Diane’s passion for what she does translates into numerous rewards that motivate her every day. “The greatest reward is changing lives, one person at a time,” reflects Diane. She loves so many things about her business:

• Watching a woman find her passion and gather up the courage to take action on it.
• Being around other female entrepreneurs that share the same journey.
• Unfolding challenges and the variety that each day holds.
• Working hard and seeing results.
• Looking back and realizing how far she has come in the last 5 years.
• Appreciating that she has accomplished things that she never thought she could do.

After taking the free Which Jane Are You? assessment at www.JaneOutoftheBox.com, Diane discovered that her Jane type has changed over time. “I just took the assessment again and I am an Accidental Jane. I used to be a Tenacity Jane, but now that my business is five years old, I feel that I am turning a corner. Each year has had challenges and successes. As an Accidental Jane, I love the flexible schedule, control over how I spend my time, and the relationships and connections that my business provides. Watching my clients live their dreams is amazing and my dreams are bigger too. 2010 is my BE BRAVE year as I take on new and exciting projects, including writing a book and launching a national association, the National Association of Christian Women Entrepreneurs. There is always more to learn! I was a Tenacity Jane for a long time and was shocked to find that I was no longer. I was used to being Tenacity.”

Diane’s Lessons Learned for Tenacity Janes and Accidental Janes:

Lesson #1: Get help!: I finally got a virtual assistant this year and what a difference that has made.
Lesson #2: Speak your Truth: Figure out your ideal client and stop trying to be everything to everyone.
Lesson #3: Be Brave: Step out and do things that scare you…you will never know until you try!

A recent study from Jane Out of the Box, an authority on female entrepreneurs, reveals there are five distinct types of women in business. Based on professional market research of more than 2,500 women in business, this study shows that each type of business owner has a unique approach to running a business and therefore each one has a unique combination of needs. This article outlines two of the five types and provides tips for planning for much-needed rest and relaxation.

Merry Jane is an entrepreneur building a part-time or “flexible time” business that gives her a creative outlet (whether she’s an ad agency consultant or she makes beautiful artwork) that she can manage within specific constraints around her schedule. She may work a day-job, or need to be fully present for family or other pursuits. Representing about 19% of women in business, she realizes she could make more money by working longer hours, but she’s happy with the tradeoff she has made because her business gives her tremendous freedom.

The multi-faceted Merry Jane is adept at juggling several different aspects of life at once – including her business, her other priorities, and taking care of herself. She appreciates the flexibility to work when, where and as much as she wants. The desire to maintain that flexibility means Merry Jane is very systems-oriented, and she doesn’t put an exorbitant amount of time into her business on an ongoing basis. Plus, Merry Jane-owned businesses are often not the primary source of income in the household. Therefore, if Merry Jane’s other obligations allow her to do so, vacationing does not pose a problem.

One challenge Merry Jane faces is that she would like her business to make more money without a significant investment of time. She already excels at managing her time, so if she increased her income, she would have better means for using her free time to vacation.

Here are some ideas for Merry Jane to consider for gaining more clients and profiting, while retaining her time freedom – and vacationing potential:

• Identify the target and a clear message. Merry Jane should define an “ideal” customer, and define his or her needs. Then she can market the product or service to that customer as fulfillment of his or her needs. This will save Merry Jane time and money on unnecessary or misdirected marketing efforts, and will land her more of the “right” customers. She can then use the time and money she saves – and the new profit she makes – toward a well-deserved vacation.
• Select an appropriate marketing method. Most Merry Jane business owners need a slow-growth marketing method that builds relationships over time, and that doesn’t require a huge monetary or time investment. Examples include social networking, affiliate marketing and referral marketing. These marketing methods can work for Merry Jane even while she is on vacation, so she won’t need to worry about maintaining them while she is relaxing.
• Make it easy for new customers to buy the first time. Merry Jane might offer incentives for first-time buyers, such as coupons or discounts. They can make it easy for customers to keep buying by offering incentives such as auto-billing or earning a free product or service after a specific amount of time. Again, these profit-boosting ideas do not require much work on Merry Jane’s part, and can continue making money for her even while she takes time away from the company.

Accidental Jane is a successful, confident business owner who never actually set out to start a business. Instead, she may have decided to start a business due to frustration with her job or a layoff and then she decided to use her business and personal contacts to strike out on her own. Or, she may have started making something that served her own unmet needs and found other customers with the same need, giving birth to a business. Although Accidental Jane may sometimes struggle with prioritizing what she needs to do next in her business, she enjoys what she does and is making good money. About 18% of all women business owners fit the Accidental Jane profile.

Most Accidental Jane business owners report a high level of satisfaction with their businesses. They often started their companies to create their ideal jobs – to gain control over critical aspects of their working lives. They want enough, but not too much, work, and enough income to meet their needs – and they often have it. Because Accidental Jane business owners like making and living by their own rules, they often have no trouble taking vacation. One consideration, though: because they dislike corporate politics and often don’t want to be responsible for traditional employees, vacationing requires more planning (since they may not have employees to handle their businesses while they’re gone).

