The Home-Based Entrepreneur: The Ups and Downs and Sideways of Working from Home

You've seen the advertisements on television, in magazines and on the internet before. "Work from home." "Make thousands of dollars a day working from home." It doesn't take long to find out that many of the products, jobs or services these ads promote are merely scams.

There are some legitimate home-based businesses. Once you find the one that fits you, it is good to know the advantages, the disadvantages and the ways to make you work-from-home enterprise a success.

You are your own boss

Advantages: Nobody is hovering over you or pressuring you. How you sat in your cubicle all those years and wished for the day when you didn't have to listen to your supervisor's complaints. Now, you have what you wished for. Working from home puts you in charge of your own business. There's nobody shouting about deadlines or what's not done right. You certainly won't get written up because of poor performance.

Disadvantages: You have to motivate yourself. If you are not self- motivated, or if you are easily distracted or lazy, you will not do well with a home-based business. The people who succeed are people that have something from within themselves that drive them to reach goals and stay on task. Why do you think bosses can be such pains in the neck if all employees had a built in motivated work ethic?

Solutions: Have a mentor. Have someone who is successful in business to mentor you for a period of time. Your business mentor can sit down with you and help you plan for success. After the plans are made, they are the ones calling you, checking on you to make you accountable for carrying out the plan. You say, where would you find a mentor? Look around at the people who are in business for themselves, who have a great work ethic and the cash flow to prove it. These are the ones you want to speak into your life. If you ask them, they may feel proud to help you.

You Set Your Own Hours

Advantages: If you are not an early riser, you don't have to feel guilty about it when you run your own home-based business. You can work into the midnight hours, or after everyone else in the house has gone to bed.

Disadvantage: All of the above is good, if you never have to deal with the public in your home based business. There are times when you will have appointments. Meetings may take place at hours when you'd rather be sleeping or relaxing. Then there's the conflict of separating home life from business life. When you work at home, it's hard to not notice all the home tasks that need to be done. You can be easily tempted to do laundry or something really fun when you are supposed to be working.

Solutions: Since you have the power to set your own hours, set them. Literally set aside six to eight hours every day you plan to work your business for your business. Learn how to tune everything and everybody out while you focus on business-related tasks. Schedule breaks in your work day, just like at the office. A 15- minute morning and afternoon break, and an hour for lunch is good. It is during these times that you can refresh yourself and do anything you want without cheating yourself out of valuable work time. When you set a schedule, stick to it. Most people make the mistake of never setting one, and they get very little work done.

You Wear What You Want

Advantages: Not only can you set your own hours, but with some businesses, you can work in your pajamas and slippers. Men don't have to shave. Women can keep rollers in their hair and no one would be the wiser about your appearance while you plug away at making that money.

Disadvantages: When you work in your pajamas, or jeans and t-shirt, you may end up sabotaging your business. According to About.com's "What to Wear to Work," career killer attire to avoid includes jeans and t-shirts. It goes without saying that pajamas are forbidden. You may say, "I'm my own boss, I set my own hours, so I wear what I want". All of that's true, except for the fact that with the attire comes the mindset of what you are dressed for. So, what are you dressed for: bed, walking the dog, or work?

Solutions: When you get up, take a shower, comb your hair, brush your teeth and put on business casual attire, you are making a statement. That statement is you take your home-based business as seriously as the folks downtown in the high rises sitting in cubicles. Your business is as important as the executives downtown, so why not dress like it.

You Make As Much Money As You Want

Advantages: The sky is the limit to how much money you can make in your home-based business. There are some real success stories out there. When the scam artist is trying to sell his idea to us, he often uses these success stories to inspire us. We envision ourselves working from home, living the American dream - or having all the houses and cars and vacations we want.

Disadvantages: Yes, there are people who have gotten wealthy from their work-at-home businesses. But for many, this is just a myth. The majority of people have not gotten rich. Some entrepreneurs have gone in the hole while they expect overnight success. If one person out of ten succeed, chances are you will be one of the ones who will not. Inspiration can only carry you so far. If there's no motivation or drive and discipline in order to do well, you could become the next casualty.

Solution: Be realistic. Those who succeed in anything don't do it overnight. J. Paul Getty drilled for two years before he struck oil. If you expect a windfall in a week or month, you are not being realistic. The principles of real success involves hard work, patience, discipline tenacity and perseverance.

Other Sources
http://fashion.about.com/od/whattowear/a/weartowork.htm
http://www.notablebiographies.com/Fi-Gi/Getty-J-Paul.html
How to be Rich: His Formulas by J. Paul Getty