Marketable Skills For Work At Home
2. Asset: Marketable Skills
+ Give yourself extra credit for up to five skills.
√ If you have two to four skills, you pass this question nicely.
– If you have fewer than two skills, you fail this question.
If you have more than five skills listed in your description of the services or products you provide in your business, you probably should whittle them down to no more than four skills (or just those skills that can be marketed seamlessly). You’re allowed to go back and rethink the skills you would use in your business. You can undermine your credibility by offering services or products based on too many different types of skills.
So how do you know whether your skills can be “marketed seamlessly”? Let’s say that you want to start a work at home business as a marketing consultant. You have a background in sales that provides credibility to your advice in this area. But you have also been tinkering with computers, and you’d like to offer tech support, too.
Most people won’t go to the same source for assistance with both technical support and marketing expertise. These seem like unrelated skill sets, and potential customers might assume that if you’ve developed worthwhile expertise in one, you probably haven’t had the time and energy to develop
equally professional skills in the other. Marketing this combination would be a challenge, as well. It would be difficult to seamlessly transition from discussing your marketing services to discussing your technical support services.
However, let’s say that you are starting a marketing consulting business, based on the same sales background. You have also had experience with television production and video editing. So, you would also like to offer television production services, and plan to sell these services to many of your clients.
After all, many clients who are revamping their marketing plans (and seeking your advice as a consultant) might also choose to use your company to produce a television advertisement.
How To Improve:
• If you don’t have at least two marketable skills that are directly applicable to your home business, you need to gain the necessary training or experience to obtain them.
• If you have too many skills, and they don’t mesh nicely, prioritize them.
Which services would you most like to offer in your home business? In the preceding example, the business owner would probably need to choose between marketing and technical support—perhaps growing the business in to a “one stop” service center.
If the decision is tough, work through the business plan and budget for each separate business.
Tags: home business, home business marketing, work at home, work from home