Do You Want To Start A Home Business In Your Community

November 14, 2017

Today we’re going to be talking about some of the things you have to think about when you’re before you start your business. And some of the actual research you have to do before you start your business. So first off we’ll be talking about starting a home business and picking a business. And today it’s all about offline. So we’re going to be talking about local business and working out if your home office and there are many ways you can do that.

There are some restrictions obviously to what you can do from your own home office. You can check with your local authority on what kind of businesses are allowed as a home business in your community. For example we don’t really have hairdressers. We don’t have car shops. We don’t have you know auto body shops. We don’t have various other ones basically things that make noise and smells because of course you have to think about your neighbors which we’ll talk about another time when it comes to offline.

But in terms of home businesses and what one you might be interested in, one of the recommendations I would say is that try to do something that you already know about and that’s something you’ve been working in. Whether it’s the food industry (that would be a concern in terms of doing it at home) or if you were to had an internship as a bookkeeper or you were working in marketing or your writing business and you were writing for business or you were an office administrator for business. These are skills that you could do from your home in terms of a local home business.

You just have to decide if there’s a market out there for you. So you have to decide how to figure out if there’s a local market for your business. So they see the first things that we would do, which we did a long time ago in the 1990s, was have a look and see who else was out there in the local community who was doing the same business.

I think there was only one Engineer near us at the time so we had not too much competition in our local area and then of course we had to look at the kind of work that’s out there for us in terms of being able to have a steady flow of business. So you want to research at what is selling in your community whether it’s a product or service.

How many people or how many businesses are out there?

For example, if there are five to 10 home cleaning businesses in your community and your community is only 5000 then you might want to consider a different business.

But one of the things I want you to think about if there are other businesses out there doing the same service then most likely there is a demand for that business especially if they are in the business for at least five years or more than they have enough clients to keep them busy. So you’ll probably find enough clients to keep you busy. And of course there’s always people moving into your community and it is always growing. Assuming your population will grow enough to support five or six of what you do as your product or service then you might want to consider putting some tentative idea out there that you’re in business. See if you get some interest in people wanting to know what your business is and whether or not they could use your business.

If you have no idea, my first recommendation would be to decide on a business.

Don’t forget that you pick the wrong business just pick something and then get an internship or part time job in that type of business to see what it’s like to see if there’s certain skills or knowledge that you don’t have for that you might need in order to do that same business. Then you’ll need some experience to learn about it and see how the business sells its products because that’s one of the important things to learn if you want to sell your products. So be in the market similar to your business product or service and then you have to allocate a few five to 10 hours on learning about your type of business part time outside your day job in order to get some of the skills you need to be in business.

We’ll talk about that on Thursday when we’re talking about running your own business and some of the skills that you need as an entrepreneur. Then once you have a primary a pretty solid understanding of what the business entails and what kind of requirements are needed. You can certainly have a tentative look at maybe starting selling a bit of what you’re doing part time.

Now I forgot to mention that there are a lot of good government Web sites which have information on starting your own business and how to do it and some other requirements that are required for by the government So go and just do a search for starting a home business and add your country and you’ll probably find a great many places on Google where you can learn more about what their requirements are for starting a business.

Say you’d like to start so what you need to do is to do research and maybe gain a bit of knowledge about your business that you want to be and is probably recommending that you already know something about the business that you want to go into and then make some kind of decision on what you think you could do day to day and be useful in your business.

For example I think I mentioned yesterday that I don’t think even though I have the skills to be a bookkeeper I would be happier as a bookkeeper. So I’m not going to have a bookkeeping business. Whereas I love being an artist and I’d love to have an artist business and that would keep me going day to day even though the sales might be less than in a bookkeeping business.

So it’s something for you to think about is are you willing to challenge yourself to do that you have the passion to do that you want to know the things that you need to know to do the business. Don’t go into something that people are just saying “go into it because it’ll make you rich.” It won’t make you rich because you don’t have the passion for it.

So we’re going to be talking about some of the practical ideas next time where you can do your research for offline and starting your local business. Obviously, anyone can go get their computer out and start an online business from their home office without really any requirements from the local authority.So we will talk about online research next week and it will be for offline and online.

So let’s hope the you got some information out of that and we’ll go out and research your local community and see what’s out there and whether they need another dog walking service or whether they need another cleaning service or whether they need another bookkeeper or another accountant or another.

You know there’s lots of business that you can do out of your home that are not required to go out and be in a rental office in your hometown. ‘

So go out and have a look and see if you have enough passion in order to do business.

Categories: Run a Home Business Tags: Tags: offline business, online business, run a home business

Passion is a Trait of the Mindset of the Entrepreneur

October 30, 2017

We’re going to be talking about your passion your passion for your business.

If you don’t have the passion to get up and do everything every day for your business then you’re in the wrong business so you get out of it.

So let’s look at your passion for your business.

