Anyone can start a home-based business. Anyone with something to sell, that is. Running a home-based business is no longer just for retirees, the disabled, or stay-at-home moms anymore. Anyone can start one. But making a success of it will take both planning and effort. Your main ingredient is your Stuff, your product or service, whatever you decide to sell. In addition, whatever type of business you choose, there’s the matter of a business license. Many communities – and that now includes counties – require them. With licensing come laws, such as prohibiting the display of signs on or near your home, limits on the number of non-residents allowed to work in your home, even regulating parking for your customers and clients. When it comes to products, you can sell a variety of things, some you may make – cookies, candy, baby clothing – some made by others. The latter you buy at one price, mark it up as much as your target audience is willing to pay, then offer those items for sale at those higher prices. You can also sell things you’ve designed by that are made by others, items you’ve contracted with others to make to your specs. That’s often smarter than tying up your limited start-up dollars on renting a plant, buying equipment and hiring people to make that Stuff you’ve designed. Your options when it comes to selling a service are a bit different. If you offer that service in your home – such as setting up a room in which to style ladies hair – it can become a problem. Added street traffic, combined with limited on-street parking can result in complaints to local officials by your neighbors. If you’re painting portraits or doing bookkeeping – services that result in little or no additional traffic or parking problems, neighbors are less likely to object. I know of one case where a man had a home-based business selling little league uniforms. Despite the fact he would go to where the teams practiced to take the measurements of the players, his neighbors objected to the UPS truck delivering the finished uniforms to his home. They also objected to the added traffic – just during one week a year, mind you – when the coaches would come to his home to pick up their team’s uniforms. What happened as a result is that the small city in which he lives passed an ordinance that severely limited the activities of every home-based business within it’s jurisdiction, including restricting the number of visitors a business might have at any one time. Rarely do local licensing laws promote the creation of home-based businesses. Their intent can be based one or more of several motives. The primary concern is usually positioned as being to maintain the piece and tranquility of residential neighborhoods. Often the underlying reason is to raise revenue. Governmental bodies absolutely love revenue sources. Whatever the reason they exist, ignore those laws and you can expect problems. When information flows as freely as it does today, an unlicensed home-based business is often quickly discovered, and it’s likely to be fined more the than the cost of the unpurchased license. That’s in addition to having to having to pay for that license anyway. For those of you who believe in the old saying that it’s often easier to get forgiveness than it is to get permission, ignoring your community’s laws relating to home-based businesses isn’t likely to generate forgiveness. It’s wiser to follow that other adage, the one about it’s better to be safe than sorry. © 2006, Philip A. Grisolia, CBC Phil Grisolia is an award-winning copywriter as well as a consultant and business coach to owners of small and start-up companies. An accredited Certified Business Communicator (CBC), Phil is also an author and educator. To learn more about Phil and the types of help he provides for his clients, visit http://PhilGrisolia.com . While there, sign up for a free subscription to his best-in-class newsletter - Making Sense of Marketing™. |
