Webinar: Operating a Home based Business

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so welcome to operating a home-based business today’s panelist is Julia nipper and Julia joined the southern Arkansas University ASB TDC in October of 2012 and she works with existing and potential business owners in a variety of ways but her primary focus is marketing strategies and julia is responsible for facilitating training seminars in a nine-county area it works extensively with a SBT dc’s regional partners on Julie received her bachelor’s degree in management with an emphasis on small business and entrepreneurship from the university of arkansas at fayetteville and julie has previously worked for the Magnolia Chamber of Commerce and has experience in retail sales event planning and customer service welcome Julia thanks Tim and thanks everybody for joining us this morning and just a little will kind of go ahead and get started and today’s well if i get my watch at work pays webinars hosted by the Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center and the David F Rankin College of Business at southern Arkansas University and we’re done here Magnolia and just excited to be here a little bit more about the ASB TDC for those of you who are unfamiliar with us we offer you know we’re seven offices over the entire state and we I’m in a non County region in southwest Arkansas and we focus on training research and consulting kind of been our big 30 and with training we do classes like this webinars and we also do in-person training so depending on where you’re at in the state you can find more 101 you know classroom style trainings to fit your needs we also have market research capabilities so out of our lead Center in Little Rock we have market research services that have industry benchmarks I business planning software and trade periodicals and our regional offices have similar resources but we also have access to those more in-depth and resources that the lead Center offers you can also go to our ASB TDC website for you know frequently asked questions and more helpful information and links and we also offer a confidential one-on-one consulting and that is where you can come in and speak to one of our consultants in the office we can help you from you know if you need some help with a marketing plan or you’re wanting to know more about social media and how to you know best use those platforms to you’re looking to start a new business and you need help getting a business plan together so you can get financing from a bank it just kind of depends on you know what what it services you’re needing but that’s always free the only thing that we normally ever asked for payment for is our training and again those are the ones that will be the classroom type training burs are all very affordable so moving on will kind of get started so home-based business is twenty percent of new small business enterprises are operated from a home a home based business can be a small to medium-sized enterprise which is run from a home office it can be operated by one person or you can have multiple people as employees working for you there and it doesn’t just have to be you typing away at a desk so home business owners you know you may be a sole trader you may be limited company or a limited liability partnership many of our home based businesses their started you know just kind of as a part-time basis and then as things going to pick up and they expand into more of a full-time business as the market for the business develops and grows and there’s a wide range of business types that can be operated for a home you may think of solely of like childcare or something like that but but there’s many other options for home-based businesses you know some of them are the service oriented that are you know child care businesses but they can also be product oriented like crafts outlets you know they could be as well as farming catering and computer software consulting woodworking even bed and breakfast establishments are considered home base so there’s just a multitude of home-based businesses out there and there’s some advantages to being able to operate your business from home um first of all you can start out that’s part time if you you know got young kids or you know you just got a lot of it maybe even have a full-time job and you just want something to kind of start you can you can do that part time and you can maintain more flexible a lifestyle and work hours from home so being able to work at night or you know first thing in the morning is a great perk when you need to juggle your kids or other obligations and and you know with technology and invades it allows you to that allows you to interact with customers and suppliers at any time I mean 24-7 so and you can do that from almost any location so even though you’re you know home-based business you could be on vacation and still be working although that doesn’t sound like much fun and so you also have your lower startup costs and operating costs that just overall low overhead and working from home keeps your startup costs and overhead costs low because you’re not renting office space you don’t have to pay office utilities and so the reduction in fixed costs allows you to be more flexible and your pricing decisions so you can maybe can don’t have to charge as much because you’re not having to pay as many bills there’s no commute and the average American spends at least are almost 50 minutes of their day commuting to and from the office Tim and I were talking this morning about commutes and mine mine lowers that average a lot but uh you know in our rural Arkansas may not be as much as 15 minutes but still you don’t have to deal with that traffic you’re at home you can just get up go and you know get to work you also have this a section of being your own boss so you can you know do things if you want make your decisions for yourself exactly how you want to get started and there’s increased tax benefits and write-offs from working from home so if your situation qualifies you can deduct a portion of your home’s