Seeding Your Startup: Practical Steps for Growing Your Home Business

Many people dream of becoming their own boss and if you’re determined enough, you can certainly make it a reality. If you’ve been considering it for some time, you probably already have a plan in mind but may be hesitant to take the plunge. You don’t have to jump in at the deep end. Many big businesses began in a home or garage. Here are some strategic steps to help you get your new business under way.

Spend Time on Preparation

You may already be more equipped for entrepreneurship than you may realize. Even if most of your experience is rooted in homemaking, you still have many skills that will be valuable for enterprise development, such as scheduling and managing finances. Being a successful business person is not a gift; it takes practice and is a continual learning process. You have to be able to meet a need within that market. The mission of your company is to create sustainable value for your customers. This means that you must find a niche for your individual product or service.

Understand the Importance of Branding

If you manage to brand successfully, it will have a big impact on your business in the following ways:

• Keeping you ahead of your competitors
• Attracting and retaining new customers
• Blocking new competitors
• Keeping your business flow regular
• Preventing economic downturns
• Opening doorways into new markets

In order for your brand to succeed in these ways, you need to have a strong logo that is eye-catching and that people will remember. This will become your company’s icon for years to come. If you’re just starting out, you don’t have thousands of dollars to pay a professional to design a logo for you. That doesn’t mean you have to miss out on having a quality logo. You can build one yourself for free with this logo creator. It allows you to import your own image or create one with the easy to use online interface.

Build Your Company Website

Thanks to today’s technology, you don’t need to have a brick and mortar store to run a profitable business. You can use your website to sell and advertise your products or services all over the world. And once again, you don’t need to hire a professional. There are many DIY websites available for very reasonable prices, and many of them require little or no technical skills. Many of the domain name providers also have templates that you can use to build your site along with multiple email addresses.

Reach Out to New Customers

Connect to new prospects through social media. Sign up to as many platforms as you can. Then use an automated scheduler such as Hootsuite to make your posts for you every day. This will free up your time while also making sure you make regular posts across all your social media channels.

Increase Your Sales

You also need to think of creative ways to increase sales to existing customers. It can be easier and more cost effective than finding new ones. Don’t worry if you’re not able to expand your product line right now, you can increase your revenue by selling more of your product to your current customers. A simple way to encourage more sales is by offering your customers volume discounts. For example, three items for the price of two, or by giving them a loyalty card which allows them a free product after they’ve made ten purchases.

Combine With Another Company

By joining forces with another business in a related industry you can exchange promotions. For example, if you sell a cosmetic line, you could team up with a salon owner and talk her into carrying or using your line. In return, you can send your customers to her store for treatments. You could also send discount vouchers for her spa to your new customers.

Branch Out a Little

Think about ways you can target other markets. For example, if you sell products to teenagers, could you sell them to college students? Can your product or service be modified slightly to expand your market? If you have a retail business, can you expand it into the wholesale market? Do plenty of research before you branch out so that you know there is a place in the market where your endeavors will succeed.

Follow these tips when you’re first starting your home business so that you can be sure it will flourish.

Kayleigh Andrews works from home and is loving it. She hopes to help other moms make a living from home, too, and you can find her articles on many mom blogs and work from home websites today.