There are many benefits to starting a home-based business. These tips should save you some effort. First, you can go after something you are passionate about rather than following someone else’s dreams. Second, you call the shots and determine where to take your business at each junction. Third, working from home means that you have more flexibility in when you work and how you make money.

Nonetheless, starting a business is not easy. Running a firm that has long-term success is even more difficult. Along with unwavering dedication, managing a business requires several disciplines. First, you must understand how to fulfill your daily responsibilities best. Second, you must strategize how you grow your business. Third, recognize that things beyond your control happen, and you must remain willing to adapt when necessary.

If you are throwing around the idea of starting a home-based business, here are some tips to keep in mind for making it a successful venture.

Right now is a challenging time to start a business because of the COVID-19 pandemic. You should not let the COVID-19 pandemic discourage you from following your dream. However, you also need to make special considerations and understand the unique challenges that lay ahead. And for the record, all times are challenging to start a business. There will be unexpected issues to deal with now.

For instance, research possible scenarios that you could face in the coming months and years. How can you remain adaptable in uncertain times? And how could the current global economy affect your business? Additionally, be sure to make time to brainstorm how you could create alternative streams of revenue if needed. Investigate the various financial assistance options that can help you along the way. Project your income and expenses for the six to eighteen months. You can make these projections on paper or in a spreadsheet. Also, you can use cash flow and business planning tools like LivePlan or ProfitSee. Spend your money wisely. And if you are fortunate enough to have a severance package, reflect on how those resources can become your seed money and start-up capital.

No matter what kind of home-based business you start, communication will play a vital role. Communicating will it be necessary for maintaining healthy relationships with your clients and partners. If you work with a team of remote workers, you will need to make sure you have the right tools at your disposal. For example, apps like Microsoft Teams, Slack, or Zoho Connect can help ensure effective communication among your team. These tools even allow you to create a newsfeed to present essential company information, as well as channels to communicate and share work specific to each project.

Also, consider how you might market your services. Do you have a referral network? Can you leverage your social circles, social networks, and business contacts in the community who know you and recognize your skills? How much effort do you need to spend to make your home-based business known? Does your website communicate your capabilities? Please see our article on outsourcing tasks to recall that experts can help with your website, social marketing, and other critical tasks.

A reasonable approach is to consider what tasks waste your time and where you can utilize tech. Then, hire out the rest of the work. Ultimately, you will find that the time you save will be money saved. This will help your business be in a better position to grow.

A lot of small business owners start by doing everything themselves. Depending on the size of the company and what it offers, this might work out fine at first. After all, software and technology solutions can help you with a variety of tasks (e.g., accounting, project management, marketing). If you need a complete small business solution, Zoho Corporation may have the answer. Zoho One has everything you need to run a small business from word processing and email to eCommerce and recurring billing.

Further, if you are a professional, you will have complete suites of tools that provide you, as a small business, the same technology as a massive operation. As an example for accounting professionals, AccountantsWorld Power Practice, CCH Axcess, and Thomson Onvio all have the capability of running your practices with no locally installed software.

However, you also must keep a growth mindset—not just for five years from now, but for this moment. And frequently, the best way to grow is to hire freelancers to handle the tasks that don’t come naturally to you or where you simply don’t have the time. Outsource where you do not have the expertise. Leverage other people’s labors that are also looking for work. Outsourcing could mean the following:

• hiring a web developer to create a high-quality website
• a writer to provide engaging content for your website and social media pages
• a virtual assistant to handle phone calls and invoicing, or any other number of hires
• intentionally locating and contracting for skills like tax, client accounting services, or financial statement preparation

Working from home can provide you with flexibility, but it can also be very challenging to get work done, especially if you have kids at home. Create a workspace, complete with any equipment, furnishings, and decor that will help you stay productive. Also, set work hours, and make sure everyone in your household is clear on when those hours are. Doing these two things will help you to achieve a healthy work-home balance.