If Accidental Jane can gain control of the typical ebb and flow cycle that plagues many of the entrepreneurs in this group, she can more easily execute the necessary planning for her vacations. Low-maintenance marketing (such as an ongoing newsletter, pre-written tweets to go out periodically on Twitter, or pre-written weekly blog posts), can help Accidental Jane to market even when she’s working, so that when she finishes one project, she has another waiting. With a consistent flow of clients and projects coming through her door, Accidental Jane can plan for a slow week or two during which to take a vacation – and she can relax while she’s there, knowing that work is waiting when she returns.

Taking time off is just as crucial to running a successful business as making calls, sending invoices and closing sales. It provides business owners with the relaxation, rejuvenation and refreshment they need to get back to work energized and powered up, in their best form.

Accidental Jane
Accidental Jane has her own mug!

Let her tell you about accidentally starting a business.

Jane’s Got a Bag
See Jane Succeed – all the Janes got together to feature a tote! You can be green use it for groceries or for any big project you need to carry.

Tenacity Jane
Tenacity Jane has her own mug!

Let her tell you what makes her so tenacious about her business.

Go Jane Go
Go Jane Go has her own mug!

Let her tell you about her drive.

Jane Dough
Jane Dough has her own mug!

Let her tell you about her vision for her business.

Merry Jane
Merry Jane has her own mug!

Let her tell you why she merrily is a business owner.

See Jane Succeed Mug
See Jane Succeed – all of the Janes together on one mug!

Now this is teamwork and networking at its finest.

Accidental Jane is asuccessful, confident business owner who never actually set out to start a business. Instead, she may have decided to start a business due to frustration with her job or a layoff and then she decided to use her business and personal contacts to strike out on her own. Or, she may have started making something that served her own unmet needs and found other customers with the same need, thus giving birth to a business. Although Accidental Jane may sometimes struggle with prioritizing what she needs to do next in her business, she enjoys what she does and is making good money. About 18% of all women business owners fit the Accidental Jane profile.

Accidental Jane business owners often started their businesses by accident; after having been laid off, or to create a product they needed but couldn’t find, or to get out of corporate politics. They sought to leverage their unique talents and interests. Rather than developing a grand plan for a big company, they simply wanted to get paid for work they enjoy. Accidental Jane defines success by having just the right amount of income and work, and by having the ability to make her own rules, set her own schedule, choose who to work with and what to work on, and feeling happy with her life. Accidental Jane business owners are more likely, on average, than other business owners to report feeling satisfied with how much they work, the costs of running their businesses, their stress level and their revenue. Because her business often started as an evolution of circumstances, Accidental Jane often lacks a clear vision – and mostly, responds to the market& rsquo;s needs.

This type of entrepreneur is exceptionally good at what she does. So over time, demand is sure to increase. When it comes to planning for the future, then, Accidental Jane must make a decision: should she remain an Accidental Jane, and enjoy her Accidental Jane lifestyle? Or should she change her type and go big?

Here are some considerations an Accidental Jane business owner might want to make, with regard to the future:

• Remaining an Accidental Jane means eventually saying no to new work if the workload exceeds what is comfortable. It means hiring a team (which may make Accidental Jane feel tied down). It might also mean raising rates as a way to tamp down high demand. These may seem like difficult decisions for someone who loves being a solo-preneur, loves her freedom and also loves her customers.
• Trying to remain an Accidental Jane means the possibility of becoming another type of entrepreneur – but Accidental Jane has the power to determine which type. If she continues to try to handle everything herself, she may become a Go Jane Go, overwhelmed but financially successful. On the other hand, if she creates a great plan that includes hiring help, marketing her products and services, and continuing to work as dependably as she has been, then she may become a Jane Dough, a financially successful entrepreneur who’s satisfied with her work-life balance.

Tenacity Jane is an entrepreneur with an undeniable passion for her business, and one who tends to be struggling with cash flow. As a result, she’s working longer hours, and making less money than she’d like. Nevertheless, Tenacity Jane is bound and determined to make her business a success. At 31% of women in business, Tenacity Janes make up the largest group of female entrepreneurs.

More than any of the other types of business owners, Tenacity Jane will benefit from some serious planning. Because she’s a big-picture gal, Tenacity Jane often lacks the focus she needs to drive her business forward.

