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Table of Contents

Web

Technology

Location

Legal

Personnel Management

Risk Management

Insurance

Business Success Tips

Sample Documents

Checklists

Contributing Authors

	Joe Kennedy Author of The Small Business Owner's Manual
ORDER NOW: The Small Business Owner's Manual
	Steven D. Strauss Author of The Small Business Bible
ORDER NOW: The Small Business Bible
	Stephanie Chandler Author of The Business Startup Checklist & Planning Guide
ORDER NOW: The Business Startup Checklist & Planning Guide
	Tom Severance Author of Business Start-Up Guide
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Strategies

For those who have done it, creating a successful home-based business

is a true accomplishment: Carving out a niche in a competitive world,

doing something you love, where, when, and how you want it is most

certainly something of which to be proud. What does it take? What distinguishes excellent from mediocre home-based businesses? Like many

other things in this book, it requires both attitude and strategy. Model

both, and you are on your way.

BALANCING ACT

There is a direct correlation between creating a thriving home-based

business and your ability to strike the proper work-home balance.

Working from home requires that you not only find a balance, but that

the people around you do, too. As discussed in the previous chapter,

you need to learn, fairly quickly, when and how to take on and off your

work hat. When you work at home, there is a nebulous line that is too

easy to cross. By setting down some ground rules, you give your work

the rigor it may lack but certainly deserves:

Create a schedule, and keep to it. Sure you can deviate; that is half

the fun. But deviating from your schedule should be the exception,

not the rule. By sticking to a schedule, you signal to yourself and to

the world that though you are at home, you really are at work. If you

take it seriously, they will, too.

Dress appropriately. When you work at home it is too easy to make

every day casual Friday. While you certainly do not have to wear a

suit to the office, you need not be a schlub either. By dressing professionally,

you again are saying, with deeds not just words, that your

home-based business is the real deal.

Keep your office separate. To the extent possible, your office

should be your office. If it doubles as a children's playroom or the

laundry room, not only is it hard to get work done, but the delicate

work/home balance will be out of whack.

When you take your home-based business seriously, when you create

boundaries and parameters, others will, too, although it may take a

while and some training. People who do not work at home often quietly

resent those who do, and certainly think that you have plenty of extra

time on your hands if you work at home. Visions of lazy afternoons and

midday naps dance in their heads.

Your ground rules are the antidote. Your rules may be that when

your door is closed, no one can bother you, or that from 10:00 to

11:00 A.M. you return phone calls and should not be disturbed.

Maybe your entrepreneurial friends who also make their own schedule

know that you can be bothered on Wednesday and Friday afternoons,

when you take time off. However it is, your business, and

growth, will come easier when you and those around you know and

follow your rules.