E-Mail Marketing that Works Harder for you than the Energizer Bunny®!

In 2009, US Firms spent more than $700 million on e-mail marketing and the number is rising; researchers forecast that e-mail marketing will grow steadily to $2 billion by 2014. That’s going to be one tired pink bunny keeping up with all that email.

Why is e-mail marketing second only to social media networking in the online marketing toolkit? Money and Audience. It costs almost nothing to use email for marketing while the return on investment (ROI) in both dollars and audience is impressive.

Trend watchers at the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) report that email marketing generated a ROI of $44 for every dollar spent in 2009. Taking into consideration that email drives both online and offline sales, at least one researcher reports email marketing’s ROI as closer to $130—about three times the DMA estimate.

Your e-mail audience—an almost captive market—is also a BUYING audience. 60 percent of consumers who receive marketing e-mail are more likely to make an in-store purchase. That percentage holds true for those who purchase online as well.

It’s all good. And here’s the best part, to my mind—big business does not have an advantage on the e-mail playing field. Any business, no matter how small or large, uses the same tools to create, deliver, and benefit from e-mail marketing.

Just How Sexy is Your E-Mail Marketing Campaign?

Clearly, e-Mail marketing works. What the trend watchers and researchers and bean counters aren’t talking about is the secret to getting that $44 to $103 return on your e-mail communications. How do you convert a weekly ‘touch’ with a potential customer into an actual purchase—repeatedly?

The secret is simple—your e-mail must be directed, appealing, and easily understood.

Creating dynamic e-mail messages using HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the key to getting the kind of results your business both needs and wants.

Here are my top 10 Reasons Why you should be using stunning HTML coded emails to fuel your customer communications and marketing efforts:

1. E-mail comes directly to you.  It’s available to everyone. It uses few business resources and the results are often instantly visible. E-mail marketing generates an immediate response. Its call to action is loud and clear-click here to benefit!

2. E-mail, even HTML e-mail, is easy to master. Done right, it is a powerful tool that provides value to both the sender and the recipient.

3. E-mail is cost effective. It’s faster, more immediate, and far less expensive than traditional marketing tools like direct mail or print advertising. With all of the DIY tools available, anyone can create and send compelling e-mail campaigns in hours or at most days. No production time, no agency fees.

4. HTML Email is Graphic. The old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words is an adage for a reason—it’s true. When you add graphics to text, your message is more readable and appealing.

5. E-mail builds relationships.  E-Mail marketing is 20 times more cost effective than direct mail. It’s targeted. It’s affordable. It functions as a vigorous, highly effective marketing medium. And even at its most costly, can be created and delivered for a fraction of a penny per message.

6. E-mail is timely, quick to produce, and easily updated. Templates make this realistic for anyone. Whether professionally created or not, the template provides a pattern to follow. It also bridges the gap between your print and ‘real world’ marketing brand and the online world. Logos, colors, even typeface choices can be used to reinforce a consistent look and solidify your brand.

7. HTML E-mail is active and interactive; it accommodates hyperlinks.

8. E-mail is measurable. Easily segment and target your market—affordably. Easy to use tools for list managing, audience targeting, tracking and reporting provide you with e-mail campaigns that report how many people see your offer.

9. E-mail works. HTML e-mail works even better.

10. Even people who don’t have a computer use e-mail. The people you want as customers use e-mail. You use e-mail. Your current customers use e-mail. It has surpassed the more traditional bricks and mortar USPS. And it is not going away.

Are your marketing e-mails taking advantage of the easily usable and available technology?

With HTML, your email can look great and deliver results measurable in dollars gained. And it will still likely be the smallest expense in your marketing budget.

To learn more, sign up for this free teleconference and consider the companion webinar e-course.

Regardless of whether you do it your self or use a professional, you owe it to your business to add e-mail to your marketing.

Social Media sites like Facebook and Twitter have become some of the most trafficked sites in the world. Part of the allure is that if you aren’t connected 24/7, you might miss something.

The problem is you can’t be actively following social media all day. Facebook, Twitter, Linked-in, even your favorite blogs will chomp time faster than a school of piranha after a bleeding fish.  And yet, there is some truth to the allure—good stuff can be missed if you are out of the loop. It is hard to keep up.

Easier said than done you say? Absolutely. The potential for information overload is all too real. Sometimes we simply have to set boundaries for ourselves. Using Social Media tools can be unbelievably beneficial to home business growth—and equally devastating when not used prudently.

Want to know a secret? Nobody says you have to keep up! In truth, there is no reason to keep up. Not everything is relevant. In some circles, that statement is blasphemous. To my way of thinking, it’s only good sense.

Let’s Talk Twitter

You would not think a place that restricts messages to 142 characters would be a time sink. It’s not the individual messages that have the potential for grid lock; it’s the networking heart of Twitter that leads to overwhelm.