Tenacity Jane’s best planning steps:

• Examine the business concept and business model. Any business owner should ask herself these questions: “What is your business?” “What do you offer your customers?” While many Tenacity Jane business owners know what they’re good at and where their passion lies, they have trouble saying exactly what they offer. For example, a trained life coach may coach business owners and executives. She may do writing and public speaking. But to list all those things doesn’t provide customers with a concise, easy-to-understand idea of exactly what she offers. Here’s an example of what she could express as her business concept: “In my business, we’re experts at helping business leaders be more effective, so they can make more money with less stress.” That’s an attention-grabber that answers the two questions, “what is your business,” and “what do you offer your customers?” Once a business owne r has her concept nailed down, she should determine whether the business, in its current model, can make money. Will people want to pay what she’s charging, for the service or product she’s offering? If so, is that enough to sustain her business and her personal expenses? A Tenacity Jane with a solid business concept and plan is on her way to a solid future.
• Set specific goals – and start taking real steps toward achieving them. At first, this task may seem overwhelming. However, the key to getting into the habit of goal-setting and achieving is to create one moderate – or a few smaller-sized goals to start with immediately, and then take steps to achieve them, one at a time. In the very short term, it is appropriate to choose one to three goals that will have the biggest impact on the entrepreneur’s business and personal life. To take those steps toward achieving goals, Tenacity Jane can create a step-by-step plan for each goal. For example, one of her goals may be to launch a new web site. While “launch a new web site” is just one line item on a goal list, Tenacity Jane can break that down into several weekly sub-lists. Week 1 may entail reviewing the existing web site, asking customers to let her know what they like and what they’d change, and asking friends and other busines s owners for web site designer referrals. Week 2 may entail deciding what will be the overall components of the site, whether to write the copy or hire someone to do it, and calling the referred designers to get pricing, timelines, examples and references. Providing herself with “baby steps” that she can easily accomplish will get Tenacity Jane on the road to the future she’s dreamed of – one step at a time.

While some business owners launch their companies with detailed plans as to what their futures hold, others have started and run their businesses for months or even years before they begin to create solid blueprints. One thing remains true for them all: it’s easier to travel toward the future if the future is visible. Sometimes planning for the future is as simple as planning for the future.

A recent study from Jane Out of the Box, an authority on female entrepreneurs, reveals there are five distinct types of women in business. Based on professional market research of more than 2,500 women in business, this study shows that each type of business owner has a unique approach to running a business – and therefore each one has a unique combination of needs. This article outlines two of the five types and provides tips for tracking a business’ systems and using information gleaned during that research to provide a strong future.

Tenacity Jane is an entrepreneur with an undeniable passion for her business, and one who tends to be struggling with cash flow. As a result, she’s working longer hours, and making less money than she’d like to be. Nevertheless, Tenacity Jane is bound and determined to make her business a success. At 31% of women in business, Tenacity Janes are the largest group of female entrepreneurs.

For this business owner, measuring performance is absolutely imperative because doing so will allow her the opportunity to see which systems are working and which aren’t, and therefore, to better leverage her limited resources.

By talking candidly with customers, Tenacity Jane can learn a lot about which aspects of her company bring in money, and which do not. Many Tenacity Jane business owners lack a singular focus, and therefore, they are working on a variety of things at once. It’s likely that a Tenacity Jane may try advertising in several venues at the same time, believing that if she advertises in many places, she has a better chance of catching a customer’s attention. However, she may be better served by her marketing efforts if she performs some research to determine where customers are really finding out about her. For example, let’s say she’s spending several hundred dollars per month advertising in the newspaper and on the radio. In talking to customers, she learns that most of them don’t read the newspaper, but they heard her ad on the radio. She could save money by skipping the newspaper advertising, or make her spending more effective by pumping it only into radio advertising.

Accidental Jane is a successful, confident business owner who never actually set out to start a business. Instead, she may have decided to start a business due to frustration with her job or a layoff and then she decided to use her business and personal contacts to strike out on her own. Or, she may have started making something that served her own unmet needs and found other customers with the same need, thus giving birth to a business. Although Accidental Jane may sometimes struggle with prioritizing what she needs to do next in her business, she enjoys what she does and is making good money. About 18% of all women business owners fit the Accidental Jane profile.

Many of the Accidental Jane entrepreneurs we interviewed expressed a high level of contentment. They are happy with the amount of money they make, and they are often working the way they want, with whom they want, at the times they want, without feeling overloaded. Some, though, reported feeling stressed as their business ebbs and flows, depending on their marketing efforts. For Accidental Jane, measuring performance metrics can provide two basic improvements to her lifestyle: it can maintain consistency in Accidental Jane’s workload, and it can help her to increase her profit without much additional effort.

Because she is a consummate professional, Accidental Jane’s customers usually provide her with positive feedback. This is a great way to gather testimonials (just ask!), and it’s also a gauge of what’s working. Accidental Jane also can create an effortless, automated marketing system that helps her maintain her workflow, and then she can use software to determine which marketing technique is drawing customers. She may use tweets to draw people to her web site, and/or send out a weekly newsletter. Software can keep track of which people visited her web site after receiving tweets, and which visited after receiving a weekly newsletter – and which of those bought a product or service. In this way, Accidental Jane can almost effortlessly keep track of which of her marketing techniques are working, and which aren’t.

