Is your business causing loneliness?

For those of us that work from home, it can get lonely when the only thing you have in front of you is your computer. Families may lesson the problem but you still have many hours of having no interaction except with the computer.

After many years of dealing with customer's day in and day out it was weird being totally alone when my wife was at work.

However the Start Up Spark has some good ideas for making your new life less lonely.

One of the ways I have dealt with this situation is going Toastmasters. I have mentioned this in my blog several times but not only does it allow you to get out of the home office and to interact with people; it also greatly improves your communication and leadership skills.

There is also marketing groups that not only get you interacting with others but can also be a marketing program for you.

If you are spending too much time in the home office and need some human interaction, there is plenty of places to find it that could also help you to build your business.

How much debt do you have?

It is very tempting as a small business owner to get into debt. It doesn't matter whether you put a new printer on a company credit card or have credit extended from one of your vendors you now owe money to someone else.

Eventually the money comes do or you end up paying for that purchase long after you have thrown that product in the junk pile.

To make matters worse you will spend more money on that purchase than you would have if you paid cash. Spending cash is harder to do, makes you think about the purchase more but if you pay on credit card the price doesn't hurt that much. On average you will spend 123% more if you pay with credit than with cash.

The average person is in debt to the tune of $8000 and will end up spending $18,000 to pay that debt off. Personally, I can think of many things I could do with that money than hand it over to a credit card company and get nothing in return.

The HomeBizBlogger has more comments on this and a good source of information is Dave Ramsey.

Yesterday I provided a link to the Sales and Sales Management blog that had six helpful links to make your life easier. Today, Blogtreneur sight has 101 resources for managing your money online.

It includes links to budget your money, online checking accounts, invoicing tools, online payment processing, websites and blogs, articles, stock traders, plus financial calculators.

I have had personal experience with many of the provided links including quicken online, E*Trade, and pay pal and have not had issues with any of the companies.

The only downside to the list is that the website and blog section mainly deals with blogs on investing although the CNN Money website does have some articles that could be of use to a small business person.

With hundreds of tools out there to help you get your work done more efficiently it is sometimes hard to figure out what will work for you.

The Sales and Sales Management Blog has a listing of 6 free efficiency tools to help organize your computer and your life. There is a wide variety of tools listed for you to give them a try.

The best thing of course is that they are free. You can give them a try and if they are not the right ones for you to use no money has been wasted. Also you will find out what works and what doesn't work for you.

I have found that some of the least expensive or free programs work as well if not better than some of the more expensive programs. Sure they may not have all the bells and whistles but then again how many times do you use all those special features?

The Sound of Silence.

It seems in our hectic lives we have little times to ourselves and especially little time for peace and quiet. However, quiet time is needed by all of us and we need to set the time apart for it.

While I have mentioned about the need for quiet times before, I think it is important to talk about it again. Quiet time allows your thoughts to flow more freely and gives you time to charge your batteries.

Quiet time can be simple such as just taking 20 to 30 minutes in the morning or evening to just sit down and do nothing. Or you can spend that time doing meditation.

Personally I love to take walks in the early morning before traffic gets bad and spend time just walking down my neighborhood streets. Other times I will ride the bus and walk down a recreational trail that follows a nearby river.

What I love about my walks is it gives me time to clear my head and just let my mind wonder.

There are many types of quiet time so find what works for you. The Zen Habits Blog has some more ideas for you.

This is a 10 minute video featuring Peter Sun is on finding success with your own small business.

The video starts with talking about the six pitfalls to business success. There is some good information on the pitfalls that people encounter and why they are not successful.

The final pitfall I would have to take issue with him on. He says you need to get a new car, new clothes, etc to find success. While this may make you feel go when your first get started it could also bite you if you finance it.

I will agree with him that you need to take risk to get ahead. If you don't take that chance on starting your own business, you will never succeed. It could mean leaving that job you hate and venturing out on your own. The more responsibilities you have the harder it is to take the risk but at some point you have to.

Some of the other information will sound familiar but it always is good to listen to it again.

Most businesses have to accept credit cards these days. But accepting them also means you accept the responsibility of taking them and keeping the numbers same. In this day in age with the fear of identity theft on everyone's minds, it is more important than that you are ensuring your customer's credit cards are protected.

The SmallBizTechonology Blog has some good information for all businesses when it comes to credit card transactions. It covers not only if you have your own merchant account but also covers if you're using an online service like pay pal.