management

4 Keys to Reining in Social Media Overload

by Paul Joseph February 9, 2012 Featured

Most businesses understand that they need at least some kind of social media presence nowadays. But what about those who are too deeply entrenched in Facebook status updates and tweets? Or those that can’t keep up with LinkedIn invites and Tumblr reblogs? What about entrepreneurs who are finding it harder and harder to manage all of their social media profiles and run a business at the same time? It’s easy to get overloaded with social media, but if you feel like you’re drowning, it might be time to start simplifying your routine and finding ways to cut back on your time spent without sacrificing your level of community engagement. 1. Pick a Management Tool Balancing all of your social media accounts sometimes comes down to switching back and forth between different applications and websites. This can waste your time, especially if you have to manually go to the Facebook and Twitter websites to see if you’ve received any comments or mentions. To combat this, download a social media management tool like HootSuite or TweetDeck. These applications allow you to monitor and use all of your social media profiles from one convenient interface. Of course, the constant messages popping up on your desktop to inform you that you’ve received a new comment or mention can be distracting. To save time, turn off these notifications. 2. Focus Your Efforts While the primary thing you should be doing on social media sites is being social, don’t let this distract you from your overall goal: to interact with customers and market your business. Your first priority should always be to relay a specific message to your target market. Don’t try to speak to everybody, everywhere. Speak only to those that would be interested in purchasing your product or service. Seriously, generic status updates and tweets are the bane of businesses. Be specific and you’ll be interesting. Also, avoid checking social media sites over and over again each day. Set aside a specific time to check them and post updates. Schedule them if you have to. Just don’t cut away from your business tasks every five minutes to check comments on Facebook. That’s a super productivity killer. 3. Use What Works If you have no need to use Tumblr or Pinterest for your business, don’t. There’s no law saying you have to use every social media site out there. Instead, only use the sites that work for your company and that are easy to manage. You should be getting more out of your social media efforts than what you’re putting in. If that’s not the case, it may be time to reevaluate your approach or ditch that specific site. 4. Take a Break If you still feel up to your ears in social media, it may be time to take a break. We have a tendency of being connected to our networks too often, in both our personal and business lives. To cut down on the noise, set aside 30 minutes a day to shut off your phone and close your browser. Take some time for yourself to think uncluttered thoughts. It can do wonders for your productivity once you switch your connections back on. Adam Toren is an Award Winning Author, Serial Entrepreneur and Investor. He Co-Founded YoungEntrepreneur.com along with his brother Matthew. Adam is co-author of the newly released book: Small Business, Big Vision: “Lessons on How to Dominate Your Market from Self-Made Entrepreneurs Who Did it Right” and also co-author of Kidpreneurs .

Tagged as: business psychology, entrepreneur, facebook, internet marketing, management, marketing, social-media, twitter

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Janani AgriServe; Making Agriculture ProfitableforSmallandMarginalFarmers

