Income Opportunity: Home Based Business
In today’s economy, there are all kinds of folks looking, looking, looking. What are they looking for? I would guess that a signpost saying something like this — income opportunity: home based business — would bring the looking to a standstill and change the activity from looking to investigating.
The need for an income opportunity is sort of obvious. There used to be a time when big corporate America was the place to make your mark, where being an executive with a large firm was seen as the pinnacle of success and such a position offered career security and long-term financial protection. That can still happen, I think, but it is no longer the norm for the majority of workers. With hundreds of thousands of people losing their jobs and layoffs becoming so common they are almost not newsworthy, many families find themselves in need of alternative sources of income now. The large employers across the nation aren’t hiring as they used to, of course, so former employees really have to look beyond the typical avenues to provide for themselves and their families.
This need to look beyond the typical avenues explains why the second phrase in the hopeful signpost — home based business — draws the attention it does. The home based business is a social and economic trend whose time has come. Statistics for 2005 (the most recent I could find) say there were 13.8 million income-generating home based businesses (that includes both part time and full time) in the United States alone. Does that surprise you? The home based business is a natural avenue to explore — it offers the little guy a chance to participate in the economic sector. But is it an alternative or a complement to the “corporate America” which seems to be suffering?
We can answer that question by looking at what home based business options there are. It seems like most of them can be grouped into one of these categories: service franchise operations; capitalizing on a skill or interest of yours and offering it to other people (child care, wedding consulting, pet services, lawn care, tax preparation, website development, etc. — the list is endless); offering products through a website, either products that you produce or as an affiliate of another company; and network marketing.
When we think of home based businesses in contrast to “big business,” the image of a lone pioneer can come to mind — someone who strikes out to make it on their own. And many home based businesses are primarily a solo venture. If you offer your unique individual skill or service for “hire,” or sell products that you produce, you will be in charge of your own business plan and development. You will be working primarily on your own.
Other options, though, involve alignment with an established company and/or a team. For example, service franchise operations provide the how and why details of running your business, and numerous companies are eager to explain how to become an affiliate marketer of their product or service. The business development model of social marketing inherently involves training and help from a business mentor, with the backing of a corporate system. So, although the traditional corporate America isn’t providing the “usual” income opportunity, it still can have a role to play in fulfilling the promise of that signpost saying “income opportunity: home based business.”