Last month, fans of Charles Dickens honored the 200th anniversary of the author’s birth with readings, remembrances and musings on the Victorian scribe’s contribution to Western literature.

Amid the celebrations emerged a useful lesson for small-business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs.

No, I’m not talking about Dickens’ exhortation against stinginess in the form of Ebenezer Scrooge. I’m referring to the manner in which the author created some of his most famous works: Dickens wrote and published many of his novels in monthly, chapter-length installments.

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Videographer Will Ferguson was kind enough to shoot footage from our 2011 Holiday Bazaar and edit it into this nice montage. Check it out!

Photo: Flickr:photomagnon

If you read this blog regularly (bless your heart), you know that in my view, action is the key ingredient to starting a successful business.

It’s tempting to take a class, fuss over your business plan or worry about trade marking your logo, but the fact is that each of these things amounts to mere procrastination. Making your first sale is – by definition – the only surefire way to launch a business. But it pays to think critically about the business you seek to start.
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Photo: Flickr/Gerard Stolk vers la Chandeleur

Knowing what to do is different from actually doing it.

For example, Dave Ramsey, founder of an eponymous personal finance empire that produces books, conferences and a radio show, has some interesting advice about meeting one’s financial goals: he often says knowledge is only 20 percent of the battle; the other 80 percent, he says, is reforming the habits of the person you shave with. All the information in the world will prove useless unless you can change your behavior.

A similar principle applies to starting a business. Unless you can muster the courage to sell something to your first customer (and persistence to sell to many more), all the classes and business-planning software in the world won’t help you.

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