I remember hearing a story about when Brian Clark (Copyblogger) was first exposed to Twitter and he didn’t get it, didn’t think it would be a useful tool for business. The same thing happened to me. I tried Twitter two or three times before it stuck and I figured out its value to a home based business.

Now I am as addicted to Twitter as Brian is—although he’s much better at using it than I.  Here’s the thing. To use Twitter for business it’s necessary to get away from Twitter itself. All of the truly useful organizing tools for Twitter are third party applications and add-ons.

There are thousands of twitter applications. I’ll mention a couple of my favorites here, but this part of the process has no short cut. You will have to check out each application that interests you and evaluate each to see which suits both your needs and your preferences. They really all work a little differently. The good news is that most are free.

One of my favorites is TweetDeck. Another one I have used and occasionally return to is HootSuite. They do essentially the same things. What I like best is that each allow private list creation to filter the people you follow into lists of those who interest you the most. The lists can be displayed across the screen in multiple columns so you can see your complete twitter list, your direct messages and your searches, along with your lists. You configure the application it to suit your needs.

Organizing my Twitter followers into lists works great for me. I have one list of people I always read (clients, close friends, and business associates). This is my ‘A” list. It’s short so that I can manage it since I read those tweets as they are posted. I have another list, my ‘B’ List, which has people who I don’t want to miss. Since it’s a much longer list, I read it once or twice a day rather than as the tweets come in. Truthfully, there are a couple of ‘B’ lists that I maintain. And then there’s my ‘C’ list—that’s where my full twitter follow feed shows up. That one I check occasionally when I have  time to catch up.

Twitter is a time sink by nature and it’s up to you to control it. You need to set both a limit to the amount of time you spend on Twitter as well as the number of times you’ll check-in. I do three twitter checks a day for no more than 10–15 minutes otherwise it is too much. Some days I may need to add another time or it may take less time.

I have TweetDeck open but minimized all the time. So tweets filter in during the day. She sees each tweet briefly on her screen and can choose whether to do anything with it then or wait until later. This works for her in that she weaves the time she spends with twitter in and around other tasks throughout the day.

Face up to Facebook

OK. This may not be a popular statement. Get away from your personal Facebook page. Keep the personal stuff for after work unless it creates contacts for your business. Your friends will still be there when you get to it. I don’t post a lot but I do like to follow what is up with my pals.

Get a Facebook Fan page for your business and post to it every day, once a day. That should be done during office hours. Set aside a time every day to post a message to your Fan Page.

If you just can’t help yourself and have to know what’s being posted by your Facebook friends, get a third-party program like Digsby which will flash wall updates across your screen as they come in. A quick glance will ease your mind and clearly demonstrate that you really are not missing anything life changing by not having Facebook open.

Social Media—the modern Water Cooler

It’s classic in business, socializing centered around the break room. When you work from home, Facebook and Twitter and Instant Messaging replace the break room. It is tempting to socialize simply because it’s fun. However, just as your boss at work puts limits on how much socializing you can do in a traditional work environment, so must someone put the same limits in place for your home office. And since you ARE the business, that someone is you. Be professional. Create limits that work for you. Or you’ll be back working for someone else sooner or later.

I was an adult, married, career in full swing when Beryl, a co-worker, opened my eyes in a way that impacts my life to this day. I was venting about telemarketers (this was in the days before the Do Not Call list or Caller ID). I was probably on a bit of a tirade since I passionately dislike being interrupted by telemarketers any time and especially during the dinner hour.

Good Guy? Or Bad Guy?

Beryl shut me up with one simple question, “Why do you answer the phone?” She went on to tell me that telemarketers are not a problem to her because she feels no compulsion to answer a phone simply because it rings.

This may  not seem significant to you, but it floored me. Until that moment, it truly had not occurred to me that I had the control, that I could choose to not answer the phone; that I could choose to let the door bell ring; that I could ignore any unwanted intrusions in my day.

If you’ve had a chance to read my e-book Survive the Work from Home Jungle, you know that I am not a 24/7 cell phone user. And that is because I’ve chosen to set rules for how I will and won’t use my time.

To this day, I choose whether to answer the phone. Now of course I use caller ID. Combined with a good answering machine, I feel no guilt at all when the phone rings and rings and rings. I can even ignore a text message. Imagine that!

When you work from home, the telephone requires some careful handling. People have preconceived ideas hammered into them, like my assumption that I had to answer the phone because it rang. Whether your preconceptions come from what you’ve been taught, from your friends, or from your own thoughts about your ideal office environment, consider putting aside those conceptions and starting fresh.

Remember when there were no cell phones? We actually had to plan a trip, get directions before we left for a meeting because there was no painless way to change mid-route. When we needed to talk to our team, we used the phone to set up meetings and then actually attended meetings.

