Mila is Right, But Don’t Use it As An Excuse

Mila posted a very interesting and important article on outsourcing in this month’s IBMoms Newsletter. If you haven’t read it yet, I encourage you to do so. It’s down the page a bit and entitled:

“The Truth about Outsourcing – STOP Throwing Money Down the Drain!”

Mila makes some very important points and addresses what I have been teaching my students who are ready to get into outsourcing. Outsource smartly by having a good understanding of your business needs and constantly evaluate where your spending your money.

Mila mentions the 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss and I can see where people might go over the deep end to try to achieve the ideal nearly work-free lifestyle. Personally, I like working and have never thought of trying to reduce my workload to 4 hours per week (15-20 hours per week feels just right to me). Besides, if you’ve read Ferriss’s book, you’ll know that he sells huge volumes of his product and he has the resources to outsource everything. If you’re making a few sales per day or per week, that luxury may not be available to you. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Another important point Mila made was the mention of the 80/20 Rule or the Pareto Principle which can be applied to many aspects of life and business. When business management expert Joseph M. Juran took the principle and applied to business, he came up with “80% of your sales come from 20% of your customers”. Others have also extended the principle to show that 80% of your income probably comes from 20% of your work. In other words, we are likely WASTING a lot of time as individuals running our businesses and that also applies to the people working for us.

So if you’re working 8-10+ hour days and are even outsourcing, take a look at what you’re doing. Shave of ineffective activities for yourself and your staff. That alone will save you a ton of money.

Mila also says:

“So instead of outsourcing tasks that aren’t money producers, cut them out altogether or find a way to stream line your process (see previous article for more).”

But that’s where I want to clarify something that I feel is important and I’m guessing Mila will agree too. Not everything you outsource will directly translate into profits, so you cannot always look at the tasks someone is doing for you and decide if it is profitable.

One of the most important benefits of outsourcing is removing the time-draining, mundane necessary items off your plate, so you have more time to focus on profit-building activities. For example, your assistant may answer public emails, attend to administrative tasks, etc. None of those things DIRECTLY make you money, but the reduced stress and ability to focus is invaluable to your business. Still, don’t just blindly outsource the mundane - evaluate that too. Are all those tasks really necessary and how can you streamline the process, just as Mila says.

But here’s what I really want to say -

Mila’s advice is very sound…if you’re already outsourcing. If you’re not getting help with your business, what she said is not an excuse to decide that you can do everything for yourself.

Please:

• Set yourself up for a business that allows you some freedom and breathing room. Have a support system in place that allows you take time off when your family needs you and your mental health is screaming for it.

• Have a user-friendly, technologically automated and professional business that keeps up with the times. Use skilled graphic designers, programmers and other people with specialized skills that you don’t possess. Although you do need to understand the needs of your unique business, you certainly don’t need to learn how to program complicated code and move pixels around.

If you’re just getting started with outsourcing, you now have the awesome advice of Mila at your fingertips and you can do this smartly. Invest a little, grow your business and repeat. It’s as simple as that.

Related Resources:

• 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss: Although you may not be ready to or have the desire to reduce yourself to working 4 hours per week, the book is definitely a good read with some good advice along the way.
• Outsourcing Sweetie: Want to do this outsourcing thing, right? Get the education and tools you need to make your outsourcing a whole lot easier.

Turn Your Job into a Business

Whether you’re simply tired of your 9 to 5 job, are a new mother who can’t bear the thought of leaving your children in the care of someone else or if you’re just received notice that you’ll be losing your job – take heart. There are many opportunities to turn your job into your own business.

Here are some tips for turning a service you provide for your current employer into your own service-based business.

Take the Time to Research Your Options

Don’t just automatically quit your day job and assume the money will come pouring in. You’ll need to do research to determine if the service you currently offer is one that would make a good business venture. Some examples of jobs that have successfully been converted to businesses include bookkeeping, tax preparation, administrative assistant, web designers, graphic designers, sales jobs, and many others. Take a look and see what other independent service-providers are out there working in a similar field to yours.

Realize the Work Involved

By starting your own service-based business, keep in mind that not only will you be doing the actual work, but you’ll also be responsible for running a business. This will require more time on your part that are necessary to running a business. For instance, business owners don’t get paid each month for keeping track of, reporting and analyzing accounting for their business, but you still need to find time to do it. You will also likely incur additional costs in setting up your home office, creating a website (click here for a free 10-day trial) and finding new clients.

