The creation of a home-based business can be a great opportunity for a mother to thrive professionally without sacrificing time with the family. This business could be created as something to do but in most cases it is done for financial gain. Growing a home-based business can be difficult without hard work and impeccable decision making. Setting a goal of making more money is great but creating a strategy to do so is far more important. Being able to adapt this plan to reach a goal in an more efficient way should always be an option. Creating a plan then sticking to it despite its shortcomings is very unwise. The following are tips for a mother that wants to grow her home-based business in the coming future.
Set Quarterly Goals
Setting goals that are optimistic as well as reasonable needs to be done otherwise a successful growth period could be seen as an utter failure. These quarterly goals can have milestones set weekly or monthly as far as revenue and sales go. Review the different changes that are made as well as track the improvement or lack thereof for each change. If you fail to track these things it can be difficult to translate what helped and what did not. Small improvements over the course of the year can make a huge difference in a business’ bottom line. Ask current employees how they think processes can be improved as they can be a vital source of information.
Turn The Garage Into A Large Office Space
The garage is an incredibly versatile space that can be turned into a large office. Those businesses that have large inventories can store products here as well as handle the printing of shipping labels. The office is where you will spend a large amount of time so making this a space where you do not mind working is imperative. Bouclair’s Peter Goldberg is quoted saying “Creating a great space can take a few pieces of furniture but do not forget the décor as this helps provide the energy for a room.” If you are having people come work with you having multiple desks as well as whiteboards with goals written on them can create a motivating workspace.
Employ Your Teen
Employing your teen can be a great way for them to earn money as well as gain knowledge of how it is to work at a business. The job role that your teen has depends on their skillset with some teens being able to handle social media while others could help with administrative duties. Your teen seeing the business savvy side of you could have them gain a new respect for what you do and how you do it. Grades should be of the utmost importance though so limiting hours worked if grades slip is important.
Valuing Services/Products Appropriately
Valuing services/products appropriately is important as pricing something too cheap can actually scare customers away. If you are pricing a service 40 percent below industry average customers tend to think there is some kind of catch. With this being said you should not set prices above industry average as you still have a smaller company without much overhead. Take the time to ask for pricing guides from businesses providing the same services/products for people. This can help clarify where prices need to be changed as it is possible you are losing out on sales from having too reasonable of prices. Current clients usually have no issue with a small price increase if they trust the work you do and the business always hits project deadlines.
Outsourcing Where Needed
Taking care of all of the facets of the business should not be done if there is a cheap alternative. This can allow a mother to thrive in the areas that she excels in rather than spending time doing something they are below average at doing. Outsourcing things like writing product copy can be done so the mother can concentrate on sales or creating podcast content. A slight tweak in pricing a product or service can have this outsourced work pay for itself with the price increase. Take the time to write out the different tasks that help is needed with then start vetting freelancers to do the work. A couple quality freelancers can allow a company to save money without impacting the quality of work that is delivered. Take a look at a freelancer platform like Upwork as there are a multitude of talented people trying to earn remotely.
A mother trying to expand her home-based business is going to need to work hard but the financial and person rewards of doing so are immense. Take care of details that are within your control and stop worrying about things that you can do nothing to impact. Steady growth can be something that everyone working at the business can be proud of!
