#DENStartupWeek Blog Post: Tips to Balance Home & Work Life

Hey Entrepreneurs!  This week we're interviewing folks at Denver Startup Week since ​many entrepreneurs work from home. This allows them to work around their family and spend more time with their children. It allows stay at home parents to raise their small children and contribute to the family's bottom line and change the world. It can be wonderful for college students who are launching, too. However, it can be very difficult to balance work and home, especially if they share the same table! Hear what Mentors at Denver Startup Week 2015 have to say:

From the Mentors & Pros at Denver Startup Week:
Q:  What's the best way you balance work and home life?
Answers:
Tom Higley, Founder, 10.10.10, "Don't try to balance it and work from home."
Perry Evans, Founder of MapQuest, "Get up at 5am so you can have real evening with family."
​Kirsten Blake, ChapterBe.com,  "Create a specific space in your house for work."
Tami Door, DowntownDenver.com,  "There is no balance, there's just life and you live it."
Chris Franks, Growth Executive, "Make sure you have a 'firm' scheduled date night and family night."

Here's some additional tips for entrepreneurs to balance home & work life.

• Set working hours. Figure out when you are going to work and stick to it. Many people work when their children are at school or taking naps. However, you need to make sure that your family knows your working hours and won’t interrupt you!  Or, just incorporate your work into your personal life.
• Set your own office space. It is really hard to work from home if you use the kitchen table. Instead, try to find a space that is just your own so you can leave whatever you are working on out. It will also help if you can shut the door when you are finished and you don’t have to look at your projects sitting out when you walk by.  Like they all said above.
• Spend quality time with friends & family. You are going to have to find ways to stop thinking about your business so you can just sit and enjoy spending time with your family.  Hell, make your mentors your friends to kill two birds with one stone.

The best way to balance your home and business life is to set working hours and stick to them. It also helps if you have your own space to work so you can just shut the door on it when you are done. Then, be sure to spend plenty of time with those you love without worrying about your business.  Or spend it with those that love you AND your business. You work hard so you deserve it!

Launch your business by applying to the Handshakin Pre-accelerator.

Interesting & Creative Ways to Publicize your CO Startup

So you are working on your Colorado startup and you are about ready to launch. Now what? Now it is time to put together your marketing plan and go public. Of course you have done your research and you know the standard answers for publicizing your business: social media, coupons, networking, etc. But what are some more interesting and creative ways you can publicize your Colorado startup: 

Guest Post and Blog

You started a business, what does that mean? It means you could probably be considered an expert in your field, or try to be seen as an expert in your field.  There are other companies, websites, blogs, etc. that are just dying to get your opinion on things. Do them all a favor and write some guest posts with links to your own website in the byline. They get expert advice and you get some free marketing. Another way to market your business effectively is to create a blog for your own website and keep it up-to-date with relevant and informative content.

Social Media Contest

Putting together your social media is easy – but getting a following on your social media sites is much harder. Get some traffic flowing by holding a social media contest within your business. How? Ask your employees to share, like, and follow your businesses’ social media posts. Entrepreneurs can't be scared to ask for help, you need it.  Ask them.  Award the person who has added the most traffic at the end of the week with a prize. Or, you could make a game out of social media. According to this site you can hold a competition that is similar to the game Yahtzee. “This competition will span 13 weeks, based on the 13 lines of game play in Yahtzee… Each week employees who are participating must complete one social media task.” Some social media tasks you could use in your game could include:

• Sharing a Facebook post
• Tweeting something about the company
• Write a post for the company blog
• Re-pinning a company Pinterest Pin
  

At the end of the week you play Yahtzee and prizes are given to those who have accomplished the goals in the different sections. See more specific rules for play at this site.

SEO

SEO or Search Engine Optimization has become an extremely popular way to market a business. What is it? The basic idea is that you write the content on your website so that your website will rank higher on search engines like Google. How do you do this? You could hire someone who knows exactly what they are doing or you could try it yourself. Here is a basic rundown of how to do SEO yourself:

• Think of a few words that people might use when searching for your business online.
• Type these words into Google Keyword Tool.  Think local first.
• Take a look at the similar words that are being searched for and try to use those words and phrases in the text of your website.

