Running your own small business is something to be very proud of. Besides creating a means to make a living for yourself it often means you can also create a job, or sometimes multiple jobs, for others. Being self reliant in this manner is often not sufficiently recognised among people who have never experienced such a situation and as a result it carries with it a certain air about it of being easy, and the belief that anybody can do it.

This is not true of course as any self employed person will be only too ready to tell you. There is the ongoing conflict with debtors to be constantly on top of as well as that of continually having to earn more than the business is costing you to run it. Many small business owners are therefore thankful to whoever invented credit cards. Credit cards can help you to balance out the low income weeks with those that are quite profitable.

Where is Your Motivation Coming From?

When things get tough, the phone is constantly ringing, and your non-productive paper work is building up on your desk, one of your best employees tells you he is moving on and your bank manager tells you your overdraft is at its limit, you can be excused for thinking, ‘is it all worthwhile?’ You know it is so you battle on. It is these times that you somehow find the motivation to continue, but have you ever stopped to wonder where this motivation is coming from?

Avoid Excess Stress

Small business owners are a breed of their own. They complain about the stress involved but at the same time they actually thrive on it. Sure you can get run down like anyone else but like the age old saying in the entertainment industry, ‘the show must go on.’ Here lies the motivation needed to keep you going. You know you can’t stop, the whole business is relying on you, not to mention the employees, if you have any. So what do you do? You bury yourself in work, but if this is you change your ways urgently with the following tips.

Reward Yourself From Time to Time

The danger of becoming immersed in your work however is that all work and no play can eventually dull your enthusiasm for being in business. You must therefore keep the fun in running your own business intact, despite any hardships on the way. One way of doing this is when you have had a good week, money has rolled in quite freely, your credit card has been completely cleared of any debt and the sun is shining outside – pack up early ask your partner to get spruced up a bit and go out for dinner.

Re-assess Goals on Good Weeks

It is also a good time to go back over any goals you might have set yourself to review how you are tracking. Never review your personal challenges such as goal setting, after a bad week. Always choose a good week to look back on your progress and to re-set goals for the future. These are important practices to keep up in order to keep your motivation levels high. You will find you will need to set short term goals before you can attain any long term achievements, so carrying out these necessary steps after experiencing a good week will see you accomplishing them all that much easier.

Take Time Out When You Feel Like it.

Another good motivational practice is to take time off now and again during the day to do something you personally enjoy. You might have to work back a little longer that night to make up for the time lost but get out there and spoil yourself for an hour or so. It is something you couldn’t do when you worked for an employer but as you are now the master of your own destiny it doesn’t hurt to prove that to yourself once in a while. This type of freedom is what motivated you to work for yourself in the first place so never forget it. The same goes for a weekend away every so often. It doesn’t have to be expensive, it could be camping. Whatever you like doing best, get out there and do it. You will find the fresh approach you return to work with will be well worth the effort.

Compliment Yourself on Your Achievements

By getting away from the stresses associated with running a small business you will become re-energised. If you don’t you can very easily become run down and it is then that things start getting the better of you. If you have an employee who is obviously becoming overly stressed at work you would be a bad boss if you didn’t go to him with a motivational talk and tell him how important he was to the business. You would then advise him to go home early for the day and come back tomorrow. All refreshed and ready to go again. There is no one to do this to you, so you must do it yourself. We are all human, we all like to be complimented by being told how important we are in what we are doing. Don’t hold back on telling yourself how important you are to your own business as long as you keep it to yourself and don’t get caught talking to yourself.

Join a Community Organisation

It is also motivational to join Rotary, Lions or some other business organisation or network where you can chat to other small business people. In this type of company you will be able to share ideas and discuss what is affecting your business among peers. It also allows you to do some voluntary work for which you will gain a certain level of achievement in giving back to the community. Especially if the project you are working on assists those who are less well off than yourself.

Keeping The Passion

Motivation can also be fuelled by passion. You no doubt had passion in abundance when you started your business and you need to carry this same passion with you throughout your business life. This can be achieved by re-visiting the reasons why you started your business in the first place. What made you believe so strongly about what you were doing at that time? It is a question you need to keep asking yourself every time you feel a little tired of the daily grind. You will find the same need is still there and your passion will live on as a result.

