Tips For The Newbie Entrepreneur
Debra M. Cohen over at Home Remedies of NY®, Inc. sent me a really good article today any new Entrepreneur or home business owner can use!
If you’re considering the launch of a home based business, below are three essential tips that will help you incorporate a new business into your busy lifestyle:
1. DEFINE YOUR HOURS: Take a look at your schedule and pinpoint the hours of the day that you’re able to devote to your business. If you’re a “morning person”, plan to wake up one hour earlier to work. If you prefer to work in the evenings, go to your home office after dinner or after your kids have gone to bed. Need to schedule work hours around a full time or part time job? Call forward your business line to a cell phone and return calls during your commute to and from work or during your lunch hour.
2. USE THE INTERNET: The Internet is a phenomenal tool for a home-based business operator. It allows you to promote your business 24 hours a day and communicate with clients even when you’re out of your office.
For example, if you launch a website for your business set up a form with an autoresponder message so that potential clients can contact you at any time and receive an immediate acknowledgement via e-mail. And, if you collect names and e-mail addresses of visitors to your site you can follow up with a monthly or quarterly e-newsletter which is easier and more affordable to send than postal mail.
3. WORK EFFICIENTLY: No matter how many hours you have to devote to your business, use your time well. If you’re only able to work 1 or 2 hours per day, focus your energy on the money-making aspects of your business and outsource other business responsibilities that require a particular area of expertise such as web design, copy writing, accounting, etc.
Finally, if you feel that you’re time is too limited and you’re not able to accomplish everything you need to do for your business, consider launching your business with a partner and divide business responsibilities based on your individual talents.
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April 7th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
very helpful & good advice
April 8th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
I was making a real mess at home letting my new business overrun into private time with my sweetheart. The problem was that I was “just wanting to finish something” that was important to complete for peace of mind, and I was almost always underestimating how long it would take.
The one thing that really helped me was some advice from book The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Fenriss:
Finish each day making a list of the two most important things that need to be done the next day. They need to be the two things (or however many you think is sensible) that will absolutely have the biggest possible impact on your business success.
And then, the next day, don’t do anything discretionary at all for your business until those two things are done.
If the two things are too big to achieve in one day, break them into day sized objectives.
If you picked the right goals, you’ll find you have a load more peace of mind for rest of the working day, knowing that the important-est stuff was dealt with.
Helped me and my business (and my relationship!) anyway :]
David
Work At Home Man
April 8th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Hi David,
It is easy to let a new business kind of run your life. With the excitment of a new business and wanting to get it going good, it is easy to let that happen!
Your advice is great! Thanks for the heads up on the book! I will have to check it out! I love to read and have never heard of that one! I will be checking it out tonight from my fav book store.
April 10th, 2008 at 9:29 am
[…] morning I read a couple of blog posts about time management. TheWahmBlog.com has Tips for the Newbie Entrepreneur about managing time. And at the InternetBasedMoms.com Staff blog Annette mentioned an article about […]
April 14th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Great advice, it can be hard to find time through out the day. I like the advice of forwarding phone calls. Thanks.