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Getting into bed with the celebs

Apr 27, ’12 6:55 PM
Author Leonora Soculitherz Categories Business Bootstrapping, Business Funding, Business Mentoring, Business Startup, Employment, Entrepreneur, Finance, Home Business, Micro Business, News, Self-employed, Small Business / SOHO, Start-Up

Not about frocks

Keep up won’t you; I’m not asking you to actually sleep with the celebs. I don’t allow anyone to sleep with me. Simon Cowell’s unofficial biography mentioned Dannii Minogue but not me. Yet, coincidentally, I also have a chic shorter ‘do and a couple of designer frocks with an of-the-moment statement shoulder.

No, what I want you to do is consider why government folk, like your Brit Prime Minister, David Cameron, choose celebrities and big company chiefs to advise them on promoting and supporting business start-ups. Put it another way: why don’t your government ask people who have started and are currently running micro businesses to advise them on enterprise policies?

For example, they could use Stefan Topfer instead. Stefan is the Editor of The Small Business Blog and is a highly successful entrepreneur. Then there’s my hopeless agent and highly unsuccessful entrepreneur, who still knows a thing or two about starting and running micro businesses, Tony Robinson OBE.

Not about self-employment

The answer to my question is ‘charisma’. This is something the glampreneurs and fat cats have but the aforementioned German and Yorkshireman do not. Perhaps they’re messy eaters too, especially with posh nosh. You see your government like to portray starting your own business as something anyone can do. In fact they want everyone to do it whilst the big corporates, that are running the country, lay off thousands of employees. It makes the unemployment figures look acceptable.

Furthermore, the Banks and Big Companies want the 6% of start-ups that become substantial businesses as their customers and the glampreneurs want to sell all the start-ups their books and events.

It is about aspiration

Celebrity spokespeople will stay ‘on message’ for government. On message is that entrepreneurs are sexy and wealthy but the self-employed are the great unwashed. On message is that successful start-ups need to invest in financial services (loans, insurance and pensions), utilities, technology, and management and business skills – plus have a volunteer mentor, who may not have started and run their own business, on their shoulder.

Government and corporate leaders legitimise these messages about enterprise, such as, ‘Business in You’, as important for ‘trough filling’. The trough is filled with lots of dosh from start ups buying lots from big companies, taxation and lack of pay out to the welfare state and corporate social responsibility. The public sector and big company leaders keep filling the trough even as they lay off thousands of their employees.

Off message

Business owners, like Stefan Topfer and Tony Robinson OBE, recommend an alternative approach which is that people starting a business are best to bootstrap, test trade, not borrow, and should spend most of their personal time winning customers and managing cash flow.

Furthermore, they suggest that the best help they’ll get will be from other self-employed and micro business owners and that they may need to avoid supplying big corporates as they’ll pay them after, an average, 80 days. In fact, this German/Tyke combo hardly recommend start-ups do any of the stuff most government spokespeople, glampreneurs and corporate leaders do.

So now you know why government get into bed with the celebs.

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Gurus with Forked Tongues

Mar 7, ’12 2:56 PM
Author Leonora Soculitherz Categories Balderdash, Business Books, Business Startup, Entrepreneur, Entrepreneur, Freelancer, Freelancer, Home Business, Lifestyle, Small Business / SOHO, Small Business Support, Work/Life Balance, be successful, grow your business, manage your time, not to do it!, start-up in business

Today, I want to offer some advice to all my start up and micro-business owner fans on what advice not to take from silver tongued experts and gurus.

I’m on the train. I’ve been at my publishers in London checking on new cover designs for the third edition of ‘Stripping for Freedom’ and before that I attended an entrepreneurship conference. Unfortunately, I’m with my co-author, the hopeless Tony Robinson OBE. This accounts for the unusual over garments I’ve put on for the train journey. These include a sou’wester, a plastic mac, gloves and plenty of loo paper covering my shoes.

Regular readers will be pleased to know that I’m all French today. Namely, I’m dressed by Jean-Paul Gaultier and accessorised by Louis Vuitton. I’m shod, red soled, by Christian Louboutin plus I’ve a few random dabs of Chanel – pour la bonne chance.

