We are talking Home based online businesses here. There are many common business mistakes that people make here are a few key ones.
Many people love the idea of working from home running their own home-based business. While it’s a growing field and very lucrative, there are certain things you need to watch out for as you get started. Once you get the idea it’s easy to get carried away and rush into it.
When I started my first online business 10 years ago, I thought I just had to open a shop on a big site and that was it. You know how it goes, display my goods and the sales would pour in. Boy was I mistaken!
Table of Contents
Decisions
First off
What are you going to sell? Actual goods that you will buy and sell on or goods you make yourself which is crafting. If crafting it is what you are making and selling.
Dropshipping is another option. You display a company’s goods of your choice on your website, when a customer orders and pays, you then send that order to the company. They package and post it.
There is affiliate marketing which is a massively growing market.
Buying and selling domains.
Creating websites and managing them for clients …… and the list goes on.
Take your time
Just don’t get too hasty when selecting a product, service, or company to sign up with. You want to make sure you investigate thoroughly and have chosen a good option for you to pursue. Research is very important for any venture.
Once you have decided on a direction you need to decide whether you will hire people to set things up or do it yourself. If doing it yourself do you need training? Is it worth investing in yourself and paying for training which will pay dividends in the future and save on costs in the long run.
Just because you have selected the right company or product doesn’t seal the deal. You’re going to want to in order to make your business a reality. What is it going to take to get things off of the ground. What does your competition look like? Again, it’s research and more research.
Investing
First of all, will be the time investment required to get your business off the ground and make it grow. 
How much time you invest will be the difference in how quickly it grows and how soon it makes money.
You will also have to invest some money into your business opportunity, but you have to operate off of a budget. Have you worked out the costs. Website hosting, domain name buying, maybe a better laptop. If selling goods there will be packaging costs, besides the buying or making costs. A printer for invoices and address labels, with that comes the need for ink, paper, labels etc.
Many people get started and stake too much money from the beginning. This is a mistake.
Still, other people get their business going and decide that they don’t want to invest money when it comes time. This is also a mistake, as it could be what’s holding them back from getting things really going.
It’s great when things get going, but if you don’t have a record of it, you’re going to regret it. All outgoings and incomings must be noted and logged. You must make sure you keep well organised records, both for business purposes and tax purposes. This is extremely important.
Finances
Another common mistake that many people make is not separating their personal finances from your business finances. This is quite a major mistake as you could either end up underpaying or overpaying on tax. 
Neither is good especially if they decide to randomly check YOUIR business. This has to be done correctly from the start or you’re going to have everything confused and disorganised.
Some people are soft when they start out, and they don’t operate with proper business sense. They are so anxious to get started with customers that guess what? They aren’t charging enough for their products and services. This is quite common especially in the crafting community. By under charging you are doing a disservice to yourself and other craft businesses trying to make a living.
It’s wrong to undercharge for anything as you will struggle to make money and when you realise this and try to put up the prices the customers you have will go elsewhere. You need to work out proper price and stick with it.
Another mistake is continually having sales. Why? Because your customers that like your products will just wait for the next sale, knowing that once things are slow you will have a sale. How do I know? I made that mistake. Then when I complained on a forum that I only sold things when having a sale, another crafter said, it’s simple, stop having sales! So I did and put up my prices which were too low and it went upwards from there.
Website
It’s that old favourite again, research. Look at the options, look at what they charge and what you get for your money.
Check around with other website owners. What is the support like, do they respond quickly? Do they actually fix problems? Are they easy to contact? Is the site easy to use and set up with what you want? So much to know!
Many people fail to employ search engine optimization strategies and techniques as well. No one said you have to do it all yourself. Keep in mind though that it costs money to get someone to do it for you, unless you have a friend that can do it for free or cheaply. It is mandatory in order for people to see your site; it’s just part of the action. Good SEO means Google will index and move your site up the ranks so it gets seen better.
So you must familiarise yourself with the market, and you might be surprised at just how much you can do on your own.
Your business site needs to be easily navigable and very user-friendly.
I recommend Wealthy Affiliate. I would use them for hosting alone as it is very secure you get the use of ten sites, the support is fast and very good at fixing any problem rapidly. The training provided is top notch and the community is excellent.
Still want a business?
When it comes to operating a home-based business, it’s important that you avoid these and other common business mistakes This is an exciting time, and you want to succeed. Continue to learn more information about these tips and others you read. Learn everything you can and then get started today setting your home-based business up the right way.
It’s hard work, there is much to learn but there is also a lot of information out there readily available to help you.
There is nothing better than working for yourself, choosing the hours to suit you, loving what you do and discovering that it doesn’t feel like work because you are having so much fun.
And of course you can go and visit friends and relatives, go on holiday and your business can go with you. No need to shut it down, do the minimal amount while you are on holiday but still keep earning.
I recommend Wealthy Affiliate as you can try it out for free. It is certainly worth checking out and comparing the quality and what it provides against other sites.
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Questions and comments welcome.
It’s very thoughtful of you to share this information here, it’s fact that many people are it successful today because of the way they handled their business, you’ve done well by explaining the common mistakes people make and I believe they are all practical, this will help people make amends and be careful of these mistakes.
I aim to help those starting out and knowing mistakes others make can be helpful even to those who have been working on their business for a while. Sometimes it is the simple things we miss until we see them written down.
Glad you enjoyed this post and found it useful Bruce.
Thank you for commenting.
Hello Linda, mistakes come out of business when you have a misconception about some things that you ought to have a clear knowledge of or out of your own error. These are some things that people get entirely wrong and one very common on is the idea of going into a business because of what you’ve heard about it and not because you have the conviction of it being good for you.
That’s very true Justin, I agree with you.
I know it is possible to end up with a successful business despite going into it knowing nothing because I did that with my first online business which is still going now. It does take much longer to reach success unless you get the right training.
Thank you for commenting.
Anyone would have made these mistakes and simply would have overlooked it as a normal thing when in all aspect, tthey are not normal mistakes. They are mistakes that should be avoided in all areas to help ensure that we stick to being successful. What has been shared here is great and I appreciate you for sharing all these here. If I can, I will try to ensure that I stay abreast of all these and commit them to heart to avoid making such myself
Thank you for commenting Maddie, very glad you enjoyed the post and found it helpful.
Some mistakes are easy to overlook. Reading about them can help to keep them in mind.