Admin Angels: Business Mums - How to get your housework sorted!

Clever Mamma is delighted to have Barb from Admin Angels as our special guest on the blog today, with a subject very close to home. With three girls keeping her busy she knows her "mum stuff"!

 

Time is of the essence when you’re a busy Mum running your own business, trying to keep an organised household and the family happy! I have found a way that has helped me tremendously with keeping the house as organised as possible (with three young children running around) and it doesn’t take hours to do it – well not all at once anyway. It can get done quickly while the children are occupied and you’ll feel that you’ve achieved something, because you haven’t planned to get EVERYTHING done at once.

The Plan!

I have created a weekly planner for myself, which includes all of the regular family activities, such as school and kinder drop offs, as well as the kid’s activities. Then there’s the business stuff, which is segmented into different categories and then the housework. I have everything colour coded so it’s easier to read at a glance, and it looks much nicer too!
 

For example: 

• Monday’s – Clean bathrooms/toilets and wash the towels 

• Tuesday’s – Vacuum and mop 

• Wednesday’s – Washing & ironing 

• Thursday’s - Dust 

• Friday’s – Washing & ironing, wash bed linen 

• Saturday’s – Quick vacuum in main living areas

It breaks down the housework into nice “chunks” of time, so you’re not spending hours doing it in one hit. It doesn’t feel that bad when it’s broken down in these timeframes, and I find that it actually gets done and the house is cleaner. Obviously there’s still the general tidy up each day, along with the dishes, but I find that it’s a bit more manageable. When you’re trying to run a business, and maintain a house, it’s best to be organised.

 

Find full details for Barb's fabulous admin support biz Admin Angels over on the Clever Mamma Directory.

Reverie Coaching: So what is Passive Income?

Clever Mamma is thrilled to have Kathryn from Reverie Coaching as our
special guest on the blog today. Read on for a fantastic strategy session offer!

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Passive Income is currently the holy grail of entrepreneurs world-wide. The concept is that you develop products that can be consumed with limited or no input from yourself once developed.

The ‘passive’ refers to the fact that once the product is developed and the payment and delivery systems are set up you can earn money on an ongoing basis without doing any actual work.

It is a misleading term because there is a lot of time and effort that goes into producing and setting up these products to run seamlessly and generally you are still undertaking marketing and communications to make passive income sales.

I have two types of ‘passive income’ products:

· Fully Passive: Once developed and set-up I provide no hands on work or inputs unless directly contacted by a purchaser

· Semi-Passive: Most of my courses have a live forum or mastermind component where I need to make myself available to motivate, challenge, inspire and answer questions.

The benefit of semi-passive is that I can technically do this at any time that suits me, even if that was at 3am while breastfeeding a baby with my i-phone in the other hand! Not necessarily recommending this though!

People can potentially consume this information at any time and you can quite literally ‘earn money while you sleep’. It is a great feeling!

Passive income is particularly attractive to mums (or parents generally) who require a flexible way to earn money that does not require providing inputs at set times.

It is also a great option for those who seek a mobile lifestyle - travelling and working from anywhere. 

What are Passive Income Products ?

Passive Income products are anything that is developed, written, or designed once and can be consumed multiple times without direct contact/inputs between the seller and purchaser.

Passive Income Products constitute one or more electronic files:
– PDF
– MP4 (video)
– MP3 (music/audio),
– PSD (graphic file) 

Examples of Passive Income Products

· E-books – a book/report on a particular support that you download such as an e-book on dressing for your body shape

· Product – such as a guided meditation that you can download and listen to

· Templates – i.e. a business plan template that you could tailor for use in your business

· Graphic Design Elements – i.e. a decorative frame or quote graphic that can be tailored for use in your business

· Reports – based on a calculated result from a survey i.e. filling out a dietary and exercise survey and getting a ‘tailored’ weight loss program emailed to you. 

What is an e-course ?

E-Courses are the most complex of passive income products requiring the most development and set-up and are therefore generally more expensive than say an e-book but less expensive than one-on-one services.

An e-course has a series of topics/modules delivered electronically on some sort of regular basis.

An e-course may be delivered via a combination, or just one, of the following methods (this list is not exhaustive):
– video,
– e-workbooks,
– emails
– webinars
– Q&A calls
– forums/masterminds

E-Courses generally include structured learning such as activities and tasks and have a set of expected outcomes. 

