Full time

The type of business you’ve decided on - or your individual circumstances - may imply that you want to take the plunge and jump straight in full time.

Benefits:

• You can dedicate all your time and enthusiasm to your enterprise.
• You can react to new developments as they arise.
• If your business depends on a gap in the market or a new idea, time will be of the essence.

Disadvantages:

• You will have to, whilst your business is developing, temporarily manage without any income.

If you decide to go into business full time you have a few options to help you over the initial days:

• Live off your spouse or partner’s income - however, it can be difficult to live off one salary if you’ve been running the household on two.
• Use your savings - if you’ve been saving up money aside for a rainy day, this could be it. Ask yourself if you have the appropriate amount of money to cover your living expenses and fund your business and for how long? Will you have anything to fall back on if your business fails?
• Get a loan - banks will often help new businesses with a loan. Nonetheless, they can be inflexible. You may have to pay back the loan immediately if your business fails, and there will be expensive penalties if you don’t make agreed repayments.
• Use your home as capital - if you have capital within your house, you could use it as security. However this may be risky considering that your house may drop in value and if you cannot keep up repayments, you risk losing it.
• Borrow money from family or friends - you can save a lot of money if your friends and family don’t charge you any interest. Although if your business doesn’t work out, it could put a big strain on your relationship with them.

Part time

If your business gives you the choice, you could choose to work on it part time, fitting it in with your current job or other responsibilities. Then, when the business is robust enough or circumstances change, you can move over to it entirely.

Benefits:

• You can still receive income while you’re getting your new business off the ground.
• Technology such as answer phones, the Internet and email make it possible for you to communicate out of hours when you’re not around due to working elsewhere. 
• It can make it easier for you to juggle your other commitments - such as home life - by allowing you to choose when you work.

Disadvantages:

• It can be difficult to handle the extra hours you need to put in.
• Putting in very long hours can be stressful and tiring.
• It could take much longer for your new business to take off.
• You’ll have to pay tax on both incomes if you continue with your other job.

Many people who start up their own business decide to work on a part-time basis to allow them to balance their home and working obligations.

Some people believe that the safest option is to continue with their current job whilst starting up their new business. Legally you don’t necessarily have to tell your employer that you are starting up a business, although there may be a clause in your contract preventing you from doing any other work.

You might want to ask your employer for more flexible working arrangements. These could involve reducing or re-arranging your existing working hours.

Tags: business

Working from home is a dream for many – but actually going ahead and starting a home business is very difficult. So what makes so many people want to do it, and why would you ever try such a crazy thing? Here are some common reasons, and some things to consider.

You Can Build Your Great Idea

It suddenly hit you like a bolt of lightning: you’ve thought of a great business idea. This is perhaps the number one reason that people go into business from home: they’ve come up with something great that they really believe in, but can’t afford to rent any business premises. It does depend on what the business is, but working from home is often ideal in these situations.

Remember, though, that even the best ideas take hard work to become a reality. The kind of ideas that are good for a home-based business are ones that can become at least partly real quickly, and start bringing in an income – you shouldn’t sit at home for a year working on something that’s making you nothing whatsoever.

You Can Make Your Hobby a Job

Most people have something that they’re really passionate about, and would spend the rest of their life doing if they could, just for the enjoyment of it. Getting paid for doing what you love is obviously appealing – even if you only earn a living wage, it’d be your idea of paradise. Make sure, though, that you’d be able to take it if you had to make a living from your passion. It’s the things we’re closest to that hurt us the most – think of how you might feel if no-one buys what you’ve made, or if they send it back and with a note saying “what rubbish, I demand a refund!” Can you cope with your hobby becoming commercial?

You’re Tired of Your Boss

It seems like everyone hates their boss. They try to pretend like they’re your friend, but they’re not fooling anyone, are they? You’re forced to work to pointless deadlines and targets. Anytime you spot a better way of doing something you’re told that it’s impractical, or, worse, that it’s great but the stupid way of doing things is already “established” and “policy”.

What you might not realize is that “being your own boss” requires quite a lot of willpower. If there was no-one to make you get up in the morning and do any work, would you? Your home is supposed to be a place of rest and entertainment – and when it’s full of the equipment and temptation to do anything but work, working there can be hard.