Do you get up every move every morning eager to share your knowledge and skills with others or even just do the paperwork for the business?

Do you feel the desire to get out and do the business?

Do you go and have a belief in your product during your service that you believe so much in and that you’re so passionate about it you’re willing to work extra hours every day; extra hours you can spend with your family but you know that you’re going to be making life better for them if you can get your business going at a better level?

Than you may have the passion to be an entrepreneur.

Unfortunately it is a myth that it’s an easy ride to be an entrepreneur.

It’s a very hard one from one day to the next, you never know where your money’s coming from.

You never know what’s around the corner.

Of course we never do in life as well but it’s not like a job as being an entrepreneur you’re not getting your regular paycheck.

You have to bring in the money to pay for your business.

So every day you have to figure out “what can I do to get my sales, my leads and my engagement to get the connections with others so that they want what I have to sell” or “what I have as a product or an idea.”

Of course, we’re looking at a home business and whether it is offline or online home business you have to have the passion for it.

You know you have the passion to do that business because:

you have a family to support or yourself to support;

you have to get out there and make the connections;

You have to do the marketing;

you have to do the networking;

you have to do the bookkeeping and other chores of being in business;

but you can leave the bookkeeping when you have the money for it.

You can do some automatic social marketing media for social media and that kind of thing for your offline business online.

But if you don’t have the passion to walk those dogs in your business choice or clean those floors ,if that is your business, or sit at the computer for days then if that’s not your passion then don’t do that.

Which reminds me, for example, I do know how to do bookkeeping and I do some volunteer bookkeeping now. But luckily, we have a bookkeeper in our business so that I don’t have to do the bookkeeping. Because any day that I do the bookkeeping, I’m a very crabby person because I don’t like bookkeeping. I could go out there right now and have a bookkeeping business. But I wouldn’t enjoy it. So yeah, if you have any questions about booking e-mail me but I’ll send you on to someone else who enjoys bookkeeping. 🙂

I have the passion for organization and productivity and keeping the business on track and getting everything ready and dealing with customers etc. etc. otherwise we wouldn’t be in this business that we’re in.

So, have a think about when you’re thinking about what kind of business you’d like to start or what kind of business do you have.

Do you get up every day realizing that it’s important for you to have the passion to be organized to be productive so that you can make the money; make the sales; make the leads; get the engagement that you need for your business?

Do the networking; do the marketing for your business so you get more sales for your business?

Do you have the passion?

So that is the question today on Mindset Monday.

It’s probably not a good idea for you to go into business if you don’t have a certain passion in terms of what you’re doing because being an entrepreneur is a very hard life and it’s a myth that it’s easy. It does have its pros and cons and you have to be ready to take the challenges on. But you have to have the passion first in order to be get through the challenges and get through the trials and get through the day to day and make sure that you’re always being successful as entrepreneur.

Passion is a trait of an entrepreneur.

If you aren’t passionate about your business you’re thinking about starting whether it’s Internet marketing or it’s dog walking then don’t do it.

You need the passion.

So that’s an important point I wanted to make.

You need to have passion if you’re in business because you just need it in order to survive.

Categories: Be Your Own Boss, Mindset, Solopreneur Success Strategies podcast Tags: Tags: Mindset, mindset monday, passion, solopreneur success strategies

To Be A Reluctant Entrepreneur

October 29, 2017

Today we’re going to be talking more about reluctant entrepreneurship and it may be something that no one tells you about on the Internet. Certainly they are talking about “get rich quick” schemes; we’re not going to be talking about getting rich; we’re going to be talking about how to build a business from foundations.

So last week, I mentioned that you don’t have to be from a family of entrepreneurs in order to have your own business. You can learn the skills you need to be in business. You can find the time you need to be in business. It just depends on your desire and your passion in order to do that.

But what I think I do want to say is that you should always test your idea before you actually go out and try and do it as a business. You should do the research; you should find out what kind of market there is out there; whether or not anyone else is doing it. If there is other people doing a similar business, that’s a good sign because it means there’s a demand for it and people are buying it.

What kind of market and customers do you have out there?

So we’re going to be talking about some reluctant entrepreneurs that are out there that you may think we’re not reluctant, cautious entrepreneurs. But they were. They’re all from the book “The Reluctant Entrepreneur” by Michael Masterson. I didn’t know this about these people as I always thought they were risk taking entrepreneurs.

But no they were very careful entrepreneurs. So here goes.

Reluctant Entrepreneurs

For example, did you know Bill Gates, of course, he was going to school when he was doing his programming and designing his computer with his friends. He always had his family to fall back on in terms of working out of the garage there. They were supporting him. The legend was he dropped out of Harvard to start Microsoft. But that’s wrong. He actually had an approved leave of absence and then he relied on his parents financial support while he developed his programming skills. If it had failed and if it hadn’t worked out well, he would have gone back to Harvard and probably would have become a corporate executive, so the rest is history as they say. He had his family behind him he always had a plan B and he never took any risk. I’m sure he ate a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while he was working on his programming.

