Work at Home In US: Valuable Lessons Learned When Working From Home

Friday, October 7, 2011

Valuable Lessons Learned When Working From Home

Many of our work at home entrepreneurs are a success from many hard lessons learned. Unfortunately, that is an unattractive lesson learned. Advice to newbies can be very useful to avoid many of the pitfalls related to beginning your own home based business. If you don’t have to take the punches, why would you? These are lessons that have been learned and shared by veterans to home based business opportunities and prospects.

Excellent communication skills are vital to a business that prospers

Communication skills are needed and will make your business a success. This is true no matter what your business is. Even if you spend minimal time with clients face to face you still need to be able to communicate via emails, phone or other forms of contact. Ideas, information and instructions needs to be exchanged.

Sometimes simple updates concerning a project to all parties involved could make the difference in thousands of dollars or the failure of a business and its overall success.

If you feel you have issues or problems with communication skills you need to invest in the tools and techniques to improve or develop these immediately.

Invest in a separate phone line for your business

Whether you get a cell phone or a separate line into your home, invest in a separate line for your business. This is great on several levels. For those with children in the house you won’t have your toddler speaking with a client for 20 minutes before anyone realizes he is on the line. You won’t miss a client’s call because your teenager had your phone line tied up and when you do receive family and friend calls you know they are personal because they are calling on your personal line.

Cell phones are more advantages than land lines. In addition to the privacy of a land line a cell phone guarantees you will receive your calls anywhere you happen to be as well receiving calls when the electricity is out. A cell phone allows you more freedom if your business requires travel or more time outside of the home than in.

Be certain you separate work from home and home from work

It’s very easy to blur the lines with home and work when working from home. Make certain you separate your family life from your work. It’s easy to work extended hours you would see if you went to the office and overwork yourself at the expense of having your home life suffer. The opposite is also true. You may leave work because you need to do your laundry or cook supper and miss an important client’s deadline.

Isolation is a negative side effect

A negative side to working from home as a team of one is finding you are isolated. In an office environment with coworkers, a boss, meetings and an office get together you do a lot of socializing. Many new workers at home find themselves unintentionally isolating themselves. There may be few interactions personally with others depending upon your work. Make sure you get socialized. One way to help with this issue is to join community groups related to your work. Network around your city or town personally, find a way outside of the computer or cyber world.

These are important lessons that have been learned by those that have already put their foot in the door of a home based business. Allow these veterans to pass on this invaluable information and help you avoid the potholes in the business world.