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 Laurie Hayes - The HBB Source |
