You are here: Home >Posts Tagged ‘Matter

How to Work Less Hours

It can feel like a distant, unachievable dream. But it is a real possibility for those who are determined to find a way.

Maybe you want to have more time to do things with the kids, protect family life, improve quality of life and just live life more.

But how do you go about reducing the hours you work when it seems that the demands of the business won’t allow it?

The first step to reverse this situation is to stop blaming the business.

The business operates the way it was set up. So with the risk of over simplifying the task, it is a matter of setting the business up to operate a different way and for you as the business owner to operate differently.

It isn’t about working hard, it’s about working smart.

Now, I am not suggesting you wake up tomorrow and decide you are working 50% less hours and just do it and to hell with the consequences.

What I am suggesting is that if managed correctly, reducing working hours is possible.

Here are some points that will influence how many hours you work:

1. Get clear on what you really want. Exactly how many hours a week and weeks per year would you ideally like to work? (Forget, “should” “must” and “ought to” – what is your ideal?).

2. How much revenue would you need to bring in each week if you only worked your ideal number of weeks?

3. Review your business model and revenue streams. Once you have the answers to question 1 and 2 brainstorm what changes you can make that will allow you to generate revenue more effectively to meet your ideal working hours. Get creative.

4. Increase your personal effectiveness. This factor is a significant contributor in reducing working hours so you can’t afford to ignore this area. Look for ways to upgrade the areas that directly impact your personal effectiveness.

5. Review your business processes and procedures. I know this subject bores the pants off many people, but like point 4, it is one of the keys to your ability to reduce your working hours. Look for ways to automate, outsource, simplify and improve the way your business operates.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • RSS

Entrepreneurs and Angel Investors

It is inadvisable for an entrepreneur to wait for the launch of a new business to become knowledgeable in that field. Assure potential investors your business will yield a profit by having realistic financial projections. Business plans can be a tool for management to measure and monitor performance. No matter how ideal an opportunity might be, a business must developed by someone with strong entrepreneurial and management skills. It is extremely important that knowing that your products or services are in demand, who your customers will be, as well as industry trends will help you in becoming successful.

Forward looking financial statements are imperative to showcase to your angel investors. As such, many entrepreneurs turn to angel investors in order to receive the money they needed were to launch their business operations. Angel investors are an excellent source of funding for small businesses if you do not normally qualify for traditional funding.. Generally, these private funding sources want their investment to be no more than 50 miles from their primary residence as they are going to want to check in on their investment form time to time.

In limited instances, these private investors will syndicate their investment with other funding sources if the investment is large but not large enough for a venture capital firm that can provide your small business with the capital it needs to start or grow. The process of creating a business plan raises a critical question that helps the entrepreneur develop their original vision. A detailed table of contents makes your business plan as easy to read as possible. On a side note, we strongly recommend that you have an attorney draft a confidentiality agreement for you and your business so that you can ensure that any sensitive information that you are sending to a potential investor will be protected from a private funding source taking your idea and creating a business on their own.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • RSS

It’s The Little Things That Matter The Most – Especially In Event Planning And Management

Live events can change the life of your business. For many promoters, small business owners, entrepreneurs, and information marketers, starting and running successful events has been the thing that’s catapulted their income from six figures to seven figures. It might also be yours, or you might already be running successful events – either way, there might be a few things you could do better that would make a huge difference in the success of your events.

I was at an event not too long ago and never, in three days, did the promoter ever start on time. Not just at the beginning of the day, but coming back from breaks, coming back from lunch, and of course, if an event doesn’t start on time, it more than likely doesn’t end on time.

Now, you might think that’s just being overly picky, or that’s just setting the bar way too high. After all, what’s the big deal if you don’t start exactly on time? Let me tell you why this is such a big deal, it’s called integrity, it’s called your word, it’s called doing what you say you’re going to do.

What’s more important than that?

It might seem like a little thing to start ten minutes late, but at the event I attended, it started forty-five minutes late, and we had the added pleasure of standing outside the doors, in the hallway, the entire time. You can imagine people were more than a little aggravated, but here’s the thing if you say you’re going to start at eight o’clock, or let’s say you’re going to open the doors, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter, and you don’t do it.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • RSS