How To Turn Your Home Business Start-Up Into An Instant Cash Cow
How To Turn Your Home Business Start-Up Into An Instant Cash Cow
With a 90 percent failure rate in the first five years, most hopeful entrepreneurs wind up feeling discouraged and beaten, thinking they don’t have what it takes to make their dream of home business come true.
One of the biggest reasons home businesses fail is because the new entrepreneur not only lacks the required marketing and sales skills, but chooses a business with a tremendous learning curve.
The energy, time and financial commitment required is significant because everything is new and undeveloped. Overwhelm and confusion set in, mistakes accumulate, frustration grows and finances dwindle as you work your way through the steep learning process.
If you are new to or considering a home business, you can flatten the learning curve and start generating income immediately by beginning with something you are already good to great at.
For example, let’s say your dream business is a nursery.
You love gardening and have significant knowledge on plants, their ideal growing conditions and landscape design. You have acreage and want to build two domes to grow plants to sell.
Let’s also assume that you work full-time as a teacher and have little to no business experience. You would need to learn about sales, marketing, financial statements, horticulture, hydroponics systems, taxation, legalities, and a host of other things.
The faulty mindset many new entrepreneurs have is the “build it and they will come” mentality and this is where the trouble begins. Money is first invested in the physical creation of the business, and then the business owner starts to work on developing her skills and building the business.
By this time, significant time and money has already been spent while no cash flow or client base has been created. The business owner is pressed to start bringing in business to cover her monthly operating expenses and start-up investment.
Although the impulse is to build a professional looking business up front then trying to fill it with customers, the simplest and most successful approach to building your business is to start with the basic strategy of putting to use the skills you already have.
What are you already good to great at that you can start with today?
Let’s say your existing skill sets are:
- teaching
- gardening and designing friends and neighbors yards
- knowledge of the plants specific to your area and their best growing conditions
- knowing what plants complement each other and those that repel each other
With these skill sets, you can start your business immediately without any significant investment. Here’s how:
- approach a local nursery and ask them if you can volunteer several hours a week or work-part time for them (either way, you have to invest time learning about the business of running a nursery, so why not get paid for it or at the very least, volunteer and get yourself known as a plant expert)
- ask the nursery if you could offer classes to their customers and split the profits
- place posters around town announcing your landscape design service and get your friends to refer you to others
- have a local newspaper reporter feature you and your beautiful backyard in the “Society/People” or “Home and Decoration” section of your paper
- suggest a joint venture relationship with one of your local nurseries. You will refer your landscape design clients to them to purchase plants if they promote your design service. (I paid such a person $75 an hour to visit my home and help me design my yard. I also purchased my plants from the nursery she recommended because I received special pricing for using her services.)
- join your local gardening club or horticultural society
- buy plants from your gardening club colleagues and sell them at a profit
Can you see how this approach would give you a much stronger foundation to build from and increased start-up capital? Your amount of risk and overwhelm would be greatly reduced and your business education would begin immediately.
When you’re ready to pursue your ultimate dream of starting your own nursery, you will have revenue already coming in, an established client base, recognition as an expert in your field, and some business skills and experience under your belt.
Now, let’s apply this to YOUR home business dream.
As you contemplate your new business endeavor, list the skills you currently possess and begin with what you have. Start bringing in cash immediately and let it finance your ultimate dream and education.
2007 © Laurie Hayes - The HBB Source
How To Turn Your Home Business StartUp Into An Instant Cash Cow - To learn more about this author, visit Laurie Hayes's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
Thousands of new home businesses start in North America every day, many of which never see their fifth anniversary.
With a 90 percent failure rate in the first five years, most hopeful entrepreneurs wind up feeling discouraged and beaten, thinking they don’t have what it takes to make their dream of home business come true.
One of the biggest reasons home businesses fail is because the new entrepreneur not only lacks the required marketing and sales skills, but chooses a business with a tremendous learning curve.
The energy, time and financial commitment required is significant because everything is new and undeveloped. Overwhelm and confusion set in, mistakes accumulate, frustration grows and finances dwindle as you work your way through the steep learning process.
If you are new to or considering a home business, you can flatten the learning curve and start generating income immediately by beginning with something you are already good to great at.
For example, let’s say your dream business is a nursery.
You love gardening and have significant knowledge on plants, their ideal growing conditions and landscape design. You have acreage and want to build two domes to grow plants to sell.
Let’s also assume that you work full-time as a teacher and have little to no business experience. You would need to learn about sales, marketing, financial statements, horticulture, hydroponics systems, taxation, legalities, and a host of other things.
The faulty mindset many new entrepreneurs have is the “build it and they will come” mentality and this is where the trouble begins. Money is first invested in the physical creation of the business, and then the business owner starts to work on developing her skills and building the business.
By this time, significant time and money has already been spent while no cash flow or client base has been created. The business owner is pressed to start bringing in business to cover her monthly operating expenses and start-up investment.
Although the impulse is to build a professional looking business up front then trying to fill it with customers, the simplest and most successful approach to building your business is to start with the basic strategy of putting to use the skills you already have.
What are you already good to great at that you can start with today?