QR Codes

Lastly, a pretty inexpensive way to advertise your business is to start using QR codes. A QR (Quick Response) code is similar to a bar code that a smartphone can scan and provide easy access to information like a video, a website, etc. Put QR codes on flyers, on packaging, on products, whatever you like. Just make sure the links work and that they go to useful, entertaining, and or interesting information.

Or, ditch all of that and shake hands with the world's 1% and get them to share your content.  Learn how to get meetings with them in the Handshakin Pre-accelerator or watching our free videos.

The Worst Case Scenario: How to Deal with Fears When Starting a Business

Every person who has had the experience of starting a business knows the fear that comes from taking those first steps. You are putting your energy, your income and aspects of your life on the line to bring something to the market. You believe this is worth it, but how do you address those fears that just do not go away? 

The Worst Case Scenario

In his book, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, Dale Carnegie gives a powerful formula to help deal with our anxiety-inducing fears. Honestly take a look at what you are afraid will happen. This is not a time to get wildly imaginative but to honestly assess what you are afraid of.

Is it that you will not make enough money? Is it that your friends will see you fail? Whatever you are truly afraid of happening, make it your worst case scenario and say "Now what?" If you do not make enough money, can you find work again? If your friends see you fail, will they stick with you through it? Do you need new friends?

Visualize yourself going through the fear that drags you down. Now visualize yourself responding to that event. You have failed at your business, learned significant principles about business and are now back at work. You have failed, but you can start again.

Your friends have seen you fail, those who are truly lifelong friends have gathered around to support you and those who are not have left. Good riddance.

Your family is hungry. Grateful you live in the United States, you sign up for food stamps and go look for work. Not the most dignified moment in your life, but really not that bad. You recover and you go back to work.

In order to face your fear of the worst thing that can happen starting your business, you must do these things. Address it realistically, visualize the results of your fear happening and plan your response. At this point you are ready to face whatever may come.

I invite you to apply to the Handshakin Startup Pre-accelerator to measure your risks and fears.  I'd love to connect with more entrepreneurs (and maybe I'll share with you what I did when I had $100,000 of student loans and then lost $8k on a previous startup).

Why Training & Education is Important For Your Startup

As a new business owner, you are probably looking for lots of feedback. Many people love to give advice and feedback. One entrepreneur tip that is sometimes overlooked is that you have to spend money on your business to make money. It is important to watch every penny that you spend. 

However, you do need to buy office supplies, computers, and there are usually monthly costs like the internet to think about. What about yourself?

Your training and education is also very important for your business for the following reasons.

• Grow so your business can grow.  As a business owner, you need to grow so that your business can grow. If you want to learn better ways to grow your business, you should take classes about managing and growing a small business.
• Learn more about marketing your business.  Many entrepreneurs do not know much about marketing. There are many classes available so that you can learn how to market your business to reach as many new customers as possible.
• Improve your customer service.  Customer service is so important, no matter what type of business you run. Learning better ways of making your customers happy will increase your business and will definitely be worth it.
• Learn better ways to improve your sales.  Many small business owners should take some classes to become better salesmen. Many businesses are sales oriented and would benefit from learning the craft of sales.
• Improve on your craft.  There are many classes about all types of businesses. No matter what type of business you run, you should keep up on your education so that your business is running up-to-date. This is especially true in the health care and technology field but applies to all fields.
  

Education and training are important for any entrepreneur. Consider taking classes on basic business management, marketing, and customer service. Many people would also benefit by applying to a Startup Pre-accelerator (a class where you are executing, instead of just learning how it 'would' be). No matter what your business, you should find classes, communities, and mentors tailored to your individual business so that you can stay on top of your field and be competitive in your business.

Apply to the Handshakin Pre-accelerator today for more tips & action items to help you launch or grow your business!