Small Office, Home Office Information

by Stuart Livesey 

It seems hard to believe that it’s almost a week since either of us had a chance to post here but it is. So to break the drought here’s a little piece of advice we spotted on the notice board outside an investment advisor’s office while we were in Brisbane last week.

Volatility offers opportunity

It reminds me of something a friend shared with me once. He is/was a very successful small business person and he got his basic training in a real estate office. Not long after he started working there the real estate market went through one of it’s periodic upheavals and the real estate market sank like a stone.

He asked the owner of the business if they were going to go on advertising at the same level while the market was so depressed and wasn’t surprised when the owner told him that they were definitely going to change the amount of advertising the business would be doing in the coming months. What did surprise him though was that, instead of cutting the amount of advertising the business was doing, the owner increased the advertising budget by a substantial amount.

I guess the owner understood that volatility offers opportunity.

Many people see working from home as the perfect way of developing a small business, earning an income and being able to look after the kids at the same time. The reality is often something quite different.

In a recent interview Rae Hoffman - one rather successful Internet marketer who has three young children - made this interesting comment:

“I actually got my start in the business due to my oldest son. I guess my biggest piece of advice would be that if you work from home, don’t think it doesn’t mean you don’t need childcare. Getting a nanny was probably my best business investment ever. I have the flexibility from being my own boss to be there whenever they need me, but by having childcare, I also have the ability to focus on my business during the rest of the time.”

The link will take you to Rae’s site and it’s well worth following. If you want to read the full interview the follow this link to SEO Honolulu.

Life is not always as easy as you might think for people who want to run their small business from a home office.

Do you think your small business is providing a wonderful service but your customers think you suck?

by Toni Livesey

Some new research came out this week that looks at big business and their perception of the service the provide compared to what their customers think about the service.

It seems that 80% of the businesses surveyed thought they were doing a wonderful job or providing great customer service. Sadly though only 8% of customers agreed.

What are the figures like for your small business? Are you brave enough to find out?

You can read more about the survey here

That’s an interesting question asked by Seth Godin and one that any small business or home office person should be asking themselves.

You can read what he has to say about it here

Although it’s still early days yet a recent survey in the US has found that more and more US households are beginning to pay their accounts online instead of writing a cheque.

Is there some advantage there that you can see for your small business? Would you get earlier payments if your clients had the convenience of paying online?

There are plenty of options for accepting payments other than by cheque. Here in Australia banks will accept the payment online and credit it direct to your account under a system known as BPay.

There is also direct deposit straight into your account where the client has your bank account number and simply goes to their online banking site and authorizes the transfer of the money to your account. We pay several of our writers with that method.

The of course there’s the possibility of having your own merchant account and running a secure section of your website where clients can make a payment using their credit card.

There are probably other options too and some of them might work for your small business. Of course there are drawbacks as well and cost is one of them but if you analyze the costs of accepting payment by cheque as opposed to one of the other methods you might be surprised.

Of course whether it is going to work for you or not is something that only you can decide but, as Toni often says, it’s just a thought.

I wish I had the recipe for this so that I could share it with you but I don’t, almost overnight and without us realising what was going on it just happened.

For several years now Toni’s small business has had a millstone tied around it’s and our neck - figuratively of course.

We had something that was holding us back, a burden that was weighing us down and then, almost overnight, that millstone has turned into a motivator. We can see a way of ridding ourselves of the millstone and now it’s motivating us to work towards that goal.

It’s motivating us more than you could imagine,

Almost everyone - and many businesses - have their millstones. A burden that is holding them back. If you have one can you see a way of turning it into a motivator?

Often all it takes is a little positive thought, a different perspective and suddenly than millstone isn’t weighing you down anymore. Instead it’s motivating you to strive for new heights in your personal life and in the life of your business.

As I said at the start, I wish I knew how it happened for us because then I could share it with you. But if you have turned a millstone into a motivator then maybe you would care to share it with us?

How many of us would dare to shut the door on 20% of our business?

People would think that we were insane if we did but here is the story of a man who did just that.

The man who said no to Wal-Mart

It makes interesting reading on a number of levels.

A recent survey here in Australia asked 520 people if they worked for an arrogant, incompetent or sexist boss and 82% agreed that they did.

Other comments about people in charge were that they:

Never gave positive feedback

Where critical of employees

Judgmental

Sexist

Inflexible

As a spokesman for LinkMe - the company that carried out the survey concludes:

If bosses expect people to want to work for them, let alone remain loyal to the company, then they need to check their attitude and behaviour at the office.

Toni and I were challenged the other day by a post on on Darren Rowse’s blog, Problogger

The post was a reflection by Darren on the way Problogger had gone for him during 2005 and I’m sure it will give you some food for thought too.

Problogger is just one of Darren’s blogs. The others earn him a six figure sum each year but Problogger earns him hardly anything. To make matters worse it is the blog that takes up most of his time.

Now you and I might think that a project like Problogger would deliver a very poor return on our investment of time and effort and we would probably kill it fairly quickly but Darren is not like the rest of us.

Instead he sees Problogger as an investment in the future because, through Problogger, he has managed to establish himself as a person who is obviously very talented in his chosen field. By establishing that he has been able to open up some great opportunities that he sees as being very lucrative in the year ahead.

I wonder how many of us are prepared to think that far ahead?

I regularly receive an interesting ezine from Robert Middleton, a marketing specialist in the US. I have to admit that there are times when there is some divergence between what he suggests and what we have found works for us but it is still interesting and challenging to read another person’s point of view and so I read Robert’s ezine.

This last week he wrote something quite interesting about interpersonal relationships and the effect they can have on your business. Here is part of what he had to say.

So what do you really want (for Christmas or any other time)?

The best I’ve been able to figure out is that people want, more
than anything else, to make a difference, to make a contribution to
others (family, friends, clients, anyone and everyone).

In other words, to give fully of ourselves. But what can we give
that will make that difference? What will make the biggest
possible contribution to others?

If you get this one, you not only get to fulfill your greatest desire
but the greatest desire of others. And the best thing about it is
that it costs nothing, takes little time, and has long-lasting
benefits. It works any time and in any place.

The funny thing is that we have a terrible time giving it.

And no, it’s not love, compassion, friendship, etc. Those are
wonderful gifts as well. But they are not the ultimate
contribution. They really pale in comparison.

And one of the saddest things is that if you fail to give this you
can trigger a lot of misery, resentment, frustration and
misunderstanding. The inability to give this causes alienation,
divorce and wars. And yet it’s so simple to give.

Are you ready for the answer?

The greatest contribution

you can make to another

is to let them contribute…

to YOU.

Since what we want most of all is to contribute, if you fully
receive that contribution (whatever it is), you’re making the
ultimate contribution to another.

When someone wants to help you - let them. When you get a
compliment - receive it graciously. When someone has an idea or
resource for you - show your thanks. Whenever a loved one tries to
share something with you - listen attentively.

When you accept a contribution, another wonderful thing happens -
you pave the way for more contributions. It can be a never-ending
upward spiral. And it feels wonderful.

Now don’t mess this up by waiting for others to accept your
contributions with open arms. They might not. Turn it around. Put
your attention on accepting their contributions in the most
expansive way you can imagine.

I hope you realize that applying this to your business could add
a whole new dimension of fun and fulfillment. It just might
transform the way you do business and enrich you in the process.

If you want to read more of what Robert has to say about marketing or to sign up for his ezine you should head over to http://www.actionplan.com

A lone eagle soars over the beach at sunset