by Paul Joseph February 8, 2012 Featured

In conversation with YourStory, Sundara Rajan tells us how Janani AgriServe aims to provide innovative, personalised and customised Agri Products/Services at the farm gate by exploiting the latest in Agri Sciences and Information & Communication Technology. Please tell us about your Project. Janani AgriServe  creates an Agri Value chain right from the Farm Gate to the buyers of Agri Commodities and operates in an innovative Information & Communication Technology Platform which enables all the stakeholders of the Agri Chain to network seamlessly to transact their business needs. How does the entire process work? A village level Kiosk (One kiosk for 3 to 5 villages for a farmer community of 1500 to 2000) is opened and run by a local franchisee.  The franchisee can be a NGO, local Agriprenaur, self help groups, farmer co-operatives, etc.  All Village Level Kiosks are aggregated at the Mandal/Taluk/Block Level for operational efficiency/management purposes.  The Mandal Level Aggregation Centre is opened and operated by a Agri Graduate/Management Graduate.  Janani deploys its own manpower at the District Centre to run the entire operations at the District. The Services being provided from the Kiosk includes— Agro Advisories to small farmers – Continuously from Pre-sowing till post harvest – on a weekly basis – specific to the farmer’s crop – by digitally capturing the crop status data (such as growth of the plant, diseases symptoms, change of colour of the plant, soil conditions…) and sending them to Agri  Scientists at the Agri Lab in Hyderabad – These Agri Experts analyse the data, zero in on the problem of the crop – Then a SMS or print out through the Kiosk is sent to the individual farmer explaining the problem and the solution he has to adopt for next one week – this cycle continues on an proactive basis – our project partner for this service is eSagu of IIIT-H(International Institute for Information Technology, Hyderabad) and MediaLab Asia, a wing of Min. of IT, Govt. of India, New Delhi. – This Service helps the farmers to reduce their cost of cultivation, improve the quality and quantity of output – On an average a farmer earns Rs.5000/- extra per acre per season due to this intervention. Supply of Agri Inputs – Seeds, fertilisers, Pesticides, Insecticides, Nutrients – Janani buys these inputs directly from the manufactures and sells to the farmers through the Kiosk network – This service provides quality inputs at right time and right prices to the farmers – Marketing Linkage Services – The ICT Platform links the farmers with the buyers of Agri Commodities – viz. Exporters, Food Processing Units, Large Format Retail Chains, Mandies.. – The Data collected through the Agro Advisory Service enables Janani to plan this service efficiently and well in advance. Agri Finance and Insurance Services – Janani enables the farmers to avail financial / insurance services from organised financial institutions – Janani acts as business correspondent to these institutions and help the farmer to get these services without running around – Janani processes all applications, does the due diligence, enables the farmer to get the loan into his bank account and helps the Financial institution to collect the dues in time – ICICI Bank is one of our main partner in this service.  Similar service is also intended to be provided for Agri Insurance purposes. Price Risk Mitigation Services – Janani intends to aggregate the farmers into small groups and aid them to operate in Commodity Exchanges which will enable them to protect their Price Risk at the time of sales – We are actively discussing with MCX (Multiple Commodity Exchange) and FMC (Forward market Commission)  for this purpose. Agro / Rural Information Service – Janani is working with IBM through their Spoken Web Module to provide localised Agro and other Rural/Commercial information to the farmers through voice mode Post Harvest Management Services – The services to farmers include packaging, transport, warehousing and warehouse financial services. Quality Assurance Services – Janani is working actively for a new technology which will enable the farmer to sort and grade  his output based on quality parameters of various industries and sell them profitably. All the above services are appropriately and competitively priced to the farmers.  The Revenue earned through these trading margins and service charges are shared by the Village Kiosk, Mandal Aggregator and Janani on agreed ratios. The Investment at Village Level Kiosk is Rs.3.00 Lakhs and that at Mandal Level is Rs.8 Lakhs, which also includes the working capital. Janani enters into MOUs/Distribution Agreements / Contract/Contact Farming Agreements and Service Provider Agency Agreements  with various alliance partners and executes the operations from the District Center.The entire operation will be through an innovative ICT Platform being created by Janani and IBM India. How did the idea come about? Janani is one of the stake holders of eSagu Project mentioned above which started in 2004 in A.P. – As we worked closely with the farmers for finding out a commercial solution to make eSagu viable, we realized the need to provide other services and products also along with advisory services -  These needs were mapped over a period of 4 years and finally the business model is put into place. We have piloted the business model in 3 of our own kiosks so far to demonstrate the proof of concept as well as profitability of the business model.  Janani AgriServe is now poised for scaling up of operations in AP and deployment in other States. When was this launched? Janani’s first kiosk was opened in 2007 and all 3 Pilot Kiosks were full fledged in 2010 as services were added and experimented with various partners over a period of time. It was our own model which was conceived, developed, piloted and now ready for replication. How has the response been so far? The farmers have appreciated the value of these services and over a period of 5 to 7 years  we have served nearly 10,000 farmers. Who are the various stakeholders involved in the process? Small Farmers, Agri Business Organisations (Input manufacturers, buyers, financial and insurance organisations, agri service providers), Governments,AgriUniversitiesand Research organisations. Do you monetise? What’s your revenue model? All products and services are priced. Revenue is earned through service charges, trading margins, commissions. The Village Level Kiosks have already broken even. The project is apprised by Bank and one of our franchisee also received loan from Indian bank. Dept of Agriculture Marketing, Govt. ofIndiaalso provided subsidy to one of our franchisee for creating village level marketing infrastructure through NABARD. Feeling of being a NSIH Finalist? It is certainly  great and fulfilling. We are happy that our efforts are being recognized by premier institutions. Reaching finals also gives us the confidence and conviction to move ahead. NISH has provided us with the much needed platform to showcase our venture – We are confident that investors would come forward to help us in our growh path.

