Following is a chat recap of the #smbiz small business Twitter chat on the topic of working from home. If you work at home or if you’re thinking of working from home, make sure you read this to get some great advice.
@smbiz Q1 If ur going to work from home, what are things to take [...]
Posts Tagged ‘work-from-home’
Dozens Of Work At Home Tips For Entrepreneurs
December 8th, 2009 |
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Could You Raise Your Rates?
November 25th, 2009 |
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Let’s get real: when you work on an hourly basis, there are two ways to increase income: raise your rates or increase the number of working hours. I’m assuming you don’t really want to spend more time working, so let’s talk about something that a lot of people don’t like talking about: raising your rates. Raising your rates is a way to increase your business income that is often difficult for people to face, and there are many reasons why.
First of all, let’s get over the biggest issue business owners face when raising their rates. I’m just going to lay it out there bluntly. The number one reason solo professionals don’t raise their rates is self-worth issues. In all my years of working with clients, I have yet to run across a single entrepreneur who hasn’t balked at raising his or her rates, saying some version of either “I don’t need that much!” or “My clients would never pay that much!”
But when we get down to it, eventually they have all realized that these aren’t the real reasons they aren’t raising their rates. More often than not, keeping your rates “low” or “reasonable” is a function of one thing: fear. And believe me, I get it. I really do. There was a time several years ago when I was scared to raise my rates. I was scared that I would lose clients and that I wouldn’t be able to get new ones. But my fears were unwarranted, and while at the time I firmly believed it wasn’t about self-worth, when I started to get really real and dig deep about what was holding me back, I realized that indeed that’s exactly what was at the heart of it.
So how can you get past that? Well, first of all, you need to do some soul-searching. Dig deep and find out why you think you’re not worth earning more. Hint: If you start saying, “I just love what I do and I’d do it for free if I could afford to,” dig deeper. There’s a lot more going on there than you may initially think.
Second, stop charging by the hour. Instead, create packages with a lot of value built in. Make sure you are really offering something great, something that will produce a high return on your clients’ investment in working with you.
Third, start talking more about that value that your bringing to the table, instead of what people will get from working with you. When I talk with prospective clients, I do cover the features (like how many sessions are in each package, for example), but I focus more on the benefit of working with me. I talk about the value I’m bringing to their business, and show them how working with me will help their businesses grow.
Once you figure out what’s at the heart of how you’ve set your rates and made these slight shifts, you’ll be amazed at how fast your income will grow.
Susan Baroncini-Moe started her entrepreneurial adventures with a lemonade stand. Now, Susan is the CEO of Business in Blue Jeans, dedicated to helping you design a business you’ll love or transform your business into optimized profitability. Learn more at BusinessInBlueJeans.com.Other links: Blue Jeans Web Sites and Susan’s No Suits Allowed! E-zine.
How To Find Success Working From Home
November 17th, 2009 |
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Are you thinking of working from home or are you already working from home as your own small business? If you fall into this category then you’ll want to log in to the #smbiz Twitter chat with Michele Mattias and John Reddish as our special guests. They’ll be offering tips and answering questions for people [...]
What You Need To Know To Make Sense of Business Bartering
August 4th, 2009 |
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Bartering, trading one good for another, is becoming increasingly popular as the value of the dollar continues to plummet. There are several bartering systems available online (some better than others) and activity on these web sites has increased as the economy has gotten more and more troubled. However, when you move into cashless economies, it’s easy to get sucked in. Here are a few things you need to know to make it work for you.
1. Use an established bartering system.
Bartering on your own is often fraught with difficulties. Establishing “what’s fair” is rarely easy, especially if you’re the guy who charges $100/hour and you’re negotiating with someone who charges substantially less. One hour isn’t always equal to one hour, and that’s not always an easy concept to explain.
Instead, use established systems that operate with their own version of “dollars” and have structures in place to ensure that everyone follows through on their end of the bargain. The way these systems work is that you join the system and let people know what you have to offer. People use dollars they already have in the system pay you for your products or services. Then you use your system dollars to pay for products and services that you need.
2. Use bartering systems as a marketing tool.
Bartering systems can act as a solid marketing tool for your business, when used the right way. People already in bartering systems have dollars that have to be spent in the system. So you’re entering a marketplace of willing investors.
Plus, people tend to look at these dollars slightly differently from “real dollars” and are more willing to spend them. Bring the right product or service into the system, and you could introduce your product or service to a large group of willing buyers very quickly.
3. Avoid getting too heavily invested.
One thing you want to avoid is getting too heavily invested in any bartering community. If there’s something in the system that you really need and would have invested in anyway, this can be a good way to obtain it. However, you can’t guarantee the quality of the professionals in the system. Just because they’re in the system doesn’t mean they’re the best ones for the job.
And let’s face it…your mortgage company and the utility companies probably don’t accept bartering dollars. You need real dollars for the real world, and bartering dollars just don’t transfer.
4. Spend your bartering dollars right away.
There’s another truth about bartering dollars, and that’s that all of these bartering systems are businesses that are owned by someone. In this uncertain economy, companies go out of business in the blink of an eye. So make sure you don’t leave your bartering dollars in these systems for long. Spend your dollars quickly, just in case, so you don’t have thousands invested in this system that could drop off the face of existence without any warning.
5. Transition bartering relationships to cash relationships.
When clients ask me about entering into bartering systems, I advise them to keep their offerings to introductory services only. Figure out which services frequently act as a “point of entry” to your business and offer those as barters, then convert your bartering clients into cash-paying clients as quickly as possible to avoid getting too heavily invested in the long-term.
And, make sure you don’t get behind the eight-ball on any transaction — don’t offer to barter for something you yourself have to pay real dollars for.
6. Prepare for taxes.
Finally, don’t forget that the IRS views bartering dollars as exactly the same as real dollars. Earn a dollar in a bartering system, and you’ll still have to pay taxes on that money in real dollars later. Plan accordingly!
Bartering can be a great way to market your business and gain new clients and trade for services you need for your business. However, there are pitfalls. Plan ahead, avoid being too heavily invested, and transition barter clients into cash-paying ones, and you can benefit greatly from these systems.
Susan Baroncini-Moe started her entrepreneurial adventures with a lemonade stand. Now, Susan is the CEO of Business in Blue Jeans, dedicated to helping you design a business you’ll love or transform your business into optimized profitability. Learn more at BusinessInBlueJeans.com.
Other links: Blue Jeans Web Sites and Susan’s No Suits Allowed! E-zine.