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Why A Home Business? No. 2 The Pros, the Cons & The Legalities.

Why A Home Business? No. 2 The Pros, the Cons & The Legalities.

As with any other major decision in life... it's worth devoting the time to researching the pros & cons. As simple as it sounds, there's no more powerful way of making those very important decisions, than dividing a page into those two columns and then doing your utmost to be absolutely truthful in completing the list of pros and the list of cons.

In fact, faced with a choice between doing something and not doing that same thing, use two pages. One page for the status quo and one for your new idea.

Let's take a look at some of the pleasures and some of the pain of home businesses. And we'll start with the good stuff! The pleasures:

Flexible Working. You decide when to work. If you want to take Monday off and work Saturday instead, then who's stopping you? If youd like to get up early and cram all your work into the mornings so you can have the afternoons off to do something else, then that's okay... youre in charge. After years and years of the nine to five syndrome... this is pure luxury!

Independence. Do what you want, when you want. You dont need to depend on anyone but yourself. Just think... your days of being told what to do are over! Plus... theres no dress code! Many people who work from home admit to sitting around in their pyjamas all day, or even less!

Keeping All the Cash. Everything you earn is yours. You can stop figuring out just how much the boss is making today from your hard fought endeavours! Working from home in your own business - you get to keep all of it!

No More Travelling Back and Forth to Work. Work travel is expensive, boring and feels like a complete waste of time. When you have a home business, you just get up and youre at your workplace  how convenient and inexpensive is that?

This all sounds great! Why haven't we done this before? Probably because we're smart enough to realise that there are cons...

Work Never Ends. When you work from home, it can be tempting to be constantly monitoring things, even when youve decided youre not working. Once people understand that you work from home, they will telephone at any hour that suits them. And if another small business owner hasn't already told you this... you should know that no-one with their own business works a forty hour week. You can expect it to increase by 50% at the least. Particularly while you're getting established.

No Security. With independence comes major responsibility. If you have a bad day, or slack off, then you don't get paid! Simple! Most people like certainty in their lives. You might find yourself quickly wishing you had a regular paycheque again.

You Get To Do And Pay For... Everything! Not all that income is profit. It goes on things like marketing, management, stock control, deliveries, overheads and so on. You have to manage everything that goes on in your business. You're in the frontline with suppliers and with your customers. You get to do all the budgeting and spending, and don't forget that you'll need to become your own marketing department too. And then there's all the fun tax issues, too.

At Least One Less Room. You may have started off with a small desk in the family room, but you've realised that, to stay sane, and keep your family the same way, you're going to have to set one room aside as your home office. When youre not working, it just sits there, and meanwhile your kids are upset if they now have to share. And what about the garage? Does the car now live outside because you need storage space?

Working Alone. If youre the only one around in your house during the day, it avoids distractions  but it can also feel very lonely. If youre the kind of person who enjoys being around other people, don't give yourself time to become depressed.

Not so good, hey? And these are just the basics. Each business and family are unique. The pros and cons need to be quite specific if you're to make the right decision.

And what about the legalities of you working from home. Your research isn't complete until you check out the various laws you need to know about. If you dont do this before you start, then you risk having your business shut down by the authorities.

Where do we start? Zoning laws. The chances are that the different parts of your town or city have been split into different zones. Each one of these zones has a purpose: business or residential. Since you almost certainly live in a residential area, zoning laws restrict what you can do there in terms of business.

If you think about it, there are very good reasons for this. What would it be like if someone could decide to buy up a whole load of houses and turn the area into a shopping mall, without getting anyones permission? What if your neighbours could just turn around one day and start using their house as a shop? I doubt that youd like that. The laws are there to protect your neighbourhood, and to stop business from interfering with peoples home lives.

Phone whatever local governmental body there is in your area, and ask them about the zoning laws in your area. If theyre not helpful, it could be worth a visit to a lawyer.

Many areas still operate a strict no-business policy in residential areas. Youll need to put in a formal application, and there could be a public hearing, giving other residents the chance to object. Are you already nice to your neighbours!

Don't think that, just because there are other home businesses in your area, youll find it any easy to obtain permission. The rules may have been tightened up since those businesses started up. Would it be worth your while to talk to other home businesses in the area, to see what problems they may have had? They may be good enough to pass on some advice.

Its worth checking if theres a special exception in the zoning laws for what you plan to do. Artists and craftspeople, for example, are often excluded from the laws, as well as people who give home tuition, like music teachers. Doctors and dentists are another common exception.

You may find that the laws have special restrictions on signs and traffic. You could be restricted from putting anything on the front of your house that could be considered advertising, meaning that you cant even have a sign with the name of your business. If you plan to have lorries or trucks bringing deliveries to your house, then that can pose a big problem, especially if someone complains about them, or there are lots of children in the area.

Another contentious issue can be visitors. For some reason, people do get upset if lots of visitors keep coming to your house  they like their street to be quiet, not constantly busy. Some laws allow only a set number of visitors to your home business per day, or restrict the number of visitors that you can have at one time.

Millions of businesses are operated illegally out of private homes, in complete violation of the relevant laws. These people keep their business secret, because they know that admitting what theyre doing would probably get it closed down. This approach obviously isnt recommended. You should always try your best to do things legally. Maybe you will need to consider moving house.

Or maybe your new home business is one that doesn't require storage for stock; does just need a desk and computer in a corner; won't mean people coming and going from your home or advertising signs outside. We're talking about a home business on the internet. But the internet can be scary. As of the day of writing, there were 1,463,632,361 online users (info courtesy of Internet World Stats). That's right... 1.4 billion people with access to the internet. To some people, that's an unbelievable world of opportunity. But, it's like anything else in life. Get to know your new environment before you plunge in head first. Get to know the language of the internet. Find successful people who are already there; follow what they do and set out to do the same.

Talk to anyone who works from home and theyll probably say to you that, for them, the pros far outweigh the cons. Once youre doing your own thing and feeling great, its hard to go back to a salaried existence and to working for someone else.

It's time to get that page ready. The one with the line right down the middle. You'll be amazed at what it will reveal to you. Home business decision-making made easy.

Christine Robins is Co-Founder of the Easy Marketing Group. Thirty years as a marketer in the "real world". Internet marketer since 2002. Author of "Powerful List Building Secrets", "ABCsOnTheNet" Net Dictionary, "A1 Reports", "The Little Blue Book of Free Stuff", "Cash Building Strategies" & more. Specialising in resources and services for internet marketers, including beginners. www.EasyMarketingGroup.com www.ABCsOnTheNet.com

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