Working From Home Advice

[iLLuDeano]

Hay all!

So I have been thinking about working from home. What would be the best way to approach working from home so that you can actually make enough Moola to support your family and also have enough time to look after the kids and do the general "house work". The reason why I'm asking this is because my Fiance wants to start her own business, I will be helping her with the marketing and management but I want to be financially independent (Don't want to rely on just the business for an income)

*Going on a work outing till Sunday morning so won't be able to respond till then

Need as much advice as possible! Thanx Forum

[tec0]

It comes down to her skill set. I know of a single mom that does nails “all those funky expensive stuff” that only women can explain to you. I know it is popular and that she makes good money. She outfitted a room at her home and only work by appointment as the process takes time.

So yes I would imagine it is possible BUT it really comes down on what one can do. Just stay away from those “work from home and earn millions BS” I spend a lot of money on it and I know for a fact it is BS.

[adrianh]

I spent 20 years in the corporate environment do programming DBA'ing etc. I left that environment about 10 years ago and started working from home in a very adhoc sort of way. My wife left her job and joined me. It took many years to get on our feet, mostly because we didn't know what we were doing. We now have two Wendyhouses packed to the brim with "work" stuff, the double garage is a fully functional workshop and to top it off we have a huge laser cutter, CNC mill, 3 PC's and three work desks in what used to be the lounge. We opened a shop a month or two ago and I'm installing a second laser in the shop on Tuesday next week.

Ok, to get back to working at home, it has it's upsides and downsides. It depends on your own nature. It works very well for my wife and I because we are natural workers. We spend 12-16 hours a day sitting back to back working, I may be running the CNC, she may be running the laser or I would be drawing and she would be doing bookkeeping or whatever. We enjoy working so we are always at it. It works for us because we love what we do, we are building our own business and in all honesty I don't see what I do as work, it is just a way to be creative, I find it relaxing and great fun.

Upsides:
1. You save on expenses, not having to drive so much, have nice clothes etc.
2. You are your on boss so you can work when you feel like it.

Downsides:
1. You are your own boss, there is nobody to blame for your failings.
2. If you and the wife work together you may just get on each others nerves so badly that either of you end up walking out.
3. If you are anything like me you would spend 18 hours a day working.
4. Customers phone your home at all hours.
5. Your employees come to your house to work and their debt collectors come to look for them at your house.

Reality:
I think that running your own business, be it from home or anywhere else, is fooooooking hard. We made every conceivable mistake in business that one could make. There are so many issues to contend with dealing with customers, doing admin, paying bills, doing vat, profitability, cash flow, marketing, (getting too much business is also problematic) chasing customers for money, dealing with suppliers, hiding from suppliers when you owe them money, hiding from customers when they want to kick your nuts in...

I think that running your own business is like learning to swim by diving head first into a river. If you're lucky you get to paddle a bit and get a feel for the water and the current. If you are really lucky you are taken up in a nice smooth flowing stream and you get to learn and grow gently. 90% of people dive head first into the shallow bottom, once they eventually come up for air their heads are bleeding and they are frantically trying to grab onto anything simply to try and stabilize themselves. They come through rapids, down waterfalls, get bashed around and tumbled until one day they learn how to cope with the river of business or they end up cast aside on the riverbank.

When I got into "my own business" I thought it would be easy, I have a product, people want it, I sell it to them and I make lots of money....it just doesn't work that way... I have become a lot more shrewd and streetwise but I still have so much to learn about the "engine" that drives a business. The "engine" being all the admin type stuff....

What can I say, I am richer for it mentally but poorer financially right now. I am now in a tremendous growth phase and all the sacrifices we have made over the past 10 years are now slowly starting to pay off.

You are welcome to PM me and come by the house and the shop, the house is in Goodwood and the shop in Boston. I can then show you first hand what a house / lounge / workshop / all in one looks like.

Just as an aside: The only way to ensure your future is to have your own thing going, you should position yourself so that you are able to run your business no matter where you are. The days of working for a company for life is gone, companies don't care, technology changes very fast and BEE stuffs any hope that you may have of finding formal employment. I am all for the young white family to have their own business.

Just shout if you need to bounce ideas around, the best I can do is to tell you of my own experiences in running a small business from home (including nearly going off the mental cliff in the process as well)

[adrianh]

I forgot to mention, it is now 22:17, I am about halfway through cutting a job for an architectural student, my hands are pitch black from cutting really terrible chipboard material and the entire kitchen is covered in little packets and architectural model parts. I am sure to carry on with this lot till one am or so and then the "ex-" dining room, now lounge / storage area will also be full of bits of cardboard, wood and plastic. Every single person that comes in the front door think that we are quite crazy but hey, we love what we do and we are happy to share our home with our future!

[sterne.law@gmail.com]

Discipline and structure are important.
Don't think "well if Im late I cant be fored!"
Give yourself start times and deadlines, stick to them.

