Managing Your Home Based Online Business

7/28/2019 Managing Your Home Based Online Business

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Why more important? Now it is your business. If you had shares in a company, would

you not want good management to increase profits and thus your dividend and capital?

Of course you would. You are not earning profits for others, unless you have family

responsibilities. Okay, you will pay taxes, but that's not your biggest concern when you

get started. You just want to get started and make some profits.

Having achieved your dream of a home online business, you want it to succeed. You will

have an online business that will belong to you. You are the boss, and the expert on all

aspects of running the business. You have your freedom at last, now you need to

manage your new business in a way that will ensure it grows and prospers.

With you as manager and staff, these things will all be so easy...won't they? Maybe not.

Having your own business, especially based at home and alone, is not necessarily as

straight forward as you may have thought. Just ask yourself for now, if you were a

manager before, were you a good manager? As a subordinate, were you a good

member of staff, someone your bosses respected and could rely on? Ask yourself. Be

honest and ask some of your former co-workers, who should be honest too. Listen to

any conflicts. You will have to deal with those conflicts as manager and staff.

Really? Yes, really! You have to deal with yourself. You are the boss and the staff. The

best staff are those who follow instructions, work hard in their allotted time, work

efficiently in what they are doing, and apply all the knowledge and training they have.

They are also going to flourish by coming forward with good ideas and having them

listened to.

The best managers give clear instructions and communicate their expectations of their

staff. They also explain why certain things are done and paint the broader picture to

enlighten their staff about what their role means. They also know when to listen to theideas of others, including staff, and when to buy in expertise. Are you able to fulfil both

roles?

By being aware of the need to manage the finance, marketing, purchasing and the other

departments of your online business, you are part of the way to managing your

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business more effectively. If you can learn to compartmentalise, in your own mind, those

same departments then you will be taking another step along the same road. If you can

devote time to learning more about those departments, becoming an expert in each,

and also learn what you can about management, then you will be a powerful manager of

your online business.

Who will benefit from that? You, and those you support and care for. Does that not make

the effort worth it?

Managing Your Home Based Online Business 2

In the first part of this series of articles, on managing your online business at home, I

wrote about the many management responsibilities and functions you have rolled into

one if you have your own sole proprietor business, with no staff. Your management task

is perhaps the most difficult of all. You have to manage yourself, in all those different

areas of your business such as finance, marketing, purchasing and computing.

I believe that if you think of your new home business as having different areas of

management for you to concentrate on, you are more likely to succeed long term. If you

can adopt some of the techniques of good management, you will end up with a more

sound business that will stand the test of time. You will be a better decision maker, and it

is decisions that dictate the progress or downfall of any business. Decision making

needs to be unemotional and as scientific as possible, but as much as anything needs to

be based on common sense. Good management is often a matter of common sense,

and that is why I believe you, whatever your background, can run a successful business

limited only by your ambitions.

The other virtue you will need in abundance is patience, and this an area where you

definitely need to manage yourself. Impatience brings emotion into your decision

making. It also brings self criticism, or criticism of others, when none is either deservedor necessary. Patience, realism and common sense combined will contribute greatly to

making you a good business manager. With those three attributes, you will be well

placed to learn the skills of management in the context of your own small business. You

will be able to learn how the different functions of a business relate to each other and

interact.

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That is not easy, but over time, if you apply yourself, it will all fall into place. This is

where patience is vital. Your age or background do not necessarily matter. I know that in

my late 20s I did not really understand business and how it all fitted together. At 30, I

knew I needed some sort of professional qualification, and I decided on management

accountancy. The syllabus was tough, with 18 exams over 2 and a half to 5 years. What

surprised me was the variety of subjects to cover. There were exams in company law,

business law, economics, corporate planning, marketing, production, decision making,

cost accounting, management accounting, mathematics and statistics. Each subject was

very different. Then, at the end, I suddenly realized that all of them knitted together. The

ones I hated (law) and loved (marketing) all had a place in the scheme of things.

You, of course, have no need to study or be an expert in all of those things. But it does

help to at least be aware that some of them are, in their own way, critical to your

success. If you are taking a long term view of things, which you should be if you are

serious about having your own home business, you have plenty of time to learn about

those subjects that are most critical for your business:

Finance

Whatever your business, this is a very critical function for you to understand and

manage, so when it comes to learning all you can, financial management is a priority.

