Here are a few other resources for people looking to start a home based business.
Small Business Administration – Run by the US Government, the SBA is a great resource for new and potential business owners. They provide information on laws and regulations, advice and strategies on creating business plans, free online training, information on loans and more. Definitely a good place for home based business owners to start.
Score.org – Score.org offers free counseling and advice from hundreds of business mentors with experience in lots of different fields. No matter what sort of business you’re starting or considering, Score.org most likely has a mentor with expertise in that area who will help you as you try and grow.
7 Habits of Highly Effective People – If you’re starting a new business, you’re going to have to handle lots of things that you probably haven’t been responsible for in the past: managing your schedule, creating your own work, and deciding what you need to be working on right now, just to name a few. 7 Habits, written by Steven Covey, is one of the best books out there on the subject of business management and organization. Not only does he help you figure out how to accomplish your to-do list, he helps you decide what needs to be on there in the first place. Highly recommended for anyone starting a business, growing a business, or even anyone simply trying to become more effective at their career.
Getting Things Done – In the same vein as 7 Habits, Getting Things Done, written by David Allen, teaches you to become more organized, streamline your to-do list, empty out your Inbox, and generally get things done. But while Covey takes a big picture approach to the issue, discussing such topics as leadership, management, and “quadrant” activities, David Allen takes a “from the bottom up” approach, saying that the big picture doesn’t matter much if the small details don’t get done. If you are overwhelmed by the number of things you are responsible for each day, then GTD is great place to look for help and insight.
22 Immutable Laws of Marketing – While the first two books are great for business owners trying to streamline and grow their business, if you don’t know how to sell yourself, your business or your product, then not a whole lot else is really going to matter. The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, written by Al Ries and Jack Trout, will show you the important things you need to know about effectively marketing to your customers.
1) Blogger – If you’re online savvy at all, chances are pretty much 100% that you’ve heard of and are familiar with blogging. A blog is simply a website where you can write about any topic of your choice. There are thousands of blogs out there, so it’s difficult to separate yourself from the crowd, but A-list bloggers can make a very nice income.
Starting a blog is super easy. Simply go to Blogspot.com, sign up for an account, and you can have your first post up in a matter of minutes.
2) Product sales – If you have experience in sales, or enjoy talking to and dealing with people, then product sales might be a good choice for you. The easiest way to start in this is to create a product yourself (something small and easy to make – knitting and embroidery are great examples) and start selling it to people that you know. Other businesses in your town might also be interested in purchasing it and re-selling it in their stores.
3) Babysitting – This is always a great option for people looking to work from home, especially those who already have children. You can start by keeping the children of friends and family, and then start branching out when you’re comfortable with keeping more. You will need to check the laws in your area – you’ll probably need to get some sort of certification after a certain number of children – but this can be started with little to no red tape.
If children aren’t your thing, then you can still keep with the same theme and be a pet sitter. You’ll need to be in good shape, as you’ll usually be expected to exercise the pets, but this is also a great option for a home based business.
4) Fact checker – Being a fact checker will usually require some sort of background in writing or editing, but newspapers, magazine and other written media always need someone to research and confirm the claims made by their writers. Starting a business in this field would be a great way to segue into a writing career yourself, as you’ll be meeting people and getting lots of contacts in that industry.
5) Indexer – Have you ever looked through an index in the back of a book to find a particular term or idea? Did you know that there is an entire industry of book indexers that create those indexes? Being an indexer will require you to have solid reading comprehension skills and being detail oriented will help as well. For more information, check out the American Society of Indexers.
Let’s take a look at some specific ideas for legitimate home based businesses. When I say legitimate, I mean exactly that – these are all business ideas that you could make a reasonable income from and that would allow you to work from home full time.
1) Writing – Not too long ago, I came across a quote that said, “Everyone has at least one great American novel in them.” I don’t know if that is perfectly true – mine, for instance, is buried rather deeply, if it’s even in there at all – but I do think that lots of people have talent for writing that they don’t know about yet. Have you ever read a book so bad you couldn’t even finish reading it? Don’t you think you could do better than that?
And the beauty of choosing writing as a business is that there are so many different media to write for: books, newspapers, magazines, trade journals, etc. You can even go online and offer your services as a freelance writer for blogs and websites.
2) Sending out a newsletter – Related to writing is the idea of creating a monthly or weekly newsletter about a particular topic and sending it out to readers. You can create your own content or pay someone else to do the actual writing.
3) Researcher – In doing work as a researcher, you will be tasked with finding and reporting certain information as your clients need. For instance, you might contract with a law firm to research a particular part of the legal code or a certain court case, and then report your findings on the subject back to them. You might also work with a college professor who is writing a scholarly paper for publication and needs additional research done on his topic.
Working as a researcher requires good reading comprehension and decent writing skills as well. You’ll also end up spending a good bit of your time online or at the library, so having easy and reliable access to both will help immensely.
4) Tutoring – If you have a decent amount of expertise in a particular area, you might consider tutoring students who are studying that subject in school and need a little extra help. The amount of expertise needed will depend on the level of students you plan on helping. Tutoring college students will take much more knowledge than helping elementary students. I think that just about anyone could help 5th or 6th graders with math or English.
5) Teaching lessons – What sort of hobbies and interests do you have? Do you know the subjects well enough to teach them? If so, consider giving lessons to interested people. The classic examples are things such as piano and guitar lessons, but you could also teach computer classes, dance, scrapbooking and more!
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