This article was written by Timothy Ng. You can read more of his work at http://www.creditcardfinder.com.au/ where he has a number of comprehensive guides to all types of credit cards.

Employment at a large corporation and self-employment both offer different advantages, disadvantages and benefits. Some people are simply too entrepreneurial to be happy working for a large corporation. Others are way too dependent to be responsible for generating their own income. Is self-employment a realistic option for you?

4 Main Factors to Consider Before Going Self-Employed

Salary. One of the best things about being self-employed is getting to keep all the profits. Of course, the government will still take their share in taxes, but they do that even if you are working for an hourly wage. When working in a corporate environment your take-home pay is based on what the corporation feels you are worth. With self-employment, you get to take home everything you have earned after expenses. The amount that you earn is directly proportional to the amount of effort you put in to your work. If you sit in a cubicle in corporate America and put in 8 hours of hard work, you are still going to take home the same hourly pay that you would if you sat in your cubicle and surfed the Internet all day. However, you might not have that job for much longer with such habits.

On the other hand, working in a corporate environment almost guarantees you a paycheck. With self-employment, you may not have the business required to cover your overhead costs and still make a salary. Many small businesses do not turn a profit for several years. During this time, the self-employed are required to work long and hard hours just to keep their dream alive. With a corporate job, you know you will be paid if you work.

The question lies with where your motivation leads you. If you’re the type of person who has a passion and is willing to work hard, you could be served very well by self-employment. However, if you want security and a stable workload, a corporate job might be more of what you’re looking for.

Health benefits. If you work for a large corporation, chances are you are going to be eligible for a group Health Insurance plan for you and your family (if applicable). The amount that you pay for this insurance through your employer is going to be significantly less than the insurance rates you will pay being self-employed.

In some areas, there are non-profit groups that offer group policy insurance to self-employed business owners at a lower rate, which is a bonus if you are able to take advantage of such a program. However, those plans are usually limited in coverage and scope. In addition, the cost of the plan versus an employee group plan is still much higher. So, in the case of health benefits, working for a corporation will save you money and offer you more coverage. This could be very important depending on age, size of family and type of business — as well as other factors.

Vacation. Vacations for the self-employed are highly variable. If you run a service-based company and you are the only employee, chances are you will begin to forget what “vacation” means. If you alone operate a brick-and-mortar business, then you can definitely take a vacation — but you will be losing business (and money) while you are gone if the shop is closed. If you are able to operate a business with employees and trust them to handle the business while you are away, then you can take a vacation while they run the show.

However, a self-employed person on vacation is seldom completely relaxed. You will continually be thinking about your business. Thinking about the employees you left in charge and worrying about their performance. If you are the sole employer of your business, you will spend your vacation worrying about the money you are losing while the doors are closed.

Working for a corporation as an employee allows for a definite number of stress free vacation days per year. You can go on vacation knowing that you are being paid a salary for the days you are gone, there are plenty of other co-workers to handle the load while you are on vacation, and the success or failure of the company is not solely in your hands. With the exception of being the sole operator of a service-based business, both self-employment and corporate employment offer the option of vacation. The differences are the mental and financial impacts of each option.

Freedom from schedule. Generally the corporate workforce works eight hours a day, Monday through Friday. There are (of course) requirements for overtime, evening hours and weekend hours whenever necessary. The company you work for and the supervisor that oversees you largely determine the hours you work. A typical example would be the expectation that you are in your office chair at 9 am, you are allowed one hour for lunch between 12 and 2 pm, and you are expected to remain in your office chair until 5 pm. You have to apologize when you are running late in the morning, you have to ask permission to extend your lunch by half an hour for a personal errand and you have to request permission to leave at 4 pm instead of 5 pm — and then make up that hour the next day.

Setting up your own schedule is one of the benefits of self-employment. If you would rather start later in the morning, you can. If you need to schedule a personal appointment in the middle of the day or in the late afternoon, you can. You are free to arrange your work schedule to fit your personal schedule. If you’re the type of person who likes to work hard and fast in a shorter amount of time then that’s your prerogative. If you prefer to do a little work here and there with large breaks in between — and that fits with your business model — then that’s what you get to do. Being your own boss gives you extreme flexibility with your own work and your own schedule.

