Do You Need To Move Before Operating Your Home Business?
When considering whether your current geographical area is adequate for your home business, consider your client base. If you live in a rural area and rely on customers who are accessible within a reasonable travelling distance from your home, you might be okay.
If your business requires that you work and frequently meet with medium or large business, however, your location will determine whether you can afford the time and expense necessary to have those meetings.
Being a freelance graphic artist in New York City or other major urban area, for example, seems logical. Starting your own business as a graphic artist in a remote, rural area could be problematic.
Also consider the cost and availability of services in your geographic area. Most of the below services are very important for the business to operate and avoid unnecessary delays. Ask yourself can you:
- Get a high speed Internet connection if needed? Have access to a local dial-up number, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?
- Send and receive packages by overnight courier?
- Have reasonable access to necessary service such as copying and printing at a nearby office centre?
- Get a second phone line to install in less than 30 days?
- Easily visit a library and other resources or conduct necessary research online?
- purchase office and other supplies close by or pay the added expense of having them delivered within 48 hours?
Most, if not all, of these amenities should be readily available to you. If they are not, you can count on spending extra money and taking extra time to gain access to less readily available services or risking a loss of business because you can not provide services to your clients within a reasonable time frame. It might be cheaper to live in an isolated area, but those savings might be offset by a reduced income because of the lack of access to clients or necessary services.
Finally, do not assume that you can do all of your business online. Unless your business is a retail website. The Internet is much more likely to be a mean of communication, and at most, you might be dealing with 10 - 20% of your clients from outside your initial area, especially when just starting a new business.
As the downslide in Internet based business indicates, business with no local customer base are very difficult to build and take quite a bit of time, planning and capital to succeed.
If your business requires that you work and frequently meet with medium or large business, however, your location will determine whether you can afford the time and expense necessary to have those meetings.
Being a freelance graphic artist in New York City or other major urban area, for example, seems logical. Starting your own business as a graphic artist in a remote, rural area could be problematic.
Also consider the cost and availability of services in your geographic area. Most of the below services are very important for the business to operate and avoid unnecessary delays. Ask yourself can you:
- Get a high speed Internet connection if needed? Have access to a local dial-up number, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?
- Send and receive packages by overnight courier?
- Have reasonable access to necessary service such as copying and printing at a nearby office centre?
- Get a second phone line to install in less than 30 days?
- Easily visit a library and other resources or conduct necessary research online?
- purchase office and other supplies close by or pay the added expense of having them delivered within 48 hours?
Most, if not all, of these amenities should be readily available to you. If they are not, you can count on spending extra money and taking extra time to gain access to less readily available services or risking a loss of business because you can not provide services to your clients within a reasonable time frame. It might be cheaper to live in an isolated area, but those savings might be offset by a reduced income because of the lack of access to clients or necessary services.
Finally, do not assume that you can do all of your business online. Unless your business is a retail website. The Internet is much more likely to be a mean of communication, and at most, you might be dealing with 10 - 20% of your clients from outside your initial area, especially when just starting a new business.
As the downslide in Internet based business indicates, business with no local customer base are very difficult to build and take quite a bit of time, planning and capital to succeed.
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