And WORK HARD

[iLLuDeano]

[QUOTE=adrianh;99891]chasing customers for money, dealing with suppliers, hiding from suppliers when you owe them money, hiding from customers when they want to kick your nuts in...

Had a good laugh at this~!! Thanx for the responses guys, really helps I'll elaborate more on Monday! Have a great weekend.

[adrianh]

I'll tell you this much, the art of lying with a straight face becomes second nature when you have customers $h1tting themselves....The politically correct term would be "using diplomacy to placate the customer"

My wife could never do this but having to deal with many customers and their $h1t made her develop a really thick skin.

[adrianh]

Some more joys of working from home, my wife did bookkeping till 11:30 and I ran the laser till 11:45. So,now its time to sleep because,she has to get up at 6am to take the kids to skating and I have to getmup at 7am to carry on cutting the job for the architects. So let me tell you about home business pillow talk, you talk about customers, cashflow, work to be done the next day, things to remeber, things to buy and and and...

I went to look at the new - secondhand laser today, the machine is ok and useable. The wife insistes that we should installit at home, imagine, now we will have another full size laser in the 'lounge'

You know, we absolutely love having our own business but I can tell you, if my wife and I weren't on the same page then there would have been groot k@k long ago. Our lives revolve entirely around the kids and the business and it works for us.

If youcan find a way to run the business that you and your wife are comfortable with then you are halfway there because youmcan then work together to attain the same goals.

[ians]

My wife loves the idea of me working at home, I get a list every Friday afternoon of all the things she wants built for the house, so no more fishing for me.

[Dave A]

Top of my list as a critical ingredient for success is personal discipline. Even though you're working from home, make sure you've still got "set minimum working hours" (unless you're a workaholic like Adrian ), and make sure you actually do constructive work for those hours.

Top of my list for keeping sane is have a business telephone number and a personal telephone number. Make sure your personal number isn't listed anywhere.

Having separate, dedicated space for the business is also highly recommended. Physical separation of business and home helps mental separation of the two as well.

[adrianh]

Working at home a I do has its lighter moments though. A lady phoned at about 8:30 this morning asking hwhether we are open. I said no, but asked her what she was looking for purely out of curiosity. She said that her daughter woke up this morning and told her that she has to complete a little electronic project of tomorrow. The lady sounded quite deperate and said that she couldn't find any hobby shop open on a Sunday. I directed her to a hardware shop that is open on Sunday that does sell all the bits that she needs. I said to to her that if she doesn't come right he should phone me because I have al the stuff at hand anyway. People sometimes just need a bit of guidance which is good for PR and also the soul.

ps; I agree woth everything Dave said, we have work stuff spread all over thenhouse so we never really get away from it.

[pmbguy]

I run my business from home, I have a garden flat which I converted into my office/workshop. Allot of what I would like to say has been mentioned in other posts above. But the one thing I would like to stress is this: Separate your work environment as much as you can from your “after hour life”. I often find myself working way too much. In my case I am a bit of a workaholic and I enjoy the sweat and blood a bit too much. This causes me to neglect my wife and daughter from time to time. Lately I have my wife helping with some of the admin that’s why you won’t find me posting late at night as much as I used to. When I started my business I used a room in the house and this drove me crazy, my personal life and business were one entity. I would fixate on work way too much. Since we moved and I have a separate office I am much more balanced. However my wife still catches me looking out at my office before we are supposed to sit down for one of her ...uh...really really good movies.

[iLLuDeano]

Hay guys. Sorry been away this week with some weird bug. Had no internet since Mweb politely throttled my line down to nothing!

So the idea that my fiance had was opening a make-up agency. Helping marketing students get work etc etc. I guess the long term idea would be to expand into doing all sides of beauty; hair, nails, make-up, clothing. Luckily this is a industry that won't die down very soon, so it can work. I don't know, however, how the location will pan out since we stay in the Northern Suburbs of Cape Town. I showed her the ropes around social media and how digital can make your business these days. Since she fine tuned all her social accounts she has gained a lot of business. My projection of growth would be that she'd need at least 5 employees (Make-up artists) to help her within 6-12 months. The only problem we are facing is space since we still stay in a flat.(Bringing clients to the flat would NOT be ideal) So would it be better to just rent a shop? I guess the only concern would be that the person who would be lending us the money for a shop wants to have the business showing profit within 3 months...TBH, I have to start setting up the basic business plan but I'm not to sure as to where the best place would be to start this venture without it crashing and burning. Loadz of info here, any advice would be awesome

[Peter Johns781]

You can't build if you do not have land...what do you want to venture into first of all? Find fields that you are interested in so that when you begin working, you can do something that motivates you to work and all.

[iLLuDeano]

You can't build if you do not have land...what do you want to venture into first of all? Find fields that you are interested in so that when you begin working, you can do something that motivates you to work and all.

What is this about building and land? I'm going to rent (Point 1) If you read my post you would see the venture is to open a make-up agency and expand on it. Thanx for the reply tho