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Last Updated on June 22, 2018 by Work In My Pajamas
When you think about working from home, it tends to be businesses like making your own crafts or working as a freelancer at your laptop all day. There are many other types of business that you can base at home, so don’t feel you have to be restricted to the traditional forms of homeworking. Whatever area you have knowledge or expertise in has the potential to form the basis of a successful home-based business. Here are some ideas that might inspire you to think beyond the home office model.
Trades and services
Working from home is really another term for self-employment, it’s just that it includes the jobs in which you are still employed, but perform your duties at home rather than traveling into an office. That means there are all sorts of trades and services that you could base your business on that use your home as the center of operations, but require you to go out for the actual jobs. That could be as a gardener, dog-walker or groomer, beautician, hairdresser, plumber, carpenter, tutor, chef, or cleaner for example. You operate all your admin from your home, running your website and social media and keeping your books, but going out to people’s homes to carry out the particular service you offer. In some cases, you could use your home as a base of operations as well, for example being a music teacher or physical therapist, with clients coming to you for their lessons or treatments. Of course, this does mean you won’t be able to work in your pajamas all the time, but you can still do all your admin in your nightclothes if you like!
Construction and property
Having established that all sorts of trades and services can be run from home, you could apply this principle to any industry in which you want to work. Take construction for example. If you are an experienced builder, you might want to set up your own business building new homes, or specializing in renovation projects; wherever you can see a potential gap in the market. This will require not just the expertise in construction itself, but a great deal of planning. You will need to create a business plan, marketing strategy, and a sound budget for starters. You should also be working on your plans for future growth by looking into cost-effective methods of acquisition such as used heavy equipment for sale for instance. Property development may require you to spend a lot of time onsite rather than at home, but this can diminish as your business starts to grow and you employ more people. Alternatively, you might want to be more of a project manager, employing tradespeople to renovate or build houses for you, while you concentrate on the business side of things.
Working from home doesn’t mean you need to be chained to your desk, in fact, there are probably more opportunities for these home-based businesses than home working itself. You’ll still have the benefits of being your own boss and not having to get to an office every day, you’ll just be spending some of your time out and about instead of on your laptop.
