Monthly Archives: April 2009

Outsourcing – Get Help from Everyone

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It’s not uncommon to see large companies moving many jobs overseas in an effort to save money. They call it outsourcing. As a mom who works from home, you have that same opportunity though you run a small business.

Typically, outsourcing involves finding jobs that can be done outside the office in another location for less money. One day, you very well could visit a McDonald’s (not that we are advocating fast food over home cooking) and the person on the other end of that talking board could be in India. In this world, anything is possible.

As your business grows, you might very well find that you need help. Even when you are highly organized, there seems to be more and more work to get done. Instead of encroaching on family time, find a way to get all of your tasks handled without boarding the train to Looneyville.

Outsourcing works for the small business owner, too. Just like a large corporation find the tasks that can be done in another location and send them out. Here are some suggestions:

  1. Hire a virtual assistant. Administrative work can be such a chore and take up more and more time as your business grows. Hiring a virtual assistant can alleviate much of this burden. They are also entrepreneurs who use their industry skills to help your business grow. It is easy to find a list to begin by typing “virtual assistant” into any search engine.

  1. Hire a part-time cleaning service. The housework is always staring you in the face when you work at home. Instead of worrying about it or compromising business hours, hire a professional to take care of the upkeep. Once you clean your home thoroughly, having a service to come in weekly will keep everything managed.

  1. Hire freelance help. Freelance employees pay their own taxes and overhead. Sometimes you need the help of other professionals. For example, Internet marketing can take a large chunk of your time. Finding someone well versed in the matter to run that side of the business lets you concentrate on actually meeting deadlines or finding new places to market your business.

  1. Put your family on the payroll. Who says you can’t use a little nepotism? You run a business, but it is all in the family. Enlist the aid of your kids, husband and other family members so you can get more done. Ask your husband to take over dinner duty a few days a week. Set up a reward system (such as shiny stars) for your kids when they help mommy by picking up their toys and keeping their rooms clean.

Growth is great but it can decrease your productivity if you continue to try and do everything yourself. It’s time to get help. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day to handle everything. Find ways to outsource tasks…to everyone.

Organize your Home Business – The Key to Increased Productivity

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Working from home has many advantages and also a sort of familiarity that can become a downright pitfall in some instances. It is easy and sometimes quickly discovered that away from an office your productivity is not as high as you thought it would be. Working from a home office can easily become a productivity killer when a business owner doesn’t stay on top of thing. However, don’t fret! This can be changed with a few simple steps to get your business organized making productivity easier.

First of all, realize what you do is run a business. Your business needs a permanent place to live. It could be your dining room, a corner of your den or the entire den. Some people set up shop in their garage or kitchen. Wherever you decide is where your home office will reside, recognize that it is your work space and nothing else can share that spot. Yes, that includes the laundry you forgot to fold last night too.

Moving on, now that you have an office space, set some guidelines for how you will run your business. These guidelines don’t run to the particulars of your chosen industry but more to organization for better operation of the enterprise. In plain terms, if everything is in its place, you won’t waste time looking for it.

A filing system will be your best friend. This includes a filing cabinet for important papers. Every correspondence doesn’t have to exist in paper form. Contractual agreements with clients and copies of past invoices can be filed, but emails don’t need to be. Save yourself some time, money and fresh air by not printing every client email that comes to your inbox.

An electronic filing system keeps emails, project specs and proposals organized by client without adding to the paperwork you already have to handle. Electronic files are easy to organize and can be zipped to clients in an instant if need be. You won’t even have to use snail mail.

Also, keep an in and out box on your desk (we almost forgot about the desk). Incoming mail is organized as soon as it hits the desk. Junk mail is shredded, orders are filed in a box to be filled and other mail is sorted according to purpose. Dealing with mail first thing prevents anything from getting overlooked.

Along the same lines, create a priority box. This is the box that will be checked first thing in the morning and last thing before you leave your home office. In the morning, the box contains all of the items that need attention that day. In the evening, organize the contents to be ready for the next morning. This makes it much easier to have your daily work tasks set when you get to the “office” each morning. No more wasted time planning your day while an hour or two of it is vanishing.

Low productivity in a home office arises mainly from disorganization. We aren’t sure what we want to work on or what is most important sometimes, so it takes a little while to get that together. If you are organized from the beginning and keep your priorities current, you won’t spend your time deciding what to do next – you’ll already know. Good bye time wasters, hello productivity!

Calendars and Planners: Inexpensive Ways to Get it All Done

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If you’ve ever been in an office supply store, they always offer the latest gadgets and gizmos to help you stay on top of your business whether in an office or at home. Keeping ahead of the rush doesn’t have to involve putting out a lot of money for things electronic gadgets that will only confuse you more until you get used to how to use them. Sometimes, the tried and true methods still work the best.

As a work at home mom, you are saving money on childcare but also building a business that you can be proud of. To that end, you need certain equipment to make it happen. For the sake of scheduling, stop looking at that PDA and go to the calendar aisle. Yes, we said calendars. Oh, and planners are good too.

Have you seen the new calendars lately? They aren’t just those pocket ones your mom carries around or the one that comes in the mail from the insurance company (not that there’s anything wrong with those). Calendars have taken on a functionality that is quite exciting.

Speaking of calendars, two that I’ve found to work well are Mom’s Plan-It Calendar by Avalanche Publishing and Mom’s Family Calendar by Sandra Boynton. These calendars are fun to look at and come with stickers and pens to record everyone’s schedule. On the latter calendar, there is a space to write in every family member’s name and their activities each month.

Family calendars help you mesh family life and business commitments. Since the kitchen is the central meeting place for a family, the calendar can hang there for everyone to record what they are doing. Or, they can give all their information to you and you can do it. Mom, you can even list your work hours each day on the family calendar so your beloved husband and kids know when you are not to be disturbed.

Now, let’s talk about planners. A planner works better for business and can also be used in conjunction with a desk calendar. In your business planner, each day is broken down by hours. The time slots that you listed on the family calendar can be broken down into specific project commitments in your planner. A planner can go everywhere with you so you are never without your schedule.

Choose a planner carefully. There are many on the market and some have features you don’t need. Franklin Covey offers a line of planners for all sorts of needs. Look for:

  • Removable pages

  • Section for notes or notepad

  • Address book

  • Place for business cards

  • Tabs for easy look-up

  • Vinyl pouch for bills, messages, etc.

Keeping your business schedule straight is not an easy task, but that doesn’t mean it has to be an expensive one. You can still stay on top of your daily work with the ever handy, even if they are considered “old fashioned” by your kids, calendars and planners made for the job.