Home Business – The Four-Letter Words – Part 2
Cindyann Williams asked:
Working at home, being your own boss, planning your own schedule, making as much money as you want to – it sounds like a dream come true, doesn’t it? And it can be exactly that – as long as you keep in mind the work-at-home, four-letter words!
Don’t worry – these aren’t four-letter words that you’ll want to be careful not to say in front your kids! (You might even think it’s a good idea for the kids to learn and practice them.)
Here they are – the work-at-home, four-letter words: idea, time, goal, plan, work, file, and tink (OK, think!). These concepts are explained in a series of three articles. You are now reading the second one of those three articles.
For what we’re talking about here, it doesn’t matter what your home business is. It could be child care, a computer business, pet sitting, etc. The same four-letter words are crucial. I happen to run a home computer business, so a lot of my examples are based on that experience.
Third: Goal. If you try to start a home business (or any other important thing in your life) without clearly knowing exactly what your goals are, you will immediately reduce the odds that you will be successful.
It is just a simple fact that, as human beings, we function most effectively when we know exactly what it is that we are trying to accomplish. This has been demonstrated over and over again, by decades of research in psychology, sports, business, etc. It just makes sense, doesn’t it? And your own experiences probably tell you the same thing. On the days when you get up with a clear plan about what you want to do that day, you almost certainly get more done than you do on your “off balance” days.
I have found that to be doubly true as I tried to start my own home internet business. It can be kind of overwhelming, trying to start a whole new business – no matter what kind of business you have chosen. I chose to start a home computer business – and almost immediately found out two things. One, there are a lot of rip-off products out there, promising you instant riches with no time or effort on your part. Two, starting an honest, money-making home computer business was going to involve a fair amount of learning on my part.
Failure was not an option for me, so I just started setting daily goals. “Today I will find out what tools are available for developing a website even though I know nothing about HTML.” And so on. As you go, you will see other things that you need to learn. Set a goal for that.
You will soon learn enough that you can see what you need to do to start making money at home. Yep, set specific goals for those tasks.
For a much more detailed discussion of goal-setting, you can read my article that is part of the “Dirty Dozen” series, which I have written to help new home business owners avoid some potentially big problems.
Fourth: Plan. Planning is essential to your success as a home business owner, and it fits right in with the preceding discussion about goal setting. Planning is so important that many experienced business owners say that, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail!”
Your plans do not need to be complicated. In fact, a lot of research shows that clear, simple plans are the most effective way to achieve what you want. Here are some suggestions for successful planning.
Start by thinking about what you want to accomplish. Then think about the steps that will be necessary to meet that goal. Write down each step. Identify the order in which you will complete all steps. Estimate how long it will take you to complete each step. (Add some extra time to your estimates. Things almost always take longer than you think they will – especially when you are starting something that is new to you.) Follow your plan, revising it as you need to. Keep careful records of what worked, what didn’t work, what you still need to do, and where you found important information. This step all by itself can save you a lot of doing over, doubling back, and looking for lost information.
Don’t worry if you don’t get everything done as fast as you would like. Just follow your plan and keep going. While I was figuring out my home computer business, my plans changed frequently, as I learned new things, wound up in dead ends, and saw new avenues to success. The important thing for you is stay on track, not give up, and ideally, make your business plans based on learning from someone who has already successfully started the kind of home business that you want to start.
That covers the second two of the four-letter words that are important in starting a home business. The others are discussed in Parts 1 and 3 of this article series.
Reprint Rights: You are free to copy this article and reprint it as long as you adhere to the following requirements. You must reprint this entire article, exactly as it is now, with no changes. You must include in your reprinting the full Resource box at the end of this article. You must not change the title or the content of the article in any way. You must reprint this article in such a way that all links are active and linkable with no syntax changes. You must follow all requirements regarding spam, disallowed topics, etc. You must include the following article source credit below the article with an active link.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, September 7th, 2010 at 8:26 pm and is filed under Home Business.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Working at home, being your own boss, planning your own schedule, making as much money as you want to – it sounds like a dream come true, doesn’t it? And it can be exactly that – as long as you keep in mind the work-at-home, four-letter words!
Don’t worry – these aren’t four-letter words that you’ll want to be careful not to say in front your kids! (You might even think it’s a good idea for the kids to learn and practice them.)
Here they are – the work-at-home, four-letter words: idea, time, goal, plan, work, file, and tink (OK, think!). These concepts are explained in a series of three articles. You are now reading the second one of those three articles.
For what we’re talking about here, it doesn’t matter what your home business is. It could be child care, a computer business, pet sitting, etc. The same four-letter words are crucial. I happen to run a home computer business, so a lot of my examples are based on that experience.
Third: Goal. If you try to start a home business (or any other important thing in your life) without clearly knowing exactly what your goals are, you will immediately reduce the odds that you will be successful.
It is just a simple fact that, as human beings, we function most effectively when we know exactly what it is that we are trying to accomplish. This has been demonstrated over and over again, by decades of research in psychology, sports, business, etc. It just makes sense, doesn’t it? And your own experiences probably tell you the same thing. On the days when you get up with a clear plan about what you want to do that day, you almost certainly get more done than you do on your “off balance” days.
I have found that to be doubly true as I tried to start my own home internet business. It can be kind of overwhelming, trying to start a whole new business – no matter what kind of business you have chosen. I chose to start a home computer business – and almost immediately found out two things. One, there are a lot of rip-off products out there, promising you instant riches with no time or effort on your part. Two, starting an honest, money-making home computer business was going to involve a fair amount of learning on my part.
Failure was not an option for me, so I just started setting daily goals. “Today I will find out what tools are available for developing a website even though I know nothing about HTML.” And so on. As you go, you will see other things that you need to learn. Set a goal for that.
You will soon learn enough that you can see what you need to do to start making money at home. Yep, set specific goals for those tasks.
For a much more detailed discussion of goal-setting, you can read my article that is part of the “Dirty Dozen” series, which I have written to help new home business owners avoid some potentially big problems.
Fourth: Plan. Planning is essential to your success as a home business owner, and it fits right in with the preceding discussion about goal setting. Planning is so important that many experienced business owners say that, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail!”
Your plans do not need to be complicated. In fact, a lot of research shows that clear, simple plans are the most effective way to achieve what you want. Here are some suggestions for successful planning.
Start by thinking about what you want to accomplish. Then think about the steps that will be necessary to meet that goal. Write down each step. Identify the order in which you will complete all steps. Estimate how long it will take you to complete each step. (Add some extra time to your estimates. Things almost always take longer than you think they will – especially when you are starting something that is new to you.) Follow your plan, revising it as you need to. Keep careful records of what worked, what didn’t work, what you still need to do, and where you found important information. This step all by itself can save you a lot of doing over, doubling back, and looking for lost information.
Don’t worry if you don’t get everything done as fast as you would like. Just follow your plan and keep going. While I was figuring out my home computer business, my plans changed frequently, as I learned new things, wound up in dead ends, and saw new avenues to success. The important thing for you is stay on track, not give up, and ideally, make your business plans based on learning from someone who has already successfully started the kind of home business that you want to start.
That covers the second two of the four-letter words that are important in starting a home business. The others are discussed in Parts 1 and 3 of this article series.
Reprint Rights: You are free to copy this article and reprint it as long as you adhere to the following requirements. You must reprint this entire article, exactly as it is now, with no changes. You must include in your reprinting the full Resource box at the end of this article. You must not change the title or the content of the article in any way. You must reprint this article in such a way that all links are active and linkable with no syntax changes. You must follow all requirements regarding spam, disallowed topics, etc. You must include the following article source credit below the article with an active link.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.