by Angela Taffs | Jun 7, 2016 | Business Success, Running a Business, Starting a Business
There are three key things you need to build a successful business:
If any one of these is lacking, it is going to need to be made up for in one of the other areas.
Let’s take a look at them one at a time.
Time
Building a successful business takes time. And it is likely to take a lot longer than you think. All too often we set up our small business thinking we are going to be drawing a full time wage within a month or so. All too often the reality is different. We end up working for nothing for the first 12 months or just drawing a paltry sum that barely covers a pair of tights each month.
And on the subject of time, everything we do seems to take longer than expected. I will just write a quick blog I hear you say. And three hours later you are still staring at a blank screen. I will just make a quick update to my website I hear you say. And two weeks later you are still playing around with the design and the layout. I will quickly set up a mailing system I hear you say. And days later you are still tearing your hair out and wondering what the hell everyone else is on it about when they say it is all so easy.
If you don’t have time, you are going to have invest money to make up for it. You are going to have to spend money on marketing rather than trying to do everything for free on social media. You are going to have to spend money outsourcing all those tasks that are eating up the precious hours in your day.
Energy
You are going to need massive amounts of energy to build your own business. The time it takes will easily leave you feeling drained and exhausted and it will be all too easy to feel like throwing in the towel.
One of the dangers of building a business, particularly when working from home, is that we let healthy habits slip. We stop taking exercise as we just want to get one more task squeezed into the day. We stop eating healthily and grab chocolate bars and coffee whilst chained to our computer screens.
This soon leaves us feeling sluggish and out of kilter.
To build a successful business, you need to take of yourself first and foremost and keep your energy levels up. You need to take regular exercise, you need to keep healthy and you need to get enough sleep. If you energy levels drain, you will end up either ill or having to take time out to recharge the batteries.
If you don’t have energy, it is going to cost you more in time and money. It will take more time to build your business or you will have to invest more money to get someone to take over your work for you.
Money
Yes, you are going to have to invest some money! I’m sorry to break the bad news to you but those get rich quick schemes where you only have to put in a few pounds or dollars up front just don’t work. I have had numerous people send me their schemes but when I ask to see their bank details or profit and loss statement to validate their claims, they disappear into the mist never to be heard of again.
You need to invest in the tools to do the job. You can get many free versions of systems and software, but if you really want to build your business, it is the paid versions that you need. You need to invest in yourself and the businesses that really move forward faster than the others invest in a coach. I invested in thousands for a coach for myself. Even though I am a business coach, I still need someone to help me with new ideas and to hold me accountable for achieving results. Without this, my business would have taken vastly longer to be successful.
If you don’t invest money it is going to cost you more time and energy. You can try to build a business on a shoestring but you are likely to end up just running a very expensive hobby for many years to come. And more time is going to take more energy. You really need to look at the potential return on investment and savings in time and energy rather than holding on those purse strings.
Do you have these three key areas covered or is the lack of one of these hampering your success? Let me know in the comments below.
by Angela Taffs | Apr 4, 2016 | Running a Business, Sales and Marketing
Social media friend or foe
For those of you who have got to know me, you will be very much aware by now that I am a stickler for social media etiquette as illustrated in many of my previous posts such as ‘A key tactic when your content is shared on social media’
In my opinion, far too many lose sight of the word ‘social’ when using social media. They rely on autoresponders to send messages to followers on Twitter and use auto-scheduling software such as Hootsuite and Buffer to post out messages but then fail to check in to reply to comments or questions.
Well Jeeves, it simply is not good enough.
And now there seems to be another abhorrent trend doing the rounds. This has become apparent on Facebook where certain people feel the need to send a personal friend request to some poor unsuspecting victim to then, once the friend request has been accepted, automatically add them to a group without their permission only to bombard them with sales messages.
Jolly bad practice!! And personally, I think Facebook should look into banning it.
I am selective as to who I accept as a friend as I prefer to keep my personal and professional life separate. But on occasions, where I have built a relationship with someone in a group, then yes, I also will accept them as a friend.
But if they are then so rude as to add me to their group with no explanation or introduction it just illustrates to me what an unprofessional person they are and one that I never want to do business with. They have used an unscrupulous practice to entice me as a social media friend under false pretences.
Due to my selectiveness with my friends, this has only happened to me on a couple of occasions but I know of others who have been bombarded with newfound ‘friends’ not only adding them to wholly unsuitable groups but also posting on their own personal walls!
