There’s no doubt that establishing a home business presents huge benefits and countless returns. Apart from being a hassle-free opportunity to earn or supplement your family income, working from home brings about other benefits such as independence, more time for kids, family and so on. Nevertheless, the bottom line is that a home based business is not different from any other and it equally requires to be insured.

Indeed, a home based business has similar frameworks and parallel concerns with other types of business. All businesses, be they large corporations, partnerships or those owned by individuals are faced with the same liabilities and other unforeseen crisis and that’s why insuring a home run business should not be overlooked.

One of the most common misconceptions home business owners have is that their homeowners’ and renters’ policies would also be sufficient to cover their businesses. The truth is that a home insurance doesn’t include coverage for a home run business or even business property such as your computer and other office equipment. Similarly, personal auto policies are not meant to cover autos you use to run your business.

If you run a home based business and you want to be on the safe side, it’s important that you inquire from your insurance provider on the policy that applies to your business operations. This is because there are many business operations that are categorized as “illegal” and may not be eligible for insurance coverage. Let your insurance manager know all your current business operations and those you intend to introduce in the future. They may want to know whether you’ll be manufacturing and supplying products or foodstuff and so on. Discuss with them if you intend to use your personal vehicle for business purposes.

Here are different types of insurance coverage that you’d need for your home based business.

Liability Coverage

This is the type of insurance that covers your business against liability for damages caused to someone else or their property. Should a visitor to your home office, such as a courier or a delivery person gets injured, they would be covered by liability insurance and not your homeowners’ policy.

Business Auto Coverage

Since your personal auto doesn’t apply to covering your vehicle when being used for business purposes, you will require business auto coverage. You don’t want to get into trouble in case you’re involved in an accident when visiting a client or making a delivery using your car.

Product Liability Cover

Product liability covers your business against liability incase a product manufactured or supplied by your company causes damages to another person or their property.

Business Property Coverage

This is the type of insurance that covers your business equipment such as computers, printers etc against damage such as fires or other forms or destructions.

Other Considerations:-

Insurance cost

The major factor that determines the cost of your home based business insurance is they type of the company you run. For a basic policy that covers, say loss of computer data and a few other liabilities it may cost you between $300 and $500 per year.

Calculation factors

Some of the factors that determine the cost of your insurance premium include the type of your business, how long it’s been in existence, your credit history and home location. Enhance your home security through having in place a security system, installing fire alarm and so on.

There are so many benefits related to any home based business. Apart from enjoying your own freedom, independence and proximity to your family, you also benefit from a range of tax advantages. While you wouldn’t want to start a home based business solely on the basis of tax advantages, the fact is, running a business from a home office setting presents great tax advantages you wouldn’t get in many other places. Here are some of the tax advantages of a home based business and some advice on how to benefit from them.

Home office tax advantages

Based on the percentage of space of your house represented by home office, you can benefit from deductions of a number of household expenditure such as utilities, insurance, property taxes, internet and phone bills.

If you are a home based business owner, you can for instance benefit from deductions on part of your mortgage payment for tax purposes. According to Internal Revenue Service, the deductible amount is based on the square footage of home and office.

You can simply determine how much is deductible by taking the square footage of your office and then divide it by the total square footage of your livable home space. The result you get is the percentage of your home, which is consecutively the percentage deductible on mortgage for tax purposes. This can also determine the percentage you can deduct from the mortgage interest.

This is one of the well-known tax advantages for home based business owners as it covers a wide range of household bills and utilities as well.

Supplies and Equipment Deductions

Being a home based business owner qualifies you to write off supplies and equipment you use for your business. These include equipments such as pens, legal pads, staplers, folders and so on. If you use computers, faxes and printers to run your home based business, then you can also write them off. The only problem is that most office equipments depreciate with time and tax deductions are usually based on particular equipment’s current value.

If you operate internet based business that sells or supplies products, you can as well write off the cost of the products you have sold. If for instance you sell $1500 worth of products and the cost of the goods sold is say $250, then you may claim the deduction of the amount incurred as cost of goods sold.

Tax Advantages on Business Expenses

There are many home based expenses that are tax deductible such as:

• Education – expenses you may incur on education intended to improve your business skills
• Meals and traveling expenses
• Car expenses – you may take deductions on the expenses incurred by using your car for transportation in your business. This is usually done by deducting gasoline or mileage traveled for business based on per mile amount.
•   Software used for running the business

Family Labor

If you for instance choose to engage your teenage kids to do certain duties for your business, then you can also deduct that as your additional business expenses and your child’s income.

For considerations, it’s important that you keep your inventories and documentation on hours worked by your family members. This will help you when using IRS schedule C to file your report on income and expenses.