The first reason I’m now covered up is Robinson will at some time try to open the Dairy Stix for his coffee and later, he will open his badly shaken bottle of Diet Coke. The second reason is that when he gets bored of watching YouTube videos of himself he will want to play his favourite ‘Buzzy Bee’ game with me. This involves him telling me to say to him ‘Buzzy bee, buzzy bee, have you any honey?’ He’ll then take a few mouthfuls of Diet Coke, holding the liquid in his mouth. I’ll say ‘Buzzy bee, buzzy bee, have you any honey?’ He’ll then spray Diet Coke all over me.

Now, back to my advice on what advice not to take from the many so-called small business experts and entrepreneurship gurus you may encounter at events:

1. Ignore anything that you cannot immediately see how you could make it work for your business. There is lots of advice, purported to be useful for ‘SMEs’, 99% of all businesses, which is clearly nonsense and straight from corporate gibberland. The advice doesn’t work for the 70% of all businesses that have no employees at all and 96% of all businesses with less than 10 employees where the owner just wants to earn a decent living and does all the important work themselves.

2. Ignore anything that sounds expensive. Serious entrepreneurs with serious businesses seem to make serious investments in all sorts of things that could leave you seriously overstretched. Most start-ups and micro biz owners risk their own money in their business but have no intention of building a major corporate entity, taking on major bank loans with guarantees and/or sharing their business with outside investors.

3. Ignore anything where the speaker is not telling you ‘how’ to do something but rather is advising you to pay someone just like them to give you some good advice. It seems to me that some of the entrepreneurs speaking at events actually make their money from advising businesses or from their celebrity and investing in others’ businesses. There seems little evidence that they know how to start and run their own micro-business.

Google the speaker’s name before you attend the conference. If they aren’t credible at knowing what it’s like to be doing what you do then skive off to Harvey Nicks – it’ll be a much better use of your time.

Finally, remember the Golden Soculitherz Rule, which I understand has been adopted by those crazy #Enterprise Rockers @EnterpriseRocks: ‘If you’re starting and running a micro-biz only take advice from someone who has started and run a micro-biz or is employed by someone who has started and run a micro-biz’

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Benefits of Storage for Small Business

Jan 13, ’12 3:08 PM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Disaster Plan, Guest Blog, Home Business

Not long ago it was significantly more costly to set up a small business. Advances in resources for working from home, such as high speed broadband among others have played a huge part in the changes. Factors such as lower priced technology and the increasingly cheap and more flexible options offered by storage companies also plays its part in the rise of small entrepreneurs.

Business no longer needs a physical shop space and so can advertise to the world from its home and so in the last decade we have seen a huge change in the way many businesses begin and are handled.

Home Business

Running a business from home used to come with the negative, of either having to section off an area of the home for stock, or having to purchase or rent a retail space. The advent of self-storage allows a flexible answer to this. Users can use their own stock control methods to ensure they have the goods needed on hand, while they can store others for periods in stores.

Flexibility

Storage options are significantly less costly than retail space, and many have the additional benefit of allowing entrepreneurs to use more or less space as their stock levels require it, mirroring this in costs, which are usually charged per square foot. Second to this, a storage solution for delicate goods is also provided for, with humidity controls in place for goods susceptible to damp environments.

Obviously, security plays an important factor when storing goods. Many entrepreneurs don’t feel comfortable with thousands of pounds of stock sitting around the house. Storage companies providing 24 hour CCTV, with individually alarmed rooms and sturdy perimeter fencing, provide safety homes never could.

Receiving Stock

For entrepreneurs who receive large stock, or deliveries via articulated truck, storage solution companies provide space and parking answers, which conventional streets, or roads just can’t. They also present options for unloading, such as pallets, trolleys and in some cases designated forklift drivers that require investment. Such lifting equipment obviously takes the cost, time and pain out of unloading stock.

Clearly, access is imperative and many of these storage points provide this seven days a week, with some even making provision for packaging needs via an onsite shop. This allows entrepreneurs to prepare items when onsite and save time, while being as productive as possible when on task.

Financial Aspect

Financial, storage solutions are also a positive, with costs low and storage flexible. People with storage needs often find the room required fluctuates, fortunately with such storage solutions it is possible to increase or decrease storage room depending on levels of stock. This means taking up less footage of an area when it’s required and so means paying less. Contract lengths are also quite short, with contract termination periods as low as seven days and storage allowed on the day signed up.

