How do you know if you’re ready to start your own business? Although anyone can start and run a successful service business, there are certain characteristics and natural strengths that make it easy. Before you start on this path, you should understand these characteristics and measure yourself against them.
If every trait described in this article doesn’t sound like you, it doesn’t mean that you can’t start your own business. The point of listing these traits is to give you an initial idea of challenges you may face. After reading these traits, you will understand how ready you are to start your business; or, you can recognize the areas where you may face challenges.
First, let’s take a bigger look at the advantages and disadvantages you need to take into account whenever the going gets tough with your own business. Think about whether the pros outweigh the cons for your own motivation.
The Advantages of Starting a Home-Based Business
Flexibility
Flexibility means that you can set your own hours and work as you please. You can create a schedule around your regular work, your family, travel or even your leisure activities. You can find the exact time of day that’s the “sweet spot” for certain types of tasks. You can also be available to your customers whenever they need you in order to meet their needs.
Working at Home
Many self-employed people work at home. You might work entirely at home, or you may use your home as a base and travel to visit customers or perform work for them. Working at home means no commute time, which saves you a great deal of time and expense. It’s the dream of many to spend all day working in their pajamas.
More Time with Family
With no commute and the ability to design your own schedule, you can spend more time with family. When there’s some family event like a birthday or a child’s recital, you can arrange your work schedule so that you can attend without asking for time off. You can also deal with emergencies such as a sick child whenever you need to.
Minimal Start-up Costs
Starting a home-based service business requires little money upfront to start. Your expenses include only the tools you need, such as specific physical tools, your computer, software programs, webhosting, internet access, and so on. You don’t have to pay rent and all of the expenses that go with a staffed workplace.
Independence
When you’re self-employed, you have no boss. You have no one to answer to. There are no performance evaluations, no office politics and no incompetence among your superiors. You’ll never have a conflict with your boss over which direction the business needs to go.
Earning Potential
As we mentioned in the introduction, you have the potential to earn more than you would at a salaried job. If you provide a service, you can raise the price over time. You can set your own prices depending on the labor or difficulty involved. If you create multiple businesses that can run without your constant management, you can create a residual income.
The Disadvantages of Starting a Home Based Business
Work/Life Balance
If you can work any time, you might end up working all the time. Without a set 9 to 5 schedule, it’s easy to become absorbed in work or work more
because it will earn you more money, and then neglect family, social life and leisure time
Discipline
It takes a great deal of discipline to work for yourself. While it’s nice to have the boss off your back, you might need a boss or coworkers to keep you on track.
Isolation
Many people quit their job to get away from coworkers and bosses only to find working at home horribly lonely. You may miss the social contact and support you get from peers and it’s not always easy to get that contact and support via the internet.
Multiple Hats
When you run your own business, you have to wear multiple hats. You have to be an accountant, a boss, a specialist in your service area, an IT person, an HR department and so on. Some of these hats may be things you’re not good at and it will be a struggle to handle them.
Keep all the advantages and disadvantages of running your own home-based business in mind now as you look at the characteristics of proven, successful service business owners.
The Ideal Personal Characteristics of a Self-Employed Service Provider
The ideal personal characteristics listed here vary in how necessary they are to starting a business. Some of them are critical, but others can be learned or outsourced.
Self-Motivation
Self-motivation is absolutely critical. You need to be a self-starter and someone who can stay on task if you want to run your own business. A great deal of work goes into setting up and running a service business, and there’s no boss breathing down your neck.
Business or Industry Knowledge
You need to know some basics about running a business and about your industry and related industries. This is something that can be learned, and if you’re not terribly business savvy to start with, it’s well worth your time to study.
Time Management
Much of what managers do in companies is time management of employees. When you work for yourself, you have to manage your own time. It helps if you’re already somewhat adept at this, but time management skills can be learned if you’re willing to create new habits and stick to them.
Organizational Skills
Organizational skills can also be learned if you don’t have them already, but if you’re a generally organized person, this will speed up your learning curve. When the time comes that you’re handling multiple customers, jobs and/or revenue streams, you need to keep it all organized.
Management Skills
It helps a great deal if you’re good at managing other people. It’s possible that your business will never hire additional staff, but you may have to at some point. Management is a skill that you can outsource if you find it difficult.
Marketing Skills
When service businesses are just starting out, they don’t usually have the budget to hire marketing staff and have to rely on online marketing such as SEO and social media. This can also be outsourced if you have the budget for it.
People Skills
You need to have good social skills for interacting both with customers and with vendors and other businesses your business will rely on.
Entrepreneurial Skills
One major challenge for many self-employed people is that you have to be both a professional at whatever service you provide, and an entrepreneur. No matter what kind of business you’re starting, you will inevitably become an entrepreneur, even though you may never have thought of yourself as one before.
Being an entrepreneur involves:
- Self-discipline and motivations
- Decision-making and problem solving skills
- A vision for your business’s future
- The ability to adapt and be flexible
- Perseverance in the face of adversity
- The constant search for new ways to grow your business
- An understanding of your market
- Self-reliance
- Self-confidence
- An ability to commit
- At least some sense of competitiveness
Again, there is a great deal to consider in this article. The point isn’t to dissuade you, but rather to set your expectations. These are qualities that will help you or which you should consider for improvement.
