The Top 5
Home Business Mistakes

Please avoid these common home business mistakes, learn from the pains and losses of myself and others.

Recognise and bypass these errors and so save yourself time, money and frustration.

1. Jumping In With Both Feet

People rely on expected returns as outlined in the ads or manuals. A certain amount spent on website promotion or direct mail will bring in a percentage of sales @ £x per unit = £x profit.

Unfortunately this is a misleading notion, each person has the ability to capsize even the most automated of systems, and one tiny difference can turn a profit into a loss.

For example if you were using a direct mail piece to obtain sales and used a sans-serif typeface instead of serif typeface this tiny difference will reduce the number of people who read your piece by 67%!

If you compound each home business mistake: mailing day, quality of list etc, the ‘fail-safe system’ has now produced a loss.

I have witnessed some people going mad throwing money on promoting a product before testing the response, and consequently they lost thousands unnecessarily.

2. “If I Follow This Expert It Will Work For Me Too”

People want to be like the case highlighted, to make money through osmosis. This is perhaps the most common home business mistake.

It is understandable that people believe that by copying an expert or professional they will be able to receive the same or reasonable results.

However expertise comes from talent, experience and skill. Read the section on Entrepreneurs and it will become apparent why the expertise or skill of another has little or no relevance to another prospective entrepreneur.

3. Watering The Weeds

This is when people throw more money on a losing play.

This can be a trading or a marketing tactic that isn’t working, the person hopes that the extra money or a market movement will change the outcome... and just ends up just losing more money.

This can be made worse by people who have made a statement to others of their business intent and then stand to lose face over the failure. They can be encouraged or motivated to throw everything at the attempt in order to save their pride.

4. Doing Nothing After The Purchase

Amazing as it sounds there are many people who buy an opportunity or product and then do nothing. In many ways this is due to the hypnotic effect of the Copywriting that made the sale but then reality kicks in and takes over, taking the bins out and paying the electric bill etc.

5. Not Assessing Themselves

Each of us is incredibly important to ourselves, with the possible exception of immediate family, more important than anyone else. So even if we have a dubious financial record so far or limited ability, we still have to have faith in our own capability.

This home business mistakes is rarely acknowledged or rectified and can mask our capacity or willingness to impartially assess ourselves.

In many cases the method being sold is merely a run-of-the-mill technique used daily by professionals.

A professional is someone of suitable ability who has transformed themselves by study and practise into a skilled exponent. To get there they expended both time and effort.

In property there are estate agents, developers, builders and property finders. In the financial markets you are up against professional traders.

You may well have to compete against these people.

• How much it costs to start?
  
• How long will it take?
• How much they are likely to make?
• How to avoid the common home business mistakes

These are the most common but ultimately unhelpful questions because they are coming from the wrong angle.

To paraphrase JFK:

After about three months into this project it became obvious that the original idea of testing and categorising home businesses was partly flawed.

This was because it didn't really matter which is ‘the best’ business as the outcome is to a large degree dependent on the individual person.

The real solution is to identify the characteristics of each person, and then fit the most appropriate system to them and to ensure they do not fall for the above common misconceptions and home business mistakes.

This website does have the best current home business choices, but you will only benefit fully by analysing yourself first and then choosing the most appropriate for your entrepreneurial temperament, experience and skills.

For this reason it is absolutely critical you read the section on 'Entrepreneurs'.

We are all going to make home business mistakes... I have certainly made more than I can count and they are of course a necessary part of skill acquisition... but if that process can be shortened so much the better.

For more home business mistakes and misconceptions click here