A Real Business Plan

Most people who have a home business do not have a business plan. Even the people who have a business plan often don't have an active business plan. These people may have created a business plan when they started their business but likely haven't looked at it for a long time.

An active business plan is a plan of attack that you can work from on a daily basis. To do this you need to have an overarching business plan. You should develop the overarching business plan and then review it AT LEAST once each year, perhaps two or three times a year.

From your overarching business plan you should be able to plan your week and from your weekly plan you should be able to plan daily.

This also clarifies your planning time. You should spend about one day twice per year focusing on updating your active business plan. This should be in a private location where you can think, reflect and not be interrupted. Then you can spend about one hour each week planning the upcoming week, and lastly spend about 10 minutes each day planning the following day. Keep focused on the activities you have planned in your overarching business plan.

This should keep you on track!

Danny

7 Steps To Small Business Marketing Success

Here is a great podcast from John Jantsch, author of Duct Tape Marketing. It provides great ideas that are applicable to pretty much every type of small or home business.



You can read his full post here:

http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/2008/05/21/7-steps-to-small-business-marketing-success/

Danny

What if the Pope Was Coming?

What would you do if you received a phone call that the Pope (or the Queen or Tiger Woods.... etc.) was coming to your business TODAY? What would you do? What you do differently? What would you do the same? How would you get ready?

Take a few minutes to think through those questions and then read the great post by Seth Godin here:

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/04/the-pope-is-com.html

Danny

Working Around The World

A very interesting and valuable read is "The Four Hour Work Week" by Tim Ferriss.
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/

While I hold a higher value to "work" than Tim does, I really appreciate many of his ideas.

One of the best concepts is that in today's world you can often work from anywhere. That means you can work from home instead of the office. It also means that you can travel the world and work while you do it.

For the month of May, my wife's work has taken us to Istanbul, Turkey. Thankfully, my job and businesses are such that I can accomplish a lot on the road. In fact I will likely accomplish more in May than I would have if we had stayed at home. On top of that, I can use spare time to visit the wonderful sights of this historic city.

I still need to get better at working while traveling. I didn't bring our VOIP phone, and having it would have been helpful. I have missed out on the ability to pick up the phone a few times. Thankfully between email, Facebook and instant messaging I'm getting the communications I need out.

Where would you like to work from? Is it from home, or around the world? Does your job allow you to do that? If not, what could you do to supplement or replace your income?

Danny

Get Started Now

I haven't posted too much lately. That needs to change. As with anything the biggest difficulty is getting started. The only time to start is now! So I'm starting now.

What are you starting now?

Here is an article to help you get started.

http://successfromthenest.com/content/the-only-time-you-can-start-is-now/

Danny

Money Can Buy You Happiness

A recent study from researchers at UBC and Harvard found that money can buy you happiness, but only if you do one certain thing with it.

Do you know what that is?

Read this article to find out:

http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2008/03/20/happiness-money.html

Danny