Do you work wholly or largely from home?
Are you frustrated that your workdays aren’t as efficient or lucrative as you’d like them to be?
It’s not your fault. Plenty of dedicated solo entrepreneurs struggle to scale. Your growing pains don’t mean you’re not cut out for the home-based business life — on the contrary, they merely indicate that you need to think differently about how, where, and when you work.
Let’s take a look at six strategies home-based entrepreneurs can deploy to substantially boost their efficiency and increase take-home pay.
1. Create A Dedicated Home Work Space
Are you still hunched over your laptop on the couch or kitchen table? With all due respect, you’re not going to produce your best work in a shared-use space, especially not one in a high-traffic area of the home.
Resolve to ditch the couch and create a dedicated home work space — either a quiet corner of an existing multi-use room that’s typically not used during business hours, or a walled-off area such as a spare bedroom or finished basement. Follow HGTV’s sensible home office design tips to create a space you can be proud of.
2. Focus On Scalable Opportunities
Look for work-at-home opportunities that play to your personal strengths and allow for low-friction scaling. If you’re intrigued by the idea of empowering your clients to raise funds for the causes they care about, for instance, you’ll want to look into operating a home-based fundraising distribution business. As ABC Fundraising explains, a full-time home-based fundraising distributor can earn $5,000 per month or more, depending on their product mix, effort, and skill.
3. Set Regular Business Hours And Stick To Them (With Allowances For Special Circumstances)
Set and hold yourself to regular scheduled business hours. These don’t necessarily have to coincide with “official” business hours: 8am or 9pm to 4pm or 5pm, usually. Rather, they can align with your own schedule — beginning and ending earlier to accommodate your kids’ school days, or stretching into the evening if you’re a night owl. Allow yourself some flexibility for special non-work-related events, and for important meetings outside regular business hours.
4. Look For Side Project Opportunities And Synergies
Who says home-based entrepreneurs can’t work on side projects? Sometimes, what begins as a couple-hours-per-week moonshot turns into a thriving, full-time enterprise — like these wildly successful concepts outlined by Inc editor Jeff Haden.
5. Network With Other Solo Entrepreneurs
Don’t let the work-at-home life turn you into a recluse. Attend as many networking and professional development events as you can, even if they occur during regular business hours. You never know where you’ll meet your next client or business partner.
6. Create a Public Persona Around Your Home-based Business
Lastly, don’t be shy about your home-based business. Use your personal social media accounts to document your work-at-home lifestyle, your blog to discuss topics relevant to home-based entrepreneurs, and your LinkedIn account to interface with other work-at-home types. The higher your public profile around working at home, the less trouble you’ll have scaling and diversifying your business.
What’s Your Work-At-Home Secret?
Every successful home-based entrepreneur has their own “secret sauce.” You don’t actually have to keep said sauce secret, of course — you just have to confirm that it works well for you. Using the tips outlined here, you’re likely to get closer to that elusive outcome. And, fingers crossed, your take-home earnings will reflect your new reality.
I hope you enjoyed this blog post about how your home-based business can be more efficient and profitable.
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