If someone were to ask you how your home business is doing,
would you be able to answer, truthfully, and accurately?
The honest answer to this question (for most people) would
undoubtedly be in the negative. An extremely effective
business management system is a simple process called
"MANAGEMENT BY OBJECTIVES." In the business world,
managers need to know how well their employees and
subordinates are doing their jobs, and whether they are
completing tasks within an agreed time frame. During a
discussion, the manager sets his subordinate a list of
"objectives" also known as goals or targets, to be
completed by agreed dates.
During regular follow-up discussions progress towards
completion of these objectives is measured, those completed
are signed off while new targets are discussed and set.
The individual home business owner's reaction might
understandably be to question the need for anything like
this in a one-person home business. However, the sound
reasons for setting and managing objectives apply equally
to any business, no matter how large or small. The logic
is simply that this process (MBO) is a means of planning
for a business, keeping a record of targets attained, and
equally of keeping track of those (not) attained.
First of all, the discipline of thinking through your plans
for your business is an excellent exercise in itself. It's
a way of listing important items to be completed and
ticking them off when done. It's a very good habit to aim
for a reasonable "do-by" date for each, as well. If delays
are encountered there's no problem, simply re-set the date
to something reasonable.
We're all human, and one of man's greatest weaknesses is
procrastination. It's too easy to put off those less
enjoyable items for another day. Not everyone has a
razor-sharp memory and long delayed items can eventually be
forgotten. This can be disastrous, if a vital date like
filing your tax-return is forgotten!
The suggestion is to set up a little document, with say
four columns:
Date Set; Objective;
Importance (1-3); Do-by Date;
You should have no more than about 6 items at any one time,
and it's vital to keep this as a living document, that
should be reviewed about weekly. You can keep it on paper,
or in your computer. There's a certain satisfaction in
clicking Delete when a tiresome task is complete and out of
the way.
Make some of your goals short-term, (e.g. Open folders for
filing incoming e-mails) and some longer term (e.g. Learn
some HTML to make small changes to my Web-site.)
I'm sure that you will derive the benefits of sticking to
this little exercise, and it's especially valuable to you
in ensuring that your business doesn't stagnate. As time
goes on, you will become aware of new items that will grow
your business into the next level of top home businesses -
upgrading software to make your business more effective, a
new method of attracting more visitors to your site, or a
new marketing campaign.
This keeps you aware of developmental opportunities and
allows you to plan accordingly, both in terms of timing and
resources.
I trust that this discussion will have been of interest to
those of you who've not come across MBO or one of its many
counterparts. Above all - keep it simple and keep it alive.
In our next article we'll discuss the importance of
Budgeting for your business.
I look forward to your company soon.
----------------------------------------------------
About the author: Mike Muir owns
http://wwwmikeshomebiz.com
He goal is to share his personal experiences with you, in
the hope that this may assist you in making your own
choices in setting up your own version of the top home
businesses out there.
You are welcome to visit his blog at:
http://www.mikeshomebiz.com/blog
for more articles of
interest.
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