expenses such as your mortgage interest property taxes utilities even repairs and maintenance you can deduct that against your business income and then a few other advantages you know if you do have young kids you can have that cost savings own child care or if you have to know a parent that lives with you adult care it allows for you know an outlet for creative talents if you’re somebody that you know as an artist or somebody that works from home being able in that home setting can really allow you to be more creative than going to a regular nine-to-five or having to go to an office every day and it also allows you the ability to employ family members so now put your brothers and sisters and husbands and wives to work and there’s also some disadvantages to working from home you have limited space and growth I mean depending on how big your house is or your home offices you can only grow that big and your workspace may get cramped which could limit the growth of your business so as your business grows you need to be thinking about you know are you going to be looking for a brick-and-mortar store I mean maybe prepare to abandon the comforts of your home and moving into another building there also you know sometimes it’s long work hours you know when you’re at home it’s your it’s tempting to work longer hours and when your office is just in the next room fringe benefits you know there’s a lack of fringe benefits when it’s just you or just a couple of you working working out of your house for example you don’t have that group life insurance group health insurance those cafeteria plans or child care reimbursement the social contacts and networking you know when you work from home you miss out on those informal social contacts and networking that’s typically done an office setting many people that you know work from home often feel isolated because they’re there every day and often by themselves so you want to make sure that you before you get into having at home based business that you’ve got a strong support system in place to kind of help you overcome that isolation and you can also give people experienced high stress level to do the struggle to balance their family and needs and their business needs you know it requires a lot of discipline to establish a healthy and steady patterns so you know the problem with home-based businesses is that you’re always at work you know you go to bed you’re at work you wake up you’re at work you eat lunch you’re so you know it’s important to set up those boundaries between your work life and your family life and then you know and that that challenge is going to be you know sticking with that with that boundaries and then it can also be tempting to sit on the couch for 10 more minutes and you know watch good morning america or whatever it is that you’re watching and or go out in the garden or throw a little bit before you you have started your actual work work day so strong discipline and time management are going to be very crucial if you want to overcome the temptation to procrastinate some other disadvantages you know personal and family lifestyle patterns are disturbed business and family privacy may be disrupted and business activities may cause problems with your neighbors so if you’ve got people constantly coming and going if it’s that kind of a business your neighbors may start to present you or you know have a some problems with it so you want to make sure that that is you know not going to be an issue so before you begin you want to ask yourself some basic questions where in the home is your business going to be located what adjustments to living arrangements are going to be required what will be the cost of all these changes is it going to cost you a lot to set up a home office is it going to you know what’s it going to cost you you know as far as the relationships of the people who live in your home how’s your family going to react what are your neighbors going to think and you know have you thought about these advantages and disadvantages that are most commonly involved in launching a home-based business so really make that pros and con list to make sure this is something that’s going to fit with you and your family’s needs so you look at that and decide before you really get started so starting a home-based business products and services so if you don’t have an idea of what products you want to market think about your background and what you’re good at what experience you have so after you’ve kind of selected what type of products to market and here’s here’s how you’re going to do it one you want to write a business plan this is going to help sear your business all along its growth curve and grated business plans are not set in stone there a living breathing document so something that you know will probably need to change over the years but it’s something to get you started and point you in the right direction and again that’s something that our consultants at the ASB TDC can help you with I’m kind of get that going think through everything make sure that you know you’re you’re thinking of things that you know that may may be an issue that may not have thought of give business assistance in training that kind of goes back to talking with a consultant or you know there’s a lot of free in person and online resources that can help you and advise you to get started and then choose your business location make sure your home-based business is the best choice for your business idea it may end up being where you’d be better off in a brick and mortar location and that’s okay but you know think about that is it going to be you know as at your house or is it going to be written office space downtown going to be a better like location financing your business if you tell base you may or even if it’s not but you may choose to bootstrap you may have some savings you want to fall back on you may even want to keep a full-time job until your business is profitable but there are several options for an external source of financing so thinking about that next you’re going to want to determine the legal structure