For Ben and Jerry of Ben and Jerry Ice Cream, a lot of people think they just went out there and started selling ice cream. But in fact they were in the bagel business. But when they realized how expensive the equipment was, they went and they looked for something else. It was cheap to make ice cream and they were in Vermont. So of course, there’s always tourists there as well as the locals and I’m sure they have great weather during the summer. So they started to sell fresh handmade ice cream from a Vermont gas station to the locals and tourists. At first, they barely cover their costs but they knew they had a good product. By putting in a lot of hard work they gained ground and after two years they began to sell their ice cream to local eateries. It was only after about four years, their efforts paid off. They thought about expanding beyond their backyard and they went statewide and then they went national and of course now they’re international. You know of course they’re not actually still with the company. I think they sold it out.

The owner of Waste Management started with a single garbage truck that he drove himself. He bought his second truck with profits he made from his first and a third with profits from the second and of course, as you know, it’s a nationwide billion dollar enterprise.

So, despite the myth that being an entrepreneur is a risky business. None of these entrepreneurs ever spent money before they actually did anything. They were always working from one 500 dollar profit to the next $500 profit. So we’re going to think about more on this because it’s a strategy you should think about.

Certainly, first off not quitting your day job.

Then second off deciding on an idea for a business.

One of the good ways to do that is of course to do something that you know about.

For example, Phil was a middle distance runner in the 1950s Of course, you know what track shoes were like then as they were basically just processed waste and it only cost $5 for track shoes. So, when he was in graduate school he took a course in small business development and one of his assignments was to invent a new business and remembering his experience with track shoe issues, he thought about selling superior athletic shoes. So in those days it was cheaper to get them done in Japan so he put together a business plan and then he went to certain brands to get more information about the shoe business. Then after graduate school he went to Japan and saw that some of the shoes there were quite nice and they met to discuss and found and made a business deal and he was given the rights to distribute Tiger shoes in continental U.S. While he waited for his samples to arrive. He went got a job as an accountant and took classes. But he spent his spare time learning as much as he could about the business of marketing athletic shoes. The samples arrived a year later. He had written a business plan and made several key contacts in the U.S. who were well known coaches and other distributors that might be interested in track shoes. So he and his partner basically invested 500 of their own money in the venture. Then for the next five years, his partner Bill worked on improving the design of the shoe and Phil sold the Japanese imports out of the trunk of his car at track meets across the Pacific Northwest. Meanwhile both men kept their day job. Neither one risked their savings or gave up their salaries. Little by little they built up their startup into a profitable small business with 45 employees and sales about a million pairs of shoes a year. That’s when they changed the company’s name. They changed it to Nike.

So, as you can see you don’t have to be a risky entrepreneur going to spend $300000 to start up a business within six months.

You can actually start a home business. It might be your passion or it might be something that you know a lot about. Certainly you don’t want to do something that you know nothing about.

You can start it right by creating a business plan. So unfortunately, it may sound boring but a business plan is very important for your business. It gives you the foundations of knowing whether or not ,of course, there is a business out there for you when you do start selling.

But of course, also, you’ve got to test your idea. So as far as offline, I think you could certainly test whether or not certain food items might be of interest to people by creating a sample and then going out to markets, flea markets and asking to show it to various stores et cetera and see whether they be interested before you actually go into production because there might already be someone who’s doing a very good job of what you want to do. Yhe same thing for online, you don’t want to start a business online selling courses on Excel if everyone else has courses on Excel and they don’t need your course on Excel.

You need to find out what is unique about yourself and your business. How is the idea special? [11.1]

For example, suppose you want to sell shoes. There are many companies selling shoes or selling shoes through their Internet. And one of the unique propositions for Zappos is that you can actually return your shoes which is quite unusual in the business of selling shoes.

So, for today you have to think about if you have an idea for a business and if you don’t there are certainly places you can go look and get ideas on that kind of home business. You can have off line as well as online and we’ll certainly go over some business models in the future on the strategy Sunday.

But for now you have to think about whether or not you’re willing to work hard at it and not plunge all your money into it but work at it say 10 hours a week. Learning about business and then using some of the knowledge that you have already and have a look through whether or not you have some skills or knowledge that other people might enjoy you sharing and obviously selling to them. We’ll be going on and talking about some of the ideas. Finding out whether your big idea will sell in the market. We can do that next week by doing some research and looking at your business by getting a couple of sample business for us to work in the next few months so I’ll think about probably in offline business as well as an online business. I’ll pick a couple of sample businesses and we’ll build up business plans for both as well as finding out whether or not there is a business out there for you.

We’ll certainly be looking at business models and we’ll be looking at market research and finding out where the customers hang out.