You Want to Spend More Time with Your Family

You feel like all you do is go to work, come home, and then sit around, too tired to do anything fun with your family. If you have children, they seem to be growing up so fast, and you’re missing it all – all because you have to go out and work. Of course, the flipside here is that you might just end up spending too much time with your family, while you’re trying to work. When everyone knows you’ll be in the house all day, they’ll probably ask you to do all sorts of unimportant things, just because you’re available. It’s hard to say no, and before you know it, you’re doing the job of a full-time ‘housewife’ instead of what you set out to do.

You Don’t Like Wasting Time and Money Commuting

After all, once you get to the office, what is there anyway? Offices are dreary environments, and terrible to work in – traveling for hours there and back and spending a significant proportion of your wages to do it seems completely pointless (especially if you live in the middle of nowhere). If you could work from home, think of the time you’d save… and time is money, isn’t it?

Don’t be surprised, however, if you start to feel trapped in your home, since you never leave it. Can you find good ways to get away from it all?

But Don’t Be Put Off

While the list of warnings for working at home might look long, a list of warnings about working in an office would surely be longer. As long as you stay on your guard, you can get all the benefits of working from home without falling into any of the traps.

Tags: startups

The way we communicate has changed several times since the invention of the telephone, but most of the times we were only dealing with variations on the same theme: automated switchboards, digital telephony, cellular telephony. But now there’s a new standard emerging in telecommunications: VoIP. VoIP, or Internet telephony, has been rapidly growing in popularity the past few years. It seems to have come at a very opportune moment, since broadband is more and more often people’s preferred way of connecting to the Internet, and since most Internet users are already familiar with instant messaging programs.

Can VoIP be a viable solution to your company’s telecommunications needs? Judging by the growing number of businesses crossing over from PSTN to VoIP, we can infer an affirmative answer. The enhanced efficiency of VoIP compared with PSTN is also proved by the many companies deciding to replace their telecommunications infrastructure. Statistics show that customer service response can increase by up to 50% as a result of the streamlining capabilities of VoIP. Integrated Voice Response systems enable seamless routing of calls to the department and the agent that is most suitable for handling them. Furthermore, the ability to incorporate audio, video, and web-based features into one application is another productivity catalyst. Adding new phone lines is much simpler than in the case of PSTN - and if you have a wireless network, things are even easier. If VoIP continues to develop at the same rate - and there are good reasons to believe that it will -, PSTN might soon become associated with the 20th century, leaving the 21st to Internet telephony.

In today’s business environment, success is often dependant on effective communication. Most of the times, communication occurs in the form of telephony, e-mail, or instant messaging. We mentioned instant messaging above because instant messenger programs were the first to offer VoIP over the Internet. Dialpad and Skype are two of the best known downloadable programs offering free calling. In time, however, with the impressive increase in both quality and demand, Pc-to-phone calling is not free anymore, or at least not unlimited (Dialpad will still let you call for free, but only in the U.S. and Canada, and the duration of each call is limited to 10 minutes). However, the fees are quite small. Other instant messaging programs have added VoIP capabilities to their offer and allow users to make free calls between computers, as long as both participants run the same type of messenger: Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, Google Talk, ICQ, and AOL Instant Messenger are the most popular. You’ll need a broadband connection to get the best out of VoIP, but other than that, there are no special preparations needed. You just download one of these programs, connect a headset or speakers and microphone to you PC, and start calling your friends who use the same program.

For businesses that need to maintain steady contact with their customers, VoIP can be a very attractive option, as it incorporates all these services, thus enabling them to slash costs. Not only will they only pay for one package of integrated services, but the cost of calling is also significantly lower via the Internet than through a conventional PSTN. In other words, by using VoIP, a company can save money twice.

Perhaps the highest degree of relevance in terms of cost and efficiency can be seen in the case of call centres. Since their main activity is communication with customers, these companies will most likely appreciate the increased flexibility they can enjoy by implementing the VoIP technology.

On the one hand, because VoIP integrates data, audio, and web-based features, communication is facilitated and the quality of the services offered by the call centres can only be augmented. On the other hand, because VoIP can work anywhere there’s a broadband connection available, employees needn’t be physically located in the same place. That means companies can very easily relocate offices and they can also employ people living anywhere in the world. This has two direct consequences: first, people can be hired from countries where labour is less expensive, and second, the call centre will be able to offer 24-hour customer support without the need for anyone to work at night.

