Small Office, Home Office Information

Some competitors are close … round the corner … down the street … up the road … maybe even next door. They’re close geographically speaking … but they may be so far behind you that you’re not even close to them.

On the other hand some competitors are far away … in the next state … across the country … on the other side of the planet. Geographically speaking they’re a long way from you … but they could be right up there with you.

Whether they’re near or far they have things to teach you … to remind you of … to help you with and that’s what this competitor of ours did for us today. He might be a long way from us but he’s quite close in other ways and he reminded us today that “past performance is indicative of future behaviour”

Every small business has something to teach other small businesses whether they’re near or far. Thanks John for reminding us of something Toni and I knew but were on the verge of forgetting.

I guess that if you’ve read my ramblings here you could be mistaken and think that everything about our small business is sweetness and light … problems never arise … the wheels never fall off … and we simply go on from strength to strength. If that’s what you think then I’m about to disappoint you.

You see, our small business is no different to any other out there … we have problems just like everyone else and for a few days this week things really went downhill. Wheels were falling off all over the place … and wheels we didn’t even know we had fell off.

So what do you do when things go wrong in your small business? Do you panic? Do you run around in ever decreasing circles till you disappear up your very own you-know-what? Or do you calmly assess the situation and get on with the job of fixing it?

Let’s face it, very few of us can assess a situation calmly when you’re standing in the middle of potential loss that could cost you tens of thousands of dollars … so don’t feel bad if you’re like most of us and you indulge in a little panic.

Just don’t let the panic go on too long and while you’re panicking be careful about the decisions you make and the things you hear people telling you. All sorts of odd communication filters come into play when you’re panicking and what you hear may not be what someone is really telling you … and that can lead to even more problems.

So when things go wrong get over the panic stage quickly and only then can you really get down to the serious business of fixing those problems that have suddenly appeared.

So many people want to be able to work from home but don’t want to be in the position of having to go through all the hassles of starting their own business. For them it’s a shame that there aren’t more companies like Dotspots who have this to say about themsleves on their Jobs page.

We are a totally distributed company. This means that while we were thinking about how to change the world for good, we started by not making everyone drive to one central location, wasting time, money and energy to get to and maintain an office. Instead, we’re learning how to work in a completely distributed way. One immediate and wonderful byproduct is that everyone gets to work from home. And, because we don’t have office expenses, we even pay a part of every employee’s rent or mortgage! (yes, it’s smarter than Google’s free cafeteria idea… ;)) This will allow us to work with the best people, wherever their home may be in this world!

 

For someone who has spent a large part of his working life outdoors, on the road, dealing with people in crisis working online has and will continue to be a lot of fun. Helping people make money from their websites is even more satisfying than helping people survive bad financial times and usually everything flows along without a much drama at all.

But when the wheel falls off it usually happens late at night when you would much rather be in bed than sitting up rubbing your tired eyes and squinting at the computer screen. Last week the wheel fell off not once but twice.

On Thursday night we were about to head for bed when we discovered that one of our sites had been hacked. So we trudged through over 400 pages of content weeding out the garbage that had been inserted and then upgrading the security measures so the hacker couldn’t get in again.

Last night we found that another upgrade that we’d just done to one of the scripts on a server we run had messed with the individual scripts that we run on 10 different sites so we sat up again updating those scripts and fixing a couple of other glitches as well.

I guess that just goes to show you that running a small business is a 24 hour, 7 days a week kind of job.

While some of us build our small businesses from the ground up others prefer to buy in to an established business. There are definitely pros and cons for both options but when you’re buying into an established small business sometimes there are some hidden traps lurking behind those great … and perfectly legitimate … figures that you’re seeing when you look at the financials.

Here is a story of an internet business that certainly had a great cashflow but wasn’t as profitable as it seemed.

I’ve come to the realistation this morning that there’s one sad fact that relates to our small business that I just have to face.

The desk in my home office is a total mess and the parts that you can’t see are even worse than the parts that you can see. So it’s time to spend a few hours tidying it all up.

Of course I could hide behind the myth that I work better with a messy desk but that’s all it is, a myth.

