Part of what makes this process difficult is that we don’t know what is actually important to do and what isn’t important to do. (Many people realize this issue when they start to think about delegating, which is a topic we covered in a previous Tips In Ten). In fact, I’ve coached people who show me their to-do list and say to me, “Heather, I try to prioritize the work in my life as 1, 2, 3, etc… but it ALL seems to be priority 1!!!”.

On top of that is the ongoing challenge of all entrepreneurs to find balance between work and the rest of life (which might include parenting, volunteering, and so on).

So in this issue of Tips In Ten, we’ll cover “part 1″ of how to set and achieve your daily goals: Figuring out what’s important to do.

The truth is, there are a lot of things to do but only some things that are important to do. But it all SEEMS important.

One way that you can help to separate what is important to do and what only seems important to do is to use a system I have augmented from Stephen R. Covey (the 7 Habits guy). One of his “habits” is called “First Things First” and it’s a system to help you figure out what’s REALLY important in life.

I’ll give him credit, of course, for the idea. I really like starting with roles first then moving to the goals that are based on each role. It really helps to make sure that there is balance in your life. However, if you are a big Covey fan, you should know that I’ve dramatically augmented his plan in order to accommodate the business owner’s lifestyle which (in my opinion) should include more space devoted for clients.

Here’s how my augmented First Things First plan works:

First, before you even bother thinking about your to-do’s, think first about who you are. What are your roles in life? Chances are that you’ll make a list which includes:

• Business owner – you own a business.
• Parent – you have children
• Spouse – you have a spouse
• Child – you are a child (in fact, you probably keep meaning to call your mother, right?)
• Friend – they keep you sane

There might be more. Covey also suggests that you include a “role” for yourself in order to make sure you take time out for yourself. (I tend to list myself twice – once as “student” and once as “me” for non-educational activities).

Now here is where I depart from Covey even more: As a business owner, I list my business but I also list some of the critical business relationships that I have with key customers and as the publisher of a newsletter and as a partner for JV projects I work on.

Okay, so you have this list of roles. What now?

Every Thursday or Friday, in preparation for the week to come, list your goals and then write down the things you want to do that would enrich those relationships. Be specific! For your spouse, it might be “Go on a date”. For your kids it might “Take them to the park”. For client XYZ it might be “deliver their project”. For your business it might be “implement new Twitter marketing plan”.

You might have a lot of stuff in your to-do’s; in fact, you might have even more now that you’re including your spouse and your parents and other aspects in your life… but at least you’re dividing it up based on the roles in your life. So, rather than one big list, you’ll end up with a dozen small lists.

Now that you have listed all these goals, look at each one and break them down into individual parts. So implementing your Twitter marketing plan from the example earlier might actually be 4 smaller goals like “Open Twitter account”, “Download TweetDeck”, “set up columns”, “Tweet 5 times on day 1″. (Note: Breaking down your goals into more granular goals might take longer than 10 minutes when you do this the first time, but once you’ve done it once and if you do it regularly, it really does just take 10 minutes).

So now you have an even bigger list of goals! This might seem stressful to you but I promise you that it’s better. That’s because a big cause of procrastination is not knowing where to start. So, by breaking your goals down into smaller goals, you’re helping to eliminate that.

Okay, you have a dozen lists of tiny goals. That’s great! You’re now ready to make it work for you: With this list, determine how long each goal will take and then determine if any of them have a deadline.

So, let’s say that you want your Twitter marketing plan deadline for the 23rd. Obviously, all the related goals need to take place before the 23rd. Your list might look like this:

• Open Twitter account. Duration: 5 minutes. Due on the 20th.
• Set up TweetDeck columns. Duration: 5 minutes. Due on the 22nd.
• Tweet 5 times on day 1. Duration: 10 minutes. Due on 23rd.

Now you have a dozen lists of tiny goals and they all have durations (and, if appropriate, deadlines… although it doesn’t hurt to put deadlines on all of them).

Now it’s time to start scheduling!

First, place your deadlines into your calendar (obviously along with other things like meetings or picking up the kids from school or whatever).

