Choosing Your Home Based Business
A Home Business Article Contributed by Sharon Hill
What Should You be When You Grow up - and Work in Your Home Based Business?
While determining the type of home based business to pursue may seem like an easy question to some, the decision of what you should sell, service, rent or produce might take considerable thought for others.
There's a tried and true axiom that says, "Do what you know. Do what you love." Not suggesting that that's not true, what I want to point out is that it's not all that easy to tell right away what you know, and even what you love. Of course, there are those who spend many years working as say, a reporter, for a daily paper, always having in the back of their mind that they want to write books, or start or buy their own paper. Then one day they save the money and do just that. Their decision, though scary, was easy. They knew all along what they knew and what they loved.
But what about so many of the rest of us? What if we cashier at the local convenience store, take and make calls at a call center, work as a bank teller, or so many of the necessary 'jobs' - not careers - that so many of us take to pay the bills. When we finally think we're ready for a home based business, whatever do we do?
Ways of Making Your Decision - What Type of Home Based Business Should be Yours?
There are several things that you need to look at when choosing your home based business. The first, is, as we mentioned before, doing what you know. Of course, if there's a job you've been performing for several years while working for someone else, that's your first clue. But it's not as cut and dry as it would seem. Stretch your thinking a little.
Perhaps you will want to brainstorm with friends, family member, perhaps even trusted coworkers (friends who won't tell the boss you're thinking about your own business.) Let's say you work for the local convenience store and you actually enjoy some facets of the job.
What exactly do you enjoy? Is it nice getting to know your regular customers? Do they call you by name? Do you look forward to seeing some of them? Or is the quiet time best, when you're left alone to stock the shelves? When you balance your drawer at the end of the night is it a chore or does it always balance, and give you a sense of fulfillment that you've done such a thorough, organized, accurate job?
These are the questions that will let you know if you might want to work with people, or alone; if you want to work with numbers, at some detail-oriented task, or if you need to be able to get up and move around.
Your Job Isn't the Only Clue to the Right Home Based Business
Another way to determine what's right for you to pursue as a home based business is to look at, and note, for perhaps a week, your pattern of behavior. Write it all down. What you do from morning to night may give you a clue about what you like to do, as well as what time of day and what days are your highest energy points. Say, for instance, that you get up in the morning early and head out for the track to join your friends in a quick morning run.
You love starting the day this way - the others spur you on. It's much better than jogging alone. You feel invigorated;you feel happy. This tells you several things. First, you're a people person. Second, you're a morning person. Third, you like the outdoors and physical exercise. Perhaps you should look into a business that incorporates these loves.
Give it a great deal of thought. Write it down. Get your friends together, take a dry erase board and brainstorm. Even the wackiest ideas might turn into something. That's the point of brainstorming.
Now create another list - considering both your work and your play hours. It's a 'what you know list." While you certainly aren't going to list that you know how to dress yourself, you may want to note that you fixed your family's four course dinner in 20 minutes - and enjoyed doing it.
Be creative. Note everything. You'll be surprised what you'll learn about yourself. It may lead you to your best home based business choice.
