News
Categories
- Bye Bye Baby Bumps (16)
- From Playpen to Zen (44)
- Girl Gadgets (4)
- Men's Room (5)
- Relationships (16)
- The Bigger Picture (3)
- The Road Mess-Travelled (13)
- The Sex Factor (3)
-
Working Girls (28)
- How can you make money in times of adversity?
- Do you have what it takes to be self employed?
- How can Mums be Great Money Managers
- Where to invest for Women?
- Working vs. Stay-at-Home Parent Debate (for those with the luxury of choice)
- Celebrate the wins of your colleagues
- Getting job motivated after having a baby
- Can I speak with your boss?
- Captain You
- 7 tips for doing business in four hours a day or less
- Australia’s first national Paid Parental Leave (PPL) scheme
- Pregnancy discrimination a pre-natal headache for employers
- How to Build A Mother of a Business…
- the value of working mums
- Top 5 tips on advancing your career as a parent
- Why Successful Women Feel Like Frauds and How Not To
- Children and Career Advancement - it can be done! Part 2
- 7 Survival Tips for Working Parents
- Flexibility: You get what you negotiate
- Children and Career Advancement - it can be done!
Working Girls > 7 tips for doing business in four hours a day or less
By Denise Hall
February 3, 2011
By Denise Hall
February 3, 2011
Because I am one, I know that mothers are often also the primary (and even the sole) breadwinner in the family, and both are really BIG jobs! So I share with you 7 of the best tactics I use as the entrepreneurial mother® that have enabled me to build my 7-figure Mother of a Business while not compromising on the important things, especially when on a tight time-budget!
A disclaimer if I may: If my use of the word “mother’ does not apply to you specifically, feel free to replace it with parent, father, aunt, uncle, grandma, pop, whatever works really; the principles still apply.
OK, so why build a Mother of a Business in the first place? My intention is clear. Combine role-model mothering and earn enough (plus plenty more) to support our Lifestyle for now (and in my old age!) all in guilt-free school hours, and on my terms.
Whilst I figured out the “how” as I went along, the key is that I connect as many dots as possible to use minimum time to earn maximum money. After all, there’s no point without travel, fun and comfort in spades as well, right!
Fortunately, as Daughter has grown so has my Mother of a Business (www.acetalentnet.com.au), to the point where it now ticks along very nicely. Could it grow further? Absolutely. But… I, and my business partner, am very wary about doing so as it would impact on our lifestyle of choice. Doable – yes, preferred – questionable!
Regardless… what I know for sure is that building a Mother of a Business gives you Lifestyle; to be the Mother you long to be.
Sure, there’s some good fortune, but there is also focus, lots of it. I learned amongst other things, to become open to opportunities and alternative ways of living and working. Granted, from the start I was determined to do it my way, with “DO” being the operative word.
Optimism and self-belief are definitely a good start but let’s face it, it is only a start. You need tactics to give your plan bones, and you need to take action to put flesh on those bones.
It’s not about finding oneself; it’s about creating oneself!
So here are my favourite 7 tips (or as I affectionately call them, “mothers little helpers!”) for building a Mother of a Business…
#1 – find 4 Hours or less a day
Do you even know what you’re typical day really looks like?
Grab a piece of paper, or on your PC, and draw a grid, with Monday to Friday along the top, and school hours in 30min chunks down the left hand side. Now, add in all the usual daily activities you are currently locked into, under the day, next to the time slot.
See much white space left? No, then what can you move or get rid of to create those 4 hours at most a day?
#2 - earn what you must in 4 hours or less
This really does take the pressure off, as anything else earned outside of that figure is adventure money (well it is for me!). Knowing what you must earn provides very specific focus, and therefore very measurable actions. To roughly calculate what that number is… using your grid in #1 as a guide, how many hours do you have per year to build your business? (eg: grid shows 25 hours per week x 40 school weeks per year = 1000 business building hours). Divide that number into what you earned last year (eg: $50,000 p.a. / 1000 = $50 per hour).
#3 – outsource what can’t fit into 4 hours
I love the word “outsource”. Yes it does sound big business, but that’s no reason why we can’t adopt the same principles to suit us.
OK, tell the truth! What are you doing that gets in the way? What are you not doing that you must? What can be done elsewhere? What don’t you want to do and who could? Make rules. Work out what you want to keep, and what you want to find an alternative for. Then start making enquiries. You’ll probably know people that are doing or have done what you’re looking for, so talk to them and get it sorted.
#4 - DO one thing every day
Every day; FIRST off, immediately after the school run each and every morning. Do whatever is the next thing in your diary or PDA or daily do list (or whatever you use) first. That way, if Life does take over for the rest of the working/school days, it doesn’t matter. You’ve done what you need to do.
Think about it; by adding all the ticked-off daily-do's at the end of the month, you will have done approximately 20 more things towards building that Mother of a Business…adds up doesn’t it!
#5 – turn OFF the automatic send/receive on your email
Yes, this is classic Tim Ferris (The 4-Hour Work Week) and it so works!
Rather than be distracted by emails randomly landing in your inbox with their customary “hello, pay attention” ding potentially taking you completely off track, don’t do it. Just turn that function off. You will be pleasantly surprised how much more controlled you feel by doing so. Decide which hours of the week to set aside to handle emails and correspondence generally, lock it in the diary; and that’s when you do it, and only then.
#6 – connect the dots
Business is creative. I’m not just talking about what you produce, more about the way you do it. You can structure your Mother of a Business any way you want. Here’s an example, at aCE talentNET, we made a conscious decision not to spend money advertising, and we did want to keep putting our name out there, so how to do that? Reciprocal Marketing is a term I coined, and it goes like this. Because we have a large and specific talent pool, others want to get in front of them. If their product/service is selected to be included free in our monthly eNewsletter, we in turn agree to how we are marketed with that same product/service wherever else they’re doing so.
What can you do that is savvy, & high impact, low effort & low cost?
#7 – start with the end in mind
The best, easiest and fastest way I know to get a grip quickly on what to spend time on (or not) in your Mother of a Business is to realign it so it can be sold on the spot (if you choose to, that is!). By getting a handle on the most valued elements, and renovating accordingly, highlights the exact places to hone your efforts for maximum pay back. After all, what’s the point of going through all this effort if you end up packing your Mother of a Business away with the toys once you’re done?
Making changes can be scary, so fake it til you make it! Seriously though,
bottomline, if your business or job is eating up your time, and you're way too busy to earn and mother more! (think about it…) it’s time to STOP;
re-examine, re-evaluate and reenergise.
What do you want? Why are you doing what you do?
If you’re not happy with the answers, it’s time to DO differently.
Learn many more Mothers Little Helpers, together with how this unemployed, homeless and pregnant singleton turned into the entrepreneurial mother®, building a 7-figure business during guilt-free school hours; by introducing yourself at www.theentrepreneurialmother.com...
Directory Members Search Widget
 |
 |