balance-business

Trying to find the balance between a healthy business and a happy home life is one of the biggest challenges business owners face. This is especially true in the fi rst few years of your business, when your time commitment is so great, and your business is still developing its own routines and rhythms.When you’restarting, take a bit of time to fi gure out where you may want to draw the line.

Be prepared to make conscious choices about the trade-offs
or investments of time and energy you are willing to make to build your business.
It’s still about relationships: Feeling good about your life depends on
the strength of all your relationships – with customers, employees, partners,
family, friends and community. Consider how the time and financial
implications of running a business will affect the people in your life. Think
about how your business needs will infl uence your family, and how time with
your family will affect the business. If you live in a small community, prepare
for a possible loss of privacy and a more public relationship with long-time
residents and friends.

dolly-catering-business

Dolly Watts is a wonder. At age 49, she went to university; at 57, she started
a catering business; at 60, she opened a restaurant. And at 69, she won the
Gold Medal in an Iron Chef competition in Vancouver.

Dolly owns and operates Liliget Feast House in Vancouver, a restaurant that celebrates the aboriginal food of her childhood. In 2001, she won a National Aboriginal Achievement award for business and commerce. Dolly estimates
that, between her catering business and her restaurant, she’s spent “more
than $1 million in wages for aboriginal people.”

Liliget is a combination of all the things that matter to Dolly: she’s an
organizer and a manager, and she enjoys the business end; her family works
with her; the restaurant features native cooking; and it gives her a chance to
share her Git’ksan heritage and culture with customers.
“I knew it was the only native restaurant in Canada,” she says, “and because
I studied anthropology at university, I could talk to anyone about our culture.
I was very outspoken and not shy to talk about it.”

Even Dolly’s website fi nds a balance between savvy marketing and being
true to herself. She’s a poet, and uses her website to give customers another
sense of her life.

“When we launched the website, we launched it at an international market –
especially the poetry. I wanted people to see what my life was really like –
that it really was me picking berries, or participating in a large funeral.
People are really thankful to learn about native people.”?

enjoy business

This is continuing article about :

Finding the Balance Between Healthy Business and Happy Home

Enough is enough: Running a business will place great demands on your
time and you will likely end up juggling family commitments, vacations and
free time. While the workload may seem like it will never end, you can
actively set some limits. Keep an open mind about hiring someone to take
the load off. Determine what time sacrifi ces you are prepared to make for
your business. Defi ne the boundaries, and build your plans around them.

The financial investment: Will you use your home or nest egg as
collateral for the business? How long before money comes in? Can you still
make ends meet? Address these kinds of questions early, so you can work
out the solutions long before they turn into problems for everyone involved.
Contact your local Chamber of Commerce to fi nd out about benefi t programs
for small businesses. Talk to your bank or fi nancial advisor about setting up
an automated retirement savings account.

Staying healthy: Taking the time to eat right, stay active and get enough
rest is an investment in your business. Don’t let your personal health and
well-being slide. You should also have a contingency plan that includes
illnesses, pregnancy, care of children and elderly family members – not to
mention a bit of preventive rest and relaxation.

Manage your plan for work -life balance with as much vigour as you would
your business plan. No matter how busy you get, don’t forget to come up for
air at least once a year to re-visit and adjust your plan. Your success – and
your happiness – may depend on it.

Harker Alumni

business woman , coffee cafe business - christine Corkans

Here one of the example of what woman can do in business
If ever there was a textbook good-news business story, Christine Corkan’s
is it. Christine Corkan is a wonderful woman, She had run down the street for a coffee and missed her son’s soccer
goal. While she was climbing back up the bleachers, it hit her: why not bring
the coffee to the people?

“Vancouver is a coffee city, and it’s a recreating city.” refer from that facts, she says. “Most people
have three bucks in their pocket for a latte. I’m pretty much a normal person,
and if I wanted this, I knew others would want it too.”

Christine was already working part-time, but she didn’t feel her future was
secure. maybe you dont know how is the feel if you are working at part time
So she started pursuing her dream, a business she could manage
from home. She did a lot of background work while she established her
business, a gourmet coffee café on wheels. She was never daunted, even
though it took more than a year to go from the light bulb to the first latte.

“I just took it one day at a time, learned what the next step was and did it.”
Christine discovered that she’s a hit with her niche market – parents
watching their kids at the park. Her challenge now is to rein in her business.
With her own children at home, she’s determined to have her business serve
her life, not the other way around. So when she thinks about expansion,
she looks at options that support that philosophy, like franchising her Mobile
Café.

“I work about six hours a day on the weekend. I like that I don’t have a sign
that says I’m open from 9-5, whether people want the coffee or not. I’m
around for a few hours, then I go home.”