Before You Start Your Home Business

       You have a product you love and you want to share your passion with others. You could use a little extra income and you are excited about the idea of turning your hobby into a business. That’s great! But before you begin investing your time, money, and heart in a new venture it will benefit you to answer a few preliminary questions. Taking the time to thoughtfully answer these questions can help make the difference between creating a business and creating chaos.

What?

The first, and most obvious, question is: What are you selling? To start your home business, you need a marketable product or service. Define what exactly that product or service includes. Your focus can be broad or narrow, but you need to know exactly what you are about before anyone else can truly understand what you are trying to sell. This may evolve over time, but to launch your business you need a definite idea of the product or service you are offering. Is your business selling handmade dolls or is your business sewing, which happens to include sewing dolls? If you want to build your reputation as a seamstress, it’s fine to advertise your adorable hand sewn dolls, but be sure to make it clear that dolls are not the only thing you create. Otherwise, you may find that you are able to sell a few dolls, but people will not know that you are also available for other projects. If you are selling only dolls, that’s fine too! You may eventually expand your business to include other items, but initially just focus on your dolls. No matter what product or service you intend to sell, define your industry for yourself. This will help you market your business more clearly to others.

Who?

     Who is your business geared toward? Is your product mainly for men or women? Children or adults? If your product is for children, remember that adults are most likely going to do the purchasing, so your product needs to appeal to them in some way, too. Whoever you are marketing to, it helps to have a general idea of the kind of people who are likely to buy your product. Try to create something that will be of particular interest to that group of people. If your targeted group is not very large, you may need to consider broadening your business to interest other groups as well. Maybe you make some awesome dog sweaters. There might be a certain number of people who would buy them, but it may benefit you to broaden your vision to include selling sweaters for cats, too. You don’t have to have a large clientele, but the quantity of potential customers is important to consider.

Know your consumers. If you are interested in selling baby products, do some research and figure out what mommies and daddies really need and how you can improve on products that are already available. This doesn’t mean that you have to reinvent the wheel. You just have to come up with a faster or prettier wheel. You have to create something that is, in some way, better than what is already out there. The appeal could be that it is higher quality, that it is cheaper, that it takes up less space, whatever. But if you intend to sell to more than just family and friends, they need to have a reason for buying it aside from the fact that they know and love you. Decide who your targeted audience is and find out what they want.

When?

This next question is very important. When will you work on your business? If you are a stay-at-home mama (as most of my readership is), then you are already one busy lady! You have your children to care for, your husband to please, dinners to cook, a house to keep clean, errands to run… The list is endless. And more importantly, you must be sure that your relationship with God is as it should be. With so many responsibilities, it is difficult to start a business; especially one that will require much time. It is not impossible, but we must keep our priorities straight and ensure that we are not shirking our duties in other areas. After your relationship with God, your family comes first. Anything that consistently gets in the way of taking care of your family must be put on the back burner until another season. Before you begin your business, be realistic about how much time it will require and try to set up a schedule that will allow you to both build your business and take care of your other responsibilities properly.

      Many SAHMs find it convenient to work on their businesses during nap time. Some work in the evenings after their children have gone to bed, or get up earlier than the rest of the family. Maybe you can grab a few minutes while you are waiting for your daughter to finish her piano lesson. You may want to carve out a regular chunk of time each day, or you may have to work on your business in bits and pieces throughout the week. Find what works best for your family.

It’s important to set some limits. Don’t let your passion for essential oils consume all of your time and energy. Don’t let the pressure of an order drive you to stay up later than you should and not get the proper rest you need. Very few jobs are a matter of life and death. It is not the end of the world if you are unable to finish a project before the craft show. It IS a matter of eternal souls when you neglect your family.

Where?

      Where will you work on your business? It’s nice to have a specific work area, but that is certainly not a prerequisite to starting a home business – at least not for most people. Some people are blessed to be able to dedicate a whole room of their house to their home business. Others have a certain desk that serves as home base. Still others make do with working at the kitchen table and clean up their mess whenever they finish working. As your business grows you may find that you need increasingly more space, but most home businesses can be run from whatever space you currently have available. Depending on the type of work you do, you may need to find a cozy corner in your house to block off as your home “office,” or even clean out the garage and set up shop out there. For many businesses (like mine :)), all you need is a place to sit with your computer. Preferably a quiet place, but any place will do. That’s one of the beauties of having a home business. It is flexible!

          It is nice to have one area where you do most of your work. It’s nice to be able to leave a project out so you can pick up where you left off as time permits. It’s also nice to have an area where you know you can find all of the tools you need in one place. Another benefit to having a specific work area is that your brain can be trained to flip that creative switch whenever you go to that spot. It doesn’t always work. There are certainly frustrating days when the creative juices simply won’t flow. But when you consistently work in one spot your brain learns what is expected of it when you enter that area and often starts working much faster than when it has to adjust to a new workspace.

Why?

        Perhaps most importantly of all, before you launch your home business you need to ask yourself, “Why?” Why are you interested in selling this particular product? Why does offering this service appeal to you? What is your motivation?

        If you want to start a business because you have a talent and others have expressed interest in paying you to use that talent, wonderful! If you want to start a business because you see a need in your area for a certain service, that is great. If you want to start a business because you found a product that helped you and now you want to help others, you can be a great blessing. If your main motivation for starting a business is to make quick and easy money… ask a few home business owners how that has worked for them. Owning your own business, even when run from home, is a LOT of work. Initially, it takes a ton of time, effort, and sometimes money. Get-rich-quick schemes are usually scams. If the need for extra income is your motivator, I understand. Just be aware that it will take a lot out of you.

        Take some time to consider why it is that you want to start a business. Write out a purpose statement and discuss it with your family. This will help you stay focused and give you motivation for accomplishing your goals. It will also help you determine whether this is really the right time to begin your business.

         Starting a new business is fun and exciting. It’s also a lot of work and requires discipline, organization, and thought. Taking the time to answer the above questions can help you retain your passion for your work and keep you on task for building a successful business.

         What advice do you have for those who are considering launching a home business?

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