How to Balance Your Life With an Amazon FBA Business | Helium 10

You’re right in the middle of running your Amazon business.

• Optimizing your listing
• Managing PPC
• Analyzing your competition

Suddenly, you find yourself lacking that one key thing everyone is always talking about: balance.

Balance hadn’t occurred to you when you launched your first product because you had your roadmap to success firmly planned out, and thought you could do it all…

Then it happened, your launch was a success, and to your amazement, your hard work started paying off! Your business grew at a rate you hadn’t anticipated nor planned for.

Next thing you know, you’re wearing all the hats! You’re the Marketing Expert, PPC specialist, Customer Service Agent, and HR person.

The list of daily tasks you’re providing to your Amazon biz just keeps growing!

The real challenge is that your everyday life doesn’t stop when you run an Amazon business.

You still have family obligations, friendships to maintain, or perhaps homeschooling responsibilities you were thrust into thanks to the pandemic. Whatever the case may be, something has to give before things come to a crashing halt, and you, or your Amazon business, suffers from a mounting burn out.

With combined efforts like outsourcing and making some minor changes to your routine, you can escape this overwhelming rut.

“Care about everything and nothing. The balance, if you can find it, is how you win.”

Gary Vaynerchuk

#1 Be Clear with Your Goals

Without clear goals, balance becomes challenging because you focus on all elements of growth in your Amazon business at once. Define your goals in both short term and long term projections. Be accountable to those goals.

By writing your goals down and becoming hyper-focused on them, you can start to take small steps of action instead of trying to achieve giant unrealistic leaps. Goal setting creates balance on top of tangible ways to achieve results.

Here’s how.

Set SMART Goals

• Specific — Find focused goals, be as clear as possible
• Measurable — Develop goals in short term and long term processes
• Attainable — Stick to small steps of action so you see progress in stages
• Relevant — Prioritize your goals and be realistic
• Time-Bound — Create time frames and set limits

Creating goals can seem overwhelming, but they’re essential in order to achieve milestones and help you see plans of action in small steps and stages. Goal setting is crucial to finding your way in the Amazon space so that you not only have a clear vision, but are able to find balance as your business progresses.

Setting SMART goals can make all the difference.

Do these things sooner rather than later and save yourself from the stress and anxiety that can come when you don’t have a clear path.

#2 Hire it Out

Amazon doesn’t sleep, and in the beginning, neither do you. The long-term effects of this can be grim. As much as the desired laptop lifestyle offers flexibility, the truth is many of us are burning the candle at both ends.

The difference between this and our 9 -5 we hope to give up? Passion. We love what we do, and so that alone propels us forward with the help of caffeine and a couple of hours of sleep each day.

The workload doesn’t stop, though. Once you navigate your first product, then start to add in others, before you know it, you have your hands in all avenues. Your business can suffer, and so can your relationships and personal life.

Successful business owners learn to delegate, and they know to loosen the reins of control.

Hiring out some of the tasks that aren’t your strong suit can help you balance the demands of your Amazon business and your personal life.

Here’s how.

Hire a VA

Hiring virtual assistants in your business is a great option to free up personal time and find productivity. Virtual assistants often come trained, and specific VA companies offer virtual assistants who have previous experience in Amazon — a bonus for us Amazon sellers!

A VA’s tasks can include:

• Customer Service
• Product Sourcing
• Listing Management
• Inventory Management
• Flat File Uploads
• Competitor Analysis
• Keyword Research
• Social Media Management

VA’s do require a bit of onboarding. That would be normal in a brick and mortar sense in any company you owned or worked for. Just be sure to take the time to go through a detailed interview process. There are many resources online that can help you formulate good questions in these types of interview scenarios. Be clear on expectations, and take your time in the process.

#3 Create a Routine & Set Hours for Yourself

You’re probably thinking the whole reason you left your 9–5 was to avoid set hours and find flexibility while working for yourself. You’re probably also thinking you can’t operate on a strict hourly schedule in e-commerce. Well, the answers here are both yes and no.

Here’s how.

• Start your day with meditation or a workout, even a light walk. Anything you can do to take care of your body and mind will help you find balance throughout your life.
• Dedicate 1 to 2 days off a week. Shocking, I know! You need an entire 1–2 days off every week in order to feel rejuvenated, so you can utilize your most effective skill set to its best.
• Set a schedule on your phone, in a planner, or a calendar app so that you have a visual representation of the routine you’ve created and hold yourself accountable to it.
• Take small breaks during your workday. We all know the fog that can come over us when we sit at a laptop screen for hours on end so ensure that you’ve scheduled working breaks throughout your day.

While that may sound impossible, the alternative of falling into the “working 365 days a year” trap isn’t exactly why you signed up to Amazon. Breaks are necessary to function. They enable you to walk away from a project and return to it with a fresher perspective.

#4 Practice Social Media Minimalism

An estimated 244 million people used social media in the USA back in 2018, and that number is expected to rise to 257 million by 2023!

Imagine the hours logged in social accounts and how that can affect our ability to focus on taking care of ourselves. Social media isn’t about all or nothing thinking, it’s about finding a happy medium so that you can truly enjoy some much needed personal time without being hyper focused on social platforms at all times.

Practicing social media minimalism is a great way to achieve balance in your social media practices and avoid the overwhelming feeling that can sometimes arise from an overload of social media engagement.

Here’s how.

• Assess your purpose of social media. Are you utilizing social platforms for business or personal reasons? Find a minimalist approach to social media so it doesn’t take you away from your time.
• Choose your apps wisely. Select apps that can provide you with the benefits you are seeking, but try your best not to seek out too many apps at once.
• Take a break when needed. Stop the scroll if you’ve been at it for hours. If this is too difficult for you, use a timer to help you limit your social media time!

#5 Be Intentional

Finding balance is not only about bringing your time back to the forefront of your life. It’s also about being focused on what is and isn’t important. It may mean that you have to get comfortable saying no more often. Being intentional with your time allows you to create balance by having clear expectations. The last thing you want to do is weigh the expectations of others or yourself (if unrealistic), too heavily throughout the day.

Here’s how.

• Small steps. Start small by saying no to something you aren’t sure is a priority. Practice will help you gain the confidence to say no when it’s appropriate to do so.
• Choose your network wisely, just be selective!
• Ask yourself if the work your doing is necessary, or if it can wait.

#6 Take Advantage of Great Software & Services

Things often aren’t strictly black and white in our seller central portal, so we like to go to various platforms to learn and scale. A service in which you have access to multiple streams of data will allow you to find balance in your business and positively impact finding balance in your personal life. I suggested finding some user-friendly tools and keeping your focus on quality, not quantity.

Here’s how.

Helium 10 is an excellent resource for learning and development, from the resource section to the many tools like Cerebro, Black Box, or the newly added Alibaba Demand Analyzer. You don’t need to go too far to find one great resource.

Whether you are optimizing a listing, tracking competitors, or understanding profits, you can do all of these things in one great software. That’s balance at its finest!

Starting an Amazon business can mean that you’re working far more than you ever thought possible. However, the benefits far outweigh the challenges and if you’re able to find balance along the way, then you’re able to enjoy the journey a little more easily without feeling like you’re chained to your laptop.

Originally published at https://www.helium10.com