Month: October 2018

Setting Realistic Expectations

Many people have been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug in recent years, thanks to the internet. Starting an online business is quick, easy, and fun. However, just because it is easy does not mean everyone should start their own online business. There is a lot of work involved and even then, no guarantee of success. The key is to set realistic expectations from the start.

Know Your Niche

One of the main mistakes new entrepreneurs make is in trying to be completely unique and come up with something that has never been seen before. In most cases, however, there’s really nothing new under the sun. A better tactic is to choose products that are in high demand. You can do this by focusing on a particular topic, commonly referred to as a niche, and researching it carefully to ensure that it is a paying market in which people regularly buy products and services.

A good example would be the pet niche, worth more than $65 billion annually in the US alone. Could you make money by getting a small share of this market? If the answer is yes, and you love pets, this could be the perfect niche for you.

Goal Setting

Once you’ve decided on a niche, it’s time to set your goals. Otherwise, you have no expectations, realistic or otherwise, and will just end up drifting. How much money do you want to make? Do you want a bit of extra money to save for a vacation, a part-time income, or replace your day job and work online full time? Depending on the goal, you will need to take different actions.

And while it is true that some people earn five or even six figures per year online, it is also true that it takes time to establish a business.

Monthly and Quarterly Evaluations

Whatever goal you set, you should be able to measure your progress in an organized way, such as emails sent, traffic at your site, and number of sales. Create an easy report you can use every month to just plug in your numbers to see if you are on track.

Track Your Progress

Track your progress at least once a week. If you have to make 100 sales to meet your goals but are only making 75, you will need to adjust your approach to try to pick up the pace.

Know Your Numbers

Even though you’ve started your business from scratch online, chances are you are leveraging a range of things you had already bought and paid for in order to run the business. These might include:

* Computer
* Printer
* Toner
* Paper
* Filing cabinet
* Desk
* Chair
* And so on

Then there are items you will have to buy especially for the business. But it is important to not let these costs get away from you. Yes, you can write them off as a business expense on your taxes, but you still have to pay for them upfront, so make sure they pull their weight.

Value Your Time

A lot of entrepreneurs don’t pay themselves and as a result, tend not to value what their time is really worth. If you’re not earning at least minimum wage, you’ve basically got a time-consuming hobby, not a business. As for minimum wage, you will never be able to earn $100 per hour if you are stuck doing $10 per hour chores. Outsource as needed to grow your business.

Having realistic expectations can make all the difference to the long-term success of your business.

Pros and Cons of Employing Another Person

Most small businesses in the US have five or fewer people working in them, and a large percentage of small businesses are run by a single person doing their best to try to cover every task required to start and manage a successful business.

The single person set-up might be because they want to keep control over everything. It could also be due to not having a budget to hire others. It might even be due to the fact that there are pros and cons to employing another person. Let’s look at a few of them now.

Pros

Hiring a new person on a freelance, part-time or full-time basis gives you an extra pair of hands. It should also give you access to expertise you don’t already have in the company.

For example, most smart small business owners get part-time bookkeeping help rather than try to do this entire important task by themselves. They might also hire freelancers to design logos, work on images using Photoshop, or create PowerPoint presentations. This works out cheaper in terms of both money and time than buying the software and learning it themselves.

When you hire a freelancer, you only have to pay them for the project they are doing. You don’t need to pay a regular salary, benefits and so on, or pay their wages even when times are slow.

Hiring a virtual assistant and skilled freelancers can free up a good deal of the business owner’s time so they can focus on what they love and what they are good at. It is also important to consider that no business owner will ever be able to earn $100 per hour if they are doing menial tasks that are worth only $10 per hour.

More hands means more work getting done. It is really the only way that you will ever be able to grow your business successfully.

Cons

The biggest drawback is finding and recruiting talent. Not everyone is honest on their resume. Someone might also call themselves a Photoshop expert, but not be anywhere near as skilled as other vendors online. It can also be tough to find reliable people who will do what they say and meet all their deadlines.

The better and more experienced the worker, the more expensive they will usually be. Recruitment may be ongoing as workers let you down or you decide to get rid of them because they are not living up to your expectations.

Training them will take time, as will supervising and managing them in order to keep the work going smoothly. You also have to be security conscious and try not to give away any passwords or other sensitive information which they could use to harm your business or even steal your entire WordPress blog.

Hiring part-time or full-time workers is a big commitment with legal implications, especially if things don’t work out. You can be accused of unfair dismissal, or worse, if you and your employee/s just don’t click. Outsourcing is a better option, but it might mean more turnover of workers and therefore more training that will be wasted as people come and go.