Second, add in a mix of other goals from each of your roles wherever you have free space. (You might put a check mark beside each goal once it’s scheduled or you might color code your goals and look later to make sure that there is a good balance of color variation in your schedule).

Third, find those tiny spaces that aren’t filled and include items that fit the available duration. For example, perhaps you have fifteen minutes between two telephone conferences. In the past, you’d just waste the time on Facebook but now you know that you have 15 minutes and you can look at your schedule. Perhaps you can spend the time ordering flowers your spouse (Role: Spouse, Goal: Order flowers. Duration 5 minutes. No due date) and then following through on two of the Twitter marketing tasks (Role: Business owner. Goal: Open Twitter account. Duration: 5 minutes. Due on the 20th. Download TweetDeck. Duration: 5 minutes. Due on the 21st.)
By now, you should have a calendar that includes the important elements of your life all addressed in some kind of balance.

In the next issue we’ll talk about how to make your goals even easier to achieve and I’ll provide you with a few extra tips to make your scheduling and goal execution even more stress-free.

Related posts:

1. Setting (and Achieving) Daily Goals Like a Genius – Part 2
2. Ten Minutes to Faster Decisions – Part 2
3. Ezines in 10 Minutes a Day – Part 4 – Making Money from Your Ezines

And now that you know the details, you’re probably wondering: “Heather, how the heck do I make money from it?” After all, you don’t want to simply create a money pit that takes time, cash, and effort and doesn’t return anything. You want to generate revenue!

So, in this issue of Tips In Ten, I’m going to show you exactly how you can make money from your ezines. Ready to cash in?

Here we go: In general, I’ve found that there are 4 ways to make money from ezine. I’ve hinted at some of these in previous issues.

The four ways are:

1.    Driving people back to your site in general (which I’ll call “brand selling”)
2.    Driving people to a product on your site (which I’ll call “product selling”)
3.    Driving people to a product that you earn a commission on (which I’ll call “affiliate selling”)
4.    Selling ad space in your newsletter (which I’ll call “advertising”)

Brand selling:

This is a positioning play, like many other marketing efforts that you do. It’s not necessarily specific to a single offering that you have. The purpose of this ezine is to show that you’re an expert at what you do and to build credibility so that people will look to you for a solution to their problem. The revenue you earn here is from increased billing in general in your business.

Example: Jim sells refurbished car parts for classic American muscle cars. His newsletter doesn’t address a specific thing – carburetors or mufflers or what have you – that would be far too specific. Instead, Jim builds credibility by offering tips for muscle car enthusiasts and backyard mechanics to fix their cars more effectively and affordably. And he links back to his website. The ezine is used to drive traffic to his site and to build his brand.

Product selling:

If you want to promote a specific product or service, within the array of products or services you offer, this is the ezine for you. You might choose to offer the same product or service in every newsletter, or you might offer a different one in every newsletter. It depends on who your audience is and what you want to accomplish. The revenue you earn here is from increased sales of a particular product or service.

Example: Maria, a local Realtor, helps people buy homes and sell homes (and might even make money from other services like appraisals or staging or ebooks) but she really wants to promote her listing services to people looking to sell. So her ezine is all about selling homes. She might bring in other topics from time to time but the link back to her site is specifically to the “Sell Your Home” section of her site and she is intentional about having her subscribers be primarily those who are thinking about selling.

Affiliate selling

In many ways, affiliate selling is a lot like the product or service selling mentioned above, except that you’re driving people to someone else’s site instead of your own! If you are looking to broaden your revenue stream a little or if you want to break into entrepreneuring slowly with a relatively easy effort, this might be the one to choose. Again, you can choose to offer the same affiliate promotion in each newsletter or you can offer different ones each time. The revenue you generate here is from flat-fee or percentage commissions on the product or service that was purchased.

Example: Howard is a relationship coach helping people to meet potential mates online. Although he offers coaching services for a price, he uses his newsletter to earn affiliate income through an online matchmaking service. In each issue, he offers tips and information about how the subscriber can improve their likelihood of meeting a potential romantic interest successfully, and at the end of the three brief tips he includes a link to an online dating site (for which he receives an income when they sign up). He still links back to his own site, when he signs his newsletter, but the primary purpose of his newsletter is to drive traffic to his affiliates.

