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Article Five tips for starting a home business

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If you have been contemplating starting a home business, now is a better time than ever to jump in and get started.

Starting a business has never been cheaper and easier, and with all of the recent confusion surrounding childcare costs and fee increases, a home business could provide the relief you have been searching for.

Here are five tips to help you get started:

1. Forget about “finding your passion”.

What reasons do you have for starting a home business?

Money? Freedom? Time with your family? Feeling creative? Excitement?

Whatever they are, if they tug at your heart strings and make you wish for the home business lifestyle, they are all the passion you need to make your home business successful.

You do not need to have a passion for something specific.

If you are wondering whether you have a passion for something you like; such as cooking, painting, writing, child development, coaching and so on, try this:

Immerse yourself in it.

Google it, watch YouTube videos on it, read about the science behind it. If you feel yourself getting more excited – then you’re passionate about it.

If you get bored pretty quickly, it’s safe to say you’re not. And if you’re not passionate about anything? Perfect. Start something..anything.

You may find that you’re passionate about building a home business. And how would you know if you never got started?

2. Realise that you DO have time

We’re all busy.

And we all get 24 hours in a day to achieve our goals.

No more. No less.

If you have a goal you want to achieve, you must dedicate your time to achieving it.

And often this means sacrificing other things that you spend time on.

For example, if you are a stay-at-home parent, it can be tough to actually stay at home. As soon as you have a baby you are inundated with invites to mother’s groups, playgroups and parenting sessions. And there’s a million other things you can do to fill up your time – from Mums and Bubs movie sessions to daily park visits, shopping trips, play dates and so on.

If you’re serious about home business, then you have to be at home (at least some of the time!) to work on your business.

You need to decide what’s important to you. Today it might just be to get out of the house. But in a year when you are forced back to work because maternity leave is finished, you may wish you’d spent more time working towards your home business goal.

If you’re a parent at work, you still have time. You just need to find it.

I have friends and clients that have woken at 3am to work on their businesses before their kids got up. Others who work through their lunch breaks and in front of the TV every night for a couple of hours.

You can find the time. It’s just a matter of how important achieving your goal is to you.

3. The best business ideas use your unique skills and qualities to help others

When clients come to me for business ideas, they are usually completely focussed on what they could do that they would enjoy.

This is a great start – but it’s not enough to make money.

Starting a home business is about understanding what you know and what you can do – and how you can use it to help others.

Every product or service that succeeds (from selling novelty items to hairdressing, baking, blogging, coaching, organising, taking photos, and so on) has one focus: making the customer’s life better.

Easier. Less stressful. More fun. Safer.

Something you know, something you are good at, or something you can learn can do this.

Work out what it is and get started. 

 

4. Learn to do things yourself to save money

People forget their extraordinary ability to learn new things.

Whether it be creating a website on your own, designing your own marketing materials, or using Excel to do your own accounting – you can learn to do almost everything you need to run your business.

The Internet helps make it easy.

And if you commit yourself to learning something new every day, you can achieve more than you imagine – and save yourself thousands in the process.

You just need to believe in yourself and your abilities.

5. Find a mentor to fast-track your success

Business mentors don’t need to be expensive, and if you can find one to share everything they know about how to build a business quickly and affordably, you will save yourself a lot of time and money in the long run.

If you know someone who runs a successful home business, sit down and have a coffee with them. Pick their brain.

Ask them to share their knowledge. Most people are more than happy to help out.

And if not, find a great coaching service or business mentor that can provide you with the advice you need and then simply…get started!

What about you? Have you wanted to start a home business but haven’t yet taken the plunge? What’s holding you back? Feel free to comment below.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.com

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Comments

  • Interesting points raised, thanks so much.

    Reply

  • I almost started my own business in 2014 but it just wasnt the right timing for me. Would have been great – interior design :)

    Reply

  • No plans for our own business. This was great to read though, very informative and helpful

    Reply

  • The tough bit is deciding what to do

    Reply

  • I have been thinking about starting a home business for years but don’t know where to begin, it just feels overwellming

    Reply

  • Great advice, thanks. Been thinking about starting a home business for a while now.

    Reply

  • Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

    Reply

  • I really want to follow my heart and take a leap of faith. …. thanks for your inspiration

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  • Thank you for your article, I worked for the same place for 25 years then left when I had my last child 8 years ago, we really need another income and I still want to be here for the kids but I have lost a lot of confidence with what I could do. You have given me lots of things to think about and investigate.

