Do you need to go OUT to work at your home-based business? Yes, I’ve been there too. I had the “home-based” business that’s not really based at home at all. You have to attend training and meetings that are usually held in the evenings. You need to book presentations/parties mostly at nights or weekends. I went into my Party Plan business with the idea that I would only book parties during the week when my children were at school. I found the reality is that rarely happens. Of course, no-one tells you this – they just want to sign you up! And let’s face it, the people we need to come to our presentations are the ones with money to spend – and they are at work during the week. So YOU end up working nights and weekends to accommodate them.For us work-at-home mums and dads, there is no point having this business if it causes us to work those hours! Juggling schedules with your partner – or worse, paying for babysitters, so you can “work” from home. I was proud of the fact that I worked from home until I realized I was spending most Friday nights and Sunday afternoons away from my family – which is where I really wanted to be!What you need is a business that fits your needs and TRULY allows you to work from home. I struggled for ten years until I realized that myself, until I found the answer to my dilemma. I now really do work from home and it is everything I dreamed it would be. I have real freedom and flexibility now that I have the right business for my needs.Whether you’re looking at, or already running a “home-based” business, consider how much freedom you really have. If you’re a work-at-home mum or dad, how well does the business fit your lifestyle? Are you really able to work at home? It was life-changing for me when I looked objectively at what I was doing and my motivation behind it. So, whether you are researching a home business or are already in one, be realistic, take into account how much time you spend away from your family – and then ask, is it really working for you?

Question – Just what is a “Home Based Business?”Answer – Any business you can run from your home. You don’t need a storefront or office with a public address. You operate your business from your home (or where ever). But make no mistake – it is a business and must be treated like one.Question – How does a “Home Based Business” operate?Answer – The business sells the owners products or services – or promotes other people’s products or services, and gets paid a commission if the product or service is sold. You could sell a product you make yourself (crafts for instance), or you could sell products that you buy wholesale and sell retail on an internet store, or even on eBay. You could sell a service in which you have experience (bookkeeping for instance) to local businesses, or to a larger business audience using the internet (and Quickbooks, using the bookkeeping example) to deliver your service. Your business could be promoting other people’s products or services (known as Affiliate Marketing) and receiving a commission if the product or service is ultimately purchased. With the internet, almost anything you have some experience in can be turned into a business you can run from your home.Question – How much does it cost to start a Home Based Business?Answer – Very little. In fact, some Home Based Businesses can be started (but probably not grown) with absolutely no start-up cost. The typical Home Based Business can be started with the cost of business name registration (varies by state), cost of a domain name (about $10) a website host ($8 – $10 per month – usually including a do it yourself website development program), an autoresponder for email marketing ($19 per month for the best), and – if you are selling your own products – a full eCommerce website or store (usually about $30 A month) plus any program you might need to deliver a service (Quickbooks for Bookkeeping for example) which you might already have on your computer. Too much? – reduce costs by starting with a free autoresponder (like Mail Chimp) or free do-it-yourself website program like KompoZer.Question – How much can I expect to make?Answer – it’s up to you! But – keep in mind that despite the claims made by many internet “Gurus”, there is no such thing as a “get rich quick” or “three clicks to a $1,000. Dollar a week income” program. Realistically, plan this as a part time venture (keep your day job if you have one) until you master the learning curve, and build a list of potential customers. If you earn enough to pay the rent or mortgage in the first few months you are doing good. After you learn the ropes the sky is the limit – it all will depend on you!Question – What does it take to be successful?Answer – a Business Plan, built on a solid platform (yes, you will need a business plan, even for a Home Based Business). I like to compare the platform itself, to a three legged stool:• The back leg (supporting most of the weight) is a broad curved leg that is your WHY or reason for being in business (why am I in business for myself? How will life be different and better when my business is successful?). Warning – if your WHY is not big and strong enough you will fail.• The two front legs are one leg called Skills – and a second leg called Inspiration/Motivation. You will need some internet marketing skills (don’t worry – they can be learned for free) and also something that you can depend on to inspire and motivate you to keep going through what will be a long learning process, and probably a few failures along the way, on the road to a successful business.We will discuss all this in more detail in future Articles on Home Based Businesses.

