Posts
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net
Entrepreneurship in a down economy
By AMBER KROSEL - akrosel@nwherald.com  |
| Algonquin resident Barb Waller of BW Accessories sets up a table full of jewelry and accessories for sale for an open house Saturday with Rebecca Woodward, 8, at Vicki Revere's home in Huntley. (Jason Chiou – For the Northwest Herald) |
Goodbye, door-to-door encyclopedia sets. Hello, Pampered Chef parties.
Locally, there is no shortage of the ever-evolving home-based business. From selling skincare products to posting handmade crafts on popular sites such as Etsy.com, starting out on one’s own might be gaining popularity as traditional full-time jobs continue to be scarce.
At the Illinois Small Business Development Center at McHenry County College’s Shah Center, local estimates show a 20 percent to 25 percent increase in interest from budding entrepreneurs.
“A lot of that is, ‘I’m unemployed, I haven’t found a way to be successful,’” ISBDC coordinator Mary Margaret Maule said. “Our classes have been full every month.”
Benefits to operating a home-based business include the flexibility of creating your own schedule, but – depending on the type of job – also come with the pressure to succeed at selling and time management.
“One of your big challenges is, you are your own boss, your timekeeper, your everything,” Maule said. “And it’s easy to get distracted by the other roles in your life.”
However, several McHenry County residents – including a trio of Huntley women running their own shows – have found ways to manage.
Stay-at-home mom LeeAnn Klopp began working as a Pampered Chef consultant in August to bring in a little extra income for the family. Although she puts in only about 10 to 15 hours a week hosting or preparing cooking demonstrations and catalog shows, she said she’s done well.
And when things come up, she can easily push it temporarily aside.
“Now with my son being home sick, if I had a full-time job and had to take time off, there’s no way that they would be as flexible,” Klopp said this week.
Friend Vicki Revere got into selling Arbonne beauty supplies as a side job in addition to her full-time gig as a figure-skating director in West Dundee. She discovered the all-natural products after she was introduced to them a year ago by her hairdresser and immediately became hooked.
She carries samples with her wherever she goes, mostly because her business survives through word of mouth.
“You have to put effort into it,” Revere said, adding that she’s served 50 clients. “It is a repeat business because it’s consumable.”
Consulting jobs such as Klopp’s and Revere’s are examples of multi-tiered marketing, Maule said. Equivalent to operating a franchise in that the person is “buying into” a larger corporate structure, someone else already has done the main promoting.
“You have a much larger marketing nut to crack if you’re a home-based business and also a private business,” she said, such as personal organizers or home-based health care workers.
However, any home business takes self-discipline, responsibility, and an upbeat personality and passion, rather than a specific skills set.
Megan Adam juggles being a stay-at-home mom of four with ventures in selling Scentsy candles and her own jewelry line. She’s been making popular bottle-cap necklaces for years, but began the consulting job after the economy faltered.
Both enable her to work around her families’ needs while earning money, she said, usually taking up at least five hours a day.
“It’s very easy to sell something that you love,” Adam said. “I’m constantly researching new ideas.”
But to those interested in starting home-based businesses, Maule warns that it’s “not the fallback position,” compared with an outside job.
“It’s tough work,” Maule said. “You’re wearing multiple hats. You will work harder than you’ve ever worked at anything else.”
Starting a home-based business? Read these tips, first:
• Make a plan for how much time you are willing to commit to your business and how many clients you want to see. Create a unit of measurement to show your progress.
• Become educated on your obligations as a business owner, such as taxes, insurance and potential liabilities.
• Understand what you don’t do well, and find someone who can do it for you in a way you support. For example, if you excel at sales, you might not be so good at billing or collecting.
• Make sure you collect. Get comfortable with being strict on billing, including notifications of late payments and service charges. Take delinquents to collections, if needed.
• Study and understand sales cycles. They often make or break a business.
• Network. Work with local chambers of commerce and create your own small group of trusted business allies. They can be an idea sounding board and help you view things from a different perspective.
• Take a class through a local Illinois Small Business Development Center for a low fee. Session topics range from taking advantage of tax changes to understanding how to use Quick Books. Information and more McHenry County resources can be found at www.shahcenter.mchenry.edu.
Source: Mary Margaret Maule, coordinator for the Crystal Lake-based Illinois Small Business Development Center
No comments:
Post a Comment