I“m not advocating a return to those times. I like the convenience of GPS and cell phones. I like the convenience and flexibility and simplicity of teleconferences. I’m suggesting that we give some thought to the way it used to be as we incorporate more and more intrusive technology into our daily routine. The point is we are attached to the accessibility of the phone and the idea that everyone should be accessible all the time. Nothing could, or should, be further from the truth.

It’s My Phone and it’s a Tool, not a Toy

The phone is a business tool. It’s used to contact clients, customers, potential customers, vendors, suppliers, any person affiliated with the process of doing business as you define it. It is a tool you use to communicate with customers and vendors. That’s it. Simple.

There is a trend today to do-away with the land line and use only a cell phone. Every now and then I seriously reconsider this option for myself. But I always come up with the same conclusion: my office phone is not intended for friends and family.

I choose to use my cell phone for friends and family. My business phone is a land line. I’ve trained my clients to call the business phone, not the cell.  There is some carry over because I use the cell phone as a backup to the land line and I use it when I travel. However, greater than 95% of my business calls happen on my land line.

Office Hours extend to the Phone

It is especially important that anyone working from home pay close attention to whether the phone is running your office or whether you are running your office. Define your operating hours. And stick to ‘em. When your operating hours are over, the business phone is also over. Unless you operate a 24 hour service, there’s no reason to be on call 24/7.

One of my clients is a company that has computer instructors on cruise ships all around the world. Even in this situation where I have clients who are literally on the other side of the globe, I don’t take calls outside of reasonable business hours–unless we schedule the call. If it’s really important, your client will leave a message and you can choose to respond–but don’t answer that phone after hours.

Take Control of your Phone Usage

The phone is intrusive. Answering the phone is a huge distraction. Even though I have trained myself to ignore the phone when it rings, I still often get up and go check the Caller ID to see who is calling. Our brains are not very smart sometimes, even after we’ve retrained them.

Turn it off.

When I truly need to avoid distraction or interruption, I turn off the ringer or I leave the house and work at the library or Starbucks or anyplace where I can ignore the hubbub and there is no possibility of a phone call coming in for me.

Yes. You understand correctly. I leave the cell phone home or turn it off. No possibility of a call coming in for me.

Use your voice mail.

Really. For those of you who have read the Survive the Work from Home Jungle e-book you know how I feel about voice mail…it is a must have item.

I don’t always answer the phone. I prefer to return calls. This works for me. It also work for my clients. When I choose the callback time,  I am able to give my undivided attention. I will have had time to prepare for the conversation, should any preparation be necessary. This respects my time and my client’s time and it’s great customer service.

Use your e-mail.

Sounds odd, but e-mail is a great tool for managing your phone usage. Let your clients know that if you are not reached right away on the phone, a quick follow up e-mail message is the best alternative.

How often do you check e-mail during the day? Be honest. Mine comes in automatically all day long. If I’m at my computer, I see the incoming message flag flash across the bottom of the screen. I only check voice mail once or twice a day. Some days it seems like I check e-mail obsessively, but not really. It’s the volume of email I receive that can be overwhelming…but that’s a topic for another day.

Check out Chat.

A computer application I use daily is Digsby. I use this to manage multiple ‘chat’ ‘windows. Chat (also called IM or Instant Messaging) is a tool I use heavily to stay in touch with my home business vendors, business friends, as well as personal friends and family.

What works about chat is that I can keep it as unobtrusive as I like. The message will wait until I am ready to respond and unlike the phone, there’s no annoying ringing to interrupt my train of thought.

Digsby allows me to organize my chat identities into one window. Digsby actually organizes IM, E-Mail, and Social Media like Twitter and Facebook, if you want it to. I use it mostly for chat.

Caller ID

This is your best friend. I’ve already mentioned that I use Caller ID. It is my favorite phone tool. It should be yours, too. Screening your calls is both OK and an efficient use of your time.

Beryl was so right, you don’t have to answer the phone just because it is ringing.

Boundaries on Blog Reading

Blogs can be a big distraction and focus buster. Because blogs tend to have longer posts and in-depth articles, they can really be a time vampire. This, of course, creates a time management issue.

And then there’s the link to the next great blog from the blog you are reading and to the next great blog on that blog and to the next great blog on that blog….

Here’s the thing about blogs. You don’t have to read the posts the instant they are published. You control the time you devote both in amount and when. Every blog offers some sort of free subscription option and most offer both e-mail and RSS options.

(Geek Alert: Teacher Candy butting in again. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. Not getting technical here, but for those who’ve never used RSS, it creates your own private magazine-like free subscription to all of your favorite blogs in one convenient place. It’s very like having your own private reading room at the library that is always filled with your favorite reading materials. )

There are any number of applications to help you manage your blogs. I use FeedDemon which works directly with Google Reader. FeedDemon is a desktop application, meaning that it is a program that runs from my computer’s hard drive. With it, I can download all my new RSS feeds and read them offline. If I’m not at my personal computer I can use Google Reader to log on. Feed Demon synchronizes the RSS feeds stored on my computer with those still on the Google Reader server, so that I can always access my unread blog posts.

