Growing a business is very much like raising a kid. Both require lots of love and care, sleepless nights, excessive worrying and a lot more money than you originally envisioned. However, both are infinitely rewarding. Except, needless to say, a business is not really your son or daughter. Or could it be? Let’s do some serious comparisons and ask some pointed questions.
Good care of a daughter or son begins at the pre-natal stage when the mother is informed of both detrimental and positive courses to take during the pregnancy. After the daughter or son exists you just take him to a pediatrician, to not a pal of a friend who finished a few years of medical school. When your child starts walking, you look for the ideal shoes, maybe not for the cheapest or cutest ones. Your child needs good supportive shoes which will protect the small one’s foot from the hazards of the outside world. So when it’s time for the daughter or son to start school, we oftentimes proceed to a fresh neighborhood due to the fact it is in a great school district. We do everything we are able to for our children without having to be told to. It’s human instinct to want the very best for all those you love.
Sadly, this isn’t always the case with this business needs. For all your comparisons, when people start new businesses, they frequently produce a mistake of going to sources that are grossly inadequate or simply maybe not the best. When arranging a family most people sit down and map out precisely what needs to be looked after from pre-natal care to a college savings plans. They have huge expectations because of their family and strive mightily daily to appreciate those expectations. So just why in the world would a new company owner maybe not exercise the same due diligence with the very thing which will allow their family to prosper financially as it grows?
Is self employment right for you?
Doing work for yourself, much as starting a brand new family ensures that ALL responsibilities rest on your own shoulders.
Have you got a support system set up?
If it was a new family you were planning as opposed to a business you would naturally enlist the support of family and friends. Perhaps you have created a solid support structure for anyone times if you are overwhelmed, need assistance, and even grants for single mothers? Anticipate hiring or retaining professional providers like a bookkeeper, a virtual assistant, or even a business coach and ensure that you educate your household concerning the help you will require from them.
Have you got a strong business concept and a business marketing plan in position?
Perhaps you have clearly defined who your market is for your products or services? Is the business plan actually on paper in writing and includes launch and operating cost projections? Do you know how many employees you’ll need? What about insurance, business furniture and supplies, software, web development, social media?
Why you need to employ professionals that will help you.
One of the primary and most costly mistakes that home-based, or small enterprises make is attempting to do all of it themselves. By not concentrating on the core activities that only you can do and by attempting to wear all hats at all times, you completely lose get a grip on of your own schedule. Some tasks demand your individual attention but others do not. In fact, outsourcing many tasks such as information technology tasks (social media marketing, web or blog development, etc.) to an outsourcing partner like a highly technically savvy virtual assistant saves your business money by saving time. Elena M. enlisted the help of her cousin to style an internet site for her business. She bought a template for a simple brochure-style website. The cousin was enthusiastic about this opportunity, yet life kept getting in the way. It took 2 months to launch the website and every time Elena needed to make changes, she had to hold back for days. The site isn’t particularly professional to look at and is almost impossible to update in due time.
Aaron B. wrote a sales letter for his technology start-up. He asked a classic college friend to edit it because he remembered the guy getting As in English Comp class and on his term papers. The outcomes were less than compelling, down to a couple grammatical errors that weren’t caught by word processing software.
Ken Z. felt overwhelmed by his new business’ to-do list and needed to make more room for networking when he hired a virtual assistance company. Unfortunately, he decided to go with a lowest bidder whose work was unacceptable due to inferior and needed to be redone by another multi-VA company. The time and money wasted was considerable.
These business people went through significant issues and finished up paying greater than originally expected for their choices. Why didn’t Elena M. hire an expert website design company and Aaron B. – a copywriter? Why did Ken Z. opt for the best bidder? And why do hundreds of fledgling entrepreneurs repeat these mistakes each day?
The first reason that concerns mind is money. Once you contact a friend or perhaps a relative or select the lowest bidder, you receive work done for free or incredibly cheaply. But when true costs are taken into consideration, it really extends to be very expensive. Many of these costs include:
Your time – a pal you enlist to assist you has only limited experience with projects similar to yours. As such, she doesn’t have tools and processes in place to efficiently record every part of the project. As a result, you will end up spending too much time overseeing each and every detail of your request.
Delayed launch – whenever you do not get taken care of your work, you have a tendency to put it on the backburner. Elena M. found it out the hard way when her cousin kept apologizing for not getting work done due to various events in his life, including a birthday, several holidays, and a weekend out with friends and some evenings spent working on paid projects.
Poor quality – grammatical errors in Aaron B. ‘s copy did nothing to help him win customers. In cases like this, his friend had no quality get a grip on processes set up besides running a simple spell check, which proved woefully insufficient. Needless to say, grammatical errors could be corrected and a website can be redesigned. But by the time these problems are discovered and taken care of, you may lose a few clients or damage your company’s reputation. You have lost both time and money.
Additional costs – Ken Z. finished up hiring a brand new vendor that spent time undoing all the mistakes the best bidder made which made Ken’s project that much higher priced. That he learned that it would have been much less expensive and less time consuming to get it right the very first time by a professional.
Damaged relationships – involving good friends and relatives in your business is in this way can lead to arguments and open or hidden resentment. It is one thing to “fire” a contractor since more often than not she may be replaced fairly easily. It’s quite one more thing to “fire” a close friend.
The sad thing is that for all your trouble you put yourself through, the finish product – whether an internet site, a sales letter, or a data file – is barely above average and that is if you are lucky. If you expect outstanding results, you need to hire the best help, not the least expensive.
There’s, of course, an upside to this situation – you learn a heck of a lesson. The downside is you lose time, money, opportunities, potential customers, and potentially damage great relationships with family and friends.
Instead of calling in favors and trying to find the cheap solutions, notice that what your infant – your company – needs at the moment may be the right start in life. It takes the very best expertise, advice, assistance. Search for help accordingly to your business needs.
**You have permission to reprint in your publication or to your website/blog any articles by Denise Griffitts entirely on this amazing site provided that Denise Griffitt’s name and contact information is roofed. Denise Griffitts, Virtual Assistance Industry Expert, http: //virtualassistantindustry. com, info @ virtualassistantindustry. com, 888-719-6711
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