With so many mums searching for that perfect work life balance, wanting to work flexibly around their families, it is no wonder that there has been a huge rise in them setting up their own businesses over the past decade.
Working for yourself allows you to choose your own hours and take on the clients and projects that you want to. It also offers the flexibility to be there for your children, from school runs to assemblies to those days when they are poorly and just need their mum. It can often make sense to run your own business from home, allowing you to juggle a few balls all at once, which is why today we are sharing with you a few tips around how to get started with running your own business from home.
What’s the big idea?
This is where you will start, of course. You need to decide what business you will start and there are so many possibilities.
When you are working from home you could opt to utilise your existing skills and experience if you have enjoyed your career so far. Perhaps you could be a mobile hairdresser, a tutor or a consultant within your field. Alternatively, you might want to turn a hobby into a business or buy into an existing franchise.
You might want to run an online business, where you could try anything from blogging to dropshipping. If you choose to go for something like this then the initial set up costs will probably be low, reducing the risk for you. It also means that you can be quite flexible with your hours and work around your family’s needs.
Putting together the plan
Now that you have settled on your business idea, you will need to start putting together a plan for it.
Start by thinking about the logistics involved and how you will manage them. Think about who would be your customers and where you would get your business from. Try to imagine your day to day activities and what you would hope to achieve each week.
This is also the time to start looking at any products that you might need to source and working out any expenditure that you are likely to incur.
When you have gathered your thoughts you can create your business plan. Take your time over this so that it as accurate as you can possibly make it and so that you have looked at it from all angles. It will help you to see any potential obstacles so that you can begin to work out ways around them.
Talking it through with friends and family
It is worth talking over all of your ideas, thoughts and concerns with your friends and family at this stage. They will help you to get around any issues and they may spot problems or solutions that you had not thought of.
This is your first chance to really sound everything out with trusted advisors so do take the opportunity to pick their brains, talk through various scenarios and get their feedback. Their ideas and suggestions can help you to make any changes and shape your business before moving forward.
Asking for help
With your family and friends now firmly in the loop, it is a good time to ask for any help that you think you might need.
If they have skills or contacts that could be of use to you, then now is the time to sound them out and see how you might be able to work together.
On a personal level, ensure that everyone understands that you are about to take a significant project on and that you might need to call on them for help from time to time. They might be able to help out with childcare or be there for a catch up and a coffee on the days when you are desperate for a break.
Arranging the funding
You might be opting for a business that actually requires very little initial funding and outlay, or you might have enough in savings to cover your needs, so this one might not be applicable to you. However, some business will need a level of funding in order to get started.
There are plenty of options available to you, from unsecured business loans to grants to crowdfunding to setting up business accounts with overdrafts attached to them. It is worth making an appointment with a business startup specialist at this point and taking along your business plan to talk everything through with them. They will then be able to advise you on any available funding and your best course of action.
The practicalities
With funding in place, you can begin setting up the bones of your new business. If you are working from home then you are going to need to consider and arrange certain practicalities.
Firstly, where will you work? Is there a spare room, shed or garage that you can turn into a suitable workspace? It can be really useful to have a designated space to work each day, away from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the household, if possible. It will allow you to keep everything that you need to hand and help to put you into a work frame of mind as you step into the office each day.
You then need to set some business hours for yourself. In all honesty, in the early days you are likely to have the energy and enthusiasm to give it every moment that you have got and it may well need to get it all off the ground. But then going forwards, that level of work is not going to be sustainable. Remember that you have started this business so that you can work at home and balance work with family life so you need to take care that you are not sacrificing too much family time for work. It is worth setting yourself a few boundaries and working hours where possible.
If your children are school aged, then you might choose to work 9am until 3pm each weekday, and then perhaps evenings if needed after they have gone to bed. You might need to work weekends, but does it have to be all day, both days? Could you work it so that you dip in and out to stay in touch at weekends? Or maybe you can simply switch off every weekend and recharge with some quality family time, ready for the week ahead.
Will you need to put some childcare into place, either over the short term whilst you are launching and organising everything, or over the longer term? If so, this is the time to arrange it so that everything is in place and running smoothly allowing you to focus on your new business.
Thinking about your branding
With everything in place, you can now focus on the specifics and your business branding. You will of course need a name and then it might be worth employing the skills of a graphic designer to help you to come up with a suitable logo and packaging and products if applicable.
The branding will be the face and voice of your business so think about what you are seeking to achieve, everything that is important to you and your business values. Try to encompass these things within your branding and convey them in any messages that you put out about your business.
Launching your business
Now comes the exciting part, actually getting started.
If you need stock, products or equipment, make it a priority to order all of that. You will then have everything that you need to begin.
It is likely that your first few days and weeks will be spent on a lot of administrative tasks as you set up a website, put together your logos and branding, make calls and build up contacts and start to spread the word. You will also need to set yourself up with an effective bookkeeping system, and there are plenty of software packages available to help you with this. You will need to register as self employed within the first three months of running your business, so it is easiest to do this within your first week or two to ensure that you have ticked this box and got it arranged before you get busy.
Once you are up and running and everything has been arranged behind the scenes, you can start spreading the word about what you are doing. Let people know and ask them to tell their friends, have business cards made up to hand out, share across your own personal social media and then set up social media channels for your business so that you can promote it there. Take advantage of every free form of advertising that you can think of and ask for feedback and reviews from those first customers so that you can improve your offerings and use them as testimonials to share with any prospective clients.
You are now up and running, enjoy it!
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