With FeedDemon I can easily scan the post titles and decide whether or not it is relevant for me. I can tag posts I don’t have time for now but would like to check out later so that they are saved. I can create folders to sort different types of content together. It just makes it easy.

The thing is you need to be diligent in not allowing the blogs to get the better of you. They can suck you into oblivion and when you come back out your kids have aged and are surprised to see that you’re still alive, ‘cause they thought some alien life form had abducted you.

Learn to sort and practice skimming headlines. And if you have news or entertainment feeds, be strong. If you miss a few days, you might need to delete stuff. FeedDemon allows you to clear an entire folder. Remember you can always visit those places later online or even search them for relevant content. Deleting from FeedDemon does not impact the original source documents.

Distraction—Boundaries for Your Worst Offenders

I would be a very bad chick if I didn’t mention all the other things that come across your desk in any given day that conspire to distract you. Those things deserve mention and their own set of boundaries.

Mail

Separate it immediately. I walk to the mailbox and sort while I walk back. Then I walk straight to the trash can and dump. What’s left gets a final sort. Pile one is bills and attention items. Pile two is stuff I can get to when I have time. And then I get on with my day.

If you are a good financial doobie you don’t need to open the bills right when they come. I usually open important stuff every other day. I look through my pile two items once a week with the trash can handy. Don’t let mail become an event, it’s not that big a deal.

Catalogs

Clearly catalogs are pile two items. And some of those just go in the trash. There are catalogs that get used for your business and those get filed. I put the new one in and take the old one out and toss it. I use those plastic magazine holders to organize them so that I can easily find them when I need them. Here’s the thing…catalogs are tools… you don’t need to shop, just file ‘em.

Magazines

Here’s a tough one. I’m the magazine Queen. I have stacks. And mostly they are business related. There are a couple of different ways to handle them.

It is a good idea to keep a few mags handy for when you are waiting at the doctor’s office or that type of thing. I also file them and when a year passes I donate them whether or not I’ve read them. If that seems hard to do, remind yourself that the information in them can be found by searching library databases and even online.

Making time to read them is a good idea. Setting aside an afternoon where you skim through and make notes or tear out pages is a great idea. I have yet to master this art but it sounds like a really good idea!

And here’s the best method I found to break the magazine addiction—I ran away to sea for 5 years. That took care of the subscriptions! A bit extreme, I’ll admit. But effective.

Books

There’s lots of stuff you should be reading but it is tough to get to it all. So again, set time aside and keep a book handy for waiting times.

Read Fast. It’s not a skill everyone has or wants, but if you learn to speed read or at least read a little faster and learn the art of skimming, you’ll find you have time to get through much more than you might think.

The Evelyn Wood book is easy to follow and will help you learn the tactics to start increasing your reading speed. It takes practice to become super fast and comprehend. I am no master but it has helped me get though material faster and it has helped me learn to skim material to get the nuggets out. In the long run, it will save you lots of time.

And, of course, make sure you include reading time in your schedule when you set your boundaries. When it’s reading time you need to tune out the phone and other distractions in order to be efficient.

Oh, and one more thing about reading…fast is good but comprehension is better. Be sure that you keep a balance between scanning and actual reading. Many mis-communications occur because one or both of the communicants just did not read.

It’s Moving Day—again.

No, not for the blog, for CaZ. For a small town girl who never lived more than five miles away from her birthplace, the nomadic lifestyle I’ve adopted in recent years has yielded more moving days than most would consider reasonable. So moving day is nearly a non-event for me, except that it involves my office, too. A home office is of course a huge part of the home business idea, so when I change homes, I move the office, too.

How flexible is your home office?

One lesson all these abode changes has taught me is how important it is to keep acquisition of ‘extra stuff’ out of my home office. I truly believe that there is an Extras Fairy who comes out at night when we are sleeping and leaves us gifts.

Surely I did not create all of those piles of papers stacked ever so not-neatly on the table.

And where exactly did all of those mugs come from? I know when I drove to North Carolina I carried only my favorite tea mug with me.

Clearly, I could not have purchased five boxes of paper clips for just me.

And surely someone else must have brought all of those pens into the office. (Well, maybe not, I do have a bit of a pen fetish.)

And why would I have four pairs of scissors and not a single rubber band? That Extras Fairy obviously hordes rubber bands.

OK. So my clutter is not really all that extensive; likely because I have spent most of the past year working on a laptop from a couch. Even so, it’s an impressive collection made notable by carrying it down three flights of steps and back up three flights of steps.

