Canadian Small Business Women

Connection, Synergy, Community

Life Lessons

Sheralyn

I learned a valuable lesson recently when life got in the way of business.  My mother had a saying when we were kids that went like this: “Never put off til tomorrow what you can get done today.” Seems I had been putting off a few to many things recently and as a result, when hit with an unexpected two day, all consuming event, I was left with nothing in reserve to help keep my business going, even during such a short absence. It turns out Mother was right after all.

As small business entrepreneurs and/or solopreneurs we tend to do a huge chunk (if not all!) of the work associated with our business by ourselves.  We try to be all things to all people: the bookkeeper, the sales team, the designer, the writer etc. This can result in things getting missed, particularly if they are not scheduled well ahead of time. Social Media posts are easy to book ahead but scheduling multiple deadlines and juggling several important deliverables requires skillful management of your calendar. Letting even one thing slide or thinking, “I can get this done tomorrow” can have a catastrophic effect if life gets in the way and makes other plans for you!

Don’t play catch-up. Use a time-management or even a project-management tool to stay on top of work demands and ahead of the game. That way, when a curveball comes your way, you’re prepared. By the way, this record-breaking “shortest post ever,” on a topic that has nothing to do with communications (considered my specialty) has been brought to you by “The Procrastinator”- me!

As Owner and Principal partner of “Writing Right For You” Sheralyn is a Communications Strategist – working together with entrepreneurs to maximize profit through effective use of the written word. Looking for web content that works, blog articles that engage or communications strategies that help you get noticed?  Contact Sheralyn today. Sheralyn is also the mother of two children now entering the “terrible and terrific teens” and spends her free time volunteering for several non-profit organizations.

Sheralyn Roman B.A., B.Ed.

Writing Right For You

Communications Strategies that help you GET TO THE POINT!

416-420-9415 Cell/Business

writingrightforyou@gmail.com

Take A Break

Sheralyn

In business, as in life, sometimes you just need a break.  Whether it is to step away for five minutes, 5 hours or even (yes, dare I say it) 5 days…sometimes you need the perspective that time and distance can offer in order to come back refreshed, renewed and reenergized.

As soloprenuers we are often given the advice to “never let up, even for a day.”  I recently attended a seminar on how to network through the summer months and a webcast on the importance of blogging constantly because “if you don’t someone else will and you’ll miss that opportunity.” I have even heard conversations that reference “How to remain effective in business even while on vacation.” Really?  Shouldn’t those two terms be mutually exclusive?  What is the point of a vacation if you are still trying to be effective in business?  You can’t do both well and more importantly, you shouldn’t!  The point of a vacation is to step away from the pressures of the daily activities related to your business so that when you return you will be better than ever.

This being July, there seemed no more obvious a time than now to remind solopreneurs that a break from your business isn’t a “nice to have,” it’s a necessity.  A break is an opportunity to take stock (literally and figuratively) to step away from day to day demands, to rest and rejuvenate.  If you do this properly – and by that we mean turn off your phones, close the laptop and shutter the store front – you will have no choice but to fully immerse yourself in the business of having fun with your family, relaxing on the deck of the cottage or at least on your own front porch or balcony.   While doing so, you’ll be gaining a fresh perspective on the direction your business should take moving forward. No one is suggesting that on a vacation you can’t THINK about work but you certainly shouldn’t be DOING any.  Believe it or not, this is imperative to your long term bottom line.  A rest equals the opportunity for your body to take a time-out, to catch up on some sleep and really what is more important to your business than your health?  Without your health, how are you going to run your business at all?  If you’re a solopreneur there is only one you and you are your business so you must take care of you!

Now – no one says you have to give up the business completely.  You can plan for your vacation.  You can schedule your posts and blogs well in advance in order to have them appear when you want them to.  You could ask a trusted friend, colleague or business associate (solopreneurs should never actually truly work alone) to cover for you.  Work ahead.  Submit work contracted by your clients ahead of time or negotiate for a longer deadline.  Chances are your client also wants to take a vacation at some point this summer so they will be happy to negotiate deadlines with you.  The point is, if you have planted the seeds properly, nurtured and cared for them, watered and weeded, you should be able to reap what you’ve sown upon your return.

