We all deserve a pat on the back for surviving the last year of challenges. No aspect of our lives was left untouched. For those of us running our own home-based businesses, we were lucky to already have many of the tools for working successfully from home. However, with the world rounding the corner on the pandemic with vaccine rollouts and amended health regulations, it’s time to think about leveling up your home-based business in 2021. Follow these business ideas for a stronger and more successful 2021.
Minimize the Busy Work of Managing a Team
As a business owner, you really work hard. You are up early and brainstorming late. You try to make the best product. Promote it the right way. Plus, you hire the right people to help you run the operations, marketing, and sales of your business. However, all of this is a 24/7 job. In order to concentrate on bigger picture items to improve your business like marketing strategy and new products, why not minimize the busy work? One of the most time-consuming things that business owners and managers have to do is payroll and calculate the work hours of employees. Take hours or even days off your plate with this how to calculate work hours guide.
Use Blog and Social Media Tools to Increase Engagement and Decrease Screen Time
If you are like most businesses, you have gotten on the bandwagon of blogging and social media. If you don’t have a social media presence or industry blog posts, you are so last century. However, these tasks are grueling for some and take a lot of time. First and foremost, you can create an editorial calendar. This plan will help you and/or your team to create a blog and social media content according to the time of year, product line, sales, and even pop culture. For solid blog tips, check out my simple blog tweaks post. Secondly, use social media and blog tools like Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, and others to schedule out your blog post promotions and social media posts at optimal timing for engagement.
Lastly, don’t forget that you can more bang for your marketing spend by targeting your chosen demographics on social media. If your target audience is women, over 30 that live in London and have a dog, well social media can get you right in front of the right customers. Then, when your posts are scheduled and ad campaigns set, you and your team can be free to concentrate on the most pressing matters. To have a great social media presence and blog, you don’t need to be online 24/7. You can be smart about it. Time is money.
Consider crowdfunding to help kickstart new ideas
Looking to expand your home-based business and delve into new ideas, but can’t find the budget to afford it? As a business owner and aspiring entrepreneur, your head is likely brimming with new ideas and possible ventures, yet more often than not our ambitions are hampered by financial realities — but not always.
In recent years crowdfunding has emerged as one of the best ways to get projects off the ground on a modest budget. It involves pitching a compelling case for your idea on sites like Indiegogo or JustGiving and appealing to the public for donations.
Not convinced you’ll be able to achieve results? There have been many successful crowdfunding examples, such as Hapbee — a maker of wearable wellbeing technology. With Hapbee’s crowdfunding campaign, they managed to obtain user feedback and early fans of their product, selling 1,600 units from 1,200 backers in the process.
Enhance Technology and Equipment for Video Calls and Team Communication
If you didn’t already use Skype and Zoom before last year, you now should have graduated from video conferencing 101 in 2020. These technologies are not going away in 2021. Now, it will be the norm. Say goodbye to just picking up the phone. Everything video is the way that it’s going to be. However, that doesn’t mean that it is ok to have poor audio and video quality. In fact, having poor video and/or audio quality reflects a lot about your business and products. Maybe a customer would put up with poor lighting for a call with a family member, but not with someone that he/she wants to do business with.
So, it is time to get a good desk camera, lighting, and a set of earbuds or wired headphones. However, even with improved equipment if your internet connection or speed is slow or shotty, you will not be prepared for success. Invest in better internet speed and bandwidth. Once you have created this for your office space, make sure that you invest in your team members too. Set up a budget for each to manage his/her space for maximum productivity with video calls. Additionally, to make remote team management and communication easier, many home-based companies have transitioned to communications tools like Slack or Google Teams. Both organize threads or themes of topics to keep everyone in a certain department or on a particular campaign in the loop.
If you are looking to level up your home-based business in 2021, you are not alone. 2020 has presented challenges, but also inspired us to look at our businesses differently. By following the three business success tips above, you are bound to see progress shortly. Minimize your busy work with the right tools. Get your social media and blog strategy nailed down and scheduled out. Plus, get professional with your video conferencing.
Get a connection that won’t fail you
The internet is obviously an important part of running a home business, especially if you operate most of it online. With that being said, getting the right broadband is essential to ensuring you don’t lose out on any potential profits due to not being available online. This should be one of the first steps to leveling up your home-based business wand you can use postcode checkers to see which broadband providers are in your area.
What do you find beneficial when it comes to running a home-based business? Let me know in the comments below.
