Once again please welcome our guest contributor:
Michelle Green from The Business of Baking!
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Home Based Business
Michelle Green from The Business of Baking!
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Home Based Business
by Michelle Green
Earlier this month I wrote an article about some things to
think about when considering opening a store front, and today I'm going to talk
about some things to consider when deciding to keep your business home based.
Ultimately a lot of this home versus store choice is based around lifestyle,
available space, and what scale you want your business to grow to. Here are a
few things to consider about owning a home based baking business.
· The overheads for running a home based business
are generally a lot smaller, because some (not all) of your costs simply won't
apply in a home environment. As an example, in order to have an A-frame signon
the pavement in front of my store, I had to pay my local council over $250 a
year to have it. That expense simply would not exist for a home based business.
The bonus to having less overheads is potentially having more profit.
· It can be a great way to 'test out' if you're
wanting a larger scale business. Because home based business are easier to
scale (because they are less expensive to run generally) you can test the
boundaries of how much work you want or are able to take on. Some people
wanting a store start out from home and find it much too overwhelming so they
never get to the store stage – it's a good way to test out the “What the heck
was I thinking?!” part of it.
· Kids touch stuff. As do dogs. It can be a
challenge to keep your work space as your work space without invaders of the 2
legged or 4 legged kind.
· Space, or rather a lack of space, will either
drive you up a wall or teach you how to work very efficiently.
· There is a perception (an unfair one) that prices
from home-based businesses should be less than those at a store front.
· Perfect strangers will know where you live. This
isn't a big deal, and there are ways to manage it (don't put your whole address
on your website) but it's something to think about it. Your privacy
becomes,well, less private!
· Unless you are able to build an entirely separate
dwelling or room, there will be strangers wandering into your personal space.
· Working from home IS a lot more flexible, but that
also means it potentially eats into your personal time as well. Working from
home requires a fair amount of self discipline.
· Your family expenses will increase. Yes, I teach
you to cost out running costs into your cake prices, but it can be a challenge
to then take the money you earn in those cakes and then actually apply that
money to those specific bills. It's much
easier to 'hide' those costs in your normal bills (in particular for things
like water and power) so this is something to be aware of. For example, are you
really going to notice if you use an extra bottle of dish washing detergent
every month? Probably not but it's an expense that you would not otherwise have
in your family supermarket budgeting.
There are lots of benefits to working from home,
and it's a lot less limiting than you might think. So many people cite their
major challenge or lack of success as being a home based business, but there
are plenty of people making plenty of money from home. I would venture to say
that several of your cake idols are happily working from home and happily
making a good living from it. The key to
that success isn't being limited by your home base, it's by being inspired by
it to come up with creative ways around it, while still maintaining the
lifestlye that being home based gives you.
Copyright 2014 Michelle Green The Business of Baking All rights reserved.
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Michelle is a food writer, trained chef and pastry chef with a huge amount of knowledge and helpful insight into running a cake business. She is also the sole author of the blog, "The Business of Baking" -www.thebizofbaking.com. "The Business of Baking" is specific to the baking and decorating industry and teaches you how to make a real living doing what you love. Michelle started cake decorating at sixteen years old and eventually turned her hobby into a business by becoming a pastry chef, then opening a custom cake business and owning it for ten years. These days, Michelle is an educator, consultant and author who mentors other decorators in business, proving that it's possible to run a business and maintain your sanity at the same time. In 2014 and 2015 Michelle will be teaching live classes all about running a sustainable business. More information on her courses can be found at www.bizbakeontour.com.
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