NEW: Jane Shelton

Big changes are afoot – and to succeed in home business and grow you need above-average success in managing change.

Plan to succeed

A favourite statement of our PM-elect is that decisions will be taken in their season – a very Chinese orientation to the relationship between authority and action in times of change.

The rapid pace of change presented by the weekend election results has set me thinking about how important it is for those of us in home-based business to manage change and plan.

In particular, it brings to mind the necessity to take control of the agenda and take time out to plan ahead so that we make the most of opportunities and minimise the damage of unforeseen realities.

Kevin07 has hit the ground running, meeting with his deputy, Julia Gillard, to select and announce who gets to do what in the first Rudd cabinet this coming Thursday.

It’s instructive to note his attempt to expand his freedom by setting out goals rather than specific plans for the first 100 days of the new Government, saying:

“You will see us methodically work through our program for government. The plans we put forward for the future are detailed if you look at what we’ve advanced in terms of education, hospitals and climate change and water as well as our proposals on industrial relations. This is a substantive agenda of work – everyone’s going to have their hands well and truly full.”

We in home-based business can observe a master bureaucrat at work and watch how he acts like a CEO in planning an orderly transition and building up a network of business partnerships to keep the economy moving.

To succeed in home business and grow you need above-average success in managing change.

You now should see the chance to expand a passionate interest into a more successful home-based business.

Managing the rate and direction of business development must become the basis for enjoying more time doing what you like doing most.

We have our hands full shaping our own business future and maintaining a positive outlook in the face of substantial economic and social reconstruction that comes with rising costs of capital and pressure to keep payroll costs under control.

It can be hard to remain enthusiastic and optimistic in the face of rapid transitions through good and bad times that appear to be outside of one’s control.

People who have managed the transition from sole trader to growing enterprise as a successful home-based business tell me there are five main advantages of working from home:

1. Freedom.
2. Lifestyle.
3. Choices.
4. Being in charge.
5. Time for other things.

These small business owners also tell me there are five main disadvantages of working from home:

1. Loneliness and isolation.
2. Time management difficulties.
3. Cashflow management.
4. Uncertainty.
5. The office never goes away.

To manage change well and beat off the blues of home-based business, you need strategies to deal with the downtimes and create a great business plan as your guide to business development and strategic intent.

Any business plan provides a map to better products, services and experiences delivered by your home-based business. This map helps the expanding business to establish and introduce the conditions for success.

The better business plan sets out clearly and simply the path that will take the business from more of the same start-up venture through new and different product, service and experience offers.

The business will again and again be asked to demonstrate the ability to deliver something very different (a unique selling proposition) and ultimately produce a new dimension that creates new market space that generates sustainable prosperity.

Better business plans have three components – analysis, aims and actions:

• Analysis: Environment and industry analysis including market description, industry analysis and competitive situation.
• Aims: Relating to; business opportunity and key business ideas, business history, define the key business vision, mission, goals and objectives for the expanding business structure.
• Actions: Implementation schedules as the basis for growth and investment including operations and management to ensure value deliver, legal and accounting systems directed towards customer responsive marketing, sales and pricing.

If your home-based business doesn’t have a plan for growth beyond the start-up phase and has not begun to examine the range of opportunities that will emerge from the new Government’s commitments to spend more in regional areas of Australia on child care, education, primary health care and broadband technology, it’s definitely time to plan to manage the change process of your future and plan to succeed in your home-based business venture.

Dr Jane Shelton not only runs a business from home but is doing business research into people working from home. She is managing director of Marshall Place Associates, Melbourne’s independent think tank, and CEO (honourary) for ‘Life. Be in it.’ International. Shelton has a Doctorate in Business Administration at the Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship (AGSE) at Swinburne University of Technology after a Master of Arts in Public Policy at Melbourne University and a Bachelor of Business in banking and finance at Monash University.

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