Your Home Office
As the nucleus of your home-based business, setting up and organizing your home office can be the key to your success:
- Learn to separate work from play—Although working at home is
fun, you must learn to mentally separate your work from your personal
life. Otherwise you'll get it mixed up and both will suffer. Do not
put too many personal things in your working space and vice versa.
- Separate the "home" from the "office"—Yes,
you have a home office or a SOHO (Small Office Home Office) as it's
popularly called. But you need to physically separate the two. For this
reason, it is never a good idea to put your office in your bedroom or
share it with any other room. If you have a small living space and can't
afford a separate room, do what I do. Just determine which part of your
hall or living area to convert to your home office, and mentally draw
a "line" separating it from the rest of the room. You can
also put full or partial partitions if you want.
- Separate entrance is best—If you can afford it, create a separate
door or entrance into your home office. This is especially useful if
you expect a lot of clients at home.
- Create wireless networking—Cables are messy and troublesome.
If you have more than one PC just use wireless routers and create a
wireless environment in your home.
- Be fully equipped for business—Technology has made things cheap,
so make full use of it. I personally use the TelExtreme VoIP service
that gives me unlimited calls to local, domestic and international fixed
and mobile phones for a flat rate. I use Skype when I travel with my
notebook and use it to automate all incoming phone calls, record messages
and send them to my email (you can learn more on how to do this with
my e-book on Internet Telephony). You could also get a 3-in-1 fax, copier
and scanner for under RM800! You can't afford to have an ill-equipped
home office if you're serious about making the type of income you dreamt
about.
Business Management & Productivity
When you are a "one-man-show" small business dreaming of doing multi-million dollar big business, you'll definitely need these tips:- Set your working hours—The number one mistake people make is
thinking they can work whenever they feel like it. This can backfire,
so make sure you set regular working hours such as 10.00 am to 5.00 pm
and stick to it as much as you can. Of course since YOU are the boss
now, you can set your time as you like, and you can always adjust a
little here and there.
- Have an efficient follow-up system—Use email auto-responders,
voice message recorders and even toll-free numbers to manage inquiries
and follow-ups. This would free up tons of your time and also help you
to focus on planning your next strategic business moves instead of being
a phone operator.
- Don't get distracted—If you use email notification software (like
Gmail Notifier) or instant message services like Yahoo Messenger or
MSN Messenger, turn all these off during work hours. Don't be checking
your email throughout the day, as it DOES NOT help you be focused. Instead,
dedicate a few hours in the morning or evening to answer emails. If
you find that the bulk of your daily time is spent looking at emails,
then you're having the wrong strategy and focusing on the wrong priorities.
Finance & Profitability
When you stop getting a paycheck at the end of the month, it can be both the most exciting and most terrifying thing at the same time. Here are some tips to avoid financial black holes:- Be debt free first—If you want to start your own home-based
business, but you're already straddled with huge amounts of credit card
debts and loan repayments, make sure you clear all or a significant
part of it first. It's too risky carrying around all that debt on your
shoulders when you start a business, where there is no safety net and
fixed income to protect you.
- Correct any financial "bad habits"—If you run a credit
card debt by spending lavishly, you need to correct this first before
going full time in your own home-based business. It really doesn't matter
how much money you can make by working at home. All that matters is
how much money you keep at the end of the day.
- Don't be afraid to explore new sources of income—There are more
ways to make money out there than you can possibly imagine. Don't dismiss
any opportunity without thoroughly researching it, or you could be missing
out on the opportunity to retire richer, earlier! I once ignored trying
out paid autosurf programs simple because I was too lazy to study it.
Two years down the road I realized that I passed up the opportunity
to add an additional RM2,000 monthly to my income. Don't do the same
mistake!
- Plan and monitor your cash flow—If you don't want to get up one
day to find your wallet and bank account completely empty, plan your
cash flow. Make a list of payments you will be receiving and the expenses
you need to make. As an employee, the company plans WHEN and WHERE you
get your money, but as an entrepreneur, you need to learn to master
cash flow. Don't confuse "cash flow" with profits, since you
can go broke even if your business is profitable but you don't see any
real money in your bank account.
- Aim for profitability before expansion—Make sure your business
is profitable before you actually decide to go full time. If you need
to spend more on your business than what you make, you are in a dangerous
zone. If your home business is not profitable yet, you should have a
back up plan to support your expenses, and you could consider part-time
jobs to pay the bills.
- Focus on residual income—If you make RM3,000 a month but need to work for 6 hours a day, it would be better if you hired someone to do the bulk of the job and only get RM500 for yourself. Even though it's less, this now becomes part of your residual income, i.e. income that you get without working. You now have the time to explore other sources of income instead of being tied-up to daily routines. Think like a business owner, not like an employee.
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Swatting The Loneliness Bug
When all your friends are busy slugging at their 9-to-5 jobs and you're
at home with lots of time on your hands, the truth is it can get pretty
lonely. Here are some tips to overcome your post-employment loneliness:- Don't limit yourself to any location—If you ONLY work at home,
then your situation is not much better than it used to be when you struggled
for your former company. If you have a laptop or notebook, then you're
already as ‘mobile' as it gets, so explore your options! Work in
the library, at Starbucks, in the park, on the beach, by the swimming
pool, or anywhere else where it's quiet and relaxing enough. After all,
what's the point of having your own home-based business if you don't
enjoy the perks?
- Invite friends over for lunch—Even if you can't or don't cook,
invite friends over for lunch. At least you'll have some company, and
you'll get to see the look of envy on their faces when lunch break's
over for them.
- Host parties and networking sessions—Now that you're your own
boss, you actually have the time and freedom to plan stuff like this.
A simple barbeque dinner can help you re-establish bonds with your old
friends and create tons of useful referrals.
- Join network marketing—Even if your home-based business is not
centered on network marketing, do join one with a reputable company.
This will put you in a situation where you meet tons of new people every
day and some of them will eventually become your new business partners
or even newfound friends.
Marketing and Promotion
Your home business is NOT about YOU. It's about everyone else around you, how you connect to others and let them see the value that your business can provide:free business click
- What's your Instant Impact Message—Most small or home business
owners can't describe their business in one sentence. Even when they
do, it speaks nothing of the uniqueness of their business. "I do
internet marketing" is a statement that does nothing to promote
your business to others. Instead, if you say "I help small businesses
with low budgets find unlimited clients over the Internet using affordable
and simple solutions" then you now have a ‘value statement'
that will stick in the minds of others even when they sleep. Having
your own Instant Impact Message is the toughest, and most important
thing you can do to successfully market your business. Don't describe
what you do – describe the value that others can get from YOU.
- Don't forget the power business cards—If you used to hand out
business cards to clients in your former company, why stop now? Business
cards are a cheap and good way to advertise and promote. But instead
of putting useless jargon and boring titles, put in your Instant Impact
Message.
- Offer free coaching—If your business "Helps people feel
and look professional and confident by mastering communications skills"
than you can always offer free coaching to your prospective clients.
Just do a simple class where you can teach them how to speak better,
listen better etc. etc. Free coaching can help you cement your position
as an expert in your field. When people like what they get from you
for free, they are more likely to become paying customers and self-driven
marketing machines for your business.
- Maximize your local contacts—So over the years you developed a good relationship with the owner of the restaurant right opposite where you live. Now that you have your own business, you have to maximize ALL the contacts you collected over the years. The people you've met in your previous job or social functions can give you extra marketing leverage. So talk to the restaurant guy. See if you can work out a mutually beneficial business relationship. Everyone around you, if you know how to do it, can help you grow your business. thank you for reading comment
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