3 Ghastly Family Mistakes As A Home Business Professional

"What are these ghastly mistakes?" you ask.

They are:

1. Don't listen.
2. Don't care enough.
3. Do move full speed ahead.

*** Ghastly Mistake Number One: Don't Listen ***

Walking in the front door of your home, you hear your spouse say: "I need you to listen to me for a few moments (or more) and I need your attention."

And glancing his or her way, you do "listen" -- at least to a degree.

You hear, but you don't hear the heart.

You take the time but you come up just shy of really "being there."

You give attention, but in reality it falls short of the dedicated attention you would normally give to a business associate who needs your assistance.

"Listening" in this way, the one interacting with you immediately senses the reality of your presence in the room: you are not "there."

Not totally.
Not for them.
And not tuned in to their needs.

*** Ghastly Mistake Number Two: Don't Care Enough ***

During the middle of your normal 60 plus hour business week, your child hints at going to the park...

Or visiting the pet store,
Or taking a ride,
Or getting something for school,
Or playing catch,
Or anything else her or she might enjoy.

You, however, remain too busy: again. And your "being too busy" was not the first time: not by a long and very, very sad shot.

*** Ghastly Mistake Number Three: Move Full Speed Ahead ***

You don't listen because you must keep moving.

You do not stop to enjoy, care or spend time because you must keep moving forward or "it will never happen."

And what is this somewhat illusive yet never too far from the home front "it" that must take place? Answer: it is whatever occupies your time, energy and/or personal space at the expense of the needs, joys and realistic desires of those in your home.

You simply move forward because successful, on target, purpose-driven business people keep moving.

They set the pace.
They keep up the momentum.
They make things happen.
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How To Avoid The Three Ghastly Mistakes!
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1. Listen.
2. Care.
3. Move Forward In Wisdom

*** Avoiding Ghastly Mistake Number One: Listen ***

Listed below you will discover three suggestions that will help you avoid this all too common blunder made within the home environment:

1. Decide in your heart that you will listen: *truly* listen.

2. Train your heart to hear the heartbeats of those closest to you.

3. Don't give up!

Simply deciding helps. Easy? Is it easy to *truly* listen?
Absolutely not.

But it is absolutely necessary.

Honestly decide to improve your skill set as a listener.

Learn.
Grow.
And train your heart.

You train by trying, failing, getting back up again on the inside and working at it again and again on the outside.

1. Work at hearing the heart and not just the words being said.

2. Watch the body posture, listen to the voice tone, look at the eyes.

3. Work at carefully listening to the spoken and unspoken needs of those closest to you.

*** Avoiding Ghastly Mistake Number Two: Care! ***

Care "enough."

That is, care just enough so that the other person:

Knows it,
Feels it,
Senses it,
And is Grateful for it.

Can you guarantee "being grateful" for your efforts? No, you cannot.

You can, however, know from the inside out that you: (1) took the time you needed to take; (2) listened as best as you could; and (3) loved as you would love to be loved.

Allow your caring heart to drive you deeper and deeper *toward* those you love as opposed to farther *away* from them as you care for the needs of your business.

Keep working at caring in these ways and your own heart will guide you in the process of caring yet more.

Listen.
Listen to your heart.

As you listen, act and respond in love to the promptings of your own heart, you will increase the probability that those around you will feel in their hearts that you are caring... "enough."

*** Avoiding Ghastly Mistake Number Three: Move Forward In Wisdom ***

What does moving forward "in wisdom" mean?

It means that as you learn, grow and develop in the disciplines of listening and caring for those closest to you, that you:

1. Pay attention to your shortcomings and correct them as you go.

2. Affirm your worth as you continue to grow and experience your various "at home successes."

Notice the two concepts involved: personal correction and personal affirmation. Moving forward in wisdom means carrying on a healthy balancing act between these two important aspects of self-development.

*** Now Go And Do! ***

Listen.
Care.
And Move Forward In Wisdom as you do!