Storage solutions flexibility, economic costs, access and safety make them undoubtedly an ideal solution for the ways of much commerce in the 21st century.

GUEST BLOG: This helpful business advice was provided by Drew Davies on behalf of Big Yellow Self Storage

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2012:The Year Enterprise Rocks

Dec 30, ’11 6:21 PM
Author Tony Robinson OBE Categories Announcements, Employment, Freelancer, Getting Things Done, Home Business, Micro Business, MumEntrepreneur, Self-employed, Small Business / SOHO, Small Business Support, Sole-Trader, Start-Up

Making it Better and Fairer

It will be a rocking good start to 2012. The UK Enterprise Rockers movement is inviting journalists to kick off 2012 by covering the launch of our #MicroBizMatters campaign. The Enterprise Rockers, all micro business owners, have chosen Scarborough to host the media launch event at noon on January 9th.

Scarborough is a former winner of both the most enterprising place in Britain and the most enterprising town in Europe. Oh and the two founders of the Enterprise Rockers, the wonderful Tina Boden and me, live there.

The aim of the Enterprise Rockers movement is to make life better and fairer for all Micro Business Owners. The #MicroBizMatters campaign will improve awareness of the importance of the UK’s 4.5 million micro businesses, including start-ups, to jobs, the economy and communities.

Although the UK is the first to launch the Rockers there is already interest being shown in many countries to take up our movement, including the US.

Positive Messages Will Tackle Discrimination

The campaign also seeks to make people more aware of the discrimination by Government, Banks and Big Businesses against micro business owners and what the benefits to Britain would be if they gave them a fairer chance to survive and thrive. The campaign also positively recognises large organisations that the Rockers agree are micro enterprise friendly such as Apple, the Co-op, British Library and ACAS.

Founder Tina Boden, who owns a fine food company, explained, ‘We’re not a political, lobbying or a fee paying membership organisation. Micro business owners freely get involved in the Rockers to do as much or as little as they like. We agree everything by majority decision.

We believe that by thousands of us supporting each other, trading with each other and carrying the same messages in villages, towns and online all over the UK that we can harness the power of plenty to make life better and fairer for micro business owners.

Our #MicroBizMatters campaign will make people aware why it is important that Britain is more micro enterprise friendly. This in turn will improve the future prospects for micro-business owners including start-ups.’

Why this way works?

For me, it is really important that everything we do is really positive. As micro enterprise owners we are and have to be positive people and we’re used to just getting on with ‘doing the biz’ so we’re certainly not moaners and we’re not looking for hand outs.

We’ve made very little progress in the last twenty years consulting with Government Ministers and their officials to try and get a better deal on skills and support for start-ups and enterprise owners. So the Enterprise Rockers movement is a welcome change of direction.

As one in seven of the adult workforce in the UK are running their own micro businesses there can’t be many of the population that don’t know, and more importantly, would like to help a micro business owner to earn an honest living.

Politicians are only interested in what the public think around election time but by the next UK election we’re pretty sure that we’ll have enough public opinion on our side so that they, for the first time, will need to state what they are going to do for micro business owners (0-9 employees).

Fact: Micro-Business Matters

Influencing public opinion and in turn government is a small part of what we’ll achieve. After all, we’ll never be as important to Ministers as Big Business and the Banks but we can hopefully stop 95% of government funding and support going to bigger business so that the 95% of all UK businesses that are micros get a fairer deal and an even break.

We’re growing. We already provide most of the new jobs, innovation and best help to communities and we contribute a third of all private sector jobs and a fifth of UK turnover. The thousands of Enterprise Rockers actively involved on Twitter, Facebook, Linked In and ready to champion our #MicroBizMatters campaign will make life better and fairer for us all.

The #MicroBizMatters campaign already has 750 signatures on its ‘Tell Us What You’re Doing for Micro Enterprises Not for’ SMEs’ government e-petition. This already puts it at Number 14 out of over 600 e-petitions to the government’s Department of Business, Innovation and Skills.

