WORKING FROM HOME

More than five million people are working from home after finishing their day job, according to research. Some work from home full time.It comes with numerous benefits - there is no commute, you can balance your work around your family.There are businesses you can do from home-

Buying and selling products online
You can test the waters by starting off on ebay before going on to own your website.You have to decide what is it you want to sell. You might want to sell something you feel has a gap in the market. Take for instance Sally Preston, founder of Babylicious - www.babylicious.co.uk,Sally realised there was a gap in the market for quality, frozen baby food when bringing up her two young children, she developed the idea into a viable business.

“I just thought, this is crazy, why doesn’t anyone do this product that I want to buy, so it was out of a consumer need. And then I realised I was not alone, and there were many other people saying exactly the same thing.

“I also think that you have to be in a position in your life where you are prepared to take a phenomenal risk. My particular situation at that time was that I’d just gone through a very acrimonious divorce and had skin cancer and felt ‘Hey, why not?’
Sally’s perseverance has seen the company expand abroad, with an extension of the Babylicious range and a re-branding process in the pipeline. But she admits that, typical with many entrepreneurs, she often does not think strategically.

“I’m trying to be more strategic because I’ve now got more people to take away the day-to-day running of it away from me,” she says. “But it isn’t easy, because an entrepreneur isn’t a naturally strategic person, they do flip from thing to thing and they don’t tend to finish things.”

Converting your hobbies or skills into a business
Cooking, photography, languages(translating), child care, sewing, cleaning, e.t.c.

S&A Foods was literally inspired by a samosa its founder bought from a supermarket in 1986. Appalled at its quality, Perween Warsi saw her chance to make a difference.

The company (named after her sons Sadiq and Abid) now has 750 staff and a turnover of £65m. It supplies major retailers in the UK and has now expanded into Europe. “When I realised it was difficult to buy good-quality Indian food I thought that maybe I could make a difference,” she says.

Her initial approach was direct. She simply prepared some of her own samosas and convinced a local Indian takeaway to try them. They sold well and Warsi began supplying the outlet regularly. Encouraged, she approached other takeaways and local delicatessens, while expanding her range. However, supplying to the local trade was never going to be enough. Her eye was always on the bigger prize: the big retailers.

She began calling supermarkets, persisting until S&A was asked to take part in blind tasting sessions at Asda and Safeway. Her food triumphed over more established food manufacturers, and she received an order. There was, however, one problem.

“When Asda offered me the contract they assumed S&A Foods was a fully fledged food manufacturing business,” she recalls. “At that time I was still making the dishes in my kitchen, so we had to build up the business quickly!”

So Warsi took a gamble. In 1987, S&A Foods joined the Hughes Food Group with the resulting investment injection allowing them to open their first factory in Derby.

“Although at the time it was good for the business to join with Hughes, as it meant we could afford to build a new factory and create 100 extra jobs, I wasn’t in control of the direction the business was going,” she says.

It would come at a cost later, but for now she could begin to fulfill her ambition of supplying supermarkets with her products, something she still does today.

“You need to have something different, unique and better that they currently don’t have to add value to their shelves,” she says.

However, she warns against focusing too heavily on the client and forgetting the people who really buy the food – the customers. “Obviously, the whole of the supply chain is geared up to manage our customers’ needs and requirements,” she says.
Make money from your hobbies and skills.

Virtual Assistant opportunities:
A Virtual Assistant is an independent entrepreneur that provides administrative,
technical services from their home-offices. This can be a form of a call center. If you think you have what it takes, there are several organisations on the web that caters for Virtual Assistants.
After the birth of her daughter, Carrie Opara knew she didn't want to return to her old job as a mental-health counselor. But finding legitimate work she could do at home was no small feat.

She tried a multilevel marketing plan and wound up in debt. She looked on the Internet and found plenty of scams. Finally, she heard about LiveOps, a Palo Alto, Calif., call center that hired people to work out of their own homes.

Within two years, she was earning about $2,000 a month working 30 to 35 hours a week from her home in Columbia, Md. -- about what she'd made previously as a counselor. Her shifts can be as short as 30 minutes, although she typically works five-hour blocks while her 6-year-old is in school, plus some nights and weekends when her husband, a certified public accountant, can take over child care.

Mystery shopping, survey taking and 'piece work'
Mystery shopping and survey-taking opportunities have been around for a while, but the Internet has made finding them easier, Webb said.

"Mystery shoppers" are typically paid $5 to $100 per assignment to pose as average customers and then critique a store or service, Webb said. The range for filling out surveys or participating in focus groups can be even wider, from a few dollars to a few hundred bucks a shot.

A free resource to help you start and grow your business at home
http://www.enterprisenation.com/