I do have free training videos on finding your E-Tribe that you can get at http://jgtips.com/ettb . It’s a five series of videos on finding your E-Tribe on the Internet and finding all your raving fans so that you can sell to them again and again.

[11:06.8]

Categories: Solopreneur Success Strategies podcast, Strategy Sunday Tags: Tags: entrepreneurship, solopreneur success strategies, strategy

To Have Systems in your Business

October 28, 2017

;

Welcome. This is Jane Gardner.

And today we’re going to go looking at the systems you can put in your business to save you time and money making you more productive, get more sales and get more leads to have a great business so let’s get started.

As you know I’m Jane Gardner and we’re talking about systems today. I know that sounds very boring to most people but systems in your business will allow you to have the time to get more sales and also lets you have more time with your family and friends to get yourself a lifestyle business.

So we’re going to be talking about the five systems that you need to have in an online business today as well as offline business of course. So we’re going to be looking at first off making yourself a hub on the internet or a hub in your business where you can be found so that would be your web site and how to set up a system so that your web site is the location that people can come to and they can find out who you are as well as obviously sign up for anything you have or you can get sales as well as get engagement.

So your web site is a system that is built for you to collect it.

So you have a lead system as well that’s set up for you so that you can collect leads without having to be there day and night. It’s collecting leads for you because you set up a system that does it.

You can set up a system for engagement whether it’s on social media or on the internet. Making sure you keep connected with your customers that you have or keeping connected and following up with your clients that you have.

There’s a system for you to have sales. How to set up a system for your sales so that you have some automation so that you’re not always having to do it from scratch every day slowing you down, losing focus, not progressing as quickly as you want.

Having a system for your sales so you can go out, and people can interact with your sales system whether or not you’re there or whether or not you’re open as far as being out there, can work for you day or night.

As well you need a payment system set up so that it’s automatic and will collect any payments for you and release any products or services that you’re going to be have with your customer or client.

So that’s when it can also work for you day and night. Well, of course previously without the internet your day of business was nine to five or all every seven days a week. For us, it was usually 8:00 in the morning till about 6:00 at night. So right now it is seven days a week because this is when we’re available. But if you get your business onto the Internet of course with the difference in the hours all over the world you can actually go and do business as long as you have some automation and use systems so that you could collect a sale or two in the morning while you’re asleep from someone over in England who’s found your product to be something that they want. So I know this isn’t something that you think very important in your business and it’s certainly not very exciting to have systems but these systems in your business will allow you to make more sales and get more engagement and collect more leads and of course process more payments and have a website that is interacting with your customers and clients so they get to know like and trust you.

So your systems and your business are almost the most critical thing in your business because it gives you the time to collect more leads; to follow up more often with your clients; to have more time for yourself rather than having to work all day in your business.

You all have systems in your business that will help you to organize and make you more productive and give you the free time that you need in order to be successful in your business.

So my approach may be starting with offline business like I mentioned in your home business and some of the systems that you can put into your offline home business now and ignore the internet next week. Anyway, we are trying to because ,of course, in offline business can work just as well on the Internet as online.

You have five systems in your business.

Do you have a lead system to collect leads?

Do you have a Web site that’s online so that people can visit you even though you may be asleep? They can come visit your web site and see what you sell or see who you are.

Do you have a sale system in your business so that it can work while you’re asleep?

Basically you’re sleeping all the time and you have something to engage with systems on social media or engage with people on email lists.

Then of course do you have a payment system set up in your business so that you can collect payments from the sales that are made from that leads that you get from the email that you send out etc..? So that’s all going to be talking about on systems Saturday so I hope you’ll find this useful and we’ll talk to you next week.

Categories: Grow a Home Business, Solopreneur Success Strategies podcast Tags: Tags: run a home business, solopreneur success strategies, systems

To Grow a Home Business

October 27, 2017

Hi this is Jane Gardner and welcome. This is all about growing your home business. And today we’re going to just be talking about some of those strategies they could have in order to grow your business. As I have mentioned previously, I’m going to be talking about growing your blog doing anything with your home business whether it’s offline or online on the internet.

So first off, we’re going to be talking about some of the offline strategies of course because these are some of the standard strategies that you have throughout time to grow your business.

We’re going to be looking at networking and marketing.

We’re going to be looking at outsourcing and we’re going to be looking at promoting your business in order to create more awareness for your business.

These are some of the ways that you can grow your home business whether it was 1990 or now. Then we’ll be looking at the Internet and how having the Internet has increased the possibility for you to grow your business. Whether it’s offline or online today you can have a larger Internet international audience for your business and especially if you can do your business in different languages you can have an even larger market. We’ll be looking at your market potential on the internet.

I can tell you right now there was 3.6 billion people on the Internet and I’m sure by now there’s probably more so I’ll keep you up to date on the number of people that are on the Internet and hanging out where they’re hanging out and how you can grow your home business by going where your market is.