Whilst the Rockers are not campaigning, through #MicroBizMatters for government funding they are requesting that government reduces its funding and support to Bigger Business. For example for every £50 million of government support 4.5 million micro businesses get 6000 big businesses get £1 billion.

Time to join our band?

The launch of #MicroBizMatters takes place in the Penthouse, the Sands, North Bay, Scarborough at 12 noon on Monday, 9th January. If you know a journalist then ask them to either register here http://enterpriserockersofficiallaunch.eventbrite.co.uk/?ref=enivtefor&utm_source=eb_email&utm_media=email&utm_compaign=invitefor&utm_term=readmore&invite=MTU1Nzk2OS90b255QGVudHJlcHJlbmV1cnN1ay5jb20vMA== or they can arrange to interview the founders of the Enterprise Rockers by e-mailing tony@entrepreneursuk.com with their requirements.

There’s also no better time for you to get involved with the Enterprise Rockers. It’s free and you can join our Enterprise Rockers discussion groups and MicroBizMatters discussion groups on Facebook and Linked In or follow us on Twitter @EnterpriseRocks or check out our website http://enterpriserockers.co.uk and sign our Government e-petition at http://t.co/QK36cLlU

Thanks lots – enjoy 2012 the year of the Enterprise Rockers.

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The Best Biz Mentors Can Be A Tad Crazy

Nov 23, ’11 2:30 PM
Author Tony Robinson OBE Categories Business Ideas, Business Mentoring, Business Startup, Business Trends, Entrepreneur, Getting Things Done, Home Business, Micro Business, MumEntrepreneur, News, Personal Business, SOHO/SMB/SME/Micro, Self-employed, Sole-Trader, Start-Up, be successful, grow your business, start-up in business

My Dad

I reckon my first business mentor was my Dad. He started his own business, working from home, because, like many people I know, it was the best way of earning a living. His health was very poor so he had to pack in his job. In the five years between me being 13 and 18, when he died, he built a very big business. It was always a micro business, like 95% of the businesses today in the UK.

It became big in income but never had more than six employees. It was a sales agency in the wooden box and pallets industry. Many years later, when I started my own business, I realised that nearly everything useful that I’d learned about enterprise had come from my Dad as my business mentor.

He was an unlikely ace business mentor. My Dad left school at 14, picked everything up as he’d gone along, and was a complete eccentric, a showman and a storyteller who instinctively turned anything formal into a party. At football, Hull City, he had a seat just behind the Directors’ box so that he could hurl abuse and one-liners at them from start to finish. I wouldn’t sit with him.

Corporate Crackers

The point is that what I’d learned in Senior Management, even Managing Director, at two major American multinationals didn’t help me much in my own business. This was despite having received the very best business training and completed two Post Graduate Diplomas in HR Management and Business Administration. All this was next to useless in my own micro business as against the valuable help I gained from my mentors.

My business partner of twenty five years, Clare, felt the same thing. She hadn’t realised it at the time but her corporate jobs and training hadn’t prepared her for running her own business but what she’d learned from her Dad, who had his own property business, was invaluable.

No surprise then that we decided to have a mentor, another micro business owner, for our first couple of years in business. We gave him our corporate contacts and in return he asked us wise questions which stopped us doing many of the foolish things we were about to do. No money exchanged hands although a heck of a lot of money went behind the bar during our, frequently scheduled, mentoring sessions.

Sitting or Standing Up Mentors?

One of the many theories I have, which perversely academic research and government policy has yet to pick up on, is that if you’ve got a primarily ‘standing up’ business you’re best to have a mentor that has a ‘standing up’ business too. ‘Standing up’ businesses would include most building trades, cafes, shops, blues bands, chocolate makers, ice cream makers and micro-breweries.

Similarly if you’re in a ‘sitting down in an office’ type business then choose ‘a sitting down in an office’ type mentor. I’m definitely not saying only get a mentor from a similar trade or industry, only government and BigBiz think in sectors, but do get someone who really understands what you have to do each day.

Oh and beware of men in suits if you’ve got a ‘standing up’ business’ or you’re a woman. I’m sure there are exceptions to these rules of mine for choosing a mentor but there won’t be many.

