You can work from home and make a living. You can free yourself from the confines of an office space. You can get to know your kids better and walk with your dogs every day. You can even paint your own walls! With a few simple steps, you’ll have more control, more time, and more fulfillment than you ever had before.
Here are the tools you need to succeed with your home business.
1. Focus on an established product or service.
The key to success is finding a product or service that meets a need. That way, you can set a price and know how many products or services to sell each month. If you’re buying one item online, focus on something that’s $40-$100 so that you make money from your initial sale (your profit margin will be greater).
A good way to find a product or service that you can sell is to research the market. Read back issues of your local newspaper and search industry magazines, or go to your local library to research companies in your niche, such as auto repair or pet care. You can then do a Google search on those particular companies.
Once you’ve found a market, start researching the industry and finding out who’s in charge. The more you know about an industry, the better you become at selling its services and products.
2. Decide where you want to work: at home or an office? If at home…
There are advantages and disadvantages to working from home. If you work from home, you’ll have the freedom to do your business activities in the clothes you’re wearing or in your pajamas. You’ll be able to take care of household chores and answer the phone at the same time. If your family is involved in your business, they can pitch in without feeling left out (Figure 1).
However, working from home can be stressful and actually slow you down. You may feel compelled to respond to everyone who contacts you or feels like you’re too far away from the action. Before starting a home business, make sure that you have enough family support to help during the early days of your business. Try working along with them, like asking each family member to bring in business contacts for the week at different times. This will give your family time together instead of working all day long.
Another disadvantage is that it’s difficult to go out and meet new people or hone your skills when you’re home alone all day. An easy solution is to hire a babysitter for the afternoon so you can attend a seminar or meet with clients.
If you prefer working from an office, you need to get one that’s clean, comfortable, and quiet. If you’re like many people who work from an office all day, by the time they get home at night they feel like they deserve a break. On the other hand, if your home is a place that’s calm and quiet (no TV blaring), then you won’t feel like you need to relax when you come home after a long day at work.
3. Hire help for your business if needed.
Despite the benefits of working from home, running a home business can be quite a challenge. You may want to hire a part-time or full-time employee to help you with your business. You can also outsource some tasks or cut down on the number of tasks you do when you work from home (Figure 2).
Selling products or services by mail order is one way that people make money working from home. If you decide to sell through this method, make sure you have enough money saved up in your business bank account so that you can give yourself at least three months’ worth of expenses in case there’s any delay in orders. Also, be sure to have a safety net so that when you do receive your products, they’re not damaged.
Another way you can outsource some tasks is to partner with someone who has specialized knowledge in the field that interests you. If you’re an avid gardener and have plants for resale, for example, find someone who will take care of them for you. Or if you’re a great seamstress and need help with mailing your products, find someone who can provide this service for you.
Another option is to look into hiring a part-time or full-time virtual assistant. With a virtual assistant, you can outsource tasks with someone who lives in another country, working remotely from the comfort of your home.
4. Start networking with other home businesspeople.
Some people like to make lists of things they want and then go out to buy them. While this approach works well in many instances, it may not work as well for a home business that you’re starting on your own. Also, when you’re spending all day in one place, it’s easy to get stuck in a routine and become bored or distracted by what’s happening outside of that routine.
A better way to start a home business is to network with others who can give you advice, contacts, lessons, and assistance. If you’re working from home, it’s especially important that you network with others so that you can avoid feelings of isolation.
One of the best ways to start networking is by joining your local chamber of commerce or business association. Meetings are fun and informative, and you can make some new friends who are also interested in starting or growing a home business. After you meet with them for awhile, start suggesting that other people in your group meet one-on-one with each other (Figure 3).
Also, if you don’t have friends who are interested in starting a home business, talk with your family and neighbors and see if they know anyone who might be interested. The more that you network with others, the more business ideas you’ll have.
5. Create an e-mail or snail-mail newsletter.
After spending time networking with others, it may be time to start sharing what you know with other people by subscribing them to your e-newsletter or group mailing list (Figure 4). You can also create a blog that shares what is going on in your life, as well as daily tips for working from home or for making money at home.
Many people find that this is a good place to share information with others who are interested in starting a home business. They may be doing the same thing and feel that you have information that they can use. Sometimes, watching what other people are doing will give you a sense of how to do things better or with more attention to detail.
6. Decide on your pricing: make sure the cost covers all expenses!
In addition to deciding what you’re going to sell, your second big decision is whether you’re going to charge for it or give it away for free. If you do decide to charge for what you’re offering, be sure that your prices are competitive, as well as fair (Figure 5).
When deciding on a price for a product or service, you need to factor in all of the costs involved in creating or producing it. If your price is too low, people may not take it seriously, and if it’s too high, they may feel like they can’t afford it. You also need to remember that if you have an item that doesn’t sell well, then you could be stuck with inventory that no one wants.
When you decide on a price, there are also many factors that can affect the price you decide on: the time of year, the market you’re in, your competitors’ prices, what you can find in stores or other sources for sale (including items that are no longer being produced), your own ability to produce it efficiently and quickly, and more.
The best way to know if your price is fair is to ask yourself if people would pay this much for the same product or service. You can also use an online calculator to help determine whether or not your pricing is fair (Figure 6).
7. Create a business plan.
Along with a price that’s fair, the next big factor in determining if a product or service is worth selling is how likely you are to succeed at it. This is especially true if you’re trying to make a lot of money from your business. A business plan will help you figure out exactly how hard it will be for your business to be successful and provide enough income to cover all of your living expenses.
If you decide to take this extra step, here are some tips for creating a business plan:
• Make sure that your plan contains a description of what your unique selling proposition (USP) is, and why people should buy what you have to sell.