While running a home-base business can be inexpensive and convenient, it can get tricky as you try to balance work and home life, sometimes all from the same room. In order to ensure that your professional and personal lives don’t collide in the process, you should have a strategy or at least some techniques that help you manage your home-based business effectively. Here are 7 tips that should help:
1. Establish work hours. If you task yourself with working whenever you have a free hour or two, it won’t be long before you’re laboring morning, noon, and night. You’ll find that you’re much more productive when you set a work schedule that you honor. Be sure to share this work schedule with both clients and family, and ask them to respect that schedule.
2. Market. While word-of-mouth marketing can be effective, you need to realize that unless you take an active role in marketing your practice, you won’t have enough clients to keep you in business. Devise a marketing strategy, and budget some time and money to this cause.
3. Take breaks. Whether you’re running your practice full or part-time, you’ll quickly discover that unless you take a break, you will quickly experience burnout. Avoid this by giving yourself regular stints of rest and relaxation. You’ll find that taking regular vacations will help you rejuvenate your efforts, enabling you to better focus on your work when you’re open for business.
4. Organize your workspace. You’ll find that you work much more efficiently when your workspace is functional and well organized. Take the time to establish a practical filing system and install the necessary shelving to help you keep all your reference material accessible.
5. Don’t mix your living and office spaces. You may find it appealing to work from your dining room table or perhaps perched in front of the television in the family room. Unfortunately, that can be a distracting work environment and can make you an easy target for family, friends, and visitors. In order to maintain a high level of professionalism, and to more easily distinguish you work life from your personal life, you should establish an office in a more secluded area where you can enjoy peace and privacy.
6. Don’t perform too many favors. Everyone from your Uncle Donny to your long-lost Cousin Addy may start coming to you for special business favors. While it can be good business to exchange favors, giving them away too easily can hurt your practice. Always measure the benefits of doing business for free; are you gaining references, or perhaps a necessary service for yourself, in return?
7. Expand your offerings. Truly successful business owners are continually honing their skills and adding new services when possible. Accounting and bookkeeping is a valuable service, but it’s easily complemented with Quickbooks and/or tax services. If you encounter downtime in your business that may be the perfect time to receive valuable training that will grow your skill-set as well as your bottom line.
Mastering QuickBooks
It’s important that you continually look for ways to improve your skill-set. UAC’s Professional Bookkeeper’s Guide to QuickBooks (PBG) will enable you to master this accounting software, saving yourself time and energy as you work with your own and/or your clients’ accounts. To become more efficient by learning all the time-saving features QuickBooks offers, enroll in the PBG Program today! Call Universal at 1-877-833-7909.