Sir Jimmy Fixed It for Us Every Day

Wrestler, DJ, marathon runner, TV presenter, volunteer hospital porter and the greatest charity fund raiser of all time, Sir Jimmy Savile, died recently. He was buried in Scarborough, where I live. Thousands turned out to acknowledge his real achievements for the people of Britain both at his service in Leeds and his burial in Scarborough. He was truly a man of the people, an inspiration to many of us, and the very same person on the telly as he was in the cafes and streets of Scarborough.

He made us feel better about life and he genuinely helped many thousands of people through adversity. He was eccentric to the last. He was buried in one of his trademark track suits, in a gold coloured coffin placed at an angle in the grave, so that he ‘could see the sea’. He was also a highly successful micro business owner, millionaire and a cracking volunteer biz and personal mentor.

Two of his proudest possessions were on his mantelpiece in his Scarborough flat. They were individual letters from Princess Di and Prince Charles thanking him for his help to them, as an informal mentor.

Lots of my business owner friends seem a bit crazy. The craziness is often just appearance and behaviour that shows we’re our own boss with our own values, passion and beliefs. Some can wrongly view this, like Sir Jimmy Savile was viewed, as not professional or not to be taken seriously. We are passionate about what we do and it’s bloody hard work doing it but we can be very useful business mentors too.

Get Mentoring

My businesses have benefited a great deal from the handful of business mentors I’ve had down the years. Most of the mentoring I’ve had is over the phone or nowadays by Skype. I usually contact my mentor when I’ve got a problem or see an opportunity that I want to talk through before taking a decision. I’ve also had a great time and learned a lot as a mentor to others. I have had some training on being a better mentor and I’m going to do some more shortly.

There are lots of places around at the moment where you can find a mentor or get some training to become a better mentor yourself. One such place is the Institute of Enterprise and Entrepreneurs, which I help run, and you can find out more here about Get Mentoring – free mentor training and free mentors.

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There are 3 of us in this relationship: Mum, Business Woman, and Me

Nov 8, ’11 1:44 PM
Author Lorraine Allman Categories Entrepreneur, Freelancer, Home Business, Lifestyle, MumEntrepreneur, MumEntrepreneur, Self-employed, Work/Life Balance, Work/Life Balance

There’s no doubt that being a Mum and running your own business has its challenges. I’ve been talking to a number of women recently who are doing just that (myself included) and one of the issues we struggle with most is finding a balance between family and business without losing the fact that we ourselves are occasionally in need of some breathing space!

For many mums, the freedom of being able to work around the child/ren (as opposed to the children around the work) is a key factor in deciding to start a business in the first place. It’s no good, however, if the guilt you feel when working and not focusing on your child/ren is transferred to your business so you end up feeling guilty about not working on the business when you’re spending time with the family.

This balance of family and business is further challenged by the immediacy of technology resulting in emails, texts, and calls constantly vying for our attention. The key here is to have the willpower to switch OFF that Smartphone (yes, I said off, not just put on silent!) and resist the temptation when you’re sat in Pizza Express to quickly check on something using their free Wi-Fi  (been there, done it, scanned the QR code!). Here are some more ideas to help Mums (and Dads) find a better balance and less guilt:

Set boundaries – boundaries are an important part of clearly communicating when you’re working and when you’re not. If you run your business from home, then a physical boundary such as a dedicated space (rather than the kitchen table) will really help. If you simply don’t have the space for that then check out the ‘Communicate’ idea below for making a chart. Don’t forget to set your ‘emotional’ boundaries either – by this I mean be clear in your head when you are ‘business person’ and when you are ‘mum’. Give yourself at least 15-20 minutes before you do the school run/they finish their nap/they return from grandparents (add/delete as appropriate) to clear your head of business things and get back in to ‘parent mode’.

Stay focused and work smarter – It’s easy to get distracted by social media, texts, emails, and calls. Put together a list each week (or each day if you prefer) of business and family related tasks you want to achieve. Allocate time for each and keep a note of how much time you are actually spending on them (you’ll be surprises). Prioritise and re-prioritise as often as you have to. There’s no need to be on social media all the time (or receive distracting ‘push notifications’ on your phone) that’s what systems like Hootsuite are designed for so you can schedule your tweets in across the day. Use the technology to get things done rather than distract you.

