Youve got your business idea and enough money to get started everything started off well but now its less exciting and is getting more difficult to make those sales. So what do you do to make your business successful after the first enthusiasm starts to wear off?

Set yourself achievable targets and give yourself a small reward for achieving them be it a few hours off, a new gadget or a night out. Just because you are the boss does not mean that you dont need to be motivated.

Set yourself a working routine for the next three months make sure that you plan to take time off during this period at least a day a week. Review this at the end of the period and see if you can make improvements.

Dont let dejection set in or start procrastinating. Sometimes if things are not working right taking a break and coming back later seems to get things going well again! If things get too bad just set yourself one task and then congratulate yourself. Just keep your motivation high and enjoy being your own boss!

Review how much of your original business plans you have achieved and review your business plan and strategy for the next year.

Review your finances and plan how to improve your profit and turnover. Congratulate yourself if they have visibly improved in the last year.

Review your fulfillment processes thats how you get from taking an order to delivering your product and supporting your customers. Sketch the procedures down on paper and see if you can make them more efficient maybe quicker or cheaper to run. Have a look at your stock at the same time.

Make sure that you keep in contact with your old friends and set some time aside to network with new business friends. It is vital to keep your business flourishing as well as fun.

Believe in yourself and your business plans. After all if you have completed all the above tasks you know that your business is running as efficiently as possible!

Lee Lister

Lee Lister is Management Consultant and Program Manager with more than 25 year's management and consultancy experience and more than 20 year's program and project management experience in projects for Banking, Finance, Insurance, Leisure and Government bodies. She also have more than 10 years bid management experience ranging from bids for medium companies to large international and infrastructure bids.

British born, Lee received her BA(Hons) Financial Economics from the University of Essex. She went on to work in or for a considerable number of countries within Asia and Europe as well as Australia and the United States. While building a name for herself through helping company restructure, change management and project management consultancy, Lee became a well-known figure for her skills in analyzing, problem solving and trouble-shooting. She has consulted for many major industries, including banking, telecommunications, insurance, transportation, leisure and governments from many different countries. Some of the companies who have benefited from Lee’s expertise are Hewlett Packard, Siemans Nixdorf, Electrolux and the Philippines government.

Whilst working in the Far East she became a recognized expert on preparing and evaluating large World Bank Proposals (infrastructure projects within developing countries). These accomplishments called upon the skills of bid and project management, risk assessment, contract negotiation and supplier management and required dedicated work to very tight time scales. This expertise was acknowledged by an invitation to be the principle speaker at an International Business Development Conference in Washington, USA. She has also consulted at very senior level in several countries.

She owns and manages two companies, Biz Guru LLC in the USA and Biz Guru Services Ltd in the UK as well a considerable number of profitable web sites. She works almost entirely via the internet, visiting clients on site during major consultancies and training. Her Internet skills span from when major companies first started to consider obtaining their own web sites. During these years, she has kept up to date with the rapid changes on the internet, including the dot com boom and the resulting bust – which her own web based companies survived.

She regularly consults, writes and lectures on business, bid management and marketing and has published numerous courses and books.