Much of this is again common sense, and realism, and there are many tools around to

help you keep good financial records. But as I mentioned before, it is decisions that

dictate the progress or downfall of any business. All decisions you make will have a

financial impact on your business. However, good financial records alone will not bring

the reward of better decision making. If you want to maximize the profits of your home

business, you may find it helps to have other, non-financial records to aid your decisions.

I will discuss this more in part 3 of this series of articles.

Marketing

Marketing is what I love most about business, and it is equally important to finance in all

free enterprises. With an online business, the marketing side is an ever moving area of

expertise. Offline, marketing has long since stabilised. Online, it has not stabilised at all;

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it is still developing and evolving. You need to be aware of whats happening in the world

of internet marketing, what has happened, and what is likely to happen. Always

remember, though, there will always be a financial impact of your marketing decisions.

You are obviously prepared to take risks, as you have started or are starting an online

business at home. As the manager of your business you will need to balance the

financial and marketing conflicts as they arise. You have to strike the right balance. If the

finance director in you is too risk averse, you may stifle the growth of your business. If

the marketing director in you is too cavalier, and unrealistic about sales prospects, you

may ruin your business in one or two rash decisions. More on this in part 4.

Computing

If you are working online full time, or even part time, you will always need to be looking

out for developments in the arenas of software and the internet itself, and maybe at

times hardware. You may come across software that either improves your efficiency,

makes life much easier or takes you into a new and better way of working. This is

another area where knowledge is power. You need to be competitive, and sometimes

you will come across new software that will make you more competitive. Try to keep

abreast of things in the software marketplace, as it affects your business.

Time Management

While not a function like finance or marketing, when you work at home alone you will find

that time management becomes key to your success and enjoyment of working from

home. It is a subject you should always be aware of and make conscious decisions

about. I will write more on this topic in part 5.

The above are just the key areas where you need to view your business from a

management viewpoint, and the list of course is not exhaustive. However, pay attention

to these from a managers perspective, and you should benefit in the long run. You will

take the leap from being employee to boss, even if you are the only one you can be

boss to.


When you have your own home based business, whether it is online or offline, financial

management is one of the key "departments". You really do need to keep on top of your

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finances if you want your own little business to have long term success, and you can do

that by being a manager rather than by adopting the role of a low rank employee.

Why do you need to manage the home business finances?

It is so easy to allow things to drift when you're working at home, and concentrate merely

on totting up the sales revenue. Remember, this is what may happen if you do not

positively manage your business finances:

1. You will experience cash flow problems. Allowing cash to flow in and out at its own will

almost ensures a failed business. If you are blessed with masses of sales income in the

early days, then you will have time to put things right. If you dont, then you may run out

of time. Cash flow will bring you down. One of the most common causes of business

failure is cash flow, and many of those businesses could have flourished with better

financial management.

2. It is inevitable your business will be less profitable than it could otherwise be.

Financial alertness, which financial management will bring, ensures you are making

better and more timely decisions. That results in more profits and better cash flow, and

ultimately the survival of your home business.

3. If you are not watching your finances closely, it is easy for you to continue with

unprofitable activities, programs and products. For example, you may be an affiliate for 3

products. The one bringing you the highest commission each month may be unprofitable

without you even knowing it, if you are not tracking the spend on advertising that

product.

4. Your business may not grow as it otherwise could. If you do not manage your

finances, how will you ensure that part of the profit is put into growing the business, for

example with more advertising or other forms of marketing. Also, you need to budget for

increasing your knowledge.

How do you manage the home business finances?If you own a very small online business your financial management will not take up much

time. The best time to set things up to keep the right sort of records is at the very

beginning, when you first set up the business.

This is a massive subject if you want to go into fine details, it would require a large

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manual. I will cover here just a few points. Bear these points in mind in the context of

your own home business and circumstances, and you should get your business onto a

sound footing, from which you can develop more sophisticated systems if you need

them.

It is very likely that your records will only need to be very simple at first, but it makes

sense to get some sort of information structure in place right at the start, then as things

expand for you, there will no need to play catch up. Your home business will flourish if

you have your finger on the pulse of its finances at all times. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Just as a CEO calls for regular finance reports in a company, you, as CEO of your

own online business, need to ensure that your finance director, also you, provides all the

necessary information to satisfy your needs for statutory returns (eg your country's tax

department) and for monitoring the different elements of your business. In effect, you

have 2 separate but integrated sets of records. The first is for the true financial accounts,

which are for your statutory needs. The other is your set of management accounts. In

other words, you also want a management information system that helps you make

decisions that will improve the profitability of the business.