of your business so your business’s structure is very important for your personal liability and for your tax benefits so we’ve got starting a business God that kind of compares the different if your sole proprietorship or an LLC and you know all the different corporation that coming so you can look and compare them as far as liabilities concern taxes are concerned but I’d always recommend talking to an attorney or a CPA to you know to help them make you help let them help you make that final decision and registering your business name registrants only necessary if your business name is something other than your personal name if you’re going to do it doing business as a DBA and you don’t have to do that but the names of your other than your personal eyeing the names of your partners or the officially registered name of your LLC or corporation also need to get a tax ID number if you have employees run a business partnership corporation or meet certain RS criteria you must obtain an employer identification number from the IRS it’s very easy you can go on the IRS website find the link for the EIN number and you promise you’ll have it done in like 20 minutes and register for state and local taxes register with your within your state to obtain tax identification number workers comp unemployment and disability insurance so there’s just going to be different different state local taxes to make sure that you you’re set up with and then obtain business license and permits federal state and local licenses and permits and all businesses need a license to our permit to operate so you want to you know at least go down make sure you get under your city hall and have a license you may also have special licenses if you’re operating a child care facility you may have to have different be well you will have to have a different license within your state and there’s just you know if you’re serving food there’s different and things like that so you know and also understand your employer responsibilities understand the legal steps you need to know and in order to hire your employees so again if you want to request one of the new business guide I’ll be happy to send that to you and so you can look at that further but that’s kind of kind of how to get started on your home-based business next and so licenses of permits can kind of get it a little bit more on this so learn about any possible zoning ordinances that can affect your business not knowing the potential legal and community problems associated with have no business at home and the rules that can have you know really devastating consequences so if you go to sba.gov and that there they offer a tool called permit me you’ll see that at the bottom of the screen and all you have to do is enter your zip code and your business type and then you can view the list of licenses and permits you’re going to need together with information and links to the application process so it’s wws be a gov a net sports / licenses dash and dash permits so if you didn’t get that astley left the end of the seminar and I’ll say it in but also general business licenses your city or county government website can help you get one of those basically it’s you know just like an annual license or permit that legally and told you to do business in that locality professional and trade licenses this is kind of talking about with the child care you know state governments require certain businesses or industries to obtain professional or occupational licenses such as childcare operation or a real estate license and those those type of things home occupation permit so this may not be required in every city in Arkansas but if it’s not required in your city the zoning office can tell you if your neighborhood is zoned for the home business activity you plan to conduct so if your area is not zoned for your type of business you may need a file for a variance or a conditional use permit so you may have to go before your city planning commission and you know kind of get that worked out and you may also sales tax permit if so if you intend to sell taxable goods or services you know whether it be online or offline you may be required to collect state and local taxes from your customers so if you sell your products in a state that charges the sales tax or levies a gross receipts or excise tax on a business you may have to apply for a tax permit or otherwise register with your state revenue agency there’s kind of bent Health and Safety permits you know depending on your location and your industry you may need it either a permit or an inspection from your local fire department especially if your business and requires the use of flammable materials or it’s going to involve the Assembly of several people in one location you’re going to make sure that you’re following those fire codes also sign permits you know some cities and towns most of them do have signed ordinances in effect that restrict the type the size or the location of signs placed on your proper so you may not even be able to have a you know big sign out in your yard depending on this on permit regulations set forth by your city so just you know that’s going to before you go spend a lot of money getting the sign built to make sure that you can even put it out there construction permits if you need to make structural changes to your property to accommodate your in-home business environmental and building permits may be required for that construction and then check with your homeowners association if you live in a planned residential neighborhood or a complex that HOA can restrict the type of business activities you conduct within your home so also yeah that’s enough this is something else that can you can look at in that live business God but you can also go to our website it’s a SB TDC org you can see the website down the bottom left hand corner of the side but if you go there on the home page there is a tax license and permit ebook that is free for you to download and so that it’s got a lot of really good information regarding those three topics so may want to check that out as well so