Beware of the Trading Hours for Dollars Trap

It’s easy to get into a routine of spending countless hours working on your business. It’s not uncommon for service based business owners to find at the end of the month, they’ve made very little money in comparison to the time they spent to earn that money.

One way business owners can combat this problem is to charge what their time is worth in the first place. Just because a business is new does not mean the owner should charge rock bottom prices in order to get work. Be honest with yourself and if you deserve more money, don’t be afraid to give yourself a raise!

You can and should also hire subcontractors to get some of the client work and tasks complete. No, I don’t mean anything complicated like hiring employees, but instead find independent contractors that can help complete various tasks in your business.

This might mean finding someone who can assist in areas such as customer service, bookkeeping, or even being a backup for the actual services you provide your clients. Independent contractors work for themselves and take care of their own costs and taxes, therefore leaving you to pay only for the work they actually do for your business. No need to worry about taxes, unproductive time, lunch breaks, equipment costs, etc.

If you enjoy what you do for your current employer but have found yourself in a position that leaves the need or just plain want to work for yourself instead, turning a current job into your own business is not impossible and definitely worth a second look. Just be sure to research and plan ahead to ensure the best possible outcome.

For Further Research: Search for service-based business ideas at Business Idea Library.

Tips for Defining Your Target Market

Many moms love to follow their passions when it comes to starting their business. The result is often times a business they love for a while, but that leads to killing the original passion because no one buys. This can be frustrating to say the least. That’s why researching and pinpointing your target market is crucial and the earlier the better.

Target markets don’t have to be a tricky part of business, but without a bit of planning you just might end up starting a business that goes no where. Here are a few tips to help you identify your target customer - which is the hardest part of the battle. Once you know who you want to target it’s a lot easier to cater your ads and other marketing to those people who are ready, willing and able to buy.

Stop thinking like and trying to compete with the big dogs.

Places like Amazon.com target a general audience and let’s face it they have the capital to make their business profit this way. Moms just don’t have that kind of dough, but that doesn’t mean we can’t take our piece of the pie. By focusing on a tighter niche, we have the ability to make money even without having to cater to everybody on the planet.

Give your market a place to turn and tell others about.

If you focus on a specific customer base, you have the ability to give them your FULL attention. This will keep you from spreading yourself too thin and burning out. Find your “perfect” customer and focus on their wants and needs and become an expert in that area. You’ll find a first time customer will have a better chance of not only recommending you to others, but also remaining a life long customer because they trust that you are going to be there and know what you’re talking about.

Stand out among the competition in your market.

Narrowing down your target customer makes it easier to cater to their wants and needs, therefore making it a lot easier to separate yourself from the crowd of others trying to sell their numerous products and services to people of many interests.

Once you have your target market chosen, you’ll want to do some research to determine if in fact it will be a profitable one. One of those ways is with a keyword research tool and here’s a quick and easy to follow WordTracker tutorial to help you out.

Fear Pay-Per-Click No Longer

If you’ve ever used pay-per-click advertising, such as Google Adwords, for your business, you know it can be intimidating at first. Many of us, including myself the first time I tried it, have lost our shirts because we willy-nilly bid and wrote ads that we hoped would get people to click on them. Unfortunately it doesn’t always work so easy.

That being said, pay-per-click doesn’t have to be frustrating or difficult if you take your time and create well-crafted campaigns. As a matter of fact, when done correctly, this type of exposure can help to set us up for long term profits by bringing in many first time customers who eagerly turn into life long customers to our business.

Here are a few tips to help get your Adwords campaign off to a good start without all that hair pulling.

1. Create specific landing pages for each of your campaigns.
What I mean by this is: Don’t link to your homepage with every ad you create. For example, if you sell baby slings and are bidding on the keyword phrase “Moby Wrap” for a specific ad, be sure you are sending your visitors to the exact page of your site that lists the Moby wraps only. Also be sure you are using Google’s “Website Optimizer” tool to create landing pages that perform the best they possibly can.

2. Build your ads around your keywords.
Don’t just throw an ad together that tells what your site or product is about. Spend some time putting together ads that actually incorporate the keyword phrases and searches you are targeting. Put yourself in the shoes of your potential customer and create ads that will answer their specific needs.

3. Test different versions of your ads.
Google allows up to three ads per ad group to be used. This is a great way to test various parts of your ads to see which gets the best results. Just remember to only test one part of the ad at a time to avoid confusion as to which component is or isn’t bringing the results you want.

Mila & I have created a Step-by-Step Adwords Tutorial to make setting up your first campaign easy with step-by-step instructions via video and a fully illustrated tutorial.

