While it is important to have goals so that we can formulate a plan for starting a home business, and to stay focused to achieve them, it is equally important to remain flexible. In other words, be willing to change your course if necessary. To be really creative we must be able to see beyond the ‘dotted line’.
Therefore it may be good to make your goals ‘generic’ – in other words not ‘make X number of dollars per month from XYZ’ but just ‘make X number dollars per month’ – that way if on your way to XYZ you find ABC to be more of a ‘natural’ for you, you won’t miss the opportunity because you are so focused that you have ‘blinders’ on.
You may find after some time in research and development of your business that you really don’t like something that is part of your initial strategy – for example even that you don’t like marketing and sales, period. While any business you start is going to require you to sell it to somebody, you may determine that you just want that to be a means to an end, not the end game.
To explain further, you may love the Internet marketing industry but just not like the amount of work that is necessary to take the ‘massive’ action required to succeed. Not just that but you don’t like the nature of the work either. Too tedious and time-consuming to do it yourself, and too expensive to use paid services to do it for you right now.
You have already determined that you can and will start a home business and will replace your income so that you can quit your gnarly job someday. You have an amount of money in mind that would cover things nicely for now (and of course could be increased as time goes on). So what else might you do that is online but not just marketing/advertising/sales?
Start by making an inventory. Have one page for your skills and one for your interests. Part of both would include your actual experience whether in a job or hobby. Note what you really enjoyed about both. Do you see anything there that might point you in any direction as far as a service you could perform to earn an income online? Is there something that interests you and you like doing that could maybe use a tune up? For example if you could take an online course from a community college or other organization to hone your skills in some area.
Take the key points that you find and do some further research as far as how you would go about setting up your business and how you would promote it (here we go with advertising again) – but remember it’s a means to an end and does not envelope your entire life, it is just a necessary task among the ones that you do enjoy doing.
Once you decide on something you would like to do and can do, then it is time for more of a solid plan that includes a budget for materials and tools that would be necessary, so you will want to do some comparison shopping, etc. The key is to really know all the ins and outs and to facilitate all the various things that would be required to start a business; or to find anything that could possibly be a ‘deal breaker’ that would prevent you from being able to follow your plan; (and then you would just start all over and find something you CAN DO).
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