Conclusion

There are both benefits and disadvantages for choosing self-employment over corporate work, and vice versa. In the end you need to ask yourself what form of work best fits your attitude and needs. By reviewing each of these aspects, you should have a good understanding of where you fit between the two. One thing rings true whether you choose self-employment or a corporate job. Your success depends upon your own hard work.

(Image courtesy of shimelle under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 generic license.)

Source:  Work Awesome

Is it really possible to take a company from a physical location to a virtual space, and take a team used to face-to-face work entirely online? Last week, Andy McLoughlin discussed this topic in Going Virtual: Can Any Organization Do It? He pointed out that while some companies requite a physical location, many can have at least part of the team working virtually. But what are the potential pitfalls?

Here’s a breakdown of some things you should consider before taking a leap into the cloud and trying to bring your team along with you.

1. Portability

How portable is your business? If you’re dealing in intellectual property creation or knowledge work — anything that can be produced and delivered electronically via computers, the Internet and phone — then you’re probably in good shape for moving your company into the cloud. Andy mentioned public relations and marketing as good candidates for virtual companies: the virtual agency model. Any content creation shop with creative teams — ad agencies, news agencies, copywriters, bloggers, podcasters, editors, online producers — can work remotely.

2. Process

Just asking yourself the simple questions: “If we didn’t go into an office together, could we still get work done?” and “If so, how?” These will lead you down the path of thinking about how to configure, or reconfigure, your business. You need to deeply analyze the way you currently get things done and document it. Illustrate your work process using a mind-mapping or flowchart tool. Break down how your projects are handled from start to finish. When does your team meeting face-to-face? Envision how that would look as a videoconference instead. What are the steps you might be eliminating by going virtual? Don’t just stop at mapping out your process and translating that to a virtual workflow. Add dollar amounts to your current process versus a virtual process. You should begin to see why virtual work makes good financial sense.

3. Personality

Even if you’re in an industry with proven virtual models, this doesn’t mean that your company that has been entrenched in “the office” can eschew physical location and hit the cloud running. As you probably know from managing people: people hate change. Even if change is for the best, the very act of changing can paralyze some. You may have to make some hard decisions about how to handle resistance against the change to virtual work. Start with open communications, present the concept of going virtual to your team, and suss out the champions of this model. Chances are, you’ve been approached in the past by someone or several team members who’ve asked about telecommuting, even part-time. For the nay-sayers, find ways to offer support every step of the way as they transition from being in the office to working from home.

You may want to bring in consultants to assess your team and offer individual consulting on setting up their virtual workspaces. Set up training sessions for workers and their managers to make sure everyone is up to speed, not just on the technology changes but the culture changes as well. If not everyone is thrilled with your intention to go virtual, don’t be shocked. Be prepared.

4. Infrastructure

In my post What Does It Take To Run a Virtual Team (Redux), I listed the needs of a virtual team, namely:

• Communications amongst your team members and externally;
• Management of projects, team members, deadlines, and document;
• Archiving of files, knowledge and communications content;
• Interaction between team members including integration, collaboration and socializing.

There is no “one size fits all” technology solution for every company that goes virtual, although there are many enterprise solutions available from Microsoft to Cisco to a never-ending procession of innovative startups looking to solve the problems of virtual work. If you pick a fully-integrated enterprise system, keep in mind it may be more expensive and less flexible than newer, more innovative solutions. The rub of going with smaller startups for your virtual infrastructure needs is that you may have to cobble together several tools, so while they might be highly affordable, you’ll be looking at issues such as cross compatibility and integration.

5. Accountability

A common question managers ask when confronted with the prospect of managing a virtual worker is “how am I going to make sure they get their work done?” A manager who is constantly looking over a worker’s shoulder to make sure they are working is going to have to go through a fundamental shift in how to manage — and how not to manage — to be able to handle managing a virtual team. Managing virtual workers isn’t about watching them like a hawk and micromanaging their every move. Instead, the infrastructure you put into place should have built-in checks and balances to watch productivity and on-time delivery.

Make sure your processes and expectations are not only clear but also communicated clearly to team members. Not everyone will thrive in a virtual work environment, but the issue may be less an inability to get work done and more to do with a feeling of isolation or being disconnected from the team. Be ready to address any issue that crops up as you move toward virtual work and have a plan for addressing issues including missed deadlines, lack of participation, failure to properly document or archive, and forgetting to log time, if that is a requirement.

