Setting up Business from Home

The sweetest commute in the world is that 8-second walk from your bedroom to your home office.

So many millions of people are operating home-based businesses today that it is changing the nature of society. When you boil down everything that has happened that impacts the homebusiness boom, four factors emerge:

• An explosion in information technology

• Economic insecurity

• Changing demographics

• Restructured families

THE BENEFITS OF MARKETING FROM HOME

If you're already operating a home-based business, you've discovered many benefits of marketing from home, which include but are not limited to:

• No warming up the car; no time lost commuting; no commuting stress; no auto accidents; longer car life; and reduced gasoline expense
• No additional rent or lease expense 
• Moderate expenses for additional phone lines; moderate increases in expenses for utilities
• Enhanced ability to make and receive after-hours marketing calls; use of other equipment at will; more flexible hours
• Reduced wardrobe expense
• Enhanced ability to relax, rest, or nap at will; to eat more nutritious, well-balanced meals
• No need for extra keys, security cards, parking passes, lock combinations, and so forth


Marketing from your home office, particularly if you hold another job outside the home, helps to define and separate your two jobs. Lengthened work days become possible, with less fatigue, because you control many of the environmental factors. The disadvantages, in many cases, stem from not having the discipline to capitalize on the advantages. For example:

• Making and answering phone calls at odd hours may become the norm rather than an exception.
• Napping, snacking, and home distractions may cut into vital marketing time. The opportunity to snack whenever you choose often leads to increased belt size.
• The stress and tension of working at an outside office may be replaced by a new kind of stress, i.e., attempting to do too much, being unfocused, or, ironically, becoming too successful as a home-based marketer.

Operating and marketing from a home office can disrupt home life, and small children can distract a parent from his or her business activities. What's more, the typical home office is often crammed into less space than the same entrepreneur might occupy in a commercial building or elsewhere outside the home.