Learning the Basics of how to Sell your Business

A strange thing tends to happen to even the most hard-nosed businessman, when it comes to considering an offer for his business.  He tends to just let everything he knows about selling go out the window. When it comes to selling the business that you have put years of your life into, sometimes, you can become a bit self-absorbed. You can just be all about "me, me, me". That's not how you succeed in selling anything. To sell something successfully, you need to focus on fulfilling the needs of the buyer - and not on fulfilling your own needs. Let's look at what you need to know to learn how to sell your business.

The first thing you need to realize learning how to sell your business is, that this happens to be like any other sale you've made in your life. As any sales intern knows, selling is supposed to be about first determining what it is that a customer is looking for when he walks in. You need to ask the buyer of your business what he hopes to achieve buying you up. You need to know how your business will make a good act extension of theirs, what kind of returns they expect once they do acquire your business, and so on.

It can be a complex equation what determines the price of your business. But to simplify, if the value of your business is $100, and the buyer is looking for a 20% return on their investment, they're basically looking for a five-fold return on what they pay for your business (100/20=5). The fivefold return would be earnings before taxes and everything. It's the figure they call EBITDA. The more they expect your business to bring them, the less they will be willing to pay for you. Now why is that? Doesn't that sound kind of counter intuitive?

It's just that the more a business is expected to earn in a short period of time, the riskier this supposed to be. And more risk there is involved, the less a buyer is usually willing to pay. It's the way it is when you invest your money in shares. Usually, when your broker points out a high-performing small-cap fund to you, you know that since it's a small-cap fund that's performing usually well, it can't be all that solid an investment. You're taking a risk, a bet on it. And for that, you expect a lower price.

Learning how to sell your business then is all about learning to make your business look like a low risk investment for the buyer. How do you do this? Well, if you are a business that relies on just two or three important clients, if you are a business that has just one or two suppliers for everything, if you have just one or two important employees whose skills you depend on, and if you have handshake agreements to put all of these in place, you happen to be high risk business. Fix all these, and suddenly, magically, you turn lower risk and become worth a lot more.

Putting your Best Foot Forward Entering the Organic Restaurant Business

The serving of organic foods was once a mere niche in the restaurant business; today, it makes more than $1 billion every year for the restaurant business. Even with growing demand and an established base, starting and running an organic food restaurant business is hardly a straightforward matter. A restaurateur who deals in the business of serving organic food needs to take into account how his raw materials cost far more than regular raw materials (organic lemons, for instance, cost three times what conventional lemons cost); and you have to find a way to remain competitive against other restaurants that serve regular food. With the right strategy though, success is certainly possible.  As many businesses have demonstrated.

The future appears to be very bright for the organic restaurant business; even through the economic downturn, organic food sales have arisen at four times the rate of conventional food sales. The average restaurant costs about $400,000 to start. Work in the part about your restaurant being organic, and you'll need to count on be prepared for another $100,000. An organic restaurant usually needs expensive equipment that other restaurants don't need - things like materials for takeaway items that can be composted. If yours is a vegetarian organic restaurant, you could face lower insurance costs if you only serve raw foods. When there is no stove on the premises, your insurance costs fall.

An organic restaurant business needs to be completely prepared to keep changing the recipes to help manage costs. Whenever a specific organic ingredient becomes scarce or too expensive, you need chefs who are prepared to experiment with and reshuffle recipes so that they can improvise. You basically need to keep the menu steady, but find new ways to make them without the usual ingredients. When ingredients like tomatoes go out of season, the organic versions become exorbitantly expensive. Flexibility in the chefs one employs is key.

Typically, going vegetarian isn't the route to success in the organic restaurant business. The moment you go vegetarian, you lose half your potential customer base. And while we're on the subject of catering to your customer base, you need to know that the more seriously you take government regulations for the organic label, the more favor you will win with your customer base. You need every recipe to be 95% organic to be considered deserving of the Wholly Organic label. The more fervently you cater to your customer base, the more popular you will be. It might take a little extra work at first, but it'll be well worth it for the success prospects of your restaurant.