Everyone, whether a corporate employee, a part timer working to help supplement the family income or a solopreneur – everyone needs a vacation and everyone is looking for an appropriate work – life balance.  So what’s the bottom line for your bottom line?  Take a break!

 

As Owner and Principal partner of “Writing Right For You” Sheralyn is a Communications Strategist – working together with entrepreneurs to maximize profit through effective use of the written word. Looking for web content that works, blog articles that engage or communications strategies that help you get noticed?  Contact Sheralyn today. Sheralyn is also the mother of two children now entering the “terrible and terrific teens” and spends her free time volunteering for several non-profit organizations.

Sheralyn Roman B.A., B.Ed.

Writing Right For You

Communications Strategies that help you GET TO THE POINT!

416-420-9415 Cell/Business

writingrightforyou@gmail.com

LinkedIn / Facebook / www.writingrightforyou.weebly.com

CO-WORKING: A Solution for “Cabin Fever” Entrepreneurs

Rose

Up and running, but feeling a little squeezed out of space and time and human interaction working solo from the confines of a small room, basement, or kitchen table of your residence?  Are you feeling like a case of “cabin fever”? You are not alone.  An all too familiar territory for so many home-based small business operator.   But, many solo-preneurs are finding solutions to this problem by looking to the growing trend of Co-Working spaces opening up all across their cities.  Here are 8 Reasons Why Co-Working is A Solution for “Cabin Fever” Entrepreneurs:

  1.   Entrepreneurs, especially those working from home, find the sound of their own breathing quite deafening and over time can kill the level of enthusiasm and motivation required to run a business.  The isolation and silo-effect that often comes with the territory is a challenge for many.  The co-working experience can infuse much needed energy and action.  Human interaction, stepping outside of your comfort zone and embracing unplanned opportunities are sometime all that’s needed to rid that stagnant, unproductive feeling.
  2.    It’s amazing how much more you can accomplish when you are not distracted by personal phone calls, interruptions from kids and/or spouses or the clamour of visual clutter in your home settings.  Home-based entrepreneurs find this particularly challenging.  The co-working experience offers independent  business people the opportunity to gain better organizational habits, regain focus and stay organized.
  3.   Your opportunity to network and build present and future connections is now ever-present.  You have just multiplied your business presence tenfold.  Co-working environments are an excellent breeding ground for collaboration of all kinds.  It is often something nurtured by groups and sub groups of entrepreneurs that have complementary skills, experience and resource.  This can be  invaluable when you are just getting started and needing to now create your own networking circles.

GUILT FREE.  You can avoid much of the guilt that goes with spending your 8 plus hours of a workday in the mocha scented havens of your nearby coffee shop.  Although, you are offered free Wi-Fi and little pressure to “move on” so other patrons can get their “fill on”, you are often left feeling guilty for taking up so much time and space, especially when you haven’t made a purchase.  So, you feel the pressure and head to the barista to place your order of a piping hot tall one.

OFFICE OFFICIAL.  Co-working spaces vary from space to space.  But, a common theme to most is the open-concept combination of casually home but officially business, meaning there may be lounging areas, a common eating/kitchen space alongside the far more official looking a conference room and walled offices for those needing more privacy and structure.  For some of entrepreneurs, although we love the idea of working from home and have the entrepreneurial freedom to “work from anywhere” stationed in our minds, the reality is that your space may not be large enough to designate an office that is distinct from the rest of your residential quarters.  For others it may be a case that their business is mobile and allows for a lot of travel, so the co-working option gives them an official home base wherein they can forward their mail and meeting clients.