If you would like to learn how to develop your own e-courses for your business make sure you check out the E-Course Launch Formula before the 15th March to access the Early-Bird Discounted rate of $379 which is a saving of $200 off! As an additional special offer for Clever Mamma readers I am throwing in a Passive Income Strategy Session (45 min in-person in Adelaide or via skype) for anyone who enrols in this course.

Find full contact details for Kathryn and Reverie Coaching here.

Invisible Business Solutions: What do I do?

Clever Mamma is delighted to have Helen from Invisible Business Solutions as
our special guest. Read on for a fantastic International Women's Day FREE offer!

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It’s not often that I consider myself to have an identity crisis! I’m a very lucky wife with an amazingly supportive husband, a mother of two wonderful boys, and a woman who chose her life and the path it took! We even moved from the other side of the world to Australia nine years ago!

So one of the challenges I have faced since launching Invisible Business Solutions is explaining exactly what it is I do. Who my professional persona is… other than she is invisible!

At the first networking event I attended, the response to my business was  ‘Oh… you’re an Accountant’ or ‘Oh… you’re a bookkeeper’, neither of which I am… I mean I thought it was obvious what a Business Analyst does?… but the simple answer was that is very difficult to understand! So my first lesson learnt was never assume anything!

The challenge posed is that most businesses don’t go looking for me – in fact they don’t know I exist – very apt that we are called INVISIBLE BUSINESS SOLUTIONS… More over they don’t know why they need me!

For example, if you want someone to clean your home, you go looking for a cleaner! If you want to get fit or lose a few pounds – you find a Fitness Instructor – it's simple. However if you want to take your business to the next level would you automatically think… ‘aah, yes, I need a Business Analyst’, no you wouldn’t – but YES you do!

So there it is… that’s what I do – but let me try to simplify things…

  

Firstly it’s best to drop the big scary corporate word ‘Business Analyst’ and instead say ‘I add value to the future of your business, not record the transactions of the past’. Maybe an even better way to describe my job is that I’m the GPS for your business – no not that annoying lady that tells you where to go (heh, heh…) but instead the lady who will get your business to where it wants to go. It really doesn’t matter whether you are thinking of starting a business, a school hours business mum or a seasoned business woman - I can help every one of you get to the next stage of your business or help get you back on track!

Because we don’t know your business like you do we have to base everything on fact – the facts from your business, the facts from talking and listening to you! Believe it or not your business is an amazing book of information, and once you let us have a read we can help you base your decisions on fact not fiction!

Quite simply it’s a numbers game without the gamble! We can help you win the game by providing YOU with the skills, knowledge and information to understand the way your business works by using these numbers in the right way!

Our service gives YOU the information YOU need to base your real decisions on rather than just instinct or luck! 
This is the service I love to provide to Business Mums. I believe everyone should have access to this information so they are able to understand the performance of their business. Once you have this information you’ll wish you knew about us right from the start!

If you’re just starting out the questions you need answers to might be:

• Do you have the numbers to prepare your Business Plan?

• Have you calculated all the costs of your new project?

• Have you worked out your Scorecard?

• Have you bought bookkeeping software and understand how to use it?

If you are a small business the questions you need answers to might be: 

• What’s the TRUE cost of your products and/or your service?

• How do I set my sales price?

• Which of your products REALLY makes you the most money?

• Should I offer a discount? Can I afford to? Will I still make a profit?

• Can I match my price to a competitor without losing money?


• Are my expenses under control?

• How can I get this information from my bookkeeping software?


If you’re moving into the growth stage of your business, to enable you to get there the questions you need answers to might be:

• How do I work out my cashflow? How can I improve my cash flow?

• How do I build a Budget for the year?

• Which sales location (State or Territory) makes you the most money and why?

• How can I work out Sales Targets so that I can achieve my goals, or set targets for my sales team? 

By having the answers to these questions your business could increase turnover, cashflow and profitability! By using a business analyst you can take your business to the next level or get you back on track!

It pays to talk, we love to listen and what we add, you’ll take away!

  

So let Invisible Business Solutions be your GPS and guide you to business goals! Between now and International Women’s day on 8 March 2013, Invisible Business Solutions have rolled out our Help50 promotion. We are offering a FREE consultation so that we can work out how best to help your business. So please check out www.ibsgc.com.au/help50 for more details or contact Helen on 0416 101 422  or email info@ibsgc.com.au or direct message me on FB at  www.facebook.com/invizbizsolutions