eAction

You may be running a wee home business and apologizing for it, thinking that you can only call yourself a true business person when you have a commercial location, and you go in for regular business hours, and you deal with the public every day. I’m here to explain that thinking away.

For the last ten years I’ve been calling myself (mostly privately) a business woman, and running it from my computer at home. I’ve tried hard to be orderly and systematic about how I run it, thinking that some day it will be easier to adjust to a real business in some office location. Well, since the beginning of December 2007, I’ve been preparing such a business where I plan to offer training in those basic office skills you need when you run a home business. When I find some exceptionally good workers I plain to hire them so I can delegate more of my work to them, and take on more commercial clients. However, this process over the last six weeks has proved something to me. There are wonderful advantages to running a business from home. Wistfully, I think how I’d like to go back to that comfortable lifestyle.

For your home business you don’t;
- need to pay for all kinds of licenses and government documents
- have to re-decorate and make your office ready for strangers
- have to buy up desks and computers and set things up for others
- have to go out in bitterly cold weather to walk or drive to the office
- go home and worry about unfinished work at the office
- nor do you need a presentable wardrobe to wear at the office.

All that is not to say that you run a home business lackadasically, and make do with a pitiful income. You can apply high personal and ethical standards, and do very well from home. You must weigh the advantages and justify your choices accordingly.

You might be asking what kind of business can you run from home that just calls for quality time in front of the computer? Good. I should clarify that I’m talking here mostly about a web business. One that you run from a web site which generates your income. One where, once you have built the core of the site, you can maintain it by adding a page or so a day, and checking for contacts from visitors to your site via your contact form, and those responding to your blogs, or whatever. If you are making digital sales you need to send emails to make sure they got their download okay, and build relationships with your customers by email or chat, or whatever. (See work from home for more).

It is quite possible now to run a straight information site about a topic you know well, and can write easily about to add to your site on that passion or favourite subject. If you add Google adSense ads to your web pages (no cost to you), it can bring you a quiet stream of income that is deposited regularly every month in to your bank account. Such a web business is perhaps the easiest to run. You can add affiliate links too, for more income that requires nothing of you, but to write good informational pages on your site’s topic. Or, you can write e-books with your knowledge set up in a helpful manner - and sell these.

Maybe you’ve heard me say it before, the Internet is a writer’s paradise. Almost everywhere you turn you will see that writing skills are needed to make an income on the web. Those who can’t write want to make money too, so they have to hire a writer. If you can write well, you save yourself that expense and can charge to do it for others. Another stream of income for you that you can earn from your home business.

It is good to register your home business name if it is other than your own name, and to do careful bookkeeping for all your expenses and profits. You should have a desk and computer dedicated to your home business, and guard that area so when you sit down there, you are really “in your office.”

But oh, the advantages of working from home;
- no office lease or rent to pay, or parking
- you can use the furniture you already have or scrounge at second-hand shops
- no signs to paint or pay for
- flexible hours (dash into the kitchen to start lunch or supper, and be right back)
- flexible days (take time off for a funeral, or shopping when necessary)
- wear extra socks and your old housecoat if you feel chilly

Let me be sensible and say that there are some things to overcome in starting a home business too. One of the main ones is disciplining yourself to stick to the schedule you set for yourself, and to persuade family and friends that you really are NOT available to socialize during the blocks of time you are working. (Living alone is an advantage here too, if you can keep from curling up to nap or watch TV or get distracted by other fun activities).