So we’re going to be looking at some of the new opportunities for you as a business to grow your business. Of course the most important one being of course the opportunities on the Internet but also by looking at partnering with other businesses and creating a collaboration in order to have a larger success and outsourcing. Being able to outsource some of your work, so that you have more time to grow your business rather than working in your business. So we’ll be looking at growth strategies that will help you save time and money in your business. So if we can get your business to grow by 5 percent, 10 percent or 25 percent just getting your business onto the Internet creating awareness for your business on the Internet. Even if you’re an offline business the Internet is important for your business because at all times you have to be able to grow your home business so you have a strong structure and foundation to your business.

So yeah that’s all we’re looking at and I hope it’ll be useful for you and grow your home business Fridays. Let’s see what should we leave you with today. Think about your own business and what you want to have your business grow at and how you want it to increase by 5 percent. Have a look at your productivity in your business and see how you can be more productive in order to have the time so you can grow your business.

We’ll be looking at social media. So if you haven’t got yourself a social media account on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter, it’s about time that you did. So we’ll be going over some of the reasons for why you should be getting on on social media even if are a home based business who thinks you don’t cater to people on the Internet. I can certainly show you some businesses that have been successful on Instagram, for example, posting photos of ships. These are ships that are shipping! They have people who actually follow them. So it’s not impossible for you to grow your business with social media and on the Internet. And so we’ll be looking at some of the ways you can do that in the coming months.

So I hope you’ll join me and subscribe here at boahb.com and will talk to you again next week. I’ll start with the basics. Start with what did we do back in 1990 when we were growing our home business. I had one of the original guerrilla marketing handbook so we were going over some of the simpler ways that you can sell your home business by doing some marketing for it. And if you have already know about that well we might find a few new ones for you on next week.

[5:14.4]

Categories: Grow a Home Business, Solopreneur Success Strategies podcast Tags: Tags: grow a home business, home business, solopreneur success strategies

To Run a Home Business

October 26, 2017

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.
[7:17.3]

Categories: Run a Home Business, Solopreneur Success Strategies podcast Tags: Tags: run a home business, solopreneur success strategies

Selling Sales You and Your Customer

October 25, 2017

Well today is Wednesday and it’s all going to be about selling sales and your customers.

Today, I wanted to start off by talking about how you don’t have to be salesy in order to sell as a human being.

You sell yourself all the time and you sell ideas that you have all the time.

When you were a baby, you would always try to persuade your mother or father that you wanted a certain food or that you would could see that either doing a tantrum or you would smile and be happy and you could make them understand that you wanted something. As you got older we were always putting our “best face forward” as they call it to people in your school. You wanted to have friends so you always either went with the crowd or you persuaded others you were someone to meet. You’re always persuading other people to do what you were interested in.
So, it comes to reason that “To Sell is Human.”

Of course, there’s a book called “To Sell is Human” by Daniel Pink that I’ll go into it further another time but I just want to say you don’t have to be intimidated by the idea of selling because you’re doing it every day;

you’re giving a first impression to someone new that you meet;
you’re showing people you’re interested in what they have to say or you’re ordering people around
always whatever you’re always selling and always having a certain face that you put forward to other people.

So, what we’re going to be talking about is first how we’re always selling anyway so it shouldn’t be foreign to you and to not be intimidated by the idea of selling but I’m going to be talking sort of backwards in terms of we’ll be talking about because we are talking about the customer first because really “it’s not what you’re selling as much as what your customers want.”

Of course, first you have to define who you think your customers are and what they want before you can approach them.
Give them a solution to what they want to buy and what their pain is or what they desire to have.
So we’re really actually not going to be talking about selling so much as trying to understand who your customer is and what they want what they want to experience with you and what they enjoy and all those kind of things. So, first of all, we’ll probably be talking about the actual process of selling itself and we will be talking about how you can give a good impression to others in terms of selling and how you can be more human in your selling and use your human skills as you are.
Now you don’t have to become that enthusiastic loud salesmen of the old days because with (of course) podcasting as we have now and being on video, you can still be human and connect with others and be engaged by these type of media.

So, in Season 1, I talked about first defining who your customer is and how you can do that as well as researching what they want and where they hang out so that you can find out where they hang out and connect with them there and obviously figuring out what they actually want rather than what you think they want and then selling them the solution to what they want.
Then after that develop the relationship such that you can also then give them what they need in terms of what they want as well.
So as long as you can learn how to define what they want and give them that solution then you will be able to sell very easily to them in terms of having a transaction of money for what the solution is that they want to have from you.
Of course, we’ll be talking about my business and with my husband as well as other businesses and how they work and how they sell and how they market and also offline as well as online. A lot of offline businesses can go online and become more internationally known so that’s awesome. We’ll be talking a lot about how to market yourself and probably growing your business because we’ll be talking more about the internet. But today I just wanted to mention to you that first.