Let’s say your existing skill sets are:
- teaching
- gardening and designing friends and neighbors yards
- knowledge of the plants specific to your area and their best growing conditions
- knowing what plants complement each other and those that repel each other
With these skill sets, you can start your business immediately without any significant investment. Here’s how:
- approach a local nursery and ask them if you can volunteer several hours a week or work-part time for them (either way, you have to invest time learning about the business of running a nursery, so why not get paid for it or at the very least, volunteer and get yourself known as a plant expert)
- ask the nursery if you could offer classes to their customers and split the profits
- place posters around town announcing your landscape design service and get your friends to refer you to others
- have a local newspaper reporter feature you and your beautiful backyard in the “Society/People” or “Home and Decoration” section of your paper
- suggest a joint venture relationship with one of your local nurseries. You will refer your landscape design clients to them to purchase plants if they promote your design service. (I paid such a person $75 an hour to visit my home and help me design my yard. I also purchased my plants from the nursery she recommended because I received special pricing for using her services.)
- join your local gardening club or horticultural society
- buy plants from your gardening club colleagues and sell them at a profit
Can you see how this approach would give you a much stronger foundation to build from and increased start-up capital? Your amount of risk and overwhelm would be greatly reduced and your business education would begin immediately.
When you’re ready to pursue your ultimate dream of starting your own nursery, you will have revenue already coming in, an established client base, recognition as an expert in your field, and some business skills and experience under your belt.
Now, let’s apply this to YOUR home business dream.
As you contemplate your new business endeavor, list the skills you currently possess and begin with what you have. Start bringing in cash immediately and let it finance your ultimate dream and education.
2007 © Laurie Hayes - The HBB Source
How To Turn Your Home Business StartUp Into An Instant Cash Cow - To learn more about this author, visit Laurie Hayes's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
 | |
 |
No article feedback found. |
| |
Leave Your Feedback |
 | |
| |||
Staging DivaDebra Gould, aka The Staging Diva®, is President of Six Elements Inc., an internationally recognized home staging company. Inspired by many requests from aspiring home stagers wanting to start similar businesses, Gould created the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. Gould has trained over 1000 Staging Diva Graduates worldwide to start staging businesses. Buying decorating and selling six of her own homes in four years lead to an interest in real estate staging which she turned into a career with the launch of sixelements.com in 2002. Since then she has staged hundreds of homes in addition to teaching home staging training. Gould is the author of several home staging resources including a series of popular ebooks made up of a Design Guide, Color Guide and Portfolio Guide. For more information about Debra Gould visit stagingdiva.com. - Visit Staging Diva's Website |
|||
John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
|||
Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
|||
David BarrDavid Barr is the President of Venture Opportunities, Inc. David has been a professional business broker/intermediary since 1980 focusing on General Business Brokerage and Mergers and Acquisitions representing client transaction value from $400,000 to $20,000,000. Mr. Barr has handled the sale of over four hundred and fifty companies. David earned a university degree from the State University of New York majoring in economics and business. David holds the Mergers and Acquisition Master Intermediary and the Certified Business Intermediary designations from the International Business Brokers Association. He is also a Senior Business Analyst and a Texas licensed Real Estate Agent. For more information about David and Venture Opportunities, visit www.bizdealmaker.com. - Visit David Barr's Website |
|||
Anne BarrAnne Barr has over 26 years experience in sales and marketing, six years as a franchisee. She has assisted over 367 business owners and purchasers to achieve their goals in career change, transition and exit strategy. She holds the designation of Certified Franchise Executive from the International Franchise Association, Certified Business Intermediary from the International Business Brokers Association and Board Certified Broker from the Texas Association of Business Brokers. Anne is active in professional organizations, networking groups and volunteers for non-profit entities. As owner/operator of four successful businesses, Anne has proven people skills and enjoys helping clients find the right "fit" in business ownership. Visit www.FranchiseOpportunitySpecialist.com for more information about me and my company. - Visit Anne Barr's Website |
|||
Casey GollanCasey Gollan, Business Coaching & Mentoring Programs. Add $1 Million to $10 Million in the next 1 to 3 years. Since 1996 Casey has to added hundreds of millions of dollars to businesses. Watch a free video see client results Business Coaching website. - Visit Casey Gollan's Website |
|||
Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
|||
Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. We specialize in internet consulting & internet marketing. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
|||
|
To learn more about the Evan Elite Author Program please contact us. | |||
 | |
|  |
Subscribe to Laurie's articles
 | |
|
|  |
 | |
|
| |
 | ||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
|
| ||
 |
| Have you written articles that would be of value to entrepreneurs? Become an expert on our site by publishing them! Expose yourself to a wide audience, drive more traffic to your website and get more sales! Click Here for details. |
|
|
 |
| Modeling the Masters: Learn the true secrets behind Walt Disney's business success factors & grow your company! Video produced by Phanta Media |
|
|
 |
"Learn straight from Evan how you can Make a Full Time Income (And More) from a Website"
Click Here To Learn More |
|
|
|
|
Get advice & tips from famous business owners, new articles by entrepreneur experts, my latest website updates, & special sneak peaks at what's to come!
|
|
 |
 ACES Research Report Accessing Capital Speed Business Networking Instant Scripts Learn From Success |
|
 | ||
 |
The Top 10 ProBlogger Posts
Best Posts for Bloggers | |
 |
Top 50 Social Media Blogs
Top 50 Social Media Blogs | |
| ||
 | ||||
| ||||
|
| ||||
| ||||
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
|
Email us your ideas on how to make our website more valuable! Thank you Sharon from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for your suggestions to make the newsletter look like the website and profile younger entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez and Sean Combs!
|
|
|
| ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||