a buying and out home or work at home franchise so ask yourself you know these questions it to know franchising is right for you do you know how much you can invest what are your abilities and what are your goals so home base and franchises they’re pretty common you know if you examples you see on the screen or Jazzercise stim attic and snap-on tools if you’re not willing to take the sorry I feel like I need to say if you’re not willing to take the risk of starting your own business from scratch you know franchising may be an option I mean it’s a pretty good alternative you want to have some guidance in the startup phase of your business I can really help you get started they’ve got marketing plans in place they’ve got you know how to do the different onyx and hat sort of things so that home-based you know franchise can be a good option but if you’re not willing to take the risk I’m sorry before you decide to on a franchise you need to do your research you know there are schemes out there so make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into because you could lose a significant amount of money if you don’t investigate a business carefully before you buy it and so by law franchise sellers must disclose certain information about their business to potential buyers so it’s important to get all that information that you need before you enter a franchise so financing a home based business I’m sorry to tell you but there are no grants out there oh great and there are you know options for low-interest loan programs available for startups and we could you know talk about more about that later but a small home based business you know you may have minimal needs when it comes to initial financing probably not going to have as much because you’re not having as many that overhead we talked about earlier or not having to pay grant you’re not having to pay additional utilities and that sort of thing so you know because you won’t be on because you will be operating from your home you know the homeowner is not going to need to put down a payment on a lease for office space and it’s also sometimes difficult to form a standard business plan for a small home based business because the owner may have a variety of business activities that make up the business so marketing the home-based business first of all you need to define your market a target market your target market is not everyone everyone is not an option and your product or service does not have to appeal to people of every sex age income level or special interest instead your product or service will appeal to a limited group of people who are willing to buy what you have to sell so ask yourself you know who wants to buy the type of product I make and how can I develop it to be it’s saleable to these special people you may have to modify your progress every product or service to fit that market um so you know you definitely want to define your target mark no you know what I want and know that your target market is just not everyone that’s just not feasible or your competition competitions defined as any other product or brand that a customer bait may buy instead of the one that you’re selling so even if you think oh there’s no competition there’s got to be competition out there there’s no market for your business say there’s nobody that does in home cleaning for example I want to open up a cleaning business that goes into people’s homes and there’s no one in my town that does that well you still have competition because somebody is cleaning that house it could be set an indirect competitor which would be you know whoever is living there is doing the vacuuming and the cleaning and that sort of thing so is it going to be worth it for them to give up then you know make me gain some other time but is it going to be worth it for them to pay you to do that so note knowing your competition is going to be you know very important so you know by understanding what other products are on the market you can develop a more effective position for what for your product analyze the competition is going to allow you to gain valuable tips on the characteristics of products that are going to sell on the appropriate price level the necessary promotions or periodical price breaks to keep your customers interested and the end that’s something that we can help you with through our market research capabilities and then also find your niche to get the edge on your competition you’re going to have a product that’s perceived different from all the others and one that fulfills the wants and needs of customers better than any other product so even if you sell the same thing as you know Company B what what is making your why somebody going to come to you versus Company B are they you know is if your customer service is it you know the way that you offer free gift wrapping do you up know what is it consumers will operate on it what’s in it for me type of frequency so you know just what find your niche give a customers are reason to buy your product over your competitors product and you know some of those strategies could include a lower price even though it’s really hard to complete a lower price it’s hard to beat Walmart so you know keep keep that in mind and you know is it superior quality is that greater convenience or faster service so just find your niche and really stick with that and promote that exploit that so your customers now and then promote your product promotion involves advertising publicity personal contact the helpful tip to remember is that you’re not selling a product you’re selling what this product is going to do for people so what again what’s in it for me why am i buying this product or is this versus the other one and and how’s it how’s it going to benefit me so 10 ways to promote your business and point word of mouth this is the most valuable type of advertising marketing that you can have so it’s specially valuable for how much this is because it’s free and it’s you know and you trust people that are telling you about a business and you know it’s his referrals on here as well but if