It’s about your potential customers and do you know what they really want.
You don’t have to sell or be salesy.
You can just be human and use the way you are.

We’ll be talking about that further in a later episode. Use the way that your personality is and you can then match it or change it to match your customers personalities such that they feel that you’re an old friend and that it’s not a matter of selling.
It’s just a matter of being human to human and realizing that you have the solution to what they want.

So I know that sounds all very confusing but I certainly thought I would start out with an introduction to selling and then we’ll be going on to understanding that selling is not about you, it’s about your customers of course.
First you have to figure out who your customers are.
So we’ll see you next week and will be starting on finding out who your customer is and what do they want.
So ask your questions or ask yourself that question over the next week and maybe you’ll find out that the people that you thought were your customers aren’t actually and other people and others who actually want your solution that you hadn’t thought about selling to ..so see you next week. Subscribe on Itunes.
[7:12.2]

Categories: Run a Home Business, Solopreneur Success Strategies podcast Tags: Tags: customer, run a home business, sales, selling, solopreneur success strategies

Your Big Why -Why do you want to start a home business

October 24, 2017

Welcome this is Jane Gardner and welcome to start your own home business on Tuesday.
No don’t start it today 🙂 just start your own business Tuesday.

So,let’s start by talking about why do you want to start a home business.

For those of you who are thinking of starting a home business ask yourself “Why” first and then ask yourself “Are you willing to do the things that are needed in order to start a home business?”
“So why are you starting a home business?” Is it because you want to make more money in your life or do you want to be in control of your own life and be able to be your own boss? “Are you desperate for money?” “Are you wanting to support your family better than you are now?” Do you think that it will be a quick way to make more money but you are disillusioned because starting your own home business will always be a challenge. It will always have its freedom and it may always have its challenges as well as its triumphs. So let’s have a sit down and figure out exactly why “what’s the big why” for why you want to start a home business.

Next week, we’ll look into researching and thinking about what kind of home business you want to have. Just so you know, I am interested in talking about online Home businesses as well as offline Home business. Obviously being in a structural engineering firm, our own business that is local and we work in the local area. And obviously we’re not doing any international work or otherwise I would have mentioned it. So, but of course, now there are very few home businesses that are always local. You can always get customers on the Internet now and expand into the Internet.

So, we’ll be talking about offline home businesses as well as online home businesses.

But today I want to just sit down and ask yourself ” why you want to start a home business?”

So for example, my husband and I are in our home business and we’re both in our 50s to 60s. We’d like to retire well but basically my husband cannot retire without closing down the business or he would have to get someone else to take over. So my big “Why” is to try to figure out how I can help others start their own home business by sharing my knowledge and wisdom and some of the practical skills and technology and resources that you can use to start a home business. while at the same time, adding some revenue to our life so that we can retire.

We’ll talk about a practice as a business another day (I’ll just write that down). But our practice is not really a business. For someone who’s an individual like a doctor or dentist or an engineer where basically the business is you. So we’ll talk about that another time and another night whether you want to choose that kind of business.

But today my big why is to try and set up another business so that we can retire and enjoy our retirement as well as earning some revenue to enjoy our life while we’re retired and sharing my wisdom.
So what’s your big why?

Do you have family that you want to support? Certainly we all do have family members who need to have some support from us in terms of money. Do you have children that you want to help go to school or you want to help your grandchildren? Do you want to help other family members with some resources?
Are you looking to earn some extra revenue so that you can enjoy your retirement earlier than you expected or even not retirement just being able to support your family because the job that you’re doing right now, your day job is not fulfilling and you need another choice?

Is your Why you want to start a home business big enough so that you can be able to continue on to start your home business without quitting basically. So my big why is basically I’d like to be able to retire from our engineering firm and my husband as well and because otherwise we’ll be working till we are 75. So this is just my Big Why is being able to share my wisdom in order to have the revenue come in so that we can we close our engineering firm.

So what’s your Big Why?

Are you looking to support your family members? Do you have big medical bills coming up that you need to have support for? Do you have family members who are not in the best form of health and you need to help support them? Some of these things can really help you to have a think before you start a home business to realize that you need to support yourself and your family with this. In those days where the day is long and you’re struggling and you’re having a challenge or you don’t have the amount of money you’d like to come in that you know you have the potential to come in with your business- your WHY has to be Big!

I will help you to remember that Why you’re doing this and the days that you’re spending time in front of the computer or learning a skill or phoning up clients to find out what you need to do or even doing the work for your clients on the weekends instead of spending time with your family.

Are you willing to sacrifice that kind of time in order to have a better life for your family?

So that’s what you have to think about before you start a home business. It’s whether or not you’re willing to sacrifice some time with your family or sacrifice your pleasures. Spend less time in front of the TV or take some time on the weekend and do some work that will help you move forward in your business. Or maybe you have more immediate desires to start your home business because it’s an urgent need for money. You have to realize that when you start home business you really need to have a very strong Why or why you’re doing it in order to get through the days -when you’re starting the business and when you’re struggling to get clients or you are starting to figure out something on the computer or you’re not going to your son’s baseball game because you have to do some work in order to move forward with this business.