Remember that we have guided you on home workspaces in our article on Advantages of Starting an Online Shop and Easy Ways to Start. Further, we discussed many other tools in Insights on Work At Home.  But our main reminder is to separate work life from home life and maintain a reasonable work-life balance.

Running a home-based business is hard, but it can also be one of the most fulfilling ways to make a living. Hopefully, the tips in this article and the suggestions in the linked articles provide useful guidance. Remember to take cash flow into account when planning your business. Make sure you have all the communication tools necessary for your business to succeed. Consider hiring freelancers for the tasks that you cannot do efficiently. Create a dedicated workspace. Finally, set consistent work hours to maintain a work-life balance. With these steps, you will likely be glad you made the best business decision of your life.

A collaboration platform, such as Slack or Microsoft Teams, provides everyone with the tools to work together. These tools include chatting, audio calls, video calls, file sharing, file commenting, and file co-authoring.  With all of this in a single application, it is very efficient for people to work as a team without being at the same physical location.

For us, this has been a great addition to our workflow. Simply ping someone in a chat and meet anytime quickly. Microsoft Teams collaboration platform can extend to people in organizations outside of your own. Recently, while working with another firm on a joint project, we used Teams to meet, collaborate, and share files. The collaboration was all done with the security of Teams allowing the outside organization access only to the project.

When meeting with people, video can make a considerable improvement in communication. Invest in a good quality webcam or use the one on your laptop or phone. To make it easier for others on the call with you, try to book meetings when the house is less active. 

Most online meeting services today allow custom backgrounds. These backgrounds are a great option if you can’t set up a clean physical backdrop.

A good quality ergonomic keyboard makes all the difference in your comfort. Combine the right keyboard and mouse, to make your day at the desk just that much better. Trying to use an inferior quality keyboard just slows you down.

Scanning and storing documents electronic keeps the home office clean and organized without taking up valuable floor space with filing cabinets. We have been paperless since 2013 at K2E Canada Inc., and my accounting practice has been paperless since 2005. At this point, I can’t imagine working in a paper-based office.

During the first half of 2020, workers everywhere have had to come to grips with the COVID-19 outbreak. Not only did the pandemic impact our personal lives, but it also caused severe disruption for virtually all businesses. It also forced many individuals to work from home. For some, remote working is second nature because they do it every day.  For others, transitioning to this new environment was challenging at best, and it remains that way for many. However, with current technologies, working remotely does not have to mean working differently.  Further, productivity need not suffer! Organizations of all sizes should learn from the challenges the pandemic presented and create better remote working arrangements for the future.

Traditional remote working arrangements involve using a browser-based tool to access a computer at the office from a distant location. Tools such as LogMeIn, TeamViewer, RealVNC, and others all provide adequate capabilities at modest price points. Remote workers simply access their office computer through their web browser. Then they can generally perform any action remotely that they would otherwise undertake on their computer.

Some Issues With Browser-Based Remote Access

While this arrangement is adequate is some cases, issues can arise. First, the “host” computer must be running 24/7. Otherwise, in the absence of “wake-on-LAN” technologies, the team member will not be able to connect to the host. Second, audio and visual performance sometimes is less than ideal, which creates a negative experience for the remote worker and could hamper productivity. Third, depending on the browser-based service used, the team member may not be able to work in a multi-monitor environment, further affecting productivity. Fourth, while browser-based tools support accessing a computer from a remote location, generally, they do not support other necessary elements of a successful remote work strategy including communication and collaboration. In sum, while these types of tools might be adequate for occasional remote work environments, they generally do not offer all that is necessary for working remotely over extended timeframes.

For many, a better option is to consider an end-to-end approach that creates a productive environment for remote working. Such an approach does not focus on piecemeal technologies. Instead, it takes into account all the needs of all team members – including traditional and remote workers. Then, management selects a unified technology platform that addresses these needs. In this environment, there is only one way of working. Therefore, when team members need to work away from traditional office environments, they use the same tools as when they work in the office. Of course, this means that working remotely does not translate to working differently.