Communicate – this may seem obvious but it’s surprising how often we forget to let other members of the family and friends know what our working plans are. If you have an important call to make and you’re worried your child is going to shout out “mummy, I need a poo” in the background then let other members of your family know when this is scheduled and ask for their support in keeping little people occupied. If you don’t have a dedicated work space then a chart on the fridge indicating the times when Mum has the kitchen table for business will let everyone know when you’re working. Include information on this chart such as meetings and important calls too.  If you’re a very tech-savvy family you could set up your own system on Outlook or Google to share plans!

Make some time for yourself – I know this is often easier said than done, but it doesn’t have to mean going away with your friends for a weekend! Making time for yourself, even if it’s going for a quick run, having a manicure, reading the next chapter of your current book or going for a swim, can give you some much needed time out. It’s not unusual to hear that whilst exercising thoughts and solutions to problems become clearer so there are business as well as health benefits to taking some time out if that helps you feel less guilty!

Involve the family – getting the family involved in your work is a great way for them to learn about running a business. From a young age, children can enjoy for example sticking labels on envelopes and going to the post office. As they get older you can get them more involved in tasks such as answering the telephone or monitoring spreadsheets. The more they understand the more likely they are to support you.

Being a parent means there are always going to be unplanned events such as little people becoming poorly very quickly or having an accident at school.  Most people will understand your need to change business arrangements at short notice if there is no-one available to cover. Of course there will always be those that don’t understand, but perhaps it is time to reconsider those particular business relationships?

All the ideas here are equally applicable to Dads who are looking after children and running a business too, although you may want to substitute the manicure for a trip to the steam room or sauna!

If you’re a Mum or Dad running a business or freelancing, I can highly recommend the web site and magazine Work Your Way. It does what it says on the tin and is full of expert advice and support.

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Lifestyle Business and Success

Oct 6, ’10 7:30 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Home Business, Lifestyle, SOHO/SMB/SME/Micro

Lifestyle business

We often speak about how to grow you business, how to be more successful, how to expand your business, increase sales and drive your business forward. This obsession with growth, however, is not every business owner’s primary aim, and nor should it be.

The measurement of business success is often cloudy; people quote a massive turnover but make marginal profit, have a large number of employees but make little after their wages are accounted for. If money is the means of measuring success all that matters is the bottom line- how much profit is made.

But, what if growth is not the dominating factor for running your small business? What if the measurement of the success of your business is not based on cold hard cash, but instead on the happiness of yourself and your family?

Lifestyle businesses are just that; businesses that are created to improve or maintain the lifestyle of the business owner. Personally, I believe lifestyle businesses are an admirable choice for a person to make. It is possible to be in employment, with all the security that brings, and have a comfortable lifestyle. What the person who establishes a lifestyle business does is take responsibility for their own, and their family’s, happiness.

Many people love their jobs, but many more don’t. We spend years, precious years of our family’s lives, commuting, working in a cubicle, spending time away from our families, our homes and our communities. Lifestyle entrepreneurs are people who decide they want to have a business that works for them, where they can raise their children, see their family, and build their own future.

Success for the lifestyle entrepreneur is not measured on having an impressive turnover, a stylish office, or a large number of employees. Success is, instead, measured by the ability to spend time with their family, live a comfortable life, and manage their time as they choose.

It is these lifestyle businesses that, I believe, should become the backbone of our economy. Entrepreneurs who make the decision to go in to business for themselves and their family, to improve their lives. These businesses need help, support and guidance to be successful, in their own terms, not the terms dictated to them by ‘experts’ or other people.

I currently have some exciting projects in the pipeline that are set to help these lifestyle businesses to keep going, at their own rate, keeping their eye on their own measure of success. I look forward to sharing them with you as soon as I am able to!

How do you measure the success of your business? Top line, bottom line? Or is it something more fundamental than that? Let me know.

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Working From Home Basics

Jun 2, ’10 7:30 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Home Business, Small Business / SOHO

Home business productivity

I am very quick to promote working from home; whether you are self-employed, a freelancer or telecommute, I believe that working from home can be the lifeline that many small businesses need.

