Step Back

Take a few days, or even a few weeks, to step back from your business. Assess what you love about your business (or what you used to love and enjoy). Explore what you dislike about your business too. For example, maybe you’re a service provider and you used to enjoy your clients but your new clients are difficult and not enjoyable to work with. Or perhaps your desire to be a service provider has waned.

Knowing what you like about your business, and what you don’t like, can help you create a plan to modify it to fit your changing needs.

Embrace What You Love

Often, regaining or retaining your passion for your business means focusing on the tasks that you enjoy and finding ways to eliminate the rest. If you find that your passion is wavering, perhaps it’s because you’re doing too many tasks that you dislike.

Focus again on what you love and use that brilliant entrepreneurial mind of yours to find ways to get rid of the rest. It may mean modifying your systems so some tasks are no longer necessary. It may mean automating something or hiring outside help. Trust that when you’re able to focus on what you love, your passion will be sustained.

A Little Gratitude Goes a Long Way

It’s amazing what a little gratitude can do for the spirit. And when you’re an entrepreneur there are so many things to be grateful for. You’re the boss. You’re in control of your financial future. You get to spend your days doing something that you love. Whenever you feel your passion disappearing and procrastination setting in, think about all of the wonderful things you get to experience by owning your own business. It’s a quick and easy way to gain perspective and appreciation for your business.

Don’t Be Afraid to Make Changes

Finally, remember that sometimes maintaining passion for your business is about keeping things interesting. If you’ve found yourself in a rut, consider how you can improve or change your business to keep the fires burning. Constantly striving to provide better products or services, or to make more money, is a great way to stay motivated and enthusiastic.

You own your own business and that gives you the power to control your day to day destiny. If you find that you’re feeling unenthusiastic about your business, take action to make a change. You already know you’re capable of great things.

These are the critical skills every entrepreneur should have.

1. Leadership (Not Management)

John Bogle, founder of The Vanguard Fund, the largest mutual fund in the world, defines leadership as knowing what’s worth doing. Management is knowing how to do it.

A leader needs to be able to decide what’s important and what will actually impact the company’s bottom line. They need to be able to make moral decisions about when to go for profit and when to sacrifice profits for long-term values.

They need to be able to identify what’s really best for everyone involved, including clients, employees and shareholders, and make business decisions for the greater good.

A manager is someone who understands things like time management, project flow, tracking employee performance and such. But they aren’t necessarily the right people to steer a company.

A good entrepreneur needs to be a great leader. It also helps if they’re a good manager.

2. Persistence and Patience

In “Good to Great,” one of the most highly acclaimed business books of the century, Jim Collins studies eleven public companies whose performance consistently beat the market average for 15 years in a row.

One of the key factors he found was persistence and patience. He likened it to a giant spinning metallic flywheel.

If you had to take this giant metallic wheel and make it spin, in the very beginning it won’t budge at all. You can put in immense amounts of effort, only to find it still not moving.

Yet once it does start moving, slow at first then getting faster and faster, it’ll build up momentum until it starts to move on its own. At that point, it would actually be harder to stop the flywheel than to push it faster.

Building a business is like that. In the beginning, you’ll be swimming upstream. But as momentum builds, it’ll get easier and easier. The trick is to have the persistence and patience to stick it through.

3. Team and People Focus

“Take my 20 best people and, virtually overnight, Microsoft becomes a mediocre company.” — Bill Gates

Whether it’s Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg, one thing is consistently clear across the most successful companies: a relentless drive to hire the best people.

More than anything else, the success of your company is going to be based on the kind of people you hire.

Aim to hire people who are smarter and more competent than you. Don’t try to hire a team that you can lead, but a team that can lead your company and you to better results than you alone could create.

These are a few of the key skills every entrepreneur needs. These skills aren’t developed overnight, but they’re absolutely skills that anyone who’s committed can learn.

Without further ado, let’s get started.

The Getting Things Done (GTD) System

Note: The GTD system is a gigantic methodology in and of itself. To really understand the ins and outs of the system, get a copy of Getting Things Done by David Allen.

The GTD system involves basically making sure that there is nothing on your mind that isn’t written down somewhere.

