Internet Mumpreneurs - Online Marketing Tips For Home & Internet Based Businesses

Have you just started? Have you been trading for more than 12 months? Or are you in your fifth or more year?

Do you feel like you have a “successful” business?

How long do you have to be in business before you feel you are “successful”?

Having worked with hundreds and hundreds of women starting up home businesses over the past few years, I have come to realise that it doesn’t matter how long someone has been in business for them to feel “successful”. The No 1 factor to feeling “successful” is their mindset.

Can I tell you my story on business start-up mindset?

Like many of you reading this, I started CanDoCanBe from scratch. In September 2004 I had no product to sell. I had no database. I had no big budget to spend on marketing.

And one of the things I remember is the mindset that I had. Outwardly, I was portraying confidence. I had a vision and knew the path I wanted to take.

But, to be honest, on the inside I was still waiting to really believe that it would happen. Deep down, I was unsure that I would find the clients to create the income. I watched my pennies and bootstrapped my marketing.

I offered charge rates that I felt comfortable charging, rather than what I was technically worth. My first coaching client paid me £60 a session in October 2004 and my first omen’s Business Forum workshop in January 2006 was only £28 to attend.

The local market place was showing me that I could have charged a lot more. So, even though I knew, in theory, my prices could have easily doubled - I kept to my safe zone. My comfort zone of charging what felt right to me.

It was a long time of being in business before I stopped saying to myself that I was starting up. And each year, I have had to sit back and remind myself how much I have achieved and how much more I am worth.

You see, I believe that as we start up a business and grow that business, we have to physically check our mindset from time to time. We need to challenge ourselves and make sure that our limiting beliefs are not holding us back from reaching our potential.

We have to review our prices and charge rates regularly and look at how much money we are investing in ourselves and the business.

As this is a start of another new year and you may or may not have been busy planning your marketing and setting new goals to achieve, the one thing that could seriously shift your business forward this year is taking the time out to check your mindset.

When was the last time you put your prices up? And not just in line with inflation.

When was the last time you reviewed your payment terms? And could you expect money to be paid quicker, or even upfront?

When was the last time you invested some of your income on a training programme for yourself? Perhaps a leadership workshop or some technical training to learn a skill.

When was the last time you reviewed your marketing expenditure and thought if you could spend a little more on one area, it would actually increase your income by a higher percentage?

Mindset is such a powerful, yet greatly under-utilised, tool. And when you are busy working week in, week out, it is too easy to keep the same mindset that you perhaps started out with when you first went in to business.

Checking my own mindset has been a powerful boost to me and has helped clarify what I am planning this year. Why don’t you take some time out to check your mindset and power boost your own business?

This article has been written by Karen Skidmore and was first published for her fortnightly newsletter. If you would like to know more about Karen and about how her business, CanDoCanBe, helps women create successful (and profitable!) home businesses, visit her website www.CanDoCanBe.com and register direct for her free newsletter.

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