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Home Based Business Information At It's Best!: 03/03/07

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Home-Based Business

by Peter Crest

The best way to start a home-based business is to follow your instincts. Do not fall for that advertisement you saw a week ago. Do not blindly follow what your friend is doing. The selection process - what home-based business suits you -- is most important. Many people stop halfway through the selection process and end up choosing the wrong home-based business. You might fare better if you follow these six steps:

? Objectively ask yourself what you are really good at and what you would love to do. Take stock of your personality traits. Your talents and personality traits are the keys to forming a successful home-based business module. ? Talent is passive, while skills are active. In other words, you are born with talents but you develop skills as you go along. Objectively evaluating your skills will tell you what you can do. ? Put your talents and skills together to generate business ideas. Do not cross out anything at the starting stage. Focus on building up the list. ? If some of the initial ideas do not gel well from a home-based business perspective, edit your list. ? Find out how much people are going to pay for your products and services and then calculate if you can have a sustained income from the revenue flow. ? Get experts (bankers/financiers/venture capitalists) to validate the viability of your business plan. This last step is particularly important.

Deciding upon which home-based business is suitable for you, however, is not the end of the matter. Heres a further list of things you must do to make sure your business is up and running:

* Before you actually knuckle down to it, you need to set up your business legally. Decide whether it should be sole proprietorship, partnership or corporation. Then register your business name. You may also need a business license but that would depend on the nature of your home-based business. * Take stock of your house and neighborhood and see if they are geared up to the demands of running a home-based business. Many municipalities do not allow home-based businesses at all. Also remember you cannot have a machine chugging all day in a peaceful neighborhood. * The location of your neighborhood is also important. If, for instance, your home-based business involves people coming to you, you should be living in a neighborhood that is easily accessible. * Your home should be large and organized enough to give people the impression that you are indeed running a business. You must also hope that your family members are agreeable to your running a business from a home that you share with them. * See if you have the self-discipline and ability to overcome the feeling of isolation that comes from working from home. Remember things can become very stressful because of the difficulty of separating your home-based business and your home life.

Ideas to Get You Started

* One of the most popular home-based business ideas is opening a daycare center. If you have a ground floor to spare, for example, like having kids around and have received some form of training in childcare, what better home-based business option than a daycare center? * If you possess a special skill like yoga, for example, why not share your expertise to launch a lucrative home-based business as a yoga instructor? You can also advertise at schools, the local YMCA and other places frequented by families of your services. * Another feasible home-based business idea is tutoring. Just advertise extensively, and you will soon start getting requests. Experts in financial consulting can share their expertise through business coaching, or by beginning a consulting business. You can share your skills and managerial experiences too by becoming a business coach. * Medical and legal transcriptions are among the sought-after forms of home-based business. If one has transcription skills and the necessary equipment, working for different companies is a lucrative home-based business. If training is required, there are various medical transcription academies and online training courses available. * Medical claims billing is another home based business idea that is very popular. * People with designing skills can have web designing and interior designing done at home as a home-based business. * If photography is your hobby, you can open your own studio at home if you have space for shooting pictures and for a darkroom if you plan on processing the film yourself.

Very importantly, beware of scamsters! The home-based business network is overflowing with unscrupulous characters looking to make a fast buck at the expense of your home-based business dreams. You must have seen the ads -- they are in the newspapers, on the Net, simply everywhere, screaming, "Work from home! Make $1,000 a week!" Remember, the only ones who do make money in most of these instances are the scamsters. Do not be duped by them into launching the home-based business that never was.

Peter Crest also runs The E-Business Home. Visit www.theebusinesshome.com for more information.