This is the height of bad manners and I suspect started from some low-level MLM pundit or desperate business coach (and before you start I am not anti-MLM, far from it as there are a few very good companies out there). It is exactly the same as me accepting to meet a new friend for a coffee only to be taken completely unexpectedly to a timeshare talk. Not the way someone should treat a friend in any way, shape or form.
Which are you? A social media friend or foe?
If you are an offender and guilty of this practice may I suggest you cease it now? There are far better ways to market your services and this is not one of them. You will only end up getting yourself a bad name and believe me, bad news travels fast.
by Angela Taffs | Mar 7, 2016 | Business Success, Running a Business
Do you wish you could be more productive in your working day?
Did you get up this morning and before you had finished your first cup of coffee, had already started to feel completely overwhelmed. You knew you had so much to do and so many tasks to finish and you just didn’t know where to start.
Does this sound like you? Yes? Well first and foremost, if you are a regular reader of my blog posts and a member of my Facebook group and see my daily tips, you will already know that I always suggest taking a few minutes at the end of each day to tidy up your workspace and plan ahead by writing down your top three priority tasks for the next day. That way, each morning you can then come into your office or workspace and know exactly what you have to focus on for the day which will, in turn, help you to be more productive
The psychological effect of a timer
But even so, at times, you get up in the morning and still feel completely overwhelmed. So here is my tip. Get yourself a timer. This can be a kitchen timer or an app on your phone but make sure it has a decent ticking noise. There is something quite powerful in that ticking sound which creates a sense of urgency. No, I am not talking the gentle ticking of a Grandfather clock but the urgency of the tick tock you hear on the timer of Countdown (for UK readers) or the tick-tock from the crocodile in Peter Pan that made you aware of imminent danger. Hearing that noise can have quite a psychological impact to somehow propel you to get your work done as quickly as possible.
When you get up each morning, make sure that you have your three key tasks in front of you and your timer. Then sit down and work out how long it is going to take you to complete each task. Once you have done this, you need to then break down any longer tasks into 15 or 20-minute chunks. Therefore, if you have a task that you believe it’s going to take two hours, simply break it down into six lots of 20-minute chunks. Doing this will make life so much easier and keep you focused for short bursts of time rather than getting overwhelmed thinking you have to work for two hours solid where you are more likely going to faff about wondering where are you going to start and actually getting not a lot done for a least first hour.
For instance, if you’re writing a section of a workshop such as I was yesterday morning, or creating content for your website, break it into bite-size sections. The first 20 minutes will be for mapping out the content. The second 20 minutes will be pulling together all the resources and relative articles that are needed. The third 20 minutes will be bullet pointing into a PowerPoint keynotes and pulling images together etc. The next three chunks of 20 minutes will actually be writing the content.
If you are making a product, your first 20 minutes could be getting all of your materials together setting up your workspace. The second 20 minutes will be putting the basic items together that form the framework of whatever you are making.
If you are a web designer or graphic designer, your first 20 minutes could be something such as choosing colours and fonts in order to be ready to move on to your next 20 minutes of sketching out an initial design. Think of all the things you have to do and keep breaking each area down until they fit a 20-minute time slot.
The key trick to be more productive and get your work completed
The key trick to getting your work done is to take regular breaks so when that timer goes off after each 20 minutes, you need to take a two-minute break. You may think this is wasting time if you are in the flow of things but I promise you it’s not. It gives your brain a rest just by moving your body around, just walking from one room to another, stretching and grabbing a glass of water.
Taking these regular short breaks will keep your mind fresh so you feel like going back and doing the next 20-minute task. This can be so much more effective than just trying to go at something for hours on end and losing momentum and motivation along the way.
You can apply this principle to anything. Try it with your housework (I do all my housework in 20-minute dashes). Try it with your fitness rather than feeling you can’t achieve something. If you think you’ve got to go out and do a 1-hour run but you really don’t feel like it, break into 20-minute chunks. Go run for 20 minutes then stop and walk for two minutes. Run for another 20 minutes, stop and walk for two minutes. Have a final run of 20 minutes. Doing it this way stops you feeling overwhelmed by thinking you have to run for a full hour. By breaking it down and having a rest in between, you have achieved what you set out to do without losing motivation part way through.
At the end of each hour of work, yes, you have taken more time as your one hour of work will have taken one hour and six minutes, but by giving yourself breaks it helps you get refocused and keeps you motivated.