A business idea or call it an inspiration, is the most critical part of setting up an entrepreneurial venture. It must work to meet certain objectives and requirements in order to be successful. A home based business must accommodate personal passion and potential for profits at the same time.

But before starting to develop research and plan, take you trim to develop a written plan. Get a spiral notebook or journal and write clearly: Why you want a home based business? What are some of your passions? Are you going into this primarily to make an income short term or long term similar to a retirement plan? Do you want to be mobile or work only from home? Do you plan on working totally alone: from handling paperwork, computer repair, office necessaries, taxes and research and advertising plan? Or will you prefer team approach or even employs?

Each has benefits and challenges? I for one do not use employees due to the paper work, but use independent contractors for the parts of the business that do not make me money yet are necessary, those areas I excel in and really give me passion I do, and fill in the rest with qualified people that offer their services.

Looking at any inventory or shipping of any kind will keep you working from home or having an employee to do that while you travel. It is a 24 X 7 responsibility. Choose wisely. Inventory also eats up a major part of your working capital. Also, is your plan for this to stay part time while you work or eventually do you want to develop a full time home business and let go of the JOB and all that go with it, like commuting, working when they tell you and earning what they think you are worth?

Pre-thinking and planning will help you make wiser decisions with your business ideas and the course of you home based business venture.

A business idea must be analyzed in a systematic and practical manner to gauge its prospects for long term entrepreneurial viability. High expertise in a given functional area can be utilized to devise a suitable product or service which has high demand in the market.

A knowledge based product or service can be a wonderful home business idea for individuals with the appropriate skills. The initial startup costs required for a knowledge based business venture can be very low. Yes, your knowledge will significantly lower your startup costs.

As we all know, an informed choice is always the best one. The knowledge based business opportunity can be pursued part time and later it can be converted into a full time venture. Passion and personal liking for work constantly adds to the prospects of success with a business idea. Individual work experience can help determine the right idea for starting a business.

A business must be analyzed in a systematic and practical manner to gage its prospects for a long term commercial value. If you come from a background with high expertise in a functional are, then it might be able to be utilized to devise a suitable product or service which has a high demand in the market place.

Starting from scratch with all your own ideas and products or services is on why to enter the home based business arena. Another is to work with a proven franchise that has high quality products, always in demand and consumable. The company should have an outstanding reputation in the community and excellent guarantees.

A knowledge based business is an excellent idea for a home based business if you have the necessary skills. How are you on what are called SEO techniques? If you do not know the term and what it means, then definitely work with a company that freely offers those skills and works as a team or your will likely finding yourself at the bottom of the business market. These types of businesses, of course, should be carefully scrutinized for integrity and business plan. What true help do they offer to help you build your business venture and fulfill you idea of what you are looking for?

Knowledge can certainly decrease your start up costs and expensive mistakes that can be made in the beginning. Be clear before you start your search as to what startup capital you have, how long can you go without income and your expectations. ALL businesses including brick and mortar take start up investment, money to run the business for an extended time and some back up capital for unexpected setbacks. It doesn’t matter if home based business or store front; you will invest time, money and energy to achieve success.

The following practical objectives must be fulfilled by a business plan in order to assure long-term growth of any home business venture:

o There must be sound demand for the product or service in the market. Consumers must find high value for your business and they must be willing to pay for it. The business products or services must also work to cater to the existing consumer needs which are consumable and always in high demand. Those that are seasonable are much more difficult to be successful in. They work better as a home based hobby business.

o Home based business ideas should work to target a niche customer market initially in order to move towards success. You can explore the wider market in the next level.

o The product or service rendered should have a strong value proposition and a competitive edge. The business idea must be flexible enough to accommodate positive factors all through business development stages which are pretty much on going.

o A product or service based business idea should be compliant with factors of competency and market demand. An over saturated market can be very difficult for the viability of a small business. At the same time, the range of products which face very little competition may often have poor market potential. You will need to make an intelligent choice depending upon the business market now and foreseeable future.

