Lightening,the,Load,...,Gettin DIY Lightening the Load ... Getting Help When You Need It

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-parent:"";mso-padding-alt:0in When starting a new work at home business it is very easy to become consumed by it. We spend so much time trying to get the business up and running that we may end up becoming burned out and lose our motivation. There is so much to learn and

If there's one immutable fact of life when it comes to thisbusiness, it's that there's so much to do but so little time todo it all in. At some point around the one year mark, if you'vebeen even moderately successful in your online business,you'll find you've reached the limit of what you can do withthe time you have available. At that point you have a choice:to deliberately retard the growth of your business to maintainthe status quo, or take on additional resources to help youcope with a business that continues to grow beyond thecapacities of just one person.That's just the choice I was faced with when I returned tothe full-time workforce last month after running my onlinebusiness on a full-time basis for two months. I realizedalmost immediately that if I kept on the way I was, mybusiness wasn't going to go any further. It was taking allmy time to deal with the administrative side of the businessand that left none for the really important business-development activities that kept getting pushed to theback-burner until I magically found the time to get to them.In this article, we look at getting help when you need it. Andno, I'm not talking about going out and hiring a wage-earningfull-time employee or even a part-time employee for that matteralthough that, of course, is one option open to you. Instead,with a little bit of lateral thinking you may well find you can getthe help you need for very little (if any) up-front cash outlay.COMPENSATING YOUR ASSISTANTBecause (I assume) you're still running your businesson a shoestring, you can't afford to pay someone a wagein advance of generating additional income. This means thatwhoever you choose needs to be someone who's prepared towork for a percentage of the profits of the business ratherthan a wage. For this reason, the person you choose willmost likely be close to you ... a family member, spouseor very close friend.As for the proportion of profits that you pay to your assistant,this is up to you and your assistant to negotiate and willdepend on several factors including the types of tasks yourassistant performs, the time they have available to work (andactually do work) and the overall contribution they make to thebusiness. An assistant who takes an entrepreneurial interestin the business and contributes to its growth in addition to itsmaintenance should be rewarded accordingly.TAX CONSEQUENCESBe sure to get professional advice before you start yourarrangement with your assistant. You need to think abouttax and other issues such as whether your profit-sharingarrangement might create a partnership rather than anemployer-employee relationship (this may or may not besomething you want). Also, assuming you're not intendingto create a partnership relationship with your assistant, thinkabout whether you want an employer-employee relationship orwhether you prefer your assistant to be an independentcontractor. There are tax consequences for each of theabove scenarios so be sure to talk to your accountant aboutyour options.CONVERTING TIME INTO INCOMEIt should be self-evident that you are going to have toconvert the time you free up with the help of your assistantinto income. In other words, if your business doesn'tgenerate any more income as a result of you taking on anassistant, by the time you split your profits, you're goingto be behind. So it's crucial that you take the time you saveand spend it wisely. That means using your time on projectsthat are going to increase the income of your business bymore than the cost of splitting your profits.WHO TO CHOOSE FOR YOUR ASSISTANTNow, who should you choose for your assistant? To startwith, consider who in your immediate circle has both thetime and the ability to help you in your business. It could bea spouse, teenage son or daughter, parent, next door neighbor,brother or sister, close friend or colleague.In my case, my first choice for an assistant was mycomputer-savvy mother but, because she is retired and on apension, she can't earn an income without jeopardizing herretirement income. I therefore didn't consider her as a realpossibility.I then considered one of my sisters but, becauseof technical problems (she didn't have a suitable computerand wasn't in a position to get one quickly) that wasn'tgoing to work either. Then my other sister, not computer-savvy but obviously a lateral thinker, suggested that, insteadof paying my mother her share of the profits in cash whichwould have jeopardized her pension, why not pay her in airlinetickets from Australia to the US? Because I have recentlyrelocated from Australia to the US, this was