The Buck Stops With Your #1 Employee - You
by: Michael Kay
Think about it. Major corporations spend millions on selecting their top leaders. They spend money on selection, they test and train them, they expose them to different types of job, then they pay them handsomely.
Top quality leadership is rare and expensive.
Now think about your own web business. You are your own top leadership. So what? Well HBB Research's Personality Assessments say that it's the personality you are born with, the ways you behave, and the way you deal with your own emotions that will determine your profits.
So what do you need to do?
**Recognize web home-based business is a lonely affair. You're your own taskmaster, your own creative department, your own advertising agency - you have endless conversations: with yourself! If you give up, mostly no one knows and no one cares. So how do you deal with the lonely reality? Think about the way you run your life. Do you seek companionship? Do you need people? Or, are you a loner able to focus over long periods of time? Look for a business that meets your needs for companionship. If you need people try running a network or, if loneliness is not an issue, focus on high yielding nvestment programs.
**Start with personal passion. Find something that you truly enjoy. If you can't do this you'll find yourself swimming against the tide. But what do you truly enjoy? Well don't look at business. Look at the rest of your life and the things that give you pleasure. Can you find something that replicates that experience? Or builds on it? The hunt is worthwhile - really, really worthwhile.
**Negotiate your domestic reality. Home pressures surround the web home-business entrepreneur. If your family doesn't understand what you are doing - and why you are doing it - you'll find it so much more difficult to be successful. Avoid talking in terms of wealth. This raises expectations you may not be able to meet. Talk in terms of learning and persistent effort. You will have to negotiate a deal with your family over your time, the money you spend, and their expectations; if you ignore it and just put your head down, you will generate all kinds of problems.
**Recognize your attitudes to failure. Failure will be a real part of your web experience. Most ventures fail - both on and offline. It is the nature of entrepreneurship. If you let it get you down, because you have unrealistic expectations then you will be lost. Your reaction to failure - and there are at least six different ways of dealing with failure - will determine whether you rebound or not. The most successful entrepreneurs treat failure as a learning experience, if you don't learn from it the price is astronomically high; if you do, then it's just a business cost.
**Be prepared to renew your business. If your business goes down, for whatever reason, you have to deal with the disappointment. Web home-based business is an intensely personal thing; you can find it difficult to accept that all businesses have a life, particularly if the business is part of your core income. Denial of the realities can leave you worse off than facing them. Try to avoid being too dependent on one business - multiple income streams can save you in a downturn.
**Accept that your behavior is everything. And the key behavior you HAVE to display is persistent effort. If you can do that, your dreams can be met. If you flit in and out, don't run your campaign this week or drop out of article writing - or any of many things - you can find your efforts messed up. If persistence is a personality trait you own - terrific; if not, you'd better develop behaviors that mimic it! Don't despair, it is possible to develop, it takes time, but none of us is stuck…that is a genetic fact! You truly can teach an old dog, new tricks.
**Meditate: Learn from doing. I don't mean take on an 'eastern' religion. But reflect on what you are doing. Mindfulness of what is happening and why, is the core of learning. Just don't spiral yourself into depression or unrealistic expectations. Learning from experience is the least expensive learning and by far and away the most effective for most of us.
The above is all true. But, there is one thing that can override everything.
**Never, ever, go into business just to make money.
What a weird thing to say! Making money is what business is all about, isn't it?
Well, maybe. Almost every employee survey ever taken shows that people don't just work for money; and the same is true of all entrepreneurs. They may be rewarded with more or less money, but the psychological satisfactions are the ones that really count. In fact, businesses that are driven by the search for money almost always become unfocused and flit from one thing to another.
Work out what it is you want, decide on something you'll enjoy and if you apply the right techniques, success can be yours.
Then, it's time to reward the #1 employee...
About The Author
Michael Kay is Research Director of HBB Research a business school based research program looking at web home-based business. He is the lead author of HBB Research's recent Report: The Gold Rush. The Gold Rush is currently being serialized in the Insights Letter, the free info-letter of HB Research. To subscribe to the Insights Letter go to
http://www.hbbresearch.com/
