Home Business

Determine That Your Business “Fits” As a Home Business

Is your business suitable as a home business? To make that determination, ask yourself how well your situation matches these descriptions:

• Almost no clients will visit your office. When they do, it will be rare and will be one car/one person at a time. Someone viewing your home from the outside would not know that a business is being run inside.

• You will rely heavily on phone, fax, email, and regular or “snail mail,” and you will frequently visit clients at their offices or meet them at a coffee house or restaurant - if you have to visit them at all.

• You are probably offering a service. If you are offering a product, it is either solely offered over the Internet or through mail order; or it is in conjunction with, or resulting from, your service business.(For example, as a writer, I offer both a service and products (books), but people don’t come to my house to buy them.

• You regularly employ only yourself and can run the business without permanent, full-time employees. (Occasional or temporary help is fine. More on this later in the article.)

• Your business does not require exterior signage or equipment that’s too large or otherwise incompatible with in-home use.

• It would be virtually impossible for someone passing by your home on foot to know that you are conducting business.

• Your home can accommodate any special needs the business will require - such as adequate space for activities and necessary equipment (copiers or printers for a small printing business, room for temporarily holding dogs for a dog-walking business, space for producing soap and bath salts for a small toiletries business, and so on). The less your business fits the preceding profile, the more difficult (but not necessarily impossible) it might be to actually operate your business from home.

Two important factors might give you the setting you need even if your business differs radically from what is detailed previously: the specifications of your own home and your local area’s planning guidelines. If your home is a studio apartment, you will be much more limited than if your home is a 10-room house with one or two acres of land. Setting aside a storage room, or setting up a shed, for your business is much easier if you have the space for it. The long-term development goals of your community - as expressed by your city or county’s planning department in the form of building codes, use regulations, and other rules - will also greatly determine how close your business must fit the previous description. Which leads us to our next “make or break” consideration.

Yesterday we introduced the first 5 questions about work from home business start up. You can find those questions here - Getting Started Home Based Businesses

So lets continue on with our home based business start up questions and finish out the 10 questions today.

6. Can you give an example of a time you said, “No” to someone regarding a business request, while still maintaining a strong business relationship? Are you able to speak up for your own needs and wants—politely (at first, anyway)?

7. Can you locate last year’s utility bills? How much money was in your checking account one year ago today?

8. Why do you learn new things—because you want to, because someone else told you it was a good idea, or a little bit of both? When was the last time you learned a new skill or took a class regarding some aspect of your line of work?

9. You must go to another city, 300 miles away, for a business meeting. All flights are booked. Your car is in the shop for repairs. What do you do?

10. Do you serve on a nonprofit board? Have you ever organized an event for your favorite charity? Do you currently supervise others? Are you responsible for another person’s welfare? How do you handle being in charge? Can you admit your mistakes—even when you are in a leadership position?

Ok, yesterday I started my “Ten Questions to Assess Your Home Based Business Potential“, so lets continue on with that and discuss a few of the work at home questions I think you need to be aware of and be knowledgeable about. First, you will need a list of your business background such as:

• Resume (as complete as possible)
• Financial records, including banking and expense records for the previous year
• Word processing program or paper version of your work at home self-employment planning journal

Be sure not to skip any of these home business questions as everyone of them is important, spend as much time as necessary to get a good understanding of what is going on with your life and how feasible a potential work at home business is for you.

The Questions

1. If you were laid off today, how long could you live on the cash in your checking and savings accounts? (Do not count retirement, stocks, or bonds.)

2. What marketable skills do you have, and how do they apply to the home business you’ve chosen to launch? If you ran in to someone who could refer 100 ideal customers to you right now, how would you describe your business - in 30 seconds or less?

3. How do businesses similar to the one you propose to launch gain customers?

Be specific. How much do you know about the industry or profession you’re entering in to? Recording your answers to this quiz in your business planning journal gives you a valuable record of the ideas, skills, and weaknesses you possessed when you launched your business.You might want to periodically review your answers and retest yourself on the first anniversary of your business opening.

4. What happens on days when you just don’t feel like working, but things have to get done? Do you accomplish the tasks before you, or do you spend your time trying to avoid them?

5. Have you ever worked toward a goal that took six months or more to complete? How did you motivate yourself to sacrifice time, money, and other resources?

Spend time on these work at home job questions, and you will get a better understanding of the direction and timing that is going on with the potential home business opportunity.