As you may remember I was part of the Blog Action Day for our Environment and I keep on finding great little posts about eco-friendly issues relating to small business, including home business - my personal favorite.

Tony Clark writes a blog about working from home from his home-nest called “Success from the Nest” and has tips how to save energy in your home based business:

“As a home-base entrepreneur, you have the unique opportunity to have a small impact on the environment, all while having a big impact on the world.

Just another good reason to give it a go…”

I think he is right, and remember all the green/eco-friendly benefits of working online for the environment and also for yourself. ST.

It’s monday morning, isn’t it great to be back at work, you have been waiting for this moment all weekend long, or have you? Does your work-life balance “s***”?

Well here is a great article I think you should read, and don’t forget the comments to this post on the The Digerati Life blog:

“I thought I’d try retiring at 50, but I’m now actually aiming to do it in my forties…… So my spouse and I have come to this solid goal: that I’d be quitting my job within the year. I’ve been wavering on this thought on and off for the last few months but now, I’m psychologically ready to pull the plug off my corporate career. These decisions have caught me by surprise as I never thought I’d be thinking about this way so soon. Not a couple of years ago I was happy with work status quo, enjoying what I was doing and building my 401K. I was happy enough that I didn’t want things to change, satisfied as I was with how my job and boss were treating me.”

You will find a checklist attached to the article, so you can check if you are ready to let go, improve your work-life balance, and have a more full-filling life.

This is just what you need to read monday morning when you are in a dead end job - don’t you love my blog? Have a nice day. ST.

How long is a string? Let me give you some pointers here, but please remember you can always do more on the cost-cutting front in any small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer- or Personal business, like professional, contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants.

1. Keep your staffing level low. As much as it may hurt, work longer hours yourself, until extra staff is economically viable.
2. Outsource all non-core business activities. This will reduce your fix-cost structure, make your small business more flexible and you can react faster to an economic down-turn.
3. Buy second hand. Do you really need the brand new van? Or computer, or……
4. Work from home, this will not only cut your cost, but may improve your work-life balance at the same time.
5. Let your staff work from home. No office cost, hire a room if you need to on an hourly basis.
6. Use online technology, so you don’t waste time and get distracted.
7. Focus on your core business and sales. Every distraction costs time and money, sales generates money.
8. Bootstrapping. Think before you spend a penny, could I borrow, hire or do it online, get creative.
9. Analyze your fixed cost every month. You will find things you don’t need - trust me you will.
10. Compare and get new quotes. Even if you need the service or product from your supplier, check others all the time, insurance, telephone, utilities, etc.
11. Get better payment terms. Ask to pay in 60 or 90 days, or get an early payment discount.
12. Check your bank charges - you’ll be surprised. Or have it done on a results basis, doesn’t cost you time and gets you money back.
13. Do credit control - get your money in lower your bank overdraft cost and charges.

This is only a short list of what you can do, but it’s a start. Remember even $100/£50 per month is $1200/£600 a year more in your pocket. ST.

Disclaimer: As with any of my readers questions, I do not have all the answers and here on my blog I can only give you some ideas, since I know very little about your small business. If any of you can add anything here do so for the benefit of my reader, who asked the question and everybody else, leave a comment below - I’d be most grateful.

As many of you know by know I’m a sucker for bootstrapping for small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer- or Personal business, like professional, contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants, and outsourcing is a big part of my bootstrapping philosophy, so here a re a few pointers:

1. To outsource, or not to outsource …. . I would always outsource non-critical and non-core business functions, in other words, whatever it is that makes your small business different and unique you do yourself, because that is what earns your money. Anything else could and probably should be outsourced (see: outsourcing options for small business).
2. Do It Online. This will allow you to stay in close touch with your supplier, and get real time up-dates and feed-back - there are other benefits too.
3. Don’t abdicate. Outsourcing does not mean to forget these tasks, you just delegate them to someone outside of your company, you are still responsible.
4. Know who you are dealing with. Not all partners are the same, one virtual assistant is not like the next, the same is true for accountants, bookkeepers and other service providers.
5. Don’t become a favor. If your future partner says things like: ” I’m not sure if I have time, let me see.” or you new service provider makes you feel, as if they are doing you a favor, don’t deal with them, you need partners and not people you feel guilty calling.
6. Nobody answers the phone - put the phone down and do not call back. Anybody in this kind of service business should understand what service is all about, not answering the phone shows they don’t - they will leave you high and dry sooner or later.
7. Get references, if you can. Anybody who has been in business for 12 month or more should be able to give you at least one or two references. Don’t shun new service providers, check their CV, remember you may get a good deal and it is good to be one of the first customers.
8. Get a back-up. Negotiate a back-up deal if you can, so if your primary provider falls ill, you have a back-up, or divide the work between two or more service providers to begin with.
9. Pay on time. You want good service, pay on time. You want professional work, pay a decent retainer or hourly rate. If you don’t, you’ll be last on the work and service agenda, that means you business suffers. If you can’t afford the service don’t hire them.
10. Get at least three quotes and compare them. Just to make sure you don’t get taken to the proverbial cleaners, and to compare service levels. Don’t be afraid to ask for an explanation, if you don’t understand something.

