Being self-employed requires a lot more than most people realize. If you’re thinking of becoming an entrepreneur, you’ll want to know everything about your field, your products, and your customers…but you WILL NEED to know how to run a business. It’s important for business owners to realize all the hidden areas that consume a surprising amount of time and energy behind the scenes of running a business.

Whether you produce a piece of art a week, a book every 3 years, or 500 products, you are running a business and you should treat it as such. Five-year business plans and annual agendas (also known as action plans) are essential elements of any business.

If you’re serious about your career, review the business plan every 5 years: find out what worked, find out why you didn’t achieve what you hoped for, and write a new 5-year business plan. Hold monthly meetings and try to stick to your “to do list” before the next meeting. It is also advisable to allow spontaneous brainstorming sessions on a regular basis.

Consulting and marketing, record keeping, blog management, accounting and tax preparation, as well as time for education and research all need to be scheduled. We spend a surprising amount of time cleaning the client’s studio, offices, entrance areas and bathroom. Other time-consuming tasks include preparing the studio for workshops and sending appointment reminders, invitations to events or promoting an interview that has just been published.

Depending on the type of business activities you have planned, you can run a blog, update a website, run an advertising campaign or use social media. It will be necessary to create logos, images and promotional materials. It’s also good if you have a media page, where you share links to places you’ve been featured in the media. You may need to produce new articles, press releases, and create new web content to keep your site from looking stale and to ensure consistent media exposure.

Whether you staff, outsource, or have a partner, you’ll need to learn how to manage people skills in the workplace. Here are the most important tips for effective teamwork:

• Be patient with each other.

• Understand, empathize and work within the capacities of the other person.

• Work with what individuals enjoy (or hate) to do.

• Understand when circumstances prevent agendas from being carried out.

• Be a ‘cheerleader’ or ‘problem solver’ for each other.

Letting go of things that run through your mind over and over again, long after the workday is over, can be challenging. The best thing is to write it down, whatever it is, and when it comes to mind again tell yourself: “Okay, it’s written, you won’t forget it and you can take it when you have time.” “. Make sure you get to those lists.

Changing your mindset can also help. Learn to view all the pressures you face in a positive light. Instead of stressing out about all those items on your to-do list, celebrate the fact that all of these great options are there to keep track of, one item at a time.

In order to be successful and happy, business owners learn to enjoy feeling pressure. Personally, I like having a to-do list and feeling productive. I like to look back on the day and see that my efforts had some sort of measurable effect. A satisfying sense of accomplishment is important to me. I tend to keep a positive attitude, albeit with chronic pain and some lack of sleep from time to time… I can also get a bit irritable. However, in general, work does not affect me. Complications yes. When things go wrong and the equipment fails or we lose data… that’s when I can get cranky. However, with every complication comes a learning curve and we develop new prevention skills and contingency plans.

I also learned that just because there are options and opportunities that some companies have been successful with doesn’t mean we have to take advantage of them all. Some of those options are not the right choice for our business at this time. Location, contacts, skills, talents, budget, and time all play a part in what works for the individual business.

As you can see, open communication and a professional attitude will take your business to the next level. Learning to be flexible and organized, creating solid plans, and being prepared for contingencies will help you stay strong when business-disrupting issues arise.

By admin

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *