There are two main types of businesses, whether you start at home or out of it. Some people are better suited to one or the other, or you may find that your situation or budget dictates which you choose. Here is a brief look at each type of business.

 Service-based Business

Service include things that you do for other people. Your product is what you do rather than something physical. Some good examples of a service-based business include dog walking, personal assistant, tailoring, computer repair and house cleaning.

Service-based businesses:

• Often (but not always) charge by time, minutes, hours, month, etc.
• Tend to be less flexible, since you have deadlines and possibly even a schedule to keep.
• Allow you to work on more than one project at a time.
• Exchange time for money, meaning that in order to earn more, you´ll need to raise prices or hire more people.
• Usually deal with either menial tasks that no one wants to do or tasks that are highly specialized and few people can do.

Product-based Business

With a product, you are selling something that actually exists in the physical world. This is something that you make or purchase to resell. Some examples of product-based businesses include soapmaking, crafting to sell, baking, and electronics.

Product-based businesses:

• Charge by product, your profit is the price of the item minus the cost to you to create or buy it.
• Tend to be more flexible. For example, you can work on making candles while the kids are in bed or spend a weekend creating baby bibs to sell.
• It´s easy to stock up on products, so you can rest sometimes, too.
• Startup costs are usually higher because you need not only equipment but materials.

There are also cross-over businesses, like restaurants, that offer both service and products, but since these are not usually home-based businesses, we´ll leave those out for now.

Which business type is for you? Do you have a product-based business or a service-based one? Leave a comment and let me know!

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Growth is good, right? Having your business expand can´t be a bad thing, after all. But, there are times when stopping business growth might just be the best way to go. The business person inside you is probably shouting, “NO! Businesses are meant to grow, not growing means bankruptcy!” We are conditioned to believe that just having a business isn´t good enough. We have to be rich and famous, too . . . but that´s not always the case.

There are a few reasons why you would want to stop growing.

You have reached the point where you are comfortable with the time requirements. Work at home moms often work from home so they can be with their kids more and have a flexible schedule. But if your business grows too much, you´ll find that you resent your children for interrupting you and your work life will get out of control.

The next step in expansion would be to leave the house. Maybe your business has reached the point that it would have to expand to a proper store or an outside office in order to continue growing. If that is in your plans, fine. But many work at home moms don´t really want to start working in an office again, even if it´s their own.

Further growth would require more energy and resources than you are willing to put into it. Maybe you´d rather use your time and money to help your kids get ahead in school or take them to soccer practice. Maybe you are enjoying the laid back schedule of your life and don´t really want to change it . . . these are valid reasons to halt business growth. Or it might be that coming up with a new product just isn´t worth the amount of time you´d have to spend away from your family.

You have too many ideas and don´t know which one to charge ahead with. Taking the time to examine where you are in your home business and what you want from it is a great idea. It´s something we should all stop and do on a regular basis. This slow down period allows you to take a deep breathe, do some research and make informed decisions before moving on. Your business will be far better if you do this.

 You´re having second thoughts about continuing with your home business. It happens to the best of us. Some business ideas just aren´t the best ones for us and that´s fine. If you decide to go in another direction, it´s best to stop the growth of the business you are unsure of, at least until you make a decision.

If you grow any more, you´ll need employees. Are you ready to deal with hiring people, paying benefits and the like? It´s a big step to start hiring employees for your business and while it´s a great sign that you are doing very well, it may also be more responsibility than you really want at this point.

All of these are great reasons to maintain your business instead of growing it. And they are all reversible. It could well be that when your kids are toddlers, you stop growing your business and maintain it at a healthy level so you can spend lots of time attending to their needs. But once the kids are in school . . . your business can grow again. The same thing happens once they are off to college, you´ll be able to expand your home business as much as you feel comfortable.

The main thing is to know your limits and to be comfortable with the level your home business is at. Don´t overdo it . . . you´ll miss valuable moments in the lives of your kids and you´ll find yourself too stressed out to really enjoy anything from your non-work life.