Advertising

Including advertising in your newsletter is one way to earn income from the electronic “real estate” you have. There is plenty of space in your newsletter, and you might not use it all, so it could be a good idea to add some advertising in. Since your newsletters are targeted to a specific audience, your advertising (which should also targeted to that audience) will be appropriate… and no different than Google’s AdWords appearing in a search result. The revenue you generate here is (usually) from click-throughs – money earned by the advertiser every time someone clicks the ad.

Example: Sandy runs an investment newsletter that focuses primarily on the Forex market. Her subscribers get 3 valuable articles in each issue, but she also includes a couple of advertisements between each article.

One more option

I’ve listed the four most common ways to generate revenue from your ezines, but there is one more way and that is a hybrid model in which you combine a couple of the choices from above. For example, you might send out a regular brand selling newsletter but, from time to time, also include an additional “special edition” newsletter that promotes your products (product selling) or for an affiliate (affiliate selling) or is just an advertisement (advertising). This is a popular method, although be careful that you’re not bombarding your subscribers with this kind of newsletter. Or, another example: You might send out a regular brand selling newsletter but have a “featured product” section in which you highlight one of your own products in each issue.

So, which one to choose?

There are a number of factors that will help you decide which to choose:

1.    Can you create and sustain quality content for the topic? Remember that brand selling is probably going to be easier to write on an ongoing basis than product selling (because the content potential might be broader). That might not be the case for everyone, but it could be for some of you.
2.    Will your readers grow bored of the content? If you keep sending content that is too broad or too specific, your subscribers might not engage with it.
3.    What happens if your subscribers actually buy from you because of your product selling ezine or your affiliate selling ezine? Will they continue to subscribe? (They might if your information is helpful enough).

Make it work!

So, after deciding on which is right for you, how can you ensure success and build a strong foundation to generate revenue? Here are some tips:

• Create a compelling call to action. Only give part of your story and include a “read more” link back to your site. This will help you to generate more traffic to your site and can also help you to track what content interests your readers. (If they are all clicking on one article but not another, that’s a good signal.)

• Be helpful. Don’t make the “sell” the purpose of the ezine. Something else has to be the purpose or your subscribers will unsubscribe in droves. Think of the sell as the accessory. You want to give the reader the silk dress and let them know where they can buy the earrings to match.

• Track your subscriber’s clicks relentlessly. Test different types of selling methods (one paragraph plus a link-out or an entire article plus a link-out), different delivery dates, different delivery times, etc. Many good autoresponders give you the chance to do A/B split testing.

Related posts:

1. Ezines in 10 Minutes a Day- Part 1 – The Purpose
2. Ezines in 10 Minutes a Day- Part 2 – Picking your Software
3. Ezines in 10 Minutes a Day – Part 3 – Scheduling & Writing

“Okay, now Heather has officially lost her mind – 90% of my job is project management.”

So true, so true! What I have learned, though, is that the key to project management is “organization”. A project is almost everything in your business – either a client’s work, or something as common as waiting on the web designer to update your web page. I always have at least 2 dozen things going on at any time and the way I keep it organized is through a simple spreadsheet. It was not simple to set up but it is simple to use.

Don’t worry, I am giving you that spreadsheet for free, so download it here – and let’s show you how to use it.

Initial Spreadsheet Set Up:

Note: This spreadsheet was developed in Microsoft Excel 2007. It has been found to work fine in older versions (97 – 2003) as long as you have the compatibility pack from Microsoft installed. It has also been tested in Excel 2008 for Mac and worked fine, as well as loaded into Google Docs and works like a charm.

There are 6 tabs:

By Project
By Client
By Project Manager
By Staff
Data Fields
Copyright Information
The last tab (copyright information) you can ignore – it just protects me.

Most people are going to use two tabs, but I have found that some use them all, so I have provided them here for you.

First determine how you want to keep track of your projects: By project, client, project manager or staff?

I prefer By Client, so I would select the By Client tab and begin working.

