The New Year is a time of evaluation for many people. Many set goals for the year only to last until they finish singing Auld Lang Syne. The most common resolutions are to lose weight, save money, start a new business, learn a new language and connect with friends. I’m sure there are many more that have not been mentioned.
Our focus in this post is to ask a few questions that will help you eliminate waste and increase profits for your home based business.
First you need to identify what is working for your business and what is not. For example, you may find that face to face interactions with customers are very fruitful or not as fruitful as you desire. You may find that you do quite well with phone conversations regarding business or not as fruitful as you wish. Both of these scenarios’ are common and with a little tweaking they can be improved greatly.
1. What areas are working well for you and what areas are not working well? How do you plan on improving those weak areas? Realize that a 10%, 20% or 30% improvement is like giving yourself a pay raise that can only happen when you are in business for yourself. How much would that be worth to you?
Secondly, what are you doing to attract new and old customers? Are your ad campaigns working well for you? Which ones are working well and which ones are not?
Losing ad campaigns can cost quite a bit. A yellow page ad that I ran years ago cost over $3000 per year. Yes, I would get customers but the cost to get that customer was too high for my liking. So I dropped the ad and got much better results from another source for 1/10th the cost. That was like putting $2700 in my pocket.
2. What areas of advertising are working well and what ads are not? Have you considered alternatives to what you are currently doing? What are the alternatives have you considered? Like the over quoted saying, “If you keep doing what you are doing, you are going to keep getting the same results you are getting”.
Thirdly, what employees or contract workers are working well for you and which ones are not? It is hard when you are dealing with people to make these choices but successful businesses make these decisions. So don’t put it off. If you do you will only suffer the consequences which could affect your home based business’ reputation and hit you in the pocketbook.
3. What are you doing yourself that you could delegate to others? This is a trap that many business owners fall into. A perfect example of this was mentioned in a previous post titled Two Guys in a Garage. Yes, there are experts out there that would be happy to help you. They will cost you but not as much as employees. What projects could you delegate to contract workers from a company like Elance?
An impartial person could be a valuable resource for you to cut costs and increase revenue for your business. If you need a coach to assist you, there are several that I could recommend.
Live life to the fullest and share your passion,
Mark A Sinclair