Some lines of business require employees to be mobile. In order to maintain contact with the company’s offices, these mobile workers have so far relied mainly on cell phones. This means high costs incurred when contacting the employee, as well as far less than perfect service offered to those customers who require the support provided by that particular worker. In addition to the obvious and frequently restated advantage of spending less money on communications, VoIP makes the company more customer-friendly. Instead of explaining to a customer that the person who can answer their question is out of office and possibly advising them to call the employee’s cell phone, calls can be routed to the mobile worker. You’ll notice a relieving drop in the number of frustrated customers.

Another advantage of VoIP is the conferencing facilities it offers. Enhanced security for audio and video conferencing, improved reachability of the employees, and lower long-distance calling costs form a very attractive combination.

With VoIP, there is much more customization and flexibility. For example: In the UK you can use www.vonage.co.uk  for your any start ups needs. For just only 9.99 you will have voicemail, caller display, call waiting, call diversion, 3-way calling, anonymous call block, call transfer, click-2-call, ring back, international call barring, ring lists, call hunt, “do not disturb”, unlimited free calls to 25 countries (incl. any mobiles numbers) etc.

In addition to that, you can even reduce your customers’ costs. When you sign up for VoIP services and you are assigned a phone number, you will be given the chance to choose another area code than the one you are actually in or even the town or country. For only 2.99 per month you can have tel. number in Paris, New York, Milan … can opt for particular area code in any town, create a list of the virtual offices and bring your business a success. Your customers will only appreciate it!

The subscription fee charged by VoIP providers is most of the times much lower than what you are paying for your regular phone now. Even if you only have a certain number of calling minutes covered by your monthly fee, the cost of long distance calling will be far lower than the one normally charged by PSTN carriers. Make sure you have a careful look at the details of the service offered by different VoIP providers, so that you can come up with the best plan for you. Also, look for a provider that gives you additional services integrated in your VoIP package, such as voicemail, caller ID, call waiting, e-mail, etc. Do some shopping around - just because you know from the start that VoIP will enable you to save money, it doesn’t mean you have to take the first offer you come across.

We’re living in an age characterized by mobility and flexibility - two features also reflected in the VoIP technology. You can travel anywhere and still remain reachable at the same number. If you have a VoIP phone or a laptop, you just have to connect it to the Internet. There’s also the option of having a converter that you can use with a standard telephone (the converter will be programmed with your phone number).

To conclude, VoIP is a streamlining catalyst and your business will be more efficient and enjoy more flexibility, while spending less. To summarize, VoIP means lower cost for the business, more comfort for its employees, and better service for its customers.

Tags: internet

The best way of gaining knowledge about home business is by reading as much about it as possible. This can be best done through the Internet.

A very important factor in any business is how you manage risk – yet it is a factor that is often ignored by home businesses.

You have to realize that any time you start a business, you are taking the risk that the business might fail. What experienced people do is shield themselves from risk at every opportunity, to make sure that they can keep a business going for months on the brink of disaster, and wind it down gracefully if it really has to go under.

You need to have a plan for what you’re going to do if your business looks like it’s going bankrupt. Are you going to borrow more money, if you can? Sell your car? Raise prices? Get rid of staff? Done right, you should have a good package of ‘rescue measures’ that really do have a chance of rescuing the business.

Borrowing

If you need to borrow more to keep your business afloat, take great pains to avoid looking desperate. Act like your business is moderately successful but needs more investment, and you’re far more likely to succeed in getting more funding.

Bye-Bye Staff

This is a bad idea, but not always a terrible one. In a home business, you presumably only take on staff because you have enough business to cover it, don’t you? So it makes perfect sense to get rid of the staff when things start to go wrong and go back to doing it all yourself.

Price Hike

When your business is in trouble, there are few things guaranteed to destroy it faster than a price rise. Just don’t do it, however tempting it might be – cut costs instead. If you absolutely must raise prices, do it by scaling back what you get for your money in each of your price ranges, without actually raising the prices.

I know of a struggling bus company that kept its fares the same for years but gradually started to run fewer buses and send them all over town, making journeys take longer. People reacted a little badly to the longer journeys, but it was nowhere near the scandal that there would have been if prices had risen.