6. Commitment

You need to decide how committed you are to going virtual and how flexible you’ll be with team members who resist. Can you afford to move in phases, first deploying the team members who are ready, willing and able to take to the cloud, while leaving the others in the office? In order to get the real benefits of going virtual, you should at least consider downsizing the physical work space and look for suitable alternatives that offer real cost savings.

As more and more of your workers opt to go virtual, pretty soon those who are resisting may give in or give up. There is no way to please everyone, but having an understanding that you may have some very unhappy team members from the moment you say “virtual” should help to guide you in your approach. Consider consulting your lawyer to make sure any drastic changes you make in your workplace don’t infringe on workers’ rights.

By thinking through your process carefully and thoughtfully in advance and spending time considering and reviewing the technology you’ll use to build cohesion amongst your dispersed team members, you can certainly construct the ideal virtual workspace. Bringing everyone to the cloud without encountering some digging in of heels is the best scenario, but as a leader and manager, be prepared for the worst.

What do you think about bringing your own company into the cloud?

Source: Gigaom

Australian mothers are doing it for themselves by choosing self-employment as a solution to the lack of part-time options in the job market, according to new research from the Social Policy Research Centre (SPRC). Self-employment and work-family balance, co-authored by Associate Professor Lyn Craig, suggests that the responsibilities of motherhood and the inability of most companies to accommodate them may steer women towards self-employment.

“Women struggle to find interesting and fulfilling work that can be maintained around family life; self-employed mothers take this option because there is nothing else as flexible,” said Associate Professor Craig, from the SPRC.

According to the report the typical self-employed mother is a sole trader who fits very short paid work hours around childcare and home duties. Few self-employed mothers run businesses which employ others.

”The evidence suggests permanent part-time work may be more financially secure, but not everyone has access to this option. Most maternal self-employment is akin to casual piece work in terms of numbers of hours and income,” said Associate Professor Craig.

Although self-employment offers parents more flexibility, it has done little to challenge the gendered division of labour, with mothers more commonly down-grading their occupation to work from home than fathers.

The study also revealed that self-employed fathers spent just as few hours with children as men employed full-time outside the home.

”If anything, self-employment reinforces the roles of mothers as caregivers and fathers as breadwinners,” said Associate Professor Craig.

Associate Professor Craig said the findings gave weight to the argument that governments needed to do more to make balancing work and family easier and more equitable.

Source:  UNIS Australia

One of the great things about having a spouse that works in the corporate world is the support you may receive, financially and emotionally.  One of the worst things about having a spouse in the corporate world is the support you may have to give, which sometimes includes being present at corporate social gatherings.  And this is the situation I found myself in the other day.

I enjoy talking with people – whether they enjoy it as much as I do is irrelevant – but in a corporate environment, I don’t want to do or say anything that might cause my wife any discomfort at the office.  So, I try and stay as quiet as possible.  Usually there are plenty of snacks to keep my mouth busy, but on this particular event, her boss managed to catch me without a petit-four in sight.

After a bit of chit-chat, he asked about my current career.  He wanted to know where I was working, and how business was there.  I explained that I am a writer, and I that I write web copy, blog posts, newsletters, ebooks, and more.  He listened for a moment, and then deduced that I am unhappily unemployed, but since my wife is a superstar in their company, perhaps he could find me a role within their corporation.

Thus started a painful conversation where I explained that business was doing very well, and I was very happy doing what I am doing.  Needless to say, he couldn’t wrap his head around it.  So I tried to frame it in a way that he would understand.

As soon as I told him that I was “self-employed,” you could almost see the light bulb of understanding turn on.  Almost.

Websters defines a freelancer as “a person who pursues a profession without a long-term commitment to any one employer.”

And self-employed is defined as “earning income directly from one’s own business, trade, or profession rather than as a specified salary or wages from an employer.”

I don’t see a difference, but it certainly changes the conversation.  Not only did my wife’s boss suddenly understand what I do, he wants to know what I can do for their new website.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him about the fuzzy bunny slippers…

So, dear audience, are you a freelancer or are you self-employed?

Source:  Freelance Switch

The internet is floating today with an abundance of work from home opportunities – each claiming to be better than the other in terms of earnings.

Are you considering starting a career from home or have you already taken the plunge?

