online courses
Session 3: Home based business
This session will review the do's and don'ts of operating a home based business and will also state the case for not quitting your job at all. But keep in mind that operating at home will still require business skills just like any other business. And it will be important to gain understanding in all the other sessions contained in the My Own Business course as well.
In the past, jobs provided most everyone with a dependable pay envelope and long-range security but not anymore. Along with diminishing retirement benefits, jobs are getting hard to find and hold onto. An alternative is to go into business, yet most people accustomed to working for a living do not have quite enough confidence to start a full-time business. Reasons include:
- Being risk adverse: a deep-rooted fear of failure and losses
- Lack of entrepreneurial zeal
- Lack of business training and experience
Minimum investment
Operating from a spare bedroom or a garage, a business can be run with a minimum of investment and exited with a minimum of obligations and risks.
Maximized communication technologies
The Internet, computer and communications technologies now offer home based entrepreneurs the same tools for communications, accounting and marketing as are employed by multi-national competitors. Web-based businesses are especially appropriate for home based operations.
Start small and grow by compounding
You can begin in a very small way, starting with one order at a time and grow by the power of compounding. For example, your first six months sales may produce only $1,000 per month. But if you can continue growing by 20% during each ongoing six month period, in five years your annual sales will be over $370,000.
A potential built-in organizational structure
While home based businesses are not just for families, a family will become closer by spending time together, sharing problems, designing challenging projects and sharing work and school lives. King Solomon put it this way: "Two can accomplish more than twice as much as one. If one fails, the other pulls him up; but if a man falls when he is alone, he's in trouble. One standing can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer; three is even better, for a triple-brained cord is not easily broken".
What is the biggest difficulty you have encountered in running your business from home?
The "all-in-the-family" approach to a home based business offers some other powerful competitive advantages:
Common goals pull the family together.
You can utilize individual and collective family skills.
If you are still working at a job, family members can work during hours you're on the regular job.
It could be a better solution to "working spouses": why not work as a team at home?
The kids learn the benefits of entrepreneurship.
The business is set up with pre-established lines of authority and responsibility.
Both spouses can exercise individual business capabilities.
When all else fails (including your job) a family working together is the best survival unit.
Open to all ages
A home based business is open to all ages and walks of life, from high school students to the growing population of retirees for whom involuntary idleness is increasingly a problem. And since there is over-whelming data to demonstrate that activity promotes longevity, for many retired people working in a home business becomes the solution in curing debilitating unproductively. Also, the wisdom and experience of maturity dovetails with the structured prudence required to successfully operate a business without risking substantial assets.
A productive activity for the out of work
Unemployed workers can gain the satisfaction of being productive by putting their skills to work in a home based business that helps defray living expenses while they search for work. The search becomes the "job" and the business becomes their moonlight activity which can include family members. A family working together during difficult times will create bonds that will last for lifetimes.
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