you’re you’re going to listen to a friend who’s going to recommend a restaurant versus the restaurant downtown promoting you themselves as the best Mexican food in town you’re going to trust your friends your peers your co-workers so that word of mouth is very very important having a business website most everyone today goes online to find a business or product we’re constantly on our phones or we’re sitting at a desk with our computers so you’re that’s where people are looking and you want to make sure that a will that you have a well optimized website not only if a will optimize website if someone’s looking at it on a desktop but you want to make sure that when someone is looking at their phone that they can easily see and find the information that they need because that is everybody is it’s going so much more mobile and that’s how people are searching for items local search use specific or use special search engines and directories you can use google maps yahoo of two geographically promote your business so you can go online and this is something that I kind of question with home-based businesses but you can register your business with Google now if it was me I probably am NOT going to register my exact home address because I don’t want that out there for the world to see but i may just put magnolia arkansas and register my business with google that way so it’s really easy to do again you can give me a call i can walk you through that but you know making sure that when someone gets on google that your business comes up social media great free easy way to get your promote your business facebook twitter instagram you have a free way to market your business and gain attention don’t feel like you’ve got to do every single one of those things you know if you’re it that’s something else that you want to look back at your target market if your target market or is people you know 65 and older you’re probably not going to want to use twitter to and spend a lot of time using Twitter to promote your business that age group is probably going to be more on facebook so you you just want to look and see where who your target market is and where they how you can reach them best and put your efforts in that way enewsletters it’s also an inexpensive and relatively easy way to gain visibility and interact with your customers online so you can do that that’s also goes for blogging you know you keep your readers up to date so just you know those a couple things publicity you get your aim out there with press release and get up in your community and volunteer at that goodwill going for you referrals promote your business through existing satisfied customers to bring a new business so the customers that he currently have tell them that you know they were for two new people they’re going to get ten percent off their next you know their next service of their next product and use that referral business and then public speaking share what you know in a public forum that’s going to help you market your business expand your network of contacts and attract new customers especially if your public speaking on you know product or service you are so now you are the expert and people trust the expert so if someone comes and as a presentation on how to build a website and I you know asset they’re listed nicely to know if they’re talking about i’m probably going to call that person when I’m whenever I’m ready to build my own because they were the expert they stood out to me they did a good job business cards you know make sure that when you’ve got your business cards with you at all times I’m known for not doing this but you know make sure that you have this with you include your name address phone number and any products and services that you provide you also want to have you know an attractive logo to kind of help that your professional image and again you know these not all of these are going to fit for your business not all you know you may not you cannot have time to do every single one of these things but if you pick a few things out first get to working on them and get that going and then maybe you want to add something else so let’s get your business website at first and then we’re going to start working on some social media platforms and then maybe later on you’re going to try and do some public speaking engagements so just don’t try to tackle at once it can be overwhelming and not everything on this list may be appropriate for your business so just kind of knowing that before you have you jump in headfirst so eight common stakes mistakes to avoid you know spending too much time at home loneliness is a number one complaint for people who work from home keeping that 21st or schedule you know what we said that it can be an advantage but it can also be a huge mistake you can tend to feel guilty for being at home and not working and there’s no disconnect so it’s easily it’s easy to feel burnt out allowing for interruptions you know when you go to work if you go to a 95 you know office job then you’re probably you know not having your cell phone out you’re not you know being interrupted by family members and friends so you know without a boss breathing down your neck it’s easy to take a phone call or two from those family and friends and so therefore your focus can be hindered if you depend too much on your loved ones you know without your co-workers around you could easily fall into habit of talking about your business issues with your family members and that’s a quick way to drive them crazy so you know keep keep on trying to keep that separated have somebody else you can talk to about it you know whether other than the ones that you live within every day so failing to create a separate work area can also be a big mistake even if you don’t live in a huge home you know set aside a special space reserved almost entirely for work you know so go for a little used room or you know even an empty corner it’s just important it’s at that professional tone for the day and then you know letting employees of use your home your established or your home if you don’t establish