that their client may want.


Not only does it help our B2B process, but it can then be transformed into an individual Direct to Consumer invoice system so they can know how much it would cost for the website they’re envisioning.


Quite a lot of benefits lie in this system, such as saving time, automating the sales process to begin development and customer acquisition faster, and the knowledge acquired through the development can lead to new products for the business.


This is still a work in progress but one I am most excited to release this March. A blog post will be written about it when it releases in case you desire to have a website and wish to have us build it for you. Ask yourself if there are any systems that can be developed in your business that would save your business time. The end result will be well worth it!


Study, Study, Study!


It’s important to always be learning new things, which is why I make it a habit to read at least 2 books a month and consume video/audio content that assists me in business and my walk with the Lord. There are moments when I take a brief break to catch up on some basketball stats or watch an inspirational film, but the key is to not allow entertainment to dominate your eyes and ears.


This month I was able to dabble with the Python programming language and use Flask as the web framework for it. I quickly stopped due to a more pressing potential project that requires me to learn mobile app development, which has led to numerous hours devouring content on whether to build an app using React Native or Flutter. I will certainly be spending more time on this.


Drawing More


I’ve been doing a lot more drawing lately as a result of joining a dear friend’s artist group where we encourage each other in all things drawing/painting while providing valuable feedback. The beauty of the group certainly revolves around the Word of God and how our art has been focused on God’s Word, so it’s like we’re not only honing our God-given skills but also meditating on His Word through the art expression.



Lately, I’ve been focused on drawing portraits and lifelike drawings in pencil, and I am terrible at drawing teeth! It’s been great drawing these as they have been used as birthday gifts for the recipients. It’s a joy to encourage others through a gift God has given. I hope you’re encouraging others near you through your gift!



What’s Next?


January and February have certainly been busy, but boy have they been wonderful, and I look forward to what March will bring. Expect some updates on Prospering Christian as I work on a dedicated blog page with categories, along with modifying the homepage to properly pagínate the blogs.


My wife and I will be running an annual conference come May, so tune in to upcoming blogs where I discuss the conference named Discover Your Purpose Conference.


I need to incorporate a comments system into my blogs, so I’ll get to work on that. Until then, email me at michael@thearising.co for any questions, feedback, and whatever else you think of. God bless and may your week be incredibly productive!