  1.  As much as we like to think that working from home gives us the comfort to roam as we will in our PJs and sweats, we are often uneasy by the discomfort of having to meet up with a client and risk appearing a little less professional we operate from the sidearm of our loveseats or kitchen tables.  A co-working space can lend some credibility to your business profile and give a far more professional image.  Now this does not mean that all businesses have to perform at the standardized level of office-desk-chair, which is what many clients are used to, but for many, having an office-type environment to welcome and engage the public is the best choice.  A neutral meeting place in no way infringes on the privacy of your home. You may need to “meet your clients where they are” meaning, they may not be as comfortable in your armchair as they might be in a chair that swivels.

COMMON GROUND.  Co-working spaces continues to be a growing trend, with spaces popping up everywhere in all major cities across Canada.  Many of these environments have catered its quarters to  -Preneurs of every kind.  There you will find people with similar businesses, common visions, and complimentary services.  Some are niche-focused, for example, co-working spaces with daycare facilities.  Look around and find some common ground.  Find a co-working organization that is tailored to your specific needs.

COMMUNITY.  The water cooler is alive and well, even in this electronic world of text messages and emails.  A great stress reliever are the benefits of not-so-mindless chit-chat and where better to do that than around the proverbial “water cooler”.  Social engagement face-to-face will never get old, whether in the lunchroom, common area, over lunch at the neighbourhood hotspot, engaging in that day’s events, latest celeb gossip, or sports scores can truly rejuvenate your creative flow, can put you in a better, more positive mood.  You can regain focus and creativity.

As an entrepreneur and owner of a home based business, I currently have an opportunity to engage with a co-working organization right here in Toronto.  Camaraderie Co-Working is a membership based organization of entrepreneurs offering office and event space, private offices, boardroom, networking, peer support, community and camaraderie.  Camaraderie (camaraderie.ca) is a member of CoworkingToronto, CoworkingOntario, and CoworkingCanada. Co-working is a solution to “Work close to home but not at home”.  Find a co-working arrangement that works for you.

 

Rose Nixon, is Your “Anything” Organizer, Chief Professional Organizer and Principal Owner of ReallyOrganizedNow(RON), A Professional organizing company that brings Mindful Solutions for Stress-Less Living.  Rose knows that Life can be stressful enough without having the added burden of Disorganization.  Rose also knows that when you’re Organized you Smile more.  You are more pleasant to be around.  You enjoy people, places and things with greater ease, comfort and focus.  Rose helps active women and families find solutions and support to Stress-Less and Live More. She helps them BE ReallyOrganizedNow. Are you ReallyOrganizeNow?  Rose Nixon is the is an active volunteer in her community, offering support to several causes and organizations.  She is a business owner, aspiring blogger and author, and an ambassador of creative expression. 

Contact Rose on social media

https://www.facebook.com/reallyorganizednow

https://twitter.com/roseKNOWSron

http://www.youtube.com/user/ReallyOrganizedNow/videos 

http://about.me/reallyorganizednow

Maintaining Focus While Changing Direction

 

Martina-R.

As small business owners, especially solopreneurs, we have the advantage of being able to take the liberty of changing the direction or focus of our business. What started out, perhaps, as business coaching with businessy topics as a mainstay, may over the years turn out to no longer fulfil you. Or we find the goods we sell are becoming outdated and no longer desirable to our clients, as evidenced, for example, by more and more bookstores closing as e-Books and e-Readers grow in popularity.

Human growth, as it happens, doesn’t end after puberty. Sure, overall physical growth may end there, as does hopefully the propensity of having oily skin or acne, and making dubious decisions, yet personal and intellectual growth thankfully continues throughout our entire lives. I think that’s a good thing, as long as we recognise that it can bring with it the desire for and necessity of significant life changes and tough decisions every few years or decades.

When we become business owners, we have a specific type of business in mind that excites us. It provides us with the drive, inspiration, creativity, passion, and overall positive feelings required to get us started in the scary world of self-employment. All of these are also the traits our potential clients will feel attracted to. They want someone who is well versed about their product or service, passionate, believable, and therefore likeable and trustworthy.

All these good emotions can go through a less certain and firm ‘appearance’ during a business transition period, when we find ourselves wanting or needing to change direction with our products or services. Maybe, as in the example above, business coaching no longer excites us because our course of life changed us to wanting to focus more on reflective, heart based, and personal skills sets, like life coaching.