    Reply

  • looks great

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  • wow all I need is the time and a bit of cash and you got me

    • LOL!

      Time is tricky, especially if you work full time. You’ve gotta really want it, and then be prepared to use lunch breaks, evenings or early mornings. If you can, there’s no reason why you can’t make it successful within a few months.

      With cash, it depends on the type of business. Only my first business cost me more than $500 to set up, and that’s because I was importing products from overseas and needed my initial buy to make larger sales to stores. Other than that, you could have a service business up and running with less than $100! Focus on the value you provide and how to tell people that you provide it…and then let the profit from sales take care of the rest :-)

    Reply

  • I have had several businesses and changes in career and I have now tailored a job to suit my lifestyle. If you have a passion for something you will generally be good at it so go for it. Be careful not to over commit financially until you identify and understand your market- be prepared to start small and work your way up, giving you time to understand your business, listen to your customers and to a large degree- trust your gut. Heaps of information is available at your finger tips on the internet so what are you waiting for….You can make money and enjoy it too!

    Reply

  • i do love these tips and i would love to start a business

    • Go to my website (goofysmile.com.au – link in profile above) and download the free business ideas workbook.

      Work through it, then go back to the site and click on ‘Free Coaching Session’. Send me an email with all of the ideas you have come up with, and we’ll get to work :-).

    Reply

  • This is so true.
    Last year, as a chronic pain sufferer, I needed to do something to keep myself busy and try to earn a bit of extra income on top of the pension. I researched and researched for months online to see what I wanted.

    It looked me straight in the face, Affiliate Marketing. So ‘All Bargains and Discounts’ was born. I had help doing all the technical stuff that I didn’t understand for a website, then had my daughter design my logo. I then signed up to a variety of websites that have different merchants available. I pick and chose what websites I wanted on my site. Over the months I have been changing it. But most importantly I knew it would take a good 18 months before I would earn any decent money. Patience was a virtue.

    As a pensioner with 7 grandchildren, and 4 of those live on Mainland Australia, so their presents were bought online and sent directly to them. I had to go through different website’s to find what I wanted, good quality, cheap toys. You know kids they break toys easily, but I wanted good quality products and toys that are educational and different. So I created the site. I call my site an ‘Online Discounts and Bargains Shopping Mall’ – I have something for everyone of all ages. Wedding Gowns from $90, Car parts, Toys, Fashion – dresses for women from $11, and much much more. Business Goods and Printing, even printing on Wood and Wooden Envelopes. If you have a special Anniversary, Birthday, whatever and you want to use a different sort of Invitation, Come to see me and go to Print on Wood on the home page. You would be surprised what we advertise.

    You can see my site and my new blog at http://www.allbargainsanddiscounts.com.

    Most importantly you need to believe in what you are doing, you need to know that money will not start coming in straight away for some business ventures, DON’T GIVE UP. Just because you can’t make money in the first 12 months, it doesn’t mean the next year you won’t make your fortune. Search sites for advertising, you can get help cheaply at sites such as fiverr. There are so many different business social media websites such as IBOToolbox, or IBOExchange.com see my site as there is a link to IBOExchange.com. There are free e-books to read on SEO, Advertising, Business Management etc.

    NEVER BE AFRAID TO ASK QUESTIONS.

    I wish you luck and you can always contact me for help as well. xxx dee

    • What a truly inspirational story :-) . I applaud you, as I have always found affiliate marketing to be one of the most difficult businesses to make money in. The fact that you have taken the initiative, developed your site and had the patience to see it through is wonderful.

      Congratulations on turning a great business idea into a helpful, profitable business!

    Reply

  • I am enjoying articles from this writer. Lots of good advice and things to think about

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  • yep and you gotta spend money to make money

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  • Thanks for the interesting and helpful article!

    Reply

  • This has been an interesting read. I’m in the process of setting up my own business and it’s great to hear back other peoples strategies when it comes to starting a business.

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  • Great tips thank you so much!

    Reply

  • I’m looking into this right now and have found this to be a good starting point article. Thanks

    • Thank you and I wish you all the best with your new business journey :-)

      It’s tons of fun!

    Reply
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