Having said that, working from home can prove difficult for many people, with a number of pitfalls coming in to play. In this blog post I’m going to look at a few of the main problems caused by working from home, and offer you some solutions to these common problems.

Problem 1: My productivity is reduced working from home.

This is usually a problem to do with focus, and for this there are a few easy to implement solutions. Primarily, have a designated workspace; somewhere you go specifically to work. Make it comfortable but work-orientated. This is your workspace, when you’re on a break, or on lunch, leave this area. That will help you maintain focus while you should be working.

Don’t try and climb a mountain in one go. One reason for decreased productivity is trying to achieve everything all at once. Break down your tasks in to manageable chunks, focus on one at a time and tick them off as you go.

Problem 2: Working from home has an impact on my whole life.

This problem is usually caused when there is no real distinction between work life and home life. For some people this element of flexibility works well, for others however it can cause unhappiness and tension within families.

The main way to solve this problem is by having designated work hours, as you would if you were commuting to an office. If you set yourself regular hours and stick to a schedule your work will rarely have an impact on your family.

Make sure that when you have finished for the day you don’t end up returning to work. It can be all to easy to just quickly check an email, or write a quick blog post – but if this is impacting negatively on your home life these are habits you need to break.

Problem 3: My household is too distracting.

This is a problem that is very easy to empathise with! The children are noisy, the dog won’t stop barking, or your partner continually interrupts, all of these things can accumulate to making it nigh on impossible to work.

Make sure you set clear boundaries for the other people in your household; shut your office door and let them know your timetable of working hours. Where possible fit your work schedule around you family, perhaps meaning you take a 20-minute break when the children come home from school and are eager to speak to you. You working from home has to work for your whole family.

If you are distracted by your telephone or personal email account, turn them off! Even if it’s just for a couple of hours you really will be amazed at how much you can get done.

I believe that working from home really can work for nearly all small business; if you have a problem that stops you working from home leave a comment and I’ll see if I can help!

For the latest information about SME Technology, follow me on Twitter or become a fan of WinWeb on Facebook. I look forward to connecting with you!

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How Working From Home Can Work For You

Apr 14, ’10 7:30 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Home Business, SME-Blog

Working From Home

As regular readers of my blog will know I strongly believe that working from home is one of the best ways to do business. Not only have I worked from home for over ten years, but the majority of my staff at WinWeb.com also work from home. Working from home will change your life, and here are just a few reasons why…

Your business will save money – If you can manage to run your business without the need for an office you could save thousands of pounds a year. Imagine having that weight lifted from your shoulders!

Increased staff efficiency – Working from home means that there is no long commute for your staff. Not only does this reduce their stress levels, but it also increases the amount of available time for them to dedicate to work. This can increase efficiency hugely saving your staff time, and you money!

Financial security – Having the reduced overheads that come with your staff working from home means that during times of economic slowdown your business is well-protected. While your competitors have to pay out for expensive office space that they don’t need as clients dry up, your business can continue to thrive.

Beat the fuel hike – With fuel duty set to increase steadily over the coming year what better way to save you and your employees money than by cutting out the commute? This will not only save money but it also reduce the carbon footprint of your small business.

Tap in to an undiscovered work source – There are groups of people for whom working in an office is not a practical. I consider these groups to be an untapped work source that could be an asset to your small business. An ideal example of people in this category are parents, childcare is hugely expensive and allowing people the flexibility to work from home means you can gain the staff others are missing out on!

There may be genuine reasons why your small business cannot have its staff working from home, but I believe that for every problem that prevents people in working this way there is a solution; which is why I began my business WinWeb.com. Working from home can save small businesses money, and if that can help reduce that awful small business mortality rate I spoke about last week then I’m all for it.

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Top 10 Home Business & Small Office Reads of 2009/09/16

Sep 16, ’09 7:00 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Home Business, Personal Business, SME News Round-up

small business blog top 10 tweetsThere are so many great home & small business blogs out there to give you inspiration and new ideas. Here are my top 10 reads for today – as usual you will find these and more good reads also on my twitter feed. I would encourage you to go and have a look at these blogs as they will give you a different perspective on some of the same issues I have covered on my blog.

These are just some of my daily tweets. Follow me on twitter for all of my updates.  – ST.

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