Try it for yourself and tell me in the comments below if it helps you be more productive or not.
by Angela Taffs | Feb 16, 2016 | Running a Business, Starting a Business
10 top tips for running a home business
Running a home business has a whole set of challenges of its own. You are solely responsible for being disciplined in your work and not drifting off to do a spot of housework or accepting friends in for coffee who turn up on your doorstep.
If you are running a home business, here are my top 10 tips to help make the difference between treating your business in a professional manner in order for it to be successful, or letting it slip into the realms of an expensive hobby.
1. Create a separate workspace
Make sure that you have a separate home office or area for working so that you can keep all your paperwork and work-related items in one place. This helps to shut off at the end of the work day rather than having bits and pieces all over the place. It is important to let other household members know that this is your sacred space and not to be interfered with on pain of death!!
2. Get organized
The amount of time it takes to get organised in the first place will repay itself tenfold (or much more) further down the line. Get files and organise a filing system for your workspace. Clear away non-essential items that are causing unnecessary clutter. Make sure you have all the necessary items for doing your work close to hand to save time hunting in the back of cupboards and drawers. Treat your workspace with the importance it deserves. Remember, you are running a business, not a hobby.
3. Define your working hours
One of the biggest failings of women running a home business is not setting working hours. This results in either working a straight 15 (or more) hours with no break or working intermittently and fitting in household chores between work tasks that distract and disrupt the workflow. Firstly, determine when you are most productive and then at what times you need to be available to clients. Decide how many hours you are going to work each day and stick to this!
Running your own business from home gives you the flexibility to decide when you are going to work and it doesn’t have to be all in one chunk like a traditional 9 to 5 job. You may want to do a few hours in the morning, take the afternoons off and then do a few more hours in the evening. Having some sort of structure to your day can make you much more productive than just working on an ad hoc basis.
4. Have a support network
Constantly talking to yourself and losing your grip with what is going on in the outside world is all too easy when working from home which can easily lead to losing your motivation. Make sure you remove yourself from your home once in a while to network with others to make new contacts, pick up new ideas and realise you are not alone.
5. Get into a routine
Having a routine and putting some structure into your day can make you so much more productive. Create a monthly, weekly and daily routine where possible. Block outset days/hours for marketing, admin, checking the finances, networking, calling new prospects etc. Have set hours for checking emails and social media so that you don’t keep dipping in and out constantly which will take up far more time in the long run and keep distracting you from your key work.
6. Plan your work
The old adage goes ‘fail to plan, plan to fail’ and this is so true when running a home business. If you just get up each morning with no clear plan of what you intend to do for the day, you are likely to dip in and out of different tasks with no clear direction and end up not getting a lot actually completed.
At the end of each day set out your three priority tasks for the next day. Make sure one of these is a key task that is going to take you, at least, one step closer to your end goal. When you complete these three key tasks, you can then move on to a more fun task that you love doing but isn’t high on the priority list. Working this way will help keep you motivated to complete the necessary tasks first with the reward of doing something more fun at the end.
If you find that you are not completing your three key tasks, move any unfinished item over to the next day and put a red dot next to it. If it doesn’t get completed on day 2, move it forward and add another red dot against it. If you get to any item with three red dots you have to stop everything you are doing and either just do it, delegate it to someone else who can do it or delete it as it simply cannot be that important.
7. Take time out
Working from home can become all-consuming and we forget to take time out to recharge and refresh ourselves. We keep trying to squeeze in just a bit more work and then a bit more which leaves us frazzled, irritable and resentful. Schedule regular breaks from your workspace to do something non-work related such as going for a walk, reading a book or going out to lunch with a friend. As they say, ‘a change is as good as a rest’.
8. Schedule family time
A danger of running a business from home is starting to neglect your family. Just because you are at home and they can see you, doesn’t mean that you are spending time with them if you are constantly working. Make sure you set out your working hours and allocate time out each week to focus purely on the family. No taking calls or dipping into emails. What is the point of working so hard if you can’t have some quality time with the ones you love?
9. Set expectations with family
When running a home business, it really can become a struggle balancing your business with having family around. To help ease frustrations, set expectations with your family. Set yourself specific working hours and let your family know that during these hours you will be working.