You have to figure out if you’re willing to sacrifice that kind of time with your family in order to make a better life for your family.

So think about your Big Why.
Why do you want to start a home business?

Are you just tired of getting you know your current job. You don’t think it’s going to move you forward in your life. You won’t get the house that you wanted or the family life you want?

Are you willing to sacrifice some time and some money probably just to get started on your home business?
Whether or not, you that would sacrifice time to get through the time that you need to work on make your whole business successful?
So next time I think we’ll talk about some of the ideas for an offline home business because I find that no one on the Internet is actually talking about offline business.

Since we started as an offline home business, I think we should go over some of the ideas and the things that you need to have in terms of being an offline home business. Some of the simple businesses you could have offline as a business as well as maybe some consulting businesses you might be able to do. So, we will talk about off line business next week.

So, have a think about your Big Why. Think about whether or not you’re willing to sacrifice your time and maybe a little bit of money in order to get started with your Home Business.

Categories: Be Your Own Boss Tags: Tags: big why, business, entrepreneur, home business, homebiz, homebiz ideas, start a home business

Mindset of the Entrepreneur

October 23, 2017

Welcome. I’m Jane Gardner. And today on Mindset Monday, we’re going to talk about being an entrepreneur and what a mindset of an entrepreneur is and whether you are capable of being an entrepreneur due to your mindset. Over the next few weeks we’ll be talking about some of the ways you can be challenged as an entrepreneur in terms of your mindset and how you can conquer those challenges. You do not have to be born an entrepreneur and you can actually learn to be an entrepreneur. You can also train your mind to have the mindset of an entrepreneur.

Unlike what some people say that you have to come from an entrepreneurial family, over 50 percent of successful business owners come from the middle class and 35 percent were either poor or working class. So you don’t have to be a family member of an entrepreneur.

You can change your mind in order to be an entrepreneur. So don’t let that stop you. The idea that you don’t know what it is to be an entrepreneur should not stop you because we can talk about changing your mindset as we go along.

Ask yourself these questions because I believe that you shouldn’t quit your day job as I mentioned in order to be an entrepreneur that you should be at least thoughtful about your process etc.

So let’s ask these questions of yourself.

How many of you would you agree that.

“I don’t like to risk my money.” Not at all.

“I would never think of quitting my job and risking my life savings.

“I like the idea of being my own boss. I’m not sure I would be good at it.

“I’m willing to take responsibility for my actions but I still don’t want anyone to find out about my mistakes.

I sometimes have good ideas but often have no idea of what to do.

Well, if you agree with any of those statements you are a reluctant entrepreneur at heart.I invite you to join our ranks because you don’t have to be a risk taker in order to be an entrepreneur.

As I mentioned yesterday, one of the books I highly recommend is “The Reluctant Entrepreneur” by Michael Masterson and read through that and start learning how to train your brain to be the successful entrepreneur.

So for today I want you to think about who you think is a successful entrepreneur. Next time, we’ll be talking about some of the entrepreneurs you may not know of who have conquered their inability or their fears. Being an entrepreneur and becoming a successful entrepreneur is regardless of being a risk taker or trying something without even thinking beforehand because you or anyone else can be an entrepreneur. All you have to do is try to have a positive, committed attitude and have a natural love of a challenge and the ability to manage a lot of stress and work at a high level and the willingness to take responsibility.

These are some of the ideas of having the mindset of the entrepreneur and if you don’t have them now you can certainly learn how to train your brain in order to be challenged as an entrepreneur.

My husband and I have been entrepreneurs for 20 years we work on our own. Every day is a challenge and every day is a pleasure. Every day is a day where we don’t know what the next day will bring, what work will come but we accept that work will come and we continue on. We will also have a huge pile of work for the day and know that there’s a huge pile the next day and we have to get through it.

So , you have to have a few traits of the entrepreneur to succeed. In season one, I talked to you about some of the traits of an entrepreneur. I’ll go into more detail in the second season on what the traits of the entrepreneur is and some of the ways you yourself can learn some of these traits and train your brain to have the mindset of the entrepreneur.

So I hope you’ll come along with me on the challenge and the triumph of being an entrepreneur on Mindset Monday. We’ll see you next week.

Just have a think about “are you an entrepreneur now” or “do you want to be an entrepreneur in the future.

Do you want to take action and get control of your life or at least make some extra money too as a business person so that you can have a more successful life and that you can have the things that you want and you can help your family and you can help yourself and you can control your life. So we’ll see you next week. Subscribe to the podcast on Itunes.