Prior to populating the data, I need to update my data fields, so I would click on the Data Fields tab.

The first column is Project Statuses. I have listed typical project statuses used in project management but feel free to change/update any of them.

Then the second column is Staff Names, the third column is Project Manager names, the fourth column is Client Names, and the fifth and sixth columns are the corresponding client details.

Go ahead and populate the fields to make them correspond to your business. (Note: It is set up for a list of 8, I will show you in a minute how to work/change those for larger lists)

Going back to my By Client Tab I can start entering my data, the first field under column name is a drop down box, it lets me pick from my list of clients in the Data Field. You will note that it then automatically populates the fourth and fifth column with the corresponding client data.

If this is an internal project I would just leave the client column blank, or I would customize my client name field to include company projects or company departments. Maybe I might put IAC (the name of my company), or better yet, I could put IAC-Web Department and then put my Web Guy’s email and telephone number where the client email and phone number are in the data field.
Then in the second column I enter my project name and in the third column my project description.

Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth columns are drop downs. Again, I’m picking from Data in my data fields tab.

Then my notes column. Notes are very very important. The notes really should not be used to tell about the project. That should be the description. The notes should help you understand “where” the project is at any given time. Here are some examples of good notes:

Key: Adam = Project Manager, Keith = Graphic Designer, Daniel = Web Developer

Status: Waiting on Client | Notes: Adam sent mock up of 3 logos to Client and waiting on response. – 1/5/2009

Status: Waiting on Staff | Notes: Keith sent new icons to Daniel for placement in clients site. – 1/7/2009

Status: Waiting on PM | Notes: Project assigned to Adam. – 1/9/2009

So, the goal is to get all the data in for my open projects.

If you have more than 8 of anything, you need a larger list on your data fields page. That can be done by entering the additional staff, project managers, statuses, or clients, however you have to change the preset name array. I don’t have every version of MS Office to tell you how to do this so I will give you instructions in Office 2007:

Click on the Formulas Tab –> In the Defined Name Section click on the Name Manager Icon –>  A list of your array names will show up. You should have 4 clearly labeled as “ClientNames”, “ProjectManagers”, “ProjectStatuses” and “StaffNames”.

Highlight the one you want and click Edit –> In the Refers to: field you will see something similar to =’Data Fields’!$D$2:$D$10. What that says is the field array is Column D Row 2 through Column D Row 10. So if you now have names all the way going down to row 25, you would just change that last “10″ to a “25″ and click OK.

Once you have the project management sheet set up the way it needs to be:

When you start your day (or after you finish your email), it’s time to go through your list and make sure you have updated statuses and that everything is correct. What you have created is a snapshot of everything going on and you’ve created an ease-of-use factor.

Step 1: Make sure that you have updated the statuses and notes columns to correctly reflect any notices that you have received in the prior day (i.e. an email from a staff member saying it is ready for your review or an email from a staff member saying that they sent it to the client).

Step 2: Go through the list and see what is waiting on you. Do your part and turn it over to the person it needs to go to next. Then update your status and notes.

Step 3: Look at each status and note combo and see where the project’s at and what may need to be nudged along or updated. It very well may be that it is farther along than you think, but nobody has clued you in, or you have overlooked an email. Take Action.

To give you some examples, I will use my 3 statuses above. Let’s assume it is the 10th of January and I have these three statuses:

Status: Waiting on Client | Notes: Adam sent mock up of 3 logos to Client and waiting on response. – 1/5/2009

Status: Waiting on Staff | Notes: Keith sent new icons to Daniel for placement in clients site. – 1/7/2009

Status: Waiting on PM | Notes: Project assigned to Adam. – 1/9/2009

First one: We are waiting on the client. The client was sent the logos on January 5th and it has been 5 days, so it definitely needs to be updated. So I would send an email: “Adam, Logo Project for Client X is not moving along. Please check in with client and see which logo he wants. It has been 5 days, update me accordingly.”

Second one: We are waiting on Daniel to do his web development work with the icons Keith sent. It has been 3 days and developers get easily distracted. So I would send an email (and cc: Adam his project manager) “Daniel, please confirm that you received the icons from Keith 3 days ago and provide Adam and I with an ETA on completion.”

