Thinking Home Based Business? Better Think Again!

Thinking Home Based Business? Better Think Again!

This is not a message of getting rich from your kitchen table even though there are literally thousands of businesses a person can get into and operate from home. If you are thinking self employment and working from your home, then you need to know the difference between a home based business and a work at home business. In a Home Based Business, the home is the base for booking, bookkeeping and equipment while the work is preformed away from home. In this scenario, people call in and place work orders and the technicians respond. An example of home based businesses are: carpet cleaners, carpet layers, painters, plumbers, yard services and so on. These services go from their homes each day, preform a service and return home at days end. Their bookkeeping is kept, usually in one designated room of the house where it can be credited for IRS purposes.

A work at home business is different in the since that the work itse! lf is preformed at home. Many times the business person travel from the home to acquire supplies and returns them back for manufacturing of sorts. This type of business range from sewing to mixing non toxic, non volatile chemicals. I includes Furniture repair and refurbishing, upholstering, picture frames, raising dog kennel. Auto detailing, small engine repair and so on.


On the one hand the work is preformed away from the home, Home Based and the other instance the work is preformed in the home.

Here Comes The Good Old IRS
The IRS will allow you to designate a portion of the home for tax write off. Is is better, if possible to have a free standing building detach from the home because you can write off all its expenses. If you have a detached garage or tool stead use them for your business office or workroom. Have a telephone installed, that shows you are permanent. If you are in a neighborhood, do not put up sighs most cities do not allow it.
Most service business do not require customers to come to th! eir plac e of business anyway. All business transactions are done by telephone. Advertise your telephone number not your address. Even if you are giving you customers 30 days to pay, give them a box number to respond to. Mail boxes can be rented from the US Postal, Mail Boxes or US, The UPS stores and other places as well.

In the house or not?
Ideally, You can operate from a garage located on the lot next to your home. This way your home has one address and the business has another. I did this for years, it worked out great. The second lot was zoned commercial so I could have large trucks deliver without problems. UPS also made daily pickups for must less charge because of the commercial address.

As it worked out the rent and expenses on the office was almost as much as the house payment, that worked very well with the IRS. Be warned though, the office had its own address and was used only for business and as so, could be written off as a tax liability.

Spec! ialty Chemicals, easy to make easy to sell.
We produced carpet cleaning chemicals. A commercial mixer would mix the product to our specifications, put it in fifty five gallon drums and deliver it to us. I build a loading dock at one side of the building and ran pipe out to the drums. The material was pumped into tank in a small room at the back of the office and a surfactant was added (the secret ingredient) and then bottled and boxed. One box of product was nine bottles which made forty five gallons of ready-to-us material. The package weighed ten pounds, easy to handle and cost little to ship. I made my own box labels but had the bottles screened printed and shipped to me.

The product was a one of a kind product that deep cleaned by using static attraction. It saved the customer many hours of labor and restored their carpet in the process. One of the most active customers was hospitals. At one time I was shipping to hospitals in every state and of every size. !
But this is only one business you can run from your home. ! There's one big problem. If your not self motivated, forget it and go get a job. You absolutely have to treat it as any other job. You have get up and be in the office at the same time every day. Your customers expect it of you and if you want to keep them you will do it.

Better be a Jack of all Trades.
It's up to you to make the sales calls, send letters, mix and bottle the product, ship it, bill the customer, do collections, and keep the IRS happy. You have to know the local rules for businesses, pay your local and state taxes, keep up on Environmental Protection laws, find the best shipper, and know everything there is to know about the product and its application.

You are the chief cook and bottle washer, and don't forget it. You fool around and don't pay attention, the business suffers. It will only do for you what you do for it. Think you can run off and play golf, forget it, there's always something else that needs to be done. The only glory in being a sma! ll business owner is, it's yours, kind of like being married - except you get to set the rules. You do the planing in how much you will make and you will get a big dose of the free enterprise system, from the inside out. Make no mistake about it, it is not easy. No matter what the Government says, they don't want you to be in business for yourself. They want you to draw a regular paycheck where they can take their cut without hassle. They don't like doing audits and messing around with your few thousand dollars when they can go after much bigger pickings.

Even Your bank won't believe you.
Another little tidbit, when you are self employed, people think you are unemployed. If you want to get a loan for a car or house, get ready to show everything you have done from day one and beyond. You have to keep good records, or have a CPA do it for you. I went to buy a house, the lender wouldn't believe my IRS filings, I had to go to a CPA for verification. All in all I wou! ldn't have had it any other way. I'm too dang hard headed to w! ork for someone and can't stand working with someone. So you make up your mind, working from home is and experience like no other.

Is it worth it? Well, I have to say yes, for the strong willed and no for the follower who is comfortable working for retirement.

Happy Trails

By: donyates

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com

Donald Yates, Former Director of Business and Leadership Development for Imperial Research, is now retired but continues to assist young people in engaging life through self discovery, Life course planning, intuitiveness and fulfillment. Learn how you can build a powerful organization of your own. To learn more, visit Proven Internet Businesses Can't Sleep? Click Here!

By: donyates

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com

Donald Yates, Former Director of Business and Leadership Development for Imperial Research, is now retired but continues to assist young people in engaging life through self discovery, Life course planning, intuitiveness and fulfillment. Learn how you can build a powerful organization of your own. To learn more, visit Proven Internet Businesses Can't Sleep? Click Here

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Your Home Based Business