Management information system sounds very grand, but it need not be. It should just

provide you with enough information to make timely and sound decisions, such as when

to drop a particular program from your portfolio. I have dropped a number of affiliate

programs in the past because their return, if any, did not justify the amount of time and

expense being dedicated to them. I was only able to do that because I had enough

information to make the decision, sometimes very soon after joining a program.

2. Try to set aside a time each week or month to review your finances. Prepare a

monthly profit and loss account covering the whole business to see the overall position.Also, try to break that down in a way that helps you see the profit and loss of each

product or online program which you may be marketing. Use that as a time, but not the

only time, to consider decisions about increasing activity in, or dropping, a program or

product, or to alter their marketing mix..

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3. When setting up your expenditure records, consider which costs will be fixed each

month, and which are variable. A fixed cost is an overhead such as power for your home

office, or your internet and computer expenses. A variable cost is more under your

control in the short term, for example advertising costs.

4. If your business comprises more than one online program or product, (for illustration A

and B) try to allocate as much expenditure as possible to either A or B. This becomes

part of your management information. You can use it to see if A and B are profitable. If

you cannot allocate the expenditure precisely between A and B, use your best guess. If

you cannot do so, then consider if the expenditure is really a fixed cost.

5. Ensure your income records keep track of where income has come from. This will be

used with the expenditure records in 4. to track profitability of different products.

6. If you are dividing your time between A and B, try to jot down each day the time spent

on each in particular. This information may one day help you to make an important

decision. Time is a limiting factor. You need to make use of it. If your time comes under

pressure, there will come a day when you will need to decide how your time is most

profitably spent.

You may find some surprising results. I once had an advertising sales business, and my

partner and I sold space in 7 specialist magazines. One of them only brought in a few

hundred pounds each month, and my partner wondered if we should drop it. When I

checked back a year for the times spent on that and other magazines, the one she

wanted to drop actually brought in the most revenue per hour of all of them. So we kept

the magazine going, and it later expanded. Without those time records, we would have

made a bad decision without ever knowing.

7. From the start of your business activity, try to formulate a plan and a budget. This willhelp structure your financial management. Do not worry if your first forecasts are wildly

out. As you gain knowledge of your business and its market environment, your forecasts

may improve. The important thing is to keep in the management way of thinking. That

will help you keep your finger on the financial pulse. Your business will be more

profitable in the long run.

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You are very likely to find that marketing is a major expense in your online business,

whether it be on information, advertising, or time saving products and services. If you

spend a lot of time online researching internet marketing, you will be exposed to a

cascade of options. Some of those options will be a magnet for your wallet, others will

just be a waste of your valuable time; some will be both. This is why you will benefit from

viewing things as a manager would, especially when wearing the finance hat.

If you do not manage your new online business, it will mismanage you and your bank

account. You cannot risk going with the flow, when you are totally unaware of where the

flow is heading, and that is especially true of marketing. However, all marketing has an

element of risk, as has starting your own business. Finding the right balance is not easy.

How Do You Manage Your Marketing?

Achieving the right balance requires a management skill, even though you may never

before have seen it that way. Where do you apply that management skill and how? I

suggest you at least bear the following in mind at all times:

Managing your business is an attitude of mind; an awareness. If you can elevate

yourself to thinking as a manager, even though you have nobody other than yourself to

manage, then you are setting yourself up to be a better and more successful business

owner.

Critically examine all requirements, or temptations, to spend money on marketing. If the

marketer in you is anxious to spend, you should stand back from that and take a

balanced view. Examine your proposed spend again the next day. You may have a

different and more circumspect view next time.

Having a marketing budget is important. Try to stick to it, but be prepared to increase it

out of profits if something is going well.

Evaluate all marketing options in terms of your budget, time, risks and expectations.

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Be very selective about the marketing options you choose to utilize, and then ensure

you have a way of tracking their effectiveness. If you dont, and youre trying a number of

options at once, you will not have much of a clue as to what is successful and worth

continuing, and what should be dropped from your marketing mix.

Be prepared to stop any marketing campaign that is not getting results within a

reasonable time scale, but also try to make a sound judgement on what is a reasonable

timescale. It is as bad to prematurely stop a campaign that could have been successful

the following month, as it is to carry on with a campaign you should have stopped.