I’m willing to bet that for most of you, the clutter collecting in your home office is striking and downright daunting. It’s also more likely the result of entropy than an Extra Fairy’s leavings.

Clearing clutter, maintaining order, and keeping an organized home office is important. My ex-partner Yolanda, who is fascinated by the science behind how the brain works, could probably quote the experts to prove this. For me, I simply know from experience that the brain works better when the environment is clutter-free, organized, and aesthetically pleasing.

Declare a clutter free day

Moving day. Spring Cleaning. Clutter-Free day. Pick a name that fits your personality. Declare a moratorium on extra stuff in your home office.

Start with your immediate work area—your desk. Declutter it. Go trinket-free for a week and see how you like it.

I like cats. I am not a collector, however a friend who is a borderline hoarder started a collection of cat figurines for me. Lovely idea. Except that the minuscule cats took over—almost.

To preserve my sanity and love of all things kittenish, I bought a curio shelf and hung it on the wall. All non-living cats are relegated to that shelf. I enjoy looking at them and every time the Extras Fairy or a friend adds yet another cat to the collection, that shelf hanging on the wall keeps my desk free of kitty clutter.

Find a way to enjoy your trinkets, but keep them out of your work space.

Everything in its Place

Have a bookcase in your office? Every office should have a bookcase, even if there are no books on it. Position the bookcase conveniently for easy access and put the tools you use regularly on its shelves. In addition to books, add a couple of square wicker baskets (or something more modern if that’s your taste) to contain the stuff cluttering your desktop and work area. Put the pictures of your family, the dogs, the last vacation on the top shelf of your bookcase instead of on your desk.

Have a paper shredder? That’s another decluttering tool you should have. Keep business tools you use regularly handy and put the rest away. Here’s a rule to follow: If it has sat long enough to collect dust—that is not a tool you use regularly. Find a place for it other than your immediate work area and put it there.

Aspire to have a dust-free work zone. And don’t just dust the tops of things. Move the items on your desks, shelves, table tops, bins…whatever surface you are using in your home office. When you have to move stuff to dust, it takes very little time for even the most un-orderly brain to catch on to the fact that putting stuff away in the first place makes the dreaded task of dust-busting go faster.

Adapt the 10 minute rule

Every day, spend 10 minutes clearing your work space. Do this anytime of the day. It is a great way to clear your mind as well as clearing your space.

The 10 minute rule is easy to execute. It involves putting away the tools that you won’t be using the rest of that day or the next. Shred or bin any papers that you don’t intend to keep, including the junk mail you have stacked unopened on the extra chair. Replace the books littering the floor on the bookshelf. Take the used coffee mugs to the kitchen. Return any items that you aren’t using to their place. Then go back to work with a clearer mind and a less-cluttered home office.

Moving day can be any day. Pick a day—do it soon—and move the clutter out of your home business.

Do you handle your clutter or ignore it? How has that expe­ri­ence impacted your home busi­ness? Have home business ideas that save your sanity? Share your opin­ion and expe­ri­ence in the com­ments below!

I was watching the post-Olympic gold interviews of Evan Lysacek, the first Men’s skater to win gold for America in 22 years. He was asked about how he handled the pressure while waiting for his turn to compete. His response credited his coach for having the right words to say.

Evan said Coach told him to focus on the job. Coach said thinking about whether he might get gold, or silver, or nothing took Evan away from where he needed to be.

Evan went on to say that once he focused on what he did every day in training, the stress melted away and he was able to turn his attention to the important task at hand—getting on the ice and doing his job.

What Evan’s very wise coach understands is that it takes strategy and practice to keep Evan’s eye on the real goal—to keep Evan focused on delivering the best skate, the best performance he can in every situation.

And that is exactly what you want in your home business. To deliver your best to your clients every time.

Apply Evan’s Coaching Strategy in Your Home Business

Having a strategy means having a plan which means having a goal which means having a target. Getting a project finished, delivered, and yourself paid is generally the target. That’s the outcome of any business project.

And yet, I wonder. Is focusing on getting paid where you want your mind’s attention while you are creatively and actively working on your project? I say no.

“But”, you ask, “what about the goal? Keeping eyes on the prize?”

True. We are taught that the goal is to get the prize; that the prize is the outcome. Clearly this is a good and effective work ethic. Yes, the prize IS payment for the work we produce. No argument there. And yet, experience has taught me that too much focus on the prize creates emotional havoc and impedes production of quality work.

What struck me as I listened to Evan is how important it is—especially for those of us who run a home business—to first focus on timing. At the beginning of a project, define the prize. Pay attention to planning, set the targets and goals. That is the time to perform this vital task.

