Home Business Ideas and Opportunities

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Developing a Successful Home Business

Staying focused and motivated are some of the main keys to developing a successful home business. At start-up, these skills are necessary to create a plan and get the information and training you need to develop your ideas. It is not possible to achieve your goals without first having a plan of action regarding the steps you will take to hit your target. Everybody has a different style and some are more creative and less organized, so while we may take different paths to get to the prize, getting there will involve navigating to that end. Much easier if you know at least vaguely where you are going.

reach your goal

Try to stay on the most direct course if you want to accomplish your goals sooner rather than later. This means you must focus in the middle of life which is often full of chaos. There is a real art to not letting things distract you and/or prevent you from doing what you have planned. Of course some things can’t be avoided and for these you should actually develop a contingency plan. In other words, if Plan A is not working or there is some obstacle, then have a Plan B and do that instead. The point of course is to keep moving forward and never quit or wait, no matter what.

Different things motivate different people. For some they need to ‘visualize’ what they will buy with the money they earn and some teach even going so far as to cut out pictures of things and paste them to your mirror so you see the fancy sports car, the Italian villa, the diamond necklace, etc. This may work in the long run but it seems kind of silly in that realistically your goal would be something in line with ‘earning my first $100 from my home business’ and it would actually be quite some time before someone was able to live the ostentacious life style.

Imagining fantasy scenarios can be fun, and it might actually work to motivate someone, but at the same time there is an equal chance that someone will become discouraged when in the first years of developing a home business they are seeing lots of work and learning curves and have yet to see much in the way of tangible rewards. This is just normal and nothing to get bummed out over. It’s reality. We have to work and invest our time and effort if we want to see the money.

While competing with other people is not that great of a way to motivate a lot of people, some might respond to this method. More likely competing with yourself would be more appropriate. In other words just like exercising – at first you are sluggish and tire easily, but if you are focused and determined to keep it up, you will build momentum and feel stronger each time; you will naturally want to do more of what makes you feel good or that produces the desired results. You can really get a great feeling of self-esteem from exercising, whether it is your mind, your body or your spirit.

Something else that has to do with mindset and might be considered a competitive strategy to keep motivated would be self-talk. Self talk can be telling yourself that you can do so much more than what you are given credit for at your job. You will show them or at least yourself that you can and you will earn more money than what they think you are worth. You may also be pleasantly surprised at how liberating it feels when you can take control of your own financial situation and realize you can earn as much as you want to when you are working for yourself and not anybody else.

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Visualize What Your Successful Home Business Would Look Like

Let’s just look at the work you are doing and if you are enjoying it at all or not. Likely when you are starting out you will be working on over-drive. While this is certainly admirable and necessary from time to time, it shouldn’t be the norm. Or do you enjoy being really engaged and focused?

happy girl

Realize that you are building over time and you may be on the foundation level at this point. The foundation of course is the most critical level because everything that happens after that is built on that premise. So it may be best to get all ducks in a row at least to some degree, if only conceptually at this point before we try to proceed.

Be real as far as what you believe you can accomplish in the short and mid-range target goals. What would it be like if 3-6 months from now, you were happy with what you did so far and know you are making progress even if you can’t see it yet?

Maybe in 12 months you are now starting to see substantial results of the actions you took in the past up to this point. Now if you just keep up your momentum it will start to ‘run itself’ (to some degree). This is sometimes referred to as autopilot. What a lovely concept – it is what it is and it does quite a bit to give you some freedom again. So take a deep breath and then keep on going in the right direction!

It’s really now more about ‘working smarter rather than harder’ – maybe upgrading some of your tools, services and/or equipment; creating ways to do things better – in a more efficient, organized way; maybe attend a webinar, download an eBook or take an online class or two. Keep growing.

It may be at that point you can see that there are always more things to learn before you can really make even more progress and things happen a lot faster. OK now you are finally really on your way. What would ideally be your level of involvement at this juncture? Would you be a ‘hands-on’ person (like a coach or consultant) or a delegator and remote like an executive?

Some of these issues really border on being related to whether you ‘work to live or live to work’. Probably that depends on how you look at that and give it either a positive or negative connotation. One thing is for sure – whatever it is, it is much easier if you can enjoy doing it and if not that you can afford to have it done for you while you enjoy your life otherwise!

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Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say To Have a Successful Home Business

You hear all the time ‘build a relationship’, ‘build trust’ when talking about how to network and develop your business. Whether or not you are completely open and receptive, skeptical, or completely contrary, you won’t trust somebody for long who doesn’t keep their word. Trust and respect really do go hand in hand.

handshake

We should always give the benefit of the doubt at least initially, and give the person a chance to clarify or explain the situation — (an apology is very cool, but only goes so far after multiple times). No excuse for rude behavior like being chronically late or no-show for appointments, or failing to return your call or answer your email, even after you made 2-3 attempts. (…calling to say you will be late BEFORE you are actually late goes a long way.)

It must be qualified here that it is of paramount importance to be responsive (have a pulse), from the perspective of you having invited people to contact you anytime if they need anything or have a problem, and you would be glad to assist them. Don’t say it unless you really mean it. Make provisions for your customers to receive assistance if it is not your trip. People don’t like to feel that as soon as they give you their money the whole atmosphere changes and they can’t find you.

However fair is fair and ONLY IF the customer is following instructions and being respectful of your protocols, do you owe them the respect of a prompt response.(For example using the correct link or email address posted as the one for support.) If they feel entitled to be hostile there is always the blacklist filter.

If you tell somebody you will call them Monday – then call them Monday. Otherwise say you will call them soon (if you will). So rude to have someone waiting for a call that never comes. If you say you can deliver something by Tuesday, then you really should be on time. If you are not absolutely sure you can keep your commitment, then say ‘Tuesday or so’ (meaning maybe Wednesday or stretching it to the max Thursday). Be proactive if there is a problem – let them know before they get annoyed.

This type of genuine honesty extends to time limits, costs and quantities in advertising. If you say that the price is $1 cheaper until Wednesday, then the price should go up Wednesday, lest they see you are not a ‘man/woman of your word’ and it was just a ploy to rush them. The point is to mean what you say so people will respect you.

On the other hand, you can fudge a little and exactly on Wednesday announce you have decided to extend the offer another day, week or whatever. The point is to say what you mean so people will begin to trust you. Most sales/advertising people know that it is a legitimate ‘psyche’ to use scarcity (time limits, limited quantity) as a selling point that compels people to take action now instead of later or never. So there is a ‘thin-gray line’ here. :-)

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