Keep Staff Pay Aside

Whatever you do, make sure to keep staff pay separate from the other business finances, and pay it out immediately if the business looks to be heading for trouble with its creditors. It is far better to be paying your staff on the last day than to be giving all that money to the creditors. Leaving staff unpaid will destroy your reputation, not to mention hurting a lot of innocent people.

The ‘Closing Down’ Sale

If you plan it well, your last day in business might not be so bad. Just make sure everyone knows that you’re closing down for real, but still price everything ever-so-slightly above cost. In this way, you can avoid the drastic loss-making ‘Everything Must Go!’ mentality, and come out of your business the same way as you would if you’d decided to shut it down that day for some other reason.

Selling Your Business On

If you’re shrewd about it, you might be able to keep your business going long enough to sell it to someone who could turn it around. There’s nothing dishonest about this route – it’s the one most big companies take if things start to go wrong. You might even find that one of your competitors is willing to buy, even if only for your established customer base.

It’s Up to You

Disaster plans are very personal, and they depend a lot on how much risk you’re willing to put on yourself. If you do things the sensible way, then you’ll go as far as you can to avoid selling or borrowing against any of your own assets just to keep a business afloat. On the other hand, if you’re really determined and a bit of a risk-taker, putting some things of your own at stake might buy you enough time to recover from whatever hit your business.

Tags: entrepreneurship

Never before has such an informative article on home business been written. Read on to see that we are right in this matter.

If you’ve got a profit-making home business on your hands, the next step is growth — expansion into new markets and new products. But how can you grow when the physical space you have is so restricted?

Outsource More

A typical problem when your business starts to grow is that you find yourself spending a lot of time on all the small administrative tasks your growth creates, leaving you with less time to do all the extra work you’re getting. The answer is to start outsourcing those small, time-consuming tasks, like bookkeeping, invoicing and the rest. Outsourcing lets you concentrate on what you’re best at while getting the other things done by professionals. They’ll have a system in place that lets them do what you’re taking hours over in a matter of minutes — after all, it’s what they do. Don’t forget, though, that you need to hold outsourced work to the same standard of quality you hold your own to, since your customers won’t be making the distinction.

Create a Growth Plan

Remember that business plan you made when you started it all? Well, growing your business isn’t that different to starting a new one: you still need to plan ahead, and know what you’re doing. Take out your existing business plan and look at what needs to be brought up to date, what still stands, and what needs to be added. The most important thing to keep in mind when you turn your business plan into a growth plan is this: don’t forget your core focus. Tempting as it can be to diversify into all sorts of areas as a way to grow, you don’t have experience in these areas — try to do more of what you know, and keep new things to a minimum.

Financing Your Growth

While running your business, you might have become frustrated with how much more you could do if you just had a little money to invest. Equity finance is a popular way to raise money to invest in a business. It involves you selling a small share of your company to someone who is interested in investing. They don’t have to have any involvement in the running of the business, necessarily — the only real condition is that you agree to give them a percentage of your profits equal to the percentage of your business that you sold them, known as a dividend.

But Don’t Grow Too Fast

One thing that can be fatal for home businesses is trying to grow too fast. Some people have a tendency to let success go to their head, and will borrow tons of money to expand their business at an amazing rate, only to have a breakdown when they realize that they just can’t manage a business that large.

Have You Considered Raising Prices?

If you’ve got more business than you can handle, that’s not expansion — it’s overtrading. You might be doing more work than you need to, when you could just raise your prices. Try out a few different levels, and you’ll find the one that gets you a manageable amount of business. It’s a simple question of supply and demand: you should be earning the same as you were before or more, but doing less work. Remember that growing your business doesn’t necessarily have to mean getting more customers. You can expand your business financially just by selling more to your existing customers, or providing extra ‘premium’ services on top of the ones you already provide.

Could You Franchise?

This obviously won’t apply to every kind of business, but if you’ve found a successful formula, you could consider franchising it. Franchising is especially common in the food business, where risk-averse people starting new businesses often want to do something that’s tried and tested. You can, effectively, sell your business plan, marketing materials and the experience you’ve gained in business so far to these people. Even though you should wait a while before you actually do it, it’s worth at least considering whether this could be an option for your business, and starting to standardize everything and get it down to a formula and assets that could be sold on.

Tags: entrepreneurship