When you start your own home business, it is important to know if you can actually do the job on your own without supervision. Do you have what it takes to work from home? Deciding to get away from the traditional brick and mortar jobs out there can be hard, especially when you take into consideration that you are taking responsibility for all of your income. This article will help you decide if working from home is really for you.
Qualities You Should HaveWhen deciding to work from home, it is important to know whether or not you actually have what it takes to work for yourself. Here are a few qualities you should have, and be honest. This will only benefit your home business:
- Are you capable of and welcome change? Many people think they can work from home until they realize that this will mean less time to lounge around lazily. Schedules change on a daily basis, and if you are looking for a job where everything is the same and you do the same job daily, working at home is not for you.
- Can you learn new skills, and are you open to doing so? Most business owners have to wear many hats including owner, operator, CEO, manager, payroll and laborer. Many of these roles you may never have had to learn before and now is the time to do so. If you are unable to see yourself taking on any of these roles in your home business, working from home may not be for you.
- Do you enjoy and are you good at communicating with others? Good communication skills are essential to building and operating a business, especially one from home. You have to be able to contact others and advertise through word of mouth as well as meet with potential clients or speak to them on the phone. Although it is not required, many new business owners invest in taking a few communications courses online in order to better ready themselves for networking with other business owners and clients.
- Are you able to be completely committed to your company’s products or services? The state fair comes through only once a year and you have a deadline of the last night of the fair. So you decide that it won’t hurt to push the work off for a few more days, even though it is a large project that will take you a week to complete. You have not started yet, and decide to go to the fair. Does this sound like you? If it does, you may not have the dedication to the company in order to stay afloat. The fair may only be in town for one week, but if that is the week your project is due on, it’s best to stay home and complete your project. Remember that even though you work for yourself, this is still a business and has to be treated that way.
- Do you set and work towards realistic goals? Setting a goal of making a million in your first year is not only unrealistic, but can be detrimental to your motivation. If you see that you are nowhere near that mark and there are only 4 months left in the year, you get discouraged and therefore do not work as hard. Set goals that you know you can manage with a little work. If your business is set to make $3000 the first month, try to get to $3500 for the second month. Or if you can only afford to take on 1 job at a time due to labor, set a goal to make enough to take on one additional employee to help out. Weekly and monthly goals are great ways to keep track of how your business is doing.
- Are you a leader? When a job needs to get done around the house, are you the first one to step up, or do you wait until no one else will do it? If you are always the first in line ready to complete any task, you can be a leader. In your group of friends, do others come to you for advice and guidance? If so, you are a leader and people look to you for guidance. This will help to ensure that you have the attitude to keep your business going.
- Can you work well with other people, or do you work better alone? If your business is a service based business, unless you are the only employee you have to work well with others. If you offer specific products, working with others may not be an option for you. For example, if you own an online retail store, you do not have to work with others, your customers come to the site and you never have contact. If you offer a service, the customer will more than likely come into contact with you, and you should know how to treat them. Remember that you should always try to keep your customers happy, but not at the expense of business. Respectful communications and understanding will go a long way.
- Are you able to invest the money your company will need? There are start up fees for any business, and you have to be able to finance your ongoing endeavor.
- Can you solve problems when they arise, even if you don’t exactly understand specific areas of your business? Are you able to ask others for input or for help if you need it? This is vital to learning all of your new roles working for yourself.
- Can you manage your time well enough to work from home? Making and keeping a schedule are essential to a successful home business.
If you have all these qualities, you should consider yourself in the top 15th percentile of business owners. Many businesses fail within their first 5 years due to owners not having some of the qualities above. You can be successful working from home if you dedicate your time and skill set to the business. Do not treat this as just another job, this is your business. This reflects on your abilities to manage, work, recruit, assess and utilize all the qualities you possess.
