When we hear the terms ‘working from home’ or ‘work at home’ I think it is important to define our understanding of exactly what it means. Some people might think it means the cleaning and cooking, or jobs around the home, others may think it means doing your work from home while looking after the children instead of getting in child care. It can be a loose term to cover all possibilities or a specific meaning of running a business from home. It may be that one person in a partnership is the main breadwinner and the other stays at home and does the management and maintenance of the home and looks after any children. In my experience this is in fact a full time job, usually one that is unpaid and unrecognised as work. I am a work at home Mum, and my type of business in computers doing website design lends itself brilliantly to a work from home situation and allows me more time to spend with my children.
Definition of Work at Home
For the purpose of this article let us assume that working from home means that any task done is for the purpose of generating an income, and that the home office is where time is spent doing the business activity that will ultimately generate the income that you want. There are quite a few of success stories of people starting their businesses at the kitchen table and then being so successful they expand into vast organisations making millions, so if you are working from home right now, you could be the next one of these people!
Working in the Home
In today’s modern world, work at home opportunities exist in their thousands and hundreds of thousands. These opportunities range from lingerie parties, consultancy, creative writing, artworking or computer generated activities in fact the opportunities are far too many to list. If you already are an expert on a specialist subject then you may find that working from home is ideal, particularly when you can work as a consultant. If you are computer literate there are many opportunities to set up an income stream for yourself within the area of freelancing. Using a room as an office in your home is particularly suited to freelance sales or programming based activities.
If you get fed up of slogging to work every day, getting stuck in traffic, or paying large sums of money for the train each year then it might be time to consider the idea of working from home. You may feel you are the type of person who is better suited to home based work or you may have some ideas of how you can generate income if you work from home. Whatever your drive there are many opportunities and possibilities to create a new life style where you can work the hours that suit you, have a nice comfortable office and fit in family commitments.
Benefits of Working from Home
There are many benefits of working from home and usually they are the counter to the disadvantages of working in a large firm. For each individual there will be different points of view of the benefits. From my own experience of running a home based business, I love not having to commute every day. I don’t have to deal with office politics and I work the hours that fit with my natural rhythms. This means I use my energy more effectively, have more motivation to do the work, and respond to the demands of customers. No more impotent meetings which really don’t achieve very much. Instead I can focus on getting the job done without the interruptions you find in a bigger company. If you want the best of working at a job and being freelance combined with being your own boss, providing a service like freelance sales could be the perfect solution.
Before I started my own business I worked in freelance sales it was doing this that made me realise how much I enjoyed being my own boss.
How Many Hours do you Work at Home?
You might just like the idea of not having to commute to work every day but have you considered not only the saving on cost but also on time? By not having to commute every day, you could save up to 2-3 hours a day, 14-21 hours a week. That is more than a complete working day. Consider how much time office politics and unnecessary meetings waste.
Meetings are sometimes necessary in large firms to communicate and plan work schedules, but sometimes people set up meetings unnecessarily and they achieve very little. By working in the home you might be saving yourself another12 or so hours a week. Think what you could do with the equivalent of an extra two to three days a week.
I found that when working from home I could achieve in one morning the amount of work it would take me a whole day to complete when working in an organisation.
Working at home means that you can prioritise your tasks and work the hours to suit your natural energy levels. Some days I can work until 12 midnight, and other days I might go and have my haircut at 9:00am, or go to the supermarket, at the times when everyone else is working and the shops are quiet. Working the hours to suit yourself may mean you are far more productive and creative than if you did a ‘nine to five’ job with a boss and colleagues to accommodate. Being able to concentrate on the jobs without interruptions means there is greater energy and motivation to respond to the enquiries and needs of the customers.
When I first started my own business, I was able to integrate running the home with my new work. After a concentrated spell of brain work on the computer, I would hang out the washing to dry. The activity and fresh air would refresh my brain and I could return to work with some new ideas.
Tax
One of the huge advantages of working from home running your own business is being able to offset legitimate expenses before paying tax. When you are earning a salary, your tax is deducted at source, before paying out anything. So in fact the money you have available for paying bills and living expenses is reduced. When you are self employed the savings can be substantial because valid business expenses are taken from your revenue before you pay tax. Tax is calculated on the final profit and is slightly less than personal tax on a salary, at the time or writing. If you don’t have a dedicated business phone you will need to calculate a percentage of household bills to be paid out of the business revenue. Lighting and heating and car costs are all legitimate business expenses as are accountancy fees, insurance and repairs and maintenance. The mileage you can claim is set down by the government, but it goes a long way towards the costs of using the family car for business. You can charge a rent per year for using a dedicated room in your home. The way our own business manages this is to include heat and light as part of the rent so there are less bills to worry about.
