Home Based Business

Sean Kelly, one of my colleagues on the b5media network’s business channel of blogs, covers the franchise scene with his excellent and sometimes lid-lifting blog, Franchise Pick. Lately he has been tracking the fortunes and misfortunes of iSOLD It - “the easy way to sell on eBay”, which describes itself as “a nationwide chain of drop
off stores that makes it easy for anyone to sell their things
online”.

But while the company website presents a bright and breezy picture, it appears that things are in fact not too rosy at present. See for example Sean’s post An Open Letter to iSold It Franchisees From CEO Ken Sully. In the letter referred to in the post title, the CEO acknowledges various challenges and says, among other things, that “the company is now focusing all resources on supporting the existing franchised stores”.

Switch to Australia and the local website does not appear to give any indication of the issues aired by the CEO or of any restraint in the development of new stores. A map on the site shows buttons for sixteen stores “opening soon”, spanning the continent from East to West and South to North, four for NSW and two for every other State or Territory except the ACT. If you look further down the page there appears to be actually only one store operating, in West Geelong, and one with an address and contact details in Belmont, WA - “opening soon”.

In his latest post on the subject,  iSold It Australia Franchise: eBay Plunder Downunder?, Sean wonders at the fact that the Australian website seems to be full steam ahead on selling franchises and whether this indicates that they are in better shape than had been indicated:

If you can shed any light on the situation with iSold It in Australia, Sean would love to hear from you.

As would I. Leave a comment and I’ll make sure Sean sees it.

Although I don’t spend a lot of time checking the stats on this blog, I’m always interested to know where people come from and what posts they find more interesting than others.

A couple of weeks ago I made some time to check the Google Analytics latest reports on this blog. And I’ve just been back to have another look.

I’m noticing some interesting details.

One is that it seems that the “Work from Home” category is attracting quite a few visits. Given the name of the blog, Thinking Home Business, that’s understandable. It’s also prompted me to put some time into providing more posts on issues, news and opinion about doing business from home.

Another, related detail is that a post I wrote back on December 1, 2004 seems to get a lot of visitors. Today I Ironed a T-shirt and Shorts was written a bit tongue-in-cheek. It was partly about having some discipline in our lives as professionals working from home, while acknowledging, with a touch of celebrating, that we are not constrained to dress more formally and - dare I say? - as uncomfortably as are our brothers and sisters who do what used to be called the 9 to 5, in offices.

I wrote then:

I think most home based bizoids would agree that, while being a slob might be ok on the weekends, it’s not a good mode of operation when you are running a business from home, any more than it would be in a business more in the public eye.

 

Not that I hold with the home based business ‘experts’ who suggest or recommend you get ‘dressed up’ in the morning as if you were going to work in a traditional office.

Haven’t changed my point of view. And I’m happy to say that more than two years on, I still iron my T-shirts and shorts before starting the day’s work. Of course, a more organised person would have that done the night before, or perhaps on the weekend. Or even outsourced?

Of course, when I go to the big city for conferences, I do the polished shoes number, even suits!. And sometimes a tie.

But here at my computer in my home office I don’t feel I work any less efficiently than if I were dressed up as for a city office. More efficiently, I would say. But still neat.

Would love to hear other people’s views on this. Maybe you feel pajamas are ok? Or are you for dressing up in the power suit before you start the work from home day?

My colleague on the b5media business channel, Mary Emma Allen, has a list of 5 Simply Successful Secrets for a home business, one of which is to Have fun:

Judging by the comments on the post, others also subscribe to that principle.

I know I do. As Mary Emma suggests, there are times in any business that seem anything but fun, but business is going to be much more manageable and more likely to bring success if our prevailing mood about our business is that we are enjoying what we do.

Whenever I find that I’m feeling weighed down by business before the working day has begun, as distinct from a healthy tiredness in the evening, I treat that as a warning signal that there’s something I’m not doing right. Usually I find it’s because I’ve launched into a project or tackled a project in a certain way that is not in harmony with my overall goals and principles. Once I recognise what’s happening, I step back and do some reorganising or even, if I can’t see a way to make the work fun, decide not to go ahead or, if I have to proceed, I take steps to finish it as efficiently and quickly as possible and then put some time into figuring out how to ensure I do not repeat the mistake.

I wasn’t always so smart. I thought work and fun were in two quite separate zones.

Now I know better.

See also some other great business ideas at Doug Hanna’s b5media Business Channel News.