Can You Make Money with Home Based Businesses?
The answer to this question is a definite YES! I have lots of business associates in the USA, Europe, Australasia and New Zealand who are working in home based businesses and making good money each week. In fact the lady who introduced me to my home based business is only 25 years of age and she made over $500,000 in her first 12 months of home business.
I am now replicating her results, but please read on and you will learn about what I have actually done and experienced in three very different situations and how in the end I succeeded in taking control of my life.
My Traditional Business Experience
I used to own and manage a very lucrative and high profile restaurant and bar in Brisbane, Queensland for a period of over 12 years. I started it from scratch and like most traditional businesses it was really expensive to set up and the running costs were enormous.
Although I made a lot of money with this business, I finally decided to offload it when I came to realise that the long hours and constant stress of managing over 30 staff, dealing with various government officials, endless paper work and hundreds of customers per week was absolutely destroying my life.
You can become very wealthy with a standard business but you will need to be extremely committed as you won’t be able to walk out and close the door anytime you want. There will be lots of work to do and deadlines to meet, customers to please and more than likely, staff to hire and manage unless you want to do all the work yourself. The hours are generally very long and in most cases the business can end up taking over your life. Another point to consider is that you’ll be on your own to work things out and solve any problems as they arise.
My Job Experience
After selling the business, I decided that a job would be a better alternative to being in business so I set about finding one and little did I know what I was in for! I spent 8 hours a day scouring the employment classifieds, networking, perfecting my resume and attending interviews for jobs I didn’t even want. I felt undervalued and demoralised and almost gave up hope before I finally landed a job with a company as an Events Manager.
All good you might well think, but unfortunately this was not the case as now I was into something that would cost me 12 hours of my time, 5 days a week as I got dressed up for work, traveled to and from work and actually did the work. I was working under considerable stress and was totally stressed out by having to answer to a boss and co-ordinate every single element of each event from travel and accommodation arrangements, key note speakers, entertainment and right down to sorting out what type of lettuce should go on the dinner plates of the attendees. What a nightmare! But the thing that annoyed me the most was that I was doing all of this to make my boss richer while I had to settle for a small pay packet at the end of each week. JOB = Just over broke.
My Home Business Experience
As you might have guessed, I didn’t stay in my job as an Event Manager for long. I had spent seven months of my life trying to find the right career and after only 1 month I resigned.
I had no idea what to try next but I was determined to find something that would tick ALL the boxes for me and knew that I first needed to get very clear about what I really wanted.
I did not want to:
Own and manage a stressful, traditional type of business
Outlay a lot of money to get started in a new business
Answer to a boss and have to beg for time off work
I did want to
Earn a lot of money
Work from home
Take control of my future
With the above in mind, I spent the next couple of months researching my options until I was eventually attracted to an advertisement (placed by a 25 year old lady) about a home based business opportunity. I must admit that I was pretty hesitant to begin with but I decided I had nothing to lose by finding out more so I answered the ad and within 1 week I was up and running with my very own home based business.
On my best day so far, I earned five thousand dollars but what I really love about my home business most is that I actually took back control of my own life. I now work the hours I choose, from the comfort of home or anywhere I like really with my laptop and phone. I don’t have to juggle and manage staff anymore and gone is all the stress. I fit my work around my life, generally about 25 hours per week and I absolutely love what I do.
It’s not for everyone however and if you are considering getting started in a home business you should ask yourself the following important questions:
1. Is the business aligned with your income and lifestyle goals?
2. Do you have some money and time to invest into the business?
3. Can you work diligently as your own boss and without supervision?
4. Will there be anyone to help or guide you if you get stuck along the way?
Yes! You can make money with home based businesses. Lots of money!
Christine Hamilton is currently making money in with home based businesses. For more information about what she is actually doing, click work at home BSCH110509
Sphere: Related ContentTime Management and Goal Setting
Time management is an area of business management often overlooked or ignored. We all know someone in small business who races around like a madman all day, never enough hours in a day, all they do is rush and get worked up - maybe this person is you!
At the end of the day, when the dust settles, what have you achieved? Do you review the day and wonder “what happened to the day, I didn’t get as much done as I thought I would”. If this sounds familiar, then you may have an organisational and time management problem.
Successful people never seem to rush, they remain composed and unflustered. The difference between them and everybody else is they have mastered time management.
What is time management? It is simply allocating time in your day in an organised and efficient way. Before we can really understand how to time manage our day, we must ask ourselves what are we trying to achieve today, this week, this year and possibly ten years from now. This is “Goal setting”.
The best way in my opinion to achieve goals is to write them down. You should review these goals from time to time to ensure that they are relevant and achievable but not so achievable that you don’t have to try hard to achieve them otherwise what is the purpose of the goals in the first place?
