I was thinking the other day why I have enjoyed consulting with small business owners for so many years. Talk about reality shows. What is more real than talking to the person who created, owns and operates a business? They have made their dream a reality. It’s a whole different conversation and level of engagement from talking to a marketing or business development manager working for a small or mid-size company. I don’t mean to imply that the marketing or business development manager knows less about the company’s business than the owner. It’s about the level of passion for the business. Passion or entrepreneurial zeal, as we know, doesn’t always translate into being able to run a company successfully but I love to hear their story.

I enjoy the initial phase of a search engine optimization or pay per click management campaign for any new client. We call this the discovery phase where we gather quantitative and qualitative information about a business to lay the groundwork for the project. The more we know about what they do, how they do it, who they are trying to reach and what their goals are the better we can develop and implement a successful online marketing strategy for them.

One big difference I notice almost immediately when talking to an entrepreneur is the desire to talk about their business. You never have to worry about keeping the conversation going that’s for sure. Entrepreneurs love to talk about their business. It’s their passion. That’s why they are doing it. Many businesses, if not most, are built based on the personality of the owner and more often than naught these owners have an outgoing, engaging personality. That is why social media marketing can be so powerful for small business owners.

Social media marketing is not just about creating profiles on facebook, myspace, LinkedIn and other social media networks to try to create buzz and links to your web site. It’s about being actively engaged in the networks. Let people get to know you. Be real. Tell them about your business, why you do it and how you do it. Not from a sales and marketing stand point so it sounds like every other Tom, Dick and Harry selling the same thing but from your personal stand point – your personality – let it shine through. Just a warning here, if you are a real drone with a negative view point on the world this might not work. :>) Find people with the same interests as yours and participate in their discussions. It has to be a two way network for it to work best.

Are you thinking how in the heck am I supposed to find enough time to do this plus run my business? This is a valid point but if done correctly this can reap big benefits for your business. Millions and millions of people are participating in social media networks every day. Instead of actively participating in 4 or 5 determine which one best fits your desired demographic and focus predominantly on that one. Also, you might really enjoy it. Just talk about your favorite topic – your business.

Anyone who has started their own business or who has been running their business for years; will agree on one thing – managing time effectively is pivotal to success or making money sooner. It is as simple as that, it directly influences your results in business.

If you have just started, it goes without saying that you are most likely juggling several balls at once. Helping hands are few, so you are forced to do everything and be everything, the accountant, the marketer and the visionary, etc. You work like a ‘one man army’, it leaves you out of breath and often overwhelmed.

There are only a certain amount of hours a day and you need to optimize how you spend those hours, because time is certainly money. If you are able to chalk out a time management strategy, your productivity will increase tremendously and so will your results.

Developing time management skills and finding ways to really leverage your time, is often pushed down the list of our priorities due to pressing operational demands. If you don’t have time to create a strategy, here are 5 simple ways that you can improve your time management skills and your results.

1. Be specific about goals and how to achieve them

Always align your actions with your goals. This might sound obvious, but are you doing it? There are two parts to this tip… first you need to have clear goals that you are working towards; with deadlines. How much money do you want to make by a certain time for example.

Secondly, you need to be clear on what you should be doing every day that will lead to the achievement of your bigger goals. Don’t aimlessly take action based on what you ‘think you should’ be doing. Your goals and actions need to be connected; otherwise you will find that you work on tasks that give you a sense of accomplishment, but no real results. It all starts with creating your roadmap to success.

2. Organize yourself

Implement whatever type of system will work best for you, but you need to have some sort of structure to be organized. Getting organized is about having an organized mind, and a system which supports you to do things more effectively and efficiently. There are many time management tools that ironically, unless used properly, are actually counterproductive. So don’t be put off if what you have tried doesn’t work, it most likely doesn’t work because you have not been shown how to make it work.

3. Know where you need to improve

Nobody is perfect, while you are good at some things, you could be weak at some others. Of course we all have our blind spots, but the real question is, are you open to identifying them? There is no point in learning new time management skills, if you haven’t mastered the skills you have now. Identify your time thieves, what are you doing that is undermining your results? Be honest with yourself and focus on correcting one thing at a time. You know if you don’t manage your email well or if you procrastinate every day, now you need to do something about it.

4. Develop your awareness skills

Time management is not only related to planning, prioritizing, delegating, etc. In fact, most of your struggles to manage your time come from you, and how you are thinking. Developing awareness at times when you don’t feel like doing something, or when you fear something or resist something, will help you to manage your time better.

Why? Let’s say that you are procrastinating with certain tasks. You might be procrastinating because you aren’t actually motivated to do that task, or you aren’t actually clear on why you are doing it. Either way, unless you take time to become aware of the reasons you are behaving the way you are, you won’t be able to fix the root, the cause of the problem. Until you fix the root of the problem, you will continue to experience it and your business will suffer as a result.