Then make a record of how you’ll get to the prize. Put the goals on paper. Put the weekly target into your daily to do list. Using whatever method works for you, place a succinct version of how you’ll get to the prize squarely in your face so that you see and acknowledge it daily. And then forget about it.

Yep, I said forget it. It’s about timing. Once the project begins, you must turn all of your attention to the creative and administrative parts of the project—getting the work done.

Your mind won’t really forget the prize. When you record that prize and position it so that you see it daily, your brain lets go of the details. That’s how you free your mind from clutter to focus on getting the job done. Make the details part of your routine and free your mind to focus.

Like Evan, you can’t be concerned whether you win Gold or Silver or even whether you medal at all. Get the job done and give it everything you’ve got. That’s all the conscious control you have over the outcome. Fortunately, it’s all the control you need.

Have any tips or tricks that you depend on to clear your mind and focus on focus? Share your opinion and thoughts in the comments below!

Do you find staying on track and focused a challenge? Then Find Your Focus audio seminar might help.

Have you ever felt like you’d be willing to pay anything for an extra brain? Or an extra set of hands? Or an extra hour of productive time in your day?

Yeah. It happens to all of us who work from home. We get too close to ourselves—too much in our own heads. It’s far too easy to fall into the abyss and believe the myth of having super powers just because you do so much more than anyone you know who works a ‘regular’ job.

You are not alone, even though working from home is often solitary. Ask for help before you are teetering on that abyss. Here are three symptoms that will alert you to problems ahead.

1. Your sales have leveled out or are slower than you’d like.
2. You are doing all that you know to do, but you’re not making any money.
3. You are struggling in your home office to get focused, find balance, and be productive.

Any of these look familiar to you? Then read on and we’ll discuss each in more detail.

Your business has leveled out or is slower than you’d like.

Every company wants more buying customers. How do you know when your growth is on track or when it’s time to make changes? Look at your business and think about how long it has existed. Ask yourself, do you have regular trade or is it sporadic? Is your customer base growing, even if at a slower pace than you like? Or has growth become stagnant?

When what you are doing got you to your current situation and does not include growth, it is time to change direction. You’ve taken a wrong turn without realizing it.

Business at a plateau is not the problem, it’s a symptom. This is certainly an overused phrase but ‘next level’ is where your efforts must be to produce more growth. Growth means more customers, more sales, and more exposure. Identify the underlying problems which created this symptom before you spend a lot of time (and money) trying to fix the wrong problem.

Ask for help. Make the smart choice. It’s about getting to a place where you work less and your business still grows.

You are doing all that you know to do, but you’re not making any money.

Leveraging your time and efforts is the single greatest tool you can have in your arsenal when it’s time to grow, be financially profitable, and not sacrifice all your time to your work. I hear this often:

“Lately it seems all I do is work. I love what I do, but why do I have to do it all? And worse, it seems like I’m making less money and putting in twice the effort.”

It’s entirely possible to have a solid business and still not be making money. This problem is easy to see by taking a look at the bank account. No cash stacking up in the vault? Symptom of a problem to address.

Working in a home business, you face an insane range of choices when it comes to tools for growth. Some days it seems like everyone is selling you solutions to problems you haven’t even defined. How do you know the best solution to choose? How do you know when (or how) to give over control to gain profit and maximize business growth? Without an experienced mentor’s guidance, you often don’t.

Advice, online or offline, is plentiful and much of it is even helpful. You should do your homework and research what others have done to solve the same problems you face. Keep in mind, however, that with generic advice it is not always obvious how to apply the generic solution to your very specific home business situation.

There are proven strategies and tactics which do work most of the time for most businesses who use them. I have been there; still am there. If you’re working more and more, and feeling like you are getting less than stellar results, I can help.

You struggle in your home business to get focused, find balance, and be productive.

Regardless of the type of business you have, you work every day to make that business great. Staying focused while balancing life and business is critical to achieving the success you deserve. The good news is that you can have both a home business and a life.

I talk a lot about focus and balance because I am in the trenches with you. I have made the mistakes and am sharing my experiences with you so that you can be productive and move your business toward growth and profitability.

Step-by-step plan to make a profit for your home business.

Fixing the three symptoms we’ve been discussing will go a long way toward getting your business where you want it to be. Yet, treatment for symptoms does not fix the underlying problems. The real problems for your home business are deeper than can be addressed in a short article.

Asking for help is not a weakness; it’s a sign of intelligence. Smart people hire smart people to help them avoid mistakes and reach their goals faster.

Working from home is challenging and every phase of it is a new experience requiring new tools to manage it. Make a plan. Ask for the help of experts who’ve been there and bought the t-shirt. Let the experts help you to root out the true problems and create a plan to reach your goals.

I can help you meet your goals by designing a plan tailored for you and your business. A good consultation will cut straight to actionable advice that is specific to your unique business problems. Consulting can help you see what’s next, set your goals, and work to achieve them without sacrificing what is important to you.