There’s no doubt that working from home presents convenience and flexibility that one wouldn’t have when working at the traditional office. You have a quiet environment, free from interruption by noisy co-workers and visitors. Indeed, that gives you the advantage of accomplishing much more than when you’d be working from a regular office.

That however doesn’t mean that you don’t get distracted when working at home. There’s a fair share of interruptions when working at home, sometimes to a higher degree than when you’d be working in the office. That said, you can manage home office distractions and achieve high productivity by being well organized and observing a high level of discipline. Here are some easy yet effective steps on how to manage distractions when working from home.

1.     Organize your work Environment

It’s important that you choose the right environment for your home office and organize it in a way that helps you to concentrate. While your bedroom would be a quiet environment to work from, you’d have to deal with the enticement of taking a nap after working for a while. You should choose an environment that supports a real work setting. Make sure your desk is free from unnecessary clutter that would keep on shifting your attention from work schedule. You may not be able to focus when working in a disorganized office space.

2.     Craft a Work Routine

Although working at home is supposed to give you freedom, ideally being your own boss, you’d need to craft a work routine that suits your lifestyle. It doesn’t have to be a tough program. You simply want a routine that works for you and helps you to increase productivity. You may for instance train yourself on waking up early in the morning where you can answer your emails, peruse through headlines and update your social media accounts. You may want to have a few minutes for exercise after which you can work for about three hours before taking a break and so on. Whatever routine you adapt, make sure it works towards your goals.

3.     Scale down on Watching Television

While watching TV makes you feel connected to the outside world, too much of it can be addictive, thus affecting your productivity. You also don’t want to focus too much on the news as this can be stressful and affect your concentration. The best thing would be having a scheduled time for TV such as during your lunch break or after working hours.

4.     Handle one task at a time.

While multitasking sounds like a good idea towards accomplishing much task, there’s a downside to it. The tricky part is that you end up failing to accomplish your tasks unlike when you’d be handling one task at a time.

5.     Set Goals

Sometimes you may find that you have a lot to do and you don’t know where to begin, because probably there isn’t enough time left before the deadline. It happens to everyone and unless you have set goals or targets that you can accomplish within a specific duration, then you’re going to be working under pressure most of the time.

6.     Exercise and Have Enough Rest

Lack of exercise and enough rest can lead to fatigue or low energy levels, affecting your productivity. Make sure you have enough sleep, go out for jogging or a walk and remember to take plenty of water to remain hydrated. This will help you from feeling exhausted and increase the level of concentration.

Everyone has his or her reasons why they want to start a home based business. Whether you feel tired of your traditional job, or you simply want to be your own boss, one thing is clear – home based businesses provide platforms to dream big. But dreaming is not enough. Unless you wake up and make your dream a reality, it will just remain that – a dream. Here are some undemanding, yet important techniques on how to succeed in a home based business.

Invest in time

To succeed in a home based enterprise, you’ve got to take your time and plan. Most people who fail in self employment do so because they are out for a get-rich-quick plan. They’re ever looking for hot tips to get them success, only to get frustrated after jumping from one plan to the other. In a home-based business, you can and you’ll indeed make a good income. But you need to take your time, study your niche market and analyze the pros and cons of several interests and so on before throwing yourself into the ring.

Prepare a Vision Board  

To stay energized and focused on your goal, you need to have a clear plan in your mind about what you want your business to accomplish for you. One of the best ways of doing this is through preparing a vision board. This could be a normal sheet of paper, board or a cloth imprinted with writings or images of top priorities you’d want money to fetch for you. Perhaps images of your dream car, a trip abroad or even a family vacation you’ve always dreamed about. Have your vision board placed at a strategic position where you can see it every day with ease.

Choose your product wisely

Your aim is to provide a product that can make you good profit. You also want to be sure that you have a ready market for your product or service. You don’t have to offer what everyone else is offering just because they claim to be making huge returns. Look for a product that’s targeted for a specific, smaller market instead of plunging into a niche that’s already saturated.

Develop skills for Handling Distractions

Working from home requires a high level of discipline. Interruptions from family, friends or stuff that you like doing while at home can limit the success of your business. Have a daily working schedule that you can stick to, put off gadgets that could unnecessarily interrupt you and let your family or friends know you’re unavailable – unless for emergency.

Have a Separate Financial Account

Proper accounting is a no brainer for any home based entrepreneur. The best way of keeping good financial record for your business is by having a separate account where you can track all your transactions. Don’t forget to account for monies spent on entertaining visitors. Many people forget that such expenses are part of legit business expenditures and forget to deduct them when reconciling their accounts.

Lastly have a back up plan, if your business is web based – just in case something unforeseen happens to your website or if for some reason your products orders are delayed.

In today’s world, where everyone’s keen to make an extra buck, there has been a lot of buzz around home-based business opportunities. Indeed, there’re millions of home based businesses in United States and across the globe. And the list is growing fast. If you’ve finally decided to try your hand in this field of entrepreneurship, then you must be looking for the best ideas on how to choose a profitable home based business. Here are some of the most practical ideas on how to navigate through this growing sea of opportunities.

