So often I hear from ambitious people how great it is to work from home. Those who work from home tell me it is a major effort not to flake out. They struggle not to watching TV instead of calling potential clients. Other have a struggle with doing other things around the house.
Hundreds if not thousands of people work in dead end job who would love to be working from home. Their passion is either making a neat product or supplying a fantastic service from home. Many people get disillusioned by what is called multilevel marketing scheme.
Multilevel marketing scheme is where you pay $100, $200 or more to get this starter kit. They have a selection of products to be sold from home. The parent company encourages you to get someone else to sell the products for you. Then you make a percentage of their sales. The presentation from these multilevel marketing companies sounds great.
In reality, it requires work. They majority of people who sign up for this kind of home based business fail within the first year. Either it requires more work than originally expected. The particular area has been saturated with that product or products. Or people can get a better deals for similar products from Wal Mart.
Then there is some other home based businesses that do not require selling. Clark Howard recently posted a list of his recommendations for perspective home based business. Looking over these I found some quite interesting and worth looking into further.
Still no matter what home based business you start whether it is part of a franchised or something you build from a simple idea there is some basics you need to keep in mind.
Set Aside a Work Space - Work space need to be set aside for the business. I can tell you from personal experience when you mix home living space with you business space it will be easy to get side tracked. You need to focus on your business first or you will find yourself not meeting your financial goals with the business.
Keep Business Hours - Any business owner will tell you that owning your own business is a lot more than a forty hour week. When working from home you need to have set business hours. This goes hand in hand with having the business work space in a different location of your home. It is a good idea to keep in mind your business hours is the least amount of hours to commit to the business. To proper develop your business you will need to put in a lot more each day and week.
Keep Good Records - Many a businesses have folded because of bad recording keeping. The owners did not know exactly how much money was going out to how much money was coming in. Then IRS surprised them with a high tax bill. Supplies were not on hand to fulfill order from a client. All of these just boil down to good record keeping.
Be a People Person - People are going to use your goods or services. Your are going to have to contact people both getting and receiving. If you are not a people person, then you need fold your business and go work for someone in a factory. Where you can have the least amount of contact with other people as possible.
Plan for the Long Haul - No business becomes a success over night. It takes time. It takes lots of hard work. Any business that is going to make money and be around for any length of time is like running a marathon. So don’t say you are going to trying starting a business for a few weeks or month. You will fail. Make a plan that you are able to stick to for several years.
Bottom-line: I know this is a little different post for The Shopping Nazi to write. However, as the year is ending we are looking back at what has happen. We are looking forward as to what we can or would like to do in the coming year. One of those issue, I know many of you are thinking about is starting your own business.
The four things I have listed above is not suggestions. They are not recommendations. They are what any successful business person will tell you as are MUSTS to being successful.
