How to run a successful business from home
Working from home is no walk in the park so let’s have a look at how to work from home on the internet and in your PJ’s.
A few short years back my office lease changed so I took an offer on new premises. A week before moving the landlord involved had a mind change around having to give a 5+5 lease decided he wanted to demolish in that time so withdrew the offer.
I was out in the cold.
I was lucky that we were mostly a sales and marketing operation so had no big infrastructure to move.
Bear in mind this was a few years ago when the cloud environment was just starting to change so it required a lot of planning. Accounting, meetings, documents for sharing phones, faxes the list was indeed long.
You are so lucky now that everything is easily and cheaply available when you know where to go.
Working solo at home
If you are a solo operator working as an extension of a business life is pretty easy.
Phone systems can be in the cloud so your home desk phone is just an extension of the office. No difference to being at the next desk to being in the next suburb.
Document and diary sharing is the next issue and there are lots of opportunities. An example is coschedule or backpackit which we use.
These provide the ability to work on projects together, see where everyone is and draw from company documents when necessary.
Accounting is easy by using MYOB, Xerox or say QuickBooks online accounting. Everyone can get in And play if you have a password.
Fax to email is a product so no fax machines are required; back up is in the cloud and banking a breeze.
So that is all the easy bits. There are enough available tools to suit anyone.
Tools are just a part of working from home.
You need to be more structured and to work successfully
That means no PJ’s and a fixed time schedule to work to, although. you can vary hours.
As an early riser I do my emails and daily office functions early in the morning so I am ready to really get going when it suits me.
I save about 30 minutes travel to an office and another half hour of water cooler chatter giving me an extra hour in the morning.
In the evening I gain another half hour and often keep going into the late evening to complete tasks that are important.
My point is that my 7.5 hours workday can be spread over a 12 hour period. A gym break, coffee or other meetings do not rob me of my activity time.
Others working from home
My Administrator is also an early riser and will often complete a day’s work before lunch, Starts at about 5 am and works through the task.
The sales people can work in country time zones that vary over the year. In summer there is a three hour difference across the country in 5 time zones so pick your times of work to suit your customers.
I have a lock away time from the partner and Kids who often consider you available because you are at home. I am at home but this is my work period when I focus on a task and set a time to do it without interruptions.
Working contacts
Probably the hardest issue to overcome is working contact. This was particularly hard to adjust to and remains to this day a bit of an issue.
I am talking mostly about brainstorming or discussing ideas or asking simple questions and or in a group focus.
We use email a lot and have a weekly coffee meeting where we discuss problems, issues or even just things that need airing. I miss just yelling across the office what do you think of such and such or getting instant collaboration on a problem.
I always dress for workdays, I mean in clothes that I could walk out the door and go to a meeting if need be. Many of us home workers find that it puts you in a better work based frame of mind.
You need to remember you are not on holidays, you are working an getting paid by the hour
So you have the tools and some rules now you just need to apply them.
For those that want something to work on or some other ideas visit my main site at New Business online and choose a category.
How to Work from Home on the Internet
Peter Hanley
