“I’m going to establish my home business because then I can be the boss.  No one will tell me what to do!” many new business owners, or those considering their own business exclaim.
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Are you really your own boss in your home business?
In a way this is true and another way it isn’t.
 On the surface, it seems so.  You decide what you want to do, that is what type of business you’d like to develop.  You can work somewhat flexible hours, thus around your family’s schedule.  You don’t need to commute.  You don’t have to worry about professional dress unless you’re meeting customers.  …read more

Jean Murray, who has blogged here at Home Biz Notes, both as a guest blogger and regular blogger, now writes about Small Business at Bizzia.  She recently published an excellent post about the pros and cons of starting a home business.
Very often, when someone thinks of expanding their hobby into an income producing venture or starting a home business entirely new, they consider only the thrill of working for themselves.  They fail to look at the downside of a home business.  Yes, there are downsides, as well as the advantages of working from home and setting a somewhat flexible schedule.
What …read more

“I’d like to find a way to go back to school,” a young mom remarked.  “But I’ve got to work at a job and juggle babysitting with my husband’s schedule.  Maybe when both children are in school.”
She may not have thoughts of a home business, but working from home can enable moms…and dads…to fit in their schooling, too.  Do you have a talent or hobby you can turn into a home business that will give you a flexible schedule  to fit in a class or classes as you work toward a degree or some type of training?
Online work enables one to be …read more

With the downturn in the economy, more of us are working more hours and harder than ever.  And those of us in small home businesses are working even more than that, if possible.  How many days a week do you work?
Since I left my full-time job in December to work on my home-based business, I have tried to save at least one day a week to relax, do my quilting.  It hasn’t happened very often.  Most weeks, I finish what I have to do just in time for Monday morning to roll around.
And it isn’t just about work.  I had …read more

If your home business sells locally, there are a number of online sources you can use to reach your local market. Except for the first one, which is a phone call service, they charge in one of two ways:
CPC – cost per click – you pay for each time someone clicks on your ad.
OR, CPM – cost per thousand – cost per thousand page views. You get charged for every thousand times that your ad is viewed.
I don’t know which is better, but it makes sense to me that CPC is more meaningful, since you only get changed if …read more

A couple of weeks ago, I interviewed Stacy Brice, founder and chief visionary officer of AssistU, a company which trains and supports Virtual Assistants. Today, I’m interviewing Cindy Gaffen, a VA who owns Virtually Fantastic. If you are considering becoming a VA, Cindy is a great model for you to follow. Here is what she had to say:
1. Why did you decide to become a VA? Tell us about the process – what did you do to prepare?
For years, I thought about what I wanted to do for a living and how I …read more

Big Online businesses are eager to promote their big sales and promotions today – CyberMonday.  Small businesses like yours don’t have the dollars to compete, but we should still get a piece of the retail pie.  Here are some suggestions for how you can compete with the “big box” retailers:

Stick to Your Core Customers.  Send out notices via email or “snail mail” to your core customers, reminding them that you are still around and looking for their business. Work on the 80/20 principle, that 80 percent of your business comes from 20 percent (that core) of your customers.

Work on “small” …read more

I was talking this evening with a young couple who have an idea for a business.  Their idea is great – they want to make beautiful handmade stone crosses.  Like many home business owners, they don’t really get the importance of listening to their customers and doing research to figure out what customers want.  Here is what I mean:
They were  going to make a huge quantity of the crosses and then try to sell them.  But they don’t know two things:
1.  What is their market for their products?  In other words, who is going to buy them? Churches?  People at …read more

Many home business people are independent contractors.  That is, they are not employees of another business, but they work for themselves and get paid through a contract, not a paycheck.  But if you are an independent contractor, you are running a business.  And you need to act like it.
I talked to someone last week who has been working as an independent contractor.  She said she wasn’t looking forward to paying income taxes because she had made a lot of money.  When I asked her what expenses she had for her business, she looked at me blankly.  Turns out she hasn’t …read more

HomeBizNotes.com
Overall, those who work at or from home desire this over working at some other type of occupation. However, this, too, has it’s frustrations.
Check out 8 Tips on How to Work from Home by David Zinger at Slacker Manager. David has had 28 years of experience working at home midst raising children and balancing family activities with work.
Here is one of David’s tips we’ve all probably experienced, especially if we have children or grandchildren:
Nuts. At times working at home with children will drive you nuts, but I would rather be nuts and around my children than stuck in …read more