When you’re ready, I’ll be here.

The bottom line, the real message I want you to take away from this article is that it is OK to ask for help. The sooner you ask, the easier it will be to implement the changes necessary to put your home business on the track to success, as you define it.

How do you handle planning for growth and getting help for your home busi­ness? Share your opin­ion and expe­ri­ence in the com­ments below!

Ever hear these statements made about your home business?

Ask for Help

“If you can’t do it on your own, then you shouldn’t do it at all.”

“If you ask for help, you’ll owe the other guy when he says yes.”

“You can’t afford to pay for advice. The profit margin is too small for more than one person.”

I hope that all of you recognize how full of the proverbial bull those statements are. Two recent events in my life illustrate how connected home workers are, even though we chose to ‘work alone’.

I had lunch the other day with a new friend. Susan and I met at a networking event where I was the only person present who did not know every other person present. (I’m not sure that the group fully understands the concept of networking, but that’s a subject for another day.)

Susan offered to be my tour guide and introduce me to the historic downtown over lunch. I quickly took her up on the offer because Susan, who works in the office of one the local High Schools, knows a lot of the town’s history. And she’s fun to be around. We both had a great time, the food was terrific, and the local color was all I had heard it would be.

“How do you stand it?” Susan asked me at one point as we sat at an outdoor cafe on the boardwalk to watch the boating traffic on the Cape Fear River. “I could never work alone all day. What I like best about my job is having lots of people to work with. Who do you call for help when you’re stuck?”

Susan’s question stayed in my mind even after our lovely lunch was over. I realized an important fact about working from home. No matter how solitary our home business might be—and the business of writing is often the very definition of solitary—none of us are really working alone.

There are people waiting and wanting to help.

The second event happened a few days ago, not long after my lunch with Susan. Gary, my coach made a random remark during a phone conversation. I don’t believe he knew how strongly his comment resonated with me, especially since it wasn’t really on target for the discussion we were having. But like Susan’s question, his remark stuck with me. He said, “There are people waiting and wanting to help you.” This, combined with Susan’s question, led to some serious pondering time and these conclusions.

Home business workers are a rare breed. Not every person has the temperament to live and work from home. We are mavericks who relish responsibility and change. And yet, distinctive as each of us is, we do share certain traits:

• A broad streak of independence mixed with a healthy dose of risk addiction
• Strong abilities to think critically to see solutions and solve problems
• Instincts that tell us when to look for help.

In a home business you can’t walk down the hall to the IT guy’s cold computer room to ask the burning question he’s heard from every person in the building. What you can do is pick up the phone and call an IT expert. What you can do is write a simple 142 character call for help on twitter. What you can do is work with the team of experts you have instinctively surrounded yourself with.

Working Alone is Not the Same as Doing Business Alone

What? You don’t have a team of experts to call on for help? Then it’s time to put a home business information and support system into place. Working alone is not the same as doing business alone. Asking for help is a requirement in any type of business.

Here are a few tips for building your home business information support system:

Make connections in your community.

The networking group where I met Susan, while a bit incestuous, is a great resource for me especially since I am new to the area.

Make connections online.

If you are not already doing so, join the online social media world. Set up Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or other social media accounts for your business use.

Keep connections from your ‘old’ life active.

Look, even a newly graduated high school senior has connections to draw upon and use as resources. Don’t burn your bridges. Be mindful that while there might one or two people from your old life who want to see you come crawling back a failure, most of the people you worked with before can continue as a resource. You might have to spring for coffee or lunch when you really need their help, but keeping those connections active is as easy as email or an occasional text or phone message.

Connect with the experts.

Be brave. Approach the people you admire in business. Give one of them a call. And remember this; you are one of the experts, so when another home business owner reaches out to you, respond and let the connection happen. Another option is to consider joining or starting a MasterMind group or other appropriate business community.

Create a Strong Home Business Information Support List

Are you wondering how I answered Susan’s question? Not with the detail I’ve given you here of course. I said that my work life is full of rich connections, even though few of them are face-to-face. And that what I like about my job is that I get to choose when I deal with people and when I do not.

So make your connections, keep a strong and active team of experts available. And remember this. The next time someone says to you, “If you can’t do it alone, you shouldn’t do it at all.”, nod your head sagely, smile, and cross that person off your home business information support list. There are some people you simply don’t want to ask for help.

Who do you call when you need help in your home business? Share your opin­ion and thoughts in the com­ments below!

“You have the competitive advantage of being you.”

Scott Stratten in a post recently on his UnMarketing blog wrote this. It bears repeating. “Why try to be a WalMart when you’re a small biz? You have the competitive advantage of being you.”

