“Is a Work From Home Company and Your Day Job a Smart Strategy?â€
31. May, 2010 
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Before you build an at home based business, you might determine that keeping your job, at least until you are convinced your new venture is profitable enough to replace the job, is most likely a sound choice!
When sidelined from a mountain biking crash made it difficult for Nick Miller to continue riding his bike, the Colorado native found that riding a recumbent-style bike enabled him get back on the road. When he looked into purchasing this alternative type of bicycle transportation and his local bike shop showed no interest in selling these styles of bicycles, Miller, 46, decided to become a part-time home based small business owner. “I saw a chance to earn extra money from home,” he says, “and started experimenting.”
To date, Miller continues to hold his job, but he can also say that he owns a work from home company as well, distributing bikes to Colorado residents and to clients all over the world through the Internet. Selling bicycles gives him things to do in his off hours besides ride, he says. It’s also starting to turn a profit: Miller brought in 2009 sales of about $119,000, “netting” $23000. “I’m finally getting past break-even,” Miller says of his part-time top home business enterprise.
There may be almost as many part-time people working a job full-time as those working full-time at their home based small business. As a matter of fact, a recent governmental analysis of business entrepreneurs showed that nearly 9.6 million of the more than 20.5 million business entrepreneurs queried didn’t consider their business their primary source of income. Even among the roughly 5.6 million businesses that had employees, nearly 1.6 million said their business wasn’t their primary source of making money.
Top home based business people have good reason for holding a full-time job and building their companies part-time, analysts say. For a lot of professionals, especially in tough economic times, starting a part-time enterprise gives them a safety net. Part-time enterprises by day job holders may also offer a facility of extra income when future pay raises, at least over the near future, are likely to be infrequent or non-existent.
Managing a enterprise while still holding a day job can also make good business sense. An person with a full-time job to rely on is under less pressure to make a new venture succeed quickly. It also allows you the opportunity to make a few mistakes and not have that mean the collapse of your top home business.
Part-time businesses can also be easier to build because they usually require less funding and the operator can raise the necessary capital by diverting earnings from employment. And, given the financial situation right today, it’s going to be difficult to go out and raise capital to start a full-time home based small business.
Before you decide to start a part-time enterprise, consider the potential downsides. Perhaps the worst would be if your part-time enterprise interferes with your full-time job. You can’t working long hours at both without some risk! If the time and energy you’re devoting to the at home based business results in poor attendance or impaired performance at your place of employment, you could lose your place of employment.
Some part-time entrepreneurs find the best way to deal with the potential for interference is to get a different job. If there is no “wiggle room” at your present job situation, you may want to transition into a career that will give you a little more “leeway”.
If you’re concerned that your business might create a difficult situation, it is a good idea to consult with your company’s HR department. You may have signed a non-compete agreement as a status of the job that could influence the kind of business you launch. Unless you plan to go into business as a competitor of your employer, you will find that few companies have ironclad rules against sideline ventures.
Perhaps the biggest problem with a part-time home based small business is that it’s hard for them to achieve their potential when they only receive an owner’s part-time attention and effort. Keeping your “head to the grindstone” can be difficult while not being able to focus full-time on your work from home company!
And what if your business doesn’t perform as well as you hoped? Be cautious of committing too much risk capital or you could find yourself quickly over-extended. Taking out a loan to finance your initial stock for example, may be difficult to keep current if your business grows more slowly than anticipated. This could lead to being unable to adequately fund your marketing at the level necessary to help your enterprise grow as fast as you wanted.
The bottom line: Make sure you cautiously research your market to find out the anticipated demand. You also need to fully research your marketing needs and cost of sales when determining how to fund your enterprise. If you borrow only enough to cover one part of the equation, you may have a venture full of product but nobody knows about it but you.
For Miller, his part-time business provides just about the right mix of income and interest to keep him happy satisfied. But he still wants more. With a full-time job to cover the bills, the future of his top home based business looks bright. “I have total control over it,” he says. “As much effort as I put into it, I get that much reward back.”
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Statistics say that most people miss at least one MAJOR opportunity every year. The fact is that if you took advantage of all the opportunities that you have missed, you’d be better off than you are now.
Laying the right foundation to launch an at home based business is one of those opportunities!
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