Outsourcing is good for your fix-cost structure, should make you more professional, and help you to concentrate on your core-business. If it becomes a distraction, deal with it immediately, if need be change supplier. ST.

A couple of days ago, Shama wrote an article “How to Solve Ethical Dilemmas in Business?“, it got me thinking about one of my earlier articles and how important or unimportant ethics are in todays small business environment? Shama made this observation:

“….. in the end you have to analyze the cost versus the benefit of each action. I don’t mean just financial costs-any negative consequence can be viewed as a cost. “

Having spoken to some of my clients lately on way the started their business and what they expected in terms of work-life balance for themselves, it was surprising how often people mentioned the words moral, happy, family-friendly and also eco-friendly. It occurred to me then, that all these attributes are about ethics.

It is also uncanny that these words were only used in the context of small businesses that do not necessarily aim to grow, while very few people I spoke to who wanted to go for world-domination mentioned these same words. ST.

Lutz Graham on his Blog - The Ongoing Autobiography of a Young Capitalist - has an article called “Product of Your Environment“. I love reading his blog from time to time and he has many great ideas about running his business. In this post he comes to the following conclusion:

“…Granted, red letters are not the end of the world, but it is nice to see that you’ve gotten it all done and when you wake up on Monday, you have no red.”

When he talks about red letters, he is talking about his tasks in his to-do list. He asserts that he/you/all of us are “Products of our Environment”! Is that really it?

I have to disagree with him here. We are also products of our own expectations, I think this red letters business can seriously upset your work-life balance and your effectiveness at work. I have learned one thing in business:

Often our Expectations of Ourselves by far Exceed our Requirements!

Living your business, or for that matter personal life by a 100% rule, it is very counter productive. Don’t let a computer run your life. Relax, the weekend is here, have a life. Live by the 80 - 20 rule, if you need a rule.

Or just have a weekend with your family and friends. More on Monday - and I will certainly have some Australian RED over the weekend, and some of Lutz’ red on Monday I guess. ST.

I always look for way to turn a problem into an advantage, so here is my take on the so often mentioned “isolation problem” for small home businesses, free-lancers, contractor, sole-traders and micro-business.

So, you don’t meet enough people to interact with on a personal level? Let me ask you another question, what kind of people does your business need most of all? Customers, right? As a good bootstrapper you know that everything starts with sales, because that is how you get your money. You may very well do all your marketing online and get business that way, but why leave it at that? Think global - do local!

So, now to my solution for your “isolation problem”, I guess you already know what is coming:

• Go and meet people, customer people.
• Go to networking events in your local area.
• Go and join business clubs or start one.
• Run an event from your home.
• Take a business class at your local college.

All these and other events will get you out of the house, open your local paper, call your local camber of commerce, they all can help you to find events and contacts, and start your “isolation-opportunity” marketing and sales drive.

Turning “customer people” into “customer friends” could be the smartest thing you will do this year. Business is so much easier if you know someone personally. You know your “isolation-problem” has turned into an “isolation-business-advantage”, when your customers come around your house to discuss the next business deal and/or for a cup of coffee.

Always think, where is the opportunity in this problem? Once you start thinking like that you will see many new opportunities and the world will become a much more friendly and profitable place. ST.

I have discussed before that it is important for small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer- or Personal business, like professional, contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants, to do a minimum of business planning, but does it stop there?

Not really, you need to keep up to date with your bookkeeping, to complete the business planning process. You may ask why, if you have done the planning, why not get your bookkeeping done once a year for your tax return?

The answer to this question is the business planning process never ends. Remember I have been talking about going back to your plan at least once a month. In order to fine-tune your small business planning you need to actual information how your business performed in the last month. The only way to do that is to do your bookkeeping or accounting.

By doing that you will be able to compare your predicted numbers in your cash-flow with the actual number your business has generated. This in turn will help you to update or modify your cash-flow plan for the future. More important than that, you will learn new things about your business:

• You may have higher (good) or lower (bad) sales, than you expected?
• Your cost in your business may be higher (bad) or lower (better) than you expected?
• Your cash-flow may be better or worse do to the above two points?
• You may need to outsource some business processes to lower your fixed cost structure, to make your business more recession proof or just more profitable?
• You may need to ramp up your sales and marketing activities for your small business products or services?
• You may also have to adjust your SWOT analysis and your business goals?

You will be surprised how creative you can be, once you know about and understand a problem in your business plan. It may not even be a problem at that time, you may just need to adjust the way you do things, and you may have avoided a small or big problem in the future.

In my opinion strict cost control and bootstrapping are not like nice to have features, they are essential for your small business survival. Often the difference between failure and success is just a little planning and checking the “plan” - doing a reality check. There is no excuse not to do it, all the tools are available for free, for anyone.

If you feel the initial process of business planning is too much for you, than get your accountant or bookkeeper to help you to set your cash-flow fore-casting, SWOT analysis with you, doing it online will give you strategic advantages, like you can work with your accountant or bookkeeper in real time in different places, this lowers your cost, no time wasted and is good for the environment.