Third one: We are waiting on Adam to do his thing (signing it out to the staff), but it only has been a day, so we don’t need to do anything with that.

Step 4: Save and Close and work on it tomorrow.

Every business is different and it may be that you don’t want to do this or need to. It may be that your project managers are very efficient. So why not pass this email and spreadsheet along to them and just have them turn their spreadsheet in to you on a daily basis? Then it is all done for you. It may be that you don’t have a project manager and that you are the project manager. So in that case you can just ignore the project management column.

This easy 4-step process has proved invaluable to Coaches, Independent Professionals and Freelancers that outsource work to independent contractors.

Related posts:

1. Self-Directed Project Management in Ten Minutes a Day
2. Project Management Gone Wrong
3. Horror story from the front lines of project management

Summer and music. They go together. Good summer music should evoke the hot, sunny days that students enjoy between semesters. For the kids, a summer “anthem” should capture everything great about the months that you spend on the beach with your friends. For grown-ups, a good summer anthem should remind us of those carefree months of yesteryear when we weren’t busy running businesses and paying mortgages.

I recently read an interesting article about a music producer who has produced popular summer hits like “Since U Been Gone,” by Kelly Clarkson, “Girlfriend,” by Avril Lavigne, “Right Round,” by Flo Rida, “Tik Tok,” by Ke$ha, and “I Kissed a Girl” by Katy Perry. Even if these songs are not your kind of thing, you have to admit that enough other people liked these songs enough to make them chart toppers. And the person behind the music is a guy by the name of Dr. Luke. While the artists lend their headline-earning skills to these songs, Dr. Luke is the music producer who writes, rewrites, tests, and then produces songs that become summer anthems.

The article, published on NewYorkMag.com, profiles this music producer and describes the process he goes through to create so many hits. In a moment, I’ll give you a link to the article, but first I want to answer the question you’re asking: “Heather, why are you talking about a music producer and summer anthems?”

Entrepreneurs don’t want to wallow in mediocrity. Most of us want to become successful. Maybe successful enough to ease up a little on the long hours or maybe successful enough to sell our business and relax on the beach. We can look to Dr. Luke as a case study in how to become successful. Even though he’s in the music industry and you might be in a completely different industry, here are some lessons we can learn from him:

• He has a process: He tests and experiments with different styles. He tries out different “hooks” on a song before finding the one that works. Likewise, you should always be thinking and innovating and testing in your business.

• He has a vision and he relies on skilled people to help him. As the article says on page 3, “He hears a song before it exists, then he figures out who can best help him bring that song into existence.” Likewise, you should cultivate a vision for your business and find the right people to help you.

• He becomes an expert, not only in his own songs but in the entire industry. He’s quoted as saying: “I analyze songs, think about what made them work, why they did work. I think about that all the time”. Likewise, you should know your business and your competitors’ businesses inside and out and that will make a huge difference to your business.

Okay, there are plenty of other tips I could draw from Dr. Luke’s success but, with these in mind, check out the article and then apply some of his lessons to your business.

Enjoy!

No related posts.

In today’s blog post I want to talk about blog commenting.

Blog commenting is exactly what the name implies. There are a couple of reasons why I leaving blog comments are good:

• Blog comments give you a nice, happy backlink to your blog. (That’s why spammer use it). Who doesn’t love backlinks? They’re awesome.

• Blog commenting gets traffic to your own blog when people see your insightful comment and follow you to your own site. (More on this in a moment).

• Additionally – and I would say “more importantly” – blogs are conversations. They’re social. If the blogger offers comment functionality on their blog, it’s because they want to have comments.

Commenting on other people’s blogs can build traffic to your own… under certain circumstances. Here’s what I mean: There are three kinds of blog commenters and I’m going to lay them out right here (but before you get offended by what I write, be sure to read the whole post first!).

Type 1: Adders.
Type 2: Agreers.
Type 2: Spammers.