Tagged as: accounting, congress, disclaimer, employee, guest columnists, india, intel, lose-something, management, new-delhi, password, startup

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Kartavya Healtheon launched Chronic Diseases Management Services in India

by Paul Joseph February 8, 2012 Featured

Reducing risk of Chronic Diseases by adding home-based patient care Mumbai, 8th Feb 2012-   Kartavya Healtheon , a dedicated health management company launched its chronic disease management services inIndia. With its unique concept by adding care to cure, it offers Patient Management service to individuals suffering from chronic illnesses. Kartavya disease management is a patient-centric service model, where all services which a patient requires are provided at the patient’s doorstep and the servicing team ensures that the individual is given assistance and support on a regular basis through telephone calls, SMS, pill reminder machine and even personal visits by field based counselor. Kartavya’s CEO Mr. Vikram Srivastava  said “Cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancers, and chronic respiratory diseases is increasing rapidly across the country, it account to 53% of all deaths inIndia. Healthcare industry in the country is providing organised cure but was lacking organised care. There is continuous gap in chronic care and lifestyle conditions awareness, screening and behavioral modification. In order to control over the chronic diseases, we at Kartavya brought this concept of remote controlled disease management/patient management, which is certainly picking up in India. This is because access to information and disease awareness is very low and healthcare cost rising day by day.” Kartavya manages its operations from a centralized facility in Mumbai to handle the 21 centres across India. The company’s business model, which includes pharma companies and physicians as its stakeholders, has proved to be successful. Since its inception, the promoters infused the required investments. At present, the company is looking at potential investors who understands this business and one who could add value to the company’s growth, added Vikram Srivastava, co-founder, Kartavya Healtheon. Kartavya’s prime focuses of chronic condition are diabetes, cancer and Hepatitis B, but cardiac and asthma are on its radar. It addresses issues of therapy compliance, medication adherence, prevention, disease awareness and management. To achieve efficacy, the company is leveraging on its technical prowess to make disease management more effective and efficient and to take it next level with its innovative technology. In addition to that, it is in the process of rolling out day care centres and family doctor services to address the needs of primary health care in major cities ofIndiaby this year end and become a pioneer in patient care management across the country. About Kartavya Healtheon Kartavya Healtheon is one of the leading disease management companies in India that was established in June 2008 with its corporate office located in Mumbai. The company has spread its operations in 21 cities acrossIndiain merely 3 years. Kartavya Healtheon’s main focus is on providing disease management and patient management service to people suffering from chronic diseases (i.e. Diabetes, Cancer and Hepatitis B) and to achieve efficacy the company is leveraging on its technical prowess to make disease management more effective and efficient.

Tagged as: congress, delhi-resources, disclaimer, guest columnists, guest-columns, intel, management, new-delhi, technology, unsexy-startups

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Gamiana Raises Under $1Million Angel Round From Indian Angel Network

by Paul Joseph February 8, 2012 Featured

Gaming start-up, Gamiana ( www.gamiana.com ) has got Angel funding of under a million US dollars from Indian Angel Network (IAN),India’s largest and the oldest angel network, to fuel its growth over the next few quarters. With this investment Gamiana will grow its customer base, enhance gaming software development for existing games – Jamia Online and  Vinashi  – and bid for new gaming contracts in overseas markets. Vishal Golia, co-founder of Gamiana says,  “Gamiana approached IAN because it has a vast network of investors representing the who’s who of successful Indian entrepreneurs. We, at Gamiana, will now be able to leverage the global presence, market insights and network of IAN’s global members to fuel our growth.” IAN member Chetan Shah has joined the board of Gamiana. “The passion and domain expertise that Vishal and Sumeet bring to Gamiana and their ability to execute the business plan built my confidence in this team,”  IAN member Chetan Shah said. Gamiana or House of Games, derived from Games and  Aashiana  (house), is one of the first companies in India to offer multi-player platforms and the ability to play games real time. This will address the new markets created by the synergies between the increase of internet on smart-phones, online gaming and social networking across the globe. The company’s goal is to become a dominant player in India by tapping the expected increase in internet usage on smart phones. At the same time Gamiana is laying the foundations for its increasing its global footprint. The company is focused on many developing markets like Brazil, Turkey, and the Philippines as it understands the challenges of Internet adoption there. Additionally, the company will continue to develop real-time synchronous games across PC, Facebook and wireless platforms (including Android, iOS and others). Gamiana’s management team consists of international gaming veterans whose collective global experience spans decades in the development and publishing of online multi-player games.

