Work at Home Online - The First Year
Copyright 2006 Elaine CurrieRunning an Internet home based business is full of changes andchallenges. These challenges alter as your business evolves andyour success depends upon your willingness to face up tochallenges and your ability to adapt yourself to meet thechanging demands of a work at home career. The end of the firstyear is a good time to look back and measure your success. Thebeginning of the first year is a good time to look forward andplan to succeed.Once the de...
...cision is made and you have signed up to the onlinework at home opportunity of your choice, you will need somethingin the region of three months to learn the ton of new thingsassociated with running your home based business and to put allthese things into practice. Three months sounds like a long timebut the first three months will fly by: I can promise that frompersonal experience. The learning phase does not end after threemonths, it's just that the curve becomes noticeably less steepand you start to feel that you are running your home basedbusiness instead of running after it.The next three months are slightly less intense but you willstill be learning new techniques and refining your newfoundskills. The three to six months span is often the time you startto see rewards for your work in the form of revenue. It is likea tide turning: after months of watching your cash ebbing awayinto the distance, tiny waves of profit begin lapping at theshore and, with any luck, the waves will continue to rise andbreakers will regularly deposit funds upon the virtual shore ofyour bank account. Around six months is a generally recognisedaverage time to reach the situation of being in profit butnobody can guarantee the time it will take you to make a profit.Your results will depend upon many things including the amountof time and effort you invest and, to an extent, luckReaching the six months milestone is a fair indicator that youhave selected the right work at home opportunity for you. If youmade the wrong choice in the first place and found no enjoymentin the work at home experience, you would most likely haveabandoned your work at home endeavours within the first threemonths.This is definitely not the time to relax: this is the time tomake a concerted effort to build on what you have learnt. Thefact that the cash flow is no longer a one way stream does notmean that you have succeeded, it simply means that you are doingat least some things right. You now need to take a close look atyour business, decide what things are working and what aspectsneed improvement. If something is not working after a decenttrial period, stop doing it; if it has not started to work foryou yet, chances are it never will. Take the things that areworking and do more of them, eg if a particular form ofadvertising is bringing a good return, increase your budget forthat item. If one product is outperforming all others, give itwider exposure and look around for similar or associatedproducts to compliment it.Whilst continuing to build and learn, now is the time to look atautomation and improvements for your home based business.Automation will make processes faster and more efficient. Theexperience of being in profit will be new and still excitingbut, for the profits to multiply, you need at this stage toplough as much as you can afford of them back into the business.Part of the time you gain through automation can be spent ontasks that are not capable of automation that need a personaltouch (for example writing press releases or contactingprospective clients by phone). One of the reasons for wanting tobe your own boss is to have a better quality of life in place ofthe 9-5 drudgery working for an unappreciative boss. Freedom andflexibility are available to you when you work at home.Automating parts of your working day can add to the extent ofyour freedom by reducing the hours you need to spend runningyour home business and allowing you the flexibility of workingthe hours you choose.By the time you get to three quarters of the way through theyear, you should have established a routine which, while beingflexible, will give structure to your working days so that yourhome business is run as efficiently as possible. By this stage,you will know exactly what is involved in a work at home careerand you will have your favourite tasks and also jobs you wouldrather leave until another time. If you have a good routine,nothing will get postponed or overlooked and your progress willbe smooth. You can start to congratulate yourself and lookforward to the big milestone: your first anniversary of beingyour own boss.You are unlikely to be rich by the end of the first year ofbeing your own boss but, if you have made it through this twelvemonth roller coaster ride and can see some cash profits andimprovements to your lifestyle, you are on the way to where youwant to be. Remember (to echo the sentiment of J P Getty) youwouldn't have even a hope of being rich if you were stillworking for somebody else. Where would you rather be - workingat home online as your own boss with a small profit margin,prospects of bigger profits and freedom or at the same place aslast year, taking orders from the boss and earning less than youare worth?
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