Congratulations for taking the first step in gaining control of your economic future. If you’re reading this, most likely you are seriously thinking about starting a home business.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are close to 28 million businesses; and every year 600,000 new businesses are started, most are self-employed persons operating unincorporated businesses. The majority of those new businesses will fail with five years. The Census Survey of Business Owners (SBO) found 51.6% of businesses were operated primarily from the owner’s home. An estimated 6.6 million home-based enterprises provide at least half of their owners’ household income and about 35% have revenue above $125,000.
The goal of this publication is to:
- Provide the reader with ideas to start their own small or home based business.
- Provide useful and often hard to find information to get you started.
- Help make your transition from employee to entrepreneur easier.
- Help you avoid some of the problems many startup businesses encounter.
- Save time, energy and money by providing useful links to important resources.
- Provide practical information on things the first time business owner needs to know.
- Provide information that will help you find customers and make sales.
The information presented in this publication is a combination of over 25 years of experience gained from home base business ownership and executive level management of a multi-million dollar small business that serviced consumers, small businesses and Fortune 500 clients.
The author of this publication is an avid reader who developed a habit of taking notes whenever he reads. Those notes captured ideas or needed information, but not necessarily the source. The nature of information is once learned – becomes your own. I don’t claim credit for any of the ideas presented. As John Donne stated, “no man is an Island entire of himself”. The best ideas and information comes from a variety of sources: friend, colleagues, teachers, government reports, books and magazines. Those sources and others were used in this publication and unfortunately, the author won’t always be able to give the proper credit to them.
As a business owner, you can be creative, set your own hours and control your destiny. However, starting a business can be risky and requires hard work to become successful. You aren’t likely to appear on a list of Richest People, but you’ll probably enjoy a better standard of living than most.
Being an employee is similar to running a business with only one client. You’ve probably gone on a sales call – known as an interview, negotiated the purchase price – called a wage or salary and delivered the product – called work. The product of you is a combination of your personality, demeanor, abilities, skills, knowledge, appearance and a litany of other tangible and intangible factors. Some of you sold your product at premium prices while others sold at bargain basement rates. Regardless of the price, your product had value and was most likely more
Do you have a great new concept, product or service, unique ability, expert knowledge or skills that you will build a business around? Maybe you want to start a business, but don’t have a clue about what type of business to start. Some business concepts require large sums of money to start, while others can be started with limited funds; but may require greater effort to succeed. For those looking for low cost ideas or alternatives, you’ll find over 120 businesses that can be started for little or no money in chapter 15.