02 Jan 11 When to Work When Guests Are At Your Home
One of the biggest challenges of a work from home professional is to find time to work, particularly when guests are there or there is a holiday. Meeting deadlines in such cases become a real challenge, but what is needed to be done should be done. There is no way out of it, unless you want to lose the client and his business forever.
In the times when your guests are at your home, you may need to exert yourself more, as you will work doubly — once to spend time with people you love and once to delight your customers with your impeccable work. We all face this kind of problem, and fortunately there is a way out of it. When I say a way out of it, I do not mean an easy way. Let me fist tell you about the ways out of it then you can decide to take it or leave it (this phrase sounds so filmy, isn’t it? Like the Godfather giving an unpleasant deal).
Work in the night
Once you have had all the laughs of the world, it is time to burn mid-night oil. This is kind of difficult, but you can manage it provided you do not end-up dining at mid-night. Stay awake for one or two hours in the night to finish the work.
Work Early morning
Waking up one hour early than usual could be tried. You can use this time to finish the works in due time. Early morning could be good, as your guests will not be waking so early, and nor will your kids and spouse.
Apart from these obvious times, you can also utilize the unplanned free time to complete the assignment. This way you will able to meet deadlines without sacrificing much on the fun your family and your guests are having. As I see, guests are not evil. They give you opportunity to break away from the monotonous life. Why not use it to the fullest? And to maintain pace of the work, do as suggested above.
Tags: Break, Challenges, Deal Work, Due Time, Face, Fist, Free Time, Fun, Godfather, Home Professional, Laughs, Love, Opportunity, Pace, Phrase
23 Jan 10 How to Come Up With a Killer Business Idea
There was a time when capital used to be the king, and one who had the maximum money would have won the business battle hands down. But, the scene has changed. Now everyone has money, well not everyone, but many people have enough capital to start a business and make it survive for months or even years.
Then why they are not plunging in?
Because we are not living in the era where capital matters. What matters today to make a business successful is idea. A business requires a killer idea to become successful. In the paragraphs below, I will tell you how to find a killer business idea.
Find killer business idea in 3 easy steps
- Step 1: Based on the ability you have, look for the industry that you can work. Alternatively, you can also look for a sector in which you will be more comfortable working. Find an industry in which you would love to work.
- Step 2: Divide the industry in various sector and list major players in each sector. Also analyze, perceive, and observe the need gap. Ask consumers and retailers about what benefit they are seeking from their existing consumption which are not yet fulfilled. I am asking you to find a need gap.
- Step 3: Find the alternative routes to fill the need gap. See how you can fulfill industry’s demand efficiently. You need to find a way to keep the price of the solution you are offering within industry’s expected price range.
Once you are through with this, make a business plan and execute it. The business plan should cover every aspect of a business. You need to ascertain the challenges as well as opportunity. Do a SWOT as well as PESTLE analysis. Do not forget to make a list of things you need to run the business.
Tags: Benefit, Business Idea, Business Plan, Challenges, Consumers, Consumption, Find Business, Gap, Killer Idea, Love, Maximum Money, Opportunity, Paragraphs, Pestle Analysis, Start A Business, Start Business, Step 1, Step 2, Swot
29 Dec 09 3 Marketing Tools for Small Business
A small business differs from a big business largely on the scale of operation. A small business does everything that a big business does but only on the smaller scale with a more personal touch to the activity. Still, there are tools of big business that a small business can also use. In this article, I will talk about 3 such tools. How you use these tools will determine how much you succeed in your marketing effort.
SWOT
SWOT stands for Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and threat. Strength and weakness is internal to the product, whereas, opportunity and threats are external to the product. We use this matrix to find out strengths and weaknesses of our product, see what opportunity (matching our ability) the market is presenting, and gauge the threats presented by the market.
PLC
PLC stands for Product Life Cycle. A PLC study of your product gives you an idea about what stage your product is in, and what marketing channel and strategy to use. We divide PLC in following parts: introduction, Growth, Maturity, and Decline.
Introduction is the phase when the product is introduced to the market, and the organization is striving to create awareness about the product. Profit in this phase is either negative or low.
Growth is the phase in which the product gets acceptance, which results in increase in sales. Profits are high in this phase, and to cash in on the momentum the product has got, organization tends to invest some advertising dollars.
Maturity is the phase when sales start slowing down because most of the buyers have your product. Sales and profit has already passed its peak. Sales and profit may not be increasing but they are steady.
Some marketers divide this phase into early maturity and late maturity to figure out how close the product is to decline phase.
Decline is the phase when sales and profit both starts falling. It could be because the need of the market has changed and some better product is fulfilling that need, or because some other product is meeting the same need at lower cost.
From this phase either the product dies out in oblivion, or get reinvented, reintroduced and pushed on the growth track.
PESTEL
Some call it PEST while other calls it PESTEL. I have taken PESTEL because it is more complete a matrix then PEST. PESTEL is a macro-environment scanning matrix that helps a business find out how the various external factors going to affect it. PESTEL Stands for:
P: Political factors (Policy changes and how it is going to affect you)
E: Economic factors (economic growth, exchange rates, inflation, interest rates, and taxation changes are going to affect your business)
S: Social factors (How does social changes like, education, demographic, occupational, etc., going to affect you)
T: Technological factors (How advent of new technology will affect your business)
E: Environmental factors (How change in climate or rising temperature can affect your business)
L: Legal Factors (how change in legal environment going to affect your low. How much will your business suffer if the carbon emission level is set lower, and government pension plan is made mandatory for every organization, regardless of size?)
PEST matrix analyzes all the factors we discussed above except for the last two.
Tags: Big Business, Decline, Marketers, Marketing Business, Marketing Channel, Marketing Strategy, Marketing Tools, Matrix, Maturity, Momentum, Opportunity, Peak Sales, Personal Touch, Product Life Cycle, Profits, Small Business, Strength And Weakness, Strengths And Weaknesses
