When the Small Stuff Matters
You've probably heard before that in order to reap the rewards
of business success, you must work "on" your business, not "in"
it. This is most certainly true ... within reason.
Eighty to ninety percent of your time should be spent working
strategically as opposed to tactically. It's important that your
time and energy be focused on the BIG picture, the future of
your business and your industry.
It's easy to get bogged down with the tactical or daily
processes that make up your strategic plan and it's extremely
important that you learn early on how to leverage your time,
energy and money in a way that allows you to focus on activities
that make money.
No doubt about it, delegating, leveraging and automating are
critical to your business success.
Equally important however, is the need to develop a certain
level of skill in all areas of your business, especially as a
home-based business owner.
You don't have to be a technical genius or CPA, however, having
a reasonable level of understanding in all areas of business
will come in real handy and may even save your behind when
unexpected events occur.
If, for example, you have an assistant who takes care of
distributing your weekly newsletter and she decides to run off
with her new beau, will you be able to get your next issue out
before deadline?
Do you know how to use your autoresponder, shopping cart, html
editor, etc.? What if your biggest, time sensitive promo of the
year is due out tomorrow and you can't find a replacement
assistant?
Can you pull it off?
Even if you can, do you have the access codes to get the
technology in motion?
As an HBB owner, you more than likely don't have a large
workforce to re-assign work to, especially if you're in your
first year or two of business, so although, you need to focus
the majority of your efforts on the big picture, don't neglect
the "small" stuff.
Sometimes the small stuff can have a HUGE impact.
Don't worry about becoming an expert in the areas that are more
administrative than managerial, but do make sure you have a
basic understanding of every area of your business so you don't
find yourself standing alone with the ball in your hands and no
idea what to do with it.
Take a little bit of time to work "in" your business as well.
If you conduct business online, make sure you have an updated
master list of all access codes, passwords, member ID's, contact
numbers, etc.
2006