As a Stay-at-home mom working a business the reality is I only have two hours to work at my online business.
Yes my online business.
I have maybe another hour to work in my consultancy business.
Which is why I’ve had to make serious decisions about pulling back.
My schedule may resemble yours.
And yes for those out there who don’t know ….. we stay at home moms do have a schedule; a extremely tight schedule.
But if you’re trying to build any business and you’re at a full time job, or you have other responsibilities that really limit your available time for your business you have to follow a few guidelines.
Now I say guidelines
There are three main activities you need to be spending your time on.
Marketing your business
Developing yourself in the core competencies of your business
Making money (performing work)
So these three areas also come with three percentages of time to be spent on each. (I get into that a little lower down the page)
But first let’s take a look at your business again.
How You Actually Run Your Business
We’re going to start with what you actually do right now.
Let’s assume you’re a consultant.
Most people who start their business start by offering their personal services.
Great place to start but you eventually have to figure out how to create leverage.
You didn’t start your business to be an employee of your business. (I’m assuming)
You started your business so that one day you’ll have time and money freedom. Correct?
Well that’s great. If you didn’t start your business so that you’ll have enough money to do what you want when you want then I’d love to know why you started your business?
So back to how you actually run your business.
You got a consulting job, through a friend of a friend of a friend. (networking right?)
It’s your first job and you’re excited so you get to work on it.
You’re putting your best foot forward, but you forgot to layout the terms and conditions of your work.
Honestly you didn’t think the job would take that long so you gave them a flat rate price.
Now it turns out that you’re working more hour on it than you even have and you’re not getting paid minimum wage for the work you’re doing.
When you realize that you start to slow down on the work.
You start looking for another client and you decided when you find that client you’re going to charge them a hourly rate.
That makes sense.
So you take time away from completing the first job to market your business to get a better client.
You start to work on building your website, your online sources, like Facebook, Twitter etc..
You go out and buy business cards, and fliers, and brochures.
You even register for a few local business conferences so that you can network with various people who can help you get new business.
After spending all this time you don’t realize that your first client is trying to get a hold of you to see how you’re progressing with his project.
When you finally get back to him you have to inform him that work is moving a little “slow” but you’ll be finished in another month or so.
He’s not happy with that and decides to pull the project from you and give it to someone more “competent”.
Now the reality is it’s not that you won’t competent. You were not focused!
And you didn’t plan out your business strategy properly.
So
How You Should Run Your Business
As we said earlier, there are three main areas that you should be spending your time on in your business.
Here’s the simple breakdown of how much TIME should be spent on each.
Marketing your business – 20%
Developing yourself in the core competencies of your business – 5%
Making money (performing work) -75%
So what am I saying.
If you only have two (2) hours in a day to work on your business you need to divide that time wisely.
You should not be spending 90 minutes on marketing your business, 30 minutes on actual work and then ZERO time for personal development.
Now a lot of people get this all wrong.
Why Personal Development is Important
Firstly most business people don’t even take into consideration Personal Development as an important part of the business day.
But let’s do the math shall we.
5% of 2 hours is 6 minutes.
If you decided to read a book for 6 minutes a day you’d probably finish the book in two to three months depending on how fast you read.
Now you’re saying that’s a pretty long time to be reading a book.
Well I’m assuming you’re a busy person. You don’t have time to sit and read for an hour and finish the book in a week.
But the reality is if you’re not developing yourself you’re not going to have anything new to provide to your market place.
Your brain has to be constantly fed new ideas for you to be able to provide value to your customers.
Your personal growth is MOST important to your business growth.
Stop reading for a year and tell me how your business has grown at the end of that year.
So even though the time may be small if you commit to spending that very small time slot in doing some form of personal development; reading a book, watching a part of a webinar, watching a training video….. whatever you can do, make sure you’re developing yourself on a daily basis.
Marketing Your Business.
So here’s where a lot of people turn the wheels.
Marketing has become a very elaborate enterprise with all the online options.
And in order to perform all this marketing you need to draw a very thin line between
Passive and Active Marketing.
Passive Marketing
After I post this blog for example it’s going to be out there and available for me to do whatever I want with it. And more importantly for anyone to view!
It may or may not make me any money but the point is it has the potential to.
Your blog posts on your website may be doing the very same thing for you.
One of my best examples of passive marketing is social media.
Social media can appear to be active because you’re doing it everyday (or so people think).
The reality is that is a serious form of passive marketing.
Now if you’re in a chat with someone (potential client) and you are discussing potential business I’ll throw that in the Active Marketing category.
So what’s Active Marketing
Exactly that. Marketing where you are actively speaking to, communicating with or having a meeting with potential clients.
In Network Marketing they call it prospecting.
If you’re a consultant you’ve probably called it the Free Consultation.
It’s not “doing business” but it’s “getting business”
And what makes it active is that it’s not going to be laying around in the universe for someone else to happen to drop by on it and learn about your business.
So Passive and Active are both important.
But if you only have 24 minutes a day you need to pick which one you’re going to be working on.
I give potential clients 15 minutes Free Consultation.
Because I’m a process engineer junky I’ve worked out a pretty neat schedule for my passive marketing so that it doesn’t eat into my time.
So we’re onto the big stuff!
Making Money (Performing Work)
This is where you WILL make money.
So if you’re an author where do you make money?
Through the sale of books right?
So you first have to have a book to sell.
So spending 90 minutes writing a chapter for that book is what well call the “real work”.
If you’re an architect your real work is in completing the drawing.
If you’re a consultant your real work is finding the solution to your client’s problem.
If you’re a marketer your real work is creating courses and coaching programs.
You have to spend the MOST time you have developing the “assets” that will bring you income.
Then you market those assets to get new customers.
It’s a pretty simple process.
But so many people get it all tied up.
Have you ever flip flopped the process? How much time do you spending marketing your business instead of working ON your business? Comment below.
If you know anyone who may find this information useful you should share it and tag them, they’d be happy you did.
Have a good one!
I’m Hilary De Freitas The Marketing Mom
My Mission: to bring as many moms back home and still earning a living!