Blog How to Start a Home Business in 7 Easy Steps

How to Start a Home Business in 7 Easy Steps

05/11/2022

Photo by Jonathan Borba via Unsplash

The number of home-based businesses continues to grow.

Ranging from small boutiques to nail salons to accounting firms, home-based businesses make up a big chunk of the economy.

So, what’s holding you back from joining them?

If you're interested in finding out how to start a home business in seven easy steps, then check out the following guide from Dump The 9to5.

1. Set Up Your Office.

Before you dive into the world of entrepreneurship, make sure your home office is conducive to your work.

This means having a space that’s free of distractions, and that affords enough square footage to spread out if you have inventory or multiple computers. For equipment, you’ll likely need a desk, comfortable chair, laser printer, and device chargers.

2. Determine Your Niche

As you would when starting any business, determining your specific niche is crucial.

Generalizing may seem like the smarter thing to do to reach more customers, but targeting specific clients wins every time, no matter your business. Here are some different niche ideas to help get the creative juices flowing:

● Freelancing

● Bookkeeping

● Non-profit

● Salon & beauty

● Health & fitness

● Ecommerce

3. Research Your Competition

Once you’ve picked a niche for your business, you’ll want to make sure you research your competition.

What are they doing that’s working for them?

What do you think they could improve on? Be sure to take note of what’s effective and what’s not, so you can incorporate it into your business model.

4. Launch Your Company Website

Creating a business website is crucial in 2022.

This is where you’ll gain organic web traffic to increase your clientele.

Many entrepreneurs choose to self-host with WordPress because of the flexibility it allows.

Be prepared for building a WordPress website to be more time-consuming and require you to be tech-savvy unless you hire a web developer to design it for you.

There are also plenty of website builders that simplify building your company site; some user favorites include Wix and Shopify.

You can find plenty of straightforward tutorials online for whichever platform you decide to use.

5. Build Your Portfolio or Gain Reviews

If you’re a service-based business, it’s a good idea to work for free in some instances to gain reviews and build your portfolio.

This is an important step needed to showcase your work to potential clients and earn their trust.

Be sure to include valuable material like client testimonials and in-depth case studies as well.

If your business is centered around selling a particular product, you may want to send it to influencers or big names in the industry to review and promote. You have to think about how you can build credibility around your brand before you have customers.

6. Create Your Business Model

Next, you’ll need to create your business model.

If you have clients, will they pay you by the hour or will you have a monthly retainer fee? If you’re selling a product, are you pricing it high enough to ensure your overhead is covered?

These are all important points to consider before moving forward with your home-based business. You also need to determine if you’ll work alone or hire employees as you expand your company.

If you decide to do the latter, you’ll need to ensure you’re staying on top of payroll. This can easily be done through an automated all-in-one payroll. This can take care of timekeeping, calculating and filing taxes, employee direct deposit, and access payroll reports from your desktop or mobile device.

7. Generate Leads

One of the best ways you can benefit from free organic lead generation is by creating a strong social media presence.

Be sure to research where your target market spends the most time and start engaging with users on those platforms.

Deliver free high-value content as much as possible.
Besides the obvious Facebook and Instagram, a great platform to generate leads is YouTube. You may also want to consider cold emailing, affiliate marketing, podcasting, or blogging for your business.