We are just back from speaking at an internet marketing event at the weekend to a room of people who want to build an online business.
The overridding message from every single one of the speakers (us included) was that they should “treat their business like a business” and not like a hobby.
Coincidentally, the first email we got this morning was from our friends Jason Fisher and Eric Goldstein (who run very successful MLM businesses in the US) and they too are making just this point.
“Treat your business like a business and it will pay you like one… treat your business like a hobby and it will pay you like one”
We really want to endorse this because we see time and again people buying programmes at seminars because they believe this to be “their solution“. What they need to realise that they are in fact buying a system which if treated as a business with earn them money!
So what are the key things that you need to do to treat your business like a business?
Working Hours / Productivity
Work out the number of hours per week you can work on your business. If you are already employed and looking to start this business part time then this is even more important as it will ensure you become productive in the time you have available.
What we do is plan out on a spreadsheet for a week – day by day – hour by hour what we will be doing. This would include for example time for marketing activities, time for relationship building on social media, time for learning (stuff related to your business), time for writing blog posts etc etc. Can you see how this would help?
The key here is whatever time you have available whether it is just 10 hours a week or 40 hours a week make sure you schedule it.
Tracking Your Activities
This is important because it is all very well “doing stuff” on your business but if you cannot show results then clearly you are doing the wrong sort of stuff.
Let’s take as an example article marketing or video marketing. If this is your “chosen” marketing strategy to work on then make sure that you are not just doing what is required but you can track back the results from that “work”. Taking the time to set up the tracking really will pay dividends in the longer term and stop you feeling disappointed when you are not getting leads or subscribers to your business because you can tweek what you are doing to improve your results.
Here’s an article we wrote on the subject of concentration and productivity to help you get into “the zone”
Here’s a great video from Eben Pagan we wanted to share
To your business success