Help for Homepreneurs

Tradition in my family dictates that every pink and perky baby receives a coordinating pink and perky piggy bank. Some piggies are plump and some are petite. Other piggies are silent when coins drop and some oink up a storm. Some require a hammer to share the wealth while others just require a twist of the fingers. My child’s favorite is the bottomless piggy bank where money goes in and it comes right out again in a never ending stream of cash. As a business owner, knowing whether to choose a piggy bank that is plump or petite, silent or loud, locked up tightly with strings attached or open ended is an important step in building your business. When it’s time to pick a piggy, consider your type of business, financial need, credit history and economic conditions. Options for financing include: Self-Funding If your start-up costs are minimal and you want to keep financial entanglements to a minimum, reaching into your own pockets to fund your business may be a good choice. Self-fund...

In the office, you had a small corner of the corporate world from which to ply your trade. You may have had a cubby in cubicle city or an office with a window. Either way, your space was compact, standardized, and vacuumed by the night cleaning crew. Not so at home. Unless you live in a studio apartment, you home has multiple rooms to spread out your stuff. And stuff can make a mess. Receipts, contact business cards, and paperwork all pile up quickly. Mix in your personal bills, magazines, and junk mail and you have business paper chaos. Searching through stacks of paperwork reduces productivity and can lead to errors. Organization isn’t complicated. It just requires a little extra effort and a method to sort through the madness. Step 1: Set aside space for a filing cabinet. In today’s electronic business world much is done through e-mail, fax and phone, but paper still exists and needs to be stored. Create a file for bills, customer documents, and receipts. You may need these docume...

Marketing is the processes used to get your message and product to your customers and potential customers as effectively as possible. If you’ve ever had to go door to door with your child selling candy bars for a school fundraiser, you understand the basics of marketing. The school has probably identified a sales target for you and your fellow candy bar sales people. Your job is to find the most effective way to reach the target. You want to edge out the competition by setting yourself apart from the candy salesperson down the block. Before hitting the street with your box of candy bars, you’ve sized up the market. From previous wanderings around the neighborhood you know who will bring out their wallets and who will kindly (or not so kindly) say no thanks. You may even have an idea about what type of candy bars your neighbors prefer so you can choose your candy supply accordingly. You use this information to sell to the folks most likely to buy. Guess what? You’re a ...