Having made a decision to start a home based business, you will now have to identify your Best Home Based Business Idea. There are numerous home based businesses that you can think of, but will all these ideas work for you? Will you be able to make money? Most people who wish to venture out do not have sufficient funds to commence operations successfully. Hence money will be an important consideration.In such a situation or otherwise, the smart way to pick the best home based business idea will be to consider all the assets you possess such as your house, vehicle, computer, the time you can spare and of course the Needs of the community you live in.Time:If you want to make money with your business ideas then time is an important factor. How much time can you spare for your business? Having time available whether in the week-ends, full day or even evenings, is a great asset.
Selling your time to people who simply cannot find the time to do things for themselves is one smart way of picking your best home based business idea. Such people are prepared to pay for you for helping them out in such tasks as Child Minding, Baby Sitting, Secretarial Work, Car Cleaning and Valeting or Walking their Dog.Home:Having a home is the biggest asset to get your best home based business idea going. There are many possibilities such as converting one of your rooms into a Home Office, your kitchen for Catering purposes and your garage for turning out some products. You could also consider taking in a lodger offering bed and breakfast.
The advantage of running a business from home is that you save on rent which is substantial and also get part of your running expenses set off against taxes.Vehicle:If you own a car or a van it can be considered as another great asset like a house.There are quite a few business ideas that can be started using a vehicle such as Home Delivery Service, Courier Service and Cleaning Service. Identify the best home based business idea that will be right for you and implement it. Trade-in your car for a van and get started if you need to do so.Computer Fax and Telephone:A good knowledge of the Computer and the Internet is very use full and helpful in implementing several home based business ideas such as Internet Marketing, Affiliate Marketing,Secretarial work, Copy Writing and Desk Top Publishing. A Fax machine and a Telephone are great assets for your business.Hobbies:To many people, business ideas have originated from their hobbies and they have successfully converted their hobbies into money making ideas. Your hobbies clearly indicate that you have a keen interest and motivation. If there is a need for some of your skills such as Photography, Craft Work, Dress Making and Playing the Piano, in your community, you can without any hesitation convert your hobby into your best home based business idea.Tools and Equipment:The very tools you use in your home such as DIY Tools, garden and cleaning equipment can be successfully made use of to start your best home based business. With a van and with a few more additions to your equipment if necessary, several home based businesses can be started such as House Cleaning, Window Cleaning, Lawn Mowing and as Handyman.Conclusion:The smart way to identify the Best Home Based Business Idea is to make a serious study of the assets you possess and find out which of these you are good at and love doing. Assess the Needs of the local community and match them up. That’s it and you are done.

How do we determine as intellectuals whether a home based business is legitimate. There are many home based businesses that actually work and are able to produce fantastic results. Unfortunately, there are also many home based businesses that don’t deliver and most people end up wasting their money. Some people spend thousands of dollars trying to find the right home based business. These businesses can be anything from home assembling to selling a product as an affiliate marketer. The problem does not usually exist with the type of work involved but with the company you are interacting with.Most home based business entrepreneurs that decide to try out home based businesses are beginners. They have grown tired of their 9 to 5 job and are looking for more freedom and the ability to be their own boss. The excitement of this possible venture sometimes plays games with their minds and they opt-in to every opportunity that comes along. That is simply the wrong thing to do and a lot of these companies exploit this by saying you make millions over night. You must be realistic when deciding on a home-based business and expect that the money doesn’t simply fall into your lap. Sure their are a small percentage of home based entrepreneurs that make it very big in a short period but they are in the minority.The most important thing to remember when contemplating a home based business is researching the company. There are some definite criteria that any person should take into account when conducting a study. Some questions that should be asked are, “does the company have a proven record” and “are there any legal issues with the company”. So essentially you are trying to prove that a company will produce for you based on past occurrences and that the company is not in legal trouble that could seriously affect your success. These are not the only questions that should be asked. In fact, the more questions you ask the better. You need to sometimes dig deep in order to find the answers but its worth the effort.Some other things you should consider when deciding the legitimacy of a home-based business is the product. If you are going to be selling a product as an affiliate marketer you must make sure that its sellable. Their are some good products and their are some bad products. The most important question that you should be asking is, “will this product stand the test of time and always sell in poor economic times”. Lets be realistic you are not entering into a home based business for the short term and to make a couple of bucks. You want to be extremely successful and want a product you can use to sell to the right consumer at the right time.A company should also have proven customer service that is always available for you. The worst nightmare for any home based business entrepreneur is not knowing what their doing and having no one to help with their problem. Good customer service should consist of answering questions promptly, correctly and offering advice whenever possible. The key to the legitimacy of any home based business is the ability for a company to stand by their business and to be confident in their interactions with their affiliates. A good way to determine the legitimacy of a home based business is by e-mailing or calling them to see if they respond to you.Determining the legitimacy of any home based business is not rocket science. Its simply a step by step process by asking a lot of questions. Its not about acting impulsively because it looks good. That is simply good marketing because they are able to reel you in. However, a smart entrepreneur will always do their homework thereby determining legitimacy. If you find out about legal issues, track record, customer service and the product, you can make an informed decision on whether they are worth buying into.

