When I ask new entrepreneurs about their target market, I’m no longer surprised when I hear their answer. Far too often, it’s “everyone! Our product/service is needed by everyone. That’s why this business is such a sure thing!”

I can understand why their enthusiasm gets the better of their business sense. For plenty of businesses, the product or service can seem (at first) like everyone would want it. Restaurants are a classic example of this – everyone needs to eat, so how can a restaurant go wrong?

Of course, restaurants have some of the highest failure rates of any new venture. Everyone does need to eat, but getting the right combination of tasty food, great service, location, price, décor and a hundred other considerations just right is not an easy task. Most importantly, restaurants seem to do well when they target people with specific tastes. When was the last time you heard someone say “let’s go to that Chinese-Italian-Irish pub restaurant down the street! I hear it’s got something for everyone!”

In my own business, I learned early on to target specific markets. Of course, everyone needs systems to organize their lives, boost productivity and get better work-life balance. But who’s going to hire me to teach them how to achieve these things?

After doing my research, I recognized that some of my biggest customers would be people who were moving or downsizing their homes, as well as offices that needed to reduce clutter and improve productivity of their employees. Also, successful professionals who were being held back in some ways by bad habits and procrastination could also use my services.

After catering to these target markets, I also adjusted my services to that target market to offer both organization consulting and speaking engagements for companies and organizations that perhaps wanted a one-day workshop or training session. This has led to success and many happy clients.

Whether you’re hunting in the forest or running a business, you have to know where to direct your limited ammunition. Understand your target market before you start your business and keep re-evaluating to ensure you’re not missing opportunities in other markets.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

I’ve often talked about the importance of outsourcing tasks that you can’t do on your own to make sure you have time to focus on what you love about your business. But how do you do that? Many business owners have only a basic understanding of best practices when it comes to hiring good people.

A little while back, I got some great tips in this area from Vertical Bridge Corporate Consulting managing partner Sandra Reder. She had these ideas for how to conduct an effective hiring process:

1. Placing the advertisement on various job boards, website and possibly in print media

2. Receiving resumes (these days it can be anywhere from 75 to 150 resumes for one position)

3. Screening resumes to the job description and short-listing the suitable candidates

 4. Pre-qualifying calls to the short-listed candidates to see how they communicate, as well as to confirm some basic details about them

5. Possibly doing a more in-depth pre-screen on the phone to find out more about their past work experience before bringing them in for face-to-face interviews

My good friends at Clear HR Consulting also had some good advice about hiring, particularly in developing job descriptions and matching qualifications to your requirements, in one of their recent newsletters. I really liked this bit:

 Be specific about the qualifications, skills and experience required.

 * Consider requirements for education, work experience, technical skills and soft skills.

* Be specific about what qualifications the successful candidate must have. One of the biggest job description mistakes is listing vague & non-specific qualifications.

* Specify to what degree the candidate needs to possess the skills you require. For instance, if you need someone who needs to be able to do heavy lifting, specify the weight they need to be able to comfortably lift.

 * Include the level of education that needs to have been attained (e.g. grade 12, undergraduate degree in Science, P. Eng).

 * For “soft” skills that you require (e.g. organizational skills, communication skills), specify how strong their skills need to be or what they need to apply their skills towards. For example, “Good communication skills” can be improved by saying “Proven communication skills resolving customer complaints”.

 Remember, channeling your passion for business isn’t just about focusing your own activities. Hiring right and delegating will let you out-task certain responsibilities while you can concentrate on your own area of interest.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

With all of the effort we put into our businesses, we sometimes lose sight of the ultimate goal. That’s not the case for Shannon Bahrke, an American Olympic freestyle skiing athlete heading to Vancouver, who has channeled her passions for business and sports to get her to her goal.

Shannon’s story really inspired me. As with many of our Canadian athletes, getting funding for equipment and attendance at competitions is not easy. But for Shannon, missing out on her Olympic dream was not an option. So she started a business:

“She started the Silver Bean Coffee company, which has six blends, including her signature D-Spin blend. The 2002 silver medalist employs other skiers in Salt Lake City and donates a portion of her revenue to athletes on the U.S. team.

“It’s not yet turning a profit but I’ve been able to pay for travel to World Cups, two training camps and massage therapy,” she said. “People may define you by the medals you win but I’ve always wanted my own business. This is the other side of me.”

As a result of her entrepreneurial spirit, she’ll have the opportunity to compete for gold. The lesson for the rest of us? Owning a business doesn’t just offer the chance of padding your bank account. You can use your revenue to chase down your dreams.

Do you know of any Canadian Olympic athletes who have funded their way to their Olympic dream? I’d love to read more stories like this. Leave a comment.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

If you haven’t already revisited your work schedule for the new year, it’s time. Particularly for those colleagues and clients of mine who work from home, keeping a realistic schedule is an absolutely essential habit.

