NEW: Jane Shelton

Want a good first quarter turnover? Get your entrepreneurial juices flowing now.

Get your home entrepreneurial fires burning: Re-start your biz this year

With many people returning from holidays today, the new year is well and truly up and running. Home-based business operators maybe feeling the break just wasn’t long enough and a distinct lack of enthusiasm to get things up and running again. 

It’s time to get the home entrepreneurial fires burning, start making the right entrepreneurial choices and decide that this year is going to be even better than last year for you, your family and your home business.

Home-based business operators have to decide to get their entrepreneurial juices flowing and get back into the hunt for new business opportunities, increased sales and rebuild key customer relationships to set up a good first quarter turnover. This is a time when it can all be a bit difficult to start up again, so stop procrastinating, focus on better time management and put your energies into managing your business as if you haven’t taken a break at all.

Think about your vision and strategies to achieve it this coming year. Which opportunities are you going to go after and what choices are you going to make to get there? Are you after increased market share, building your brand and market presence or even having enough in the bank so the holiday season at the end of 2008 is a great one for you?

Decide now what your goals and objectives are for 2008 and lay down a path to get there.

Here’s a few ideas to help kick-start your entrepreneurial drive:

1. Focus on invoicing to catch up on any outstanding cash that can help fill the coffers and reduce that ballooning festive season and Boxing Day sales credit card debt that the RBA keeps referring to and makes the bank executives so happy.
2. Get on the phones and talk to the customers you know best, generate a cold call list and knock off five calls straight away
3. Write out your vision statement, even if it hasn’t changed from last year – read it through out loud to your cat, your dog or pot plant and recommit to it.
4. Have a chat with the stakeholders of your business – employees, business partners, family and friends – and build your support base for the coming year.
5. Check out your structure and systems and make sure they’re helping you generate new business leads, build up loyal customers and long term sales.
6. Think about whether you need to hire new staff this year to help you. Is your home still coping with having your family, your business and staff all residing in the same location? If not, think about how you’re going to lead the business to higher ground to get you to where you want to be by the end of this year.
7. Now is the time to convert customers’ special requests from the previous year into new product development opportunities and form entrepreneurial alliances that build next year’s business prospects.

Good luck for the new year, and get your entrepreneurial fires roaring!

Dr Jane Shelton not only runs a business from home but is doing business research into people working from home. She is managing director of Marshall Place Associates, Melbourne’s independent think tank, and CEO (honourary) for ‘Life. Be in it.’ International. Shelton has a Doctorate in Business Administration at the Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship (AGSE) at Swinburne University of Technology after a Master of Arts in Public Policy at Melbourne University and a Bachelor of Business in banking and finance at Monash University.

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