Better Ways To Access Your Computer

Taking a holistic approach to accessing your computer means that you will always work from a remote computer. However, instead of using a browser-based method, you could use hosted virtual computers. Some of the leading providers in this market include AbacusNext, Ace Cloud Hosting, Cetrom, and Right Networks. In this environment, you access your computer and all your applications from a remote, virtual computer that you “lease” from your service provider for a monthly fee. This type of arrangement provides professional management of your device, data, security, and application updates. Moreover, it created a unified approach for accessing your computer, no matter the location from which you are working.

Also Consider In-House, Virtual Computers

Alternatively, you could deploy an “in-house” hosted computer option. In this scenario, you and your team would still access hosted computers. However, instead of them being hosted by a third-party, they would be hosted on your servers (or servers you lease in a data center) and managed by your team members (or external service providers with whom you contract.) In either case, these in-house, hosted computers would again provide a single approach to accessing your desktop.

Reduce Your Dependency On Desktop Applications

For many professionals, the need for a traditional computer is still present. However, for many others transitioning to Cloud-based services and suites could be all that is necessary to facilitate a productive remote work environment. For example, using a Cloud-based application suite such as Microsoft 365/Office 365, G Suite by Google, and Zoho One is a terrific option for staying on top of email and working with spreadsheets, presentations, and word processing documents – all from Cloud-based applications. Further, you can store these documents in secure, Cloud-based storage environments. Then you can access them from virtually any device with an Internet connection. Additionally, you will be able to collaborate with other users at the same time on the same document, further increasing productivity.
Other Cloud-based applications will also reduce your dependency on a traditional computer, and enable your remote work strategy. For example, Zoho One provides an alternative to Microsoft Office applications such as Excel and Word. It also provisions Cloud-based accounting, customer relationship management, marketing tools, and website analytics. In total, Zoho One offers over 40 integrated Cloud-based tools to create a complete solution for small to mid-sized businesses.

One of the biggest challenges a remote worker faces is staying in touch with key customers/clients and other team members. When in-person meetings are simply not practical, you can communicate with others effectively using one of many options. Among the better ones are Microsoft Teams and Zoom – both Cloud-based tools. Both facilitate multi-participant meetings, including screen sharing and video options for those who need them. Further, recognizing the reality that, for many, working remotely means working from home, both tools allow you to add a custom background to your video meetings, increasing your perceived professional appearance.

DON'T FORGET YOUR INTERNET ACCESS

Of course, all the approaches outlined above depend upon consistent, high-speed Internet access. If you do not have this type of access available, you should investigate your options for switching service providers. Further, if you do not have any viable options available, stay alert for the availability of 5G cellular connectivity. When that does become available, you may find connection speeds up to 20 times faster than fiber connections today!

The first half of 2020 will go down in history as one of the most disruptive in the history of the world, and no technology available today will change that fact. However, there are many lessons to be learned, and one of these is that working remotely does not necessarily equate to working differently. 

By strategically considering the options available today, you can create an environment in which you and your team always use the same technologies to get your jobs done, no matter the location from which you are working. Not only does this environment work well in times of emergency, it also works well for other situations such as auditors and consultants working at client locations, salespersons visiting customers, and tax professionals working from home during tax season. You simply need to carefully consider how a holistic approach to accessing your applications and data can improve your efficiency. Then decide the appropriate mix of technology to help you meet your objectives. Once you do, you will notice that your productivity need not suffer because you are not working in the office.

As the world comes to grips with COVID-19, many businesses are responding by encouraging team members to work from home. The rationale behind this action is to reduce the possibility of a contaminated team member encountering other team members, and potentially contaminating them. Unfortunately, not everyone has thoughtfully considered the security ramifications of encouraging team members to work remotely. Consequently, many of these new remote workers may potentially and unknowingly compromise sensitive information. Read this article to learn about five security best practices you need to have in place in these environments.

