Starting A Home Based Business
From LoveToKnow Business
Starting a home based business can be scary. Gone is the security of a regular paycheck offered by your former employer. Or perhaps you’re entering the business world after years of being a stay-at-home mom. Whatever the reason, there are steps to take to minimize costly mistakes and insure success.
Starting a Home Based Business: The Vision
The first step in starting a home based business is deciding on the type of home based business that will provide for your needs and research the needs the business will demand of you. The idea is to match your skills with what you like to do, then determine if this combination can become a viable business. Home based businesses are service-based, product sales driven or a combination. A service business will have different equipment, advertising and marketing requirements if you interact with the public, compared to a more product-oriented business you might run over the Internet.
Write A Solid Business Plan
A home based business owner’s personal life can soon be eclipsed by a growing start-up‘s demands. If you don’t anticipate the unexpected and plan how to deal with the impact of unfolding events, you’ll be overwhelmed by many unanticipated things occurring simultaneously. A Business Plan can be very informal or very detailed, depending upon your personality and style. But it must be solid. Review your plan monthly, checking to insure that growth and marketing are on schedule.
Writing a plan sets it in mental concrete. A plan kept in your head is vapor, subject to the pressures and emotional challenges you’ll face.
Starting a Home Based Business Means Goals
How much do you want or need to earn? How long before you must begin making money? Is your home based business a secondary source of income for the household or the primary? Either will direct your actions. While a secondary source of income allows you some wiggle room, you need a plan put into motion and a deadline when you’ll begin earning. Even the deepest pockets of the primary wage earner will eventually empty, as your spouse wonders what exactly are you doing with all the money he or she has given you. (As if we didn't know.)
If your home based business is not the primary source, prepare for financial pressure. Bills mount up fast, the kids will still need dental care, your COBRA or self-employed health care payments will not be cheap. The car will go clunk at the worst possible times. All costs must be controlled. Sudden expenses formerly treated lightly now become a priority.
Control Business Marketing Costs
You’ll need reasonable and reliable sources for print materials, including business cards, letterhead, envelopes and marketing communications. Desktop publishing and design are not do-it-yourself projects. Unless you‘re very skilled, don‘t do it yourself. You‘ll only get bogged down and waste time. The same with your Web site. You’ll need to have a professional develop it while you learn how to maintain it and deal with the start-up costs it will incur. Be wary of those $99 template specials. Why look like everyone else?
Advertising can include contract fees with newspapers, weekly classifieds, phone directories, direct mail and networking.
You’ll need PR money for business lunches, chamber of commerce meetings, business functions and local politics.
Dress The Part
You’ll need several business outfits for public contact. Casual outfits are okay if you don’t have a lot of frequent interaction with others, but dressing casually sometimes doesn’t help create the mindset needed to do business. Not everyone can wear Spider-Man shirts, bunny slippers and PJs while focusing on marketing tasks or customer service calls.
Manage Your Time
You used to work 9-5 with a long commute. Now you’ll need to set a schedule and manage your time or it can slip away quickly while you focus on non-priority tasks and interruptions. That means limited contact with family members while you work. And tell your friends that you can’t accommodate “drop-in” visits any longer. If you don’t respect your time, neither will anyone else. Set your business hours and inform your clients or else your phone will ring at all hours.
Networking And Word-Of-Mouth Marketing
Networking will be the most cost-effective way to market your home based business. Make it your goal to sell your business and yourself 24/7 everywhere you go. Schedule time to attend chamber meetings and business functions.
Approach sharp-looking well-dressed prospects everywhere and get into the habit of meeting them. Tell them what you do, but don’t become too zealous. Develop contacts, don’t offend. Exchange business cards or give cards to those who may know someone looking for a company like yours. Business cards are cheap marketing materials.
Learn More
This page has been accessed 2,586 times. This page was last modified 15:21, 4 June 2006.
© 2006-2009 LoveToKnow Corp.
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