"Seven Vital Signs of a Healthy Home Business"

Dr. Eileen Silva © 2005
email:ensilva@aol.com
web: http://www.easilymakingmoney.com

We in network marketing naturally assume that everyone sees the potential magic of a home-based business. Accordingly, I believed that the workplace revolution was largely due to the impact of home-based businesses attracting professionals and job-security-seeking employees into self-employment. I attributed the increase in home-based businesses to the 2 F’s (financial freedom and freedom of time).

However, some time ago an article in the Dallas Morning News business section entitled “Building a business from the home still means business," credited the extraordinary boom in small home-based business trends to the 2 C’s: Computers - PC’s leveled the playing field between small and big business, and improved Communications technology that has made operating a fully functional business from the convenience of one’s home feasible.

I cringed when the author smirked at “those touchy-feely anecdotes about working in your pajamas, feeding the baby while holding an international call, and chopping onions while you design a spreadsheet.” It never occurred to me that anyone would have a hard time identifying with that type of lifestyle pictures, because I’ve been living them for years.

Not only did those word pictures lure me home, but the ensuing reality of my life on the phone from the couch and the Jacuzzi, along with the mobility of doing deals on my mobile phone from the duck-feeding spot by my lake, provided the magic button that no salaried position offered.

As my loyal readers would undoubtedly confirm, I am now so independent that I am probably unemployable. My husband, Taylor, is fond of saying that the only difference between a nightmare and living with me is that a nightmare mercifully ends. He is kidding, of course, but I admit that lifestyle freedom---being able to work until 2:00 am if I want to---is one of the greatest appeals for home-basing my activities. However, I digress…

Here according to the Dallas Morning News, are 7 pillars for successful home businesses - slightly abbreviated, and in no particular order:

1. Home location improves business economics by saving extra rent, utilities, payroll,
commuting costs in time and money;

2. The break-even point is the key. You can---with much lower revenue expenditures
from home, make a profit on a much lower level of business activity.

3. You must be self-disciplined economically, collect all your money, and
avoid unnecessary expenses. Treat your business like a business, NOT A HOBBY;

4. PC’s change office economics. You can now, with minimal expense in computer costs and
software, do at home what would have been prohibitively expensive a few years back:
fulfill all the tasks of a full blown team with just a few people.

(We now design all our own materials, for example, whereas before we needed design agencies. With national teleconferences, voicemail, faxes, e-mail, etc. ---you can run a very sophisticated operation by yourself.)


5. Forget the fiction about sleeping til noon, staggering to the mailbox and going into shock
at the size of your check. A good businessperson pays attention to detail, makes a plan,
works and evaluates the plan and executes great work. Money doesn’t just drop down
from the sky;

6. Police personal habits. A successful home-based entrepreneur manages family, pets, TV
(Get rid of it), refrigerator, phone. If you aren’t good at self-discipline, forget full-time
home-basing. You will almost invariably fail;

7. Sometime down the road you will undoubtedly need to decide about expanding to a
professional location. You will have outgrown your home. It will be a difficult decision,
but what a great problem to have.

We turned our previous home into a financial investment and bought a lakeside estate on a 2½ acre wooded property with a business complex on the grounds. We’re back in a home-base again. We are once more defying the wisdom of those business strategists, like the one who wrote the piece in our Dallas paper, and having more fun than the law should allow.