At the start of each working year you should sit down and think about what you want to achieve this year, it could be that you want to increase your profits by 20%, you may want to move into larger premises, you may want to reduce your debt substantially. At the start of each working week you should write down on a note pad or in your diary the major jobs that need to be done this week, and review them each day to ensure you’re making progress and hopefully mark some of the tasks off the list.
You should keep the list on your desk or in a place where you will be constantly reminded what needs to be done this week. This list should be in order of priority so that the most important tasks at the top of the list get done first. Anything not achieved this week will be carried forward next week on a higher priority, this will ensure it gets done.
The next thing you should be doing is having a daily list of jobs to do. This will help keep you on track each day. Again, this list should be displayed where you can constantly refer to it and mark off the jobs completed. Marking off the jobs will give you a sense of achievement and let you know how you are progressing through the day. Always stick to the list where possible and keep working from high priority to low priority.
I know things can come up through the day that can throw the whole day out, but you must either deal with the crisis and return to your list or if the new task isn’t as important as some of the jobs on the list put it at the bottom of the list and continue doing what you were doing.
Every task you have to do should be written down for a couple of reasons. Firstly, so you don’t forget to do it and secondly, so you keep your day organised and you achieve your daily goals.
Beware starting jobs and not finishing them. This will turn tomorrow into a mess of half finished jobs and will cause “list blowout”. You will end up with a list a mile long and you will give up in despair and revert back to old habits of being in confusion all day and achieving nothing.
Remember each day you achieve your goals and tick off everything on your list, you get a little closer to achieving your weekly and ultimately your yearly and long term goals.
++
For Mackay Bookkeeping, Townsville Bookkeeping and Cairns Bookkeeping, contact Dollarwise Bookkeeping. Dollarwise have a remote MYOB bookkeeping service for all types and sizes of business.
Sphere: Related ContentShould you outsource sales management – the key considerations
No matter how great your product or service is, if you don’t have people using and buying what you produce, you go out of business. So how do you set up an efficient sales and marketing machine, on a limited budget? Do you have experience in sales management? Would you know how to maximize the potential of a good sales person?
So why is it important to have someone with sales management experience in a company? Those of you with sales experience will know the answers, however, if you do not have experience in sales, let me ask you the following questions; Low risk – low cost – high return!
Would you know the characteristics of a good sales person?
Can you easily spot when someone is telling you a lie?
If a sale was dragging on, would you know what questions to ask to find out why?
Have you ever been paid commission, do you think sales people are overpaid?
If a sales person was not performing, would you fire them and get a new sales person?
How would you define not performing, in the previous question?
Have you ever used and do you understand the value of a sales process?
The answers to questions like these come as second nature to an experienced Sales Director or Manager. Over 90% of the most successful companies in the world have experienced sales directors on their management board.
But what if you don’t have global ambitions, or just can’t afford to hire a full time sales manager? And even if you did want to hire one, how could you be sure that the person you hired would be worth the money?
How do you make the case for sales management outsourcing?
Like any purchasing decision, you need to ensure that you get value for money. If you bear in mind that the reason you would even consider investing in sales or marketing in the first place, is to increase revenue and profit, then do these calculations first.
How much additional revenue do you wish to generate, and by when. What is your margin on that? How much profit does that put in your pocket?
Now how much of that are you willing to spend? One of the issues apart from the loss of time and cash flow in making a mistake in hiring is the actual cost of hiring fees and monthly base salary. This is a cost even before a single additional sales is generated.
If you could get the sales execution focus of a sales director for a fraction of the monthly cost of a full time hire, paid them on performance and have the ability to part company on a month’s notice, without any employer liability – would that not be attractive.
If you said yes – than that is the beauty of outsourcing your sales management function.
Low risk – low cost – high return!
What do you get when you outsource sales management?
On a weekly basis, the sales manager will speak with the sales team, to determine the status of your sales opportunities. Everything in that meeting will be focused on closing sales, or ensuring opportunities are moving along the pipeline. The key advantages of this are as follows:
Identification of strengths and weaknesses amongst your sales team, whatever the size, ensuring you are maximising return for your spend
Shorten sales cycles, thus increasing revenue and cash flow
Optimise the time your sales team spend on given opportunities, so that they can spend more time closing profitable opportunities
Accurate information, based on sales both won and lost, which can be used by product planning and service teams.
Ongoing coaching and training based on your real opportunities, which makes your team the envy of the industry, and thus enables you to attract the best.
Identification of a team member who can take over the role of sales manager, so that you promote from within, which is fantastic for morale and motivation.
Several companies are already outsourcing their sales management function to 3R Sales and Marketing, for further information, take a look at sales management outsourcing.
–
This article was written by Peter Lawless, founder of 3R Sales and Marketing. For previous articles like this, visit 3R’s Articles. Alternatively, subscribe to Success our free monthly Information Bulletin with sales and marketing articles.
Source: http://www.articletrader.com
Sphere: Related Content