There are a couple of things that you need to be aware of before embarking on this journey

Interest: Consider what you do well before you start – maybe your passion can be your next business. Whether you want to pursue a corporate work from home opportunity or be an entrepreneur, you can become successful when you have the drive and the passion with the right amount of talent. Do your research, read books and investigate what you could do to make working from home a business opportunity.

Do your research: Overnight or get rich quick opportunities haven’t helped anyone and are an absolute waste of time, don’t be fooled. You might need additional training before proceeding, hence check these details and be prepared to study business models before you start further. Speak to people who have a home based career and get to know what works for them. Know what to expect from a home based career – remember over expectation kills.

Family – working at home doesn’t mean that you will always be available for your family and children. Plan caring for and managing your house and children when you start out.

Calculate what costs you’d incur staying at home – this would mean employment taxes, utilities cost going up as you’d be at home full time, insurance, marketing costs, office equipment etc. make sure you have an office space where you could work uninterruptedly. Alternatively you may look for outsourcing your accounting if isn’t your forte or if you have time constraints. Remember – marketing is key.  Always remember to market yourself to the buyer.

Set your rate/s. It might take a while, however, remember customer satisfaction and profits are your goals and you need to settle on prices before you start on business.

Finally, good luck!

Annie was one of my favourite movies when I was a child and I think part of the attraction was the fact that Annie was the eternal optimist. I have been tarred with the same brush and it has certainly stood me in good stead for running a business. No matter what crazy ideas or schemes I come up with or how badly they turn out I never think of myself as a failure.

Too many times I hear Mumpreneurs bemoaning the fact that they are business failures because they don’t match up to their competition. This in itself I find fascinating because nine times out of ten they are not comparing themselves like for like. A good case in point is a close friend of mine who runs a great little online business from home. We were having a glass of wine over dinner and chatting about our businesses when she hit me with the line “I’m a complete failure as a business woman. I thought I could make it work but I can’t.”

To say I was a little taken aback by her outburst would be an understatement, as I thought she had carved out a nice little business for herself with a good income and a great lifestyle balance as she only worked on her business for about 15-20 hours a week. So, I asked her to explain what she meant by this sweeping statement.

She went on to tell me that someone else had started up a business in the same niche area as her and was doing far better than she was. It turns out they had recently won a huge contract with a national company and she knew she couldn’t compete with that as she didn’t have the time or the resources. She was almost in tears as she finished telling me and had written herself off as a failure.

I then asked her to tell me what her mission and goal for her business had been when she first launched the company. She started to tell me that her dream had been to establish a small business that allowed her to remain a part of the industry she loved whilst maintaining a work/life balance that allowed her to spend time with her children and work from home. She also added that the income was only ever meant to be supplementary and enough to cover her expenses and make a small profit.

As she was talking about her business her face started to light up as she realised she had achieved everything that she set out to do and more. So far from being a business failure she was a complete and utter business success story. What had happened is she had fallen into the trap of comparing herself to a company that had completely different goals to her. The competition she referred to wasn’t really competition at all as they were a larger company with larger goals.

The lesson to be learnt here is to keep track of your business goals. The goals you had when you first decided to launch a business will still be fundamentally the same, but they will grow and change as your business grows and changes. You need to revisit them on a regular basis. Competition is healthy and should be observed on a regular basis, but not at the detriment to yourself or your company, as it can make you lose your focus.  Keeping tabs on the marketplace and what is happening within it should be your primary focus when looking at your competition, not constantly comparing yourself to them.

Business failure or success is not determined by how well you are faring against others in the same marketplace but how you measure up against the goals you set for yourself and your company. The vision for your company should not be determined by what others are doing or not doing otherwise you are limiting your potential and what you can do.

Within my business at the Academy of Wedding and Event Planning we are constantly compared by potential students to another provider within the marketplace. So rather than focus on what the other provider is doing we look for the differences between our two companies. It is clear to me that we both have very different goals and visions for our company and therefore there is no comparison between the two. There is room for both of us in the marketplace as we both service different ends of it.

Business failure only occurs when a business is falling apart at the seams, running out of money, unable to pay its bills and has no customers buying their product or service.  If that’s not happening to you then you are NOT a business failure.

Maintain your business vision, revisit your goals on a regular basis and don’t limit your company by comparing it to the competition.