This is Thursday so we’re going to be talking about running a business. Today is the first one so we’re going to be just talking briefly about some of the things that we’ll be talking about in terms of running your home business. I know that you may be just starting a home business but you may also be running a home business and later we will talk about growing your home business. I think I should talk to you about running your home business just so that you know in case you’re new at this, some of the challenges ,and of course, some of the pleasures of being able to run your home business.

So I’m Jane Gardner and as I mentioned before, we have a structural engineering firm that we have had for 20 years out of our home and our home office. We’ve earned a certain reputation and I would expect in our local community as an offline home business and ,to be honest, most people don’t know that we’re here in business because usually they only find us when they need us. But that’s what’s called “word of mouth”. So if you can develop word of mouth in your community about your home business then you don’t have to pay anything for advertising. We do have our ad obviously in the Yellow Pages. We keep that in there for those who are interested in just finding a local engineer. We do have a Web site and that now is being used more often by people to find us. We have a lot of local referrals from business people who do business with us before.

So I think we can say that in running a business, one of the most important things for you is your reputation and we will certainly be talking about that.

I usually do the organization and productivity for home business so I keep all the files and government taxes and keep the deadlines for our insurance and and all these other things so we’ll be talking about how to organize your home business so you don’t get overwhelmed by all that. All the paperwork and the work that you have to do that isn’t even part of your actual business but is actually something you need to do to run your home business. We’ll be talking about maybe some tips on organizing your business so that it’s much easier to do. Also that you will be able to be more productive so that you’re out there promoting or selling your home business or getting more clients instead of having to always be running around doing your bookkeeping or doing your filing etc.. So of course that means also we will be talking about outsourcing and hopefully at one point be able to afford to hire a few employees.

We’ll be talking about that and we’ll be talking about cash flow. Cash flow is one of the most important things in your business in terms of making your business successful and how you can try to keep the cash flow going. Even though you of course you’re having to do all these different things in your business like your filing, your organizing and you’re selling it and actually producing whatever it is you’re selling. We’ll also talk about some of the skills that you need as a solopreneur or maybe some of the mindset you might need to do every day in some of the meditation or the calming influences or the time you need for your health as well as some of the technical skills you’ll need in a home business. Unfortunately whether you like it or not as a solopreneur, you have to at least be aware of certain technology and certain skills so that you can be quicker and produce things much easier and not be stuck by either not knowing how to do something maybe on your Web site or at least having a web developer who is slow and slowing you down because they’re not getting something done for you. Well you should learn how to do it yourself. So there’s always I think we talked about a lot of that is being Jack Jill or jack of all trades.

We talked about that in our season one, we went over some of the skills you might need running your home business. We’ll be talking a lot about how to make your home business more productive, more organized, save you time and save you money so that you can go out there and sell more and not have to be working in your business. But in terms of actually producing whatever it is you’re selling in your business or just getting more clients whatever it is you have to be able to be organized enough to be getting that going and running your whole business in the most efficient way for you. With of course the Internet there’s lots of plenty of ways that you can save time and money. So I’ll be going over some of those and maybe some of the technology that might be worth you getting especially if it’s free in order to help you and your business.
So we will be talking about the nitty gritty and the down and dirty as we like to say on running your own business on Thursdays.

Hopefully you’ll find this very useful. Every week, I will try to make sure that I have at least three tips for you on that you can take away. Three questions for you to think about every week about how to organize your produce or make your business run more efficiently.
But for today I just wanted to mention that there’s a few things and we’ve talked about quite a few ways to make your business more efficient, run better and easier and save you time and money because saving you time will make it possible for you to go out there and either make more sales or maybe have more time for your family whichever is more important to you. =
So we’ll do that next week. We’ll start talking about some of the things that we can do to make you a jill or jack of all trades so that you aren’t always having to wait for others instead of you can take control of your own business.
. I just thought I’d introduce the ideas and go or some of the ideas that I’ve had and helped in my business as well.
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