Sick of your job?Sick of your boss? Sick of corporate America? Have an idea rolling around in your head that you think can make a lot of money? Well, you say to yourself, I’ll just work for me. I’ll set my own hours, I’ll do what I love it will be great! I’m going to be my own boss! Well, can you be your own boss? Yes! of course.
My inspiration for this blog post comes from my work with a really great painter from my time in property management. When I started he had a really great reputation with the company I worked for, he was in really high demand. His workmanship was spot on, his service was great, thus he always had work. Then, he wasn’t as available anymore. His work was great, but I wasn’t receiving any bills from him, and he was getting hard to get a hold of. Then, he tells me the company I worked for owed him money dating back nearly a year! So, I look back, and I had not received a bill from him in over 3 months! He had done a lot of work for me during that time.
Not everyone is successful at being their own boss. But, I don’t want to discourage you! I think more small business is what this country and economy needs. It’s good for business owners and customers! It’s good for the community. The list goes on, here’s a great link that goes more into depth about how small businesses are good. How Important are Small Businesses to Local Economies.
If you have a talent or hobby that you think can benefit your customers, and you think you can make a decent living with it, please do it! But, do it right.
Stay organized
This is key! Missing appointments and paperwork due to disorganization will kill your reputation! I’m super forgetful, so I keep a day planner in my purse, and a to do list with me. I write down what I need to when I think of it. I also use white boards and an electronic calendar (google has a good one). That may be a little overkill for for some, I get that completely 🙂 But, it’s what I need to stay sane 🙂
Prioritize
Have you heard of the Eisenhower box? It helped me out a lot! I had a lot on my plate at my last building, and it helped me stay productive in the 8 hours I had a day to work. Here’s a link to show how it works. How to be More Productive and Eliminate Time Wasting Activities Using the “Eisenhower Box”
Delegate
If you don’t delegate you can’t grow. (I’ll talk more about delegating and empowering another time 🙂 ) I know its intimidating to trust aspects of your business to an employee or contractor. However, you can’t do it all, grow, and keep your sanity! Do a bit of risk management, and excellent training paired with patience and go from there. You may want to have an exit strategy in place, but hopefully with the correct risk management in place you won’t need it 🙂
At first you may be wearing all the hats, but once you get things rolling you can start hiring out some responsibilities. If accounting isn’t your thing, hire an accountant. Sales not your thing, hire a sales person. The list could go on, but do what you do best in your business.
Be patient! Success won’t come overnight.
Growing a business takes time. You’ll have successes, and you’ll have failures (which you can learn from). But if you have a product or service that people want or need, and people are willing to pay for it carry on! Evaluate what works, evaluate your competition, change what isn’t working and keep up the good work!
Have goals!
You need something to work toward. Even if you don’t reach them initially, having them allows you to re evaluate and see what you need to do to reach them.
Be willing to change as need be
Change with the times. For example, if you don’t have a website, you should. If your target market is mostly online get your website equipped with pay pay or whatever you need. If you need to change your products or services to accommodate your customers do so (after much evaluation)Your competition won’t stop moving forward to be profitable, and neither should you!
I hope you find this information helpful. There is so much to be discussed about this topic, and I will likely touch on a few of these in the future. I would love to hear from you! What tips to you have that can turn your passion into a business?