Many people are venturing into entrepreneurship and starting a home business for a variety of reasons. It may sound all peaches and cream, though is it not as easy as it may seem.
Starting a home business is relatively easy, all you need to do is identify the type of business you wish to start and acquire the required license, at this point in time the only commitment from your side is financial. Now, running a successful home business is a whole different ball game.
We have all heard of people who have started their own businesses, even if it were not at home, and shut down within the first year of operations. That is just it, the very first year of operations is when it is most difficult. So here are some tips and tricks that will help you run a successful business from home:
1. Since you are at home, this place is associated with comfort, relaxation, and social activities as compared to the rigor or acumen of a business environment. Hence, you need a proper space identified in your home to set up an office and a place you can associate with work. If your office is in your living room then it may be difficult for you to switch on your business mode, let’s not forget the various distractions from kids to the TV.
2. Ensure you have set monthly goals for yourself and for the business. This helps protect your time, money and relieve you from stress. If you find that in a particular week we have not achieved our goals we can then be better conditioned to push harder in the following week. It is important to write down these goals and assigning them to a particular day of the month/week.
a. Be cautious when creating and assigning goals: be sure to follow the SMART rule where goals need to be
i. S – Specific
ii. M – Measurable
iii. A – Attainable
iv. R – Realistic
v. T – Time bound
b. It is vital to be dedicated to the objective of completing assigned tasks and achieving goals, else this exercise could be considered futile.
3. Assign time for rest! Do not overwork yourself, be kind to your body and mind! Yes, you want your business to be a success but not just for a few months…it has to be a success for the years to come and so do not make the novice mistake of suffering burnout in the first few months.
4. Prior to starting or simultaneously invest in yourself as you invest in your business. You can register for a business management top up degree distance learning mode of study to:
a. brush up on your skills and knowledge in managing and setting up a business.
b. continue to set up your business and implement best practices from case studies.
c. Earn while you learn – so there shouldn’t be a dip in your financial outcomes.
5. Market, Market, and Market! Just as a location is important for a retail outlet, marketing and word of mouth marketing, more importantly, is essential to the success of a home business. There are various ways you can achieve this. For example, if you are an online business selling products via an online portal, then direct traffic to your website by building relevant and high volume back links, you could also try your hand at Facebook advertising or Google ads. But make sure you put in goals prior to investing in online marketing, so you can measure the success or failure of the campaign and move to more fruitful avenues.
6. Avoiding distractions. Learn to condition your mind to accept that there are numerous distractions at home. This could be your family, friends, neighbors, pets even! How do you overcome these distractions? By creating a work schedule and respecting it yourself first followed by informing all family and friends that these are your working hours and they should only interrupt this schedule for urgent matters.
7. Focus on one thing at a time as this will ensure that you complete the given task at hand before moving on to another. Remember you are on your own until such time that your revenue grows enough to warrant an employee to support the operations and you are likely to be more productive when you focus on one thing than when you try too many things at the same time.
8. Reporting: How are you going to check if you have achieved your objectives for the day? Report to yourself! I know it may sound absurd to create a report to email to yourself. But assume you have finished your day and have wanted your mental state to that of your home environment. You check the report on your phone and you could actually strike gold! By this I mean you could realize something that you wouldn’t have thought of earlier as you are in a different frame of mind now or even the next morning and this way you can improve your home business.
These are just 8 simple and doable points any business entrepreneurs can follow to ensure the success of his/her home business. None the less, it is essential that you as a business person find your own realm of activities to achieve the success you crave through your home business venture.
