are you in business? Heidi Sloss

Hobby vs Business

Posted on February 6, 2012 by Heidi Sloss6 Comments

Last week, as I was giving my keynote presentation, “Fortune is in the Follow-Up®” at Loral Langemeier’sevent in South San Francisco, we talked about the difference between running a business and being engaged in an expensive hobby. I found an article comparing the two. While I can’t find the original author, I updated it to reflect today’s business environment.
Ten signs that indicate you may be engaged in a hobby:
1. Your business cards look free or cheap; they have perforations or the words “printed for free at…” on the back.
2. You use an email account, such as AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo, GMail, etc. for your business communication.
3. You use a mobile phone that is more than 3 years old, telling yourself that you don’t need a smart phone.
4. You do not have a credit card reader to process payments using your smart phone. In fact you do not even have a Paypal merchant account and can’t receive anything other than checks.
5. You don’t strategize and plan for growth. You don’t have a Marketing Plan, because you don’t have the time, knowledge or resources to put one together. You don’t attend professional seminars telling yourself that you don’t have the time and money.
6. You don’t have a system to create sales presentation proposals. You are frequently caught off-guard. You end up pulling material together on-the-spot, “reinventing the wheel” every time. Later you find errors and typos in what you sent out.
7. You allow your new clients to select the best time for them, even if this means late-night, holiday, or weekend appointments.
8. You dread the part of the conversation when prospective clients ask how you work or what you charge. You lack confidence in what you offer and how you present your offer of services.
9. Your website is really out of date. Or you don’t have one and you don’t know where to really start. Or you have a website that you put together yourself that took hours and days of work, but saved you the money of hiring a professional. You have no clue about SEO and don’t want to even think about blogging. You use social media sites, but have no social media strategy in your Marketing Plan.
10. You are “chief-cook and bottle washer.” You do it all yourself, because you don’t have enough time to train anyone. Besides you can do it faster and better and bottom line, you don’t think you have enough money to actually hire help.

Ten signs that show you’re in business:
1. You have professional business cards, printed on heavy cardstock.
2. Your incoming and outgoing email addresses are branded with your company name.
3. You have a smart phone that allows you to work from anywhere that you chose.
4. You use your smart phone to process credit card payment with a credit card reader. And you have a Paypal merchant account and process credit cards through it.
5. You take the time, away from your business, for professional development to plan your business growth and strategize your marketing activities for the upcoming year. You attend classes and seminars on running your business taught by experts in marketing and sales. You recognize that this is an investment in your business’ growth.
6. Your marketing collateral and sales presentations are up to date. You pride yourself on being able to respond to prospective clients requests for more information right away and for sales presentations within 24 hours of being asked.
7. You know when you’re available for appointments or have regular client/customer hours.
8. You know the value of your work and initiate conversations with prospects all the time, knowing that the more sales presentations you make, the better your bottom line.
9. You have a professional-looking website, that’s up to date, even if it’s only a few pages. You understand that you are not in the website design and maintenance business. You hire a professional for this important marketing activity. You recognize how your website and your social media activity fits into your Marketing Plan. You create the content, but hire professionals to put it together.
10. You recognize your talents and save your time and energy for marketing and taking care of your top clients. You delegate all of the important, but non-income generating activities, to employees or outside professionals.
So which are you doing? Running a real business or just an expensive hobby? Would love to hear your thoughts on this. Feel free to leave comments below.
Yours,