Home Business Help & Advice - Building A Home Based Business Is A Marathon, Not A Sprint

 by: Kirk Bannerman

Over the last several years, in the course of helping thousands

of people start up home based businesses, I have seen the same

thing over and over again.

Once a person makes the decision to start a home based business

it's usually a time of high enthusiasm along with high, and

frequently unrealistic, expectations. As time marches on, the

enthusiasm begins to wane if they are not making as much money as

they had hoped as quickly as they wished. Often it's only after

a few weeks or months that I see people start to become

discouraged and, with that, their energy level declines and they

start slacking off on the work that is actually required to

develop a successful home based business.

It is a known fact that a majority of the people that undertake

a work at home business do not achieve real success. There are

several reasons for this, but I am firmly convinced that one of

the primary reasons is that these people get frustrated and do

not allow themselves sufficient time to become successful.

In the early going, one of the most difficult things about

developing a new home based business is dealing with the emotional

roller coaster that can result from the highs (successes) and lows

(temporary setbacks) you are almost certain to experience. Once

you have done the research and decided on a particular home based

business opportunity, you really need to focus on persistence and

realize that any real business will not just automatically become

successful in a matter of days or weeks. You should be prepared to

give it your best sustained effort for a minimum of 6 to 12 months

in order to begin to build a solid business base and start to

realize some good income.

Highs and lows were something that I began to notice when I first

started a home based business. I have many years of top level

management experience in "traditional" corporations and have

experienced lots of business cycles (corporate "ups and downs"),

but the natural "ups and downs" that occur in a home business

(particularly in the early stages) can be brutal from an

emotional standpoint if you don't prepare yourself in advance for

the fact that it is a basic law of nature...it will be a rocky

road until you have spent enough time and effort to build your

business to a level that sort of smoothes out the peaks and

valleys.

The impact of the highs and lows you will probably experience in

developing your home based business is amplified by the fact that

you are now in business on your own. You are the boss and get to

make all the decisions, but you are also on your own in dealing

with the frustrations that will occur along the way while you are

developing your business.

When working at home a person can, at times, experience a feeling

of isolation which is probably brought on by the lack of

interaction of a work force environment.

There can also be periods of doubt in the early going...gee, did

I pick a viable business opportunity?...am I doing the right

things to develop my business?...when will I start making a

profit?, and so on.

You are most likely going to experience the "two steps forward

and one step backward" syndrome and the ever-looming temptation

to become discouraged. However, keep in mind that as long

as you have more steps going forward than backward, you will

eventually get ahead! Simple, but often overlooked.

Relatively minor setbacks can seem huge in the early stages of

developing a work at home business and can really contribute to

some noticeable "mood swings". For example, if you are just

starting out and you have four customers/clients and you happen

to lose one...that's a 25% drop! However, if you fast-forward in

time to the point where you have hundreds of customers/clients

and you lose one...that's just a mere fraction of 1%! Exactly

the same event, just at a different point in time.

Hang in there and just keep on keepin' on. If you have chosen a

viable home business opportunity (one that has been around for

awhile and in which some other people are having success) you

will achieve success, but it takes time and there will be ups and

downs along the way. Remember the old saying..."it takes a long

time to become an overnight success".