Blogs are social media conversations. The blogger starts the conversation on his or her blog with an insightful, compelling, and perhaps witty post about their subject matter. And the commenters are the other folks in the same conversation, and they’re not that different than in a real life conversation:

• The adders. You have some people who contribute to the conversation with something like: “You make some good points, Heather. Another thing to consider is…” This is Type 1 comments. They add to the conversation. These are often the people who keep a conversation going and make it an enjoyable dialogue.

• The agreers. You also have some people in a conversation who simply nod in agreement. And they appear in blog posts, too: “Great post, Heather!”. This is the Type 2 comment. They don’t necessarily add something to the conversation. (By the way: I called them “Agreers” but I am aware that “agreers” is just a made up word).

• The spammers. You know what I’m talking about. They can range from ones who pretend to be agreers (“I read with such interest” – but they link to a generic drugs site) to ones who offer “Hot Russian Wifes!” or something even less appropriate.

As a blogger, just like in real life, you want lots of Type 1 comments if you want a conversation. That’s because blogs are part of the social media realm – a big, online conversation. (Having said that, let me say that Type 2 comments – the agreers – are welcome and if you tend to be an agreer on my site, I’m not complaining. I’m just pointing out that in every conversation, whether online or offline, you’ve got the people who participate in the conversation, you’ve got those who agree, and then you’ve got one or two losers who talk about hot Russian “wifes” and generic drugs.) You can build up traffic to your site by going to other blogs and adding insightful comments there.

Here are some additional tips to help you:

• Make sure you are going to blogs that connect with a target audience who are similar to your own.
• Don’t sell! If you want to be a Type 1 commenter, add insight, experience, and ideas.
• Use Disqus, and Gravatar to help create a better experience for you as you comment, and for those who might read your comments and link to your site.

Happy Commenting!

Related posts:

1. Comments and How They can Make You More Successful (In Just 10 Minutes) – Part 2
2. Comments and How They Can Make You More Successful (In Just 10 Mintues) – Part 1
3. “What Should I Do?” – Content Sharing

“Heather,” they say (or sometimes they call me Ms. Villa… just kidding, most of them don’t), “I’ve got a business and I want to market it with social media. What do you suggest?”

In the past, I would enquire about their business and then look pensive for a moment before making a recommendation. After a while I found that I was recommending the same things over and over and over. Not because I’m lazy but because, through trial and effort and research and experience, I found what worked and what didn’t. To be honest, I’m always reluctant to make recommendations to these folks because it’s on-the-fly and who am I to know, in just a few moments of conversation, what would really work for them? There’s a reason I charge money for this stuff with clients… because I take the time to figure out what’s best for each person.

And then I found a social media framework mindmap that basically lays out a lot of the things I recommend (plus other stuff that might not be right for everyone). You can find it at MindMeister. (If it looks tiny, you can zoom in with the zoom tool in the bottom right corner).

This framework outlines various social media marketing outlets and methods you can use. You’ll notice after each branch in the map there are a couple of grey dots. Hover over one of those dots to get a definition about the topic. Hover over the other one and you get a thumbnail of a resource site. It’s comprehensive and has links to sources and resources that you might find helpful.

Over the next few months I’m going to choose one of these topics and blog about it in detail, talking about some smart ideas, best practices, and things I’ve found that can help you to leverage that particular social media technique for greater success. I won’t be blogging about it in every single blog, but check back frequently because I’ll likely cover one topic a week or so.

Want to get started right away and don’t want to wait for me to blog about it? Here’s what I would suggest:

Start by making a list of the things you do from this list already and what gives you the best return. (If you don’t do anything, or if you do a lot and don’t get any return, that’s okay; at least you’re starting the process of acknowledging it so it can be fixed). Be sure to measure how much time you take in each one. If necessary, track your time over the next few days to get an average.

Once you have your list of stuff you already do, the return it gives you, and how long it takes you, pick a couple more that you want to do… but be sure to choose them from different branches than what you are already doing. (So, if you’re already blogging, don’t choose another blog). That’s a good step one. Step two is to check back here each week to read some ideas and tips on these topics.

Happy Blogging!

Related posts:

1. What’s Your Social Media Plan?
2. “What Should I Do?” – Social Communities
3. Lessons to Learn from Starbucks and Social Media

So provided here is a guide to determining how much money you actually have.

