SHOULD YOU START A HOME BASED BUSINESS?
Whether or not to start a home based business is probably one of
the most important questions that you will ever have to answer.
If you are even seriously pondering the question in the first
place, then it probably means that there are circumstances in
your life which are causing you to consider undertaking a
venture which will have a significant and far reaching impact on
your own life and on the lives of your immediate family memebers
as well. Before you take a leap of faith into becoming a small
business owner, there are a few areas of your life which will be
impacted and which you should seriously consider before coming
to any final decision as to whether or not a home based business
is right for you.
FINANCIAL
Starting your own home based business can have many financial
rewards and put you in control of your own financial future.
However, there are a few things to consider before beginning
your undertaking.
First, will you start your home based business on a part time
basis and keep your day job until you are making enough profit
to enable you to quit and devote your full attention to your
business? Or would you rather quit your day job now so you can
devote your full time and energy to building your business?
There are pros and cons to both approaches and only you can
decide which one you will feel most confortable with in the long
run. If you have enough savings to meet your living expenses for
a good six months to a year then it might be worthwhile to quit
your day job to focus on growing your business. You'll see
results a lot faster and that will give you the momentum you
need to keep going. Starting a home based business requires a
lot of up front work and if you are doing it on a part time
basis it is easier to get discouraged when the results don't
materialize as quickly as you had originally planned. On the
other hand, having a full time income will enable you to spend
more on your business without having to worry about meeting
monthly living expenses.
You will also have to set a start up budget for your business as
well. Any home based business will require some start up costs,
even if they are only minimal at first. For example, if you are
going to be doing business on the internet, you will need to
register your domain name and pay a monthly fee to have your
website hosted. Domain names can be registered for as little as
$7.00 and monthly hosting can be obtained for a minimum of about
$25.00. You'll also need to determine how much money you are
going to devote to advertising your new venture. While there are
some very good ways to advertise your business for free,
eventually you are going to have to lay out some money to
advertise if you hope to see the kind of profits that will make
your online business worthwhile. While we are not talking about
massive amounts of money here, a few hundred dollars would be a
reasonable sum to get some quality advertising to promote your
business and allow you to start making some sales which will
generate even more cashflow to reinvest in your business.
PERSONAL
Most people who are interested in starting their own home based
business cite personal reasons as one of their primary
motivations. It seems that more and more people are getting fed
up with corporate America these days and it's no secret that the
average workday continues to get longer and longer, lunch hours
become nonexistent, and the financial security that once came
with retirement is no longer a reality for most people. Not only
does having your own home based business put you in charge of
your own financial future, it also allows you to start spending
real quality time with your family. Most people are so exhausted
at the end of a typical workday that just getting through dinner
without nodding off is a real challenge. With a home based
business, you control the hours you work and you automatically
add at least one or two additional hours to your day that you
would otherwise spend commuting to and from work.
Of course, getting your family adjusted to having you working
from home may take some effort in the beginning. If you have
very small children at home it can be a challenge to keep them
out of your office while you are trying to get work done. If you
are the primary caretaker, you will need to work in small spurts
throughout the day while the kids are napping or watching a
video and then put in a few hours after they go to bed for the
night. Once they are in school, the routine becomes a lot easier
because you can adjust your schedule around their schoolday and
have most of your daily work completed by the time they get home
from school.
Life can sometimes be a series of tradeoffs, so spending all
that quality time with your family also means that you'll no
longer have the social interaction that was once a part of your
9 to 5 routine. Now that you have a home based business, you
will have to go out of your way to gain some of that same social
interaction. Joining local small business organizations is a
great way to make new friends, network and have your business
become known in your local community. Alot of these
organizations have weekly or monthly meetings with guest
speakers at either a breakfast or afer work social event. In any
case, socializing will now become a great way to network and
spread word of mouth about your new business venture.
MOTIVATION
You have to be motivated to start any home based business. This
motivation is twofold. I am talking here about both the internal
drive to take action and get your business off the ground, as
well as the vision you have in your head of what your business
will eventually look like once it is established and what it is
you want to accomplish with your business.
A home based business can bring many financial rewards, but alot
of people will get discouraged with the up front work that is
required to get any business off the ground. I have often heard
an analogy used by folks who do business on the internet that I
like a lot because I think it is so accurate. The analogy is
that starting a home based internet business is like a rocket
taking off. For those who are not NASA afficionados, a rocket
apparently uses something like 80% of the energy that it will
use during it's entire mission just during those first few
minutes of liftoff. That momentum then helps carry it throughout
the rest of it's journey. It's a lot like that with a home based
business. It takes alot of up front energy, but one day you
realize that the hardest part is over and you've created enough
momentum to help make it easier from now on in. You have to have
the motivation to get through those early days, otherwise you'll
never create the kind of momentum that you need to see yourself
through.
You're also going to need to identify your motivation in terms
of what it is you want to accomplish with this business of yours
anyway. Do you have a great idea or product that you want to
promote? Most people actually don't, and that's okay. Selling
your own product is often thought of as the most lucrative way
to make money on the internet, but you can still make quite a
bit of money by finding other people's products and promoting
those as an affiliate. That means for every sale you make, you
get a commission. And you can also generate residual income for
yourself by recruiting other people to become affiliates under
you. But no matter which way you go, you have to like what
you're doing and what you're promoting. Starting a home based
business will not bring the financial rewards you are hoping for
if you are not doing something that makes you feel energized,
excited, challenged and, perhaps most importantly, that you are
providing a worthwhile benefit to those people who are buying
your product or service.
Well, I certainly hope those few points have given you enough to
ponder as you go through the process of deciding whether or not
a home based business is right for you. I hope you come to the
conclusion that it is, because there is no better way that I
know of to take control of your own financial future. If you
don't take the bull by the horns and do it for yourself, nobody
else will. But don't forget to have fun along the way. Pick a
home based business that you'll look forward to tending to day
in and day out and that benefits other people in some way, and I
promise you that the financial rewards will follow......