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The phrase, “look before you leap”, is an old idiom that has many renderings – one of which is “count the cost before you commit”. This is a good thing to remember and put into action when it comes to starting a home internet business. If you don’t, then you can easily end up going out of business real early and maybe for a number of reasons that could have been avoided. There are a variety of costs associated with starting a home internet business, but this article will focus on one that seems to be easily overlooked – that is, whether a person has the personal characteristics to succeed as a home internet business owner.
You can get some good clues about whether you are a good candidate for self-employment by considering your behavior in current and past employment as well as in your other life situations. The following is a list of three key personal characteristics that should be seriously considered by a prospective home internet business owner.
1. Your response to change – how do you generally handle change? Do you adapt quickly to change with a positive attitude and use it too your advantage or do you resist it until it forces your conformance or rejection? As a home internet business owner, you will be exposed to a number of changes in the nature of the internet business itself that can have a direct affect on your business (e.g., customer buying behavior, rising products and services, declining products and services, competitive position, economic conditions, employee and contractor behavior, etc.). If you’re not already dealing successfully with change, then you will be facing a significant adjustment in your behavior.
2. Your work ethic – it seems that more and more these days, people expect to receive not just what they worked for, but more than what they worked for. In this context, the phrase “working hard” is regarded as very “old school”. But, history still shows that sooner or later one gets what one works for. So, the prospective home internet business owner must be prepared to work hard and work smart, not only to get the business started but to grow and maintain it.
This might seem unbelievable when considering the marketing and sales language that some internet entrepreneurs use to attract new customers. They make it seem like anybody with a web browser is equipped to start and successfully manage a home internet business. They use phrases such as “business in a box”, “turnkey”, “auto pilot”, “cash machine” and many others. It’s not that they don’t mention that work is required at all, it’s that their marketing and sales language tend to trivialize the required work and greatly overemphasize the benefits.
That strategy seems to be common for a number of internet entrepreneurs and the internet itself enables the strategy because it’s relatively easy to start an internet business. In other words, the barriers to entering the home internet business market is far less restrictive when compared to the market entry barriers for brick-and-mortar businesses. As a consequence, the failure rate tends to be greater for new internet business start-ups. Therefore, the prospective home internet business owner should carefully sift through the offering language and obtain a clear view of the work required to achieve success. One might find that, for some propositions, the benefit is not worth the cost.
3. Your reaction to failure and success – no matter how prepared you might be to enter the home internet business market, you will likely experience some failures. One key reason is that there is a lot to learn. The learning process is on-ongoing and often involves trial and error – even when a mentor is involved. For example, even if you have a professionally developed web site and products and services that are still in demand, there is a learning process involved in promoting your products and services. The promotional alternatives vary with respect to their mix of cost, risk and benefit and there’s no guarantee that any particular technique, or combination, will produce the desired results. Therefore, careful evaluation of the alternatives must be exercised.
Failure can cause one to lose confidence, but early success can cause one to be overly confident. So, it’s important in either case to develop and maintain a level-headed reaction to both circumstances. Root-cause analysis can help to identify the reason for failure and success so that the likelihood of failure can be reduced while that of success can be increased.
While there are a number of other important considerations, the above three personal characteristics is a good place for prospective home internet business owners to start a serious self-examination. In addition to self-examination, it can be helpful to consult with people whose opinion and judgment you trust.
In the final analysis, you need to make a decision as to whether you start a home internet business or not. After you’ve done your due diligence (the look) and you believe you can make it, then go for it (make the leap)! There’s still real opportunity out there and it’s growing. Who knows, you might end up helping somebody else along the way.
Copyright © 2009 by Ronald Mills, Sr. All rights reserved.
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