Your Home-Based Business: It's All Up to You!
By Mark David
Originally published in the Home Business Connection
November 2000
What a great challenge it is starting and maintaining your
home-based business. While wearing the hat of both CEO and shipping
clerk, every day you motivate, manage and focus yourself. You are
responsible for strategic planning, decision-making and making the
right adjustments to stay on track. Successful home-based business
professionals are effective self-coaches that have mastered the art
of being proactive versus reactive in everything they do.
As a home-based business owner, it's critical to spend as much time
as possible thinking through issues and business situations. This
is the only way you can make the correct decisions on a consistent
basis. Every time you don't make the correct decision and you have
to do things over again, or circle back, or stop and start
projects, you end up eating away at your profit at a rapid rate.
Not to mention you've wasted time and this is one of your most
valuable assets.
Being proactive means you make it a habit to anticipate crises
before they happen. Particularly when it comes to your larger, more
important decisions. I call this Crisis Anticipation and it's
simple. Think of everything that can go wrong in a particular
situation whether it is an upcoming meeting or strategic plan.
Think about what could "blow up" unexpectedly. List all the crises
you can think of and then one by one, come up with a simple action
item to prevent each one from happening. This moves you into a
total proactive not to mention totally prepared position.
Even though proactive behavior is simple in concept, it's easy to
fall into a reactive mindset. You know the one.... it's when you
feel like a hamster in a cage on an exercise wheel. You keep
working harder and harder, putting in more and more hours, yet,
there's never enough time to complete all of your projects. My
advice is stay focused in a proactive manner. Focus on the things
that will bring you your highest payoff. Let the other things die
their natural death.
In a lot of ways, building a home-based business today has never
been easier to do. In today's world of e-business, palm pilots,
e-mail, wireless communications, software for almost anything you
can imagine, there are plenty of resources. Starting up your
business not only takes SOME resources but it takes A LOT of heart.
Here are a couple tips from my book, Coaching Illustrated.
Consider these when setting up your home-based business for
success.
1. Broadcast Your Vision
It's often said, "You've got to see it to achieve it!" As a leader
of your home-based business, the first step to long-term success is
creating a Vision statement.
Create a written document that describes your desired future state.
Ask yourself, what do you want to achieve in your business and
personal life by year-end? Why are these goals important to you?
How does it feel once you've achieved them? What does your future
world look like? Some of the most successful professionals in the
world actually create a drawing or collage of what their future
world looks like .They post it where they can see it every day as
often as possible. It's a great motivator and brings so much
clarity to your day-to-day activities. Your Vision statement (and
drawing) will act as a constant reminder of what you are working
toward. It will help you stay focused on the activities that will
get you to your ultimate destination most efficiently. I recommend
that you revisit your Vision at least once a month. Make any
necessary adjustments to your plan and keep yourself on track. You
must become excellent at self-motivation when building your
home-based business. Creating, broadcasting and revisiting your
Vision can do just that.
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