How Much Do You Bring In?

In order to start figuring out how much you make, you will first need to figure out how much your company actually brings in. If you have a good bookkeeping system, this should be fairly easy. However, many business owners when asked “what’s your company’s revenues?” will hem and haw and “ballpark it”. (And in my experience, the amount they give is much higher than reality).

If you can state exactly what your company is generating in revenue, that’s great. But if you can’t, or if you’re brave enough to admit that your bookkeeping is Mount Everest of scrap papers and receipts, you might need to invest in a bookkeeper or bookkeeping system to help. While business owners might balk at the expense (because a bookkeeper doesn’t seem to bring in revenue), they might be surprised to discover just how much money they can actually earn because they have a bookkeeper: Expenses are often reduced and the owner’s time is freed up from administrative tasks.
Once you have determined how much money your business brings in, you will need to determine how much the company spends each month.

How Much Do You Spend?

Before this question is answered, let me recommend (is there a stronger word than recommend?) that you separate business and personal expenses. Not only will this give you a more realistic view of the health of your business but the good folks at the IRS will appreciate it, too. Business expenses come out of business revenue. Personal expenses come out of the wage you earn from the business.
Once your bookkeeping records are well-organized, it should be fairly easy to determine your set monthly business expenses.

Your next step is to subtract your expenses from your income. In theory, the result is your monthly personal income. However, it is not quite that simple.

Smart business owners know that, aside from buying the products and services they need to keep their business running today (expenses) they also need to make additional purchases to build for the future (these fall into the expenses category but I like to think of them as investments), and, they need to reserve some money to help keep them operating in the future (operating capital). You need all three run a successful company. If you take one away, the business could cease to operate! However, at different times, some will be higher than others. In the first years, you might have higher expenses as you buy things you need to run your business and you might willingly accept lower personal pay in order to have some operating capital, too. Then, over time, you’ll want to increase the amount that you invest in your business for the long term.

Revisiting the question
So, how much money do you make? Many business owners estimate a number that is far too high. However, by getting a handle on your finances and then by making sure that you’re paying the right expenses, you’re investing in your business, and you have some operating capital, you’ll build a stronger, longer-lasting business. And the more you do this, the more you’ll make.

Over time, your income will steadily grow, but so will the value of your business. Some day, when you look to exit your business, you may be able to sell it as a high-value asset. Now you know how to get there.

About the author: Heather Villa, MBA CMA MSM, is a Business Coach and Entrepreneur. She helps business owners achieve success in operations, productivity, project management, and social media. Read her other articles at http://hireheathervilla.com/resources/articles/ and visit http://heathervilla.com for more information.

Disclaimer: © 2009 Heather Villa. Permission is granted to repost this article. Article must be published in its entirety, including author bio, and all links must remain intact.

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In a recent blog post at LocationIndependent.com, a site for businesses that can work anywhere (i.e., freelancers or web-based entrepreneurs), they listed a number of really useful things to do to automate business.

Now, before I reference the blog any further, let me just say that automating your business is one of the smartest things you can do. The more you automate, the bigger your business will grow, and the faster it will get there. That’s because so much of our day is sucked away with time-intensive tasks that are often (more than we realize) repetitive. If you can automate these, you can focus more of your time on the unique stuff (and usually that’s the stuff that adds value to your customers).

So here is a brief recap of what LocationIndepent.com talked about in their blog post “Tactical Tips to Put Your Location Independent Business On Autopilot”.

The first set of tips is a Mac-only tip recommending Mac’s Automator function. For those who don’t use Mac, many of the tactics are still easily accomplishable on our lowly PC’s. For example, the writer recommends using Mac’s Automator to automatically back-up files. I have the same thing with JungleDisk and Amazon S3. It’s automatic.

The second set of tips has to do with your browser. This is a huge area of opportunity for people because they often do more repetitive tasks online than they realize. Even though I already do a lot of this stuff I still catch myself from time to time opening and closing a tab a zillion times in a day. (“Hello, Heather, you can keep it open and save yourself a lot of time”).