Combining Service Based & Passive Income Businesses

Many moms find themselves starting out online with a service-based business which a perfect way to transition from working outside the home to inside, but soon find themselves wanting a more passive way to bring in more money without adding to their work load. So, how can you successfully combine the two without becoming a slave to your computer or your clients?

1. Value and schedule your time in the service-based side of business. It’s too easy to let the excitement of a more passive income overtake your time. You must value your client time just as much as you do your personal business work or your clients, their work, and your income will suffer.
2. Charge what you are worth. When it comes to those in a service based business, it’s easy to charge dirt cheap prices to get work, but if you do this you’ll find you have to work more hours in order to make the amount of money you are looking for. Doing so cuts into the time necessary to grow your passive income.

On the flip side, you have to be careful not to overcharge either. If you charge rates that are through the roof, you might find it hard to retain clients if you aren’t producing the results they need to keep working with you. Be sure you are finding that perfect balance between what you are worth and what your market is willing to pay.

3. When estimating length of time to complete a project, be realistic. This is important no matter how you charge your clients, but especially if you offer per project rates. You don’t want to under-schedule your time on a project because doing so will put you behind on your passive income business and other client work.
4. Keep the two very separate. Chunk your work time into client time and personal business time. By doing this, you don’t get behind on either one and can continually grow both as you need to. Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and you can’t expect any business to be either.
5. Know exactly what you are doing every time you get on the computer. Again, you must have a plan in order to balance everything. Without a schedule and set amounts of time to devote to both of your businesses and your family, something will suffer and the majority of the time it ends up being yourself.

Passive and service based businesses can be run successfully, but not without proper planning and prioritizing. Be sure you think things through before jumping in with both feet.

The Importance of Following Up

Whether you run a service based business or not, follow up with your potential and past clients is extremely important. Not only can it be a key to future business, but it’s something that many businesses fail to utilize to their advantage and therefore by doing so, you put yourself above many of your competitors.

I’m sure everyone has heard the term “lifetime customer” at some point in our business venture, but how many of us really grasp the concept of what a lifetime customer can do for us? Beyond the fact that they buy from you multiple times, a lifetime customer can also bring you the following:

• Great Testimonials
• New Ideas to Grow Your Business
• Future Customers

With the potential of those few things and more, we should all be striving to create lifetime customers in our business. Without a quality follow up how can we expect our customers to remember us, let alone help us grow and prosper in our business? Here are some ideas for following up with your customers in a way that gets results.

• Set up a newsletter or list.
• Offer them customer only deals on future products or services.
• Give them a discount for referring new customers.
• Ask for feedback on the products or services they purchased.

Following up with your customers does not mean shoving yourself or your business down their throat to the point they get tired of you. How you conduct your follow up is just as important as doing it.

Surveys - Do They Work?

One of the easiest ways to get feedback from your customers is to conduct surveys, but how do you know if they really work? Here are a few tips to get the most out of your surveys.

1. Have a market. Without a following of some sort (and no it doesn’t have to be a huge following to be effective) you’ll never get answers to the questions you ask.

2. Ask specific questions. When compiling questions for your readers, make them specific questions.

3. Give them choices. Many times, people respond better to questions where they are given answers to choose from. If you leave them to answer with their own words, you won’t always get the response you’d hoped for, if any response at all. Thinking about an answer requires more time and energy from your survey takers.

4. Give them the option to expand on their answers. Although many Internet users want things handed to them, there are just as many out there who want to voice their own opinions on a subject. Give them the opportunity to do so in your survey.

5. Keep it short and sweet. Time is precious. The shorter amount of time it takes to get the answers you are looking for will result in a far more productive and useful survey.

So, to answer the question, “Do surveys work?”, absolutely! When put together with a bit of thought and planning they are a great resource for your business. You can try Easy Internet Survey to get your surveys going.

BUT a word of warning – Never let a survey replace actual tracking data and observation. The curious thing is that, in many cases, people actually behave in different ways than they say they will. In other words, what they want or what they’d do in a survey is quite different from how they will actually react in a given situation. So always combine your survey data with observations of your market. You can use the tips I made in this post to make your observations.

Using More Than One Assistant Has Its Benefits

As many of you know, using a virtual assistant (VA), or any other contractor in your business can be a great thing. If you haven’t heard me sing the praises of hiring help in your business…where have you been? ;-) Today let’s talk about contracting work out to more than just one assistant and the benefits doing so can provide.

1. Saves training time.
One of the biggest reasons to outsource is to save time, right? If you hire one contractor in hopes that they can do everything you need, you’ll spend a lot more time training them if they’ve never performed certain tasks.

