The Truth about owning a Work-From-Home Business.

By Erik Gassler
Posted Saturday, December 18, 2004

Many people like to think that working from home and owning your own home based business means that you don’t have to work very hard or very much. You join this program and they set up everything and its all automated and you in a couple of weeks or months you’ll be making thousands of dollars a month and be able to quit your job.

That sure would be nice, but I haven’t seen a program yet that even comes close.

The fact of the matter is, if you want to have your own business working from home, and you want to make more than just part-time income with it, then you really need to follow what I’m about to say.

The first step I always like to recommend to people about starting a work from home business is to forget about the business all together. Don’t think about what kind of business you want or what you want from it or anything like that. Once you’ve done that, go to your computer and pull up a text editor of some kind, or grab a pen and paper, whatever suits you best. Next, write down your life. What have you accomplished in your lifetime so far? What things have you not done that you thought you would have done by now. What things would you like to accomplish or do in the years that follow?

Look at your answers and write down goals for yourself. What would you like to achieve and when would you like to achieve them by. What will it take to achieve these goals? Are you in a position now that you will be able to achieve your goals? If not, why not? I always like to see peoples answer to that question.

These answers and goals should be your motivation for whatever you decide to do. I always recommend placing them somewhere where you will see them and be forced to look at them every day.

So now you hopefully know what you want out of life, if not I hope you figure it out soon. Getting what you want in life usually involves knowing what you want first. If you get what you want before you even know you wanted it, consider yourself lucky, and I hope you don’t throw it away before you realize it’s what you wanted.

The next step is to now go back to thinking about your business. This can be the hardest part. It took me years to figure this step out, even though I had seen it many places, and thought I knew it, I really didn’t. I only knew it existed, but never knew how to believe it.

And belief is exactly what this next step is. Whether you come up with an idea for your own business, or you find a MLM, franchise, or any other type of business out their. You need to believe in it 100% before you invest too much time into it. This means research the business as much as you can. If a program doesn’t give you enough information without you buying into it first, move onto the next one. It probably isn’t worth your time.

And once you believe in your business, that belief needs to be able to grow until you love your business. If you want to be successful, you need to love your business, love your products, and love what you do in your business.

Some things you’ll want to look at is the business or company itself, and its products. If you’re selling products, how good are the products, who makes them, where are they made, what kind of guarantees do they come with, how do they compare with similar products.

Whatever you’re suppose to be selling, make sure you do your research, and make sure they’re products or services you feel confident about. If you can’t recommend a product to someone you love because you don’t believe in it, chances are you aren’t going to do very good with those products.

I also always recommend looking at the support structure for companies, especially MLM companies. Who’s going to be there to help you starting and running your business? Are there people you can call or email to talk to and ask questions, and how successful are they in this venture? Are they living their dream or just doing this part time as they work 9 to 5 down the street at Joe Bob’s? Just because you’re going to be in business for yourself, doesn’t mean you have to be by yourself.

And one thing that can sometimes be really great, is being able to call or email someone who is in this business, and only this business, and having great success. These are the people you want to learn from. Copying success will lead you their a lot faster than just copying good ideas.

Ok, so you’ve found a solid business that you really like. It’s got great websites, a great program, great products, and a solid support team to help you the whole way. So what’s next?

Next is to set up a business plan. This is the step that can scare a lot of people. A lot of times because people don’t know how to start a business plan or even what one is exactly. Well it doesn’t have to be that hard.

I used Business Plan Pro for mine, but I realize most people may not be able to afford the software. That’s ok, you can still make your own, but I do recommend getting some sort of business plan software if you can.

Now you can get as detailed and exact as you want with these, and get ready to use your imagination. I had a lot of exact figures to use with my business plan, but I still could only estimate what my sales would be. And I’m sorry if I get complicated at all, I’m going to try to keep it as simple as possible.

The first thing you should set up is your goals for your business. Make a list of everything you want to achieve with your new venture. I think the most important one being how much do you want to make each month. How much do you need to make every month to truly live the way you want to live? Don’t worry about this being too high, this is usually a long term goal.

Then looking at this monthly goal you’ve set, look at your business and figure out what it would take to reach that goal. What would you have to do each month to reach that goal? Again, don’t be shocked, this should still be long term. And don’t be afraid to spend some time playing with different ideas in this part of your business planning.

I do want to bring up something real quick, as it can relate to this part of your goal setting. I’m in Multi Level Marketing, and I’ve tried many different types of MLM and companies. Over the years there is something I’ve learned. If you’re looking for a high income quickly, MLM companies are ok, but I suggest ignoring the MLM side of the company. Reason being is that multi level marketing at its roots is a slow income producer. You can make a lot of money, but it will almost always take a long time to build up to even a decent income. Unless of course you have hundreds of thousands of leads you can send your new program too (Do Not SPAM), and even then nothings guaranteed.

I recommend focusing your time and goal setting to the retail end of your business. Don’t ignore the MLM side, but don’t spend too much time on it.

Once you have figured out what you need to do each month to reach your goal, start working on how you can get there. Look at what you have now, what you need then, and what’s missing in between. Start planning and thinking of ideas on how you can get the missing pieces you need to achieve your goals.

I’m not spending too much more time on this step, but this is a step I highly recommend you spend a lot of time, and put some serious thought into. And in case you didn’t notice, this step basically involves working backwards to find out how to reach your goals. I’ve found that many problems can be solved if you look at the goal first, and work backwards to find the solution.

The basic goal you want to get out of your business plan is exactly what a business plan should be designed for. How are you going to run your business? What are your immediate and long term goals for your business? How are you realistically going to achieve these goals? What will you have to do to achieve them? What are you willing to do to achieve them? Your business plan should tell you exactly how you are going to run your business, what you will do daily, weekly, monthly, etc. and how you need to coordinate your time to finish your tasks. You should be able to look at your business plan every day, and know exactly what you need to do that day.

This step is also an important step to make sure you have chosen the right business. This is where many people might realize they can’t realistically achieve their wants and goals or even needs in the business they’ve chosen, or at least by when they want or need them. This is also why I recommend not investing to much into a business until you’ve completed this step, looked over and analyzed the business you’ve chosen.

After you’ve completed your business plan, and everything looks good, it’s now time to get to work. Whether you’re going to be doing your business full time or part time, you should stick to your business plan. Go over your tasks daily or weekly and make sure you’re following everything the way it needs to be done.

You need to stick to it. Remember, you’re in a business that you love. You have a great product that everyone needs or can benefit from or whatever it is for your product. Your excited about your business, and you don’t have a problem telling everyone you meet about it, especially if a related topic comes up in conversation.

This may seem like its too complicated or too much work, but that’s what business is. Any successful business takes work to get there. I’m not saying you have to punch in 40 plus hours into your business to make it successful or to get what you want out of it. But I do know that the more you’re willing to put in to what you do in life, the more you will get out of it.

About the Author
Owner of Zephyr Air and a 22 year old entreprenuer. Not the auther of any books, just like to help people when I can.
(www.zephyrair.com)