Running my own business has been a major learning experience for me. I started out not really knowing what I was doing and now I’m earning enough money to live a comfortable life style. It took me a while to get to this point though. I had a lot of over-spending when it came to business based supplies.
I was a bit shaky with how to begin things in regards to my hosting setup and then I needed to implement some kind of a system that worked for billing the clients as well. Yes, everything is basically done through paypal but I have a self written script where I store each client and once their subscription goes through it marks them down as paid. The problem with this is that it isn’t yet user based so the client literally has no idea what’s going on behind the scenes other than they’ve got the Paypal email showing their subscription is up to date.
Even being the organizational freak that I am, I couldn’t get myself on track when business really began to pick up. I looked into many resources, even a 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit and while it worked for me I still needed to make sure to carry out these new steps in order to have long term success with my business.
After a lot of trial and error I now know how to properly balance every thing I do with time management. I’ve heard big-business men talk about this many times but never quite understood the point when I work on a ‘deal with it as it comes in’ kind of a basis. I’m now working on a schedule that insures proper time management for excellent results. I spend no longer than an hour a day on email, I spend no longer than 8 hours a day on design work and I still manage to get in 3-4 hours of blogging when it comes to working with sponsors. I work a 12 hour day and I do manage to accomplish everything I’ve set out to do. I do not over spend and I stick to a strict budget because of it. I’m not the kind of person who is going to take lunch with my fiance (also a programmer) as a business write-off considering we’re both walking away from our desks at the same time.
I think anyone looking to run their own business should consider setting up a schedule, a budget and a lot of to-do lists in order to keep themselves ahead. Don’t over book yourself with clients, don’t spend too much time on any single client if you’re working with more than one, no matter how much the client is spending. I can easily devote 8 hours a day to two clients even if one is a $2,000 template and the other is quick $200 work. Don’t devote your entire day to the higher paying client because based on experience, the client who’s paid less is typically always coming back with more work and referrals for future clients as well.
This is something that I’ve learned in the last 8 years of working online, hopefully something in there helped you out as well.