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Is Starting a Home Business Right For You?

By Jeffrey Roh

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 19Nov2008 Word count: 1024 Viewed: 268 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

Do you like someone else controlling your paycheck? Do you like someone else making your schedule? Do you like driving to work everyday, spending long hours away from your family?

If so, then you don't need to read anymore.

However, if you are like countless others who have taken the first step to true financial independence, then you may get some value by reading on. I count myself among those who have said "no more!" to the corporate world and started a home based business. I can't tell you if the move is right for you, but I can give you some questions to ask yourself from my experience.

Starting a business is not for everyone, and that is okay. A lot of people have big dreams but the reality of what it takes doesn't always lend itself to those dreams. But for those you can make it a reality, you just might tell yourself one day that it was the best move you ever made!

So now imagine you are the boss of the business you want to start and you are hiring yourself. What kind of questions would you ask your prospective employee ( you! )?

Do you have the right attitude?

Nothing in life worth having comes easy, and a home based business, or any startup business for that matter, is no exception. If anyone tries to sell you some program that claims you can make 1000's of dollars a day with no effort, stay away! In the beginning, you will have to put effort into it. Yes, one day it may get easier and you may make 1000's per day, but that only comes with time and hard work. You need to view a home based business as just that....a business, and not a hobby. Be professional, think why someone would need your product or services, what kind of value do you bring to your client? Why should someone buy from you? View this as a job with regular hours and a work week....do all of these things and you will give yourself a good mindset. Have fun...after all, you are creating financial freedom for yourself....but be able to answer the question, if you were a client, would you want to do business with yourself?

Do you have a plan?

You know where you want to get, but how are you going to get there? Often a home business starts out as a hobby or a part-time endeavor and somewhere along the way you realize, hey...I just might be able to make money with this. Too many people fail to plan, and that is just planning to fail. What are your goals? Be specific.... "I want to make a lot of money" isn't a goal...there is no definite number, there is no actual attainable thing that you can push yourself to reach and then say "I did it." Instead, a goal should be something like "I want to be making $1000 per month by my 3rd month in business", or something similar. Put a number to it, put a deadline to it, and the rest is easy. You will then be able to put down on paper what activities it will take to get to that goal. And once you do, it is time to set the bar higher!

Are you disciplined enough?

This was the hardest one for me, and it might just be for you too. When you start a home business, most of the time you don't have someone to tell you what to do. You're the boss! You have to tell yourself what to do. If you work from home, it is very tempting to do a little work, then watch tv, or clean the house, or take a nap....you get the picture. Sure, it's okay to do a little of that, after all, that is one of the benefits from working from home. But if you want to make money with a home business, you have to "go to work." Just like clocking in at your corporate job. Give yourself daily tasks that relate to activities needed to get towards your goals. When I started my home based business, I first said "I want to sign my first client in the first 3 months." Then I sat down to figure out what kind of marketing I needed to do, who I should target. I gave myself weekly or daily tasks....I need to make 20 phone calls per day, or drop off 5 brochures Tuesday, mail 100 letters Wednesday, etc. Do this, and you will hold yourself accountable and create the discipline. Write your daily and weekly tasks down and check them off as you go.

Can you stomach the upfront costs in time and money?

Finally, how is your threshold for pain? I don't want to scare you, but you need to know that you will spend a lot of time getting everything off the ground. You will spend money to get setup with the things you need. You will make mistakes and find things that work and don't work by trial and error. The industry I started one of my home based businesses in, it is not uncommon to take 6-12 months to get your first client. I signed my first one in 4 months, but I was spending time and money all that time to market to my audience. Can you imagine how scary that was? After 3 months with nothing to show for it, there were several times I had doubts, I felt like packing it up and cutting my losses. But had I quit, I would have missed out just a month later.

Someone once said most people quit before they cross the goal line...can you handle the disappointments and the setbacks? Can you keep charging ahead when things are tough?

If so, then congratulations! You have a good grasp of what it takes to finally create financial freedom and put yourself on course to success as a home business owner.

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