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Getting Back To Basics – 5 Steps To Strengthen Your Business Foundation And Become More Profitable

July 30th, 2011

One of the most important lessons I learned in my business early on, was how important it is to have and maintain a strong foundation in your business. In order to support our growth and efforts to achieve our goals, our business needs a solid infrastructure on which we can build. If this infrastructure is not in place, you could find yourself in a position where you are growing too fast too soon and not serving your clients nearly as well as you should be. This in turn will create unnecessary stress and frustration, which equals a not so happy Virtual Assistant who is working harder and making less money than she should.

So, it’s important to take stock of your business periodically and see how your foundation is holding up and what improvements you need to make. And if you’re just starting out, you’ll do yourself a HUGE favor by setting up a strong business foundation from day one. This is the perfect time of year to consider these points, as we are heading into fall and the final quarter of 2009. If you set aside time now to analyze your business operations and start making adjustments, you’ll be primed and ready to jump into 2010, while most everyone else is still trying to wrap their heads around their New Year’s resolutions!

Following are my top five tips for assessing your business and strengthening your foundation:

1) Review and revise your business plan – Many times business owners create a business plan when they are first starting out, get excited about it, but then file it away and never look at it again. Sometimes new entrepreneurs don’t even take the time to develop a simple business plan. This is a BIG mistake! Going through the steps to create a business plan is a terrific way to get all of your ideas out on paper and to create a roadmap to follow to grow your business. Its easy to think one can keep all of their ideas, goals and strategies locked safely in their memory. But there are two things wrong with that. 1) You absolutely can’t remember all of the details and 2) you’ll have a more difficult time working towards them because you haven’t committed your thoughts to paper. So schedule time on your calendar NOW to review and revise your business plan. (Or if you’re just starting out, to create one – which we will help you with in our “Get A Strong Start” class). Think about all that you’ve accomplished thus far in 2009 and map out your goals for 2010 and then how you’ll achieve them.

2) Take stock of your financial situation - For some this can be the least “exciting” part of running a business. That is having to deal with all of the “number stuff”. But, most of us start our companies to make a profit and support our families – not to unintentionally be running a non-profit organization where we work for free. You won’t know which category you fall into if you aren’t clear on the financial state of your business. If you are not already doing so, ask your accountant or bookkeeper to start running monthly reports of your expenses and income so you can see how profitable you REALLY are. You may be surprised to find out which of your services is actually most profitable and then start focusing more attention on those. Also, you’ll see clearly how your expenses are affecting your bottom line and what adjustments need to be made.

3) Review your business standards to see if they are still working for you - One of the things my coach helped me to do when I was first starting out was to create a set of standards for my business. This included the hours I would work, my fee structure, how I would handle different clients situations, illness/vacation, etc. – basically ALL of the details of how I would run my business. I highly recommend that you take the time to outline your standards as well. It’s your business, so the way you work and operate your business should be reflective of and work for you. After doing this you’ll be clear about your boundaries and can then easily (and tactfully) share them with your clients to ensure that you are supported and protected to do your best work. » Read more: Getting Back To Basics – 5 Steps To Strengthen Your Business Foundation And Become More Profitable

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Posted in Entrepreneurialism

Tags: Business business foundation time unnecessary stress

The 3 Golden Keys You Need For Your Highly-Conscious Business Foundation

July 30th, 2011

Having been in business for several years as a conscious entrepreneur, I’ve learned what creates a solid foundation (and what doesn’t). I have also observed many conscious entrepreneurs over the years, and have noticed that there are key ingredients that are missing, which ultimately lead to the decline of their business.

This is often challenging to witness since they have a wonderful, heart-centred product or service, but there are key energies that are missing which create misalignment, and that misalignment creates disharmony and so their business unfolds (literally). This is one of the main reasons why I offer business coaching for conscious entrepreneurs; I just can’t bare to witness another shining light feeling defeated and packing it in simply because no one shared with them the magic ingredients.

So, in the spirit of being of high-service to you, here are the 3 Golden Keys that you need to succeed in creating you profitable, sustainable highly-conscious business:

1. Commitment – This means commitment to your contract, your purpose, your dreams, your message AND your business-related tasks (let’s call them creative endeavours). When we send out non-committal energy into the universe, we attract that in return. Alternately, each time we stand in commitment on behalf of our business, the universe matches that accordingly.

Here’s what I’ve learned about why so many folks avoid commitment: It is because there is a subconscious program about what commitment means, and that definition is NOT serving. Commitment also implies intimacy, so when seek to be more committed in a certain area, it unconsciously triggers the intimacy button.

The great news is that your business can actually serve as a wonderful healing tool for “commitment issues” if you allow yourself to move through the energy rather than avoiding it.

2. Consistency – Huh? What does consistency have to do with business? Everything! If you are not consistently showing up for yourself, your clients, your colleagues and so on, you will most certainly create inconsistent results in your business. If, on the other hand, you are consistent in your message, your policies, your marketing (and beyond), you will absolutely create consistent clientele, income and so much more. This is a part of working within a universe that has spiritual laws of energy.

3. Investment – If you do not invest in your vision, your business, your growth and beyond, then you’ve energetically sent a message to the universe that you are NOT worth investing in. This means attracting ideal clients, opportunities, colleague connections and more will be much more challenging because you are not acting out what you wish to create. Make sense?

This means investing on all levels, including time, energy, money and beyond. What is even a small action that you can create right now to demonstrate to the universe that you are prepared to invest and be invested in?

Please remember that as long as you view your business as something that costs you, it will continue to do so. But, if you view your business as an invest, then it will provide you with many dividends (monetary and beyond). » Read more: The 3 Golden Keys You Need For Your Highly-Conscious Business Foundation