I would like to make one more point here, the aim of all this planning is not to get it spot on - no, the aim is to understand what is happening in your business, that is why you should be doing it.

Among other things, it will give you a measure of certainty, security and confidence, if you understand what is happening in your business. So, how confident are you about the future of your business? Why not take the weekend and have a planning session, it is like playing monopoly, only this game will secure your future. ST.

The reasons our work-life balance is often bad is because we are “too busy” - at least that is what we will have ourselves and others belief.

Do you feel like you too busy:-

• to have time for yourself?
• to have time for your family, friends, relatives?
• to enjoy life?

Then I would suggest there is something wrong with your work-life balance. Let me ask you this, do you believe running a business means being busy? What kind of “busy” do you mean?

The “busy”, as in active and fully engaged, there is nothing wrong with that, but the overcrowded or overwhelmed “busy” is very wrong. Being busy is NOT an indicator for success, it is often the opposite:

• If you are too busy, you may be missing the point.
• If you are too busy, you may not be focused on your core business.
• If you are too busy, your business may be suffering.

So work out the bits that matter, and only concentrate on those. If you have spare time, do something for yourself, enjoy your life - you will see even your small business will benefit from that. ST.

In the past twenty years the term “work-life balance” has come to symbolize the problem many face with increasing work pressures and the neglect of family, friends and their hobbies. This has created not only many health problems like cardiovascular disease, a weaker immune system, frequent headaches, backache to name but a few, but also social problems in areas like child-care, care for relatives, increase in divorces and other symptoms of a social fabric breakdown.

For women the situation is even worse, not only do they have all of the above mentioned problems, but by making the conscious decision to raise a family they also have to pay a penalty when the return to work. However well qualified, after only 3 to 5 years on parent leave, they find it very hard to get even close to the positions they held before. They are penalized for having a family and this causes additional stress and anxiety.

In the last ten years I have watched an encouraging trend, people opting out of the corporate treadmill, with much success. Many are starting small businesses or home businesses, freelancers, self-employed, contractors, professionals in all small business areas setting up shop.

The reasons for this are quite predictable:

• No safe employment environment, even in big corporations.
• Desire to look after kids, family or friends.
• Deliberate choice to live with less consumerism.
• Have a more flexible work environment, to suit ones needs better.

Subsequently, for me at least, the “work-life balance” has entered into a new phase, Work-Life Balance 2.0 if you like. No only are the above mentioned facts important, but now the participants in this work-life revolution are far more focused on their life and the choices they make, more demands are actively pursued even in the home working or small office environment, to maximize financial results while optimizing the work-life balance:

• Focus on core business competence,
• Outsourcing techniques even for the smallest of businesses,
• Independence and freedom of workplace and time constraints,
• Environment issues are beginning to be a important lifestyle choice too,
• Private priorities often dominate over work priorities.

In this new established work-life environment, family - especially children, health, environment and personal fulfillment are beginning to transform the way we all think about work. I foresee long needed changes in the social fabric of our society and the reversal of detrimental trends which have started in some cases over 150 years ago.

As more and more people work from home, it is no longer necessary to move to the big city to earn a living and pay inflated prices for the privilege. It is quite feasible to work from anywhere, even from a parents home, if need be. This will not only deal with problems for the younger generation to get onto the “property ladder“, but may in time re-establish the multi-generation household with all it’s social benefits of care for the elderly, or supervision of children by grandparents, while the parent is in the “home-office” earning a living.

These changes may also prove beneficial for local communities, as more business potential will return to rural areas. Local shops and businesses will receive new business revenue and local communities will begin to prosper again.

We no longer use our work environment as our social-interaction-generator, our organically grown social networks will embed us all into functioning local social infrastructures, which are so important for our mental well being.

When I built my first 64 kbits Frankfurt - New York IP-network in the early nineties - I was ecstatic and I knew things where about to change, I had no idea exactly how much they would change, because of what I and many others around the world were doing. The internet, broadband, web-applications and cheaper computer hardware have enabled users to work from anywhere, enabled software developers like us to develop our Small Business Infrastructure, enabling small business in every corner of the developed and even in parts of the third world to run a small business effectively. This in turn is the reason for the phenomenal and explosive growth in small business activity we have been witnessing of the past decade.

We still have challenges ahead of us, like our political leaders need to do more than try and convince us all that the current up-turn in small business activity is due to their intervention, nothing could be further from the truth, IMO. They need to remove the red-tape barriers for small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer- or Personal business, like professional, contractors, freelancers, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants, and with this allow anyone to participate in the working cycle, no matter how many hours someone is willing to work. The self-employed status has to be supported, just imagine the untapped work and intellectual resources, excluded from the work process by short sighted red-tape. Our economy has invested in the education of us all, only to exclude some parents or even disabled people from contributing to our economy.

It is my belief that we are just at the beginning of this trend and that most of the participants will enjoy a much better work-life balance, which will result in happier and more fulfilling social environments.

That is my vision for the future, what is yours? ST.