How to Keep Your Home Based Business Profitable

Why It’s Important Not To Take Your Eye Off The Money For Too Long!
It drives me NUTS when I hear people say ‘Don’t focus on the money.” While that may be true for some things, at the end of the day you are in business to make money. If you think otherwise, then you are running a hobby.
For so many businesses, the reason they fail is lack of cash flow. I see it all the time. It’s typical for many home based business owners to appear all happy and chirpy, but the truth of the matter is, their business is often struggling for regular cash flow and long term financial growth.
Have you ever been out for the day and started out with a purse or wallet full of cash and by the end of the day you open it up and glare with amazement at the few dollars or cents that are left? And worse still, you can hardly recall where all the money has gone?
Even though you may operate a home based business, it’s still vitally important to track where you spend your money. You probably don’t have the same expenses a brick and mortar business has such as rent, rates, or rubbish collection, but there are plenty of expenses related to an online business that add up very quickly and can see your bank account looking like a leaky bucket at times. Some of what I have, and you might too, are shopping cart fees, web hosting, audio hosting, video hosting, membership sites, product purchases, email services and there’s more…..
I’m not talking here about being a scrooge. It’s about how to get more for your money.
I want to share 5 tips on how you can keep more money in your bank account and increase your cash flow with little effort at all….
Record every single expense you have related to your business. (In the interview you will hear how I take this even one step further!). Allocate each expense into a category such as advertising, subscription services, virtual assistance, graphics, etc. This will allow you to track how much each area of your business is costing you and you can access whether or not you need to make any changes.
Review all your subscription services. List every site that you are paying a monthly subscription fee. This will be things like your autoresponder service, shopping cart, video or audio hosting. Check the level of plan you are on and be sure you are only paying for the facilities you require at the time. I recently dropped a level of service on one of these and saved myself $70 per month! You may want to downgrade, or change providers to amalgamate with another service you already have to get the level of service you need.
Research – Sometimes, by allocating a small amount of time to research, you can often find the piece of information you need to move forward on a project by searching You Tube, Yahoo Answers or asking for help on Facebook rather than purchasing a whole product just for one tiny piece of information. Stand firm to only order a product if you are commitment to take action and implement it into your business immediately. Keep a spreadsheet of all the products you order and how effective your results were so you can track the return on investment.
Reach Out – Some of the best money you can spend will be to hire someone to do a task for you. This leaves you free to continue with what you are good at, and do more of the money making activities in your business.
Reward Yourself – Get excited when you reach your money goals! Regularly set money goals that are a stretch, but at the same time achievable. As you set these goals and implement some of the strategies we’ve talked about, you will also begin to see opportunities that will allow you to reach your money targets even quicker. Regularly take a set amount of your income and pay yourself. You will feel rewarded for your efforts and commitment and after all, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!
Doing what you love while running a home based business can be extremely profitable if you decide to operate every area of your business like a professional.
The choice is yours….you can fritter away your money or you can keep more of it to help others and have more fun!
I’d love to know your thoughts….. please quickly do me a favor and share with others and comment below.



