No matter how successful a business owner and her business are, she can make continued improvements by paying careful attention to which systems are working. Whether she can dedicate more resources to a more successful marketing campaign or take the resources from a weaker campaign and put them toward another business need, tracking performance metrics allows her to maximize efficiency and capitalize on success.

A recent study from Jane Out of the Box, an authority on female entrepreneurs, reveals there are five distinct types of women in business. Based on professional market research of more than 2,500 women in business, this study shows that each type of business owner has a unique approach to running a business and therefore each one has a unique combination of needs. This article outlines three of the five types and provides tips for managing their time more effectively for the greater success of the company and for the overall well-being of the business owner.

Merry Jane. This entrepreneur is usually building a part-time or “flexible time” business which gives her a creative outlet (whether she’s an ad agency consultant or she makes beautiful artwork) that she can manage within specific constraints around her schedule. She may have a day-job, or need to be fully present for family or other pursuits. She realizes she could make more money by working longer hours, but she’s happy with the tradeoff she has made because her business gives her tremendous freedom to work how and when she wants, around her other commitments.

A multi-faceted woman, Merry Jane is adept at multi-tasking and has a true desire to meet every one of her obligations well and with care. Overall, the Merry Jane entrepreneurs we’ve spoken with feel satisfied with the balance they’ve found between their work and personal lives, and would like to increase their business’ income without putting in significantly more time. Of the five types of entrepreneurs, Merry Jane is least in need of time management advice – however, following are some tips she may consider to increase her profitability without giving up her precious time freedom. Discipline and systems are key in all aspects of Merry Jane’s life – and she can further implement those assets to maintain her satisfaction while increasing her business’ bottom line.

• Marketing. Efficiency is the most crucial element of Merry Jane’s marketing systems. They need to be effective without requiring a large time investment on Merry Jane’s part. To ensure marketing efficiency, Merry Jane must identify her target market and create a clear marketing message (a quick and easy way to identify her target market is to ask existing customers what they like most about working with her). Marketing systems that do not require significant time investments include social networking and referral/affiliate marketing.
• Hiring. Merry Jane enjoys that her business allows her to bring her talents and creativity to bear in serving her customers. Once her new marketing systems increase her workload (and therefore her income), she may find it practical to hire a helper or two to take care of the business tasks she finds less desirable, such as bookkeeping or errand-running. Doing so will allow Merry Jane to delve into her creativity and maintain the time freedom she wants and needs in order to meet all her obligations (including her own well-being).

Accidental Jane is a successful, confident business owner who never actually set out to start a business. Instead, she may have decided to start a business due to frustration with her job or a layoff and then she decided to use her business and personal contacts to strike out on her own. Or, she may have started making something that served her own unmet needs and found other customers with the same need, giving birth to a business. Although Accidental Jane may sometimes struggle with prioritizing what she needs to do next in her business, she enjoys what she does and is making good money. About 18% of all women business owners fit the Accidental Jane profile.

While many Accidental Jane business owners run their businesses successfully for years, striking the careful balance of enough, but not too much work, others aren’t as certain of what they want. This makes sense, since many Accidental Janes did not set out to start a business, and they often simply respond to the market’s demand for services. For these women, the future may present some tough choices – and how she deals with these choices will determine whether she remains an Accidental Jane or develops into another type of business owner. She is so good at what she does that the demand for her services will likely increase over time. So how can she maintain the time-freedom lifestyle she so enjoys?

• Filter. If her workload becomes overwhelming, Accidental Jane will have to begin saying, “no” to at least some new projects or clients. To decide which projects or clients to take on, and which to pass on, she can create a “non-negotiables” filter to determine whether a project or client meets the criteria she develops. For example, if it’s important for her to enjoy working with her clients, she may pass on a new client with whom she doesn’t click. If it’s important to her to stretch her creative muscles, she may take on only projects that demand that of her. In this way, Accidental Jane can ensure she’s working only on projects she enjoys, while acquiring only the amount of work she wants. Similarly, Accidental Jane can create a list of personal tasks she really enjoys and tasks she doesn’t care for. If possible, she can hire someone to take on the tasks she doesn&rs quo;t care for, leaving her more time to work on what she enjoys.
• Pricing. It’s great to be in demand! If Accidental Jane begins to feel overwhelmed, she may consider examining her pricing and raising her rates. Whether she started her business with intentionally low rates and then never raised them, or she resisted raising her rates because she didn’t want clients to question her value, if the demand for her services has increased beyond what’s comfortable for her, Accidental Jane likely has room for increases now. To determine where her prices fit within her industry, she can research published prices or ask trusted customers how her competitors’ prices compare.

Tenacity Jane is an entrepreneur with an undeniable passion for her business, and one who tends to be struggling with cash flow. As a result, she’s working longer hours, and making less money than she’d like to be. Nevertheless, Tenacity Jane is bound and determined to make her business a success. At 31% of women in business, Tenacity Janes are the largest group of female entrepreneurs.