Choose a business that matches your ability, passion and interest

From the outset, the best approach towards choosing a profitable enterprise is by beginning from the known to unknown. Here, you need to ask yourself what kind of business would be suitable for your skills, flair, passion or interest. The advantage of starting a business that’s attached to your passion is that you can still enjoy working even when you’re yet to make any tangible profit. Businesses require time and energy before they can start paying back. Choosing a field you know nothing about or have little interest in would make you get bored to tears in your first few years. And possibly opt out.

Make a list of interesting, potentially profitable opportunities

The stuff you’re passionate about should top your list. It could be anything you have a lot of interest in and you think you can turn it into a home based business. It could be cooking, writing, web-designing and so on. If you are into cooking for instance, you may want to begin offering catering services. For writing and designing, you can offer freelance writing and web development services or even start your own blog, dedicated to advising readers on the field of your expertise while earning through advertising or affiliate programs.

Analyze your List, edit and single out the most viable choices

While you need to start from what you’re passionate about, not all hobbies can be converted into profit making businesses. That’s why you need to thin your list down to what can fetch you an income. Your interest is to remain with one or a couple of businesses that can make you good amount of money when working from home. From your list, you need to look at strengths and weaknesses, risks and opportunities, based on the demand or marketability of your business selection.

Conduct your own research on what is gainful and what is not

One of the best ways of knowing whether you are on the right track is through searching online to find what services of your interest are on demand. There are numerous sites where clients post freelance job opportunities, ranging from graphic designs, mobile apps development, data entry, virtual assistants and so on. You may also want to join forums and other social media platforms to exchange ideas and share opinions with other home-based entrepreneurs. You may just know what pitfalls to avoid and what opportunities to pursue.

Be Consistent

After selecting your home-based business idea, you need to organize yourself and any startup capital it may involve. Be consistent, work hard and have a good measure of patience. You’ll soon be laughing all the way to the bank.

If you have some expertise in a particular field, and you’re passionate about a home based business that can build you a reasonable income, then you might have thought about being a consultant. A consultant is simply an expert, experienced in a certain field, who advises a company or another individual. Some of professionals in high demand include, human resource, management, sales, marketing, IT, security, Networking and finance.

Home Based Business Consulting is a booming business

According to a recent analysis conducted by Harvard Business School, consulting jobs generate about $ 100 billion in US every year. A very lucrative enterprise indeed! While it might sound good and straightforward to venture into this potentially lucrative business, the truth is that it’s never that easy. Here are some great strategies on how to start and pull through in a home based consulting business.

1. Follow your Passion

With technology making consulting easier and the market opening up rapidly for home based businesses, there has been increased interest as many people want to try out their problem-solving skills. While a consulting job doesn’t require a lot of skills, and there’s no magic or big secret to becoming a successful consultant, you wouldn’t want to just be another consultant out there. What actually makes the difference between a good and a bad consultant is the passion about ones’ field of expertise and the drive for excellence. If there’s something you like and you can spend hours around it, without getting bored, then that could be your starting point towards being a great consultant. It could be providing information about the latest software, hardware or even managing events.

 2. Take advantage of Existing Knowledge Gaps

To be successful as a home based consultant, you’ve got to fill some existing, pressing knowledge gaps. You need to know what services your potential clients or their full time staff wouldn’t provide and present your skills as a solution for that need.

 3. Be Organized

To be a successful consultant, you’ve got to know how to plan your day, not to mention that you’ve got to be a good time manager. Indeed, you’re going to be working for busy clients, some of whom have pressing programs and fixed deadlines.

4. Aim at Building Relationships, not an income.

Consulting is a relationship based industry. Many clients like hiring experts who’ve worked and satisfied their needs and objectives before. And this is what you need to focus on. Avoid giving priority to your cost than first offering how you’re going to solve your client’s problems. Build networks, keep the contacts of your clients and maintain a running communication with them. You don’t know when a pressing need will arise, and if you’re still on the client’s radar, then you’re going to be the first person they’ll contact.

5. Set your Goals

To succeed in a home based consulting business, you need to lay down your goals, both short term and long term. Let your goals be your driving force.

6. Lastly focus on results, not on the service

Avoid making mistakes that may make your clients view you as goods for sale. You don’t have to dwell on your costs and what you’ll use to serve them, or capitalizing on how many hours you’re going to work. Instead, let the client know how you intend to deliver the service, providing a range of modalities on cost and the value you intend to bring on board.

1. Strategies of Starting a Home-based Consulting Business

If you have some expertise in a particular field, and you’re passionate about a home based business that can build you a reasonable income, then you might have thought about being a consultant. A consultant is simply an expert, experienced in a certain field, who advises a company or another individual.