Some large organisations encourage employees to work from home several days a week because it is a way of freeing up restricted office space. This was one of several new ideas to manage resources some 10 or 15 years ago. But even if that is not an option for you, it is still possible to set up a home computer and build a good income working part-time at home. Almost half of all self-employed workers, and more than sixty percent of those with home-based businesses, indicated the main reason for working from home was because their “business could be conducted from the home”.
One example of a business that is run from home, is a client of ours who own an electricity price comparison website, which provides a valuable service to homes and businesses due to increasing fuel costs today.
There is a common idea that running your own business is too risky or difficult. But today with the advent of the internet, home run businesses are easier than ever to set up and manage. The accounts can be done on a computer which once mastered becomes very simple. Advertising is extremely effective and relatively cheap if done through a website. So if you are proficient at what you do, and you build up a reputation for delivering what you promise, then there is no reason why you cannot be a successful entrepreneur running the business from your home office.
Work from Home Success Stories
A friend of mine worked in local government as a planner. He is a qualified surveyor with a degree, but working in local government only paid a modest salary, although it was a secure position and a good pension on retirement at 65 years of age. His wife was a teacher, and she earned slightly more than he did, sobetween them they could just about get by on both salaries bringing up their two children.
One day he announced he was setting up in business on his own. He had had enough of the poor treatment, overwork and lack of respect he received in the department, as well as the low pay. He had some savings in the bank which gave him a bit of security. Since day one he has had lots of work, advising people on planning applications, the correct procedures for waste disposal, and what is or is not allowable in the planning world. He hasn’t looked back since and to this day he has not had to dip into his savings to top up his earnings. They have never been so well off and when his wife became ill and had to give up her teaching job, they were still able to manage comfortably. He started up in the small back bedroom of their town house although he has now recruited other members of staff and expanded into separate offices. Due to being a planning consultant, he decided he had to work from legitimate commercial premises, although he still works from home 2-3 days a week.
Britain was once a nation of cottage industries and to some extent that mentality is still part of our culture. Being independent, doing an honest day’s work for an honest day’s wage means that a person can respect themselves and live in harmony with their neighbour. Once industrialisation began, that independent way of life was swept away and in the process something important was lost. I think that in Britain as well as in many other countries, there is a yearning to return to a way of life that is ethical, sincere and honest. The fear of failure may prevent a lot of people from achieving their dream of working from home, but if it is something you really want to do then take heart and take a good hard look at the possibility.
When looking for an idea or possibility of a home based business people often have many more skills than they are aware of. Sometimes they are passionate about a hobby for which they may have considerable abilities but may not be thought of as important in the context of work. There are many cases where hobbies are transformed into a lucrative business. We all have considerable transferable skills, but often we are blind to our own capabilities.
When I set up my own consultancy running training programmes, I was able to draw on my teacher training skills and my abilities as an organiser. I had moved house many times and run the family home, so it was something I found easy, but not necessarily realised I was good at it, or that it had a marketable value.
A work from home business that has gained in popularity over the last few year is ebay where you can sell products to a worldwide audience without needing to have your own website. We recently setup a website at www.howtopdf.net for a company that had started out doing exactly that until their business had grown to a point where they needed their own site.
Working at Home and Stress
Sometimes setting up a new organisation on your own can be stressful with not having the security of a regular wage and the question of it being a success. Once the business is underway, you will soon begin to get a feel of the lead time needed to finish projects and get paid. I know now from experience that as long as there are leads in the pipeline that about half will come to fruition and generate income. Regular clients, repeat orders and new work coming out of the blue is to be expected if your concern is thriving. There is a rule of thumb that 20% of your customer base provides eighty percent of your revenue.
To offset the type of stress outlined above is that a work from home lifestyle has advantages in terms of family commitments, working environment, and motivation. Being able to organise your work so that you maximise energy and resources, gives you a sense of well being that leaves you feeling happy and healthy and eventually wealthy.
Prepare
If you feel you have the urge to be working from home, then use your intellect to plan. You can project and budget for the future and get funding in place, even if it does mean missing the family holiday this year. Study any required new skills by going to classes and set yourself up with the necessary equipment. Give your current workplace the appropriate notice to fit with your objective. Finally have a clear idea in your head of how you will be in your new lifestyle, and picture in your mind how it feels.
Marketing
The next thing you will want to learn is marketing. Setting up a website and marketing your home based business on the internet may be easier than you think and can be very efficient way to achieve marketing success. Obviously, the more time you invest in marketing, the more your customer base is going to grow. There are also a lot of freelance work provider websites these days where they do the marketing for you in return for a small commission from every job you complete, these kinds of companies are revolutionising the work at home industry making it much more accessible for more and more people.
Conclusion
Working from home has many advantages and benefits. If you have the urge to become your own boss and it feels right to you, then there are plenty of opportunities for you to fulfil your potential. There are many success stories of men and women setting a business from the home and becoming much larger successful companies. All you have to do is to follow your instincts to a better life. Work towards your targets and pay attention to the steps along the way. I know it may sound obvious, but so many people do not do the obvious.