Anytime you have a thought that entails a task or action you need to take, you write it down. At the end of the day, everything you’ve written down is put into some sort of task-tracking device.

This eliminates the “vague sense that there’s something I’m supposed to be doing” because you know exactly what’s on your plate at any given time.

You sit down once a week with all your tasks, actions and projects and sort out all your tasks into categories, divided by where you can accomplish the task. For example, you might sort your categories into At Office, At Home, At Store, Online and At Phone.

Anytime you’re at the office, you can just open your At Office list and do any one of the tasks that you’ve sorted into that task file.

This is a grossly simplified version of a very complex and powerful system. Again, to learn the ins and outs, either purchase the original book or Google Getting Things Done for a more in-depth explanation.

The Pomodoro System

The Pomodoro system seeks to eliminate time wasting that often comes with checking email, wandering online and other such activities that aren’t actually productive.

A Pomodoro is a time unit of 20 minutes. Once you start a Pomodoro, you cannot stop. A Pomodoro is pure work, with no email or bathroom breaks in between.

In short, once you start a Pomodoro, you’re working for 20 minutes straight. Start a timer and don’t stop actually doing your work for 20 minutes.

Track how many Pomodoros you accomplished during the day. That’s a better gauge of your efficiency than the amount of hours you spent in front of a computer.

The Steven Covey System

The Steven Covey system ranks tasks by two scales: Whether the task is important or not important, and whether the task is urgent or not urgent.

A task that’s urgent but not important might be answering a ringing phone from a friend. It feels like you must do it now, but it’s probably not that important.

A task that’s important but not urgent might be finding your life purpose, spending time with your kids or managing your finances. They’re important, but there seems to be no immediate pressure to perform the task.

Steven Covey asserts that we tend to spend too much time on things that are urgent but not important and not enough time on things that are important but not urgent.

To remedy this, rank your task list by how important asks are and how urgent they appear to be. Put an emphasis on getting important tasks done, even at the expense of tasks that seem urgent right now.

These are three very different systems for managing your time as an entrepreneur. Each system has avid followers that swear by it. Which system will work for you? Do a bit more research into each system and try them out for yourself. The improvements can be dramatic.

Is your website doing all that it can do for you? If not, then you may want to re-evaluate your website structure.

Ask yourself one question: Is my site relevant? If you are using SEO to create page titles, tag lines and anchor text within content, then you are on the right track. But, even an informational website can do more to pay for itself and create income for your business.

Here are some ways to boost the earnings.

* Affiliate programs – You can promote products that are complementary to yours on your website. Each time someone clicks on the links, they are directed to that site. You are credited based on the way the program is set up. Choose an affiliate program with a full toolbox of aids to help with your promotion and also incentives for top sellers.

* Create a newsletter – This encourages others to read and share your site. It is also one way to build your list of potential customers. Create an opt-in page where they can enter their name and email address in exchange for a free monthly newsletter in their inbox.

* Use clear navigation – Include a site map so visitors can see at a glance what your site has to offer. Use buttons that clearly tell customers what action you want them to perform. This way there will be no doubt in their minds. Your buttons can be a “call to action” for affiliate programs and your own products.

* Showcase your products – Create an online store or catalog where visitors can see your products and read a description before they buy. Offer deals where they can get free items for buying certain products, or referral bonuses.

* FAQs page – This is where they can find out about you and your customer service. Use it to answer commonly asked questions so that you aren’t saddled with emails all containing obvious inquiries.

* Guest blogging – Agree to blog for others, in a complementary area of your niche, in exchange for links to your site. This way you can give their readers a taste of your style and what you have to offer. You can extend the same courtesy to the other blogger to create a mutually beneficial partnership.

* Look around – Find the sites that are the most popular in your niche and on the internet at large and see how they are using their website to maximize earnings. Try a few pages from their book and see how it works for you.

Looking to earn more from your site? Then the above suggestions will help you to get you started to a profitable business online.

You don’t want to fail. You want to succeed. When you know why entrepreneurs fail, you can properly prepare for success. Here are the top reasons why entrepreneurs fail.