Now before you run off and read Scott’s blog (which you should do after you read this article), I must tell you that the UnMarketing article had absolutely nothing to do with WalMart or small biz. I’ve taken the quote out of context because the phrase really jumped off the page at me from my perspective as both a small business owner and a consultant for small biz.

Think about that phrase for a moment. You are a small business owner or you work-from-home as a professional—which is largely the same thing. Do you really want your home business to grow up to be WalMart?

I’m offering an educated guess here that the answer is no. Work from home businesses are at home because the folk running the show want to be at home. We like the mom-and-pop quality. We like the fluidity and freedoms a home office affords. Our business lends itself to this form. Our customers love that we provide great service and often they don’t even know (or care) that it’s happening from a home office.

Competition

So, why would you want to compare your small biz with a giant like WalMart? What could you find that your biz has in common with WalMart? How can this comparison be beneficial to you?

The key to understanding why Scott’s choice of words resonated so powerfully with me is in the second line. My attention riveted to the idea that your competitive advantage is you. Competitive advantage. Yuk. Boorrinng. Yeah, I know. This is not a sexy subject, it’s not funny, and it’s barely interesting to most of us. Oh, but it is sooo important to understand exactly what unique competitive advantage your business truly has.

Your Competitive Advantage vs WalMart

Gaining an edge over competitors is of course an accepted goal of every business, whether home based or international mega giant. There are essentially two kinds of competitive advantages you can strive for:

• Cost advantage
• Resource advantage

You really can’t expect to go head-to-head against WalMart and win on cost. But can you do it as a resource? Yes, you can. The advantage you have as a small business is that your services are a resource that provides a superior value for your customers.

Superior Value

Here is an example of what I mean. Years ago, I worked as the single employee for a home-based Marketing Consultancy. Understand that the small town we lived in probably served as the basis of Facebook’s popular Farmville application. Having access to professional marketing services alone provided a superior value to most of our clients.

And yet, the firm brought an extra quality; one that our clients could not get outside of signing with a mega-giant ad agency in New York City. The company owner brought the NYC edge to our small town and upstate NY regional market. She was fresh from the city and on top of trends that our clients desperately wanted but could not find locally.

Our small biz work-from-home strategy combined with a unique aspect of the business (NYC edge) to create a competitive advantage that won awards and put money in our client’s pockets.

What superior value does your business bring to prospective clients? Take half an hour and brainstorm. List the obvious and be sure that you don’t overlook the special twist you add. That’s what will boost your competitive advantage.

Should you compare yourself to WalMart?

Comparisons

In reality, no. Apples and Oranges. Sticking with this analogy, both businesses are fruits, but each offers a completely different experience to consumers.

What you can and should take away from a comparison like this is that you are both in business with a common goal: to provide the best of your type of service to your customers.

Instead of comparing your business to WalMart, look around for companies of any size that you admire for what they offer to their customers.

Find a way to give that same quality to your clients while adding that special twist in which your business delivers a superior competitive advantage. That’s a comparison worth making and one that ensures that you keep the competitive edge of your small biz sharp and on track.

What is the unique twist your business brings? Share your experience in the comments below. Your story might really help some­one else out!

And of course, if you are not sure about how to find the competitive edge for your home business life, con­tact CaZ and ask how HomeBizSmarts or WritingBytes can help!

What is a peeve anyway? It’s an annoyance. Something that irritates you. Humor is what keeps us sane when events in our home office turn us peevish.

Here’s my take on a ‘Pet’ Peeve. Tongue in cheek? I’m not telling.

Tiny, adorable kitten. Old enough to leave his mamma. The last of his siblings to be adopted. And mine. All mine.

What do I name him? Hmmmm… Glistening, black long hair. Tuxedo-like white breast and adorable white nose. White sock-like coloring on his paws. Sox? Mittens? No. Not right. Too cutesy. He is going to be a handsome, regal King of the house for sure. Something will come to mind. He’s only been here for a few hours.

Shy little boy. Maybe if I ignore him for a while he will come out from behind the chair and find my lap. Back to the computer for me. Playing with a new kitten is more fun, but does not put food on the table for either of us.

Damn computer. Why is it doing that? Maybe it’s something in DOS. I’ll reboot and check the bios settings…

NOOOOO!

Kitty! What have you done, Kitty!

Noooooo!

<sigh>

Back now, after taking computer to the repair shop to replace the keyboard driver and other important technical stuff that my new kitten deleted when he jumped on the Keyboard at the wrong time. I am amazed at how the stars in the heavens came together at the exact moment he leaped, allowing his tiny paws to strike the unique combination of keys that deleted critical drivers and saved the changes.

DK

He is proud of himself. Purring in my lap and comfortable in his kingdom.

Am I peeved that my computer had to go to the shop? That I had to write on my typewriter for a day and a half? Yeah. But who can stay mad when purring is involved?

Oh, he has a name now. DK.

Stands for Delete Kitty.