How to Wisely Grow a Home-Based Business

Growing a home-based business shares many aspects of growing a traditional small business. There are however a few specific details you need to consider in deciding if it is time to grow and how to do it. The following are a few areas of business you should check in order to help you make wise decisions about growth:

1) Overhead

One of the greatest advantages of a home-based business is you have very little overhead in comparison with a traditional small business. If growing is not going to increase your overhead costs along with your profit, generally you're making a good move. You have to use caution to make sure growing isn't going to harm you more than it helps.

There comes a certain point in some home businesses where it just makes sense to move it out of your home. If you feel like your business has swallowed up your whole house, it may be an option to consider for your sanity and for your family. Rent space first before you buy since you often have little idea if a specific location is going to help you or not. Make sure you can pay the rent without having to borrow the money or having a major loss in profit every month.

2) Time

If you are the only one doing the work for your business, you want to make sure that the profit is going to be worth it in relation to any extra time you have to spend. Ideally, most businesses should require the most intense work in the first few years and take less and less of your time long-term.

If you decide you need more help but fear traditional employees would drain you, consider negotiating a situation where anyone who works for you gets a percentage of the profits they create for you. Avoid legal partnerships however because a majority of those end in disaster when two or more people's goals begin to go different directions. If you are considering adding more people to your business, I would recommend consulting a local business attorney in your area to make sure of the details that would apply and getting their advice.

3) Quality versus Quantity Growth

This can apply to product and service businesses. If you have a service business and have grown in experience, consider raising your rates for new customers. This will increase your profits and decrease your work load. If you're selling products, consider diversifying into higher quality products with greater profit margins. You don't have to give up your existing products, just offer more options.

In other situations, you just need to offer more of what you already have. In making these decisions, you may want to do some experimenting on a smaller scale to see what will work and what won't.

4) Cash Flow

In home-based businesses especially, you should never need to borrow money to expand. This is what sinks a majority of businesses period because beginning profits can't outrun the interest of loan payments. You can get stuck in a financial cycle or even fall behind and lose your progress you've worked so hard to build. It's hard sometimes, but exercising patience will help you succeed.

5) Ability to Diversify

Are there areas related to your current business that it would just make sense to branch into? Since you may already have experience and education, learning a related aspect of business would take less time and give you more stability.

I hope these ideas have been helpful to you. Best wishes to you in growing your business!

How to Escape the Rat Race

The main key to escaping the rat race is that your thought process determines how successful you become in life, including financially. This is why some lottery winners end up more in debt 5 years after they win than they were originally, and also why many millionaires could lose all the money they have and get it back within 5 years. If you want to change your financial circumstances long-term, it has to be from the inside-out.

Thinking like a wealthy person is not something that comes overnight. You have to work at it. If you want a great place to start, here are a few ideas that personally helped me:

1) Read Practical Financial and Business Books

These are not necessarily books you'll have suggested to you in high school or college, but they should be. A few authors to start with would be Dave Ramsey, Robert Kiyosaki, Dan Miller, John Maxwell, Napoleon Hill, and Og Mandino. In addition to this, it's helpful to know that millionaires read a lot more than the average adult-about 1 non-fiction book a month.

2) Develop a Plan

The majority of people out there who are living week-to-week and paycheck-to-paycheck are in that position because they don't have a long-term plan. Getting yourself out of debt (freeing up more of your money on a monthly basis) and building wealth does not just happen by accident. There are small changes and sacrifices you can make earlier in life that will pay off later, but you need to do it with focus and with purpose. Business books will not only show you how to make more money but to get more of your time back long-term, which is far more valuable.

3) Find Good Mentors

I can't stress the importance enough of having people in life that pull you forward instead of pull you down. You may find someone in your own career field that will help you learn, or it may be a group of people. What matters is that they challenge you in a good way and care about your future.

4) Do the Work

Success in life takes effort, and sometimes you end up getting pushed out of your comfort zone to really win in life. One of the biggest challenges I think is out there is this idea of the typical 40-hour work week and then people shut their mind down outside of that. Sometimes being successful just requires you to watch less TV and work on something outside your job that will help your future. Right now I work closer to 80 hours a week-40 for someone else and 40 for myself. The payoff to that is I'm doing what I love to do in both arenas and will have the ability to retiring younger compared to most people.

5) Do What You Enjoy

When you're doing something you don't like for the sake of money, it drains your energy and you're not as able to get as much done. When you find something in life that makes you look forward to getting up every day, in your mind it doesn't even seem like work. It may take you awhile to eventually get to that point, but it's worth pursuing.

I hope these tips have been helpful to you. Good luck and best wishes!

How to Get Through a Financial Crunch

Growing up, my dad was in the manufacturing field and had to go through several layoffs. The situation always put our family in a tight financial crunch, but I learned from the experience. Through being really prepared and treating any job I had as not a guaranteed thing, I've learned a lot about financial stability. If you're beginning to feel uncomfortable with the state of your finances, that's actually a good thing. It's put you into a position of searching out better solutions as opposed to having a surprise hit you. Here are some tips that I think are helpful:

1) Have Multiple Sources of Income

Most people have only one or two sources of income. I now have eight sources of income at age 24, and that's not counting my husband's job and his side projects. I borrowed the idea from investing. In the investing field, it's usually a smart idea to spread yourself across different companies, called diversifying. It's the same thing as the saying of "never put all your eggs in one basket." We've been trained though to think the 40-hour job is enough...not only does that put all your eggs in one basket, but you've given someone else your basket!

All of this didn't happen overnight. I started at age 19. I also read a lot of books like "Rich Dad, Poor Dad," "48 Days to the Work You Love," and "The Total Money Makeover." I took the time to learn because I didn't ever want to be put in the position where I had no money. As you get into looking into this, residual income sources are best because they're not linked to your time. That's where you're making money over time and not overnight.

2) Quit Running Your Life on Credit and Pay Off Your Existing Debt

I was never the type of person to go out and put a lot of money on my credit card at once in some kind of shopping spree. It was alway situations where I was unprepared. This is why I like Dave Ramsey's financial plan so much because he shows you how to prepare so you don't reach for the credit cards in minor emergency situations.

3) Keep a Good Attitude

I don't watch the news very much because I get tired of hearing how I'm supposed to be financially failing right now. What you read, watch on TV, and the people you hang around have a big factor on your success in life. I avoid really negative people whenever possible and instead get around people who have dreams and are moving forward in life regardless to the overall situation. In short, you can't let statistics and circumstances run your life if you want things to change.

I hope you've found these ideas helpful. Best wishes to you!

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