o The chosen business venue must accommodate the way of life of you, the home business owner. The requirements of time, travel and client necessities must be considered as well. Looking at the life style you want to develop, will the business plan if implemented with the business you are considering, work well? Example: If you want to be very mobile, travel a lot and not have employees, then staying away from a business that requires inventory and shipment is smart. Always go back to your reason for going into business. It must be strong in you planning stages so you don’t waver on your position.

o A business idea should not be pursued solely for monetary interests. A strong personal liking for work related to the product or service is essential. People tend to work for three reasons. First is for money, income. If that is your only reason you are they type that usually quits or skips from one get rich plan to another. Second is working for recognition and as silly as it sounds, some people will work so hard it is off the charts, just to be recognized. And finally there are those that work for a cause, something they really believe in. That could be both your product line and your business plan. These people rarely ever quit. When you are lucky enough to find a franchise company to join with or a business you want to develop all on your own that has all three, then you are truly blessed.

As you can see, thorough research and viability studies of the business plan must be carried out before initiating a home business opportunity. Consumer demand and buying trends in a market must be considered to devise an idea which accommodates the trendiest or most in demand and consumable product or service.

It is wise to have a strong business idea, backed by a well thought out plan and a mission statement. These must be pursued with diligence and perseverance in order to achieve success with your home based business.

Is your business getting limited results from advertising? One place to look when this happens is how widely your advertising message is spread. Many businesses who face this problem tend to focus on only one form of advertising, therefore limiting their reach.

While it’s not recommended that you have a large target audience, it is still important to have more than one form or venue for your advertising in order to reach your target market in multiple ways. The fact is that many businesses fail, in part, because they avoid widening their view and stay only with one type of advertising.

A lot of advertisers think that the medium on which their advertising is, in fact, just as important if not more important than the message they are promoting. So when you say that you restrict your advertising to Google AdWords, you are missing an entire population of prospects who are not looking for you there.

Let’s talk a little bit about why you don’t want to focus on only one form about advertising. Let’s say you are focusing on billboards only or bus ads only or the newspaper display ads only… you don’t get the attention of the people who aren’t looking in those places. If your billboard ads are on three major highways and you will have the potential to reach an audience that never drives down those highways, well you’re missing out on a huge opportunity. So you want to diversify the ways and the places in which you were doing your marketing in order to reach more people.

Small business owners, of course, are not typically marketing experts, and most of us rely on advertising salespeople to guide us through the best choices for where to advertise. The problem is, of course, that salespeople have a bias toward their medium and their platform. And so, lots of small, local businesses find themselves restricting their reach and only getting their message out to a limited audience.

These days consumers have so much competition for their attention that it now takes somewhere between three and twelve impressions of an advertising message before a prospect even remember seeing an ad. So putting an ad in that monthly paper 12 times a year, and nowhere else, is simply a waste of money for an advertiser. It’s simply not the right investment unless you are running those ads as part a broader marketing and advertising plan on multiple platforms.

So what sorts of platforms should you consider? Rule number one is to go where your prospects are… so if you are marketing a retirement community, you, obviously, don’t want to be taking out ads in children’s magazines.

Here are a few possible platforms to think about:

• The Yellow Pages – Clearly nobody is going to the phone book any more, and most publishers have moved their services online. In some markets they provide valuable services and a great reach, but in others, they get very little traffic to their online properties. So do your homework before committing to this type of advertising.

• Direct mail and postcards can still be a highly effective way to market, but it depends on your goal, your budget, the type of targeting you’re trying to do, and the offer you are making. Ultimately, postcards require repeat impressions, which mean you need to be mailing to the same address multiple times before you can expect a reasonable response.

• Online advertising can be far more cost effective than direct mail, and, on any platforms, like Google, Bing, and Facebook, you can target a very specific audience who is already looking for or has demonstrated interest in what you are promoting. In addition, online display advertising, or contextual advertising can be very effective at reaching a local audience interested in a particular topic. For example, a financial planner can advertise to people within a 15 mile radius around her office who are reading an article about retirement planning on the Wall Street Journal’s website.

The point is that there are multiple ways to promote a brand, a service, and an offer, and the more places you are seen (repeatedly) the more success you will have at getting prospects to take action on your ads.