One of the big benefits of being your own boss is the ability to set your own calendar. But there is a downside. My friend mentioned the other day, “I’m spending about twice as much time working now as I did when I was working for someone else! I still love what I’m doing, but I have less time to spend with friends or family or work on my non-business, just-for-fun projects”.

Setting a more rational schedule that will allow you to put more balance into your life and work will mean taking advantage of existing habits you have.

For instance, if you are a night owl who does their best work in the evening, then try to schedule at least some of your business efforts for that time, even after others have gone to bed. Obviously, this won’t work for cold-calls and other business functions that often work better early in the morning, but a lot of technical services, planning, communications, accounting or administrative functions can be done at night – just as long as you’ve got the energy then.

Of course, if you’re an early riser, consider getting into your work before everyone else is up. The rule is basically that you want to be arranging your schedule around the times when you are most productive according to your own unique body clock.

For home-based businesses, this will necessitate instituting some hard rules and boundaries around entering your “office”. If this is unrealistic for your living arrangement (eg. your home office is the well-trafficked living room), you might consider investing in some shared office space, or even working from the local coffee shop with your laptop and Blackberry as your means of production.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

As entrepreneurs, we have to be lifelong learners. But we don’t all have time to go back to school. Well, there’s so much information out there that if you know how to organize it, you can still benefit hugely – and so can your business.

There’s a great line from Goodwill Hunting where Matt Damon says “You dropped a hundred and fifty grand on an education you coulda’ picked up for a dollar fifty in late charges at the Public Library.” Well, now you don’t even have to go to the library.

 To organize streams of information, you can use Google applications like Reader and Alerts. These have been around for years, but I’m still surprised to find many of my colleagues have never heard of them. Once you have a Google account, you can filter streams of data from news and blog sites to easily scan headlines in categories that you set up. For instance, I have a category for many of my local Vancouver-based business colleagues that I’m in touch with, so whenever one of them publishes an article on their website, I see it. Just Of course, you can do the same thing through your web browser, but I find the Reader format seems to work for me.I also have a Google Alert that creates a feed for “small business tips”, so anytime anyone in the world writes about this, I can check the latest tips.

If you have a mobile device like an iPhone or other MP3 player, you can also listen to audio podcasts with all kinds of great information. For example, the iTunes University site offers free lectures from many great institutions including Harvard and Oxford. Imagine listening to an Ivy League lecture once a day, perhaps on your commute or while you’re at the gym, on just about any topic you could mention – for free.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

A friend of mine was complaining to me recently about the amount of messages he has to respond to lately. Between emails, text messages and tweets, he felt a little overwhelmed. Not only that, he was beginning to resent some of the message-senders. “Doesn’t anyone just pick up a phone anymore?” he said. “I’ve been using that technology all my life and it works just fine. Besides, I actually like hearing the voice on the other end”.

Instant messaging over the Internet is a convenient tool – perhaps a little too convenient. It’s fast, plus you have a record of the communication that you can instantly refer back to if necessary. But for those facing a bit of messaging burnout, perhaps now is a good time to rethink certain situations when you could call instead of email.

1. Do you know for a fact that the person you’re calling (customer, colleague, partner) prefers talking on the phone? In that case, your decision is made for you. Give them what they want.

2. Would phoning give you more of a chance to “catch up?” When you only correspond electronically, the details of life and work can get ignored. After a while, it adds up to the point that you become pretty much disconnected from the person.

3. Is it a special occasion like a holiday or a business anniversary? On these occasions, I find voice works way better for re-establishing that rapport.

Your voice can be a powerful business tool. People tend to remember conversations better than individual emails. For staying connected in 2010, I recommend calling more. At the very least, it will make your Mom happy.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

If you were like billions of people around the world, you kicked off the New Year with a resolution to do more. Make more. Network more. Call more. More, more, more…

But instead of always seeking to do more, wouldn’t most of us benefit by actually doing less? Did you feel frazzled, always rushing, never quite getting everything on your list done? For many of us, a New Year is the time to de-clutter your mind and your life (See Work Life Balance).

When we resolve to do more activities for our business or outside of our professional lives, we can run into the classic problem of biting off more than we can chew. And when you promise to do something and fail for lack of time, you’ll be in worse shape than before, because now you’ll be dealing with the guilt of failure and procrastination.

I know from personal experience and from helping my clients that good things happen when we organize our activities to focus on a few things – and for everything else, have someone else do it.

Revisit your resolution from last week. If you really do have the time to commit to this promise, that’s great. Stay with it. But if you don’t really have the time to do it, then you’re better off canceling that resolution sooner than later (Think of it as a 10-day resolution return policy).

