Start & Run a Real Home-Based Business. Dan Furman
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Название: Start & Run a Real Home-Based Business
Автор: Dan Furman
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Экономика
Серия: Start & Run Business Series
isbn: 9781770408067
isbn:
The Outlet Protector
This is the child safety product I mentioned before. A friend of mine thought he had the big idea when he thought of a little plastic box that you put over your outlets to keep your kids from fiddling with plugs. He was bummed when he saw the product on sale at the hardware store for less than five dollars.
The Pizza Cheese Stabilizer
About ten years ago, I was having a conversation with a friend about business. He confessed he had a great idea he was working on. When I pressed for what it was, he replied: “Okay, here it is: When you pick up a box of pizza, you usually put it on the seat of the car, right? And the car seat is not level, so the pizza leans backwards. And the hot cheese slides to one end of the pizza, making a mess. Don’t you hate that?”
I didn’t have much of a comment, because this was never a big problem for me. On the off chance this happened, I used a fork to redistribute the cheese to its proper balance upon returning home. Elapsed time: nine seconds. But apparently, for some people, uneven cheese is a HUGE issue. Huge enough to warrant a product.
So my friend told me about the handy dandy pizza-cheese stabilizer gizmo. How does it keep your pizza level on your car seat? I honestly don’t know. What’s it made out of? I honestly don’t know. Neither does my friend who told me of this great idea. All he had was the idea — he had no clue what form the product would actually take. But it would level out your pizza, and was a surefire winner, if he could just make it and get it to market.
To the dismay of level cheese lovers everywhere, this product never seemed to go beyond the idea stage.
The Party Place Website
“I’m gonna have a website where people having parties can list their party, and people can pay to see where the parties are!” exclaimed my breathless, unemployed 32-year-old friend.
“What parties?” I asked.
“You know — parties!” he exclaimed excitedly.
“No, I don’t know,” I replied. “None of the parties I go to lend themselves to complete strangers checking a website to find out where they are held. So what kind of parties would advertise on your website?”
His face dropped. “Well, last night this dude said there was a party. I couldn’t find it … so I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if I could look it up on the Internet?’”
And that was the end of the conversation. Apparently, my friend thought there was this huge glut of keg parties begging to found by unemployed 32-year-olds who still use the word dude in conversation.
7
Make Sure You Choose A Business That Is Really For You
So, why do you want a home-based business? It’s a valid question, and it deserves an honest answer. Because the reason you want a home-based business will go a long way in not only determining its success or failure, but it will also determine the direction your business takes.
There are a lot of reasons why people want to start a home-based business, and all of them are valid. The very fact that you have the entrepreneurial bug makes you a cut above everyone else in my book (and this is my book)!
However, keep in mind that your reason for starting the business should match the type of business you are starting and your lifestyle. This can sometimes be tricky, and is something a lot of people overlook.
For example, if your primary reason for starting a home-based business is to be home with your preschool-aged kids, you need to start a business that is conducive to your kids being around. In other words, don’t start a business where you will have to spend a lot of time on conference calls with roomfuls of marketing people, or a business where you will have to go see clients on a continual basis. In the middle of a conversation, corporate clients and marketing people do not want to hear, “Not now, Mommy is busy. We’ll play Choopa Chok later.” Not that marketing people have anything against kids, but they likely don’t want to turn over the fourth quarter spreadsheets to someone who plays Choopa Chok.
Let’s look at another reason people start businesses — money. Lots of money. However, if your reason for starting a home-based business is to get rich, you need to pick a business that can reasonably grow beyond the work you can do on an hourly basis. For example, if you wanted to start a psychic readings business for your local area, or perhaps become a magician who performs at parties, well, you are essentially the business, and there are only so many hours in a day. Your income is, for all intents and purposes, capped at however many hours you wish to work. This is true for many types of businesses.
Now, this in itself isn’t bad — a magician performing at parties and business conventions can make a fine living. But again, the overall income is limited by how many hours the magician is willing to perform.
I realize that any business can grow at the hands of a clever marketer, but some are easier to grow than others. And businesses where you work face to face (and especially one where you are the selling point) have a fairly limited scope in terms of expansion and increasing your income.
For my own business, I changed it from marketing myself as a writer to myself offering “writing services.” This means I have other freelancers take on certain projects, and then I approve their work. Since I see nobody face to face, I just changed some wording on my website and hired another writer.
Consider Your Lifestyle
In choosing your business, you also need to consider your lifestyle and what you enjoy doing. Otherwise, there will be trouble later on.
Here are a few examples of businesses conflicting with lifestyles:
• Someone who really doesn’t like working weekends opens a catering business.
• Someone who doesn’t like working evenings starts a home computer repair business (evenings are when most clients will be home).
• Someone who relies on others for care and/or transportation starts a courier service where he or she would be needed to deliver important documents at a moment’s notice.
The conflicts here may seem obvious, but in the excitement of starting a business, the obvious often gets overlooked because of the New Business Blinders.
My first business was an advertising business where the main product was a direct-mail coupon. My business partner and I were so excited at the prospect of the direct-mail fortunes we’d make that we overlooked one teeny little thing — I hated to cold-call and sell door-to-door (and he worked full time, so he couldn’t do it
either). Well, cold-calling and approaching businesses door-to-door are the primary ways a local direct-mail product is sold. Especially in the beginning.
Yeah, СКАЧАТЬ