Of the Tenacity Jane business owners interviewed, 90 percent reported dissatisfaction with cash flow, and the majority said they were unhappy with revenue, business costs or personal income from their business. Despite these financial markers, most Tenacity Jane business owners work longer hours than they’d like to and frequently feel frustrated or stressed. It is possible to shift this balance so the hard work and long hours pay off.

• Focus. Our research revealed that many Tenacity Jane business owners were running in several directions at once. Their ultimate vision included multiple streams of income, and these entrepreneurs were often trying to activate all those streams at the same time. To ensure that her time is well-spent and to get her business on more solid financial footing, Tenacity Jane must find a focus. A thorough examination of her business concept and model (what, exactly, is her business offering customers, and is it possible to make enough money with the current business model?) can help her determine whether she needs to make any changes. She can focus on creating a “point of entry” for the business – what does it do? – and then develop 1 to 3 benefits (what does the customer get from what the business does?) to go with it. Not only can Tenacity Jane use these ideas for marketing, they will also he lp her develop a true focus so she can work more efficiently.
• Set Goals. For Tenacity Jane, who is often exhausted by her ongoing financial struggles, even developing goals may seem overwhelming – because actually reaching them may seem improbable. Once she’s determined her business’ direction, though, setting and achieving goals will keep her focused and efficient so the time she does spend on her business is effective. The key is to start making steady progress, one step at a time. For starters, she can choose 1 moderate, or up to 3 small goals to work toward during a one month or 6 month interval. focusing on the goals that will have the biggest impact on her business and life. With practice, goal-setting (and achieving!) will become life’s paradigm.

While strong time management skills can streamline a business’ systems and increase its profitability, they also can improve an entrepreneur’s work-life balance and create overall satisfaction. Every type of business owner can improve her time management abilities – and therefore her level of happiness in her work and her life.

A new study from Jane Out of the Box, an authority on women entrepreneurs, reveals that there are five distinct types of female business-owners, each with their own unique strengths and weaknesses. Involving over 800 female business owners over the course of two years, it’s a study that shows distinct patterns in the ways that different types of women entrepreneurs deal with different issues – including those related to business accounting and bookkeeping.

In this first installment on the subject from Jane Out of the Box, this article will cover how two of those five types are likely to respond to a bookkeeping crisis: Jane Dough and Accidental Jane.

Jane Dough is an entrepreneur who enjoys running her business and is comfortable and determined in marketing and selling. She tends to be working longer hours, but she doesn’t mind because her focus is on growth. (Jane Dough is five times as likely to hit the million-dollar revenue mark with her company as other Jane types.) She’s clear in her priorities and may be intentionally and actively growing an asset-based or legacy business.

Because Jane Dough’s focus is on growth, she’s interested in systems that will help to create leverage in her business. Therefore, it’s likely that she’s currently using a bookkeeping service, rather than handling the accounting herself. However, because her focus tends to be on the big picture and strategies for achieving quick growth, Jane Dough may have been moving too quickly when she set up the initial accounting systems with her bookkeeper.

If so, a bookkeeping crisis may pose an important opportunity for Jane Dough to “slow down” long enough to spend some time with her bookkeeper and fine-tune her systems – a proactive approach that will allow her to keep growing her business and strengthening her bottom line.

Our second type of entrepreneur is known as Accidental Jane. Accidental Jane is a successful, confident business owner who never really intended to start a business. She may have decided to “hang out a shingle” simply because she was dissatisfied with previous employment, or because a part-time interest that grew into a full-time business. Accidental Jane doesn’t have big plans to aggressively grow her business, but she’s making good money and she enjoys the work as it comes along.

Because Accidental Janes tend to start a business simply as a way of creating an “ideal job,” female entrepreneurs who fit this type may be reluctant to take the time away from their billable hours to deal with an accounting crisis. If they are currently keeping the books themselves, this reluctance to focus on the nuts and bolts of being an entrepreneur may actually have contributed to Accidental Jane’s accounting crisis in the first place.

A stronger approach in this case would be for Accidental Jane to set aside a few hours to focus on the big picture with her business by working with a qualified professional – not only to help resolve the book-keeping crisis at hand, but to create an accounting system that works for her, which will allow her to spend more time focusing on the “job” she loves, not the books.

Research by Jane Out of the Box, an authority on women entrepreneurs, has revealed there are five distinct types of women in business. Each of these five types has unique approach to running a business – and as a consequence, each of them has a unique combination of characteristics and factors. This article profiles three of the Jane “types” and the different ways they may handle cash flow issues.

Go Jane Go is a successful business owner with plenty of clients – but she’s struggling to keep up with demand. She may be a classic overachiever, taking on volunteer opportunities as well, because she’s eager to make an impact on the world and may really struggle saying “no”. Because she wants to “say yes” to so many people, she may even be in denial about how many hours she actually works during the course of a week. As a result, she may be running herself ragged or sometimes feel guilty about the list of goals not yet achieved.