For instance, if you hire a ghostwriter to write articles and then ask them to update your website and they have no experience with website work, the time it takes you to show them how can easily add up.

2. Certain VAs specialize in specific areas and are not willing to venture from those.
This is a good thing because you know you are getting the best possible service from these types of contractors. Whether it’s graphic design, programming, or ghostwriting, when a service provider spends their time doing one or two specific tasks, you can feel more confident in the work they turn in because it’s something they know the ins and outs of.

3. Utilizing the services of various contractors saves money.
By outsourcing image creation to a designer and then getting a VA to do simple updates, you can save a lot of money. Whereas a designer may charge you a good chunk of change for site updates, a VA is more likely to do this administrative work for a more affordable rate.

There are many assistants out there who are good at more than one thing, but there is never someone who can literally do it all. If you need some more tips on hiring a highly-efficient team, sign up for my free outsourcing tips here.

Take Inventory & Clean Out the Clutter

Take Inventory & Clean Out the Clutter

With week 2 in full swing at Internet Marketing Spring Cleaning, I’m having a great time helping my students get focused and ditch the excess keeping them from growing their online business. The clean out has been so amazing that I thought I’d share a few ideas to help you do the same.

In order to really clear the confusion and focus on what is most profitable in your business, the first thing you must do is take stock of everything you currently have on your plate. Once you’ve done that you need to decide exactly what things are working and what things are best to be rid of. Here are just a few ideas of things to consider:

Mailing Lists & Newsletters
It’s easy to get sidetracked when you’re signed up for every guru under the sun’s list. Take some time and jot down all the lists you are currently subscribed to.

Domains & Websites
Many online business owners, have a bad habit of purchasing domain name after domain name. It’s ok…we’ve all done it at some point. It’s learning to deal with our obsessive-compulsive domain disorder that makes us better business women.

Once you have your inventory taken, it’s time to throw out all the excess stuff weighing down your business. Using the examples above here are some reasons to clean out your business storage room.

Once you’ve compiled a list of all the newsletters you are subscribed to - it’s time to go through and tell the ones that aren’t helping you reach your goals Adios! How many emails do you get from one particular list that you never even open? Is the list owner supplying you with valuable information that pertains to your market? Do you find you’ve outgrown a certain newsletter? What I mean by this is was it a list you signed up for in the beginning of your business venture that caters to the newbie in your field and now you’ve surpassed the knowledge you receive in those emails?

Let’s move on to those gazillion domain names and websites. Each domain name purchase starts with good intentions, but how often have you acquired a domain name and then done nothing with it? Whether you are lacking time to get a website up and going or it doesn’t fit into your plans now like you originally planned, it’s time to let it go.

Of course Spring Cleaning is all about getting down and dirty and deep cleaning house, but these few things should help you get started and on the right foot. As you move along with these tips you’ll find other areas of your business that need a thorough cleaning, but don’t start on other areas until you have these completed.

Getting Back on the Horse after the Holidays

The holidays have come and gone and I for one am excited to start a new year in my business.  It’s been great having extra time with the kids and other family and less time with my computer, but it’s time to focus again. 

It’s time to start putting the plans and goals that I thought about and decided on over the break into action.  Plans look good on paper, but only when we put them to action can they be great! :-) 

So, who’s ready to get back in the saddle with me?  If you are, let’s get started with some tips for getting back into business mode after the holiday (or any) break. 

1. Don’t overload yourself right off the bat.
   We’ve all got big plans for our business and the key to seeing them through to reality is to take it one step at a time.  Don’t overwhelm yourself by trying to get all your goals started at once.
2. Break your plans down into manageable steps and tasks.
   I’ve said this before, but if you simply write your major goal down and then hope to accomplish it from those few words or sentence you see on your paper, the odds of actually achieving the entire thing are few and far between.
3.  Schedule your time to make things happen.
   As I talked about in one of my posts here at Internet Based Moms not long ago - scheduling wasn’t always something I enjoyed (in fact for a long time I avoided it like the plague), but as a business owner with a household to look after and take care of, scheduling has become crucial for me. 

Now is a perfect time to start (if you haven’t already) scheduling your personal and business tasks.  Making a point to leave room in your schedule for adjustments is important, especially after the recent holiday hiatus.  Just like the kids, who take a few days to get back into the swing of things after break, we as moms need time to adjust to our new routines too, especially if those include plans and growth for our business.   

Here’s to a getting back on the horse and having things running smoothly while still meeting your goals and plans for the 2008!

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