Starting a Small Home Business

How to Stay Focused While Developing Your Small Business

May 7th, 2009

This article is dedicated to the grinders, as I like to call them, especially since I am one of you. We are the folks that work until the wee hours of the morning in trying to get our million dollar empires up and running, never forgetting the end goal, no matter what it takes to get there.

When you are getting a new business or product off the ground, and you are a grinder, ie. without a huge team of people backing you up, it is easy to get distracted and put things off.

The biggest tool that has helped me is to create a basic calendar for my business that goes through each baby step, one at a time.

You must have specifics:

Due dates

Exact goal per date

Whether it was completed on time or not

The calendar ends up being your gospel.

The first goal on the calendar is to create the calendar.

I have a couple of tasks each week that I will put up, give them dates, and then try to beat the due date by doing more. The trickis that you can never complete the next item without doing the one that is due first.

Make sure your due dates are realistic and EASY to obtain. That way, when you beat them, you will feel great about yourself.

I create a calendar for a whole year, including sales goals and other things, and usually get really detailed for just a couple months head, because life still happens. Don’t feel bad if you miss a deadline, just keep trucking.

Edit the calendar often and save it forever. It will give you a great tool the next year when you are trying to estimate the steps for your next project.

I would not create a tighter window than a weekly due date. This should not be in place of a daily planner, it is only for business development and should not be mixed in with your shopping list etc.

It is up to you whether you share your calendar with others or not. Some people have very supportive people in their lives and some have a lot of naysayers that can slow down your progress because you will start to believe them.

Remember that there is no way that you can fail at a goal if you never give up.

Joshua Black is an on-line infopreneur, marketing consultant, author and educator dedicated to helping the small business owner succeed. Visit his flagship resource site for entrepreneurs at http://www.UnderdogMillionaire.com for the free Underdog Millionaire Wealth Pack

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