Although Go Jane Go feels totally competent when it comes to running her business, a slowdown in cash flow can occur when Go Jane Go is not paying enough attention to money. She may be behind in sending bills because getting the work done seems more important. Or she may be reluctant to raise the money issue with clients who are late in paying, because she doesn’t want them to be embarrassed or to create conflict in the relationship.

Here are some things Go Jane Go should know when faced with cash flow challenges:

• Clients want to pay. Your clients value and respect you and they want to pay you well for the work you’ve done. In fact, as a Go Jane Go, you may have even had clients offer to pay you MORE than you asked, because they can see how much you go above and beyond. Relationships are a two-way street, and your clients want to help you succeed. So, give them the outlet by billing them in a timely manner so they can uphold their half of the bargain.

• Not billing and not reminding also cause relationship problems. By not sending invoices in a timely manner or by not following up on overdue payments, you may well be causing an internal problem for your customer as well. If they are corporate types, they may get in a tangle with their accounting departments if they submit bills from you too late. And, if they are smaller businesses or consumers, a forgotten invoice can cause cash flow problems on their end, as they scramble to find the money to pay you. Take good care of them by keeping your financial house in order and helping them do the same.

• You don’t have to do this alone. One of the easiest jobs to outsource is bookkeeping. And those experts are better at the task than you probably are. If your books are a mess, bite the bullet and admit it. And even if your books are in great shape – get help. You have a unique gift to share with the world and you maximize your ability to do so when you delegate other tasks. Best yet, your bookkeeper can follow up on late invoices too – just give them a system for how to do it so it is in keeping with your (probably gentle) values.

Merry Jane This entrepreneur is usually building a part-time or “flexible time” business that gives her a creative outlet (whether she’s an ad agency consultant or she makes beautiful artwork) that she can manage within specific constraints around her schedule. She may have a day-job, or need to be fully present for family or other pursuits. She realizes she could make more money by working longer hours, but she’s happy with the tradeoff she has made because her business gives her tremendous freedom to work how and when she wants, around her other commitments.

Merry Jane usually has an income other than that her business provides, so business cash flow challenges may not be as difficult of an issue, per se. However, many Merry Janes do wish their businesses made more money. In order for that to happen, money has to become a focal point for Merry Jane, rather than simply waiting and watching how business growth evolves. Even as cash flow becomes a priority, however, it’s imperative for Merry Jane’s happiness that more money does not mean more work – her life balance is too important.

A few things Merry Jane should consider if she sees her cash flow slow down:

• A little attention could go a long way. Think about WHY cash flow is slow. Has there been a downturn in sales in the business? Have you invested in materials, equipment, or software that will help make money in the long run but are chewing up available cash in the short-term? Until you know whether the problem is slow revenue or high costs, you won’t know the strategy to fix it.

• If revenue is slow, leverage your connections, both on and offline. Finding new clients is often the toughest aspect of business for Merry Jane. Reach out to your existing customers with a plan that gives them more of what they want while also helps you grow your base. Think about the upcoming holidays – can you make an attractive offer that gets them to buy gifts from you? Or, maybe your business lends itself naturally to referral. If so, what “Thank You” gift can you give them when they find you another customer?

• If costs are high, it’s time to plan. Stop spending temporarily and map out how many sales you need to cover the costs of the equipment, materials, or software you bought and make it all worth it. Turn this into a game; play with the numbers. And as you calculate how many sales you need to make your costs pay off, keep in mind that you can also raise your rates! It’s fun to watch the number of sales go down as your price per sale goes up. Balance it all – the fair price for your product or service, the number of sales you need, and the amount of money you wish to have flowing in each month to arrive at a plan that works for your business and your lifestyle.

Accidental Jane is a successful, confident business owner who never actually set out to start a business, but may have ended up with one due to frustration with her job or a layoff and decided to use her business and personal contacts to strike out on her own. Or, she may have started making something that served her own unmet needs and found other customers with the same need, giving birth to a business. Although Accidental Jane may sometimes struggle with prioritizing what she needs to do next in her business, she enjoys what she does and is making good money. About 18% of all women business owners fit the Accidental Jane profile.

Although Accidental Jane didn’t necessarily set out to start a business, she now finds herself full-swing into entrepreneurship and everything that goes with it. So she may feel unprepared to face cash flow issues.

Because Accidental Jane is successful, and overall has just the amount of work she desires, cash flow issues are most likely to result from marketing peaks and valleys caused by Accidental Jane herself. A typical pattern for Accidental Jane is to network her way to a sufficient amount of work. Then, when she’s happily working, she’ll stop actively marketing her business, only to realize as the work draws to a close, that she needs to start marketing again.

