Being Responsible In Your Home Business
10. Asset: Responsibility
+ The responsibility that will really help you pass this question is the kind that is above and beyond the minimum requirements of daily life. Try to think of responsible roles you willingly took, yet weren’t necessarily expected of you. If you can identify at least one major responsible role that you currently fulfill or have fulfilled in the past, and can easily admit making mistakes in this role, you pass this
question.
√ If you have started a business before, and can honestly state why it failed (or why you closed it), you automatically pass this question with a plus.
– Those with no responsible roles, or those who have responsible roles but have never admitted making a mistake as part of that role, fail the question.
How To Improve:
• If you have trouble admitting your mistakes, practice admitting them. We are all human, and no one is perfect. When you own your business, sooner or later you will have to admit a mistake to a client. If you hide the mistake, the situation will only get worse - and it can harm an otherwise impeccable reputation.
• If you have not had responsible roles, volunteer. Start with a small commitment - say, once a month. Increase that commitment, both in time and responsibility, after 6 to 12 months. When a position on a nonprofit board becomes available, willingly take on the role. (Of course, this should be a nonprofit you are excited about helping.)
• If you can’t find responsible and interesting volunteer roles, ask yourself: “If I could do anything to improve the world, what would I do?” Then see what you might be able to do to make that happen. You might not want to start your own nonprofit organization (after all, you’re going to be busy running a business), but you might be able to make a difference and assume a leadership role in the process.
Evaluating Your Overall Score
This section discusses how you should interpret the number of pluses, minuses, and check marks you scored in the preceding quiz. Note that, because all 10 qualities are important, pluses won’t utomatically “even out” the minuses. It is truly important to be fully prepared in all areas. Here’s how to read your results:
• Minuses: If you have one or two minuses, you have some work to do, but you can probably take care of these issues and continue working toward starting your business. If you have more than two minuses, you might want to delay starting your business until you’ve improved in these areas. All 10 of these qualities are vital to starting your work from home business, and trying to create or greatly enhance 30% of them is going to be too overwhelming while you are also trying to start a business. Take 6 to 12 months, at least, and then retake the test.
• Check Marks: These are the “barely passing,” or C- grades in this quiz. If you have up to four check marks, you have a lot of work to do, but you should still be able to start your business. If you have five or more check marks, put off the start of your business. Address the issues, and retake the
test when you are ready.
• Pluses: If you have all 10 pluses—stop. Are you really being honest with yourself? Please be sure that you really deserve a plus next to all 10 questions. If you have six to nine pluses, good for you! Depending on the answers to your other questions, you probably passed this test. If you have
fewer than six pluses, but have enough check marks to pass, you might still want to delay the start of your business. In this situation, it’s really a judgment call.
Overall, any areas needing improvement should be addressed. The more areas of improvement you have, the riskier it will be for you to start your home business.
Tags: home based business, home business, make money online, work at home, work from home