Review the effectiveness of your marketing efforts regularly, at least monthly but

preferably weekly. Keep your finger on the pulse of the business.

This has just been a brief introduction to managing your online business marketing. In

any business, getting the marketing right is crucial. Online marketing, with its thick veil of

hype, is particularly hazardous. As you develop more of a management attitude, you will

find it that much easier to see through the hype, and nurture your business through the

many steps to success.


this series of articles so far, I have argued the need to use management practices even

if you have your own home based online business. The discipline imposed on yourself

will eventually make the business stronger and more profitable. I have touched upon the

need for good financial and marketing management in the last two articles, and will now

discuss another area of management that affects all others: Time Management.

To anybody working in an office or factory, time management may well be something

they hope to escape from by having their own business. A highly pressured executive

may well feel the same. They could work at home, where theyre the boss, and they

decide what to do and when. They could watch tv when they want, sit up in bed with

their laptops, or without, and numerous other symbols of freedom from being an

employee.

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Of course, these things are all possible when you work from home. Of all types of home

business, though, working online is probably the most difficult to manage from a time

point of view. Perhaps difficult is the wrong word. Its actually easy. What is difficult is the

high level of potential online distraction and having to resist it. Add the online distractions

to those around you at home, and you have the ingredients for an awful lot of wasted

time.

What Are All These Distractions?

There are many potential distractions online. Millions of them when you consider there

are millions of websites, and millions of advertisements advertising those websites in

often exaggerated, but tempting, ways. If you are trying to get traffic to your own website

by surfing for advertising credits, you are particularly vulnerable to distraction, as you

may spend a large part of your day being bombarded by advertising. Once you are

drawn off into one tempting website, it can lead to others, then others and so on.

The same can be true of your email inbox. You may be signed up to various newsletters

and ezines, you may be spammed, you may belong to safelists that require you to

receive the owners emails. All or some may cause a distraction from your days

business activity. You may reach the end of the day and suddenly realize: Hey, Ive

achieved nothing today. That can be a demoralizing feeling.

Offline there are many distractions too: you may have children around, your partner may

want your company, you may want to laze in the garden as the suns come out for the

first time in days. There are endless possibilities, depending on your own circumstances,

interests and weaknesses. You need to be very much aware of what your own

distractions are, and then manage them according to your business, domestic and

personal priorities.

How Do You Manage Your Time?

However you manage your time, the first part of the process should be to:

Decide what the essential elements are for developing and growing your business,

steadily and profitably.

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Consider your domestic and personal situation. Now you have your own home

business, you have a chance to build into your daily routine activities that will enhance

your own happiness and that of your family. This is a great opportunity. Make the most

of it.

Take some quiet time and reflect on the first two items. Let them meld together in your

mind and visualize how they can be brought together to make your perfect day/s.

Whatever the outcome of the above three steps, the result is not set in stone. You can

change and adapt according to experience, but for now use this as an exercise in getting

into a time management frame of mind.

Now that you know what you need to focus on, start to put a bit of pressure on yourself.

Not major pressure; that would be counter productive. Start to structure your future,

whether one day, one month or one year. Set yourself achievable targets each day,

week and month; a list of tasks that you need to do to help your business and you to

grow. I use a good old fashioned diary, just to get my eyes away from the screen a

while, at the beginning and end of the day, and at intervals as each task is completed.

Here are a few tips that I try to stick to:

Set out a series of tasks to do each day. Make sure they are achievable.

If you have any regular daily, weekly or monthly tasks (you should have), build them

into your diary in advance so they do not get forgotten. For example, I do a daily Blog.

Thats there in my diary every day of the week. You will need time set aside to consider

finances. Put it in your diary in advance.

If you have a long task to do, split it over a few days, rather than spend a whole day on

the same thing. If it can be split into sub-tasks, all the better. For example, if youre

building a website, you may be able to split it into content headings or pages. Give

yourself an achievable amount to do each day, allowing time for other things.

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Try to include one task per day that involves you increasing your knowledge and

expertise. For example, if you have a new instructive ebook to read, set aside some time

each day for it until finished. When finished, note in your diary to check on your

implementation of suggestions you want to adopt. The same goes for new software and

other new technology. A steady build up of knowledge can be planned for just by putting

these things in your diary and sticking to the plan. Trying to master something new all in

one go may cause unnecessary frustration and weariness.

If you really must surf for advertising credits, do that as your last set task of the day,

otherwise you may not achieve as much as you would have.