 According to a recent analysis conducted by Harvard Business School, consulting jobs generate about $ 100 billion in US every year.  A very lucrative enterprise indeed! While it might sound good and straightforward to venture into this potentially lucrative business, the truth is that it’s never that easy. Here are some great strategies on how to start and pull through in a home based consulting business.

1.      Follow your Passion

With technology making consulting easier and the market opening up rapidly for home based businesses, there has been increased interest as many people want to try out their problem-solving skills. While a consulting job doesn’t require a lot of skills, and there’s no magic or big secret to becoming a successful consultant, you wouldn’t want to just be another consultant out there. What actually makes the difference between a good and a bad consultant is the passion about ones’ field of expertise and the drive for excellence. If there’s something you like and you can spend hours around it, without getting bored, then that could be your starting point towards being a great consultant. It could be providing information about the latest software, hardware or even managing events.

2.     Take advantage of Existing Knowledge Gaps

To be successful as a home based consultant, you’ve got to fill some existing, pressing knowledge gaps. You need to know what services your potential clients or their full time staff wouldn’t provide and present your skills as a solution for that need.

3.     Be Organized  

To be a successful consultant, you’ve got to know how to plan your day, not to mention that you’ve got to be a good time manager. Indeed, you’re going to be working for busy clients, some of whom have pressing programs and fixed deadlines.

4.     Aim at Building Relationships, not an income.

Consulting is a relationship based industry. Many clients like hiring experts who’ve worked and satisfied their needs and objectives before. And this is what you need to focus on. Avoid giving priority to your cost than first offering how you’re going to solve your client’s problems. Build networks, keep the contacts of your clients and maintain a running communication with them. You don’t know when a pressing need will arise, and if you’re still on the client’s radar, then you’re going to be the first person they’ll contact.

5.     Set your Goals

To succeed in a home based consulting business, you need to lay down your goals, both short term and long term. Let your goals be your driving force.

6.     Lastly focus on results, not on the service

Avoid making mistakes that may make your clients view you as goods for sale. You don’t have to dwell on your costs and what you’ll use to serve them, or capitalizing on how many hours you’re going to work. Instead, let the client know how you intend to deliver the service, providing a range of modalities on cost and the value you intend to bring on board.

The biggest challenge of running a business from home is getting the right balance between your professional and your personal life. It is very easy to loose track when some of the things competing for your attention are your kids, spouse, pets and household chores. If you are not careful, you will very quickly become consumed by things that have nothing to do with your business.

Dangers of Poor Time Management

Poor time management can result in a sloppy run business. You may see a slowdown in operations, and, in turn, a reduction in sales and profits. In drastic cases, poor management of your business time can equal a complete shutdown of your home based business.

Effective Time Management Tips

Now that you know how poor time management can harm your home based business, here are a few things you can do to improve the management of your business.

Set your home office area

It is important to have a designated office area where you carry out your home based business operations. If you try to work from the bedroom, kitchen and lounge you will be distracted by all the activities taking place in these areas.

Have a set schedule for your home based business

Having a set schedule can make a huge difference in your productivity. Stick to a schedule similar to a normal work i.e wake up at the same time, prepare breakfast, drop kids to school and then get down to work at exactly 8.00 am.

Prioritize all your work

It is important to consider all of your priorities. As a business owner, what are the most important tasks for you each day? Do you start by prospecting for new clients or do you start by collecting pending bills? You will need to set all your priorities and make sure you follow them to the letter.

Delegate non-core work

Task such as prospecting for new clients can be delegated to people or companies that specialize in generating leads. For a set monthly fee, the lead generating company will do all the work of finding clients. Imagine how easy your work will be when you log in into your email and you find 5 clients waiting for you?  Other tasks that can be delegated are, social media campaign, bill payment, accounting, typesetting etc.

Write it all down

It is not enough have ideas in your head, you need to write down your schedule and priorities. This can be written on a business diary or a general note book. Include the following details:-

• Everything you do for your home business everyday.
• Write the exact time that you begin a task and the exact time that you end it.

When writing your business journal assume you are writing a daily report for your boss.This type of report will help you review your performance and see where you might be wasting time or doing something that’s ineffective.

You can even ask your spouse, brother or kid to go through the reports and give their opinion, that way it can be more objective.

Proper Time Management equals greater productivity

In the end, you will reap benefits for managing your time. You will have enough time to attend to your business task and your will get more from your work. At the end of the day you will have enough time to spend with your loved ones, attend to domestic task and engage in other hobbies/interest.

Proper time management is an important skill that every home business owner needs to learn and master if he/she wants to succeed. You will not master it over night but if you stick at it, you will get it.  Once it becomes a daily routine you will be able to run a successful home based business and enjoy a quality home life.