A growing number of men are pursuing successful businesses from home; however, it would appear that the majority of home-based businesses are managed by women. Many of these women are mothers, especially of small children; wives; caregivers for elderly parent/s; involved in social and volunteer activities, and the list goes on. While these are normal, everyday activities and responsibilities, they can create tremendous stress for solo-professionals working from home.

It is important to maintain a proper balance between personal and professional life when working from home:

a) Location: Your office building is your home. Your office may be a desk and chair in an already occupied room. Or you may have a room designated as your office. Can you make and receive phone calls without interruption or background noise? At the start of your day, do you dress as if you were expecting a client in your home, or as if you were leaving for a job outside the home? Nothing excessive, but doing whatever is necessary to make you personally feel (more…)

Today is August 1^st and the start of  the “Ultimate Blog Challenge” coordinated by Michele Scism  and Michelle Shaeffer with the hashtag #blogboost on Twitter.

The last blog challenge I participated in was in June, coordinated by Dr. Jeanette Cates with Twitter hashtag #blog30.  During the challenge I submitted 21 posts; 9 short of the goal and was a little disappointed with myself that I’d not met the goal.  However, I reminded myself that in setting goals, you may fail to reach them the first time but the solution is to pick yourself up and start again.

Before committing to the Ultimate Blog Challenge I debated whether I should participate in another challenge for these reasons:

1)  To meet the goal I am obligated to write and submit a post on one designated blog for 31 days.

2)  I have other blogs that I need to write posts for, two of which I’ve neglected.

3)  One of the goals I’ve set for myself and my business is to focus more on Article Marketing.

4)  Another goal is to increase my online visibility.

Here are the reasons why I went ahead and made the commitment: (more…)

I often quote the statement that a goal is just a dream if you fail to write it down because it’s so true.  In general, most people accept that they need to write their goals as it’s only too easy to get side-tracked, or to lose sight of what you’re working towards.  For others, they may have to change their mindset in order to accept the need to implement setting goals.

A challenge that many people I work with and speak with have is that while they recognize the importance of written goals, they do not know how to write them effectively.

The first step is decide in your mind what the goal is, what the details involved will be, which would include timeframe, current status, where you’d like to be in the short term, as well as in the long term.  You also have to take into consideration any external factors that may affect the outcome.  Once these have been determined, you are ready to transfer you thoughts to paper or your computer.

1.   Always write your goals in positive language. For example, instead of: My goal is to lose 10 pounds in one month; you may consider: My goal is to be 10 pounds lighter at the end of one month. Or, instead of: My goal is to stop being late for appointments; you may write: (more…)

For someone new to marketing on the internet it can be like taking a four-year old into a huge specialty candy store.  There is so much to see and so many appealing and delicious type of  candies for that child to choose from that she becomes overwhelmed! Imagine that the parent said, “Remember, you are only allowed to choose one.” A typical reaction in a whiny voice could be, “I don’t know which one to choose!”

One of the things I struggled with and am still working on is to avoid clicking on emails with a really good subject line. Sometimes it’s nothing new, perhaps an e-book with a catchy title.  I know I’ve heard the topic before, probably have something similar in a binder on my shelf or on my hard-drive, or may even be in a class on the topic, but natural curiosity impels me to take a look to see someone else’s take on a topic.  I may open the document and just scan it.  Five or 10 minutes later I’ve learned nothing new, but that’s five or 10 minutes lost.  That’s time I could have spent doing something in and for my business.  One solution I’ve implemented is to unsubscribe from a number of lists. (more…)

Today marks the end of week 1 of the 30-day blog challenge by Dr. Jeanette Cates although it’s actually just 5 days since the challenge began.  It has been challenging for me to write everyday, not because I don’t know what to write about, but because of the number of projects on and offline I’m involved in as well as other  activities unrelated to business.  This is nothing unique to me as I’m sure if we did a survey of most of the participants we’d find that very few people have a lot of  ’spare’ time.

The recommendation was made to write two or three posts each day and schedule them for different days and I believe that is an excellent suggestion.  Unfortunately I’ve only been able to write one each day.  My goal for next week is to select a day on which I will write at least three posts.  In this way if unforeseen circumstances arise I wont fall behind.

Here is a recap of the articles I wrote this week.  My objective for the 1st two weeks is to help persons who want to, or have recently started an online business to recognize that before they start to worry about the technology aspect of their online business, they need to get their mind and inner person ready in order to succeed.

Day 1:  Starting Your Internet Business – Knowing Your Why

Day 2:  Starting Your Online Business – What Is Your Purpose?

Day 3: What Motivates You?  Is Your Motivation From Within?

Day 4:  7 Questions to Self-Check Your Motivation In Your Business

Thanks to all who read and commented on my posts this week.

Yesterday we talked about the importance of knowing your “Why.”  On the surface it may seem that your Why and your Purpose are the same, but they are really two separate and distinct things.

The simplest way to look at it is to understand that your Why is the conscious effort you make to determine the reasons, the real motivation for what you do; for starting your online business.  Your purpose is your objective, your goal; what you would like to achieve in your online business – the end result.

Without a clear purpose (objective or goal) you will have no direction and your efforts may at best be hit or miss. You may find that although you are working hard, you’re not achieving proportionate results resulting in frustration.  One of the reasons why so many who start an online business give up after a few months.

My experience convinced me that this is a very essential step that many entrepreneurs ignore, as I did.  When I started my online business in late 2008, I knew I wanted to do ’something’ on line, but it never occurred to me that I needed to identify my purpose.  As a consequence I tried to incorporate all my offline businesses into one.  The result was that there was no focus, hence no growth for some time and I actually thought of quitting.

If you are new to the internet and just getting started, stop and take this step now!  It will save you months of frustration.  If you have been online for a while and find that you are not where you hoped to be, take some time to get out a writing pad and pen or pencil and start writing down your purpose.  What is your objective for having an online business?  What are your short-, medium-, and long-term goals for your online business?

Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.  We learn from each other!

You set your goal; you put it in writing and you made yourself accountable to others. But…you did not achieve your goal within the deadline you had set. Did you fail? Do you consider yourself a failure?

Firstly, no one usually plans to fail and there is no such thing as failure when it comes to improving your life. Failure is defined as “a lack of success” and as the “loss of ability to function normally.” Did you lack success? Did you lose the ability to function normally? Perhaps if a body part was affected that would apply, but in terms of achieving your goal you did not fail. It just means that your deadline had to be adjusted. In reality, if you took just one step forward towards reaching your goals, even if you did not complete all the steps, you moved forward…and that’s the key! (more…)