rules for how employees should behave while they’re at you know at your how much your business so getting too busy to say organized how’s work piles up it’s easy to let organization slide especially when you work in the same place at ulia so you know trying to try and keep on top of that and then starting the day without a plan without conscious decisions about have spend your time your day can slip away from me and you may not you know have much to show for it at the time days over so time management keep a log book when you’re keeping a log book update the log periodically information including your log book or you know you know what you did the time it took for you to do that task whether or not it was planned and any other important comments and then give each task that you’ve completed a grade so you know in the future which tasks are more important and then find out you know what are your time wasters and avoid them or put it off until you’ve got some free time so basically you know you just want to make sure that you can prioritize you know what needs to be done ahead of something else and you know how that’s going to help you get through your day and make the most out of your day so increase your productivity you know set goals allows us to focus our attention to aspiration addition and ideal future States so it’s hard to be successful without goals not knowing that direction to go or where your destination you know how you’re going to reach that destination and so plan out your task that’s going to allow you to stay focused on what needs to be completed that’s part of that organizing and pro organizing and prioritizing helps you stay focused on what needs to be completed and when it needs to be completed by set yourself a due date you know this is going to be done by Friday but this one doesn’t have to be done for you know a month however you want to set that up complete your big tests first when you said somebody told me once you know eat the frog and that is get that one task that you don’t want to do the most out of the way do that the first thing in the morning and then the rest of your day is going to be so much easier go ahead and get that over with and then it’s not sitting there on your to-do list and you’re just avoiding it the whole day um you know by completing your big test first you’re able to eliminate the more important task off your list of things to do and then delegate responsibilities to other so that your time can be spent on more important and urgent task you want to make sure that you know if you’ve got somebody that you’re employing that you trust let them do something else let them be that one that’s posting on Facebook or Instagram or let them be the ones answering the phone you can delegate those responsibilities minimize your interruptions typical office worker gets only 11 minutes between each interruption and while it takes an average of twenty-five minutes to return to the original task after an interruption so you know there for minimizing the number of interruptions is so very very important turn your phone on silent or you know just be able to screen those calls and if you’re able to do that you’ll you can evaluate the purpose of a call as well as deciding on how how or whether or not you need to answer it and then don’t bite off more than you can chew yeah this is one way to quickly overwhelm yourself and create more stress than necessary just you know dude you can do and no no your abilities and your limits objectives and priorities spend time defining your objectives and priorities dividing your objectives and priorities in two categories based on when they need to be completed you can stay organized and know which objectives need to be completed first so if you have not noticed there’s a common theme in this presentation and let’s get organized your long-range objectives they should have a timeline of about three to five years so they should you know those long range goals should reflect the reason you’re starting your company and be be aware how quickly these things can change though things can happen in the economy or in your industry that may force you to change your objectives and priorities sooner than you expected so you know being aware of you know the world around you and being able to adjust those long range goals is going to be important I’m your intermediate and data tables need to feed into your long-range goals so these are your stepping stones to accomplish your long-range goals and they’re going to have a much narrower narrower timeline then your long-range objectives and when deciding on the shorter term objectives make them there’s you know about five or six things make them specific measurable action-oriented realistic and Tom specific so you know if it’s specific you know in order to work the objectives have got to be concrete they are not going to be as abstract as your long-range goals you know that your specific ones going to be very highly detailed you also want to make sure that your your short-term goals are measurable put a figure on it or a value you have a dollar amount or percentage you want to have that on your objective for something to be action-oriented you know let what actions that need to be taken by people and win how’s it going to get done and who’s going to do what and when is that going to happen they’ve got to be realistic because I mean let’s be honest you can dream up big lofty goals all day long but if you can’t attain them then you’re just going to get burnout and you know it’s not that it’s going to be more frustrating than it is anything so make your goals challenging but consider your resources that you can actually achieve those goals recently and then you know make them time specific set a deadline in order to keep things on track and I think that may be all i got but yep that’s it so if you have any questions um right forum all right at this time we didn’t have any questions submitted there was a hand raised by Scott Scott you have a question there’s a question pane near the bottom that you can type in your question for Julia there