a perfectsolution because it was expenditure my parents wouldhave incurred anyway. And, from my business's pointof view, because my mother works for the business, theairfares the business pays for will be tax-deductible asour visits will be, at least in part, business-related.So, give some thought to your particular circumstancesand think laterally. Perhaps you have a teenage son ordaughter who is good with computers and is looking for away to earn additional income. Not only does appointingthem as your assistant achieve this goal, it also gives yourchild crucial experience working in the ecommerce field andthat sure can't hurt!Perhaps you have a close friend who is a single motherand is looking for at-home ways to supplement her part-timeincome. Perhaps a sibling is in a similar position. You get theidea. I imagine that most people know at least one person thatthey could strike such an arrangement with.TASKS TO DELEGATEOK, so you've lined up your assistant. Let's turn nowto the kinds of things you can delegate to him/her.As a general rule, you want to delegate those tasks thatare routine, repetitive and which maintain (rather thangrow) your business. Growing the business is your job.That's what's meant by working "on" the business ratherthan "in" the business.Consider the following:=> Processing Subscribe/Unsubscribe RequestsIf you publish an ezine, then you know what an administrativeheadache it can be processing all those subscribe andunsubscribe requests even with the aid of automating software.Despite your best efforts, and clear instructions in your ezine,there are always at least a dozen people who can't seem tofigure out how to unsubscribe themselves and send you amessage asking you to do it for them. Then there are thosewho write asking to be added to your ezine list because they'vebeen referred by a friend and don't have your subscribe URL.So you add them manually too. Then there are those who wantto unsubscribe but keep trying to do so using an email addressother than the one they signed up with. They send abusiveemails to you when, for some mysterious reason they keepgetting your ezine. They, of course, think you're so desperatefor subscribers that you have set up your devious systems sothat once they're subscribed they're on your list forever.Annoying as this is for ezine publishers, the real problem is thetime it eats up dealing with this stuff. So delegate this task toyour assistant.=> Processing Advertising OrdersAnother routine task that can be delegated to your assistantis the processing of advertising orders in your ezine. Set upyour systems so that all orders go straight to your assistant(with a copy to you so you're in the loop) who then schedulesthe ad, confirms the booking with the advertiser and thenformats the ad ready for the next issue.=> Sending Your EzineActually sending your ezine to your list is something thatyou can delegate to your assistant, too. Just email yourezine to your assistant when you've finished it for sendingto your list. You may even leave your assistant to insert theclassified ads.=> Submitting Your ArticlesAnother routine task that your assistant can take care of isarticle submissions. I have a list of article submissionservices that I submit my articles to on a weekly basis,as well as a handful of publishers who have specificallyrequested to receive them. My assistant sends for eacharticle after it is written (they're all available on autoresponder)and submits it to the article submission sites/lists Ispecify. A longer-term project is to seek out, on a regularbasis, new article submission points. That, also, I havedelegated.=> Submitting Your EzineSimilarly, I have delegated the task of submitting myezine to the various ezine announcement services thatare always springing up all over the place.=> Negotiating Ad SwapsIf you're an ezine publisher, you know that receiving ad swapproposals from fellow publishers is a frequent occurrence.Delegate the negotiation of these swaps to your assistant.=> Web Site UpdatingDepending on how computer-savvy your assistant is,they may also be able to take on some simple web siteupdating for you. We're not talking about major designchanges here, just making routine updates to add yourlatest ezine, article or advertising information, that sort ofthing.~*~*~*~*~*~By delegating these routine administrative tasks and anyothers that may apply to your particular business, you willsave yourself several hours of work every week. Don'tsquander this time! Now you have the time you need tooverhaul your site, write the next month's articles for yourezine, investigate and respond to the half dozen jointventure proposals you've received this week, create thatebook you've been meaning to get around to writing and,most importantly, *promoting your business*! As statedearlier, you MUST convert your newfound time into dollars.If not, your business is just going backwards ... the verycircumstance you sought to avoid when hiring yourassistant. Article Tags: Getting Help