Following startup, many small businesses are so concentrated on daily business operations that they do not, or cannot, take the time to actively focus on business growth. While others are focused on growth but do not have a strategic plan to achieve it. The Top Ten Ways to Grow Your Business is provided to help your small business enterprise attain growth beyond startup on a continuous basis, and is based on my experience working with small businesses from startups to expansion.Know Your Market Opportunity – When I work with small business executives and entrepreneurs, one of my first questions, if not the first, is-”Do you really know your market opportunity”, or more succinctly, “Do you know your strategic market opportunity?” And then, “How well do you know your strategic market opportunity?” These are your common how, where and what questions that a small business owner or entrepreneur must ask. For instance, how do you see your market?, where is your market”, and what is your market? Business growth is extricably linked with and to market opportunity, and how well you capture it. In my experience business growth is a function of envisioning your strategic market opportunity, planning how to acquire it, executing your plan, and then working your plan to attain it.Know Your Customer – Your customer is the primary focus of your business enterprise. Identifying who your customer actually is, followed by knowing your customer needs, is essential in meeting growth objectives. Staying connected with your customers via email, web site, face-to-face conversations, and special customer appreciation programs, such as offering a monthly customer discount, strengthens your customer base and lets you know who your customer is. Think of it this way; a customer-centric organization gains a competitive advantage over competition, which typically results in a bigger share of the market.Cultivate and Maximize Your Brand – Brand recognition has become critically vital to small business growth as much as knowing your market, customer development, product and service credibility, growth strategy, pricing, cash flow, and having the right executive team in place. Your brand is the ‘face’ of your small business enterprise and how well recognized it is well directly impact your business growth. Cultivating and maximizing brand recognition is crucial to your business success. The new marketing media approaches include social networking venues such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, YouTube, etc, which need to be exploited. Global companies have realized the enormous marketing opportunity these venues provide and have established social networking as a primary business function. The small business enterprise can likewise take advantage of this expanded, nearly free, marketing approach to reach customers and increase brand recognition. Cultivating and maximizing your brand distinguishes you from competition and allows your customers to link your business with your brand.Develop Your Growth Strategy – Developing a growth strategy is a best-management process which involves determining long-term growth objectives and developing a specific action plan for attaining these objectives. The process involves an assessment of your market environment from the perspective of having the relevant market experience after startup; performing a SWOT analysis; selecting a set of alternative growth strategies based on changing market conditions, and then implementing your strategy. Note that this is in reference to the ‘envision, plan, execute and attain’ model I mentioned previously. The strategic growth plan is developed from the viewpoint of your small business corporate entity, where the focus is on the accomplishment of your strategic business objectives based on four critical questions: Who are we? What do we do? Where do we want to go? How do we get there? The answers to these questions will give you the information necessary to create your strategic objectives for your growth strategy.Get The Right People On The Bus – This is one of my favorite discussion points, concerning leadership and relates to the strength, character and capability of your executive team. Here we use ‘bus’ to refer to the small business enterprise or organization and comes from Jim Collins’ book, ‘Good To Great”, where he quotes Ken Kesey’s reference to a bus as being the company, organization or firm. Collins found”…if we get the right people on the bus [in the company], the right people in the right seats [in the right executive roles], and the wrong people off the bus, then we’ll figure out how to take it somewhere