5. Stay focused

Even if you have your sights set on your goals, you might find it difficult to stay focused. Just before you begin the task at hand, make it easier for yourself to stay focused. Remove distractions around you, prevent interruptions and commit to completing the task before starting something else. It is when we start and stop, when we change our focus or we give into other stimulus, that we really waste the most time. There are many ways in which you can boost your focus, go for it!

Starting a business isn’t easy, but well worth it. Don’t waste time doing things ineffectively, when the effort required to master your time, will support you in mastering your success. Often, it is not time that is lacking, but time management skills – Kirstin O’Donovan

To Your Success!

As a freelancer, it is easy to get stuck in the rut and believe that you have to be the one who does everything. However, being the one who performs all the work limits the time you can actually spend building a successful business.

Do you want to be successful?

Then you have to understand how to build a business rather than just having a series of projects. To build a business you need systems.

Part of building systems is learning to:

Adopt the right mindset

If you want to grow a business, the very first step is to have the right mindset. If you maintain the mindset of a freelancer which is project based rather than system based, then building a business will be a foreign concept to you. To adopt the right mindset, you need to adopt the business mindset. There are many books published that tells you how to build a successful business using systems. The most important thing you will need to learn here is that building a successful business involves systems.

Plan

You need to have a plan about where you want to go. Do you just want to make few bucks or do you really want to build a successful lifestyle?

With a freelance business, if you stop working, you stop earning. Obviously, if this is as far as you want to go with your consulting projects, then this is fine. But from over ten years of consulting, I have learned most business owners want more. They want success and financial freedom and are always concerned about ways to achieve it.

Financial freedom is not a random act but needs to be planned. Determine where you want your successful business to be in three years. And develop steps to achieve that plan.

Delegate

If you are stuck in the routine of accepting, completing and then moving on the next project, there is good news for you. Delegation is a very effective way of assigning routine tasks while you focus on the tasks that only you can do to build your freelance business. In the beginning delegation seems to cost more money. But the key is to focus on the long term goal which is your success and financial independence. When you delegate, you always have something going on as you are already looking for the next client while your employee/ contractor is working on your current project.

You can also delegate your client acquisition system by using referrals to build your client base. Of course you will need to provide exceptional service for this to be successful.

Moreover, you can delegate your customer service/ follow-up process to an online administration service. You can even delegate your blogging to guest bloggers.

When you delegate the essential parts of your business system, you can take extended vacations and still bring in income. When you can walk away from your business from a period of time you are beginning to achieve success and financial freedom,

Delegation is a necessary pre-requisite to growth. You risks becoming irrelevant if you do not delegate. We all know technology changes and if you are too busy working on projects, you have less time to work on your skills and stay relevant in your field.

Automate:

Nowadays, there are so many technologies out there than can help automate parts of your successful business.

You can use auto responders to improve your customer service. Auto responders can be your first course of response to let your client know you received their request and will get to them within 24 hours.

Another useful automation tool is project management software called basecamp. We all know that sometimes the meaning of a word is sometimes lost in the translation when communicated through email.

With basecamp every aspect of your project is kept on one page: All correspondence, to do list, revision drafts, etc. are all kept in the same place. At any time, any team member or client can see what is going on with the project. I think this is cool as it is such a big time saver. It cuts down the amount of time you spend on emails by half.

Using basecamp increases business success with your client management system.

Build passive income:

In honesty, I hate this term passive income as there is a lot of confusion as to what passive income really is. Some people see passive income as a lazy way of building successful businesses on the internet. However, there is no lazy way out. What most people call passive income is really hours of upstart sweat equity which finally produces cash flow over an extended period of time? We do not see behind the curtains of most successful entrepreneurs hence we do not see all the hard work that went on behind the scenes. Most people want the results without the sacrifice.

With that said, using passive income sources like affiliate marketing, product sales or digital products, can boost your income by providing a consistent stream of income. This in turn contributes to your success and financial independence.

In this way your income is not tied strictly to your clients. This gives you more choice as to what type of clients you will like to work with.

Understand your numbers:

This is the topic no one likes to talk about. Most freelancers believe that as long as you are making enough money, the financial details are not relevant to your successful business. Think of your car, and think how long it will actually run if no maintenance was ever done. Your car will not run very long. A business is the same way; you need to perform regular checks to make sure all parts are still functioning efficiently.

Until you learn to look under the hood of your business, you cannot really succeed. It is when you begin to understand how the numbers work in your business that you begin to see patterns that can propel you to the next level. Understanding your financial statements and knowing how to use it to project into the future is paramount to business success.

Are you a freelancer, website designer or consultant? Do you want to build a successful business? Then take the time and read this information and respond to this post with one action you will take to move from being a freelancer to actually owning a successful business.