Have a look at your calendar and note all of the hours you’re putting into various activities. Now, think about the time you put into each activity and what you’ve gotten out of it. Make sure you’ve got a red marker handy to start crossing off those activities that aren’t really doing much for you and aren’t likely to produce in future. When you’re done, make a new resolution to stop those activities and focus on the ones that are really getting results. As Chris says, do more of what works and less on the stress.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

Referral networks are nothing new. They’ve probably been around since the first woolly mammoth hunter referred his wood-cutter friend to the guy who made fire. But how do we maximize these relationships to build business?

In my own business, I’ve put in a lot of effort to ensure that I am the one-stop shop, more dependable than the Yellow Pages, whenever someone needs something. Even if the person looking for the service needs something that is way out of the scope of what I do, this point of contact brings us closer for the day when they do need my professional organizing services. Being the center of a referral network has allowed me to help friends and colleagues build their businesses, but I also reap rewards (not just good karma) down the line.

But we could all pay a bit more attention to our referral partners and most of us would also benefit from tracking the results of those relationships a bit better.

First of all, when it comes to taking care of your referral partners, let’s be clear about what your partner wants from you. Sure, they’ll appreciate it when you take them out for lunch or send them a holiday card. But if you want to deliver true reciprocity and a reason for them to keep sending you business, think about how you might be able to send business their way.

This doesn’t mean going out of your way to send them business, even if you think it might not be a good fit for the referral – but do keep an ear out for genuine opportunities. And if something is a near-fit for what you think your colleague might provide, it doesn’t hurt to call up your friend and confirm whether they actually could go beyond the scope of what you understood they could do. For instance, if someone asks you to refer a good business coach and you think your referral partner only advises non-profits, it doesn’t hurt to call them and check if they can in fact do that work.

So, taking care of your referral partners is important. But it’s also important to track the benefits of your referral networks. Put together a spreadsheet showing the amount of effort (entertainment, phone calls, correspondence, etc) you’ve put into building the relationship and the amount of referrals you’ve seen as a result. Using those metrics, you’ll be able to focus on maintaining those relationships that provide the most benefit while also understanding better what kinds of efforts may work better to stimulate your other referral partners.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

When we think about networking with cards, we usually think about business cards. But those cards with little messages we send out at holiday time can be very effective as well at reminding your customers that you’re around.

Hand-written cards, possibly with a custom photo rather than a generic image, send a few messages. First, you are worth my time and effort and I value our relationship. Also, you are not just a client; you’re a friend, maybe even like family. 

Another great side-benefit is that these kinds of messages will not only be read by the recipient. Cards often go up on mantels and other display areas. Anyone who drops by, say for a holiday party, may just pass by and see your card.

Creativity and a personal touch get noticed. A colleague of mine once received a set of postcards from their business partners that included a series of striking images of a flock of birds, starfish on a beach, a pile of colorful leaves in the fall and so on. After a few moments, you realized that all of these things – the birds, the starfish, the leaves – had been subtly edited to spell the recipient’s name (I believe it was a Vancouver-based company that produced these cards. Anyone know which company this was? I’d love to order some!).

One nice thing about this time of the year for procrastinators: if you do miss the cutoff for sending out cards for the holidays, you can still use the occasion of New Year’s Day. Even up to the second week of January is still perfectly fine for getting out “holiday season” cards.

Mid-to-late January is a bit late for this, but by then, you can always start thinking about Valentine’s Day to show your customers some love.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

Almost every successful business depends on cultivating relationships with its champions. These are the clients who come back to you again and again, pass on referrals to your contacts and help add to the value of your brand. (Sometimes, your champions not even customers of yours – maybe it’s a family member or someone who just knows you from a past relationship. For whatever reason, they just keep referring plenty of business your way).

I often talk about the 80/20 rule when it comes to organizing your tasks to focus more on the things you do that generate true value. But business isn’t just about work – it’s about people, and your champions are the people you need to make your business work. That 80/20 rule also applies for focusing efforts on building real relationships.

Now, some champions will even get better over time. Some will lose their champion status for a variety of reasons: their own business is facing cutbacks which get passed on to you. Perhaps they simply don’t require your services after several engagements, and may be in touch at some point in the future, but not the short-term.

So you’ll want to build relationships with your champions. Especially with companies that have been around for a while, this can be a bit tricky; you may actually have dozens of champions. Who has time? 

Actually, it’s not so tough, as long as you’ve got a working calendar. Schedule a meeting over coffee or another informal setting at least once or twice a week with a different champion each time. Try to make it at a regular time of day so it’s easy to remember when you’re meeting, even without checking your schedule. By the time the year is through, you’ll have met with your complete list at least once (hopefully more than that). You’ll probably have a better understanding of who your biggest champions really are, who has moved on and who might be a future champion in your roster.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca