Basic Elements of a Home Based Business Plan

To be honest with you, the following tips actually apply to any business – home based, online, or brick and mortar. However, far too many home based entrepreneurs fail to realize the importance of writing a solid business plan for their home based business. Below I have given you some simple questions to answer in order to outline the essential information you need to know in order to start your home based business the right way.

1. What is your business?

Describe as simply as you can, in no more than one or two sentences, what it is that your business aims to do. You’ll be saying these one or two sentences a lot in your new home business, so spend a bit of time getting it right. Fine-tune it as much as you can, and then go back and adjust it as often as needed to keep it current and accurate. If you cannot describe your business in one or two sentences then there’s a good chance your home business idea itself needs some fine-tuning, because the missions and objectives of all successful businesses can be summarized succinctly.

2. Is there high demand for your business?

Simply put, does the public need what you’re offering? How difficult is it going to be to interest your target market in what you’re business is providing? List the reasons why you think people need what you’re offering; especially if it’s something similar to what they can already get somewhere else. This will also help you clarify for yourself exactly what distinguishes what you’re offering from the similar offerings of other businesses.

3. Who is your target market?

The better you know your potential customer, the better you’ll be able to cater your business to their needs and the more able you’ll be to sell them on your products and services. The sooner you figure this information out, the less time you’ll waste to trial and error. What is their income bracket? What is their household composition? Are they single or married? Do they have kids? How educated? How affluent? How old? What are their other interests? Where do they go to find the things they want or need?

4. Who is your competition?

Who else is offering similar products or services you are? How much competition do you have targeting your market area already? What makes your home based business different from theirs? What can you learn from your competitions successes and failures? How can you emulate what they’re doing and improve upon it? How loyal are their customers? Could you interest their customers in switching loyalties to your home business? How can you interest a niche in the market they’re not reaching yet? In short, knowing who you’re competing against will help you greatly in figuring out how your home business will stay competitive.

5. How do you plan to fund your home business?

Where is your home business start-up capital going to come from? Even with an online home business some amount of start up money is needed to get it going, and it’s better to know ahead of time how you’re going to acquire that capital. Will it come from savings, from credit cards, from a business loan, from a gift or a donation from a family member? Figure this out now and save yourself a lot of headaches later.

One more question you might also want to ask yourself is where you see your home based business in one year’s time? You need to have a vision of where you want to go with your business!

Answering all of these questions will greatly increase your chances of starting your home based business off on the right foot and building it into a highly profitable long term success.