Our time of transition from one business to another can then be a very tricky journey. While we build a new business idea and become excited about the new prospects it holds, and satisfaction it will bring to us and our clients, we often have to maintain a level of momentum and passion for our ‘old’ but still current business; A balancing act that can leave us with one foot in and one foot out of the door.

Therein lies the challenge of ‘keeping face’ towards your existing clients, while perhaps already starting to have conversations with prospects for your new venture. Niggling in the back of our mind may also be the lure of going back to a full-time J.O.B. with that tempting steady, but fixed and often less upwardly mobile income.

But then the many advantages of being our own boss remind us that that’s really where we want to be! And that’s worth the journey, even a little bit of discomfort along the way.

 

Martina Rowley is the founder and operator of Beach Business Hub – THE co-working space east of the Don Valley. She combined her passion and experience in the environmental sector with her community engagement side to create a local work environment where space and resources are shared. She fosters and facilitates collaboration, networking, and learning for and with small business owners and new start-ups.  Contact her at:http://www.beachbusinesshub.ca, on Facebook and on Twitter

Help! Where’s My Work-Life Balance?

MVR_profile-pic.2_Nov2012_-_Copy

New business owners start out on their own for many reasons; one of them may be having more control over one’s time, that work-life balance.

According to a recent radio segment by Calgary’s News Talk 770 and interview with successful entrepreneur, philanthropist, and former Dragons Den ‘dragon’ W. Brett Wilson, work-life balance no longer exists. Wilson, a self-declared workaholic, explains his new approach: “I blend my work and play. I’ll be working every day while I’m in Australia but that allows me to be in Australia.”

One could argue that work-life balance has not become extinct, it has merely evolved. With technology having reached new heights, most business and communication now takes place via Internet and e-mail and the proverbial 9-to-5 job has become a relic. Business owners can and do take their work wherever they go: the golf course, home, and on vacation. The rapidly growing number of solopreneurs working from their home-based offices or dining-room tables, with 24/7 access to and tempting/distracting visibility of their workspace, has further blurred any lines of separation between work and life.

As Wilson points out though, the balance is there for the taking – it just requires more self-discipline and boundaries than in the past. In an article in The Art of Magazine, Fall 2013, Mitch Joel, author of the book Ctrl Alt Delete – Reboot Your Business. Reboot Your Life. Your Future Depends On It, uses the metaphor of a three-legged stool. Without the right blend of the three legs – family and friends, profession, community – Joel says the stool (aka life) will topple.

Business owners and solopreneurs therefore have to take charge of balancing their work hours with their personal lives to stay physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy and maintain good relationships all around. Just as Justitia’s scales need to stay in balance in the judicial system, so do our life scales. Piling tons of work onto one side, and only a few ounces of personal time on the opposite will otherwise have us hitting the ground and rock bottom in no time.

To improve your ‘balance’ and work-life blend, try implementing the following:

  • Schedule breaks: Set an alarm on your cellphone or computer. When it rings, step away from your desk/workspace for at least 5-10 minutes every couple of hours.
  • Turn off your cell phone and laptop during your downtime: Vibrating phones and flashing indicator lights are too great a temptation!
  • Don’t procrastinate exercise and workouts: Schedule them, just like any business meeting! Arrange a date and time to meet a friend at the gym, yoga class [insert your preferred exercise here]. Whether you work out together or not, this makes you accountable to show up.
  • Take your personal time just as seriously as your work. Well, maybe don’t be serious when you’re off work but see it as important as anything else you do.

So in the New Year, take charge of your personal time and tip the work-life scales in your, your health’s, and your family’s favour.  Happy New Year!

Martina Rowley is the founder and operator of Beach Business Hub – THE coworking space east of the Don Valley. She combined her passion and experience in the environmental sector with her community engagement side to create a local work environment where space and resources are shared. She fosters and facilitates collaboration, networking, and learning for and with small business owners and new startups.  Contact her at:http://www.beachbusinesshub.ca, on Facebook and on Twitter