1. Lack of research – It’s vitally important to make sure there’s a market for your business before you launch. You have to research both demand and supply. Who is providing the same products or service? What problem are you solving for people? Who are your prospects?The research phase of launching a business is one of the most critical. Without proper research into supply and demand, you’re not going to be able to position your business successfully. Very few businesses succeed without solid initial research.If you’re unsure how to research your business idea, talk to an expert. Get help. Speak to other entrepreneurs you trust. You don’t have to share your idea with others, but rather learn how to research your idea.
2. They don’t understand their market – This also relates to research but it’s a different kind of research. Before you launch your business, it’s vital that you know exactly who you’re marketing to. Why? Because you need to position your product or service to meet their needs. If you don’t understand their needs, you may miss out on profits.
3. They don’t understand cash flow – Cash flow is essential to survival. Actually, poor cash management is perhaps the most common reason for business failure. Entrepreneurs must create a budget. They have to be realistic about how much they expect to earn. And they must have a tight rein on their expenses. In order to pay the bills, you need to have cash coming in on a regular basis. Cash flow is essential to survival.
4. An inability to market – Not everyone is a marketing genius. It’s important to realize that marketing is essential to success. If you don’t have a solid marketing plan, your business will not thrive. In business, the old “if you build it they will come” mentality just doesn’t work. If you don’t like or understand marketing, then hire someone who does.
5. No business plan – Many people believe that a business plan is only necessary if you’re seeking funding. This is not true. In order to achieve your goals, it’s important to plan how you’re going to succeed. Your business plan is your road map to success. Don’t skip this important step.

Take heart and think positively. While one in five businesses fail, the others succeed. Research, plan, and understand your market. Commit to marketing and manage your accounts with solid accounting and cash flow management. You’re destined for success!

However, for many, the idea of custom coding and designing their own unique website is a nightmare, invoking a sense of dread, whether it be due to lack of technical prowess, lack of time or just a sheer hatred for coding. Hiring local programers is an option, but the fees demanded by quality North American IT professionals (especially good web developers) is a huge draw back for many, and for some completely unfeasible.

Luckily for those folks that understand the benefit of a unique and functional website, but don’t have a Fortune 500 bank account, there is another option that allows both a customized website without having to break the bank.

Hiring coders and designers from overseas is currently easier than it has ever been, with a multitude of services available to help people in need of IT work with professionals willing to take on their projects. Sites like RentaCoder.com make it exceptionally easy to find the right people to do almost any kind of creative work that someone could need, from graphic design to back end coding to content writing. Domestic coders from the United States and Canada are also available through the site, but the real value lies in the coders coming out of India, Pakistan, Eastern Europe and other such emerging economies.

These professionals are well educated and highly proficient in their specific fields, often times just as good as their North American counterparts. However, due to the often significantly lower costs of living in the countries where these coders live and do business, the cost of projects is often significantly lower, often 50%-80% lower, than using domestic professionals. As well as lowering costs based on labor prices, these sites also operate on a bidding system, where the buyer posts information on the project and IT professionals bid on the projects. Because the lower they bid, the better their chances of winning the contract are, competition arises for your business, further driving down your costs.

As with any open market though, not all providers are created equal. While there are many, many high quality, low cost IT professionals on these sites, there are also an equal number of poor quality ones with poor abilities or no experience.  In order to help buyers avoid these poor quality options, the sites use ratings systems in which buyers rate the coders, designers and creative professionals they use based on the final results of their projects.

These ratings are very effective in weeding out the poor quality bids that will inevitably spring up in your project’s bid request. Always ensure to do a detailed check of any prospective bidders feedback, and ensure that they’ve received good ratings on projects that match the size, scope and cost of your own project. A coder with a perfect 10 rating on all $100 jobs will likely not be the best choice for a $10,000 project.

I would recommend to any business owner or entrepreneur who does web work to at the very least check out this option. Put up a lower value project and get a feel for the kind of quality you can receive from a carefully selected overseas IT professional. The experience may well make you confident enough to use freelancers on your next larger scale project, which could save you a significant amount of money!

To put up a bid request on RentACoder.com, go to the RentACoder bid request page and fill in the information on your project to start receiving bids.