great [to attain the founder's vision]…” As a small business owner, it is incumbent upon you to ensure you have the right executive team in place that will take your vision of where you want your company to go, and achieve it. Business growth at all levels is largely achieved with the right people on the corporate ‘bus’, driving it to success.Listen To The Experts-Hire a Business Advisor, Coach – According to The National Federation of Independent Business [NFIB] Education Foundation, over the lifetime of any small business, 30 percent will lose money, 30 percent will break even, and just fewer than 40 percent will be profitable. The Small Business Administration [SBA] reports that 50 percent of all small business fail after their first year, 33 percent fail after two years, and nearly 60 percent fail after four years. A Business Coach and Advisor will work with you to help avoid becoming an SBA or NFIB statistic, help you to maintain focus on driving your business forward, work with you to develop and refine your objectives, help you to develop critical business growth strategies; and provide an honest assessment of where your business is in its life cycle.Follow Your SOLE – It has been my experience that the small business executive responsible for business growth almost always follows and prescribes to a framework that embodies the envision, plan, execute and plan strategy in achieving business growth. Often this resembles what I have developed for my clients as the SOLE Framework. The SOLE Framework provides the context for accomplishing business growth optimization where you: Solve a critical market problem or need; Optimize growth by meeting customer needs in solving a problem, Leverage your principle business core competency, and Establish a competitive baseline to achieve business growth.Be A Hedge Hog – The Hedge Hog Concept was developed by Isaiah Berlin in his “The Hedge Hog and the Fox” Study which divided management, leadership and professional positions into two clusters: hedge hogs and foxes, based on Greek mythology, where the fox knows many things, however the hedge hog knows one big thing. The fox is a sleek, cunning, fleetly, crafty and beautiful animal. On the other hand, the hedge hog is a dowdier creature, more like a cross between a porcupine and a small armadillo who when faced with danger rolls up into a very prickly ball and spends his days looking for food. However, Berlin points out that this otherwise simple creature is certainly not stupid, or simpletons; they have a piercing insight that allows them to see through complexity and discern underlying patterns of behavior. The hedge hog sees what is essential, critical, and important, and ignores everything else. To be a Hedge Hog, the small business executive must see only what is essential and focus on it, exploiting the essential in a positive, productive manner and concentrate on three key dimensions: what you can be the best in the world at; what you are most passionate about; and what drives your economic engine.Establish a Competitive Culture – A competitive culture concerns how your organization is structured for market competitiveness. In fact, corporate culture is a competitive advantage for a small business focused on growth by following a rather simplistic approach, based on organizational shared values, direction, mission and belief that the primary focus of a small business is to first meet customer needs, followed by employee empowerment to meet those needs, then community involvement, using common business sense approaches towards conservation, and then attention to investor interests. This hierarchical organization places the most important focus on meeting customer needs, followed by empowering employees to meet those needs creating a company structure that is positioned to be highly competitive.Optimize Business Growth – What is Business Growth Optimization? I think a good way to initially answer this question, is to draw an analogy to a perfectly timed automobile engine running on all cylinders, smoothly, fully optimizing its capability to produce maximum power. Similarly, the small business growth company that is fully optimizing its core business competencies is structured to maximize competitive advantages and has a strategic business growth framework; running smoothly on all cylinders if it were, is attaining Business Growth Optimization. In my experience, attaining Business Growth Optimization is a three-tier process involving the SOLE Framework, achieved through the establishment of the Hedge Hog Model and implementation of the Cultural Competitiveness Organization structure.