If theres something you can do away from the computer screen, try to plan for it. For

example, if you need to plan website content or write an article, you will benefit from at

least thinking of the main points by relaxing. If its warm, sit in the garden, somewhere to

give you a break from the computer.

If you think you will benefit from so doing, use the same diary to schedule in domestic

activities too. Dont forget, this is your home business. The home and your family are

part of it. If you want to take the children to the beach after school, schedule it in. You

can do that and still achieve something for your business that day.

If you find that a task cannot be completed, or its priority should be lessened, dont try

to force yourself to do it the day first scheduled. Reschedule it for another day.

Time management is a very personal thing, especially when you have your own

business at home. I am sure you can adopt your own techniques that suit you best. The

most important thing to remember, though, is that time needs to be managed. If youre

alone in the business, time is a major limiting factor. It is important you make the most ofyour time, and for your own morale, to end each working day feeling youve achieved

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Your Home Business Purchasing

In the previous five articles, I've mentioned some of the key elements of managing your

online business when you are working at home. Working at home in your own business

does not mean there are no management responsibilities, as you are now the manager

of all the different "departments" in the business. It is your business now, so you get all

the benefits of good management, and all the consequences of bad management. The

buck stops with you, though if things go wrong, you may be tempted to blame others.

But when you are the CEO, the responsibility for the well being of the business is yours.

Apart from everything else, you are also the CEO.

There are three "departmental" elements of management that I have not covered yet:

purchasing, and, if appropriate, research and development, and production. I will not

delve into production or research and development, as I suspect few of you will have a

need for these. However, working in any home based business will certainly have a

purchasing input. Whatever you are doing, you will spend money. The better you

manage that spending, the better your profit and loss results will be, and that is true

whether you're working in an office or at home. A large business will probably have a

professional purchasing manager, watched closely by the finance director and CEO. If

you are working alone at home, you are that purchasing manager. However, the finance

director and CEO parts of you need to watch out for what's going on. You need to give

yourself a tough time in justifying your expenditure.

Why Do You Need to Manage Your Purchasing?

This is really a statement of the obvious. To be profitable, you need your revenue to be

above your expenditure. Your expenditure is made up of purchases, whether for internet

access, power, ebooks, advertising, or printer cartridges. The more efficiently you can

manage that expenditure, the better for your bottom line.

Spending money is easy. It is one of the easiest things in the world to do. Spending it

well and in a business like fashion is very different, and not anywhere near so easy.

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Where and how can you go wrong with your purchasing if it is not managed properly?

Here are just a few examples:

There will be numerous temptations every day to spend money, supposedly to improve

your business. If you succumb to all those temptations quickly, you could very soon be

cash poor. If you are an impulsive buyer, this could be a dangerous area for you and

your business.

You may be paying too much for a product or service. That directly affects your

profitability.

You may end up buying inadequate products or services, damaging the growth

potential of the business and affecting profitability.

You may miss superior products or services that, although more expensive than their

competitors, will improve your bottom line by being more productive.

How Do You Manage Your Purchasing?

Much of the management of your purchasing is about self control and common sense.

The financial director part of you has to apply discipline, and the CEO part of you has to

watch over conflicts between purchasing and financial control. You, as the purchasing

manager, need to:

Be aware of your weaknesses, especially if you can be an impulsive spender. Be

honest with yourself here. I am sure most of us have impulsive tendencies. They are not

always a bad thing, but you do need to be aware of and manage them.

Stand back from the situation and take a detached view of your purchases. This wayyou can fulfil your roles as CEO and financial director, as well as purchasing manager.

Have a purchasing budget, and review it regularly. Stick to it unless it is really

necessary to change it.

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Have a decision making process that brings you to the best decisions over what you

buy, who you buy it from, and what you are prepared to pay for it.

Challenge yourself for every purchase, whether it's for software, new computer, joining

an online program, buying an ebook, or many other things.

Research your market for whatever it is you are intending to buy, and keep a record of

suppliers, prices and product specifications so that you can compare them now or later.

Delay any purchase after first consideration, then go back to it. For example, a few

months back I had a long list of ebooks, software aids, and marketing aids I wanted to

purchase. Thankfully, my budget did not allow me to buy all. I could have transferred

money from elsewhere to buy everything on the list, but I stuck to the month's budget.

When I went back to the list a couple of months later, I found that I no longer wanted or

needed to buy all but one of the remaining items.

