While brick-and-mortar businesses are definitely here to stay, 2020 has emphasized the beauty of being able to run your business from anywhere. The freedom to conduct business from the safety and convenience of your home has never been more palatable. So if you’re wisely considering setting up your own home business in Connecticut anytime soon, here are some important actionable steps you have to keep in mind:
- Find a killer business idea
All successful businesses start with a good, unique, sellable idea. There are actually countless business ideas you can explore in Connecticut, but do keep in mind that you need something that can be managed at home. So for the time being, it might not be the best idea to open up a pet cafe or a dance studio unless you have the space for it at home.
Home businesses usually deal with virtual ventures like dropshipping, social media marketing, or virtual assistance. A good business idea will be the foundation of your home business, so make sure it’s something you’re confident about running.
- Make a business plan
If you want to avoid common mistakes that home-business owners make, you need a detailed business plan that will allow you to gain foresight into every single aspect of your business. Your business plan should reflect your capital investment, your projected monthly expenses, expected profits, and, of course, details about your venture and how you’re going to run its operations by the day.
Ever heard of the old adage: When you fail to plan, you plan to fail? This is why you need your business plan to be as detailed as possible. Every single factor that could affect your business should be properly planned for and annotated in your business plan.
- Set up your home office
It is very important for you to have a conducive home office setup where you can discharge your business duties without getting distracted by the TV, your clingy pet cat, and other stuff in your house. You don’t need a fancy set up or even a separate room as your home office. All you need is a quiet corner where you can hunker down in front of your laptop for hours on end when it’s business hours.
Make sure everything you need for each business day is within arm’s length of your work desk or corner so you can avoid having to get up multiple times and risk yourself getting distracted from your business operations.
- Fund your venture
The beauty of running a home business is that you don’t have to think about signing a lease and paying hefty rentals. However, this doesn’t mean you won’t have to shell out a substantial amount of money as capital. Of course, you would still have to invest in equipment, utility expenses, and salary for your employees. Therefore, you must secure funding for your business as early as you can.
If you are hoping to secure a business loan from a financial organization, you need to line up early, because the process could be quite long and complicated.
- Keep your operating expenses in check
Once you’ve got your business running, the next thing to make sure is that it remains profitable. One good way to improve your margins is to keep your operating expenses low. Since you’re running your business from home, the overhead expenses will be included in your household’s power bills.
If you find that your power consumption increased exponentially after you launched your home business in Connecticut, you’d be happy to know that Connecticut has a deregulated power market. What does this mean? This simply means you have the freedom to choose the provider that supplies power to your home, and in effect, to your home business.
This allows you to shop for the best Connecticut electric rates so you can at least keep your power bills low.
- Build your brand and market your business
Aside from reducing the operating expenses of your business, you must also boost your venture’s profitability by building your brand and marketing your product/service. At this point, you would have to refer back to the business plan you created, because it will tell you everything you need to know about how to sell your business to prospective clients and customers.
With all these tips locked down, you are now more than ready to start your home business in Connecticut.
I think it’s enough to create your own website and launch a Pay-per-click campaign that will help attract the first traffic. Of course, you need to think about many things that can help you
The business development initiative is very important, especially now, at a time of fundamental changes for business. By the way, the other day I read an article about the new CEO Ross Levinsohn. You’ve probably heard about SEO before, but you didn’t quite understand why you should spend your time and money as a small business owner who is mostly focused on one specific region. After all, even if you have a local business and most orders come directly, you should take into account the fact that many of your customers are looking for a product or service on the Internet.