Categories: Run a Home Business, Solopreneur Success Strategies podcast Tags: Tags: entrepreneur, grow a home business, mindset mindset monday, run a home business, solopreneur success strategies

Solopreneur Success Strategies Season Two on HomeBizStartup

October 22, 2017

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to season two of Solopreneur Success Strategies. This is Jane Gardner and we’re going to be talking about business startup. We’re going to be talking about starting running and growing your own home business whether offline or on.

Monday is all about mindset. Tuesday is all about starting a home based business, Wednesday is all about selling, sales and your customer. Thursday is going to be about running your home business. Friday will be running your home business. Saturday is all about putting systems in your business and Sunday is all about strategy. So subscribe to this daily podcast and help you get started running and growing your own home business For more information go to boahb.com. [27.7]

SHOW

Hi this is Jane Gardner. And welcome. This is all about you because we’re going to be talking about how to start run and grow a business in season two of Solopreneur success strategies. So I’m going to be giving you some tips and tricks in five minutes or less on the various subjects from mindset on Monday, Tuesday is about starting your home business, Wednesday is selling and sales and your customers, Thursday is going to be about running your home business and Friday is about growing your own business. Saturday is about systems as we mentioned in our introduction. Sunday is all about strategy. As it is Sunday today, I’m going to give you some strategy to think about for the idea of starting a home business. So today, I wanted to just to introduce you again to myself. I’m Jane Gardner. I have a Web site Jane-gardner.com where I talk about sales and I’ve had my Solopreneur success strategies podcast there as well as the web- tv show and we talk about your message and your brand and who you are and how you sell. I have started a Web site called boahb.com which is the business about home business membership where you’ll be able to go in and start learning how to run and grow a home business.

But today I’ll just talk about myself and why I think I can help you. I’ve worked in engineering firm with my husband for the last 20 years. We started in about the 1990s when the Internet was just in its infancy.

Our business was always very local based and wide in terms of our clients. Now in terms of where we are in western Canada, we basically do renovations and retrofits and some new construction. My point to all this is that most of the time we are a “word of mouth” business that is local. So if you have a good “word of mouth” on your business then you get more business. So that’s a tip for you on starting a home business in the local area.

Always make sure that you have good word of mouth about your business.

In about 2013, I decided there might be time for me to go out and help other people start their own home business and find out what the resources and tools and the ideas and mindset that you need in order to start a business. So that is why I am here now. We’re going to do Season two of Solopreneur success strategies just talking about starting running and growing your business as well as putting together a strategy for your business.

So today I just wanted to talk about the first strategy that I want to talk about which is if you’re thinking of starting a business consider it as to be a business that you will start part time. You will not quit your day job in order to start on business even though you know it might be a successful business until you start selling in your home business. You really should consider testing your idea and doing some research as well ,as of course, trying to sell your service or product to your market.

I would certainly suggest today that you consider buying the book “Reluctant Entrepreneur” by Michael Masterson.

It’s a great book to read to realize that you need to be able to test the market before you actually start a business in order to see whether or not they’re interested. So one of the ways I test the market is by having this podcast and seen how many people want to listen in. One of the ways that you can test your product or service is to do something like this and do a podcast on the subject. You’d be surprised what kind of people are interested in it and you can find your audience there as well. So that’s one thing you can do certainly for free. It’s just a matter of using their time and getting the voice in order to learn how to create a podcast. So we’ve given you one tip.

First don’t quit your day job.

Recommend to get the book “The Reluctant Entrepreneur” by Michael Masterson to give you some ideas.

I’ll be giving you some other ideas from that book in order to get you going and thinking about starting your whole business. And of course on Tuesday I believe is starting your home business will be given you more tips about how to research and find out how are whether or not you should start the business you’re thinking of.

The other idea is why not do a podcast and see whether or not there is a market out there if there’s people who are will listen to you about your business. That’s the other tip.

Certainly in my business about home business we can certainly learn about how to do the research very easily in order to find out about your market. We’ll be talking about other ways to find out whether there’s a market out there for your business. But today I just wanted to introduce myself on Sunday.

Monday will be about mindset when starting the whole business and I will give you tips and tricks to think about selling on Wednesday. Thursday will be running a home business , Friday is growing your own business and Saturday is systems. On Saturday, systems will help you to save time and money. Sunday will always be about strategy.

So today we talked about having this strategy to realize that you shouldn’t quit your day job. You should do this new business you’d like to start part time and see whether or not there is a market out there by selling it and testing whether or not you can sell the product or service out there. So we’ll talk a bit more about that next Sunday. But for now this is Jane Gardner on Solopreneur Success Strategies. This is season 2 and we’ll be getting into the nitty gritty and down and dirty for starting your own home business and running and growing it. So thank you for listening. I hope that this podcast will give you some ideas to think about and subscribe on Itunes.

[7:41.6]

Categories: Be Your Own Boss, Solopreneur Success Strategies podcast Tags: Tags: grow a home business, run a home business, solopreneur success strategies, start a home business