Finding a Business That's Right For You

Written by Jeff Williams


Finding a business that matches your personality isrepparttar most crucial step in becoming self-employed. It makes no sense to leave an unfulfilling job to go into an equally unrewarding business enterprise.

> Your Goal: Find a Good Match

To help assure that you find a good match, you should candidly consider your lifestyle, interests and experience, A good place to start is to ask yourself if you like working with people or prefer to work more by yourself. If you are shy and will be uncomfortable around new people, you'd be best advised to stay away from a high-profile selling scenario.

Onrepparttar 106011 other hand, if you thrive onrepparttar 106012 energy of other people, you probably won't he happy in a business where your must work by yourself a great deal, such as an accountant. Reviewrepparttar 106013 things you like to do best. For example, if you love to go camping and hiking, a business in outdoor recreation might be a good fit for you. But what form should it take? Sporting goods store? Expedition leader? Equipment manufacturer? Newsletter publisher? You can quickly see that one idea can develop into many forms. Although you may eventually try them all in your business, you need to focus on one atrepparttar 106014 beginning. How do you go about doing that?

> Take Advantage of What You Know

It's generally advisable to start with something you have done before and are good at. Ask yourself what basic skills are required by this activity. For example, are you good with your hands? Do you speak well to groups? Can you write well? Are you well-organized? If your don't have allrepparttar 106015 necessary skills, can you learn those you need?

Another good way to learnrepparttar 106016 pros and cons of a business you're considering is to seek out people inrepparttar 106017 same or similar businesses and talk with them. Ask them first for their advice. Observe how they function in their work.

Read books onrepparttar 106018 subject - but be careful not to try starting a business onrepparttar 106019 basis of a book's advice alone - you can be getting information from onlyrepparttar 106020 most optimistic viewpoint.

Becoming A Solution To Your Customers Problems

Written by Sue and Chuck DeFiore


Those of us in home based and small businesses are in effect selling our product. So becoming an effective salesperson is very important. Remember, however, that selling is notrepparttar only thing you do. Don’t forget to use your time wisely.

What you want to do to help you move forward is to:

Plan and prioritize. Ifrepparttar 106010 majority of your day is spent with your customers, you will need some down time. You need to have time to look atrepparttar 106011 trends in your business. By this I mean go over your customer records, see where patterns are, what changes you need to make and then set up a plan to implement those changes. If you spend a little time atrepparttar 106012 end of each day going over what transpired duringrepparttar 106013 day and set up your plan and schedule forrepparttar 106014 next day, you will be much better prepared forrepparttar 106015 next day andrepparttar 106016 subsequent days.

Atrepparttar 106017 beginning of each week, take a look at where you want your business to be and make plans on how to get there. If something you are doing isn’t working, make changes. However, then you need to give those changes time to work. If they don’t work, change them again. Most important is that you spendrepparttar 106018 time each week to figure out what your business needs are and what your needs are, till you come up with what works best for you, your business and your customers.

As many of our long time readers know, I am a big proponent of To Do lists. Make up a daily to do list, a weekly and a monthly. Remember to consider your goals when making up your To Do list. Where do you want your business to be in five years, ten years? When you ask yourself these questions, you focus onrepparttar 106019 direction you want your business to take andrepparttar 106020 income you want to make.

Remember, after you have determined what your goals are, then take your goals and figure outrepparttar 106021 steps you need to take to get to that particular goal. Do this with each of your goals. Since we are concentrating on sales in this article, ask yourself: Do I need a new product? Do I need to look for other ways to sell my products? If I make these changes will I need additional funds? If I need funds should I get a parnter or find an investor? If I increase my business will I need to hire someone? Once you have answered these questions, then takerepparttar 106022 steps you have come up with and put them on your To Do list.

It is very important that you have a calendar and that you set deadlines. Your calendar can be paper or electronic. The most important thing is that you use it. Put all your goals,repparttar 106023 steps needed to get to your goals, and deadlines to meet those steps in your calendar. Remember, if you use your calendar wisely it will help you accomplish what you need to and help you to get things done efficiently and on time.

To show you how your calendar can work for you, let’s set up a marketing campaign. First, you want to schedule deadlines for everything that needs to be done before you can even startrepparttar 106024 campaign.

First set a deadline of September 4 to re-price all your current products. Byrepparttar 106025 12th of September contactrepparttar 106026 media you will be using for rate information along with their readership information, and what their ad copy requirements are. In our examplerepparttar 106027 media would be newspapers and magazines. However, you can also dorepparttar 106028 same for television, billboard, etc. Byrepparttar 106029 end of September (the 30th) make up your ad budget forrepparttar 106030 year. You will want to determine how much it will cost you on a monthly basis, so you can have an accurate determination of your monthly expenses. Byrepparttar 106031 middle of October (let’s sayrepparttar 106032 15th) set a deadline for your ad copy and any art so that you can meet their deadline. Let’s say in our example it isrepparttar 106033 1st ofrepparttar 106034 month. So that would be November 1st.

Cont'd on page 2 ==>
 
ImproveHomeLife.com © 2005
Terms of Use