Tagged as: accounting, congress, employee, funding & deals, guest-columns, india, lose-something, management, unsexy-startups

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Floriculture industry to cross Rs 8K crore mark by 2015: ASSOCHAM

by Paul Joseph February 8, 2012 Featured

Rose demand spikes by 25% ahead of V day; single stem to cost over Rs 60 Growing at a compounded annual growth rate of about 30 per cent, India’s floriculture industry is likely to cross Rs 8,000 crore mark by 2015, apex industry body ASSOCHAM said today. Currently, the floriculture industry in India is poised at about Rs 3,700 crore with a share of a meagre 0.61 per cent in the global floriculture industry which is likely to reach 0.89 per cent by 2015, according to a study titled, ‘Indian Floriculture Industry: The Way Ahead’ released by The Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM). Besides, the global floriculture industry is likely to cross Rs 9 lakh crore mark by 2015 from the current level of about Rs 6 lakh crore and is growing at a CAGR of 15 per cent, said the ASSOCHAM study. With a share of about 65 per cent rose flower industry in India accounts for over Rs 2,400 crore of the overall floriculture industry and rose accounts for 75 per cent of the global floriculture industry, said the study. Rising demand from tier II and III cities apart from urban centres is likely to spur demand for roses this Valentines’ Day as price of export quality cut rose is likely to quadruple from its current average ruling price of about Rs 15 to Rs 20 per stem, apex industry body ASSOCHAM said today. The Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) interacted with about 250 rose merchants including the cultivators, exporters, wholesale flower dealers and florists in Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai and Pune to gauge the scenario vis-à-vis business of rose flower during the Valentine’s week considering India is also world’s biggest rose grower. Demand for roses has spiralled upwards by over 25 per cent in domestic and by about 30 per cent in international markets as the V-Day draws closer, said over 55 per cent of all the respondents. Fall in the value of rupee against major currencies is the prime reason behind this upsurge in demand for roses in international markets of Australia, Germany, Greece, Italy, New Zealand, the Netherlands,the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries of Europe and the Middle East. While, growing demand for roses from cities like Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Surat, Kanpur,Lucknow, Patna among others is driving the high demand for roses in the domestic circuit. Besides, majority of flower growers also said they are hoping for about 30 per cent rise in terms of revenue during February alone with a turnover of about Rs 10 crore. Labour dogs and rising input costs, high fuel and freight costs apart from sky-rocketing prices of fertilisers tough competition from major rose producing countries like Israel, Kenya and Ethiopia are constantly hurting the margins of the domestic rose industry, said about 70 per cent of respondents. Crude handling of cut flowers after cutting leads to poor realization of Indian roses in the international markets, said majority of respondents emphasizing that it is imperative to increase production levels to ensure India has a better and bigger share in the global rose market. Many rose cultivators and growers said they are experimenting by growing genetically modified roses thereby injecting roses with different types of genes to help them fight diseases, fungal pathogens after they have been picked up and extend their ‘vase life’ by making roses live longer. About 40 crore cut roses are grown across India every year and Karnataka alone accounts for about 75 per cent followed by Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, said ASSOCHAM. Source :  ASSOCHAM

Tagged as: accounting, congress, guest-columns, india, lose-something, management, new-delhi, password, popular-on-cloudstory-in, technology, unsexy-startups

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Cook up your Graphics with Graphicurry