The third set of tips offered some good advice for Gmail users (and if you’re a reader of my Tips In Ten, I recommend some software for business owners who use email on their own servers to accomplish a lot of what is mentioned in this blog.

The fourth set of tips is for blogs and is some great advice. If you’ve ever posted the phrase “I’m sorry I haven’t blogged in a while, I’ve been busy” on your blog, these tips are for you. (And yes, I know that everyone has typed that at one time or another).

Take the five minutes to read the blog and another half an hour to incorporate many of Location Independent’s techniques and you’ll save yourself many multiples of hours in the future.

Until next time!

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Great discussion today on #businesslunchclub (on Twitter; but see BusinessLunchClub.com for more details).
The conversation today centered around delegation, and specifically around something that @IAC_Heather calls “the 3 Strikes, You’re Out” rule. The conversation was primarily between @IAC_Heather, @askleo, and myself (@AaronHoos), with @Hazewalker chiming in towards the end.
You can read our entire conversation on BusinessLunchClub (If you’re not reading this on the day it’s posted, go to BusinessLunchClub.com/users/archive and select July 13 from the calendar).

The “3 Strikes, You’re Out” rules are 3 simple rules to help you know what to delegate. The rules are:

• 3 strikes rule 1: Is it something that you don’t personally have to do; is it something that someone else can do or be trained to do for you?

• 3 strikes rule 2: Does the alternate person that could do it for you have an hourly wage less than your billable wage?

• 3 strikes rule 3: Could you use that spare time on revenue generating activities or to increase your quality of life?

@askleo talked about the challenges of finding the right person and training them appropriately. And I talked about the challenge of being a sole operator for so long that it was difficult to “disassemble” projects I normally do automatically and identify which portions of the tasks should be done by me and which portions should be outsourced.

@IAC_Heather used the example of a babysitter when responding to @askleo, pointing out that parents do the best job of raising their children but they still “outsource” to a babysitter from time to time. She also recommended the use of Camtasia to capture processes to enable faster training.

I was curious to know what people outsourced (which is relevant to a conversation I had yesterday with a friend who suggested that he only outsources items that don’t add value to the client relationship). So far, I’ve only outsourced administrative work but kept my value-adding work and most of my sales efforts as my own tasks. @IAC_Heather outsources as much as possible (except where liability might be a concern) and, just as Business Lunch Club was wrapping up, @Hazewalker added this helpful advice: As long as you are unwilling to delegate, you cannot create a business that runs without you.

Good conversation in today’s Business Lunch Club!

As originally posted on: Blog by Aaron Hoos

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If you’re a business owner who is stuck at your desk for lunch, you might be getting work done but you’re missing out on the powerful networking opportunities of a business lunch. That’s where BusinessLunchClub comes in. BusinessLunchClub is where entrepreneurs on Twitter have lunch. If you’re stuck at your desk but want to do some networking, tweet while you eat and add the hashtags #businesslunchclub, #bizlunchclub, or #blc.

Read 8 Ways to Use BusinessLunchClub to Grow Your Business.

Here are a couple of tips to help you get more out of BusinessLunchClub:

Either invite a handful of people to participate or tweet out that you’re looking for others to join you.

For example: @AaronHoos @IAC_Heather you guys around for #businesslunchclub?
Or: Stuck at my desk. #bizlunchclub anyone?

You might also want to schedule your next BusinessLunchClub meeting. Mondays with one group of colleagues, Tuesday with another, etc. Consider having a business problem that you’d like to talk about.

Check out BusinessLunchClub.com to see what other people were talking about or to review your conversation, or keep track of those terms in TweetDeck. (Ref. Thanks to Jeffrey Priebe for the TweetDeck recommendation)

Just like many business lunches have a purpose (besides eating at the same table), BusinessLunchClub is made more beneficial when you participate with a goal in mind. Perhaps it might be “I need to find someone to help me solve this business problem” or it might be broader, like “I’d like to learn something about a few of my followers or it might just be a nice way to make your stuck-at-your-desk lunch a little more valuable.

As originally posted on: Blog by Aaron Hoos

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