Hey crazy genius. How's your day?

 

Did you spend your entire weekend cramming in work for your baby business? (Not a baby business per se, but a new business. I know how things can get misconstrued over these internet waves.)

 

Instead of enjoying a night out with your favorite peeps, you toiled away at your laptop. 

 

As if that's not enough, then the next day you got up and went to that job.

 

And, it pissed you off every time someone actually asked you to work.

 

You don't mean any harm. You have bills to pay and hell, this is how you are getting that done.

 

But, you are READY. Ready to take that leap of faith.

 

Leaps of faith are admirable, but...you've still got bills.

 

So you build while you work.

These tips are for you.

 

one.

You cannot conquer it all in a day. Baby steps are key.

 

two.

Don't rush through developing your baby biz. Pay attention to the details. The fine details will lead clients to you.

 

three.

Treat your baby biz as a job with set hours. 10 hours per week is a good starting point. Establishing hours will help keep you more focused, and force you to pay attention to how you spend your time.

 

four.

Embrace where you are in life. Remember that your job, is on some level, making it possible for you to build your baby biz.

 

five.

Assign certain types of tasks to specific days. For example, Mondays work on new client outreach. Tuesdays work on administrative tasks such as organizing your contacts. Wednesdays work on service or product development. Thursdays work on promotional strategies and marketing initiatives. Fridays work on blog and/or website updates. By the end of the week, you will have made progress in each of the key areas of your business.

 

six.

Entrepreneurs need multiple streams of revenue. While you are working that job, take time to flesh out your primary service into multiple revenue streams.

 

seven.

Now that you've given yourself set hours each week, take a day off. You need it!

 

eight.

Make a list of where you waste time. Does one fan page update turn into 45 minutes of browsing Facebook? Then use a service like Hootsuite that doesn't require you to log in.

 

nine.

Instead of focusing on the something new that you can add to your business, spend a few minutes each day improving what you already have. Potential clients will notice...I promise!

 

ten.

At the beginning of each week (I do this on Sundays) review what you achieved for your baby biz during the previous week. Make your to-do list for the upcoming week. Don't forget to plan your to-do's according to what we discussed in #5.

 

eleven.

Do you have specific goals for your baby biz? Goals are concrete such as "Improve reader retention on my blog." If you are not intimately familiar with your goals, then your are probably wasting a ton of time.

 

twelve.

Each and every to-do should align with a goal. If it doesn't then why are you doing it??

 

thirteen.

Sleep.

 

fourteen.

Focus on where you've come from instead of where you are at now. Don't discredit all of the hard work you've done so far just because you are not where you would like to be.

 

fifteen.

If you have clients, think of ways to improve their experience. Clients should not have to suffer because you are working a job and your baby biz. For instance, if you cannot check emails everyday, manage their expectation. Set up a friendly auto-responder that says that they will receive a response within 48 hours. This automates a process for you, lets the client know that you care and gives you a bit of time to breathe instead of leaping at every email alert.

 

Do you have tips to add to the list? Do share!