You’re far more productive if your desk isn’t cluttered with old files, scraps of paper, business cards, an old mobile phone, a PDA you’d forgetten all about, still and video cameras, a magazine or two and an assortment of pens, pencils, cables and other hordable junk like mine is at the moment.

The day outside is going to be wet and windy so what better way to spend the time than cleaning up my desk.

Any business, whether it be a large multi-national or your small business in your very local part of the world needs to plan for the future. You need to plan for future growth and you need to have plans in place that will ensure that your business survives when things get tough.

Here’s a little story about how tough things could get here in Australia in the future. So how would your small business cope if the fuel for your vehicles was rationed?

If your business doesn’t own any vehicles then you should still be thinking about a future when fuel isn’t as easy to come by as it is today because, when you stop and think about it, every business both large and small is dependant on fuel.

So perhaps it’s time to start looking at the impact that fuel rationing will have on your small business.

by Stuart and Toni Livesey 

This morning we went to see our accountant - it’s one of the four times each year here in Australia when small businesses have to lodge various returns with the Taxation Department - the Australian version of the IRS.

It’s also a good time to take the temperature and judge the health of a small business and what better and more objective person to do that than your accountant. Today, after looking at our business it was nice to hear our accountant tell us that our small business is in very good shape. Our turnover has increased every quarter for the last six … and next quarter is looking pretty good too.

So how did we manage to reach this point? Well we wish we could say that all we had to do was wave a magic wand but success for a small business … and especially ones that start their business from a home office … never comes that easy and some of our early quarters were downright dismal.

So what did we do?

1. We never gave up - even when we were both ill and very short on money we just never gave up.

2. We set out to provide the best possible service for our customers and we made sure that “the best possible service” was a hell of a lot better than ANY of our competitors were providing.

3. We kept … and still keep … our overheads screwed right down. We don’t drive a flashy car … we don’t go on expensive holidays … and we don’t play the game of keeping up with the Joneses.

4. We spend some money on promotion … in the right places but we rely on word of mouth from very satisfied customers. We spend lots of time talking to people and showing them that we really are the most experienced people in our field, both here in town, and on the Net. A considerable amount of our income still comes from clients that are overseas

5. We listen to what our clients want and we provide what they need. We don’t spend their money on things that they really don’t need. We  go to them rather than expecting them to come to us.

6. We work at times when our clients want us to work … if they contact us on a Saturday with urgent work then we do it … we don’t put them off till the weekend is over. Sure that sucks when the weather is perfect and beach is just 10 minutes away but what do you want? Do you want a nice day at the beach and a so-so business or do you really want your business to survive and grow?

Every client has our mobile phone numbers and they know that they can call us day or night.

6. And we don’t play at running a business … we just go ahead and do it.

That’s what has helped us achieve what we have so far. As you can see, there really is no magic wand in there … just a lot of hard work. If you can match what we do then the chances are that you will succeed in whatever industry you’re working in and your small business will grow.

That’s our manifesto for success in small business put in the hard yards and you will succeed

We came across an interesting business model the other day that’s sure to have a negative impact on any small business owner that gets caught by it.

Charge too much, provide too little and refuse to give a refund when you’re customer wakes up to the fact that they could have got a better deal somewhere else.

It doesn’t matter what the goods or services your buying might be. Before you part with your hard-earned cash make sure that the seller or service provider explains it to you so that you have a clear understanding of all the elements that make up whatever it is that you’re buying.

And when they have then go and look to see if you can get a better deal from someone else. As a web designer and copywriter it’s nice to see a small business owner take the deal that we’re offering without shopping around - but I always feel comfortable if they come back to us after they’ve seen what our competition has to offer.

Monday morning and the sun is just peeping over the horizon. There isn’t a cloud in the sky and it’s going to be another perfect day in paradise. In fact we had a whole long weekend of perfect days and we enjoyed some very pleasant times down by the beach.

Now though we’re both looking forward to getting stuck into some work. Our buyer is in China this week - spot buying for both our online shops and loading it straight into the container and he’ll be in touch with us on and off by phone.

We’ll be starting a couple of new websites this week and bringing a couple of others to the point where they’ll be ready to go live too so it’s going to be an interesting week that we’ll enjoy.

I hope the week ahead for you is just as enjoyable and challenging … but then most weeks are interesting for small business people - that’s what makes small business so attractive