If you work from a separate room let them know that if the door is closed, you are not to be disturbed unless in an emergency. Also, extend this to friends so they know they cannot just pop in for a coffee and a chat when they feel like it. You need to be able to communicate with friends and family so they understand that just because you work from home does not make your work any less important than if you were out working for a large corporation.
10. Have fun!
It is all too easy to get so caught up in the nitty-gritty of our business that we start to lose the passion and forget the fun we had in starting up. Recapture the passion and love for your business by taking some time to have fun. This is both by booking time out and also looking for ways to have fun in your business day. If you can start to enjoy it again, you gain more energy and the creative juices start to flow once again.
Follow these tips for running your home business and if you have any tips of your own, please share them in the comments box below.
by Angela Taffs | Jan 19, 2016 | Running a Business
Business Email Etiquette
When you get a business email from a client or contact, how quickly do you respond? Or do you respond at all?
An email is very much a dominant form of communication in today’s world and perhaps because we all get so much of it, we stop dealing with it in the correct manner.
All too often I will email a client or contact and then sit in silence awaiting a response that never materialises. And according to others, I speak with this is becoming all too often an occurrence. This simply isn’t good enough. Quite frankly it is plain bad manners.
Whether you receive a business email from a prospect, a client, contact or anyone else for that matter, if someone takes the time to contact you to pass on some information that you may find useful or to ask a question, it is only common courtesy to respond.
Even if you send a quick holding email if you are busy or don’t have a full response as yet at least you have shown enough respect to let the sender know that their message has been read and you are not just ignoring them.
A simple line such as ‘thanks, I will be in touch soon’ is better than complete silence.
Don’t get me wrong. You don’t want to be responding to emails at all unearthly hours as you need some clear set boundaries of your working hours. You don’t need your phone on email alert so that you check and answer every one the second it comes in. But if you want to run a professional business and for your clients and contacts to remember you for all the right reasons, you do need to have an email policy in place and to respond within a reasonable time frame. You just never know when that person may be in a position to either do business with you in the future or pass the business on to you and if you have left a negative impression in their mind, they may choose not to!
If for any reason you know that you are going to be busy and unable to respond within 24 hours, simply set an out-of-office reply to let people know.
So come on, up your game and abide by email etiquette to let people know you care.
If your email box is overflowing and out of control which is causing a knock-on effect on your response time, read the related article ‘how to control your inbox’.
by Angela Taffs | Oct 12, 2015 | Business Success, Running a Business
I really cannot stress enough the importance of having the correct working environment and getting into the right frame of mind when you are working from home in order that you work at your best. By having a well-laid out and organised workspace that feels comfortable and welcoming will help you be more focused, organised and productive. Thinking about what you wear and how you look can get you in the right mindset for creating your best work.
Even if space is of a premium in your home, really make the effort to create a harmonious working environment rather than grabbing a spare inch at the end of the dining table or working from your sofa without putting any thought into your surroundings.
Wherever you have your workspace, you need to keep it organised. Make sure you tidy your desk at the end of each day and block out an hour or two once each month to do a declutter. It is incredible how quickly unnecessary items find a way of taking up residence long-term if allowed to. Don’t leave piles of paperwork in the corner of the room if you don’t have a designated working area. Get a storage box and put everything neatly back into it at the end of each day.
Ensure that your work area is a pleasure to look at and work at.
- Get a vase and keep it filled with freshly cut flowers.
- Light a softly scented candle whilst you work.
- Have your favourite motivational quote printed off and put it in a small picture frame to sit where you can see it.
- Buy yourself a special mug or glass for your drink.
- Treat yourself to a beautiful desk lamp.
- Get a gorgeous cushion for your chair.
Even if you do have to work from your dining table you can still spend a few minutes each morning setting these things out to get you in the right frame of mind.
Don’t forget yourself and how you dress. It is all too easy to pop on those comfy tracksuit bottoms when working from home but dressing in the right manner can help get us in the right mindset for working effectively. Treat yourself to some clothes that are both comfortable but that look smart and you wouldn’t be embarrassed a client sees you in. For the ultimate luxury get a pair of cashmere lounge pants. Pricey but worth it. Don’t scrimp on the make-up either. Look your best and you will feel your best and work at your best. Give yourself a spritz of your favourite perfume in the morning, don’t just save it for when you are leaving the house.
All of these are small things but can make a big difference in how you feel when you are working.
Try them out and see how you feel and then let me know in the comments box at the bottom of the page.
