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Pros and Cons of Running a Home-Based Business

By Stephen Ashton

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 15Jul2006 Word count: 594 Viewed: 415 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

The idea of running a home-based business is appealing to people of all backgrounds all over the world. On the surface, when comparing a home-based business to working a typical nine-to-five job for someone else, it might seem like a dream come true. However, the reality is that running a home-based business and working for yourself isn't easy. Here are some of the pros and cons of running a home-based business.

Pros

* You get to be your own boss.
* You don't have to commute to work.
* You don't always have to dress up for work.
* You can pick and choose your clients in some kinds of work.
* You can set your own work schedule, including your hours and what days you want to take off.
* You can be home with your children.
* You can take a lighter workload when you want to schedule a vacation, in many lines of work you can do from home.
* You can set up your own office space how you're most comfortable.
* You can take care of home responsibilities during "down times" instead of feeling like your time is being wasted.
* You can take breaks when you want during the day to pick kids up from school, go to the gym, or just enjoy nice weather.
* You can choose to work in a field that you'll continue to love on a daily basis.

Cons

* There isn't anyone to guide you or answer your questions.
* There isn't likely anyone to help share the workload.
* You have to wear many hats including secretary, office cleaning, accounting, management, marketing, and that's not even to mention doing your actual client work or product manufacturing.
* There's no one to fill in for you, so you might be forced to take a vacation only during your industry's slow season, or even not at all.
* Even without a boss, you still have to answer to your clients, whose requirements and requests might even be more stringent.
* Because your clients can always find your address, you need to keep your home clean and presentable in case one decides to stop by, not realizing your office is at home.
* Because of the same reason of clients potentially stopping by, you can't always dress too casually.
* Your children and pets can become distractions to your work, and your work can end up causing family tension.
* If you don't have space for a full home office, your work life might intrude on your family's space, also causing strain with family members.
* Because you have to spend so much time doing marketing and administrative work, most small business owners in service fields can only bill 22-23 hours of their time each week.
* Having constant access to your refrigerator and television can lead to extra breaks and distractions.
* In many lines of work, you need to be available to your clients during normal business hours, so you can't always set your own schedule after all.
* Dealing with the more monotonous tasks of running a home-based business can take away some of the excitement you initially felt for your work.

Even though there are a lot of negative aspects of working from home, it's certainly not impossible. Many people all over the world run successful home-based businesses. The key is to simply understand that these obstacles exist, and to form an action plan to work around these issues before you make the leap into running a home-based business.

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