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Here´s an interesting website to check out, TradePubs. They offer free subscriptions to all sorts of industry magazines, plus free downloads of white papers and ebooks for just about any type of business you can think of.

Most work at home moms don´t have a lot of extra cash laying around, particularly when they are just starting their business. That doesn´t mean you shouldn´t continue learning, though! With free trade publications, you can sign up for as many magazines as you like that relate to your industry and you´ll be able to continue learning without having to pay a fortune in magazines.

Here are just a handful of the many categories available:

Computers
Education
Finance
Food and Beverage
Human Resources
Internet
Meetings and Travel
Retail
Small and Medium Business

I recommend taking a look to see if there is anything you´d be interested in there. However, be aware that any physical magazines may have a limited area they can be shipped to, I noticed that the majority are available only in Canada and the US.

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When you work from home, it´s easy to get caught up in work and not stop when you should. A common issue for work at home moms is balancing life and work, you constantly try to keep the house clean, deadlines met and kids fed . . . but what we very rarely think of until it´s too late, is our health.

Just a couple days ago, the New York Times reported on “death by blogging”.

To be sure, there is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic. There is also no certainty that the stress of the work contributed to their deaths. But friends and family of the deceased, and fellow information workers, say those deaths have them thinking about the dangers of their work style.

The pressure even gets to those who work for themselves — and are being well-compensated for it.

You may not be a blogger, but any type of work can have its hazards, particularly when you are doing the same motions over and over again, or find yourself sitting or standing for long periods. Think about it, what would you do if your back went out? Or if you develop carpal tunnel syndrome? Could you continue in your work at home business?

Steps to Protect Yourself

Often, work at home moms have no insurance, no health policies or anything to help out if they should be injured or get sick. So what can you do to ensure that this never happens to you?

• Be aware of what the hazards are in your business. Don´t ignore the facts, do a bit of research and you´ll find out exactly what you need to look out for.
• Take action to protect yourself. It´s easy to think it will never happen to you, but it can´t hurt to take precautions.
• Plan ahead. If you end up not being able to work for a while, is there anyone else who can take over your business for you? It may be worth teaching a friend or family member some of the basics.
• Save some money. Setting aside some cash just in case is never a bad idea and it could come in very handy if you end up having to take some time off to recover from a work related health problem.

As work at home moms, we need to remember that we are important, too. If you don´t look after yourself, who will? And who will take over your business when you are out for a while?

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When you get a bunch of job offers, it can be really tough to turn work down, but sometimes it´s necessary, if you simply don´t have the time. I´ve been running into this issue lately . . . I´m working on so many different projects that it is getting to be a bit overwhelming!

The way I see it, you have two options when you start getting floods of work.

Option One: Turn some of it down. This hurts, it really does. When you´ve struggled to build your business up to this point and then find that you just can´t do everything, it´s very painful to turn jobs away and watch that extra money float away! But it´s necessary sometimes and you just need to be very selective about the jobs you take.

You can look at turning work down as a luxury, if you like. You now have enough work that you don´t need to deal with the unpleasant clients, it´s fine to turn them away, without feeling guilty about money lost.

Option Two: Hire someone. Expanding your business can be a scary thing to do. You need to find someone who has the same work ethic as you and who will turn in great work that you can actually hand over to your client without being embarrassed about the quality. Depending on your business, you may need to train someone to this level of quality and that takes time and money . . . something that is pretty scarce when running your home business.

Neither of these options is right for everyone every time. You might not want to take on employees. Some work at home moms are content to keep their business fairly small, so they can still spend plenty of time with their children. Others will find it impossible to say no to work and will need to hire extra help.

I personally have been doing a bit of both, hiring on a sister to help me out with extra writing assignments and turning down a few lesser paying jobs that I just don´t have time for.

You are the only person who can decide which is right for you and your business, but even if you haven´t reached this point yet, you should think about it. What will you do when you start getting too many order or too many assignments to handle on your own?

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