With the economy being unpredictable right now, it's not ideal to just rely on a 9-to-5 job or a brick-and-mortar business as your main source of living. As travel restrictions and work setups shift irregularly, you'll need new skills and strategies to sustain yourself. Right now, despite being under both a global health crisis and an economic standstill, more and more businesses of different sizes have been making waves in the market and have done so just in the safety of their homes. All it took is patience, courage, and good strategy. Here are some tips to operate a small home business successfully.
1) Designated Home Office
If you really want to remove all distractions and focus on your business, you need to designate an official spot at home for it. Put all your necessities on a simple and clean desk, including your laptop, documents, and all the things that you'll need for your business. Ask yourself these questions when you're setting up your little home office:
- a) Is the space I'm putting my stuff on conducive for doing my business?
- b) Would there be any forks in my way like unwanted noises, exposure to distractions, and the like?
- c) Am I comfortable with the setup I have in mind?
2) The Needs of Your Market
What's your passion? What's the niche of your business? Be it beauty, tech, food, clothes, transportation, or electronics, you need to study what the need is in your area. If you can't think of a need, create it. Be the one to start a demand for your small business: utilize social media, word-of-mouth, and advertisements to get the word out. Some points to ponder on are:
- a) How will I get people hyped up to buy from me?
- b) Is it smart to just jump on the bandwagon for current trends like milk tea shops or Korean food stores?
- c) Will the hype around my brand have any longevity?
3) Good Customer Relationship
Your customers are the backbone of your business. It's important to establish a relationship with them for brand loyalty. In the Philippines, small businesses like local meat shops and convenience stores have a "suki" culture, which means regular buyers. This is what businesses should aim for: more loyal customers, more chances of securing sales.
4) Trusty Work Companions
Have a pet or a secretary that you get along with to get things done with joy and energy in your home office, especially if your business grows bigger in time. Bond with them well so you don't get too much brain fog from your business dealings. Good work companions make your day-to-day grind so much easier, happier, and better.
5) Remote Employees
If restrictions on travel are uncertain, then be sure that the people you'll need for your business are always present: instead of requiring them to physically come to work, you can get remote employees to get the job done as smoothly and seamlessly as a regular in-office worker, if not better. Just make sure to learn the ropes first before diving in completely: study how remote work works. Typically, the schedule for employees are flexible, but you can choose to do the regular shift if you really need to, especially if it's beneficial to your business.
6) Time For Loved Ones
It can be tempting to just get glued to your paper works and laptop screen all day to get your tasks done. But don't be a zombie and make an effort to spend time with the ones you love at home. Studies show that bonding is essential for a sound mind and a functional body for you to successfully do business deals. On the other hand, isolation and lack of social life is linked to depression, poor health, and earlier death. Take a break, grab your favorite snacks, and just chill and watch a movie with your loved ones, even just for a bit.
7) Excellent Business Partners
Speaking of social life, going at something alone may feel a bit lonely and unfulfilling in the long run. If you want to, you can get trustworthy and reliable business partners so that you share accountability, split the cost of running your home business, and exchange ideas on how to run your business better.
Make sure you trust them completely, and really get along well with them: preferably, you should live with them so business-related communication wouldn't be that much of a challenge. Or at least, live within the vicinity of each other's places of residence.
It's good to remember to also secure your finances, as you wouldn't want your hard-earned pesos to just vanish into thin air one day. It's important to manage your assets and keep your earnings safe and sound from potential threats to them.
8) Day-to-Day Schedule
You can't just write your daily agenda with an air-pen and rely on short-term memory to get tasks done. Have a planner to manage your daily quotas and schedules. Don't forget to drop encouragements for yourself so you feel energized and ready to grind and hustle for the day.
There are many business planners available in the market, so it's good to find the right one that suits your vibe and address your business needs too. Find a good quality brand, be it paper or digital, so you can start planning away.
9) Records & Growth Trackers
Pay attention to what you've accomplished so far and what areas you need to work on. You have to have your transactions, sales milestones, profits and losses all neatly tracked and organized both on paper and digitally to be extra sure. If you want guaranteed accuracy, then invest in good software to have reliable records and growth trackers for the business you've worked so hard on.
10) Digital Marketing Strategies
If you have a larger-scale business that needs to reach a lot of people, then you'll need a marketing team to boost your brand. There are people specializing in digital marketing strategies like search engine optimization, paid ads, media buying, and the like in order to help small businesses grow and have more visibility especially on social media.
If your business is B2C (business to client), then it's best to utilize sites like Facebook and Instagram. Meanwhile, if your business is B2B (business to business), then LinkedIn would be a good place to start. You can recruit social media managers and content specialists to curate your brand image for you. Don't forget the digital strategists to take charge of post schedules, ads to reach the right people, and inescapable content to draw more people in. It's good to invest in a good digital marketing team, be they an established agency or just freelancers.
Don't Just Work Hard, Work Smart Too
The options are limitless when it comes to home businesses. Have an idea? Work on it, and make smart decisions while you're at it. The only thing constant is change, so do all the necessary measures to adapt to what the people around you need right now. Don't just be motivated by profit, but also be encouraged to address concerns that you will pioneer in solving, or create demand for a product that you've uniquely developed. Impact people's lives positively, and be a disruptor. Work hard, but work smarter. You may just be a millionaire CEO in the making and you don't even know it yet.