STARTING AN AT-HOME BIG MONEY BUSINESS

STARTING AN AT-HOME BIG MONEY BUSINESS

Starting at home has many advantages

When you start a business, like any venture in life, you want

it to have the best chance for success. Starting one from your

home has unique advantages.

You won't be paying rent on a store or office. And probably you

won't immediately need a separate phone with the charges for

installation and monthly service. And you are already heating

and lighting your home. Therefore, you avoid the burden of these

additional monthly overhead costs.

You'll be using many things you already own so you can save money

by not buying a desk, lighting fixtures, a water cooler, or the

other furnishings people generally buy to set up a separate

business location.

If you need help with the actual work that's involved, try to get

members of your family to help you (more on this later). And you

can start your business part-time while keeping your present job.

Later as it grows you can make it your full-time occupation, and

if you wish, move it out of your home into larger quarters...better

suited to a business which may be growing by leaps and bounds.

Presiding over your own domain

A man's home is his castle--and it can also be his "gold mine."

There are many people who make a very good living right from

their home. It's comfortable, it's conveniently located (you

can walk to work in about 15 seconds) and you can dress the way

you like. You can arrange the furniture to make a work space

that suits your exact needs and tastes. You can choose the hours

you wish to work and, if you have the energy, initiative and

ambition, you can even be in more than one kind of business!

Working in your home has other advantages; you have no

transportation expenses and you don't waste time or energy

in crowds or rush hour traffic. You don't have to worry about

getting along with a large group of co-workers or finding a

decent place to eat lunch. And you don't have to go out in

all weathers, sleet and snow or broiling sun.

But there are some drawbacks to working at home and the largest

of these is self-discipline. You must learn to discipline

yourself. Everyone who is his own boss has the problem of

utilizing his time and energy most effectively and not wasting

time on pet projects that are not essential to the business.

Self discipline is easier to attain if one goes each day to a

separate place of business because most business premises do

not have the comforts, conveniences and distractions that one

has in one's own home. The danger in working at home is that

the advantage of comfort and convenience can turn into a great

disadvantage.

Set up a definite work area

Later on we'll tell you some tips on how to conduct business

in general. But let's first find a part of your house that you

can use as your business or work area. It should be a spot that

is comfortable but away from distractions. Your children deserve

attention but not during your working hours (more on that later)

So set yourself up far from where the kids usually play. Too

close to the kitchen isn't wise because you are too close to

the "food or drink" temptation. A quiet spare bedroom can be

ideal as can a finished basement or garage if they aren't too

hot or cold. You may need an extension phone put there and,

indeed, after your business gets rolling you may want a separate

line just for business.

If you have a spare desk or table that's fine, but a card table

can do for a starter. Adequate lighting is necessary and a

filing cabinet also is a good thing to have on hand. You can

add whatever other business devices and equipment you discover

you'll need as time goes by.

You and your Family

It will be necessary to explain to your children that even

though you are at home, you are, in a sense "not at home," that

you are working. This does not apply to an emergency, of course,

but for nearly all ordinary moments it means they are not

allowed to disturb you. You may even have to lock the door that

leads to your work area.

On the other side, there is the situation regarding other adults

in the household, from whom you might want some help from in

running the business. This has been called the "honey-do"

problem: honey, do this; honey, do that. It's best to come to

some understanding with your spouse (and any other adult in your

home) about just how you are going to handle this problem.

It's quite sensible to desire the help of those other capable

adults because they can take some of the burdens of the

business off your shoulders. However, from both a business

viewpoint and from the human relations viewpoint, it's best to

have a clear understanding with each of them as to what kind of

things they will and should do (answer the phone, open mail,

pack and ship merchandise, etc.) and what they definitely are

not to do make payments to people without your authorization,

make agreements, deals or contracts without asking you).

Such advance agreements can avoid a lot of aggravation and

make everything go much more smoothly.

"Hello, this is Daddy's business"

You must realize that there will be some (charming)

complications to running a business from home and one

of those complications is when a fairly small child answers

the phone for a business call. "No, this isn't the Smith

Company, this is my house" may throw a business associate

calling your "office" for a loop, temporarily. Most people

react quite graciously to this, but it does point up the

advantage of having a business number that rings only in

your work area.

Getting temporary help

There may be more work at times than you and your family can

do yourselves. Your volume of business may be greater on

certain days of the week, certain times of the month, certain

seasons of the year. At those times you may need extra help

to handle the work. Or you might need a bookkeeper or

secretary or clerk one week a month to help you keep up-to-

date on your record-keeping and paperwork. When you need

such help, the most convenient way to get it is to hire

someone through an agency that provides temporary workers.

Manpower and Kelly Girl, for example, are two of the best

known agencies in this field. Hiring though such an agency

has these advantages: they will send a person who has the

skills you require which means you won't waste time training

the person. The worker they send understands that the job is

temporary and won't make you uncomfortable by asking to be

kept on permanently.

And, because the worker is employed by the agency (not by you)

the agency takes care of the worker's payroll records, tax

deductions, insurance coverage, fringe benefits, and so on.

You are free from those responsibilities.

The right business for you

When selecting a home business you should consider these

factors:

* Is the service or product you intend to provide already

easily available in your area? If it is not available and

if there appears to be a need for it, these factors are in your

favor.

Consider all the things you own that might be used in some way

as equipment for your business: a car or truck, a typewriter,

a mimeograph machine, and so on. I you can use them, it will

greatly lower your starting costs.

* Is it a business that suits your personality and tastes? One

that you feel good about, that fires your imagination? It

should be. Enthusiasm can be a priceless ingredient in the

formula for success!

Home businesses that work

You must, of course, choose the home business that is right for

you. There are many books that will give you long lists of

potentially money-making businesses for you to consider. A

relatively short, but highly recommended, list of potential

business ventures will be found in another of this series of

reports entitled 37 Instant Moneymaking Part-time Businesses.

Handwriting analysis by mail. A great little business to

operate from home. First off, study up on the subject; it

isn't too difficult to learn, and it's interesting. You will

find lots of books on the subject at your local public library.

Once you've started studying, you can start placing some small-

space ads, in local papers, and in literary-type magazines,

psychology magazines, and wherever else you think you can find

the people interested in having their handwriting analyzed.

Then you just sit back an wait for the letters (and checks,

money orders and plain old cash ) to roll in. Be sure to

keep a record of how much you get from which ad (by using a

key, such as changing your middle initial in each ad), so

you know which pull best.

After you get more confidence in making rapid analyses, you

can even give personal consultations in your home if you want

to do this.

Guaranteed lucky four-leaf clovers. It used to be that people

thought they would be lucky if they found a four-leaf clover

when they were walking in the fields. Now some smart farmer,

who must also be a good businessman as well as a skilled plant

biologist, has figured out a way to get exclusively mutants,

so he can supply unlimited four-leaf clovers.

You can cash in on this handsomely by buying a quantity of

them and embedding them in clear plastic (casting resins and

instructions can be obtained at any hobby shop), in the form

of key rings, brooches and paperweights (or anything else you

can create.)

The real gimmick comes in the merchandising of them, because

you should advertise them as guaranteed lucky genuine four-leaf

clovers, with the slogan "If you don't get lucky in the next

year with this genuine four-leaf clover, we'll give you your

money back". Within a year most people have at least one good

thing happen to them, so you will probably get very few requests

for money back. Instead, you are likely to have lots of

satisfied customers who feel that now they have finally gotten

lucky, proving that the four-leaf clover worked! With this

approach, and an attractive small-space ad, you ought to do

well with four-leaf clovers.