Personal AND Business Development

Here are 7 home business tips to keep in mind when you first start your home business.

1. Set up a separate place in your home to work. When you are at your desk tell everyone to leave you alone.

Distractions are not allowed at your full time job, so why should they be allowed at your home business?

2. Don’t co-mingle funds. Open a separate checking account. ALL business transactions should go through it only. Pay ALL expenses that you plan to deduct through this account.

Best is to use a debit card from this account as a credit card. If you must use credit, get a separate card that only has business transactions on it.

3. Set a work schedule and then actually work. Do not waste time online on things that will not make you money.

This means surfing the internet and calling it work does not count. Neither does playing games or listening to music.

4. Set up a blog even if you are using a replicated website from the affiliate merchant or internet business you represent.

Use it wisely to create content readers and search engines enjoy. Pre-sell your products before passing your visitor thru to a company sales page.

Add videos to it to liven it up. Make it and exciting place to be and people will come back.

5. Do at least one form of paid advertising. Find one you can afford and do it. This is the only way to guarantee traffic when you first start out.

6. Work on long term traffic with free advertising generating backlinks. This is why article marketing, social marketing, and any marketing you do where you get your website url on someone else’s website is so effective.

7. Get Organized. Keep records and receipts. Write stuff down. Consider keeping a log and possibly a master index to your log. Some of the daily planner materials lend themselves nicely to this.

There is plenty more to say, but you can get to that later. Right now learn or start practicing these 7 things by heart and your home business will thank you.

Hey guys,

I used to teach a program on “Time Management and Goal Setting”. One of the first principles laid down was that TIME is NOT manageable. Time is made up of events, so we have to learn how to manage events. Many people trying to develop a web based business are also busy people with a full time job and a “life” that does not leave a lot of room for scheduling additional activities. If you are a “boomer” like me, many of the so-called tech skills require some actual study and learning.

The challenge when taking on something new is finding large enough time blocks to really add to your comprehension. Most of us can find 15 minutes a day to work on a new project. The problem is for most of us 15 minutes just won’t give you the time to absorb, much less try to apply a new skill. You can’t believe how long it took me to just get this blog up and running. Here is the trick - Find at least 4 things that you are trying to allocate fifteen minutes a day doing. Next - Stop giving those items fifteen minutes every day! Instead - Try devoting one hour to each one of these projects every four days. You will find that in many cases you will be able to free up some time, because you are wasting less time starting and stopping and your efficiency improves.

Keep applying this principle until you can find a couple of hours to work on your NEW project. I know this works. When I was young I subscribed to the “what are you doing with the time between 1 AM and 4 AM ” attitude. In other words, you can always give up a little sleep to work on something that you are excited about. The problem is if you keep operating that way, your health will eventually fail. If you are fighting health issues, you have to make that part of your event control that you practice. Forcing an exercise schedule and reasonable sleep times has been one of the greatest scheduling challenges I have. But I have FINALLY realized that if I ignore these things I am less productive than if I make time for them. 

Remember we ALL have 1440 minutes in our day. If you take 1% of that (14.4 minutes) and actually plan your events for the day, you will be an EXCEPTIONAL PERSON. If you WRITE your goals, you WILL see success that will not be seen without writing them.  This is a topic for a future post.

His Best to you all,

Jolly Joe 

I was reminded of a comment by the character Will Smith played in the movie “Hitch” while speaking to a group recently. He said, “I tell all my clients to live every day like they were doing it ‘on purpose’. So, I do the same”. Now this was probably not an exact quote, but the intent is intact and very clear. I imagine that Will Smith practices this. He is a man of great and varied accomplishment. I believe that this is something that most of us often fail to do. If you are feeling overwhelmed, after getting enough rest to think clearly, take time to assess where you are and build a plan. Often we are overcommited and need to prioritize, organize, and ELIMINATE! I struggle with the last one the most, but if I could stop overcommitting all would be well. OK, maybe not all, but at least much. It is funny how many times I need to force myself to practice things that I have taught others. In the book of James, we are told that faith w/o works is dead. Well I am also of the oppinion that wisdom not practiced is worthless! Be Blessed, Wise, and Organized!!!

Jolly  Joe