Review once, review twice and maybe three times. Then buy if you really think such a

decision is justified, and not a product of impulse or panic.

Keep cool when you are about to spend money. Purchasing is a cool discipline, as is

much of running a business, whether your business is at home or elsewhere.

Have a review process for suppliers, services and products. Try to track the

effectiveness of your purchases, so that you know whether to use the same supplier

and/or product and/or service again.

The above are just a few ideas for improving your approach to purchasing. The

underlying principles, though, are no different to how you should approach yourdomestic buying in the local shops. Business purchasing may have a scientific veneer,

but at its most basic is the same as buying your weekly groceries

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Your Home Business Management- Conclusion

In the previous articles, I've mentioned some of the key elements of managing your

online business when you are working at home: finance, marketing, time, purchasing

and computing, plus of course the need to manage yourself. This series has been about

the need to manage your business, even if you do work at home alone, rather than just

let it drift with the flow of the days, weeks, months and years.

For this last part in the series, I will partially recap, but also add in a few more

suggestions that may help you deal with the transition from employee to own business

manager. Of course, this is a subject I could write a book about, so this short series has

been merely an introduction, to get you thinking about your business in a slightly

different light to the way you might have done. I hope the following points may assist in

that process:

Always be patient and do not expect instant results. The business world is not like that.

Maybe over the years you will have one or two lucky breaks, but do not expect them

soon.

Take a long term view of the business from the outset. This may be your one

opportunity to do things right and make a decent income with the freedom of working

from home. Set yourself a target for 5 years time, then the stepping stones to that target

will emerge, one year at a time. Looking ahead 5 years you can set your targets high

without being unrealistic.

.

Always remember that the knowledge you are acquirin g will be a growing asset. All of

a sudden you may find others viewing you as something of an expert, and you willrealise you have knowledge that is valuable, not only to you but to others.

A piece of knowledge is like a building block. Add these building blocks you are making

one at a time. Remember, if you try to put a roof on a building before the walls are in

place, it wont be much of a building. Be patient in placing one block at a time, and

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theres a good chance you will stand proudly in front of this building in awe and think:

wow, I did that! And the roof will be snugly in place.

Spread your learning across all parts of the business, especially those you dont like.

Never forget, every part of your business is inter-related. You need to be able to piece

them together and bind them strongly.

You will make mistakes, so do not expect otherwise. Marketing in particular will require

risk and experiment. Before diving in and inflating your expectations, find out what others

are experiencing from what you are wanting to try. Then there will be fewer

disappointments and unpleasant surprises.

Frequent some of the online forums that focus on online business. There are many of

them, and some are excellent for making new contacts, posing questions and getting

valuable answers and suggestions. You will be surprised how much practical help,

support and advice you will get from some forums.

When you make mistakes or things go wrong in some way, do not blame others. You

are the boss of this business of yours, the buck stops with you.

Do not over criticize yourself or react emotionally when things do go wrong. Analyze

what has happened and put it down to experience. It could have been the most

important mistake you ever made, by forcing a change that will lead to your success.

Extract every positive you can from every negative event in your business life.

Never convince yourself you know better than everyone else. You dont.

Never assume that all those who are making a lot of money on the internet are out toget you. Learn from their successes, even if it means adding to their income by working

in their downline. It is your job to make money, earn a good living, and succeed, not to

resent making money for someone else in the process.

When you try something new, do so in moderation, whether it be a new ad or new

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advertising medium, or some traffic generation system. Online or offline, many things

dont work as you had dreamt they might. Test, review and then continue if neutral,

making changes that may turn the test from neutral to positive. If positive, consider

expansion. If negative, stop, unless there is a substantial reason for doing otherwise.

This is all part of the business building process: discard what does not work, and

improve and expand on things that do. But ensure the timescale you have set is

sensible.

Monitor everything. Its a fast moving world. What may be good for your business today

may not be so in 3 months time.

Enjoy yourself. If you do not enjoy yourself, change things so that you do.

The above list is far from exhaustive, but reflects some of the things I have learnt over

many years of having my own business, working online and offline, after moving from

employee status in 1995. I hope that these ideas may help you in some little way

towards your goal. By having a management attitude towards your business and

yourself from the start, when the day comes to employ staff and delegate, then you will

be better prepared and your business will have a firmer foundation. A new level of

management will begin.

About The Author:

Roy Thomsitt is the owner of the home business website, http://www/change-

direction.com

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Managing Your Home Based Online Business