Home Based Business-5 Questions To Answer

This post is being published on the final day of the year. As people prepare for New Year’s Eve celebrations and consider their New Year’s resolutions, I thought it would be appropriate to look at some questions you should ask yourself before starting a home-based business. This type of business may not be for everyone, but for those who want to start off the year right, this type of business may be the answer they have been searching for. You can read some of my other articles about starting a home based business online here and here.

So if you want to start the year by starting a successful home business you need to ask yourself these 5 questions:

1. Is my home based business going to be full or part-time? If you plan to keep your current job while you work on your business, when will you have the time to work on it? Can you commit to getting up early or staying up late to work on your business? Do you have time on the weekends you can devote to growing your business? Do you have the ability to leave your current job and have enough money to live while you get your home-based business off the ground? These are all important question you should answer prior to starting a home based business.
2. Do I have a place I can work uninterrupted? You will need a place you can work away from distractions to make your business successful. This can be a room with a desk or a kitchen table where you can set up your laptop computer. Wherever this place is, you need to be able to work and not have constant interruptions. These types of things will only slow your progress. You also need to close out social media and silence your email to prevent those distractions as well.
3. Do I have the energy and determination to learn new things? Even if the products or services offered in your home based business are things you know well, there will be things you will have to learn. Do you really think you can learn to maintain a website or do bookkeeping? These are necessary for your home based business to succeed.
4. Can I market my home-based business? You may need to learn marketing and sales skills. These will require study if you aren’t an experienced marketer or salesperson. How will I market my business? Will I use online or offline marketing, or maybe both? Doing it yourself can be more economical, but will it be as effective.
5. How much money will it take for me to start my home-based business? If your business will be online the initial startup costs will be substantially less than starting an offline business in your home. What equipment will be needed for my home-based business? Will I buy or rent the equipment, and what is the cost associated with my choice?

These are a few of the questions to ask yourself before you take the plunge to start a business as we start a new year. Of course, there are many more, but if you start by answering these 5 questions you will be able to determine fairly quickly if starting a business is something you can or want to do.