Work from Home

In my first days, alone, in a new start up business, I had joined the growing ranks of entrepreneurs who work from home. Work from home had become the new buzz words for the baby boomer generation who have money and are disillusioned with the corporate world and were forced by a younger competition for our job to sacrifice our families and to limit the time to enjoy the fruits of our labor having to work long hours in the globalization of the economy. The reality is that with the advent of email, mobile phones and then of course, the explosion of the internet worldwide, business people were and had to be accessible 24 hours a day and seven days a week.

What we came to realize in the early to mid 1990's is that we want more quality of life without giving up on the quantity. That is, we did not want to go below our current income. Work from home seem to be the answer. And it is, once you understand how to make it work. I found that I am a people person. I need to socialize and communicate face to face with people. I quickly found that working at home was a challenge for me locked in my basement office. I soon found myself roaming our large home frequently through the day seeking out human contact which ended up being our family dog, Tyson. A large black and red hair German Shepard pure bred that was smart as a whip. Smart enough to know that I was interrupting his schedule of sleep and eat all day and at 7:00 PM greet us at the door for a walk. Clearly, I needed to do something.

I got out of the office and drove around my city. Here was my first lesson, I can't make sales stuck in my basement office. While driving around I started to notice businesses I wanted to approach, businesses growing which was demonstrated by new construction, and I also started talking to people face to face who were also out and about in town and began networking. I sold nothing that day but, I learned later that Prospecting and Sales are two different functions.

Work from home became a whole lot better. I now started planning my day around Prospecting which included telephone calling and face to face drop in's around town. I began to "Run for Mayor" as a colleague once told me I was doing that any good Prospector should do who wants to have continued success with Sales. You need to get out of your work from home office and just like your Mayor, shake hands, kiss the babies buy the lunches and make sure everyone knows you in your town and particularly those in business.

Well, that's it for today and I will see you tomorrow with my next posting. :)