July 2020

Pay any attention at all to your email inbox and you’d be forgiven for thinking that the only way to run a business from home is on the Internet. Sure, many people are running spectacularly successful Internet-based home businesses. Many, many more are doing so even more spectacularly unsuccessfully.

But what if you’re not interested in running an Internet business? What if you want to start and run a home business the old-fashioned way?

Where do you start?

Actually starting any home business is the easy part. The hard part’s deciding what that business should be.

So how do you even start the process of deciding on the right home business for you? The key is to be methodical, realistic, objective, and patient.

Step 1 : Personal Inventory

The first place to start is to inventory your skills, experience, interests, and personality characteristics. These are what you have to work with – your raw ingredients, so to speak.

Make a list of personal qualities and factors that you can throw into the mix. Include things like:

=> your personal background;
=> training and education;
=> work and volunteer experience;
=> special interests and hobbies;
=> leisure activities;
=> your personality and temperament.

All of these qualities and factors make up what you know and what you’re good at.

Step 2 : Identify What You Like

It’s one thing to know a lot about something or be good at it. It’s quite another to enjoy it enough to want to