by Paul Joseph February 7, 2012 Featured

“ Graphicurry is the result of a lifetime of passion, hoards of creativity and a relentless will to thrive,” says Prasad Bhat, Founder, Graphicurry. Graphicurry was founded in March 2010 and aims to become the one-stop design firm for both the online and offline design space. It is based out of Bangalore. Why the name Graphicurry? “ The name was coined with my love for Creativity and Food. Who knows one day I would run a restaurant affiliated to Graphicurry as well,” says Prasad. Prasad knew he had an artist’s psyche the day he stumbled upon the joys of sketching. Before starting up he was actively part of the Bangalore metal scene and had his own bands as well. As fate would have it, he joined an Engineering college. But soon after graduating he realized that he wasn’t molded to be a programming geek. He worked with a few design firms to hone his skills and finally in 2010, backed by encouragement from loved ones, he plunged into starting Graphicurry. “ I’m an engineer by education, musician at heart and an artist on the whole,” he sums up perfectly. Initially Graphicurry got projects through word of mouth references, social networking and also through the people Prasad knew during his association with the city’s music circle. The name is unique. What else? Graphicurry provides all design requirements that a business might need, be it online or offline. Right from brand identity, website design, logo creation and design and prints to illustrations, photography and caricatures, Graphicurry takes care of all graphic media requirements. “ Graphicurry comes across as a design studio for all your graphic media requirements. We provide brand solutions that are in trend, customer centric and noteworthy,” adds Prasad. Prasad specializes in caricatures and says that a lot of Graphicurry’s clientele and followers came to know of them because of the art. “There is enough misery in the world, my art is meant to put a smile on your face,” says Prasad. So, what has been the Graphicurry story so far? Graphicurry has worked with a number of international clients and projects. Prasad’s work has been exhibited across Bangalore. Recently he held exhibitions at Opus (near Palace Grounds) and Safina Plaza. Besides generating revenue from design projects he undertakes on behalf of a client, he also sells his art work to clients from across the world. Prasad has worked on the Raghu Dixit Project website and also on Kryptos’ (Bangalore based metal band) website. He has also worked on Common Colors’ (Bangalore based event management company) logo. Prasad is the only one fueling Graphicurry and so he outsources all back-end programming requirements. Where do you see Graphicurry five years from now? The design studio will continue to function as it is currently, with an eye on increasing efficiency. “ I see us being recognized as a Brand synonymous for Art and Creativity, globally,” says Prasad. Next in line are plans to take Graphicurry the corporate way. Prasad says that he is working on streamlining the process and resources and in another two years hope to truly go global with his artwork. “I am working with venture capitalists to expand our reach and reach out to our target audience,” he adds. In the past two years Prasad has had his share of moments of joy and distress. He thinks that it is important for an entrepreneur to believe that he has what it takes to provide a service or create a product, which no one else can. Ensuring that a support system is in place is another crucial aspect, while starting up. Initially finances are a major challenge. “ Being a startup, clients may sometimes not take you seriously, delay payments or cause unnecessary complexities. But during this phase just tell yourself; this too shall pass,” says Prasad. “ Have faith in yourself, your skill and let your work speak for itself,” sums up Prasad. We at YourStory believe every startup should make this their mantra. Find out more about Graphicurry here or check their Facebook page .

Tagged as: accounting, creative, creative entrepreneurs, disclaimer, graphics, guest-columns, india, learning-market, lose-something, management, password

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Facebook and Twitter More Addictive than Alcohol and Cigarettes :Study

by Paul Joseph February 7, 2012 Featured

A study by Chicago University’s Booth Business School has confirmed what most of us already knew – checking email or social network updates could be more addictive then cigarettes or alcohol. The results will be published in the journal Psychological Science. While sleep and sex might be stronger urges, people are more likely to give in to social media longings. ”Desires for media may be comparatively harder to resist because of their high availability and also because it feels like it does not ‘cost much’ to engage in these activities, even though one wants to resist” said team leader Wilhelm Hofmann speaking to the Guardian. 205 people in the age group 18-85 took part in the experiment. The subjects were ‘sent out into the wild’ in and around the German city of Würtzburg to measure their responses. The subjects received messages on their Blackberrys from the researchers asking them to message back their ‘desire episodes’ and cravings.  

Tagged as: education, graphics, guest columnists, guest-columns, learning-market, management, password, startup, technology

