I'd like you to take a step back, look at your business as
an outsider would and ask the question "Is this a hobby or
a business?"
Put aside the anger that immediately boils to the surface
because, after all, you are working 12 hours a day, 7 days
a week; eating and non-sleeping this entity known as your
business with little financial return and look at it
objectively.
There will come a time (if it hasn't come already) when you
get up one morning, exhausted and overwhelmed, and ask
yourself "What happened to my vision of carefree self
employment where I'm my own boss, there's plenty of money
and I'm a raging success? Did I take a wrong turn on the
road to success?"
Be thankful for that day. That is the day you realize you
have a great opportunity: to step up and act like a
business (and recognize the limitless possibilities) or
keep playing with your "hobby" (and be realistic about your
income potential). Up until that point, chances are you've
been more focused on your specialty (bookkeeping, massage
therapy, virtual assistance, etc.) than on running your
business (think "technician" rather than "manager").
As a "business", you must focus on the future and look at
planning and revenue. As a "hobby", you focus more on today.
If you wish to create a business, especially a successful
one, you must have certain success indicators in place
(just ask the IRS):
1. You have a business and marketing plan.
If you want your business to be successful for the longer
term, you need to define what "successful" and "longer
term" mean to you. Your business plan must be written and
adaptable to the change that will happen.
I strongly recommend that you have a separate marketing
plan which outlines the activities you will do to attract
more clients. Your business and marketing plans should be
living, breathing documents which you use to keep on track.
2. You act like a business.
Your business has its own identity or brand. You have a
"look", possibly a tagline and cohesive marketing materials.
Your email address has your domain name in it (e.g.,
Sandy@SandraMartini.com) rather than you using a generic
account such as yournamehere@yahoo.com.
And, most importantly, you are not mixing money between
business and personal. You track your business income and
expenses in a software such as QuickBooks and not in a
shoebox timidly carried to your accountant each year.
3. You're making money.
Your business needs to be holding its own and then some.
OR, at the very least, well on it's way to profitability.
You can't be drawing out of your savings or racking up
credit card debt with no idea of when you will actually
start making money.
Hobbies can cost a lot with no hope of financial return
aside from the sheer pleasure of engaging in them.
Businesses can not.
4. You have a team.
As a solopreneur, there is only so much you can do. . .and
do well. To build your business to the point where you are
focusing only on your core strengths (which should be the
same things that bring in the revenue), you need someone to
delegate to.
5. You continue to learn and improve.
As a business owner, you must continuously review what's
working and what's not in your business and make changes
accordingly.
Personally, I do two things to insure that my business (and
I) continue to improve: 1/ I invest in myself by hiring
good coaches -- I currently belong to a very small, high
end Mastermind program run by Alexandria Brown in addition
to working with another coach who consistently challenges
me and 2/ I created a "Flash Report" for my business -- one
of my virtual assistants populates the report and sends it
to me each Friday. It tells me what's working and what
needs tweaking within my business (more on this coming
soon).
If you dream of a business where you fulfill your passions,
work less, yet make more while making a difference in the
lives of your clients, these are just a few of the
indicators that you want to insure are in place. The proper
systems will do more for you than a thousand networking
meetings. :-)
I challenge you to take a hard look at your business over
the coming days and see where you can improve - - make a
list and choose one indicator to work on over the next 90
days.
----------------------------------------------------
For the past 5 years, Sandra Martini has been showing
self-employed business owners how to get more clients
consistently by implementing processes and systems to put
their marketing on autopilot. Visit Sandra at
http://www.SandraMartini.com for details, compelling client
testimonials and her free audio series "5 Simple and Easy
Steps to Put Your Marketing on Autopilot".
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