Starting A Home Based Business

When I started my business, I started it from home. There were 2 reasons for this. The first was that I was bootstrapping my cash flow so I needed to minimize expenses. The second and more important reason was that I did not know where I wanted to take my business so I wanted to feel out the market before making more of a commitment.

This was one of the best decisions I made as I was able to make mistakes (or what I also called lessons) on a smaller scale. Starting from home you can make yourself look like a bigger business than you really are. You can do this with the use of a great website. The good thing about a website is that you can project any image that you wish. You can also dictate how you do business. You can sell solely via your store and use your home for customer service and sending out goods. Or you can use your website to organise appointments to go out and see potential customers while your office is at home.

With my printing company we were in a different predicament. We had to produce each order so we needed a fair bit of space. So we took out 4 rooms in our home. However we had a 12 month goal to move out into our factory which we did. We also knew building a website with proper content would take months so in the mean time we tried to get work via word of mouth.

One thing I learned during this time is I went out to see every client that I could. This was a 'lesson' I learned. The reason for this is I realized I was wasting too much time doing this. However at the start every customer counted. Now my approach is to filter my ideal customers from customers that might waste my time. So when starting out it is important to project yourself more to the kind of customers you want as opposed the ones which will waste your time. This will probably mean you will need to find a way to target larger corporate customers from home. If you can do this your lower expenses will make such projects more profitable.

The one thing I regret when starting a home based business is not getting the focus for my business right from the start. Today is two and a half years since our business moved from home, but the focus of what we do has shifted since being at home. If we knew three years ago what exactly our business would do in the future then we would have expanded differently.

For entrepreneurs looking to stay at home with the business, this can be a lot of fun. I have seen small businesses customized their home to suit their business. The great thing about working from home is you can easily leave work early if it is quiet. However a major pitfall is you may get complacent and lethargic with your hours when you should be working hard.

We have found though that since moving from home we have been more focused on the business with less distractions. On my drive home I am more easily able to stick off from work. However for those starting out or looking to stay at home I highly encourage this as you are reducing the risk of your business failing.