Does Your Home Business Need Help?

Ever hear these state­ments made about your home business?

Ask for Help

“If you can’t do it on your own, then you shouldn’t do it at all.”

“If you ask for help, you’ll owe the other guy when he says yes.”

“You can’t afford to pay for advice. The profit mar­gin is too small for more than one person.”

I hope that all of you rec­og­nize how full of the prover­bial bull those state­ments are. Two recent events in my life illus­trate how con­nected home work­ers are, even though we chose to ‘work alone’.

I had lunch the other day with a new friend. Susan and I met at a net­work­ing event where I was the only per­son present who did not know every other per­son present. (I’m not sure that the group fully under­stands the con­cept of net­work­ing, but that’s a sub­ject for another day.)

Susan offered to be my tour guide and intro­duce me to the his­toric down­town over lunch. I quickly took her up on the offer because Susan, who works in the office of one the local High Schools, knows a lot of the town’s his­tory. And she’s fun to be around. We both had a great time, the food was ter­rific, and the local color was all I had heard it would be.

“How do you stand it?” Susan asked me at one point as we sat at an out­door café on the board­walk to watch the boat­ing traf­fic on the Cape Fear River. “I could never work alone all day. What I like best about my job is hav­ing lots of peo­ple to work with. Who do you call for help when you’re stuck?”

Susan’s ques­tion stayed in my mind even after our lovely lunch was over. I real­ized an impor­tant fact about work­ing from home. No mat­ter how soli­tary our home busi­ness might be — and the busi­ness of writ­ing is often the very def­i­n­i­tion of soli­tary — none of us are really work­ing alone.

There are peo­ple wait­ing and want­ing to help.

The sec­ond event hap­pened a few days ago, not long after my lunch with Susan. Gary, my coach made a ran­dom remark dur­ing a phone con­ver­sa­tion. I don’t believe he knew how strongly his com­ment res­onated with me, espe­cially since it wasn’t really on tar­get for the dis­cus­sion we were hav­ing. But like Susan’s ques­tion, his remark stuck with me. He said, “There are peo­ple wait­ing and want­ing to help you.” This, com­bined with Susan’s ques­tion, led to some seri­ous pon­der­ing time and these conclusions.

Home busi­ness work­ers are a rare breed. Not every per­son has the tem­pera­ment to live and work from home. We are mav­er­icks who rel­ish respon­si­bil­ity and change. And yet, dis­tinc­tive as each of us is, we do share cer­tain traits:

• A broad streak of inde­pen­dence mixed with a healthy dose of risk addiction
• Strong abil­i­ties to think crit­i­cally to see solu­tions and solve problems
• Instincts that tell us when to look for help.

In a home busi­ness you can’t walk down the hall to the IT guy’s cold com­puter room to ask the burn­ing ques­tion he’s heard from every per­son in the build­ing. What you can do is pick up the phone and call an IT expert. What you can do is write a sim­ple 142 char­ac­ter call for help on twit­ter. What you can do is work with the team of experts you have instinc­tively sur­rounded your­self with.

Work­ing Alone is Not the Same as Doing Busi­ness Alone

What? You don’t have a team of experts to call on for help? Then it’s time to put a home busi­ness infor­ma­tion and sup­port sys­tem into place. Work­ing alone is not the same as doing busi­ness alone. Ask­ing for help is a require­ment in any type of business.

Here are a few tips for build­ing your home busi­ness infor­ma­tion sup­port system:

Make con­nec­tions in your community.

The net­work­ing group where I met Susan, while a bit inces­tu­ous, is a great resource for me espe­cially since I am new to the area.

Make con­nec­tions online.

If you are not already doing so, join the online social media world. Set up Twit­ter, Face­book, LinkedIn or other social media accounts for your busi­ness use.

Keep con­nec­tions from your ‘old’ life active.

Look, even a newly grad­u­ated high school senior has con­nec­tions to draw upon and use as resources. Don’t burn your bridges. Be mind­ful that while there might one or two peo­ple from your old life who want to see you come crawl­ing back a fail­ure, most of the peo­ple you worked with before can con­tinue as a resource. You might have to spring for cof­fee or lunch when you really need their help, but keep­ing those con­nec­tions active is as easy as email or an occa­sional text or phone message.

Con­nect with the experts.

Be brave. Approach the peo­ple you admire in busi­ness. Give one of them a call. And remem­ber this; you are one of the experts, so when another home busi­ness owner reaches out to you, respond and let the con­nec­tion hap­pen. Another option is to con­sider join­ing or start­ing a Mas­ter­Mind group or other appro­pri­ate busi­ness community.

Cre­ate a Strong Home Busi­ness Infor­ma­tion Sup­port List

Are you won­der­ing how I answered Susan’s ques­tion? Not with the detail I’ve given you here of course. I said that my work life is full of rich con­nec­tions, even though few of them are face-​​to-​​face. And that what I like about my job is that I get to choose when I deal with peo­ple and when I do not.

So make your con­nec­tions, keep a strong and active team of experts avail­able. And remem­ber this. The next time some­one says to you, “If you can’t do it alone, you shouldn’t do it at all.”, nod your head sagely, smile, and cross that per­son off your home busi­ness infor­ma­tion sup­port list. There are some peo­ple you sim­ply don’t want to ask for help.

Who do you call when you need help in your home busi­ness? Share your opin­ion and thoughts in the com­ments below!