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Aksharit: The Hindi answer to Scrabble

by Paul Joseph February 7, 2012 Featured

MadRat Games, makers of the first Hindi word game, Aksharit Word games have captivated millions across the globe. English has numerous such games and the most popular of them, Scrabble has been made in more than 30 languages. But despite of being the 3 rd most spoken language, Hindi does not have any word games. Rajat Dhariwal, an IIT Bombay and Carnegie Melon alumnus, always had a proclivity towards teaching and was enthusiastic about education. After having worked for a few MNC’s, he realized where his heart was and had an impulse to make a mark in the education field. Along with Manuj and Madhumita, Rajat started researching and trying to find a reason as to why this gap exists. English has just 26 alphabets while Hindi has about 600 characters and this had proved to be the biggest deterrent to the existence of word games in Hindi. Manuj, a design graduate from IIT Guwahti played an intrinsic role in ideating the board game. Rajat and Madhumati, both holding degrees in Computer Science paved the way for taking the board game to the next step. The board game is being used in more than 300 schools for imparting the necessary language skills to students. Rajat and Manuj Dhariwal, Madhumita Halder, Saurabh Mehta The development of the physical game as well as the digital went on parallel but the breakthroughs made while designing the board game resolved a lot of issues that existed. Nokia had recently come up with its phone N8 and it wanted 10 unique applications for the Indian market. This is when the digital Aksharit was revealed. After Nokia, came in Intel and the Chrome web store. The venture, Madrat Games is bootstrapped with an initial investment of Rs 30 lakhs and the company soon broke even and generates a close to 100 lakhs in revenues now. MadRat has other games on similar lines and also have a math game in the pipeline which is set for release in the next quarter. Madrat has come a long way since its 5 years of existence and has made many proud. More about them here and the beautiful video at the beginning of the site can be found on Youtube here .

Tagged as: accounting, disclaimer, guest-columns, india, learning, lose-something, management, popular-on-cloudstory-in, startup, technology

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Why You Need to Compartmentalize Your Life when Building a Business

by Paul Joseph January 30, 2012 Featured

Starting a business can be one of the most challenging things that you can take on in your life. While the rewards of owning your own business cannot be matched in the corporate world, the hours worked and rollercoaster ride of highs and lows can often be extreme. One way to deal with the workload and manage stress is to compartmentalize your life. When you start a business, you will likely wear many different hats, and in many cases wear all of the hats. You might be in charge of marketing, sales, legal, HR, operations, finance, accounting, IT etc. And you might add on top of all that a personal life of some degree. When you add up all of the responsibilities from these different areas, you end up with a very heavy workload. Not only can all of this work create a lot of stress, but there can also be stress from the uncertainty that simply comes with owning and building a business. By compartmentalizing your life, you can try to break down the week into different compartments and then assign your different areas of responsibilities to the different compartments. The key to this working is that you shut down your attention to a particular area to a certain degree when it is not time to work in that area and when it is time to focus on that area, you shut down thoughts and attention to all other areas. Below are some examples of common compartments that can be built. By segmenting the week, we can not only improve focus and effectiveness, we can also stand to greatly decrease stress. Accounting / Finance Unfortunately, there are accounting needs that come with starting and owning a business. Whether it is paying bills, paying employees, balancing the books, or dealing with vendors, there is simply accounting and bookkeeping tasks that need to be done each week and month. If we don’t stay on top of these items, not only can it have a negative impact on our business, it can also stand to create a decent amount of stress. One way to deal with this is to pick a segment of hours during the week where everything else is shut down and attention is solely placed in the area of accounting, bills, payroll, etc. Sales In order to truly be successful, sales is something that you will need to do a little of everyday when building a business. But to pick a day (or days) of the week where we focus solely on sales, we can position ourselves for more success in this individual area. This can be a good tactic when picking up the phone and making some sort of sales calls is a component of our sales strategy. This is something that we can often procrastinate on. But if we block out a compartment for making calls and shut down everything else during that time, we will likely increase the amount of sales activity we are getting in each week. Marketing Two powerful marketing tactics for starting a business can be search engine optimization and social media. And effectively executing with either of these tactics can also be extremely time consuming. Setting time aside side specifically for blogging, improving the website, and interacting on social media can help to make sure enough time gets spent in this area. Personal Time While we spend so much time taking care of the business, we should not forget about spending some time to take care of ourselves. Since starting a business can sometimes mean working everyday and sometimes all day, this can take a toll on both your mind and your body. To help with this, you can set time aside to turn everything off and focus solely on working on you. This could be time spent relaxing, with family and friends, physical fitness, etc. Do you compartmentalize?  What do you do to get the most out of your limited time? Share your insights in the comments. Michael Halper is Founder and CEO of Launch Pad Solutions, LLC , a sales consulting and outsourcing firm that helps businesses to take off and get to the next level. Read more about Michael here .

Tagged as: business, business planning, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, management, small-business, success

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