There is a great line from Mary Poppins that goes like this.
"A British bank is run with precision. A British home requires nothing less! Tradition, discipline, and rules must be the tools! Without them: disorder, catastrophe! Anarchy! In short, you have a ghastly mess!"
Tell me the truth. Does that last line sometimes describe your home business?
Take it from somebody who knows. Running a home business can get to be overwhelming at times, especially if you have multiple things going on at once. Sometimes it's very easy to lose track of things or allow them to get out of hand.
So what do you do when that happens?
Well, I'm going to start off by sharing an example from my own home business. Yes, even after nine years at this thing, I sometimes find that things have gotten out of control and I need to, as I call it, consolidate the chaos. Otherwise, if I don't, the mess becomes unmanageable and the business starts to crumble.
Anyway, here's my personal example.
One of the things that I do, as part of my business, is build a list. Well, it actually started out as building a list. It was one for a particular product as a means of offering support. So it was a buyers list. But then I created another product and created a list for that one so as to differentiate it from the other one.
But it didn't stop there.
I came up with ideas for lists on how to build a business, how to spot online schemes, one on revealing the truth about certain business practices, and so on.
One day I woke up and realized that I had more lists than Carter has liver pills. And they were becoming impossible to manage.
So just recently I decided that it was time for me to consolidate, or even eliminate, some of these lists. It just didn't make sense to have them all anymore, especially since there was so much crossover between many of them. Sure, some were unique and would have to stay. But a good number of them could be done away with.
What I did was this. I emailed all my lists that I was planning on deleting and told the people on them that a new list would be created that would still take care of their needs. I informed them that after a link was sent for the new list, in order for them to join, the old one would be done away with.
This does two things. The obvious thing is that it consolidates the lists. But the not so obvious thing is this. It lets me know who is REALLY serious about being on my list. Those who don't sign up for the new list probably weren't that serious. Many probably didn't even read my newsletters anyway. This is a great way to do some much needed house cleaning.
After I have completed this project, I will be down to just a few lists. They will become more manageable and won't give me nearly the headache that they do now trying to keep all my mailings proper. What I mean by proper is making sure the right list gets the right email and that IF an email needs to go to multiple lists, because they DO overlap, I don't have to drive myself crazy picking each list manually in my Aweber broadcast.
Little complexities like these add up. Remember, I've just discussed ONE aspect of my business - my list. I haven't even touched on things like organizing my desktop.
So let's do that now. I'm sure this is a problem for a TON of people.
When you run a home business, you end up having a lot of things on your PC that you need on a regular basis in order to run your business. The longer that business is in existence, the more of these things get accumulated.
Right now, my "downloads" folder looks like something out of Tim Burton's "Nightmare Before Christmas." I have stuff in it that, quite honestly, I don't even know what it's for. So, what I have to do is go through the folder, see what stuff I actually need and make sure it's clearly marked so I know what it is, and then get rid of the rest.
This is a project in itself.
One thing I've always been good with, because I am a very prolific product creator, is making a separate folder for every product that I have. Each one is clearly marked with the name of the product so I know what it is at a glance. Inside each folder is every little thing I need to support that product.
Sales page and squeeze page templates are another area where I am very well organized.
I have a folder that says "Salespages" and inside you will find sub folders for each template that I have. Inside each sub folder is the html for the page as well as any Photoshop PSD files and other graphic files. After I create a specific sales or squeeze page from a template, I save the page in its own folder ready for upload to my server. Those files go inside the product folder for that specific product.
Can you imagine if I just had all my files all over the place on my C drive? Do you think I'd have a snow ball's chance in hell of finding anything? My money is on the PC winning that war and me throwing it out a window and starting all over.
I could probably go on and on giving you plenty more examples but I think by now you've gotten the point. If you're going to run an efficient home business, you have to know where everything is. The reason why is simple. If you DON'T know where everything is, you end up wasting time looking for it. That could have been time spent actually doing something productive with your business.
Yes, it takes time to do consolidation like this. But the time you spend doing it will save you more time in the long run. And that's time that you can efficiently put to use to make your business more profitable.
To YOUR Success,
Steven Wagenheim
Is your home business a ghastly mess? Get my 4 Steps To Business Success and you'll be on your way to a successful business in no time flat.
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