It’s an unfortunate fact, but many home wi-fi networks remain unsecured. As such, cybercriminals can intercept the data transmitted over these networks easily. Of course, this results in potentially compromising sensitive and privileged information. Therefore, if you work from home and use wi-fi, protect the network at a minimum by requiring a password to establish a connection. Remember, you should never utilize an unsecured wi-fi network, regardless of whether it is in your home, a hotel, or any other venue!

To improve security relative to your internet access while working remotely, consider the following options:

• Connect to the Internet using wired connections. Not only will they be more secure, but they might also be faster.
• If wired connections are not practical, secure your wi-fi connection with a strong password. You may need to re-configure your wi-fi router to add this password.

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) create a secure, encrypted “tunnel” in the otherwise unencrypted Internet. Accordingly, the VPN encrypts all traffic that passes through it, even if the network itself is not encrypted. Stated differently, assuming a secure network connection (as described in the previous paragraph), a VPN adds yet another level of encryption to your data. Your IT staff may already have a VPN option in place for you. However, if they do not, you can take advantage of one of many good “personal” VPN’s, including Nord VPN, Private Internet Access, Express VPN, and CyberGhost VPN. (Click to learn more about personal VPNs.)  Either approach helps to reduce your risk of exposing confidential and sensitive information.

If you work from a computer that you provide personally – as opposed to a company-provided device – are you sure that your device is adequately secured. This risk is known as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) risk, and it can be quite significant. For devices that your IT staff maintains, they likely implemented necessary security measures already. Examples include ensuring that anti-malware software updates automatically, users do not log-in with Administrative rights on the computer, and unauthorized software cannot run on the computer. But in the traditional home computer environment, often these and other necessary security measures are not in place. Further, because several family members likely use the home computer, you run the risk of compromising data due to someone else’s actions or activities on the device.

In short, when working from home, try to use devices managed by your IT team. When this occurs, we shift the security issues associated with the computer to professionals who should have adequate training for the task. If, however, you must use your device to work remotely, at a minimum, ensure that your operating system and all your applications have the most recent updates available. Also, verify that anti-malware software is installed on the computer and is updated at least daily. These measures help to reduce BYOD risk when working from home.

Following on the previous point, be careful about where you store your data if you are working on your computer. In these situations, it is common for team members to save files on the local hard disk, as opposed to the corporate server or some Cloud-based resources. Then, when the working environment transitions back to a more routine one, and you return to the office to work, you may realize that all the files you have been working on are still on your home computer.

To address this issue, consider storing all your data on an external hard disk and then taking that hard disk with you to the office when normal operations resume. Better yet, if your organization provides access to Cloud-based storage such as OneDrive for Business, store the files there. That way, you can collaborate with either team members in real-time using Microsoft Office applications.

You can use tools to control your computer in the office remotely. This approach gives you access to all the files on the device and network; it also means that you have access to all the applications installed on the computer. However, there is a downside. The downside is that, with some exceptions, you must leave the computer turned on so that you access it remotely. Of course, while the computer is on and you are not physically present in the office, unauthorized users might choose to run applications and access data from that device. Therefore, you may want to consider asking your IT staff to enable Wake-on-LAN (WoL) on your computer. Without going into a technical discussion, WoL essentially allows you to turn on your computer remotely. With this feature enabled, you won’t have to leave it running 24/7, and, in turn, you reduce your security risk.You can use tools to control your computer in the office remotely. This approach gives you access to all the files on the device and network and to all the applications installed on the computer.

The global pandemic caused by COVID-19 has clearly put us in uncharted territory, on many fronts. Yet business needs to continue with as little disruption as possible. One way that can happen is to work from remote locations to reduce the risk of contracting or contaminating team members. For those who work remotely on a routine basis, hopefully, the five items discussed above have already been addressed. However, for those who are suddenly working in this environment, be sure to address the issues outlined in this article to reduce the risk of compromising confidential and sensitive data. Let’s not make a challenging situation any worse because of a data breach.