Therefore, Accidental Jane’s key to avoiding cash flow issues is to find ways to keep her marketing efforts running at a continual, low level. This will iron out the peaks and valleys so the work flow is more steady. Accidental Jane can get creative with this, making it a game to develop creative marketing approaches in her business that require little time on her part. This might include developing an effective referral system, launching a weekly “tips” email to keep awareness of her business high, running periodic “specials” during the off-season, etc. Best of all, with simple, systematized campaigns, Accidental Jane can recruit part-time help to make sure the marketing is happening even while she’s enjoying the work she loves to do.

Every business owner can learn from Go Jane Go, Merry Jane and Accidental Jane when it comes to cash flow problems. A variety of techniques exist for dealing with slowing cash flow, and each one provides some help for entrepreneurs who want to keep their businesses in the black.

A new study from Jane Out of the Box, an authority on women entrepreneurs, recently revealed five distinct types of women in business. Each of these five types – each Jane – has a unique approach to running a business. As a consequence, each of them has a unique combination of characteristics and factors.

This article profiles two of those Jane “types” and the ways they may respond to a new opportunity.

Go Jane Go is passionate about her work, and has no problem marketing and selling herself, so she has plenty of clients — but she’s struggling to keep up with demand. She may be a classic overachiever, taking on volunteer opportunities as well, because she’s eager to make an impact on the world and may really struggle saying “no”. Because she wants to “say yes” to so many opportunities, she may even be in denial about how many hours she actually works during the course of a week. During the worst of times, Go Jane Go may tend to run herself ragged or feeling guilty about all the things on her “to do list” that aren’t getting done quickly enough to satisfy her exacting demands.

Although, as a Go Jane Go, you might be tempted to take on any new opportunity because you know you’re good at multitasking and you feel obligated to make it work, wait! Think about whether you really want to get into a new venture and all that comes with it.

• Because you’re so good at what you do and you know all the fine details of your business and how it runs, you have a hard time delegating sometimes. If you know you’re going to take on this new opportunity and then feel overwhelmed because you won’t feel comfortable assigning any of your workload to someone else, maybe this isn’t the time to do it.

• Because you’re such a hard worker and demand perfection from yourself, you work long hours. Do you have the time to deal with any new activities this opportunity will undoubtedly create? Before you accept this challenge, use some of your valuable time to determine whether the new opportunity is realistically feasible, given your time constraints. Especially, consider the cost to yourself in accepting the new assignment – will you push yourself to your breaking point? If so, it’s OK to let the opportunity gracefully pass you by – because of who you are, there’s undoubtedly another right around the corner.

• If it turns out that the new opportunity will work with your calendar, commit to delegating wherever possible – and make sure you’re also taking care of yourself in the process.

Accidental Jane is a successful, confident business owner who never actually set out to start a business. Instead, she may have decided to start a business due to frustration with her job or a layoff and decided to use her business and personal contacts to strike out on her own. Or, she may have started making something that served her own unmet needs and found other customers with the same need, giving birth to a business. Accidental Jane enjoys what she does and is creating a satisfactory level of income.

Taking on a new opportunity as an Accidental Jane may mean transitioning into a different Jane type (often Jane Dough or Go Jane Go). That means making your business more of a focus in your life. Before saying yes, determine if that’s what you really want.

• A new opportunity may mean putting more time into your business. As an Accidental Jane, your lifestyle is very important to you. Does this opportunity threaten that lifestyle?

• If the opportunity is very appealing to you, ask the question: How can you make it work on your terms? How can you structure the work so that it doesn’t impinge much on your time? Can you let go of something else or can you delegate part of this work?

• Further, ask yourself: Am I charging as much as I could? Accidental Jane may sometimes be a little out of touch with her industry going-rates. As workload and opportunities creep up, she should continually think about increasing rates to make the work more profitable.

• Finally, if new opportunities get you excited, start building your company for the long-term vision so that you can maintain your lifestyle while also taking on more work. Envision how your company might look in three years if you say yes to the kinds of opportunity you are facing now. If what you see in your vision excites you, begin building a plan that will help you manage that future business without letting it take over your life. If what you see doesn’t excite you, because you are simply happy and content with your business as it stands today, then be prepared to say no to opportunity at least occasionally.

Whether you’re a Go Jane Go or an Accidental Jane, it’s important to know what you’ll do when you’re presented with an opportunity. Explore all the implications and possibilities – then decide whether you want to take this opportunity and deal with the outcomes.

As we’ve seen, Jane Dough is an entrepreneur who enjoys running her business and makes good money. She is comfortable and determined in buying and selling, which may be why she’s five times more likely than the average female business owner to hit the million dollar mark. Jane Dough is clear in her priorities and may be intentionally and actively growing an asset-based or legacy business. It is estimated that 18% of women fall in the category of Jane Dough.

