08.30.02
Choosing the Right Work at Home Business for You
Pay any attention at all to your email inbox and you’d be forgiven for thinking
that the only way to run a business from home is on the Internet. Sure, many
people are running spectacularly successful Internet-based home businesses.
Many, many more are doing so even more spectacularly unsuccessfully.
But what if you’re not interested in running an Internet business? What if you
want to start and run a home business the old-fashioned way? Where do you
start?
Actually starting any home business is the easy part. The hard part’s
deciding what that business should be.
So how do you even start the process of deciding on the right home business
for you? The key is to be methodical, realistic, objective and patient.
Step 1 : Personal Inventory
The first place to start is to inventory your skills, experience, interests, and
personality characteristics. These are what you have to work with - your raw
ingredients, so to speak.
Make a list of personal qualities and factors that you can throw into the mix.
Include things like:
= your personal background;
= training and education;
= work
and volunteer experience;
= special interests and hobbies;
= leisure
activities;
= your personality and temperament.
All of these qualities and factors make up what you know and what you’re
good at.
Step 2 : Identify What You Like
It’s one thing to know a lot about something or be good at it. It’s quite
another to enjoy it enough to want to make it your life’s work. So, remove from
the list you created in Step 1 anything that you don’t really, really like doing or
which plain doesn’t interest you. No matter how good you are at it. If you’re lucky
enough to like what you’re good at, as a general rule, stick with what you know.
Step 3 : Match Your Likes With Marketable Activities
If Steps 1 and 2 still haven’t suggested feasible home business ideas, review
the following activities that have proven marketable for others and weigh them
against your “likes” from Step 2:
Crafts - pottery, ceramics, lead lighting Health and Fitness - aerobics
instructor, network marketing for a health products company, home health care
Household Services - cleaning, gardening, shopping Professional Services -
attorney, architect, interior designer Personal Services - make-up artist,
hairdresser Business Services - business plan writer, meeting planner Wholesale
Sales - antique dealer, drop shipper Retail Sales - children’s clothing, widgets
Computers - web design, internet training.
You get the idea. This is not an exhaustive list, obviously. You can visit the
AHBBO Ideas Page for a list of over 500 home business ideas at
http://www.ahbbo.com/ideas.html .
Step 4 : Make a List of Business Ideas That Fit With Your Likes From Step 2
By the time you’re done, you’ll have a hitlist of possible matches between
your skills and interests on the one hand and home business ideas utilizing those
skills and interests on the other.
Step 5 : Research
Armed with your list from Step 4, identify those ideas that you think have
marketable potential and then research whether that belief is accurate. In order
to have marketable potential, the idea must satisfy the following criteria:
= It must satisfy or create a need in the market. The golden rule for any
business is to either find or create a need and then fill it.
= It must have longevity. If your idea is trendy or faddish, it doesn’t have
longevity. Go for substance over form in all things.
= It must be unique. This doesn’t mean you have to invent something
completely new but it does mean that there has to be some *aspect* of your
product or service that sets it apart from the competition. This is easy if you go
for the niche, rather than mass, market. Don’t try to be all things to all people.
You’ll only end up being too little to too many.
= It must not be an over saturated market. The more competition you have,
the harder it will be to make your mark. It’s unrealistic to expect no competition,
of course. In fact, too little competition is a warning sign either that your business
idea has no market or that a few big players control the market. What you want
is healthy competition where it’s possible to differentiate yourself from competing
businesses.
This all gets back to uniqueness. If you can’t compete on uniqueness, you
must compete on price (or convenience). If you’re forced to compete on price
alone, that just drives down your profit margin. Not smart business.
= You must be able to price competitively yet profitably. The price you set
for your product or service must allow you to compete effectively with other
businesses in your market, it must be acceptable to consumers and it must return
you a fair profit. If any one of these three is off, move on.
= Your business must fit with your lifestyle. If you’re a parent of young
children and you primarily want to start a business from home so you can stay
home with them, a real estate brokerage business that requires you to be out and
about meeting with prospective clients is obviously not going to work.
You’ll instead need to choose a business that can be conducted entirely (or
near enough entirely) from within the four walls of your home office. Similarly, if
your business idea would involve having clients come to your home, you’re not
going to want an unruly 3 year old underfoot as you’re trying to conduct
business.
= Your financial resources must be sufficient to launch and carry the
business until it becomes profitable. No business is profitable from day one, of
course. But some are quicker to break even than others. If your business requires
a considerable initial capital outlay to start - computer, printer and software for a
web design business, for example - it will take you longer to break even than if
the only prerequisite was the knowledge inside your own head, such as working
from home as an attorney.
If your financial situation is such that you can’t afford to quit your day job
until your business is paying its way, this, too, will mean it will take longer to
break even than if you’re able to devote every waking hour to your business. Just
do what you have to do. That’s all any of us can do.
Step 6 : Business Plan
Once you’ve gone through the above process and identified what appears to
be the right business for you, the final “gut check” is to write a business plan for
your business, much as you would for a presentation to a bank for financing.
Include sections for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and set
goals for what your business needs to achieve for you, by when, and how you are
going to get there.
There are plenty of good resources online about how to prepare a thorough
business plan. A great place to start is at About.com (http://www.about.com).
Just type “business plans” into the search box.
Although it may seem like a waste of time and effort to complete a business
plan if you don’t intend to seek outside financing, taking the time and exercising
the discipline needed to really focus your mind on the important issues facing
your business, you will be forced to take a long hard look at your idea through
very objective and realistic eyes.
If your idea passes the business plan test, then you can be reasonably
confident that this is the right business for you. If you come away from this
exercise feeling hesitant, uncertain and unsure, either do more research (if the
reason for your hesitancy and uncertainty is lack of information) or discard the
idea (if it’s because you don’t think your idea is going to fly). If this happens, just
keep repeating Steps 5 and 6 until you end up with an idea and a business plan
that you’re confident is going to work!
Although it’s frustrating to wait once you’ve made up your mind to start a
business from home, this really is one situation where the tortoise wins the race.
By taking a methodical, systematic and disciplined approach to identifying the
right home business for you, you give your business the best possible chance for
long-term survival, hopefully avoiding some very expensive mistakes along the
way.
Elena Fawkner is editor of A Home-Based Business Online …
practical business ideas, opportunities and solutions for the
work-from-home entrepreneur.
http://www.ahbbo.com