How to Build Your Business at Home

Before beginning every venture, at home or not, it is important to develop a concrete idea of what you can sell or accomplish. According to The Balance Small Business, it is important to consider talents and skills before coming up with a business idea. Once you do, determine whether it could exist as an at-home business or whether it would better serve as a regular one before starting a business plan.

While at home during the shelter-in-place order, it is easy to feel trapped inside. Without access to the outside world, it is much harder to have interactions with others, which means that it may seem harder to maintain relationships. This is where communication becomes key.

When building your business at home, it is extremely important to remain in contact with potential partners, investors, or customers. Once you have identified a key product or idea to sell, market it! Design flyers, create a catchy slogan, and have an elevator pitch. Identify a specific group of people to market to, and present a unique and straight-forward pitch to captivate the interest of your audience. Contact as many people as you think could be interested. Use social media regularly, and make sure your outreach efforts remain constant so you can reach as many people as possible and build relationships with them. A great place to start for those 16 and older is by creating a LinkedIn account to connect with industry professionals and grow your network (be sure to check out our two-part blog series on how to create a successful LinkedIn profile here and here!).

Starting your venture with identifiable goals is also key; it gives you a way to measure progress and determine whether or not to continue certain efforts. For example, if you were to begin advertising through Instagram, but quickly discovered your business may not be reaching as many people as you had hoped for, it may be beneficial to switch the bulk of your efforts to platforms such as Facebook or LinkedIn. Don’t be afraid to redefine goals as well. It is vitally important to maintain a flexible mindset while starting a business, especially at home. A great starter activity in goal-setting is creating mission and vision statements. Feel free to check out our informative Instagram posts for specific tips and tricks at @thebigsistersproject!

If you have finished brainstorming, marketing, advertising, communicating and revising, yet do not see much progress, don’t sweat it! Pursue another idea! Few successful business-people become rich and famous their first try. However, those who do become successful know that the key to entrepreneurship is grit.

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