Overall, Jane Dough has a fairly pragmatic, business-minded approach to everything that happens in her business, so when she encounter a problem with a customer loss, she most likely won’t get flustered or panicked. Instead, she may take the attitude, “It’s just a business decision on their part. Customers come and go based on what they need. We have to stay focused on growth and not let this get to us.” In some ways, this pragmatism is very good, because it keeps Jane Dough from becoming distracted by one-off events so she can continue moving toward her big goal – growing a thriving and profitable business.

However, Jane Dough should monitor (or have someone on her team monitor) her company’s on-going customer retention rate. Also, she should have someone take the time to conduct an exit interview, if her departing customer is willing. Why? Because Jane Dough often will delegate work to other people, she may not immediately be aware of a systemic problem in the business. Let’s say, for example, that she starts tracking customer retention and learns that roughly 15% of customers don’t return and half of those are because product delivery takes too long. Jane Dough could work with her team to find ways to address delivery challenges to improve the process and retain more customers. But she’ll only know what to focus company efforts on if she’s tracking the reasons customers leave and the magnitude or rate at which they are leaving.

One other word about Jane Dough – if it turns out that customer defections are happening as a result of something her company has fallen short on, she may be the type of leader to become angry with the person responsible for managing the function where the breakdown occurred. I have seen several Jane Doughs react with a rapid, “Fire them!” mentality, thinking that the problem is the person, not the system. Although there are cases where the problem IS the person, it is also true that systems can be at fault. Before taking extreme personnel action, Jane Dough should carefully dissect the system itself, along with other processes that feed the system, first. This is the better way to understand how and where breakdowns are occurring and prevent the problem from arising again if a new person is hired to do the job.

Accidental Jane is a successful, confident business owner who never actually set out to start a business. Instead, she may have decided to start a business due to frustration with her job or a layoff and decided to use her business and personal contacts to strike out on her own. Or, she may have started making something that served her own unmet needs and found other customers with the same need, giving birth to a business. Although Accidental Jane may sometimes struggle with prioritizing what she needs to do next in her business, she enjoys what she does and is making good money. About 18% of all women business owners fit the Accidental Jane profile.

Because Accidental Jane tends to have started a business based on her personal networks and through referrals, the loss of even a single client may be difficult for her. First, she may worry that she’s let someone down (either the client or the referrer) – and this may cause her to doubt herself or her abilities. Secondly, because Accidental Jane’s business is often dependent on deep relationships and word-of-mouth referrals, she may worry about the negative impact on the future of her business of losing a customer – because each customer may represent a significant chunk of her income.

Accidental Jane would do well to speak with this lost customer herself to understand their reason for departure. Because her relationships are often with personal contacts or strong referrals, she has a fair chance of reclaiming the customer with an open dialog. This may mean changing the way work gets done so that the customer’s needs are better met. But, following this discussion, Accidental Jane should process what she heard with her business mind, not her heart. Sometimes, customers are just a bad fit. Other times, she may make the decision that it’s not worth it to change her process to fit a particular clients’ needs. In the end, even a lost customer can turn into a potential referrer for Accidental Jane if these discussions are held in an open, honest manner where both sides walk away with renewed respect for each other, even if they have “agreed to disagree.”

Secondly, a lost customer should always serve to remind Accidental Jane to not put all her eggs in one basket but instead to keep her eye always scanning the horizon for potential new customers. Therefore, it may behoove her to develop specific marketing systems (such as email newsletters, systematized referral programs, affiliate networks, etc.) to help her continue building a steady list of prospective customers, even if she has no plan to work with them in the immediate future.

Tenacity Jane is an entrepreneur with an undeniable passion for her business, but who tends to be struggling with cash flow concerns. As a result, she’s working long hours, and making less money than she’d prefer. Nevertheless, Tenacity Jane is bound and determined to make her business a success. At 31% of women in business, Tenacity Janes are the largest single Jane type.

Because Tenacity Jane already tends to be struggling with cash flow, the loss of a client may be a substantial source of stress to her. She may wind up feeling that she needs to work even harder to gain and keep her clients. She may find the experience discouraging and not be certain what to do about it.

As with Jane Dough and Accidental Jane, Tenacity Jane would do well to speak with the lost customer candidly about what went wrong. Rather than doing so in an effort to “rescue” the customer, however, she should interview with her ears listening for the truths she can learn about her business. She should look for the clues that may help her understand why her business is not currently delivering the income she desires. Are there competitive pricing issues? If so, Tenacity Jane needs to understand how her competitors are able to deliver at a lower cost. Are there product, service, quality or delivery problems? If so, Tenacity Jane should listen carefully for opportunities to make improvements within the business itself. Is there a breakdown in communication such that customers expect something different than what is actually delivered? If so, Tenacity Jane should revisit her marketing and communication materials to see if they need to be clarified. In short, a lost customer can be a wonderful learning opportunity that provides the exact information to help Tenacity Jane’s entire business improve.

Next week, we’ll continue this article by looking at how Go Jane Go and Merry Jane would handle this issue.